GOING BACK TO MOAB
During a tour of a large manufacturing plant, a visitor noticed a man using a torch to cut through some sheets of steel. His pattern was carefully marked on the steel plate and he was very carefully following those lines so that his work would not be in vain. There was a specific purpose and a special design in the work that he did.
As he continued to cut the steel there were times when the flame would not make any impression. No matter how high he turned the torch it seemed to have no effect. After a few tries the workman reached over and found a bottle with a chemical substance that was applied and, after a few moments, the cutting could be resumed. The worker explained that although the torch was able to go through clean steel 8 inches thick, if it encountered the slightest film of rust on the surface, the flame would not penetrate it.
This is a picture of the Christian. The Holy Spirit is seeking to produce in us God’s perfect design. If the life is unblemished, He is able to continue His efforts; but if we become carnal or backslidden, His work of shaping us is hindered and stopped until the sin has been thoroughly cleansed."
Then story of Ruth has a similar tale to tell; at least in its beginning chapter.
Read Ruth 1:1-18
The story of Ruth takes place during the period of the Judges, the four hundred and fifty years between the death of Joshua, who conquered the land of Canaan, and the coronation of Saul as Israel’s first king. It is a period that the Bible describes as "the days in which there was no king in Israel and every man did that which was right in his own eyes". You will find that stated in Judges 17:6.
This was a time when all the Children of Israel were ruled by only one thing; the “Big I”. What do I want? Where will I go? What do I like? Their whole life was governed by self-centeredness.
They gave little thought to what the will of God was. They quickly forgot the great deliverance that God had given them, and the victories that God had given them over every enemy that they had faced in Canaan.
Because of their rebellious attitudes, and the same attitude being in most of the hearts of God’s people, God had brought upon them a severe famine. He used the wind by blowing the hot air and churning the desert sands to destroy their crops. God allowed the hot temperatures and drought to bring His correcting hand upon His people who had forsaken Him. God didn’t desire to bring judgment to Israel, but when God’s people won’t listen, then we leave him little choice than to chasten us.
Because the Land of Canaan was in famine, a man named Elimelech, with his wife, Naomi, and their two sons decided to leave Canaan and go back across Jordan to the Land of Moab because he heard there was food for them there.
People of God, let me tell you that we had better be very careful of the choices we make for our families. I wonder if Elimelech had spent time in prayer before God and asked God for direction and provision in his life? I really don’t’ think that he did. He simply lifted his eyes and saw that the grass looked greener in Moab.
Where was Moab? Moab was the land where Moses had brought the Children of Israel when they sent out the 12 spies to check out the Promised Land and it was the place where all of Israel, except for Joshua and Caleb, were doomed to die in the wilderness.
Moab was also the same place that Israel came to the second time when they faced the River Jordan under the leadership of Joshua. Moses was not allowed to enter the Promised Land that he had longer for. God allowed him to see over into it but Moses died on the top of Mount Nebo never having the opportunity to set foot on the land that was promised to his Israel.
Moab is a picture of the life that we leave behind. It represents that place where we finally decide, once and for all, to lay down the desires of the world and the desires of the flesh and step over into the Promised Land of Salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.
The problem that so many Christians have is that they cross over Jordan, and step into the Promised Land with Jesus, but, like Lot’s wife, they are ever turning back to stare over into the Land of Moab. They want Jesus and all the blessings that come with living for the Lord, but they also want to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season with the Moabites.
Satan will always make the world look so wonderful. All he will show you is the good times. All you will remember of your old sinful life are the party times when you laughed it up with worldly friends. All you will remember is how good it felt when you indulged in sin. He won’t let you see, or bring to your remembrance, all the bad times and the guilt feelings and the times when you came so close to destroying your life and losing all the blessings that God has bestowed upon you.
Sure there are going to be times when you feel the chastening hand of the Lord. There are going to be times when you go through the “spiritual droughts”. There are going to be times when you are hungry for God and you can’t seem to find him. There are going to be times when the hot winds of adversity blow through your life and seem to wilt you victory and destroy your dreams. All of us must face those times. Sometimes they are allowed to come our way to build our faith and test our commitment to Christ, and sometimes they come because, like Israel, we have forgotten about God and started doing our own thing.
Even though many Christians are forever looking back at Moab, there are very few who just decide, all of a sudden, to leave God forever and go back to Moab and Elimilech didn’t do that either.
His thoughts were understandable. His family was hungry, the ground was dry and barren, life was hard, water was scarce, and so he decided to just go back to Moab for a little while. It was never his intention to stay there forever. His intention was to return home to the Promised Land as soon as possible.
How many of you know that the road to Hell is paved with “good intentions”. How many people have died in their sin having intended to give their life to Jesus but just never got around to doing it? How many of you have intended to paint the house, mow the lawn, start a business, or do something special for your spouse, but you have just never gotten around to it?
Somehow, the convenient time never comes. Somehow the days turn into months and months into years until life is over and we leave so much undone or unfinished and our lives aren’t what we had hoped they would be. That’s what turning back to Moab will do for you. It will destroy the dreams that God has placed within you and you may never see what God has really planned for you.
Notice with me though what is said at the end of the second verse of this passage. It says that they "continued there."
Elimelech believed in God. He was one of God’s chosen people and a man of God. He came from the generations of those who lived in the promises of God and experienced God’s miracles. Even his very name "Elimelech" means "God is my king."
Naomi, his wife, was a believing child of God. Her name means "pleasant one." Elimelech was a wealthy man, and a land-owner. He had a very valuable piece of land in Bethlehem-Judah. But there came a time when he forgot the blessings of God and began to focus on what he didn’t have rather than what he did have. The mindset that he and Naomi had in those hard days is shown clearly in the names of his sons; Mahlon means weakly. Chilion means pining one. Eventually, after he dwelled and thought of all that he lacked long enough, he began to look back to Moab. All he could remember was that there had been lots of water, food and green grass on the backside of Jordan.
I can imagine Elimelech and Naomi sitting in their home at night with their sons asleep and they would begin to talk in doubt and fear. They were quick to confess their need. They were quick to realize what they lacked. There just wasn’t enough to go around.
Then the question was, "What are we going to do? Are we going to live our life by the promise of God, who had said, ’Live close to My Word and under the ministry that I provide you in Canaan. And I will provide your needs’? Or should we make our own decision at this time and follow what appears to be logical and good? We will not deny our hope of belonging to the people of God. But, after all, we do have these earthly needs and considerations."
Then they made their decision. They would forsake the land of promise, for a little while, and go back into the country of Moab.
The decision was sin on the part of Elimelech as the leader of his home. And it brought some very sad consequences. Elimelech never did get back. He died in Moab, leaving Naomi a widow.
Elimelech had cut himself off from the blessings and provision that God would give him to follow his own power to provide. Elimelech gave up the bread of life that comes from obeying the word of the Lord to pursue that bread that satisfies the flesh. He separated himself and his whole family from the promises of God by going back and joining with the idolaters of Moab. He had forgotten what God had said in Deuteronomy 8,3 "...know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the LORD doth man live."
God had set down this principle for the people of God and for us, that our earthly life is to be governed by spiritual considerations first, and not by simply providing for the flesh and its desires. (seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness)
Under severe trials and temptation, Elimelech set the will of God aside and went the way that his own heart said he should go.
Little did he know that this decision would forever alter the course of history for his family. He had brought his wife and his children back into the world that they had left behind long ago and it would cost him dearly.
That’s the same all the time, for whoever turns back from God’s will and their commitment to Christ.
Luke 9:62, "And Jesus said unto him, No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God."
Remember when you begin to get slack on your church attendance and develop an apathetical feeling toward serving the Lord in church, you’re already turning back toward Moab or that world of sin and darkness. It’s a very short trip from being on fire for God to being cold in trespass and sin.
Some of the things that Elimelech probably didn’t consider were that, in Moab, with whom could he have fellowship? Who were to be the playmates for his sons? What about the wives that his sons would choose? What about his own wife, Naomi, and her spiritual needs? These things did not concern him as they ought to have. Instead he chose simply that there would be bread on the table. That is what he wanted first.
Before we start thinking that we are better than Elime-lech, we had better take a look at our own lives.
How do you make decisions for your family and for your life?
What is really most important to you? Is it His Word?
Does your heart hunger and thirst for the things of God above all others?
What about hearing and knowing the Word of God. Is this a priority to you?
When finances are tight and when job opportunities are spread in front of you, do you turn your back on the church and your soul and think, I need to make my decisions based upon what is best for me in terms of this life?
Although Elimelech and Naomi sinned in their decision, nevertheless, we see that God was working in a wonderful faithfulness. It is by God’s amazing grace that he reaches out and still draws us back to him.
Elimelech and Naomi lost their way. They got upside down in their priorities. But God did not lose His way. Nor did God lose sight of His priorities. And by grace, God was going to work out a great salvation for the.
Elimelech died in the land of Moab. And, shortly after that, his two sons died, after they had married women from Moab, but God had not forgotten about his faithful remnant of this family.
God was stirring and chastening Naomi. Naomi did have faith. But that faith now lay smoldering as nearly dead coals in the fire.
God began to blow upon these coals. God began to blow upon these coals when her husband died and she and her two sons were left in a foreign land.
God began to blow upon the coals of faith in her heart when she saw that her two sons took wives of the women of Moab who were idolaters.
Naomi was deeply about her sons’ marriages and the children that they would have.
God then blew upon the coals of her faith once more when her two sons died, and left behind two more widows for her to care for.
At last we see Naomi arise with her two daughter-in-laws (Ruth and Orpah) and make the decision to go back to Canaan. God would bring her back with a daughter-in-law called Ruth, taken right out of the land of darkness, the land of Moab, and God would use Ruth to be the ancestor of the Messiah, Jesus Christ.
Thank God that he is faithful to us even when we are unfaithful to him. Thank God that the love of God is not solely based upon absolute obedience and following the will of God. How often is God faithful to us when we forsake him?
There are times when the land of Moab looks very good to us.
Moab is that place where we find our own solutions to life’s problems without seeking God’s will first. We get into circumstances that are hard and we begin to think that the answer is a better job, more income for a bigger house in the suburbs. But to have all of that, you have to compromise something of God’s Word.
The land of Moab might be a thoughtful, handsome, young man, or young lady, who makes you feel very warm inside. But they don’t trust in Jesus Christ and they don’t live for God.
The land of Moab today may be a church that seems to have it all together - activities, programs - and they accept all kinds foolishness into the church and don’t preach the Word of God in purity.
We so quickly fall for Satan’s tricks and lies and fool ourselves into thinking, "Well, we’ll go for just a little while," then before we know it, we just seem to continue there.
Let’s take a lesson from Elimelech and Naomi!
Yes, we can see that God was working. God was working all things together for good to them that love Him. God was working everything for the good of His church and for Naomi’s good.
God, through all of this, was preparing the way for the birth of His Son. He would bring Ruth into the lines of His people. And God would use also the foolish sin of Elimelech and Naomi to sojourn in Moab in order that His purpose of salvation might be accomplished and that His Name might be glorified in all the earth.
But look at the cost to Elimelech and Naomi. She lost her husband and her sons for they never came back. I wonder if they are in lost today because they just started looking to satisfy the needs of the flesh?
Let’s not look back into Moab. Keep your eyes on Jesus and keep walking deeper into his promised land. God’s will is going to be accomplished but we don’t have to suffer and see our families lost for that will to be done.
It was never God’s will to allow Elimelech and his sons to die in Moab. God was blessing them before they ever left to go there. God would have provided their every need just he had promised, but they gave up on God and lost everything.
Stay faithful to Jesus. Hold on to God. He will see you through.
