We're coming once again this morning to our series of messages that we recently commenced in the book of Ruth. I would have you to turn with me once more to Ruth chapter 1, and there we read in verse 1, Now it came to pass in the days when the judges ruled that there was a famine in the land. As we pointed out previously, This little volume of four chapters in the Word of God is set at a particular time in Israel's history. And it forms a link between two periods of time. The time when the judges ruled and the time when David would come to the throne in 1 Samuel. So, the book of Ruth is literally a bridge between the book of Judges and the books of Samuel. Last time we were considering several things about the book of Ruth. We talked about, obviously, the timing of the book. And the timing of it is given in chapter 21, verse 25 of Judges. In those days, there was no king in Israel. Every man did that which was right in his own eyes. So it was quite literally a time of departure from God. It was a time of apostasy. It was a time when the Lord in mercy raised up various judges or saviors as they were known to deliver them from their enemies. But then again, the people would in turn backslide and go away from God. And this is a constant recurring theme in that book. There was no authority in Israel and everybody pretty much was doing their own thing. Every man did that which was right in his own eyes and that is a time reminiscent of our own time because that's exactly what's going on in the world today. So the timing of the book is very important to note but also its themes. And one definite topic that we said comes to mind in studying Ruth is the promises of God. God keeps His Word. And that certainly was the case with regard to the promise of a Redeemer in Genesis 3.15, the seed of the woman. And the book of Ruth is a part of that, in that the Lord brought about through the line of David He who was to be the Messiah in Israel according to the flesh. And the book of Ruth brings us to the very essence of the gospel because it sets forth in a very real way the person and work of our Redeemer. Our Kinsman Redeemer, the Lord Jesus Christ. The promises of God, that's a theme. The providence of God is another theme. And you can see the hand of the Lord all the way through this book. We pointed out in chapter 2, verse 3, in the margin in your authorized version, It talks about her happened to light on that part of the field. We would say today, it just so happened that she was there in that part of the field. But we know for the Christian, it doesn't just so happen. Because the Lord in His providence is guiding and directing all the time. No accidents, no luck, no chance, no coincidence. God is working to a plan. And that is seen here very much At that period when iniquity and corruption was rife among the people, God was still working. And the Lord in providence brought Ruth into the family of Elimelech and brought her furthermore into the family of God, brought her to be the wife of Boaz, and they were brought together to accomplish God's eternal purpose in bringing forth the Messiah. Then there's another theme that we noted, and that's the provision of God, how God met the needs of His people in giving them bread. He met the need of Naomi herself. He met the need of Ruth by providing her with a husband. And He met the need of Israel, and indeed of all His people, by bringing forth the forerunner of the Redeemer. But then we noted the teaching of the book of Ruth. And we may focus in on its main characters. There are three of them. There's Naomi. We called her the returning saint. You might view her as a type of a backslider who's gone away into a place of bitterness, but who's brought back in the mercy of God. Naomi, the returning saint. Ruth, the repenting sinner. Ruth is an outcast. She's a stranger from the covenants of promise. She's not part of the commonwealth of Israel, but she's made nigh. She's brought in, just as we are, by grace. The repenting sinner. Thy God shall be my God, she said. I'm having done with the gods of Moab. Things are different now. I'm going to be serving Jehovah, the Lord of Israel. And then you have Boaz, the redeeming suitor. The bridegroom. And it's very obvious who he represents spiritually. Even our kinsman, Redeemer, the Lord Jesus. So you have the characters of the book. Then you have the content of the book. Four chapters that contain a developing story. In chapter 1 you have a record of grief. It's a weeping chapter. Chapter 2 is a record of guidance. It's a working chapter where Ruth is in the field, gleaning. Chapter 3 is a chapter of grace, or a wooing and waiting chapter. And chapter 4 is a chapter of grandeur. It is a wedding chapter. It's a story of the heart. And chapter 1 reveals to us sad hearts. Chapter 2 reveals serving hearts. Chapter 3, submissive hearts. Chapter 4, satisfied hearts. And as we pointed out last time, there can hardly be a greater contrast than that which we find at the beginning and the ending of the story of Ruth. Because we quite literally go from funerals to a wedding. From great sadness to great delight. from barrenness to becoming the joyful mother of a child, from estrangement and living as an outcast to being brought to a place of acceptance and covenant relationship. As one writer put it, Ruth was brought from the land of Moab into the line of the Messiah. So the book is a monument to the grace of God. But I want us again to note the words of chapter 21 of Judges verse 25. They are of great significance as we approach the history of Ruth. Especially those words, every man did that which was right in his own eyes. It was a time of backsliding because the people were living as they pleased rather than under God's authority and in obedience to His will. And we know that every believer in Christ should be seeking to live for God's glory. Anything less than heart obedience to the Lord is backsliding. And this always produces real consequences. And so it was here. And this is where we take up the narrative of the book of Ruth. Chapter 1, verse 1, Now it came to pass in the days when the judges ruled, and we know what kind of days they were, when every man did that which was right in his own eyes, that there was a famine in the land. So, let's think about the famine. That's where this book begins. The famine. And it was not by chance. It wasn't just their bad luck that the rains hadn't come that year. This famine was from God. And we have every right to believe that. This was chastisement for the sin of His people. You see, if you study the Old Testament, you will find that the Lord often threatened famine as a punishment, as a judgment, if you like, as a chastisement for sin and for backsliding and waywardness. The Lord threatened to do this earlier on in the law, and at certain times in Old Testament history, He actually did do this. For example, in the days of Elijah, there shall be no rain nor dew upon the land for three and a half years. That's what happened. Elijah said there will be none for three years, but according to my word. But if you study it out, you'll find that there already had been six months before he came on the scene. So for three and a half years, there was drought and famine. It was a judgment upon idolatry and Baal worship. Now if you go back in your Bible to two portions, Leviticus, the third book of the Bible, chapter 26, just notice carefully what the Lord said in verse 20, and again in verse 26. Leviticus 26, verse 20. And your strength shall be spent in vain, for your land shall not yield her increase, neither shall the trees of the land yield their fruits." He's talking about fruit trees. There'll be nothing in the vines. There'll be no crops in the field. There would be famine. In other words, look at verse 26. And when I have broken the staff of your bread, Ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, and they shall deliver you your bread again by weight, and you shall eat and not be satisfied." There's not going to be enough bread. In other words, there's going to be drought. There's going to be famine. In the book of Amos, we read there of how the Lord speaks about the effects of drought and of famine. The Lord said, I give you cleanness of teeth in all your cities. Your teeth are clean either when you use a toothbrush to clean them, or if you steep them in that nice stuff at night, if they don't happen to be permanent, or you haven't eaten for a long time. You wouldn't need to floss your teeth or clean them if you hadn't eaten anything. That's what the Lord means when He says, I will give you cleanness of teeth. Famine. No bread, nothing to eat. This was what the Lord threatened. Again, if you go to Deuteronomy chapter 28, from verse 39 of that portion, this is what it says. Deuteronomy 28 from verse 39. Thou shalt plant vineyards and dress them, but shalt neither drink of the wine nor gather the grapes, for the worms shall eat them. Thou shalt have olive trees throughout all thy coasts, but thou shalt not anoint thyself with the oil, for thine olive shall cast his fruit. Thou shalt beget sons and daughters, but thou shalt not enjoy them, for they shall go into captivity. All thy trees and fruit of thy land shall the locust consume. The Lord says in verse 45, "...moreover, all these curses shall come upon thee, shall pursue thee and overtake thee till thou be destroyed, because..." Here's the reason. "...thou hearkenedest not unto the voice of the Lord thy God to keep his commandments and his statutes which he commanded thee." Famine. This is what happened in the days when the book of Ruth was set. And I want you to notice regarding this famine, Ruth chapter 1, the place where it took place. The famine was in Bethlehem, Judah. We read this in verse number 1. And a certain man of Bethlehem, Judah, went to sojourn. There's the place. Now Bethlehem Judah probably got its name from the produce of the cornfields that were all around there. In Hebrew, the word Beth means house. That's why Bethel means the house of God. El, the word for God. Bethlehem. Beth meaning house. Lechem meaning bread. So Bethlehem, the house of bread. Isn't it interesting? Isn't it ironic? That in the house of bread, there was no bread. There was a famine. No food. Ephrata. That's where you get the word Ephrathite from in verse 2. When it says that they were Ephrathites of Bethlehem Judah. The word Ephrata, the place Ephrata, was along with Bethlehem. It's an older name. It means the fruitful. The fruitful. Because of the fertility of that district. There were vineyards, etc. in that neighborhood. So here we have a situation where there's no bread in the house of bread. And let me just make a comment there. It's an indictment. of formerly faithful Bible-believing churches that in many cases, there's no bread there. There are churches that once preached the gospel, and this morning the gospel is not preached there. There's no food for the souls of the people. And there will be all manner of entertainments and all manner of nonsense that goes on rather than the worship of God. And the one thing that's missing is the gospel. The truth. There's no food. No bread in the house of bread. There are churches, just like there are people, who have a name to live, but they're dead. It should have been the house of bread. It was still called by that name, Bethlehem. It means house of bread. But there was a famine in the land. And there's something worse than physical drought and famine, and that is a spiritual famine. And the Lord spoke of that in the book of Amos, in chapter 8 of that particular book. And in verse 11, Amos chapter 8, verse 11, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land. Notice that. It comes from God. Not a famine of bread. nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord. And they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east. They shall run to and fro to seek the Word of the Lord, and shall not find it." What a sad situation. You can't find a place that preaches the Word of God. That's what God says the judgment looks like. And it's a sad thing when that happens in a nation. That's actually worse than physical drought and famine. A spiritual famine. But here it was a literal famine that this family had to deal with. So we think about the place, we think about the period of course, just to reiterate it was a time of much backsliding and departure from God. As someone said, there is always a famine when there is independence from God. The moment a man moves away from the path of God's truth and of God's will, he is on the road to famine. There is no bread for anyone who walks the path of disobedience from God. Everyone did that which was right in their own eyes. That was when the famine came. And it was also why the famine came. And that brings us to the purpose of the famine. There are two things that I believe can be said here about this famine and its purpose. When God's people sin against him, then he sends a famine of some kind. In Israel, famine of bread and water was often God's method of judging their sin. And so what was the purpose of that? Well, the purpose of that was that it was a call from God to get things right. That's what the Lord was saying through the famine and its consequences. Get right with me. Put things right. There's a reason why the famine has come. And so the famine kind of was like a trumpet sound to God's people to return from their waywardness and their backsliding. But there's another thing to be said, and that is that this famine was providential. Not only was it a clarion call to God's people to get right with Him, but in the providence of God, that which happened here in this instance brought about a reaction. And though that reaction was, I believe, sinful, and we'll come to that in a moment, That wrong action was overruled by a sovereign God. Now, quite frankly, the book of Ruth begins with the famine so that the famine in the land gets the ball rolling, so to speak, concerning the story. A whole chain of events was set off by Elimelech going to Moab and then Naomi returning with Ruth who entered into Boaz's field to work and then she was married to him. Then she had a child who was in the line of David. All of those things began here with a famine. That's how it got started. But though in the providence of God, the Lord brought about certain other events because of reaction to the famine, there should be no mistake in our minds that the famine was God's voice to a backsliding people. And sometimes the Lord uses means to get our attention. We think of the famine, and then we think of the family. They're mentioned here in the first verse, and a certain man of Bethlehem, Judah. The idea, I think, is that the Lord is picking out this individual and speaking about his story. I don't think that we're meant to conclude that everybody else stayed in Bethlehem, Judah, and just Elimelech and his family went to Moab. I think that would be wrong to conclude that. I think there were probably a lot of people who did what he did. But the Lord is picking out this certain man, focusing on him, honing in on his story. Because here's the heart of the book of Ruth. Here's this one individual out of all of the individuals in Bethlehem, Judah. A man of Bethlehem, Judah who went to sojourn in the country of Moab, he and his wife and his two sons. Here's a family of four. They're introduced to us in verse 2, the name of the man was Elimelech. and the name of his wife Naomi, and the name of his two sons Malon and Killion, Ephrathites of Bethlehem Judah." Here's the family. And the famine had significance for and an effect upon particular families. You see, it's one thing to say, well, there was a famine in the land. But the Lord's bringing it right down to a closer look at how it affected People. Here's one family affected by the famine. Obviously, there were many families, thousands of them affected. But the focus of the Spirit of God is on one family in particular. And here they are, Elimelech. If you break down his name in the Hebrew, you have God's name in there, El. Sometimes you'll read, for example, El Shaddai. You'll read God's name in a lot of men's names like Elijah, Elisha and so on. El for God. Melech, that's the Hebrew word for king. So you put that together and what do you find? God my king or God is my king or you might even say my God is king. You could read it depending on your point of view either way. But that's a great name, isn't it? God is my King. What a testimony if that were true. What a testimony if that was genuine and that was real. And we'll be coming back to that in a moment or two. Elimelech, God is my King. Naomi, Naomi means pleasant or delightful or sweet. It's interesting that later in the chapter when she was speaking of what had happened to her, and the people in verse 20 were calling her Naomi, she said unto them, call me not Naomi, call me Mara. In other words, don't call me pleasant, but call me bitter. For the Almighty hath dealt very bitterly with me. Her name means pleasant or pleasant one or sweet or even a delight. Then there's Malon. His name signified sickliness. And Cillion, his name really meant consumptive. Now you know what consumption was in the old days? It was a word for tuberculosis, TB. So, here's a child, he's sickliness. And here's another one, he's consumptive. Now, I'm going to guess, I may be wrong, but I'm going to guess that when those children were born, they weren't well. There was something about the children, perhaps, that caused the parents to give them these names. Sickliness is not a well child. Consumptive. This kid might not even live. I think that's the idea. Perhaps, I say, at birth they showed signs of ill health. I don't know. But I know one thing, that you and I, as we're born, we're born in sin and shapen in iniquity. I know that there's a problem with us when we're born, because we're dead in sin and in trespasses. But anyway, if you think about this family, it's very interesting to me just Looking at the names of the boys, sickliness and consumptive, that they died, it looks like well before old age. Now, I extrapolate that from the story in that they went down to Moab, they stayed for ten years, they got married while they were there, and then the two women, Ruth and Orpah, were widowed. And they were still of an age to be married again, because Naomi makes reference to that. about how you need to go back and find rest, each in the house of your husband. In other words, you need to find partners again. You need to find husbands for yourself. So they were still of marriageable age. So I'm concluding from that, that Malon and Cilion did not live very much even into middle life. Maybe that's why they were called sickliness and consumptive. But in any case, From the Father's name and from Naomi's words later on in the story, we conclude that this was a godly family. Who would ever call their kid, God is my King? But people who loved the Lord, people who served the Lord, this was a godly family. And Naomi certainly spoke like a godly woman as you go through the story. She's always talking about the Lord. She's always speaking about God. But I want you to know that though this was a godly family, they went in a wrong direction. And we'll see that in a moment or two. But suffice to say, this was a family of Ephrathites, of Bethlehem, true Israelites. And the story of Ruth centers upon them. There's the famine. There's the family. And then there's the folly. Let's read the first two verses again. Now it came to pass in the days when the judges ruled that there was a famine in the land and a certain man of Bethlehem Judah went to sojourn. Just underline that. to sojourn in the country of Moab. He and his wife and his two sons. And the name of the man was Elimelech, God is my King. And the name of his wife, Naomi. And the name of his two sons, Malon and Kilion, Ephrathites of Bethlehem Judah. And they came into the country of Moab and continued there." And you can underline that. I say this quite deliberately, that this is a record of folly. Foolishness. Because instead of viewing the famine as the chastening hand of God and God's voice calling for a return to Him, it seems that Elimelech used carnal reasoning and fleshly wisdom and took his family down into Moab. Took them away from the place of the coven relationship with God down into a place where the people were under the curse of God and living in idolatry. That's what happened. I think it's true to say that Elimelech was walking by sight, not by faith. He wasn't looking to the Lord to meet the needs of himself and his family. But he was looking to himself to make a decision how he was going to provide for them. And most writers that I have read are clear on this matter. Elimelech's move to Moab was not a good one. It was not a good move that he made. One writer, for example, calls it, quote, a serious mistake. Leaving the lot of his inheritance which God had appointed to him, in Bethlehem, Judah, and seeking to escape out of the hand of the Lord and from the rod of his wholesome discipline." Running away. Could I suggest that Elimelech would have been better humbling himself before God and seeking for the reason, for the purpose of God's chastening providence? And further, could he not trust the Lord to meet his family's needs even in a time of famine? You know the Lord can do that. Remember the Israelites? It's recorded in one of the Psalms. They said, can God furnish a table in the wilderness? And they were saying it in an accusatory way. But actually the answer to that is clear. God can furnish a table in the wilderness. Because that's what he did. You remember how he rained bread from heaven? And it's interesting, is it not, the Lord didn't send them a great big pile of bread. Do you ever see in some of these places by the turnpike and by some of the other places that Penn got run? Big mounds of salt. All ready for the winter. Now, can you imagine if they were to have just a couple of bucketfuls of salt in there every day? You go in there every day and it's just a couple of bucketfuls. No, they don't do that. They have a big, massive supply of this. Now, you might imagine that God would have done that in Israel. Well, here you people are going to be travelling for years through the wilderness. Here's this big, massive supply of bread. That's not what happened. Every day they went out. And there was the fresh bread on the ground, the mammoth. And they gathered it every single day except the Sabbath. And if they did gather it on the Sabbath, it bred worms and stank. They tried to keep it over to the next day. It bred worms and stank. But on the Sabbath, they would have been punished by the Lord for trying to gather it. The Lord gave them what they needed each and every day. Just like in the Lord's Prayer, we don't pray, Lord, give me for this month my bread. You say, give us day by day our daily bread. Give us this day our daily bread. You shouldn't be living in advance. That's not to say you can't make plans. I know all about 401ks and all that stuff. There's nothing wrong with planning for your retirement, etc, etc. But listen, you may never get to retirement. You may not even get to tomorrow. Give us this day our daily bread. We're to live one day at a time. That's what the Bible says. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. And the Lord can meet your need day by day. When George Muller of Bristol, England, had hundreds and hundreds of orphans to feed, and the price of bread went up, a Christian brother in great distress came to George and he said, What will you do now? And George said, Do? I will do what I have always done. Trust my loving Heavenly Father." God meets the need. No doubt you may have read, some of you, the story of George Muller in one of the orphanages. The larders were empty, the cupboards were bare. He sat the hundreds of kids down at their breakfast table with their little knives and forks and there was no food. And Muller said, we're going to thank the Lord for the breakfast. And the kids were like, breakfast. And he prayed. And he thanked the Lord for what they were going to receive from him. When he finished praying, there came a knock at the door of the orphanage. Muller went out and opened the door. And there was a bread server. In those days, you would have had a horse and cart delivering bread. And this bread server, he said, My cart wheel has come off. I'll not be able to get this delivered today. Can you use this bread?" And there the kids were going out furiously unloading these loaves of bread, bringing them in. And they not only had breakfast, but had quite a bit to eat for later on in the day and the next day as well. See, God is able to meet your need even in a time of famine. Now, this is not what Elimelech did. And I've referred to this as his folly, a foolish decision and a foolish action in removing his family from Bethlehem and taking them to Moab. The move made sense physically and materially, no doubt about that. There was no bread in the house of bread, so let's go where there's bread, right? That's what the worldly mindset says that we should do. It didn't make any sense, however, spiritually, for him to do what he did. That's the point. But that's what many believers in Christ often do, in decisions that they make, in moves that they make, in decisions that they take. You know there are Christians who take their families away from a good and faithful church to some place where there's no decent church. And why do they do that? Well, it might be a career move. Or it might just be a desire to live in a nicer place or whatever. But it leads to spiritual disaster. It's an act of folly. And in Elimelech's case, it was so. Notice the downward steps here. I think it's really significant that verse 1 says, A certain man of Bethlehem Judah went to sojourn in the country of Moab. That word sojourn is used a number of times in the Scripture. It's used of, for example, Jacob and Abraham and Isaac and so on who dwelt in tents. They sojourned. It means that they just stayed for a little while in that place. When you sojourn somewhere, it's like stopping over at a motel for the night. They went to sojourn in the country of Moab. You know what that tells me? There was no intention to stay. Elimelech did not intend for his family to settle down in Moab. But look at the next verse. At the end of the verse we read, And they came into the country of Moab and continued there. It doesn't say they sojourned there. It says they continued there. They got their roots down. And furthermore, it tells us in verse 4 that the sons, after their father's death, took them wives of the women of Moab. The name of the one was Orpah. The name of the other Ruth. And they dwelled there about ten years. So much for going to Moab to sojourn there. They stayed there. They settled down there. They got their roots down. They built a house, they didn't just have a tent. You know, when you have a tent, you pull up the tent pegs, you fold up the tent and you move on. When you build a house, you're staying. That's what they did, they stayed. And you can imagine how it was at the beginning, can't you? You can imagine this conversation the limelight's having with his wife and with the sons. We're running out of bread here. There's going to come a time when we've nothing else left to eat. And by the way, I want you to see later on in the chapter that I'm not just making this up and this is not just conjecture because Naomi actually said, verse 21, I went out full and the Lord hath brought me home again empty. So I don't think they'd actually reached that point yet when they left to go to Moab where they were destitute. That hadn't happened yet, but they could see it coming. So this was a move that Alimilech said we're going to make. This is what we're going to do. We're going to design, but we're not staying. Now you fellas don't get too used to living in Moab because we're not staying, right? We're only going there for a little while. We're going on a vacation so that we'll have something to eat. And whenever things improve, we'll be moving back home. But that's not what happened. They settled down and they got comfortable in Moab. In the Bible, Egypt is a type of the world. The Bible always talks about going down into Egypt. You ever notice that? They went down into Egypt. Now I know that you could say that's because geographically that's what you do, but it was also true spiritually. They went down when they went to Egypt. But while Egypt is a type of the world, Moab is a type of the flesh. Back in the book of Judges, you read of a big fat man, a big king called Eglon. And there was a judge called Ehud who had a dagger. who put the dagger into Eglon's belly and his belly just swallowed up the whole knife. Eglon is a type of the flesh and he was a king of Moab. I don't think that's an accident. But if you notice the origin of Moab and of the Moabites, this is even more well illustrated and confirmed. Go back to Genesis chapter 19. This is a sad story. Here's another man who went in a wrong direction, and his name was Lot. And I'm going to tell you something, if it were not for the verses that are written in the New Testament in 2 Peter about Lot, I would conclude from what I read in the Old Testament that he wasn't saved. I'm telling you, that's the conclusion that I would reach. Because here's a man who goes and sits in the gate of Sodom. He becomes an elder in Sodom. Next thing you find him living in Sodom. He's married to a woman of Sodom whose heart is in Sodom. And whenever he's made to leave Sodom, he wasn't even going to leave. The Lord had to get the angels to take him by the hand and compel him to come out. And his wife wanted to go back, and that's why she looked back. She looked back because her heart was still in Sodom, though her body was outside. She wanted to go back. That's where her heart was. And looking back, she turned into a pillar of salt. She was literally petrified by the Lord. And Jesus in Luke chapter 17 said, Remember Lot's wife. Remember Lot's wife. That's a warning. But Lot comes out with his daughters, his sons-in-law. They didn't come out because they mocked him. That's the kind of characters the daughters married in Sodom. Who would you expect your daughters to meet in Sodom? But characters that have no time for God. Whenever he warned them of the impending judgment, you know what the Bible says? His sons-in-law, he seemed as one that mocked to them. You're kidding us, Lot. Judgment of God? You must be joking. That's what they said. So they stayed in Sodom. They were destroyed. His wife was destroyed. Lot comes out. He's with his daughters. It goes from bad to worse. Because here the old drink goes in and the wit goes out. His daughters made him drink. You know, bad things happen when people start drinking wine. And they made their father drink wine. And the firstborn went in and lay with her father, and he perceived not when she lay down or when she arose. And the next daughter, she did the same thing the following night, and they made him drunk again, so that they could preserve seed of their father." Unbelievable, isn't it? The Bible refers to him in the New Testament as Just Lot. A justified man. who vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds. He was a righteous man. But here he is. He's in a bad place. Thus, Genesis 19.36 says, Thus were both the daughters of Lot with child by their father. Incest. And the firstborn bear a son and called his name Moab. The same as the father of the Moabites unto this day." They didn't exactly have a great pedigree, did they? Then you read on, the other son, his name was Ben-Ami. The same as the father of the children of Ammon unto this day. The Moabites and the Ammonites, they became a thorn in the side of Israel for generations. A type of the flesh Moab is therefore. And so when we look again at Elimelech in Ruth chapter 1, you've got Elimelech and his family who found food for their bodies in Moab, but they found famine for their souls. And that's always the way it's going to be when you go in a wrong direction. Folks, we need to put the needs of our souls first. Put the needs of your soul first. Matthew 6.33, But seek ye first, not second or third, but seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you. You know, we need to be careful about the decisions that we make, about where we're going to go, what we're going to do. We need to be consulting God about those things. And by the way, there are some things you don't even have to consult God about because He's already told you. He's already told you in His Word that it's not right. You know, there's things I don't have to pray, Lord, is it right for me to go there? Is it right for me to do it? I know it's not right. Because the Word of God already tells me that it's not right. But you know, sometimes we want to go our own way and the Lord will let us go our own way. Psalm 106 verse 15, listen to this. And he gave them their request. The previous verse tells us what that was. The people of Israel lusted exceedingly in the wilderness and tempted God in the desert. And he gave them their request, but sent leanness into their soul. Do you know what that means? When he sent leanness into their soul? That's a famine. That's spiritual famine. Leanness. because they wanted to go a certain way. And friend, God might just allow you to have what you want sometimes, but it will result in your soul being famished. You get away from the path of obedience and your soul will begin to starve. And there are many of God's people across the landscape of our land and they're like shipwrecks because they've gone in the wrong way. And you look at their families. and their families are a testimony to the fact that they've gone the wrong way. Our time is about gone, but I think it's worthy of saying that when the Bible talks about a famine, it reminds us of the position of every unsaved person. The unsaved person has a soul that is starved. Christ alone is described in Scripture as the bread of life. He is food for our souls. He is food for the hungry soul. And the gospel furthermore is set forth in terms of a great feast. You can read Isaiah chapter 55. And the invitation there in that portion is to the gospel feast. Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters. And he that hath no money, come ye buy and eat. Yea, come buy wine and milk without money and without price. And then listen to this. Wherefore do you spend money for that which is not bread, and your labour for that which satisfieth not? I remember hearing the testimony of a friend who was a terrible gambler. I mean, his life was completely out of control because of gambling. And he was invited along to a gospel service and a man was preaching in that text. Wherefore do you spend money for that which is not bread? The Lord got a hold of him and saved his precious soul. Come for all things are now ready is the invitation in Luke chapter 14. There is a great feast that spread. And men are invited to that feast. Come, for all things are now ready. The invitation of the psalmist is, O taste and see that the Lord is good. Blessed is the man that trusteth in Him. Don't starve. Don't die of starvation. Remember, as the prodigal son said, in my Father's house there's bread enough and to spare. May the Lord help us to be people who walk in the way that the Lord would have us to walk. May we learn what God is saying to us when the famine comes. May we not resort to carnal policy and use our own foolish judgment instead of seeking the Lord and going in His way. May the Lord help us to follow in the way that He has set out. Amen.