Rent to Own in Moab

“What’s this guy do in Ruth 1? He doesn’t trust God in the land of plenty. There’s a famine--some testing, some difficulty. So what does he do immediately? Rather than trusting God to take care of him in the land, he, his wife and two sons went to sojourn in the country of Moab.

“When you sojourn you go somewhere temporarily; you haven’t set down roots. You’re a stranger and a pilgrim. You got to be a stranger before you can be a pilgrim. You’re an alien. Consequently you don’t have a permanent dwelling place. That’s the idea there.

“This guy was supposed to stay home and trust God, but he’s a picture of what his nation’s doing. Now, his exile was self-imposed, based on unbelief.

“Nobody told him he had to do it. The Gentiles didn’t come in to get him and carry him away. He purposely of his own volition imposed upon himself and his family the exile in Moab.

“He went there because he wasn’t trusting God and was disobeying God. Why did the famine come on Israel to start with? They weren’t obeying God’s Word.

“Now, you know the example this guy had is in Genesis 12:10: [10] And there was a famine in the land: and Abram went down into Egypt to sojourn there; for the famine was grievous in the land.

“You know, it’s better to go up than it is to go down. Going down isn’t a good direction and he went down into Egypt and sojourned, for the famine was grievous in the land.

“Abraham made a mistake. He thought, ‘There’s a famine here, but it isn’t over there—I know what I’ll do. I’ll go over there.’ That isn’t where God told him to go.

[8] 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.
[9] 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 to the left.

“Abraham says, ‘Lot, all the land’s out there. You take what you want; you go one way and I’ll go the other.’

“Now watch what Lot does. [10] And Lot lifted up his eyes, and beheld all the plain of Jordan, that it was well watered every where, before the LORD destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, even as the garden of the LORD, like the land of Egypt, as thou comest unto Zoar.
[11] Then Lot chose him all the plain of Jordan; and Lot journeyed east: and they separated themselves the one from the other.

“How did he know what the land of Egypt looked like? Well, he was just down there with his uncle. You see where his heart is? He walked by sight; by his appetite. Bad move.

[12] Abram dwelled in the land of Canaan, and Lot dwelled in the cities of the plain, and pitched his tent toward Sodom.

[13] But the men of Sodom were wicked and sinners before the LORD exceedingly.
[14] And the LORD said unto Abram, after that Lot was separated from him, Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art northward, and southward, and eastward, and westward:

“He doesn’t just go out into the territory, he begins to pitch his tent toward Sodom. The next time you see Lot show up in the Bible is Genesis 19:1: [1] And there came two angels to Sodom at even; and Lot sat in the gate of Sodom: and Lot seeing them rose up to meet them; and he bowed himself with his face toward the ground;

“You see the progression in that? First, he looks and he sees it’s pleasant: ‘I think I’ll go that way.’ He chooses it. And then when he goes out in that land, he begins to pitch his tent. He’s getting further and further away from Abraham.

“Pretty soon he’s down there working in the city government, living in Sodom. Man of influence in Sodom. He lost his shirt; he lost more than that, he lost his testimony, lost his family in Sodom.

“In Ruth 1, notice the same kind of progression in this family. You know where the Moabites came from? Lot’s got two daughters and they wind up in a cave in the mountains. They get their daddy drunk and get pregnant through the incest with their own daddy in the caves above Sodom.

“They had two children and the Ammonites and Moabites were the result of that incestuous relationship between Lot, a Believer, and his own children. The Moabites were born as the result of the sin of a saint.

“Lot was someone who professed to know God but it was really sort of an outward profession kind of a thing. You don’t see any heart connection. The Moabites are a picture of profession without inward reality of acquaintance with God. It’s just that outward, empty formalism.

“Look down at the end of Ruth 1:2: [2] And the name of the man was Elimelech, and the name of his wife Naomi, and the name of his two sons Mahlon and Chilion, Ephrathites of Bethlehemjudah. And they came into the country of Moab, and continued there.

“They’re not sojourning anymore. First, they were just kind of renting a room at the Motel 6. Now they’ve decided, ‘Well, we don’t think we want to rent; we ought to just get us a house.’

“Verses 3-4: [3] And Elimelech Naomi's husband died; and she was left, and her two sons.
[4] And they took them wives of the women of Moab; the name of the one was Orpah, and the name of the other Ruth: and they dwelled there about ten years.

“Now she’s a widow with two boys. Her source of supply moves from her husband to the boys, but where are they? They’re in Moab; the far country. And they took them wives of the women of Moab. They’re not renting a house; they went and BOUGHT a house. They’ve gone into permanent alignment with the enemies of God.”

(new post tomorrow)