Lord do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and me." Where can there be anything more beautiful? With the exception of the Lord Christ Himself, the whole Book of God does not, at least to our view, present a more lovely character than Ruth, and a more blessed, self-denying, God-honouring course than hers! Before we contemplate the faith of Ruth, there is one feature of her character at which we would for a moment glance; it was her amiability, coupled as it was with her firmness and decision. We love the latter trait as exhibited in our poor fallen fellow-creatures; the vacillating, the undecided, the changeable, are to be avoided even as the selfseeking and the unamiable. But how often does the firm and the resolute lapse into the obstinate and the self-willed! In Ruth, however, there was the beautiful and all-important distinction. However narrow the boundary or difficult to define between the one and the other, there it was; there was the intermingling of feeling with her firmness -no arbitrariness-no self-will, much as she desired to follow a certain course. Hence she says, "Intreat me not to leave thee, nor to cease from following after thee;" as much as to say, "If you persist in your request, dear mother, I must yield. I cannnot go in direct opposition to your wishes. Your will shall be my will in the matter; but do, if possible, yield, and permit me to follow the promptings of my own heart. Such is my love for you-so deeply am I interested in all that appertains to your welfare, that I cannot endure the thought of severance. I am prepared to forego all for your sake. My very life is bound up in yours. Whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God: where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the Lord do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and me."" That is, "Let the Lord's hand go out against me, and let me cease to be, or perish from off the earth, if so be I mean not, and am not prepared to abide by, all I say." Touching language! glorious decision this! precious firmness, and yet sweetest, loveliest unselfishness and amiability. 6 But in Ruth we have, moreover, a simple, precious illustration of faith. How ready, how willing, how contented to follow her whom she believed to be the Lord's servant. A poor Moabitish girl, not, in all probability, at all at a point about her own state, but made perfectly willing in the day of God's power to accompany-to cast in her lot with-to minister unto-one whom she believed to be the Lord's, and whom she knew at the same time to be deeply under His trying, testing, and afflictive hand. What pure unselfishness was hers! How regardless she of her own personal interests! How perfectly willing to leave the issue of her present course! How ready to take step by step! How contented to leave the future with Him who says, "Take no thought for the morrow, but let the morrow take thought for the things of itself!" How God-honouring this! No wish nor effort to pry between the folded leaves-no human calculations-no fleshly arguments-no creature "ifs" or "buts" or "may-bes" or "peradventures." Oh, no! but a calm, a holy, a dignified readiness, and cheerful surrender to be and to do whatsoever, wheresoever, and with whomsoever the Lord pleased. What a faith this! and yet, in all probability, had Ruth been questioned about the nature and operation of faith, she would not have understood what faith meant. The subject of it, the partaker of it, the actor of and by it, as thousands are-and that gloriously too-and yet unaware and incapable of comprehending, much less of defining, its nature or existence. All that was felt or understood being a secret, irresistible prompting to-GO FORWARD, neither inquiring into, and divinely regardless of, what the issue should be. How like the conduct of Ruth was that of Abram in his pure unselfishness with respect to Lot, and his entire readiness to leave himself and all that he had in the Lord's hands: "And Abram said unto Lot, Let there be no strife, I pray thee, between me and thee, and between my herdmen and thy herdmen; for we be brethren. Is not the whole land before thee? separate thyself, I pray thee, from me: if thou wilt take the left hand, then I will go to the right; or if thou depart to the right hand, then I will go the left" (Gen. xiii. 8, 9). How similar, too, the decision of Ruth to that of Rebekah, “ And they called Rebekah and said unto her, Wilt thou go with this man?" (Gen. xxiv. 58.) Oh, had human prudence and merely fleshly feeling been summoned to the conference, how different would have been the course adopted! How many questions would have been asked! what calculations must have been gone into! what time for thought and "prudential" consideration! "Who knows but the whole story may be a fabrication? What do we know about Isaac's temper and disposition and circumstances? Let us, at least see him first. Ah, no; there are no such arguments or hesitancy. But, with a faith the same in its nature and operation as that which enabled the father of the faithful to declare to his servant, "The Lord God of heaven, which took me from my father's house, and from the land of my kindred, and which spake unto me, and that sware unto me, saying, Unto thy seed will I give this land; He shall send His angel before thee, and thou shalt take a wife unto my son from thence," prompted Rebekah to say, in answer to the inquiry," Wilt thou go with this man ?" " I will go;" and, reader, was she not marvellously honoured of God in going? Reader, observe the important-yea, the momentous-distinction between Orpah and Ruth. Both, as we have seen, set out together, and between them, as we have said, there appeared for a time to be no difference. Both seemed to have been prompted by the same love and self-denial. The one, however, bears a test under which the other fails. Creature arguments and human prospects and earthly contingencies prevail with the one, whilst a simple, self-denying love-prompting influences the other. She has a single eye and a loving heart, and is perfectly willing to leave herself and all appertaining to the future in Other and Better Hands. Ah, reader, what a God-honouring faith was that of Ruth! Better this than an earthly crown or a royal diadem! A dependence upon GOD! a willingness to follow HIM and HIS! No human conferences (as before remarked), no creature-will, no fleshly trust or dependence! A faith that of Ruth's to live by and to die by! Did she, think you, for a moment regret the step she took-and taken, too, amid so much that, in a fleshly point of view, was dark, vague, uncertain, unpromising, hazardous in the extreme-did she, we repeat, ever, even for one single moment, regret the taking that step? Ah, no, not she indeed! Let the delightful, the unspeakably-blessed sequel, prove! Oh, how favoured of God! how dignified of God! how blessed of God! On the contrary, the woman who chose the fleshly and the promising and the tangible, what becomes of her? Ah, what indeed? The one goes back to the darkness, the delusion, and, in all probability, to the destructiveness, of the world. The other, so pure-minded, so unselfish, so God-trusting, is led on and on by Him, and, as the blessed fruits and consequences of a simple faith's following on wheresoever and howsoever He shall lead, is handed down by name and repute from generation to generation in the holy and the blessed line in and from which after the flesh the dear Redeemer sprang. Oh, reader, what deep, deep searching of heart as to motives and principles does this history and character of Ruth suggest! The Lord help us to apply the test. We tarry not to dwell at length upon the narrative, except to call the reader's attention to the manner in which the Lord is ever wont to deal with His people, in bringing them down to the very lowest extremities, and apparently the most hopeless of circumstances, ere He manifestly puts forth His kind and gracious hand in their behalf. Truly, "man's extremity is God's opportunity." We love that precious verse ""Tis just in the last distressing hour Ah, yes, blessed be God; it has been and still is so. Dear reader, have you not realized the fact again and again in a variety of dispensations? Oh, how condescending and how gracious and how faithful He is! Vile and worthless as His servants may be, still they cannot but speak well of His blessed and adorable name, otherwise the very stones might well cry out against them. It was just as Naomi had returned to Beth-lehem, and because of her altered appearance-through the extreme pressure of anguish and sorrow upon her already over-charged heart," all the city was moved with respect to her, and exclaimed, Is this Naomi ?"-as much as to say, "Can this be our old friend and fellow-townswoman? What, so Reader, did it ever strike you that out of the myriads upon myriads which have appeared on the stage of time, merely some forty names were chosen of God to show forth the genealogy of our most glorious Christ, and that among them was the poor Moabitish Ruth? Oh, what an honour conferred upon her by Jehovah !-ED. altered? so bereft and declining ?" "And she said unto them, Call me not Naomi [signifying pleasant], call me Mara [that is, bitter] for the Lord hath dealt very bitterly with me." Ah, reader, how ready are we, poor sinners-blind creatures of a day-to charge our best Friend with unkindness and a want of due care and consideration, and that, too, probably when He is at the very moment working out His own loving and gracious purposes in the most marked and merciful way. Well do we remember one, some five-and-thirty years ago, who, in this Mara spirit, was charging God with unkindness, and (Jonah-like) cared not what became of him, whilst (as the sequel proved) the Lord was at the very time working so wisely and tenderly and graciously in his behalf, bringing about all-aye, and infinitely more than all-that rebellious one had ever thought of, much less deserved, at His kind and gracious hands. Whilst He was entertaining hard and ungrateful thoughts of his God, that God was saying, by the merciful though mysterious leadings of His providence, "I know the thoughts which I think towards you-thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end." Ah, reader, as occasionally we pass and repass through the streets of London, how do these old scenes and former exercises come up in review; and we are filled with amazement when at times standing in the pulpits of those churches under the shades of which for months, and even years and years, we were personally the subject of these bitter experiences. Oh, the patience, the long-suffering, the forbearance of our God! But to return. Reader, mark the close of the first chapter: "And they came to Beth-lehem in the beginning of barley harvest." "And Naomi had a kinsman of her husband's, a mighty man of wealth, of the family of Elimelech, and his name was Boaz." In all probability, Naomi had forgotten all about this man, or, if she thought of him at all, supposed he had no care about or interest in her. Reader, the forgetfulness of God's people is sometimes as much ordered and overruled of Him as some of their most vivid and detailed remembrances. Was not God's hand in the fact recorded at the close of the 40th chapter of Genesis: "Yet did not the chief butler remember Joseph, but forgat him"? When God's time came for the chief butler to remember, he could no longer forget. The yea-and-amen promises of our God must first bud and blossom, and then, in due season, shall bring forth fruit. Our God will never be hurried. He takes His own time, and does His own work in His own way, but always to the admiring wonder and adoring love of His previously-exercised and generally-impatient ones. "And Ruth the Moabitess said unto Naomi, Let me now go to the field, and glean ears of corn after him in whose sight I shall find grace." Observe, 1. Her respect and obedience: she would not go without asking her mother's consent; 2. Her lowliness: she was willing to work, yea, even to glean; 3. Her hope and dependence: "after Him in whose sight I shall find grace." Who inspired her with this hope but Him who is the God of hope? And what a God He is! "And she said [that is, Naomi said] unto her, Go, my daughter." Although she knew Ruth to be a stranger in those parts, and doubtless to the customs that prevailed, yet she was made willing to let her go and glean. "And she went, and came, and gleaned in the field after the reapers: and her hap was to light on a part of the field belonging unto Boaz, who was of the kindred of Elimelech." Ah, reader, how came this "hap," or how was it this happened? How? because God had the ordering and the appointing. Although so much in the daily walk and chequered experience of the family of God comes apparently in a way of chance or peradventure, yet there is not the shadow of chance or peradventure about it. The so-called accidents and incidents are "all of Him, and through Him, and by Him, to whom be glory for ever. Amen." From first to last the Lord Himself had the leading and the guiding of this poor Moabitish girl, and it is the self-same Lord who has the leading and guiding of all His people. There is not the most minute circumstance escapes His notice, or which He deems beneath His control. He orders as much the falling of a leaf, or the alighting of a sparrow, as He does the sun or the moon or the stars in their courses. We remember, some years ago, walking to the summit of the reputed Wind Cliff, which commands so beautiful and extensive a view of the river Wye, and the surrounding country of Monmouthshire, Gloucestershire, Somersetshire, and the north of Devon; and directly in our pathway was a little tiny worm winding its downward way from a branch of the shady trees beneath which we were walking. "Is there nothing to be learnt here ?" thought we. "Yes, verily, for the Almighty One who formed that tiny creature as well as me, and who spread this beauteous scene around, has as much the ordering and directing that tiny creature's movements as He has mine, or any of the objects of His vast and beauteous creation. This little worm must turn this way or that way, rise higher or drop itself lower, just as constrained and inclined by Him who has all things, animate and inanimate, under His all-wise direction and control." And we remember taking comfort at the time from the conviction that the Lord's power and preservation were as verily engaged in that worm's behalf as in the movements of the lion of the forest, or the leviathan of the mighty deep. Would, dear reader, that we could more entirely cherish this thought! Would that we could perpetually realize the great fact that our times are in His hand," that He moves us hither and thither as so many ciphers! Oh, how much unnecessary pain and needless anxiety would such a state of mind save us! 66 "And, behold, Boaz came from Beth-lehem, and said unto the reapers, The Lord be with you. And they answered him, The Lord bless thee." What a salutation between master and men! Rather unlike the intercourse of our times between employer and employed. But how was it that Boaz came just at this time, and how was it that his eye happened to fall upon Ruth? How? because the Lord HH |