We're returning this morning to the book of Ruth. I would like you to open up your Bible at that book and at chapter 1. We will read the first two verses. 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 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 Naomi, and the name of his two sons Malon and Chilion, Ephrathites of Bethlehem Judah. And they came into the country of Moab and continued there." In studying the book of Ruth, we have already seen how it all began. It was a book set at a particular time in Jewish history. It was in the days when the judges ruled. And in those days when the judges ruled, there was a famine in the land. Then there is a description of a certain man and his wife and sons. And so we learn first of all that there was a famine and then there was a family. But then we have to say there was a folly. The foolishness is seen in these words. He went to sojourn in the country of Moab. Big mistake. An even bigger mistake is that in verse 2, at the end of the verse it says, they came into the country of Moab and continued there. And that's further developed in verse 4 where it says, and they dwelled there about ten years. A famine, a family, and a folly. When we talked about the famine, we said this was no happenstance, it was not bad luck, it wasn't just chance. This was justicement from God because of the sin of His people. We notice the place of the famine, Bethlehem, Judah. Beth-lehem, as it is in the Hebrew, literally means house of bread. And so in the house of bread, where you would expect plenty, there was a famine. They were Ephratites, these people, and Ephrata is the older name for Bethlehem, and it literally means the fruitful. So here's a place of bread, here's a place known for its fruitfulness, and there's famine there. That was a sad situation, and it was because of God's judgment, God's chastisement. We talk about the place, we talk about the period, we reiterated the fact that it was a time of much backsliding and departure from God when every man did that which was right in his own eyes, reminiscent of our own day. And I believe that the two things are connected. The fact that There was no king in Israel that every man did that which was right in his own eyes. The last verse of the book of Judges. It was in those days when the judges ruled that there was a famine in the land. The Lord sent this famine. It came at a particular time. But not only did it come at a particular place and at a particular period, but for a particular purpose. When God's people sin against the Lord, He will send a famine of some kind. And we know that in the Old Testament, a famine of bread and water was very often the method that God used to judge the sin of His people. And what was the purpose of that? It was a clarion call to them to get right with God. That's why the Lord sends a famine into the life of His child. It's like blowing a trumpet in His ear to get his attention to return from waywardness and backsliding. Now this famine was providential. It started the ball rolling in the book of Ruth and the chain of events set off by Elimelech going to Moab resulted in Ruth coming to marry Boaz and having a child who was in the line of the Messiah. The family. This family was a particular family. Their names had significance and we'll come back to some of that in a moment. But as well as this family, we learn about the folly. And it was folly to go to Moab. Instead of looking to the Lord, Elimelech appears to have used fleshly wisdom. He was walking by sight, not by faith as he should have been. And so his move to Moab was not a good one. It was a serious mistake on his part. He should have been humbling himself before God, looking to God for the purpose of this providential famine, and furthermore, looking to the Lord to meet his own and his family's needs in time of famine. Because the Lord is able to do that. But that's not what he did. He made a bad move. And as we pointed out, you see the downward steps here. The intention in verse 1 was to sojourn, but in verse 2 they continued there. And it's often like that when it comes to backsliding and sin. We don't intend for it to go as far as it goes. We don't intend for things to develop the way that they do. But here's a man who settled down, who became comfortable in a place where he should never have been comfortable. And that is in Moab, which in the Bible is a type of the flesh. I want to go on to say a little bit more about this sad beginning to the book of Ruth. Indeed, Elimelech made a serious mistake, as many other believers in history have made serious mistakes in the moves that they have made. Elimelech took his family to Moab, which was an idolatrous country. And I want us to think further upon this move that he made to Moab and say basically two things today about that. We may refer first of all to the sad fallout of this move. The sad fallout. As we pointed out last time, the intention of this man, according to verse 1, was only to stay until the immediate crisis was over. I think that's very clear. a certain man went to sojourn in the country of Moab, he, his wife and his two sons. You can imagine him gathering them together at home and saying, now look, there's a famine, I've heard that there's plenty of bread in Moab, we're going to go down there, but we're not going to stay. We don't want you to think that we're making this move permanent, because we're not. We're just going there for a short time until this crisis is passed. Until this particular providence is gone and there's plenty of bread again in the house of bread. I can imagine that being said. That was the intention. But as we pointed out last time, verse 2 records at the end of the verse, and they came into the country of Moab, just as they intended to do, But then it says, and continued there. In other words, they settled down in Moab. They became comfortable in Moab. And can we not learn from this that sin and backsliding, even in the life of a Christian, are insidious things? The devil is so subtle, he's so crafty, He is described in Scripture as that old serpent. And when he is first introduced on the page of Scripture in Genesis chapter 3, the Bible tells us about him, that this serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field. The craftiest of all. Here was a downward step that Elimelech took. that led on to further problems as they continued there. And we will see in due course how that it even resulted in death. Because sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death. Sin has a killing effect upon the life. Like Lot in Sodom, of whom we read in the book of Genesis, there was no apparent intention to remain in that place. But he ended up staying there and settling down there. And in Ruth chapter 1 verse 4, it says of the remainder of the family at the end of the verse, and they dwelled there about ten years. It doesn't say they sojourned there. It says they dwelled there. There was a permanence now about this. They had formed relationships there. Family life became very settled there. They stayed in Moab. That was never what Elimelech wanted, in my opinion. That's why the Holy Spirit says he went to sojourn. That's telling us what was in his heart. That's telling us what his intention was. Sojourning is something that you do when you're moving on. The Bible, for example, in Hebrews chapter 11 speaks about the patriarchs. And it describes them as dwelling in tabernacles. And the word for tabernacle is tent. That's what a tabernacle is. The actual tabernacle in Israel was a tent. It had a little bit more of a permanence about the structure as far as having wood and various other materials, but it was basically a large tent. It could be taken down, folded up and moved on. And so in Hebrews chapter 11, it says of those patriarchs that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. That's Hebrews 11 verse 13. But if you go just back a few verses into Verse 9, it says of Abraham, Hebrews 11, 9, By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles, it means tents, with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise. For, because he looked for a city which hath foundations, this is something permanent, whose builder and maker is God. And by the way, this is us in the world We're supposed to be here dwelling in tents. We're not here to stay. Someday we're going to fold up the tent and we're going to move on to the permanent dwelling place, heaven itself. Sojourning is what you do when you're not staying. But of course, this is how sin often operates in the life. It leads on to further sin, further problems. So we need to be aware of the first downward step into sinful living. Elimelech allowed himself to be brought into that situation because he was guided only by circumstances. That's always a very dangerous thing. Guided by circumstances. And so it meant that his family had food for their bodies, but a famine in their souls. And that's always a great danger. We can say of this sad fallout that his posterity was damaged. Look at verse 4 of chapter 1. And they, that's Malon and Cilion, the two sons. And they took them wives of the women of Moab. The name of the one was Orpah and the name of the other Ruth. And they dwelled there about ten years. Here's another downward step. Elimelech takes his family down into Moab, an idolatrous country, and of course, as human nature always turns out, they met girls there. And they got married to those girls. They were heathen women. They were not believers in the God of Israel. They were idol worshippers. It shouldn't have happened. But it did happen because of Elimelech's decision to take his family into that place. Back in Deuteronomy chapter 7, we have one of a number of different scriptures that speak of the dangers of marrying the heathen. You can read about that also in Exodus chapter 34. You can read about it in the book of Ezra, where the Lord condemned the very same thing. Marrying their sons to heathen daughters and so on. Daughters to sons. But in Deuteronomy 7, verse 3, we have this reference concerning those nations that were outside of Israel. Neither shalt thou make marriages with them. Thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son. For they will turn away thy son from following me, that they may serve other gods, so will the anger of the Lord be kindled against you and destroy thee suddenly." So here's the warning from God concerning mixed marriages. It shouldn't have happened, but it was the fallout from Elimelech's compromising move to Moab. He led his family into that environment. And let me say, even inadvertently, Christians might lead their families astray by taking them to places where spiritual conditions are not as good as the physical surroundings. You know, people sometimes move to other places as part of a career move, or they emigrate, or they have to move for some other reason, or they think they have to move for some other reason. And one of the problems about that is that Very often the last thing that they think about is the spiritual welfare of both themselves and their families. You know, someone will say, well, there's a great place to go live. We can have a nice house there to live in. And then they get there and realize, oh, there's no good church here. Where are we going to worship the Lord? And that becomes a big problem. Then they settle down there and their families begin to assimilate within that community and so on. They meet people, bad company, and so it goes on. And so what started out as a move that was to help perhaps their material situation, it became a really bad move spiritually. And I think as parents we need to be more concerned about the souls of our children than their material circumstances. Now, don't get me wrong. It's not that I don't think that we should be concerned about their physical and material welfare. We want them to have enough. We want them to have a nice house to live in. We want them to live in a nice place. We want them perhaps to have good jobs and so on and so forth. But let's not get our priorities askew. Let's not get them out of whack. Let's remember that what might be good for somebody material might be very bad for them spiritually. Let's be concerned about the souls of our children. It's a big mistake when we think about all the other considerations in their lives, but we don't think about their spiritual welfare. What is going to help that along? Now I want to say this, verse 1 shows us Elimelech's responsibility for this move. He was the head of his home. And the Bible says, And a certain man of Bethlehem, Judah, went to sojourn in the country of Moab, he and his wife and his two sons. He led them into that situation. He was the one with the responsibility as the head of the household responsible before God for the welfare of his family. Now, this is biblical. I know it's not popular in the day in which we live. Feminism is alive and well, and there's a lot of men who are feminists and effeminate. 1 Corinthians 11 tells us in verse 3, But I would have you know that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is the man, and the head of Christ is God. So there's an order, there's a structure in God's Word that He has established. And furthermore, speaking to the fathers, and there are a lot of fathers who abdicate their responsibilities in this matter, but speaking to the fathers, Ephesians 6 verse 4 says, and ye fathers, Provoke not your children to wrath, but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Some will argue that the word there, fathers, is parents. And I do believe that mothers have a great responsibility in bringing up their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, but especially the fathers. We need men today who are leaders in their homes, leaders of their wives and their families, in their homes, taking on the position of prophet, priest and king. Prophet to teach them the Word of God, priest to pray for them, and king to rule with diligence and with kindness in the home. That's God's order. Elimelech, I believe, made a bad move, There was a sad fallout from it. His posterity was damaged. Almost, you would say, irreparably. His profession was denied. Now, what do you mean, Pastor, his profession was denied? Well, look with me again at the first verse. In the middle of the verse it says, And a certain man of Bethlehem Judah went to sojourn in the country of Moab. Verse 2, And the name of the man was Elimelech. There are two words that make up his name. El for God. Melech, which is the word for king. His name literally means, God is my king. Or you could say, my king is God. Whichever way you want to look at it. My God is King, or God is my King. But that name is setting forth a profession. It's telling us something about this man. Biblical names, especially in the Old Testament, did have significance. And especially, I think, we can assume that this man's parents were godly people. To give him a name like that, My God is King, or God is my King. That's a significant name. A profession is represented in that name. The God of the covenant was his sovereign Lord. But by doing what he did, you could say that Elimelech was denying what his name professed. God is my King. Well, if God's your King, why are you going to Moab? If you're saying, God is my King. He's the King of my life. God rules over my life. Why are you going to Moab as a child of God? He's denying what His name professed Him to be. And how many have done this in their own lives? You see, we all who profess the Lord's name bear his name. The name Christian was actually first given, you can read about it in the book of Acts chapter 11, it was first given to believers in Antioch as a nickname. The Bible doesn't say they called themselves Christians, it says they were called Christians at Antioch. It was given to them as a nickname, particularly by people who didn't believe. Those people are Christians. The word Christian literally means Christ's One. One who belongs to Christ. That's a Christian. Now, taking that definition, you have to say that name is misused. There's a lot of people who say they're Christians, but they don't belong to Christ. They're not followers of Christ at all. Christ has virtually no part in their lives at all. But yet if you press them, they'll say they're Christian. Oh, I'm a Christian. It's more of a denominational affiliation, I guess, than anything else. I'm not a Muslim. I'm not a Hindu. I'm a Christian. That could mean anything. But there's something about that name, Christian. Christ's one. And if you say you're Christ's one, that means you belong to Christ. You're a follower of Christ. You're a bearer of His name. Christian. You actually have His name in your name. You're professing to be His. Christian. Christ's one. But what do we read in the book of Revelation? We studied this some time ago in our series on the seven churches. In Revelation 3, verse 1, These things saith he that hath the seven spirits of God and the seven stars, he says this, I know thy works that thou hast a name that thou livest and art dead. Think about that. Thou hast a name that thou livest and art dead. You've got the name of being alive, but you're dead spiritually. It's not enough just to possess the name. without the reality that that name represents. Now obviously these words were written to a church, and there are churches that take names. And those names suggest something to us. You know, someone says they're a Baptist. There's a particular emphasis on one of the ordinances in that name. They are baptizers by a certain mode and method. and are very strong on the fact that it has to be believers who are baptized, Baptists. There are those who take the name Presbyterian. Presbyteros is the Greek word for elder. Presbyterian simply signifies government by elders. And you have others who take other names. And that should mean something when people hear that name. And of course, it used to be that when you had a name of a church that was mentioned, it would bring up before people's minds certain things. But I think that has changed greatly. And there are churches that have a name that represents something. It's a reputation, a profession of some sort of stand or position that they take. But sadly, you could ask, of what value is a reputation if there's no reality? You say you believe this because your name suggests that, but you actually don't believe it. And what's true of churches can be true on an individual basis as well. Elimelech, God is my King, or my God is King. What good is it to have a name like that if the reality is not there? Let me ask you, what good is it to have the name of a Christian? if you are in reality dead in your sins. A name could well suggest something that is true of you. But what if it is untrue? One of our hymns, What Think Ye of Christ, says this, What Think Ye of Christ is the test to try both your state and your scheme. You cannot be right in the rest unless you think rightly of Him. As Jesus appears in your view, as He is beloved or not, so God is disposed to you. And mercy or wrath is your lot. But I like this verse. Some call Him the pearl of great price. and say He's the fountain of joys, yet feed upon folly and vice, and cleave to the world and its toys. Like Judas, the Saviour they kiss, and while they salute Him, betray. Oh, what will profession like this avail in His terrible day? Indeed, what will profession like this avail in that terrible day? A reputation may be had by someone publicly, and the private reality be something very different. My mother used to say some really funny things. I remember one saying of hers that always stuck with me. She said, if you get the name of being an early riser, you can lie in your bed all day long. Everybody thinks you're one of these guys that's up with the birds, and if they think that, that's the reputation you've got, you can lie in bed all day. You get the name of being an early riser and just lie in bed all day. In other words, the name that you get is very different from the reality. And I'm afraid that today in many a church, the profession is a mere veneer and a covering for a different reality. A name to live, but dead. Elimelech denied his profession. The profession that was in his name was denied by his actions. Now Christ is the King of his church. God is my King, his name said. Christ is the King. God is the King, if you're a professing believer. And as Christians, we confess Him as our Sovereign Lord. But is He really the King of your life? It's so easy to sing those words, isn't it? That lovely hymn, King of my life. I crown thee now. Thine shall the glory be. Lest I forget thy thorn-crowned brow. Lead me to Calvary. King of my life. But is He really King of your life? Or is there somebody else or something else on the throne of your heart? Someone wrote this. Does our profession have substance and meaning? Or does our life argue against our profession? Do our actions and our words and our behaviour in our homes and our families and communities argue against the very profession we are making as Christians? It's very searching that. Elimelech's name professed a subjection to the king. God is my king. But his actions gave the lie to that profession. Because he went down to Moab. And this was wrong. And the sad fallout proves to me that it was wrong. But as well as the sad fallout, there's this other thing I want us to notice. And that is the spiritual fundamental that we learn from the story. What is that spiritual fundamental? What is this fundamental truth that the story of Elimelech in particular teaches us? It's very simple. And it's this. The end does not justify the means. You see, some might argue in reading the book of Ruth, well, look at how all of this worked out in the end for good. Think about that. Isn't that true? Okay, Elimelech and his family went down to Moab. But look, if he hadn't gone there, his two sons would not have met their wives and therefore Ruth would never have met the son and married him. And then, in turn, Ruth would never have returned with Naomi to Bethlehem and got married to Boaz and then had the child and been in the line of the Messiah. So, after all, it worked out, didn't it? It all worked out. So, it must have been the will of God for Elimelech to go to Moab, right? Wrong. Wrong. Now what am I saying? I'm saying that God can bring good out of an evil course of action. Of course He can. He does it all the time. God can overrule even sinful behavior. We know that. Everyday life teaches us that. The Bible teaches us that. The stories of church history teach us that. God overrules even sinful behavior. Think of the men who were burned at the stake and the hundreds and hundreds of converts that were won to Christ as a result of that. Now, does that mean that the men that burnt them to the stake were right in burning them? Of course they weren't right. It was murder. It was sin. But God overruled it for His own glory. God can overrule sinful and wicked behavior. He does, but sin is still sin for all that. And an action cannot be justified because it is followed by some kind of blessing. And let's learn this fundamental spiritual principle. I believe that nothing can justify Elimelech's move to Moab, whatever happened afterwards. What he did was wrong. And it reminds me of another action that was taken by a man of God. in the Old Testament. His name is Moses. And I want you to turn with me to Numbers chapter 20. We have a record there, a story there, of how the Lord was going to provide water for His people. Of course, this is not the first time it happened. The Lord had provided water before through Moses taking the rod and smiting a rock. But notice in this particular instance, Numbers chapter 20, the people thought they were going to die because they didn't have any water to drink. That's what it says in verse 5, neither is there any water to drink. So then they went, Moses and his brother Aaron, before God. They fell on their faces. Verse 6, the glory of the Lord appeared and the Lord spake unto Moses saying, now look at these words carefully, Numbers 20 verse number 8, take the rod, and gather thou the assembly together, thou and Aaron thy brother, and, mark this, speak ye unto the rock before their eyes. And it shall give forth his water, and thou shalt bring forth to them water out of the rock, so thou shalt give the congregation and their beasts drink." And Moses took the rod from before the Lord as he commanded him. So far, so good. He's doing what God told him to do. Verse 10, And Moses and Aaron gathered the congregation together before the rock. And he said unto them, Hear now, ye rebels, must we fetch you water out of this rock? And Moses is angry now. And when you do things in anger, it usually doesn't turn out well. Verse 11, And Moses lifted up his hand, and with his rod he smote the rock twice. He didn't speak to it, he smote it. Twice. But look, and the water came out abundantly, and the congregation drank, and their beasts also." Ah, great! It all worked out. We need water? We've got water. So what if it wasn't just quite the way that God told me to do it? Turns out the same in the end, right? The results are all that matters. That's all that really matters here is that we get the water. That's how What we used to call New Evangelicals, who I now call Conservative Evangelicals, will argue about a lot of things. It doesn't matter if it's compromise. It doesn't matter who you have to join up with to do the Lord's work. As long as you do the Lord's work, it doesn't matter in the end. It doesn't matter that God says come out from among them and be separate. It doesn't matter that He says have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness. It doesn't matter that God teaches separation in His Word. As long as we get the end result, that's all that matters. That's how men argue. But look at this portion. Numbers 20, the next verse, verse 12, And the LORD spake unto Moses and Aaron, Because ye believed Me not to sanctify Me in the eyes of the children of Israel, therefore ye shall not bring this congregation into the land which I have given them. This is the water of Meribah, because the children of Israel strove with the LORD, and He was sanctified in them. You got the water Moses? You're not getting into the promised lands. Because you disobeyed me. I told you to speak to the rock and you smote the rock twice. Now this is a portion from which we can extrapolate spiritually that Moses broke God's type. You think of Christ as the rock? And to smite Christ all over again, such as is done in Romanism through the blasphemous mass, is something that God is against. Jesus was smitten once for our sins that we might have the water of life. But the point that we need to take away from this is that people often try to excuse things that are wrong by referring to the good that results from it. I could give a number of examples. Getting married to an unbeliever. Oh, I know I shouldn't have married that unsaved person. But you know what? It all worked out in the end. God saved him. God saved her. It all worked out in the end. God may have been gracious in saving that person, but it doesn't change the fact that God's command in 2 Corinthians 6 and 14 is, Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers. Period. God's Word is not negotiable. It's not for you or for me to say, well, I know that that's generally true, but in this instance, it's not to be heeded. No, God's Word is always true. Do you know that Dr. Billy Graham, and I know he's an old man. People say, oh, you shouldn't talk about an old man like that. He's close to death. Listen, Billy Graham's ministry was blighted and destroyed by compromise. Every time I drive down I-85 on the way to South Carolina, I passed by a sign on the highway for Belmont Abbey College. You know what Belmont Abbey College is? It's a Roman Catholic institution. An institution of learning that gave to Billy Graham an honorary degree. And when he was there, and this was decades ago, He said to the assembled people there, the gospel that built this school and the gospel that I preach is still the power of God unto salvation. What an abomination. The gospel that built this school. What gospel is that? The gospel never built any Roman Catholic institution, I can tell you that. Nothing to do with the gospel. It's the very antithesis of the gospel. It's the opposite of the gospel. It's a denial of the gospel. The Church of Rome is anti-Christ. Not a Christian church. Oh, but old Billy. Old Billy, he can say these things. Why? So that he can get their support. so that he could have their backing. Then he would have crusades in soccer stadia and football stadiums and all that sort of thing, get them filled out with all the congregants from those churches. I saw it when I was in Scotland way back in 1992. What a parcel of compromisers that were going into those meetings every night. Can you imagine nuns, nuns as counsellors? For people coming out supposedly to get saved? Saved for what? Saved for the Church of Rome? What an abomination. I remember talking to a man at the time and he said to me, Brother, I'm not going back in there to do any counselling, because as far as I'm concerned, most of the counsellors that are in there need to be saved. Billy Graham used to justify his compromise, and by the way, Franklin Graham does the same thing. Don't be thinking that Franklin Graham is some great thing. Because he's against Islam, and that's what he always focuses on all the time, Islam, doesn't mean that he's a servant of Christ. He may say a lot of good things, but I can tell you he's a compromiser when it comes to the Church of Rome. He's a compromiser when it comes to speaking about the Pope, and he goes soft on the Church of Rome. Just because he's against abortion doesn't mean he's a great guy, because that still puts him in the same orbit as the Roman Catholic Church. He's not any threat to their kingdom. But old Billy the Dad, he justified his compromise with infidels and Romanists by referencing the results. Look at the people that are saved at our crusades. Look at the hundreds and thousands of people all coming to Christ, just as I am without one plea. I see that hand. While others are coming, you come. All traipsing out to the front. Some of them don't even know why they're going out to the front. Oh, but the results. Oh, it's wonderful. So great, isn't it? No, it's not. Such compromise is wrong, whatever blessing appears to come from it. But brother, what about the people that have genuinely been saved through Billy Green? What about them? What about them? I read in the Bible about a donkey that spoke, and it spoke God's Word. You're going to tell me that we should have donkeys preaching? It's never right to do wrong in order to get a chance to do right. Let me say that again, in case you missed it. It is never right to do wrong in order to get a chance to do right. That's a spiritual principle. Right is always right and wrong is always wrong. And as old Dr. Bob Jones used to say in his day, do right till the stars fall. Elimelech didn't do that. Do not judge something to be right, friends, just because of the way it turns out in the end. Don't imagine that the move to Moab was a good move because in the end Ruth became a believer and the line of the Messiah was being protected. Don't believe that lie of the devil that going down to Moab was a good thing. It was not a good thing. We can't judge something to be right just because of the way it turns out in the end. Please don't do that. In our Bible reading, we were in the book of Jonah quite deliberately. And with this, I want to finish. Jonah chapter 1 begins with the Word of the Lord coming to Jonah. What was that Word? Verse 2. Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it, for their wickedness has come up before me. That is God's commission. That is God's charge to the prophet. No ifs, buts or maybes. No, well Lord, what about this? What about that? No, this is what I want you to do. So what does he do? Verse 3 says, but, and that's never a good sign when you read but. That means it's not doing what God wants him to do. But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. Where was Tarshish? Tarshish was in the exact opposite direction from Nineveh. He rose up to flee. He went down to Joppa. Joppa was a sea port. It says in verse 3, and he found a ship going to Tarshish. Imagine that. He wants to go to Tarshish. There's a ship going to Tarshish. Wow. It's all working out. And by the way, if you read the Hebrew here, you'll find that going to Tarshish means it was about to go. It was just about to leave. If you've ever been to the dots and seen them reeling in those big things that they use for moorings, they were lifting the moorings. The anchor was already lifted. It was about to leave. So, he got there just in time. Wow! It's all working out. So, he paid the fare thereof. He had the money to go. It's working out. And he went down into it to go with them unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. And despite the storm that's described in verses 4 and 5 that scurred the living daylights out of these sea men, it says in verse 5, but Jonah was gone down into the sides of the ship and he lay and was fast asleep. Now what does that tell me? It tells me that Jonah hadn't a car in the world. Jonah was totally at peace with the decision that he had made. Must be the will of God, right? That's what people would argue. It must be the will of God. I mean, he wants to go to Tarsus. There's a ship that's going there. He's got the money to get on board. There's room on board. He gets on board. He's asleep. It must be the right thing to do. But that's all circumstantial. It doesn't change the word of verse 2, which is the word of the Lord. Arise, go to Nineveh. That's what I want you to do. Friends, don't judge something to be right just because of the way it seems to be turning out. Oh, that must be right. That must be the right thing to do. Because it's all turning out. It's all working out. Maybe it is, in your opinion. But it's still disobedience. And think about the cross. God ordained the cross. It was by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God that the Lord Jesus was there. But the hands that nailed Him there, according to Peter's sermon, were wicked hands. They were the murderers of the Son of God. They were still culpable for that sin. So let us be careful to honor this spiritual principle. The end does not justify the means. And yet we can say in closing that Ruth teaches that God is indeed King. The message of Elimelech's name is the truth. God is the King. He is ruling. And God overruled even Elimelech's foolish action for the furtherance of his great purpose. Because you see, in all things God rules and reigns. My God is King. Is it your King? Are you seeking to follow His laws, His commandments? Are you one of His subjects? Well, if you are, may you always seek to walk in obedience to Him.