Okay, Ruth chapter 1 is where we are. We'll be looking at the book of Ruth these next few weeks. We're going to deal—it's a short book, right? It's only four chapters. You can read it pretty quickly. G. Campbell Morgan said, never measure the value of a book by its bulk. Never measure the value of a book by its bulk. Just because it's short doesn't mean it's less valuable. In fact, there's so much here in the book of Ruth, I'm not quite even sure I'm going to get through all. I want to get through this morning in chapter 1. But we learn from verse 1, that the story is opening during the book of Judges during a time of famine. So let's start with Romans. Ruth chapter 1, verse 1. I'm going to read down through the chapter and then we'll come back to this. In the days when the Judges ruled, there was a famine in the land, and a man of Bethlehem in Judah went to sojourn in the country of Moab, he and his wife and his two sons. The name of the man was Elimelech, and the name of his wife, Naomi. And the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Chilion. They were Ephrathites from Bethlehem in Judah. They went into the country of Moab and remained there. But Elimelech, the husband of Naomi, died, and she was left with her two sons. These took Moabite wives. The name of the one was Orpah, the name of the other Ruth. They lived there about ten years, and both Malan and Kilian died, so that the woman was left without her two sons and her husband. Then she arose with her daughters-in-law to return from the country of Moab, for she had heard in the fields of Moab that the Lord had visited His people and given them food. So she set out from the place where she was with her two daughters-in-law, and they went on the way to return to the land of Judah. But Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, Go, return each of you to her mother's house. May the Lord deal kindly with you as you have dealt with the dead and with me. The Lord grant that you may find rest, each of you in the house of her husband.' Then she kissed them, and they lifted up their voices and wept. And they said to her, No, we will return with you to your people. But Naomi said, Turn back, my daughters. Why will you go with me? Have I yet sons in my womb that they may become your husbands? Turn back, my daughters, go your way, for I am too old to have a husband. If I should say I have hope, even if I should have a husband this night and should bear sons, would you therefore wait till they were grown? Would you therefore refrain from marrying? No, my daughters, for it is exceedingly bitter to me for your sake that the hand of the Lord has gone out against me. Then they lifted up their voices and wept again. And Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth clung to her. And she said, See, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her gods. Return after your sister-in-law. But Ruth said, Do not urge me to leave you. or to return from following you. For where you go, I will go, and where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God. Where you die, I will die, and there will I be buried. May the Lord do so to me, and more also, if anything but death parts me from you. And when Naomi saw that she was determined to go with her, she said no more. So the two of them went on until they came to Bethlehem. When they came to Bethlehem, the whole town was stirred because of them. And the women said, Is this Naomi? She said to them, Do not call me Naomi. Call me Mara, for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me. I went away full, and the Lord has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi, when the Lord has testified against me, and the Almighty has brought calamity upon me? So Naomi returned, and Ruth the Moabite, her daughter-in-law, with her, who returned from the country of Moab. And they came to Bethlehem at the beginning of barley harvest. So in verse one, as I said, you've got the story opening during the book of Judges, during a time of famine. Because it's a time of famine, some have speculated that Ruth one is happening maybe during the time of Gideon in the book of Judges, because there is famine that's mentioned there in that section of Judges. The book of Judges can be summed up by the last verse in the book, verse 25, Judges 21, In those days, there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes. This idea is repeated throughout Judges. That phrase is repeated. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes. And if you really take a look at Judges, you see not only the cycle of sin, judgment, and deliverance, But you also learn that the people of God are not unified in the book of Judges at all. They're subject to gross idolatry. And the stories included are scattered across the Holy Land. There's no unity. It's all a bunch of stories that are happening all across the area. And there is no king. There's no unity amongst the people of God. It's a mess. It's a mess. Imagine a culture that's a mess. I know it's hard, right? You have to really reach. But that's what you're dealing with in the book of Judges. And it's that context that Ruth is happening. So there's some interesting things going on. The culture at that time was inundated with compromise and rebellion against God. Some of the stories and judges are the most gruesome in scripture and the most uncomfortable and difficult to explain. But right smack in the middle of all of this sin and evil, here is this beautiful story of Ruth, who turns out to be the great-grandmother of King David. That's a big deal. Lawrence O. Richards, in his book, The Teacher's Commentary, says, The book of Ruth reminds us that even in evil times, a godly life is possible. There will always be believers who love and honor God, even in sin-saturated societies. We live in a sin-saturated and messed-up society. But even though that's the case, you still have these little jewels, right, hidden around in this culture. It's called the church. The local church, right, it's still functioning. She's fine. The church is fine. Preaching the gospel, worshiping, all those things, the church has nothing to worry about. Because God still sovereignly is at work in his people and you see this in the book of Ruth in a very powerful way. On one hand, the book is a romance. J. Vernon McGee wrote a book on it called Ruth, the Romance of Redemption. On the other hand, it reveals that the decree of God includes Gentiles. Don't miss the fact that we're talking about Moabites here. That's very significant. We'll see that as we go. The Scottish preacher Alexander McLaren wrote a sermon on Ruth chapter 1 called, A Gentle Heroine, A Gentile Convert. This book demonstrates that Gentiles are part of the true Israel if they are repentant and trust in the Redeemer. The book mentions her Moabite origins in 12 verses in only four chapters. 12 times it's being emphasized, she's a Moabite. In case you forgot, in just four chapters, she's a Moabite, she's a Moabite, she's a Moabite, but God intends on doing great things through her. Isn't that encouraging? That no matter what your background is, you say, I'm a mess. I wasn't brought up in the church. I wasn't part of this growing up. I'm learning all this stuff. It's brand new to me. Join the club, right? I mean, God is pleased to work through unlikely people. We're all unlikely people. There's nobody here that's a likely candidate. Right? We're all sinful, broken down messes. And God is pleased to use us for His glory. And to save us at all. Right? But that's what He does here. Some Jewish rabbis recognize the beauty of Ruth's conversion. Including this one who said, Come and see how precious in the eyes of the omniscient are converts. Some rabbis consider her, quote, the perfect proselyte, the perfect convert. The gospel is here in the book of Ruth. It's here in chapter 1, and it goes all through it. And that's really what I want to emphasize as we go through this book, is look at the gospel. Yes, the gospel is being proclaimed in the Old Testament. It was clearly being proclaimed in the Old Testament Scriptures, and you see it very clearly here in Ruth chapter 1. Like I said, I don't know how far I'm going to get today in chapter 1. I still only have four weeks, so I've got to get it done one way or the other. But however far we get today, it doesn't really matter. It'll happen by God's grace. But in the sermon today, I want to overview chapter one by looking first at how the gospel message itself in Jesus Christ is foreshadowed in this chapter. And then if we get there secondly, we will look at the proofs of biblical conversion in the life of Ruth, especially in verses 15 through 18. So let's start with the gospel foreshadowed in this chapter. In verses 1 through 5, very clearly, the backdrop of this story is judgment brought on by sin. You can't look at the first five verses and escape it. This is the context. And when we're talking about the gospel, where do we start? We're talking about a bunch of sinful people, right? The backdrop of every one of our stories is the same backdrop. We deserve judgment because of sin and fact. We deserve hell because of that. It doesn't get any worse than that. We're only talking about a physical famine here. in verse 1, but it's a lot worse than that when it comes to our own standing before God outside of Christ. Without Christ, we all deserve an eternal hell. We deserve death and judgment. The backdrop of the story is judgment brought on by sin. So you look at it there, it says it right in verse one. There was a famine in the land when the judges ruled. And so this man of Bethlehem in Judah went to sojourn in the country of Moab, he and his wife and his two sons. Famine was a direct judgment of God on sin. This Old Testament law was pretty clear about that. Leviticus chapter 26, verses 18 through 20, it says this, You will not listen to me, then I will discipline you again sevenfold for your sins. And I'll break the pride of your power, and I'll make your heavens like iron, and your earth like bronze. And your strength shall be spent in vain, for your land shall not yield its increase, and the trees of the land shall not yield their fruit. Keep in mind this is during the time of the Book of Judges we have those cycles of rebellion against God and part of it is that God sent times of famine upon the land. This is the backdrop. That's always the backdrop for every one of our stories when it comes to salvation. Maybe not famine, certainly a spiritual famine in our own lives where we don't have Christ but Sin, death, and hell is what we deserve because of our standing before God. Now, let's go back to Judges for a second just to look at it. Judges chapter 2 verses 18 and 19. It's not far, just take a very brief left-hand turn there and go back to the beginning of Judges chapter 2, near the beginning, verses 18 and 19. This is just the pattern, just so you see it. Judges 2.18. But whenever the judge died, they turned back and were more corrupt than their fathers, going after other gods, serving them, and bowing down to them. They did not drop any of their practices or their stubborn ways. So the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he said, And so that's the pattern that you see in the book of Judges. It's a backdrop of sin. Elimelech, I'm going to make the case here in verse 2, that Elimelech rebelled by leaving the people of God to go to a pagan land. Now, I understand that there was a famine. You might say, well, if I was in that situation, I might do the same thing. Not if you understood the law of God and what God's revealed word has said about Moab. You would want anything to do with it. This is, in, Elimelech's behavior here is a lot like the behavior of a lot of people in the Book of Judges. He's ignoring the Word of God to do what he wants to do, what seems right in his own eyes. The name of the man was Elimelech. The name of his wife, Naomi. The names of his two sons were Malon and Kilion. They are Ephrathites from Bethlehem and Judah. They went into the country of Moab. and remained there. They have decided, he has decided, to go into a land that God has rejected. In Judges chapter 10 verse 6, It's really clear here that their worship is completely rejected by God. It's like they don't have anything to do with their worship. Well you move into their land and the likelihood of you having something to do with their worship increases exponentially. Judges 10 verse 6, the people of Israel again did what was evil Him going back to Moab increases the possibility that he's gonna fall into the godlessness and the idolatry and he's doing something here that's actually wrong. That's, I'm gonna make that case, and part of the reason is because of the fact in Deuteronomy 23 verse 3, no Moabite was allowed to enter the congregation of Israel to the 10th generation. God was like, I want nothing to do with them, not even down to the 10th generation after them. That is how separate God wanted his people to be from this world. Latch onto that for a second. There is an idea throughout the Word of God, but especially when you're looking at the covenant people of God, that they are different from the rest of the world. I know that the modern American evangelical church does not like to hear that. We wanna be cool. We wanna be accepted everywhere. We wanna be relevant, right? But when you are called to follow Christ, you are different. You are not like this world. That's a theme going back to the book of Genesis all the way through that the covenant people of God are not like this world. He shouldn't have done it. He shouldn't have done it. If what he did was right, Paul's castle in his commentary on the book of Ruth says, if what he did was right, all of Bethlehem would have gone with him. Because it was a famine. If what he was doing was right, it would have been another exodus from Bethlehem anyway, right? But they endured the famine. The rest of them stayed and endured it. Why? What were they doing? Trusting God in the midst of the famine. Whatever happens in this culture, and it doesn't look good, I don't care who gets elected in November, doesn't matter. We're in a bad way. We're in a bad way, but no matter how bad it gets, you do not have the freedom to do whatever you want to survive. You have the word of God and you must obey the word of God. If it means resting, rest in him. Who's better equipped to take care of you? You or God? You better not be saying the government. You better not be saying that. You better be trusting God. And how do you demonstrate that trust? Obedience. So hold on to what you know is true. Hold on to what you know is true, no matter what anyone tells you. Elimelech rebelled by leaving the people of God for a pagan land. In verses three through five, it gets worse. Elimelech's sons marry outside of the covenant. Verses three through five, but Elimelech, the husband of Naomi, died and she was left with her two sons. These took Moabite wives. One was Orpah, the name of the other Ruth. They lived there about ten years. And both Mahlon and Kilion died, so that the woman was left without her two sons. We're talking about Naomi and her husband. So they take Moabite wives. Listen to what Deuteronomy 7, verses 1-4 says about this topic. And when the Lord your God gives them over to you and you defeat them, then you must devote them to complete destruction. You shall make no covenant with them and show no mercy to them. You shall not intermarry with them, giving your daughters to their sons or taking their daughters for your sons, for they would turn away your sons from following me to serve other gods. Then the anger of the Lord would be kindled against you and he would destroy you quickly. God is a jealous God. He doesn't want mixed worship. He doesn't do that. It's called religious syncretism. When we take a little bit of this and a little bit of that and put it together. It's like going to the smorgasbord, right? I don't go on the smorgasbords anymore. Buffets, whatever, right? You go to an old country buffet back in Buffalo, New York, where I grew up. And you go there, and you got all this food sitting out there, and I want a little bit of this, I want a little bit of that, but I don't want that thing, right? And I throw it all together and make myself a meal, and I keep eating until I get sick, basically. And so, like, you go there and you pick and choose what you want. A lot of Americans have this view, in the church, about religion, about spirituality. Yeah, I like Christianity. On Sunday, I'll take a little bit of that and put it on my plate. And I like a little bit of secular humanism the rest of the week, I'll take a little bit of that. I'll take a little bit of materialism, right? I'll take a little bit of this, a little bit of that, put it on my plate, and this is my thing. But the difference is that we think we're only eating the Christian part, even though on the rest of our plate is the rest of that garbage, and you're eating all of it. But I'm the Christian. God doesn't know anything about this in the scriptures. There's no mixing of that. What are you, really? What is the church, really, in America? We need to be about Him, about Christ. He should consume everything. And if there's one thing you're gonna see in the book of Ruth, is that Christ is everything. He's everything. And he deserves to be everything. Elimelech's son, Mary, outside of the faith, I'm gonna take it a step further. Elimelech is a hypocrite. You say, what? He's a hypocrite. How do you know that? You know what his name means, Elimelech? My God is king. Really? Your God is king? If your God is King, why did you go look into the pagans for relief? If your God is King, why didn't you bother teaching your sons that they shouldn't intermarry with pagans? Because that's clearly taught in God's Word. Your God is King? Remember the last verse in Judges? There is no King. in that time frame. Everyone did what was right in their own eyes. And this guy who's saying his name, every time he says it, my God is king, he's a hypocrite. Because he's not. He's not. Oh, we like to say, especially reformed people right now, like to say, Christ is king! Oh yeah? Really? He was a hypocrite and it was worse because it affected his family. Your hypocrisy will always affect your family because your children are not blind. They're paying attention. They don't care so much about what you say as much about what you do. You can say Christ is my king, but is he? This is convicting, isn't it? In everything, what do our kids see us doing? Not just what we say, but what do they see? Dad, if you move, here it is, it's right here in the text, he moved. All the time in churches you're dealing with this. Families say, I'm gonna move, I'm gonna go somewhere, I'm moving somewhere else. The first question from your pastors or elders always ought to be this, where are you going to church? When you get to wherever you're going, to your promised land, wherever that promised land may be, right? I get it, you know, I live here too. There's better places. But the fact of the matter is, what matters most is where you land, where are the people of God? Are you going to a Moab? Or do you have a church that you're moving to? Is there a church there where the Word of God is being taught and preached faithfully? Will you have something there like you have here? I've seen way too many families do it. Move somewhere where there's no church. And then years later they're surprised at what happened to their families. How did we get there? Dad, you say that you're a Christian, you say Christ is your king, but are you teaching your children the word of God? Do you have a family time, do you teach them? This is the whole thing. Read the book of Judges and you'll see it. There's a glaring, like, there's things going on in the book of Judges. This guy says, you know what, I think I'm gonna get myself a priest for my house. Right, and he does that. He goes out, he gets himself a priest. Where did he ever get that idea, and what's wrong with a priest? Like, why did he think that was a good idea? Even the priest didn't have enough grasp on the Word of God to know that's not the way this thing is done. That's how far it was going in that culture. Everyone doing what's right in their own eyes. Does your home look more like the evil culture around you, or does it look like a family that fears God? The responsibility is yours. Deuteronomy 6 makes it very clear. Now that's the first foreshadowing of the gospel, and man, I am not getting through all this today. So let's look at the second one, and this is encouraging. This is very dark, right? So far, first five verses, pretty dark. Gets a lot better. Verse six, here's the turning point. Here is the good news. The bad news always is part of the gospel. Here's the good news in verse six. So you've got this death happens, they're all left without their husbands. Verse six, then she arose with her daughters-in-law to return from the country of Moab. For she had heard in the fields of Moab that the Lord had visited his people and given them food. This is good news in this situation. Here they are, Naomi stuck in Moab, and now she gets word from a far country, she gets word from Bethlehem, and it is a ways, that God is blessed, and now the famine has been relieved, and now there's a harvest. The turning point comes in the sin-filled story when they hear good news, and the King James translates the word food as bread, You can translate it either way from the Hebrew, but it's interesting that coming from Bethlehem, The word Bethlehem means the house of bread. That's literally what the word means. So it was known as a village that had unusually rich harvests, and Bethlehem was called that because they had a lot of harvests of figs, grapes, wheat, and olives. So Bethlehem was known for that. And now, God is, it's actually happening. You can go back there, you can enjoy the harvest, and you can eat. It's good news for people on a famine. Jesus Christ, don't miss what's happening here in the whole picture of the Word of God. Where is Jesus born? Bethlehem, right? In John 6, what does Jesus say about himself? I am the bread of life. I am the bread of life. You got at least a foreshadowing here of the gospel. Because Jesus Christ, who is a big deal here. Because we talked about the last verse in the book of Judges. Look at the last verse in the book of Ruth. Ruth chapter 4. Obed fathered Jesse. Jesse fathered who? David. The line of Christ. It's gonna be referenced in Matthew chapter one in the genealogy when you get to the New Testament, that this is the line of Jesus. Jesus is central here, and this is the first sort of glimpse of Jesus in the book of Ruth. Because Jesus is the bread of life. John chapter six, verses 32 and 33. Jesus then said to them, truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven. "'But my Father gives you the true bread from heaven, "'for the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven "'and gives life to the world.'" And then in verse 48, "'I am the bread of life.'" You know, when we take the Lord's table tonight, we're gonna have the juice and the bread there, right? And if you're here, you're gonna eat that, you're gonna drink that. It's symbolic, we know. The bread symbolizes the broken body of Christ. The juice symbolizes the shed blood of Christ. But why do you eat? I mean, when you're on the day-to-day, why do you eat? Well, you eat because you need the nutrients to have physical life, right? I think it's significant that our Lord and Savior set up a meal as a way for us to remember his death for our sins. Because what are you doing when you're eating and drinking? You're making a statement. I have no spiritual life apart from this. I have no spiritual life apart from the broken body and the shed blood of Jesus Christ. When Jesus says I am the bread of life, he's saying I am the source of life, of eternal life. You have nothing apart from me. Without bread, without food, you'll starve to death. Christ is everything. He's everything. And here's good news of bread in the house of bread. The only hope for you in this sin-saturated culture and your sin-saturated soul is the good news that Jesus, the bread of life, can give you spiritual life in a spiritual famine. And make no mistake, we're in a spiritual famine. You must run to Christ. If you are here, you've been coming to church here maybe all your life, Maybe not that, but a long time. You need to run to Christ. It's not enough to have the name, the right name, right? Limalac or something like that. Not enough to have a membership here or anything like that. What matters is do you have Christ? Do you have the bread of life? And if you don't have the bread of life, repent of your sin, of all that sin-saturated filth that we saw in the first five verses, and run to Christ. Now the last, the third foreshadowing of the gospel, and it is something to think about in the context of the gospel, is that there are false converts. Right? There are people who turn back. Pretenders who will not make it to the end. And you see that in verses 7 through 15. The word, or the name Orpah means stubborn. Literally, that's what it means. This is the other wife of, you know, this is one of Elimelech's sons, or daughters-in-law, sorry, Orpah. In verse seven, so she set out from the place where she was with her two daughters-in-law, and they went on the way to return to the land of Judah. It's a long distance, some estimates vary, like 50 to 75 miles, depending on where you're going. Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, go return each of you to her mother's house. May the Lord deal kindly with you as you have dealt with the dead and with me. So you're talking about two young women who are kind. They're both nice. Ruth is nice. Orpah is nice. Okay, they're kind people. Verse nine, the Lord grant that you may find rest, each of you in the house of her husband. Go back to their family. and find rest there. She kissed them, they lifted up their voices and wept. They're nice, both of them are nice. They said to her, no, we will return with you to your people. Both of them are saying that at this point, both Ruth and Orpah. We're both gonna go. Naomi said, turn back, my daughters. Why will you go of me? Have I yet sons in my womb that may become your husbands? Turn back, my daughters, go your way, for I am too old to have a husband. If I should say I have hope, even if I should have a husband this night and should bear sons, would you therefore wait till they were grown? Would you therefore refrain from marrying? No, my daughters, for it's exceedingly bitter to me for your sake. The hand of the Lord has gone out against me. So she's just reasoning with them, I'm not gonna be able to provide you with husbands. Verse 14, they lifted up their voices and wept again. And Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, which means she's saying goodbye. But Ruth clung to her, adhered to, that word in the Hebrew can mean like skin on bone, that kind of clinging. So Orpah, though, she's gonna turn around. Now remember, I've been trying to emphasize this, she's been very nice to Naomi. I mean, kind, and Naomi recognizes it. She's saying that. We'll come back to that in a second. But in spite, and keep this in mind, she has married a covenant husband. Remember, Orpah has done that. She's married a child of the covenant. And by some definitions today, theologically, people would say that she's part of the covenant. But she's gonna go back to her people and to her gods. Who is she going back to when we talk about her gods? Her gods would be Chemosh, Ashtar, and Baal. Chemosh is the chief deity in Moab and was considered a god of war and judgment. Human sacrifice was part of the worship of Chemosh and Baal. Ashtar was the goddess of fertility and sexual promiscuity was involved with her worship. This is what Orpah is going back to in spite of Naomi's influence and no doubt her witness. She has seen Naomi's life. She has been very kind to Naomi. Even though she's very nice, she's gonna make the decision, I'm going back to my people, which is one thing, but I'm going back to my gods on the other. I'm going back to human sacrifice. I'm going back to the sexual promiscuity that's involved with these gods and the worship of them. Nothing in the text indicates that Orpah is any less loving or kind to Naomi than Ruth. Philip Morrow in his book, Ruth the Satisfied Stranger, says the Word of God makes it very plain, and this is important for people in Texas, North Texas, to hear. Okay, so listen to this. The Word of God makes it very plain that a sweet and lovable disposition, a tender and affectionate heart, faithfulness in one's family obligations and the like, though excellent things in their way, will not take one to heaven. Faith is what makes all the difference between the saved and the lost. You can be as nice, you can be so nice that butter doesn't melt in your mouth, right? You are just the sweetest person. And there are people all around you that'll tell you how wonderful you are, and how sweet you are, how nice you are, what a wonderful, upstanding person you are. But if you don't repent and place your faith in Christ, you're gonna bust hell wide open. No matter how nice you are, you must have Christ. He must be your kinsman redeemer, and we'll see what that means as we go. I'll quote the renowned theologian, Kimberly Speed. She doesn't write my sermons, but we talk about them. And here's what she said about this. The hardship came, and she proved who she wasn't. Profound, right? It's Kim. The hardship came, and she proved who she wasn't. And that's the way it works. That's always the way that it works. You can be as nice and as sweet as you want to be, but when it comes right down to it, the rubber meets the road, right? You'll find out what's inside the sponge when you squeeze it. That's always the way that it is. Ruth, well, I'll say this. We're wrapping up here, believe it or not. Be reminded that not everyone who says, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom. And also be reminded the entrance to the covenant is individual and not familial. It's not. Because if Orpah was part of the covenant, she married in, and even in the court of the law you could do that, She turns around here. Not all Israel is Israel. She married him, but not all Israel is Israel. Ruth, on the other hand, is genuinely converted. Verses 15 through 18. We don't have time to do it today. Kind of suspected. I mean, she is genuinely converted. I would encourage you for next week, read 15 through 18 and look for it. Look for the evidences, the proofs that she is, because they're there. They're there. She's genuinely converted. Her name, Ruth's name, means friend. She was not only a friend of Naomi's, but she was a friend of God. And that's evident by our actions in the next verses. But we, no way can we do that now in five minutes. So, let's close in prayer. Father, we thank you for your word. It speaks to us. It's beautiful. Your word is beautiful. We see these evidences of the gospel. We are full of sin. We deserve hell. And yet, we get good news. that there is one who is the bread of life. We're starving in our spiritual condition, but there is one who is the bread of life. And if we believe on him, we can be made right with you. Lord, I know that there are people here who have the name that they're in the covenant, but Lord, you know the truth, and maybe it hasn't been revealed yet, but one day the pressure will come. Lord, I pray that, Lord, before it's too late, that you would help them to see that they're really not. They might have a name, like a limelight. They might have a name that they have you as king. But Lord, if it's not real, please reveal it to them. By the power of your word and by the power of your Holy Spirit, please make it very plain to them that they would see what true conversion is. And Lord, that you would give that to them. They can't make it happen. They can't be moral enough to make it happen. But Lord, you've gotta give life where there's nothing but death. You've gotta give life to your elect. And even if they come from a background that's like the Moabites, you're able to save them. And you will, you do it, you've done it, many, many times. And it's attested all around this room that you have taken people lost in sin and self and you've converted them, you've brought them into the kingdom. Lord, would you do it for anyone else who remains? And we pray that your name be glorified. Help us to think on these things, meditate upon them. We pray in Jesus' name, amen.