Several times in my Christian life I've heard stories and indeed witnessed occasions when saints that were standing have fallen or have committed sin or have made grievous decisions in their lives that indeed undermine their faith and their standing in the Lord. And often I've be left wondering as to what happened. And I'm sure you have experienced this as well, wondering what happened. And usually it's a case of spiritual declension, which creeps in a heart slowly and mouths at a heart, and by the time we are seeing the effect, the saint had long gone in terms of their walk with the Lord in private. And today we're going to look at a case of one who was a family man, indeed of the stock of Israel, and indeed by the decisions he made, showed that he had not trusted the Lord, and indeed experienced grave consequences. I invite you to turn to the book of Ruth, and we'll be looking at chapter one, verse one to seven. Over the last few weeks, my thoughts have been lingering around this book, primarily because we've been considering this book, Alubu Road School, and has caused me to look at it with a little more insight, to seek to understand what the Lord says, even here. Now, the book of Ruth, is a story about mainly three characters. In there we have Naomi. Naomi was a wife and mother. She was a widow. She was widowed of her husband, Elimelech, and also she lost her two sons whilst in a foreign land. We also find another lady by the name of Ruth. She's a foreign woman from Moab, and she attaches herself to her mother-in-law, Naomi. And God indeed blessed her for her commitment to her mother-in-law, and more so to the God of the mother-in-law. And the third main character we find is a man called Boaz. And this was Naomi's relative, kinsman by marriage, And this man shows great kindness to Ruth and Naomi. And by his obedience to the law of God and his respectful dealings with Ruth and Naomi, Boaz becomes an honored ancestor to the Lord Jesus Christ. And so we have here a wonderful story full of great insights and learning and lessons for us in the book of Ruth. With regards to its historical setting, we read in Ruth chapter 1, verse 1, that this is, it took place when the judges ruled. It was at a time when the judges ruled, or rather the judges judged. And judges were people appointed by God from the time of the death of Joshua until the institution of the monarchy in Israel. That is about the time of King Saul. And they were raised by God to deliver Israel from its enemies. And they also settled disputes and presided over judicial matters affecting the people of Israel. With regard to the exact period when the story in the Book of Ruth took place, we don't know. But certainly, it did take place during the time of the judges. And we can see that probably it was after the Moabite oppression of Israel and delivery by Ehud. This is in Judges 3, 12 to 14. And also when we look into the book, we find a genealogy of King David. So certainly, this book was written after the activity and after the judges and probably well into the reign of David or end of the reign of Saul. So we have here a story, a wonderful story to read and follow and learn from. and it's indeed about real people, apart from the broad national picture that we see in the judges, what is happening in terms of the politics of the land, in Ruth we find happenings in a family. like us, real people. And what we are faced here with is real challenges. Challenges that indeed cause us to make decisions as to how we're going to sustain our families. And we find these people facing real difficulties. Difficulties in relation to death, in relation to indeed trying to find, to make ends meet. trying to work and also parting with relatives and having the joy of family at the end. In terms of its author, there is no mention in the book of the author. Indeed, the author is not known, but Jewish tradition accredits authorship to Samuel. And indeed, so other than that, we are not told explicitly who authored this book. But it's placed in the Bible that we cannot doubt. In terms of its canonicity as a word of God, we cannot doubt, as we see great themes and great themes of God that are found here. I'd like us to consider the first seven verses, and I would invite you to just read with me verse one to verse seven. Now it came to pass in the days when the judges ruled that there were there was a famine in the land. And a certain man of Bethlehem, Judah, went to dwell in the country of Moab. He and his wife and his two sons. And the name of the man was Elimelech. And the name of his wife was Naomi. And the names of his two sons were Mahalon and Kilion, the Ephrathites of Bethlehem, Judah. And they went to the country of Moab and remained there. Then Elimelech, Naomi's husband, died and she was left and her two sons. Now they took wives of the women of Moab. The name of one was Opa and the other was Ruth. And they dwelt there about 10 years. Both Mahalon and Kilion also died, so the woman survived her two sons and her husband. Then she arose with her daughters-in-law that she might return from the country of Moab, for she had heard in the country of Moab that the Lord had visited his people by giving them bread. Therefore, she went out from the place where she was and her two daughters-in-law with her, and they went on the way to return to the land of Judah. So we find here, apart from the setting in terms of the story happening about the time when the judges ruled, that there was a famine in the land. There was a famine in the land, in verse one. Now, a famine is an extended period, children especially, when there is a hunger crisis, when food is scarce, a serious shortage of food. Now, Elimelech and his family, being in Judah at that particular time, also were faced with this famine. And this situation, though not the only one that the children of Israel experienced, appears to have affected Elimelech. And when we talk about famine, particularly around the times of the judges, it would suggest that this was about the time when Israel was being indeed judged by God, or God causing them to return back to him. by instituting some kind of punishment, which was by way of an oppression from an enemy or indeed famine, resulting from the oppression or otherwise. Now we have in the book of Judges this cycle that the children of Israel went through. After they arrived in Canaan, they would fall into sin and idolatry, and then God would be angry indeed against them. And then he will send their enemies, the Canaanite nations, to come and taunt them and oppress them. And when they experience this kind of oppression from their enemies, they'll cry out to God. They would repent and God indeed would save them. He would save them through a judge. He would raise up a judge who indeed he would use to indeed conquer the enemies and set his people free. And some of the judges we know, we have Gideon, We have Joshua and then also Samuel at the end. So we have these judges and they were running the affairs of Israel at that particular time. So this was a national picture. And why did God bring famine? We have already noted he brought famine as a tool of discipline. He wanted the children of Israel to get back to him. If they continued without this kind of discipline, they would have not returned to him. And so he used discipline, and discipline by way of famine or oppression. And we find this as he warned them in the book of Deuteronomy, that in the land they were going to, if they sought other gods and they rejected him, he was going to send their enemies, the nations from Canaan, to come against them. So this was the situation. What was the situation like in terms of the attitudes of the people around the time of the judges? The attitude of these people is summarized in Judges 21, verse 25. It says, in those days, there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes. Imagine. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes. No rules, I can just do what I want. That was the kind of life and environment that was there in Israel. These days were marked by lawlessness and idolatry, forced religion, theft, drunkenness, and extreme unbelief. The days were terrible. And I guess you would note that these are not different from the kind of days we have now. It was not good at all, especially when you hear that everyone did what they thought was right in their eyes. You expect chaos. And this was the situation. And the famine we find here in the Book of Ruth most likely was caused by the sin of the land of Israel. and God was directing punishment to them so that they can come back to him. And this was his instrument before him. Even before we proceed on, sometimes God would bring challenging circumstances to us because of our sin. Maybe we have neglected our walk with him, and to cause us to return to him, he must throw in difficulty so that we can get to a point where we realize our desperate need of him. And God's intentions in all that happens to his children is so that they may indeed come back to him, honor him, and live for him. In case you are one of his children who has wandered away and is also doing what he thinks or she thinks is right in his eyes, God rebukes those he loves, and maybe that's why he's brought those situations. If he didn't love you, he would let you go on to your own destruction. But because he loves you, he throws in these difficulties so that you can think about him. He tells us, Revelation 3 verse 19, that he rebukes those he loves, okay? Those he doesn't love, they are not his. He cares for his. and not those that are not His. And it's important, therefore, for those of us that are His, how we react to difficult situations. How we react to difficult situations sometimes would also prove whether we are His or not. When God brings these difficult times, do they send us further and further away from Him? Or do they bring us back to him? For the children, the cycle that I mentioned, the children of Israel, the cycle I mentioned, constantly, when he rebuked them, they repented and they came back to him. They were his. And a true child of God will not go forever, will not go perpetually away from him, steeped in sin. And indeed, running away from God without them coming to a point where they are saved. where they come back to God, where they belong. It's a situation we have here, the famine in the land. And then we are told there was a certain man in Bethlehem, not just Bethlehem, to emphasize Judah, the pinnacle of God's blessings, God's dealings with his people. That's where this man belonged. He and his wife and his two children were from there. When you belong to Bethlehem, to Judah, indeed you know the Lord. But this man, we are not told his name earlier, but then in verse two we are told that his name was Elimelech. Elimelech was faced with this challenging situation of the famine, and he did not respond correctly to what the Lord was doing in the nation. Indeed, in Judah, and also particularly in his life, together with his family. What did he do? We are told that in verse one, that he went to dwell in the land or the country of Moab. He went to dwell in the country of Moab. The rendering of the country there is the fields of Moab. And probably sitting from Judah, he looked at Moab, The fields of Moab were indeed promising, were looking like they would yield a good harvest and save his family from the famine. And so he decided, he consciously made the decision to leave Bethlehem, Judah, to the country of Moab. Now the name Bethlehem means the house of bread. And Judah means praise. Now, at this present time, there was a famine, there was no bread, and you wouldn't actually praise or rejoice when there was a famine. But that was what the names meant. And Elimelech himself, his name meant God is king. Both the place and Elimelech did not show what their names stood for at this particular time. And so Elimelech chose to go to Bethlehem, to go to Moab rather. And he started off, he went to Moab, we are told in verse 3, in verse 2 rather, and he went to the country of Moab and remained there. Now, the name is ideal, the place is ideal, everything is ideal for this man. He has a good name. God is my king. He's coming from Bethlehem, Judah. And we have the right kind of setting. We are a church. We have the Bible preached faithfully here and taught faithfully here. And we bear the name of Christ. All that my brothers and sisters who would not deliberately go against God's command for whatever reason. The difficulties I mentioned about could include an array of problems and difficulties. They should not move us. For this man, he made a conscious decision to leave the blessed place and go to Moab. We shall consider Moab in a short while. Now, the move to Moab, this conscious decision that Elimelech made to Moab was in violation of God's clear command. God had commanded the children of Israel not to mix with the nations of Canaan. He had told them to keep away from them, and he had prohibited them to go near them and not to follow them. And further, he had also commanded them not to marry, intermarry with them, because when they did this, they would draw their hearts away from God to idols. For Elimelech, decision made, a must start off. And he deliberately went against what God had commanded. Now, as he was making this decision, Clearly, probably Elimelech did not actually think about the kind of evils he was exposing himself and his family to. He did not think about the impact of his move. He is not going to have the privilege to assemble with the people of God in the temple to worship God. He was not going to join the people of God as they went to worship offerings. He was not going to be able to keep the feasts the Lord had commanded them to do. He was going to be isolated totally from everything that stood for God, and he was going to be near everything that did not stand for God. Moving his family to Moab was also exposing them to the warnings and the dangers God had given them. Getting to Moab would draw their hearts away from God and draw them indeed to Moab. And we see this as a result of this move. His two sons married pagan women. They married women of Moab. And God had commanded this. It's never right. He tried to rationalize his decision. that he needed to care for his family. And the names of the two children, one means sick one, and the other one talks about being frail, Chilean. And probably he was even thinking about his children. I need to move to Moab to care for my children. But he disregarded the instruction of the Lord, neither the trust in the God who had proved himself true in providing for his children. Now often, we see the same thing repeated in the lives of those who call themselves children of God. When a believer walks away from the things of God, she or he cannot save the Lord as they should. And my friend, there is no way that you can survive as a Christian when you detach yourself from the house of God, from the church, from the people of God. You cannot save him for whatever reason. And if you do not return to him, the path only leads you further and further away from God, and in the end, you will face death, as we shall see in a short while. God saves you to be part of the church. He saves you to be attached to his people. It is a dangerous thing, my friend, to choose the world. It's a dangerous thing when you deliberately choose to detach yourself from the means God has provided for your survival and your search on this side of heaven. He has provided His church, He has provided His word to guide and not to think about yourself, to just think what is best yourself. And in case you found yourself in that position where you have detached yourself, you think you can live a freelance kind of life, just jumping, not accountable to Jerusalem, to Judah rather, not accountable to the children of God, to the church, You want to be free. Or maybe the motivating factor is the things you can get away from the children of God. It's a dangerous thing. You are not meant to be out away from God's people. You need to be where God's people are. And for this man, he didn't choose to only go to Moab. We are told in verse three that he actually remained there. He remained there. He consciously chose to go, consciously chose to remain. He remained there. His family went there, and then they stayed there. The word remained here. means to exist or to become. In other words, this man, when we talk about him being in Moab and remaining there, he began to exist as one of the people there. And he became like the people of Moab. And when they got to Moab, he could have rationalized and said, I'm from Bethlehem. I'm of the stock of Israel. But he detached himself. And before long, he was deep. This was the story of Lot, isn't it? He went to Sodom, to the borders of Sodom. And before long, we read about Lot being in Sodom. Who knows how far into sin this man went into Moab. We are not taught. I'm sure it left him. worse off than he was when he started off in Bethlehem. Now this is really an example of just how sin can deceive us. We could be someone, probably who is here this morning, and your heart can't see it that you have begun to drift away from God. For whatever reasons, you have decided to disregard God and his word. And you think that God's word is not suited for you, it's not ideal for you. You would think about the ways you can get out of your problems. And this is very sad, brothers and sisters. When you approach saints and challenge them according to God's word, they seem to have their own way of doing things. They would rather stay away and not come, as God has indeed commanded His children to be, to be where they need to be. If it's a question of sin, sin must be confessed and your ways must be retraced back to God. Nothing else hinders. Nothing else should stand in your way and will be acceptable before God. And for this man, it appears, all that he knew seems to have been there in his mind and in the mind of his family as he got there. But with the passage of time, he just stayed there. And I'm sure there were warnings from God whilst in Moab in terms of him to remember where he had come from and the needs for him to remember that he needs to go back. He needs to go back and be effective back in Jerusalem, march together with everyone to go to the temple, Indeed, worship the living God and trust him. And this living that he did in terms of implications on our lives, sometimes we try to avoid God's judgment or God's discipline. And this is a sad thing. There are situations when someone has been disciplined in a church, and to avoid discipline, when they know it's coming their way, they move to another church. They leave church. They think they can get away from God. If you are a member here, God's place for you at this time, your accountabilities to God are here and you must stick here so that God may help you and bless you and lead yourself to him, not to run elsewhere. And he trusted himself. And I did mention when I began that it's so sad that older Christians fall. They fall because often they trust their own judgment. After all, they have been proved. They have counseled people and people have gone on in life very well. They have preached God's word so powerfully and lives have been changed. And they have ministered in whatever ministry faithfully. and they have created this view that they are standing, when like us, like every one of us, we are but survivors by the grace of God, as we stick to the line he has marked out for us. Trust in God, my brother or sister. Lean not on your own understanding. And if you think you stand, take heed, lest you fall. Very easy. Never assume that you can stand. Always feel your desperate need of God. And your own judgment often is wrong. And if you were coming and listening to Elimelech, I'm sure as he was leaving, he must have had very good reasons why he was leaving. And they were all wrong. We are told in Proverbs 14, 12, there is a way that seems right to man, but the end of the way is death. Don't rely on your personal judgment. Trust in God in whatever you do. Or maybe in terms of this declension, this falling away from God, that probably happens in the heart slowly. It usually doesn't happen rapidly. It happens slowly. And for Elimelech, way before he even started off, relationship with God was already in a mess. Are you a church member? When you became a church member, you pledged to attend the Means of Grace on Sundays, on Tuesdays, on Thursdays and Saturdays. And maybe you started well, and before long you had excuses. I'm working too hard, I'm tired, I have so much to do. My work keeps me away from the Lord's day, keeps me away from the means of grace, and indeed, it could be legitimate. But could it be that your soul has drifted away, is drifting away from God, and hence you don't yearn to meet with God's people? You don't regularly attend to the means of grace so that you can be strengthened and be kept in the way. And this comes subtly. At the beginning, you never intend to fall. You never intend to drift away. You never intend to go to Moab. But finally, you find yourself going to Moab. And we must remember that this, I mentioned about the declension happening in the heart, it doesn't always have to have a physical appearance. It happens in the heart. And sometimes it shows itself in our attitudes. become critical. These are unbiblical attitudes. We try to find fault in others, you know, rather than looking at the log in our eyes. We use our tongues, instead of instruments of encouraging and glorifying God, we use them as tools, indeed, of the evil one. Our tongues, we use them to, indeed, hurt others. And this is something we need to search ourselves, my brothers and sisters, if you are a Christian. Has your heart drifted away? If it hasn't done it physically, is your soul, your spiritual life showing that you are actually of God or you are declining slowly? And it's very interesting to know, we read about the prodigal son who left. But you know what? There are prodigals in the church who live spiritually, but they are in the church, and I pray that none of you, none of us is like that. And in case this describes your situation, the intention here is so that you can repent and turn to God, turn to him and find forgiveness and be saved from ways that lead to destruction. So we have Elimelech now in Moab. He has settled down. And then we find some things happening there. We are told that they went to Moab in verse 3 and verse 4. In verse 3, rather, Elimelech, Naum's husband, died. And she was left, her and her two sons, verse 4. Now they took wives. They took wives of women of Moab. The name of one was Opa and the other was Ruth. And they dwelt there about 10 years. Elimelech died. And I believe God is sovereign. He has a way. He knows why he took his life. But I believe also this could have been in judgment. God visited him in judgment. Sin, my brother or sister, carries with it a harsh consequence. It will not go without a consequence. And this was the case in Elimelech's life. His son, he died. And then his sons also died. Elimelech's family was visited with death. after God has tried for his children. And this is a sad reality. Because he loves you, and he will save you if you are his children, his child, he will warn you. And if you don't listen, he may take you like he did, Elimelech. After a while, his sons also died. Elimelech died. This is sad, but true. God may use the extreme means of preserving his children. If you are a Christian on the path of declension, come back to him. He will discipline you so that you repent. And if you don't repent, he will take you home. He will take you home. He did, Elimelech. And by the way, Elimelech must have been a godly man, must have started off as a godly man. because we see the effect of his household, the life of his household, in his daughter's-in-law later on. We have Ruth sticking with the mother-in-law because she had come to believe in the God of the mother-in-law. And she wouldn't do that if Elimelech, his family, and Naomi had not exhibited some form of godliness in Moab. So death visited them, they outmet price for disobedience was paid by Elimelech in Moab, away from Judah. Apart from death, there was desolation. In those days, women were surviving through their husbands. They could not indeed live on their own. And particularly, a foreign woman in a foreign country Here was Naomi with her daughters-in-law left desolate. They were in a poor state with no children, with no husbands to care for them. And these women were left only the three of them. And such is what happens when you insist in the paths of sin. When you wander away to pursue the world, Pursue pleasure. Sin leaves you desolate. And I want to encourage you, if you're in that state, child of God, a believer, come back. The end is desolation. You will be a destitute of your own before God. It may not be physical destitution, but spiritual destitution as well. Come back. and experience forgiveness of God. And it's also sad to think about the effect of this household. Elimelech died and then his children lived on. Because of his choices, that he did not regard the importance of sticking to what God has commanded, he watered down the instructions of God not to go to Moab, and this affected the children. They also made decisions against God's guidance and married from Moab. And if you are a parent, that's some indictment on you. What kind of example are you giving your children? Are you making godly decisions for them? Or are your decisions based on, indeed, this world, so that they can become powerful in this world, so rich? Get all that this world can. And rather than guarding them and showing them the way of the Lord, are you keeping them? Have they seen that in you, that my parents make godly decisions? They will not let me go to a place where they are not sure how my soul is going to be. And I know that it's important and it's good for children to get education. And I just want to encourage you parents, before you send your children to school outside the country, I wonder how many of us take time to consider whether their souls are going to be cared for where they go. Or maybe it's yourself. It may not be education, it could be a job. In a place you know, that is going to disadvantage you and your walk with the Lord, is going to impact your family. Your priorities, according to God's word, is your family after him. You deliberately go against that. And sometimes, like in Elimelech instance, this shows a lack of trust in God. Yes, there was a famine. There was a famine in Bethlehem. Yes, there are challenges you're going to face in life. But then the fact that we have others that survived, and Naomi, Elimelech himself had a relative by the name of Boaz who was there in Bethlehem at the time of the famine, and other women who actually welcomed Naomi when she came back to Bethlehem. They survived the famine. God provided for them as he has promised to provide for his people. Only do not disown him. by making decisions that impact your relationship with him. Now, we get to verse six and verse seven, we find there a ray of hope. There's a ray of hope there. These three women that have remained now, having gone through death, led by Naomi, who heard something, okay? And this hope here basically would lead Naomi to a life of joy and victory once again. And it all began with what she heard. We are told in verse six that Naomi, then she arose with her daughters-in-law, that she might return from the country of Moab, for she had heard. in the country of Moab, that the Lord had visited these people by giving them bread. Naomi had heard. Now that word heard, in its original meaning, has to do with not just hearing, but hearing intelligently, thinking about what you hear, and also considering carefully what you have heard. Not just considering and thinking about what you have heard, but also to obey, an order to obey what you have heard. So she had heard and thought about it. And I just wonder what thoughts were in her mind. She heard that the Lord had blessed his people. The fact is that the Lord had never stopped blessing his people. And if you are a child of God, you have experienced God's provision in hard times. and indeed testimony to Boaz and those women that I mentioned about earlier. God had blessed his people amidst the famine. But for Naomi, she had heard now that there was a blessing. And she had heard that God had visited them, and that what she heard stirred up desire to return back. And maybe she remembered how far she had fallen, how much she had lost of the worship of the living God, how much she missed the sacrifices that were being offered, how much she missed the sweet fellowship she enjoyed with God's people. Whatever the thoughts were, they are in her mind. She finally woke up in Moab, and she wanted to go back home. Isn't that a wonderful picture? I need to go back home. And she was going back home not as the same Naomi. She was not going back with wealth. She had lost her family. She had lost everything. As we see her appear in Bethlehem with nothing. She remembered that she needed to be where God's people were. Are you one such who has fallen? One who has regressed in your walk with the Lord? Remember. that you have a home. You have the people of God. You have God for yourself. And think about it. Come. Repent of your sins. And come. And with these memories of what she used to do probably, she began to yearn all the more to get home. She said, I must go home. And the second thing we see her, apart from just hearing, We see her taking action. Verse 6, she arose with her daughters-in-law. She took action. She repented. At this point, she loved Moab. There was nothing in Moab to hold her. And there was no amount of shame to keep her away from facing Judah, from facing those people she left in Bethlehem. She will appear there as a shameful woman, a woman who had made a wrong decision together with her husband, a woman who had fallen off from where she was. She rose and made up her mind. She needs to go. She had experienced a change of heart. And then there was a change of action. She pictured herself back in Bethlehem. No matter what, I'm going back. Now friend, if you're guilty of going from God, going to Moab, going to the world, then you need to do what Naomi did. It's better, it's far much better to be with the people of God, to be in the Father's house. Remember how good it is to be there. Get yourself together, think about it. and retrace your steps. You know what? Like the prodigal son, God waits for you. He waits for you to come back. He waits for you to come back. And his church also waits for you to come back. It's time to live more. It's time to leave the world. Get back where you need to be. And when you do so like Naomi, when you repent, when you come confessing your sins, you know what happens? The Bible tells us in 1 John 1 verse 9, God is faithful. You know that word? He is faithful. He will forgive you of your sins. Not only forgive you, he will cleanse you from all unrighteousness. Imagine the dark spot that you feel heavily, and perhaps you carry on as you run away and finding ways of getting away from God and his people. He will remove it. He will restore you back to himself. And for Naomi, she rose up, went away, and headed for Judah. And God accepted her, the people of Judah. She faced the shame. But as we go on in the book, We find Naomi emerging, happy, victorious, contented lady, having been visited by God. That would not have happened if she stayed in Moab. She had to go back to Judah. And remember, my brothers and sisters, God never saved you so that you can fall away from him. so that you can pursue ways of the world. He saved you so that you can worship him amongst his people. He saved you so that you can be used in his church for his glory. And nothing should stop you from getting back. In case you have been saying in your heart, ah, me, I'm okay. I think I haven't fallen. I've checked myself. I'm okay. All the parameters are ticking well. There's a warning. If you think you stand, Take heed, lest you fall. And don't go to Moab as a warning if you're a Christian. Don't go to places or to the world. Don't betray your God. Don't leave God's people. He has provided you the church through which you receive his special blessings, through which he blesses you on your way to heaven. And in case you're not a Christian this morning, You're not saved. God is calling you too. The life I've described in Moab and God's forgiveness that is available to those who come before him is also available to you. And the warning, if you linger too long without coming to God, you will pay the ultimate price. You will pay the wages of sin, which is death. all that you will be saved, and that death in hell forever. And I pray that you will, like Naomi, come to your senses, think about it, retrace your steps, and get back to where you once were, or where you need to be. And that is before the Lord, forgiven, and in a right relationship. There is mercy before God. Come to Him. Make no delay. He will save you. Our Father and our God, we come before you to give you thanks for mercy that is with you, that, Father, you forgive sin, and you forgive our wanderings, and you accept us back to yourself as we come to confess our sins. We thank you, Father, for the example that we have seen in Elimelech. We pray that you may help us as your people to make decisions that honor you. Father, that we will not lean on our own understanding, but rather that in all ways, Father, we may acknowledge you so that you may direct our paths. Help us, Father, to love you. The God who is above all, help us to love your people and their abode within the Church. Thank you, Father, for the provision you have given us through the Church, and help us that none of us, Father, will wander away and seek to run away from the provisions you have made. Lord, thank you for your word, and we pray that your blessings now will be upon each of us as we depart from this place, for the honor and praise of your holy name, amen.