Ruth 1:1-17

We have before us today the story of two characters which are alike in many particulars, and yet so vitally different and distinct in others.

•. The two young women were brought up in the same kind of a home, in the same city, in the same country of Moab.

This meant that the two girls journeyed side by side; they had the same general surroundings, and the same countrymen. The atmosphere of the one was the atmosphere of the other. They probably attended the same school, had the same kind of of home instruction, and the same discipline. Both of them attended the same religious gatherings, and doubtless had the same religious convictions.

• The two young women married into the same family.

One married Mahlon, and the other Chilion. Both of them had the same father-in-law and mother-in-law, inasmuch as their husbands were brothers. This means that both of them were alike taken out of their former associations and religious ideals and ushered into a new and distinct phase of life. The home into which the girls married was Jewish. The family were Ephrathites and they came from the land of Bethlehem-Judah. These daughters from the land of Moab must have, together, recognized the vast difference between the True God of Elimelech and Naomi, and the false gods of their own country.

• Later these two women had the same sorrows to enter their lives.

Both women lost their husbands. Both of them were left widows and therefore were thrown alike upon their husbands’ parents.

• These both dwelt under the same conditions for the same number of years.

It was ten years that these strangers of Bethlehem-Judah lived in Moab. It was during those ten years that the two girls were under the same spiritual illumination.

As we think of the above statements, we would imagine that the two girls would have been led to the same final decisions and conceptions of life. This is exactly what did NOT happen. The two lives which ran together for so long a time, were destined to be severed because of fundamental differences, both physical and spiritual.

Today it is the same. The one takes a different path from the other. The one becomes a follower of Christ, and the other of Belial. The one enters into life eternal, and the other into eternal punishment.

Why should this be? Is the vast chasm which separates these two lives due to God’s power of predestination, or, is it due to man’s power of choice? For our part, we believe that God is willing to save all men. He gives the same opportunity and the same call to the Orpahs as He gives to the Ruths.

Different results must be brought about by different individual decisions.

Guard your heart. Teach your children. Watch and pray. Choose wisely.