divisions. But I call your attention to the fact that they are the
divisions that are made in the New Testament. They are the divisions
that Jesus made. He puts folks into two classes, and only two. There
were two gates, one was broad and the other narrow. There were two
foundations on which a man might build, one was of sand and the other
of rock. Mark you, He did not divide men into the perfect and the
imperfect, but into those that had life and those that did not have it.
And it was He that said, "He that hath the Son hath life, and he that
hath not the Son hath not life." So this question, if it means
anything, means that there is such a thing as being saved and there is
such a thing as being lost. That fact is recognized throughout the
entire Bible.
This question implies, in the second place, a consciousness of being
lost. "What must I do to be saved?" When this man asked that question
there were many things about which he was uncertain. He was uncertain
as to how he was to get out of his darkness. He was uncertain as to
how he was to be saved, but of one thing he was sure--he was dead sure
that he was lost. He did not try to dodge that fact. He did not shut
his eyes to it. He did not try in any way to deny it.
And, if you are here without God I hope you will not deny it. For if
you have not taken Jesus Christ as your personal Savior you are lost.
Then the best thing you can do, the first step to be taken in the
direction of getting saved, is to realize your lostness. A man will
not send for the physician unless he believes himself sick. He will
not try to learn unless he realizes his ignorance. Neither will he
turn to God for salvation unless he realizes that he is lost. Oh, it
is a good day for a man when he gets a square look at himself. It is a
great day when he has a glimpse of himself as God sees him. It is a
great hour when, conscious of his guilt, he bows himself in the
presence of Him who alone can save and says, "God, be merciful unto me
a sinner."
This question implies, in the third place, not only that the man is
lost who asked it, but that there is a possibility of his being saved.
"What must I do to be saved?"--and here was a man conscious of being
lost, conscious of being sin scarred and stained and guilty, yet he
believes, and he is right in believing, that salvation is possible for
him. He believes that even he can be saved unto the uttermost. There
is such a thing as salvation and it is possible for me, even me, to lay
hold of it.
And you too must realize that, otherwise it will do you no good to
realize the fact that you are a sinner. It is not enough to know
yourself lost. You must also believe that you may be saved. It is not
enough to realize that you are weak: you must believe that is possible
for you to be strong. You must believe that even a fluctuating Simon
can be made into a rock. You must believe in the power of God to
remake men, otherwise for you the question is only a question of black
despair.
This question implies, in the fourth place, a willingness to be saved.
"What must I do to be saved?" This man is not asking this question to
gather material for a future argument. He is no speculator. He is no
trifler. He is not even asking it because he is intellectually
curious. He is not simply asking that he may know the conditions of
salvation. He is asking with the earnest purpose in his heart to meet
those conditions.
This question implies, in the fifth place, that while salvation is a
possibility for you, you must do something in order to obtain it.
"What must I do to be saved?" What sort of an answer would you expect
to a question like that? What did the apostle say? Did he say, "Do
nothing. Let the matter alone. Forget it. Drift?" That is what many
of us are doing. No, sir, he said nothing of the kind. He told this
man to do something. And this man knew, as you and I know, that if we
are ever saved we have got to do something in order to get saved.
I say every one of us knows that, and yet too few of us act as if it
were really true. We seem to think that salvation is something that we
are going to stumble upon by accident. We seem to think it is
something that we are going to receive with absolutely no effort on our
own part. We act as if we thought it might be slipped into our pockets
while we sleep or dropped into our coffins when we die. Ask the
question intelligently, heart,--"What must I do to be saved?" Then you
will realize that you must do something.
This question implies, in the first place, that the conditions of
salvation are not optional, that it is not up to you and it is not up
to me to decide just what we will do in order to be saved. You can
accept salvation or you can refuse it. You can meet the conditions or
you can refuse to meet them. But one thing you cannot do. You cannot
decide upon the terms upon which you will surrender. If you are saved
at all you must surrender unconditionally.
So the question is, "What _must_ I do to be saved?" It is not, What is
the expedient thing or what is the respectable thing or what is the
popular thing to do in order to find salvation? The conditions are not
of your choosing and they are not of mine. God has made them and you
and I dare not change them. Therefore, if you are ever saved there is
not something simply that you ought to do, but there is something that
you absolutely must do.
Last of all, this question implies that salvation is an individual
matter. "What must _I_ do?" It is not a question of what must God do.
He has made full provision for the salvation of the whole world. It is
not what must the Church do. It is not what must the preacher do. It
is not what must this man that is beside me and this man that is behind
me or in front of me do. The question comes to my own heart--"What
must _I_ do?"
"What must I do to be saved?" You must do something, but there are
many things that we are doing that will not save us. If you expect to
be saved, in the first place, do not depend on your own goodness. "All
your righteousnesses are but as filthy rags." Do not count on your own
decency. No man was ever saved that way. I challenge you to find one
single one. I was holding a meeting some years ago and I met a young
fellow who told me he was good enough without Jesus Christ. Of course
he was not saved. A man who says that virtually tells Christ that He
has misunderstood his case altogether and that Calvary was a wasted
tragedy so far as he himself is personally concerned.
Neither will you be saved trusting in the other man's badness. I know
what some of you are saying to yourselves as I preach. You are telling
yourselves one of the oldest lies that was ever told. You are saying,
"I would be a Christian but there are so many hypocrites in the
Church." How many men give that as a reason, but it is no man's
reason. And I never knew one man to be saved by it. Believe me, the
shortcomings and the sins of my brother are mighty poor things to
depend on for my own personal salvation.
Again, you will not be saved by seeking an easy way. You will never
win by catering to your own pride and cowardice. I was conducting a
revival in a Texas city some years ago. At the close of one of the
services a young lady came forward to shake hands with the preacher.
As she did so she said, "I am going to become a Christian." I
congratulated her upon her decision, but she answered, "Oh, I do not
mean right now. I mean I am going to be very soon."
"You see," she continued, "it is like this: I am going in a few days to
visit some of my relatives that live way back in the country. There is
going to be a revival nearby. It will be easy for me to make the
decision there because nobody knows me. But here it is different.
Everybody knows me here and I simply haven't the courage to come out
and take an open stand for Jesus Christ." She went into the country as
she planned but she was not saved. Of course not. Nobody ever found
salvation by catering to his own cowardice and pride and seeking an
easy way.
"What must I do to be saved?" There is an answer to this question. It
is an answer that is absolutely dependable. There is nothing in all
the world of which I am more sure than I am of the correctness of the
answer to this question. I am as sure of it as I am of my own
existence. I am as sure of it as I am of the fact of God.
I wonder if you are interested to know the answer. Remember that it is
the answer to your supreme question. It is the answer to the most
important question that was ever asked. It is the most important that
you will ever be called to act upon in this world. Does the prospect
of an answer quicken your heartbeat? Does it shake you out of your
lethargy into intensest interest? It ought to if it does not. For the
answer that I give is not the answer of a mere speculator or dreamer.
It is the answer of inspiration and it is an answer whose truth has
been tested by the personal experience of countless millions. "What
must I do to be saved?" Answer: "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and
thou shalt be saved."
What is it to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ? It is to believe that
Jesus Christ can do what He claims to do and what He has promised to do
and to depend on Him to do it. Mr. Moody tells us how that he was in
his cellar one day when he looked up and saw his little girl making an
effort to see him. She could not because it was dark in the cellar.
"Jump," said Mr. Moody, "Daddy will catch you." And instantly the
little girl jumped. Now, that was faith. That was believing on her
father. So the jailer believed on the Lord Jesus Christ. He depended
upon Him then and there for salvation.
And what happened? He was saved. That very moment Christ came into
the man's heart and he became a new creation. He became possessed of a
new joy. He became possessed of a new tenderness.
Did you notice what he did? He took water and washed the stripes of
the preachers. Paul and Silas were bleeding when they came to the
prison but the jailer did not care. But now that he had found Christ
he has already begun to be a partaker of the divine nature. A new love
has come to him. He has become tender where he was cruel before. Even
so does the power of Jesus Christ make men over.
Now, this question: do you want to be saved? If you do you can be.
It's the surest thing in all the world. It is as sure as the fact that
night follows day. It is more sure than the fact that if you sow wheat
you will reap it, that if you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ you
shall be saved. Test the matter now and you will know the blessed fact
in your own experience.
XII
THE MOTHER-IN-LAW--NAOMI
It is thoroughly refreshing to come upon this exquisite bit of
literature called "Ruth." It follows, as you know, immediately after
the bloodstained stories we read in Judges. It shows that while there
was war and confusion and hate there was also friendship and love and
romance. It is a bit of exquisite beauty elbowed on either side by
ugliness. This delightful story comes to us like a glad surprise. It
is like finding a spring bubbling up in the desert. It is like
plucking roses amidst ice bergs. It is like finding a violet in the
very crater of a volcano.
I hope you have read the Book of Ruth and are familiar with it. If you
haven't you have slighted one of the sweetest and tenderest stories
ever told. If you haven't you have neglected about the most delicate
and winsome idyl to be found in ancient or modern literature. I have
read some good literature, first and last. I have read poetry that
lifted the heart and "set the soul to dreaming." I have read prose
strong as granite and songful as a mountain brook. But I confess to
you, if I wanted to find a finer piece of literature than the book of
Ruth, I would be at a great loss to know where to search.
The author sets you down at once amidst strange scenery. And the
characters, while genuinely human, are also full of the witchery of
romance and poetry.
Here is the story. The rains have failed in the Bethlehem country and
the harvests have been exceedingly meager. A certain little family
composed of husband, wife and two children, is having a hard fight to
keep the wolf from the door. Elimelech, the husband, can find no work
and Naomi, the wife and mother, "kneads hunger in an empty bread tray,"
and goes through the daily torture of being asked for bread that she is
not able to supply.
Then one dark day the husband comes home utterly discouraged. He takes
up the discussion where it was left off the day before. "Yes," he
says, "there is nothing else to do. There is no bread in the land.
There has been rain in Moab. We can go there. I do not know how they
will receive us, but at any rate, they can only kill us and that is
better than starvation."
And Naomi's sad face becomes a shade sadder and she says, "The will of
the Lord be done. But I had so hoped that we might be able to remain
in the land of our fathers. You see, my dear, it is not of myself that
I am thinking. We have two boys. We do not want to rear them in Moab.
Moab, I know, is not far off physically, but it is a long way morally.
If we go there we may lose our children. The time may even come when
they will break the law of Moses and marry among the Moabites."
But, hard as it was for her to consent, at last she was driven into it
by sheer starvation. And we see the pathetic little family scourged by
hollow-eyed hunger from the land of their fathers into the land of the
heathen Moabites. Just what their reception was there we are not told.
However, I am quite sure that they were received more kindly than they
had expected. Their want and their own kindness seemed to have opened
the hearts of the strangers among whom they went to live. Certain it
is that the husband and father was able to find sufficient work to keep
from actual starvation. By and by times grew better. The pinch of
poverty let up, and they began to feel somewhat at home in the land of
their adoption.
But the boys were playing with the children of the Moabites. Of course
they were. All children are alike. They know no barriers of kindred,
of class or of religion. A child is the true democrat. Sad to say, we
soon train him out of this. But he is a thorough democrat by nature.
He plays as gladly with the son of a scrub woman as with the son of a
queen. He lavishes his love as freely upon a pickaninny as upon a
prince. So these Jewish boys were playing with the heathen children.
Then a few years went by and the pious father and mother came to
realize with horror that their two boys were actually in love with two
Moabitish girls. Not only did they love them, but they even wanted to
marry them. This was a calamity indeed. I can hear the protests of
the father and mother. They warn them of the danger of such marriages.
They plead the law of Moses. But all in vain. And we are not
surprised. You might as well get in front of Niagara Falls and say
"Boo!" and expect it to flow back the other way, as to try to reason
with the average young fellow who is in love. Both boys married
Moabitish women.
And then what did this wise and godly father and mother do? They did
not do what is so usual in cases of an unwelcome marriage. Our boy or
our girl makes what seems to us a foolish and ruinous marriage. Then
what do we do? We declare that we will never speak to them again, that
they shall never darken our doors. And we thereby help on a disaster
that might never have come. Naomi and her husband had better sense.
They took the wives of their two sons, heathens though they were, into
their home and into their hearts. They felt sure that that was the one
way that promised a remedy.
Then one day disaster came to the little home of the strangers. The
husband and father died, and Naomi was left with the whole
responsibility of the family upon her lone shoulders. Her
daughters-in-law had seen her in her joy. They marked her also in her
sorrow. They were impressed, no doubt, by her calmness and her
strength. She walked with the sure and quiet step of one who felt
underneath her and round about her the Everlasting Arm.
Then the final disaster came. Both the boys died. Naomi was not only
a widow, but she was childless. There were now no bonds that held her
longer from the land of her fathers. She decides, therefore, to
return. Her two daughters-in-law are to accompany her as far as the
border of Moab. There they are to bid her farewell and then go each
her own way. They make the journey, these three women, to the borders
of Moab. Here Orpah tells Naomi good-bye. She parts from her with
real grief and regret, for she loves her genuinely. I think I can hear
her sobbing as she takes her lone way back to her own people.
Then it is Ruth's time to say good-bye. I see her as she flings her
arms about the neck of Naomi and there she clings. "There, there,"
says the older woman, "you must be gone now. Your sister is going.
She will turn the bend of the road in a minute. Go after her and God
grant that you may find rest each in the house of her husband."
But Ruth clings only the tighter. And then she makes a confession. It
is a confession of love. And nothing finer in point of tenderness and
beauty was ever uttered by human lips. I hope you are not too old to
thrill over a love story. John Ridd's devotion to Lorna Doone still
stirs my heart. And there is the confession of a heroine in another
story that we can never forget. "Tell him I never nursed a thought
that was not his; that daily and nightly on his wandering way pour a
woman's tears. Tell him that even now I'd rather work for him, beg
with him, walk by his side as an outcast, live on the light of one kind
smile from him, than wear the crown that Bourbon lost."
That is a beautiful confession. It is made by a woman to a man. But
this was made by a woman to a woman. And strangest of all, it was made
by a daughter-in-law to a mother-in-law. Ruth has this distinction, if
none other, that she loved her mother-in-law. Her mother-in-law, mind
you, that creature who has been the butt of evil jokes in all
languages; the one who has proved the dynamite for the wrecking of not
a few homes. This confession is the confession of a daughter-in-law to
a mother-in-law.
It is the confession of youth to age. It is spring-time clinging to
winter. It is June flinging its arms in a passionate tenderness around
the neck of November. "It is time you were going," said Naomi. And
Ruth's arms clung all the closer and this exquisite bit of poetry fell
from her lips, "Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from
following after thee: for 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 aught but death part thee and me."
You cannot beat that. No confession of love has ever surpassed it.
But it is more than a confession of love. It is also a confession of
faith. It is the declaration of a strong woman's choice. As Ruth
clings to the woman she loves she announces her decision, a decision to
which she remained true through all the future years. "Thy people
shall be my people and thy God my God."
And the people of the little village of Bethlehem had something
interesting to talk about a few days later. Two strange women had come
their way, women who were poverty-stricken and homeless. One of them
was a Jewess. The other was a Gentile. Neither of them was welcome.
Naomi had lost her place in the life of the community. Ruth, the
Moabitess had never had any place.
The days that immediately followed their arrival were sad and bitter
days. But the younger woman, with a fine courage, refuses to be a
burden. Instead, she will be the support of the mother of her dead
husband. So she takes upon herself the menial task of a gleaner. It
is harvest time and she goes out into the fields to glean.
Now, it happens in the good providence of God, that the field in which
she went to glean belonged to a very rich and prosperous man named
Boaz. And to that very field where Ruth was gleaning Boaz came that
day. He was a young, vigorous, and positive man. He was accustomed to
command. There was a dignity about him that made him seem older than
his years. Everybody respected him. He was just and generous and
religious.
No sooner was he among the workers than his attention was attracted by
the winsome young stranger from Moab. I do not know why he should
notice her at once, but I have a fancy that Ruth was attractive, that
she had personality and charm. I feel confident that she had that
superior beauty that is born of superior character. Anyway, the great
landlord saw her and was interested. And he spoke kindly to her, and
when Ruth got home that evening she had an interesting story to tell.
And Naomi--wasn't she interested? I can see the flush of her face and
the sparkle of her eye across the centuries. She is a woman, too,
every ounce of her. And being a woman, she is by instinct and by
nature a match maker. She guesses at once what is going on in the
hearts of these two young people. And she sets about with delicate
good sense to help them to understand each other. By her wise advice
things turn out just as they ought to turn out, and . . . "they lived
happy ever after."
Who is the heroine of this exquisite story? I know that first place is
given to Ruth. And I am in no sense disposed to try to put her in an
inferior position. She cannot be honored too highly. She is so
absolutely lovable. But I am going to give first place to Naomi. I do
not do this because she is more winsome than Ruth. I do it because she
accounts for Ruth. If it had not have been for Naomi, Ruth would have
lived and died a heathen in the land of Moab.
Now, what are some of the lessons that we learn from the beautiful life
of this ancient woman, Naomi? Were we privileged to sit down beside
her in the Father's house to-day, she could teach us many wonderful
lessons. But one truth she would impress upon us would be this: that
life's greatest losses may, through the grace of God, become its
richest gains. She would tell you then of the black despair of those
days when she was being driven from her home by the cruel hand of
poverty. She would not hesitate to say that it was very difficult for
her to keep up faith in God in those dark days. "But the Lord was
sending me then to find Ruth. You know He had to have her. The world
could not keep house without her at all. Yet I would never have found
her but for my terrible poverty."
Then, I think she would tell how she was beginning to feel at home in
Moab. "My life was taking root in that foreign soil. I was about
making up my mind to live my life there. Then death came. One by one
I buried my loved ones till not one of my own flesh and blood was left.
Then it was that I resolved to come back home. It was my bitter loss
that sent me back. I would never have come back but for that. And had
I not come back the marriage of Ruth with its blessed outcome would
never have been possible."
This woman learned the fine art of capitalizing her calamities. In the
midst of all her poverty and heartache she kept firm her faith in God.
And she came thus to realize the sufficiency of His grace. She came to
know, even in that distant day, the truth of Paul's great word, "All
things work together for good to them that love God." There are times,
I know, that it is hard for us to believe this, just as there were
times when it was hard for Naomi to believe it. But there came a day
when she was privileged to know the truth of it in her own experience.
And if you cling to your faith you, too, will come to know, if not
here, then by and by.
Then we learn from Naomi, as another has pointed out, the power for
blessing that may be in one consecrated life. Naomi was a very hidden
and obscure woman. Had you walked by her side as, hunger driven, she
left her native land, she would not have told you anything of the great
destiny that was ahead. She never dreamed of enriching the world as
she did. It never occurred to her that she was to be one of the great
light bringers of all the centuries. And yet such was to be the case.
The world simply could not get on without Naomi. It could not for the
simple reason that Naomi led Ruth into the knowledge of God and into
the fellowship of the people of God.
"Thy people shall be my people and thy God my God." That is Ruth's
confession of faith. How did she come to make it? How did this lovely
heathen ever come to fall in love with Naomi's people? She had never
even seen them. She made up her mind, however, that they were the
people, of all others, that were most worth knowing. She made up her
mind that they must be very winsome and very lovable people. How did
she come to that conclusion? Answer: By association with her
mother-in-law. That is also how she came to fall in love with God.
She was led to the realization of the charm of Him through the
God-possessed personality of Naomi.