Please open your Bibles to Ruth chapter 1. Ruth chapter 1. You'll find it in your few Bible on page 282. I'll read for us verses 1 and 2 and we'll focus on a portion of verse 1 this morning. This is the Word of God. 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, the name of his wife, Naomi, and the names of his two sons were Machlon and Kilion. These were Ephrathites from Bethlehem in Judah. They went into the country of Moab and remained there. Let's say it to the Lord. Let us pray and ask his blessing. Heavenly Father, as we come to you and to your word, which is living and active, we ask and we pray that you would be good to us this morning through your scriptures. We come desiring, O Lord, that you would speak to us with great profit. We ask, Father, that we may know the blessing of Your Holy Word. May it come to us with power, with conviction, with encouragement, with assurance, with the blessing that Your Spirit intends for us this day. For we are Your people and we come to You that we may be fed at Your hand. Bless us, O God, with manna for our souls. We ask it for Jesus' sake. Amen. Well, we began this book last week, last Lord's Day, by considering the opening words in verse 1, in the days when the judges ruled. And what we saw last Lord's Day was that these words indicate not merely the time period when the events of the book of Ruth took place, but the setting or the background, particularly the theological setting in which we are to interpret the book of Ruth. The days in which Naomi and Ruth and Boaz lived were days in which godliness was embarrassingly scarce for those who bore the name of God. They were days in which the rebellion and apostasy of Israel cried out, not as much for a king in Israel as the Lord God, a Savior, who could deliver them from the bondage of the sin of their honed hearts. What this teaches us is that whatever godliness We find as we come into the book of Ruth and see these exemplary believers, whatever godliness we see in the book of Ruth in the days when the judge is ruled is the work not of human strength nor of human will, but a work of divine and purely sovereign grace. And whatever events take place in the book of Ruth are all governed by God. in order that He might bring about, as we learned last time, that He might bring about the birth of Jesus Christ, who alone could save His people from their sins. And so we saw those things last Lord's Day. But in these opening words, which provide a setting for the book, it's that next phrase that provides the occasion for the book of Ruth. Because none of the events of Ruth's story would have happened if it wasn't for the famine in the land. That really begins the ball rolling. That really is the first domino, if you will, that is tipped and occasions all of the events in Ruth's life and story. And so it's this famine that needs to occupy our attention this morning because it bears a very important message about how God deals with His people when they persist in sin, which they did in the days when the judges ruled. But it also bears a very important message about how we are to respond to God when we find ourselves under His chastisement, which is what this famine was, as we'll see. Because this famine was a clarion call from God that His people return unto Him, that they repent of their sin, that they not persist. or go any further in the paths of wickedness. This famine was sent by God to chastise His people for their persistence in sin. But before we get to that main point this morning, we need to understand that the famine was also, as you'll see in your notes, an act of providence as well as an act of covenant mercy. The famine that happened in verse one, as I said earlier, when we read from Judges chapter six, whether it was due to a prolonged period of drought or failing crops. Or, as we read in chapter 6, it was due to the Midianite oppression of Israel. We really do not know the exact occasion of this famine. But this much we know for sure. It was from the hand of God as an act of divine providence. Because God directs and controls all things. It is the Lord who calls a bird from the east. It is the Lord who raises up an army. It is the Lord who brings down a nation. Ephesians 1.11 speaks of God as Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will. Acts 17.28 says, In Him we live and move and have our being. We are encompassed by the being of God and who He is and His Lordship and Godhood. And Proverbs 16.33 says about something that we consider just to be chance or luck. It says that the lot is cast into the lap. A lot of dice is cast into the lap. But, the Word says, it's every decision is from the Lord. And so, God's decree is His ordaining all things that happen. And it's God's providence which orders all things that He ordained. You see, God is not like a builder. who builds a house and then leaves it. Leaves it to what? To rot. To decay. To break. To crack. To grow old and fall down. But rather, God is like the pilot who steers the ship of creation to its harbor at the consummation of all things when Christ returns. Because God's providence sovereignly and holily governs the stars as well as the ants upon the ground. God's providence governs chance happenings, what we call chance, like the throwing of dice, as well as the decisions and even the actions of free agents. And therefore, however God brought this famine about in the land of Israel in these days in which the judges ruled, it was an act of His providence. It was an act which God effected for His own glory. It was an act which God determined was a necessary part of both His immediate plan for His people's repentance and for His ultimate plan, which was the salvation of His people through Jesus Christ. Because it was this famine, as I said, that led Elimelech to take his family into Moab. And that led to three graves in Moab. That led to Naomi deciding to return to Bethlehem. That led to Ruth moving to Bethlehem with Naomi as a widow. Being a widow forced Ruth to the lowly status of a gleaner, gleaning the fields of others. This brought her into the fields of Boaz, who happened to be a relative of Elimelech. This led to the marriage with Boaz. This led to the birth of Obed. This led to the birth of the King of Israel, David, which led to the birth of the Savior of sinners, Jesus Christ. So this famine is, above all else, an act of glorious and beautiful and sovereign providence. And so while God's immediate purpose for the famine was His people's repentance, His ultimate purpose was the salvation of sinners through Jesus Christ. But this famine was also, secondly, an act of covenant mercy. Psalm 89, verses 31 and 34, God says this about David's sons who will sit upon the throne and rule over Israel. He says, if they violate my statutes and do not keep my commandments, then I will punish their transgression with a rod and their iniquity with stripes. But I will not remove from him, David's son, my steadfast love or be false to my faithfulness. I will not violate my covenant or alter the word that went forth from my lips." God promises to keep His covenant of grace with David's sons. But within that covenant of grace, as a part of that covenant of grace made with David's sons and ultimately settling on the Lord Jesus Christ, David's greater son, as a part of that is God's loving, merciful chastisement for sin. You see, those whom God has taken into covenant, those to whom God has promised His faithfulness, and those upon whom God has bestowed His everlasting love, are assured in these verses in Psalm 89, that whenever we go astray from the Lord, whenever we wander out of His path as David did, in the accounts of Bathsheba and Uriah, rather than let us go on and completely destroy ourselves, or rather than bring judgment upon us, as he did Sodom and Gomorrah, immediate judgment, rather than leave us prey to Satan's devices that he may not just get the best of us once, but a thousand times until we are completely destroyed, rather than pour out any fierce wrath upon us. The covenant of grace promises us that God will, when we go astray, like a loving father, as we love our own children, He will have mercy upon us. And that mercy will manifest itself in chastising us in order to awaken us from a sinful slumber in which David slept for almost a year. And He will pick up our feet, as it were, as we read in Psalm 32, and He will put our feet once again into the paths of obedience because we are His children. This is an act of love. It is an act of covenant mercy. It is more pure and merciful and loving than a parent could ever show to his child. who disciplines him when he goes astray. And so we read such things as in Hebrews 12, verse 6. We're told that the Lord disciplines the one He loves and He chastises every son He receives. He receives in the covenant. In fact, Hebrews 12 goes on to say in verse 8 that if we are left in our sin, left to go astray as far as our evil hearts will take us, left in sin without discipline, Then the verse says it's a sure sign that we are not the children of God, but that rather is the word is we are illegitimate. We do not belong to the Lord, which it is evidenced because he is not disciplining us. We all go into the grocery store, do we not? And do we not see that spoiled brat whom if we could, we would discipline him? But he's not our child, and the fact that we do not discipline him proves that he is not our child. But were he your son, my son, when we got home, things would be taken care of. Not as an act of judgment, not as an act of wrath, but as an act of fatherly love and covenant mercy that our children may not walk such paths which bring destruction. upon their lives all their days. We manifest our mercy by discipline. This is a privilege of only children. This is not a privilege of those who do not belong to the Lord. And so as we think about the famine in verse one. which God sent upon Israel in the days when the judges ruled. We can see that it was an act of covenant mercy. It was an act in accord with God's covenant promise to discipline his covenant people in order they might leave their sins and return to covenant faithfulness and therefore enjoy covenant privileges. rather than send fire and brimstone in judgment upon His people in Israel like He did the people of Sodom. God sent a famine that He might get their attention and reach their hearts through their stomachs. And so as much as this famine testified to the people's unfaithfulness in the days when the judges ruled, So it also testified to God's covenant mercy over His people in the days when the judges ruled. Because 2 Timothy 2.13, Paul says, if we are faithless, which we are, He remains faithful for He cannot deny Himself. He has put His name forward. I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt. Can He keep us out of the land of Egypt? Well, of course He can. And He will prove it. And He will use discipline as a means to keep us in our land of faithfulness, in the promised land that He's given us as Christians. But this famine was also, thirdly, and this is where we'll rest our thoughts this morning, this famine was also an act of fatherly chastisement. And I've hinted at that already, but we need to look at this in greater detail. Because these were days, you remember, when every man did what was right in his own eyes. These were days when the Word of God was rejected and the prophet of God was ignored. These were days, according to what we read earlier in Judges 6, verse 10, when they did not obey the voice of the Lord, though He spoke to them repeatedly. And therefore, it was in keeping with God's covenant promises that rather than leave them to go the way of self-destruction, rather than God behave as if their rebellion did not matter to Him as their Lord, God sent upon them fatherly chastisements in order to compel their return. And so, the famine was just that. It was an act of fatherly chastisement or discipline. You see, when His people hardened their hearts against Him, God hardened His ground against them. And when His people refused to cry over their sins in repentance, God's heavens refused to rain upon their crops. And when His people proved unfaithful to Him, God's ground proved unfruitful to them. And Israel would have known what this famine was. There's no mystery here. It doesn't have to be spelled out. It is clearly stated in Judges 6, which I read. Israel would have known that this is no ordinary famine. This is not some chance event. This is not an unfortunate act of providence. This is God's chastisement. They would have known this. They would have known God was chastising them for their sin because this was one of the four plagues which God warned He would send upon them if they rebelled against His Word. Listen to Deuteronomy 28, verses 38-45. I'll read selectively through that passage. God says, you shall carry much seed into the field and shall gather in little, for the locust shall consume it. You shall plant vineyards and dress them, but you shall neither drink of the vine nor gather the grapes, for the worm shall eat them. You shall have olive trees throughout all your territory, but you shall not anoint yourself with the oil, for your olives shall drop off." The locust? A worm? The dropping of the fruit of the tree? These aren't chance events. This is God's famine upon His people. This is God's chastisement. Because He goes on to say, all these curses shall come upon you and pursue you and overtake you until you are destroyed because you did not obey the voice of the Lord your God. And so, while the famine was an act of divine providence, through which God was carrying on His grand program of redemption through Jesus Christ. And while the famine was an act of covenant mercy in which God was sparing His people from His wrath and calling them back to Himself by repentance, the famine was also an act of fatherly chastisement. Because they refused to repent of their sin. They ignored the prophets. They refused to return to the Lord's ways. And what this means for us this morning is that there was a direct relationship between the people's disobedience to God and the famine that He sent upon the land. And here we need to be careful that we understand this correctly, of course. It wasn't that their obedience would now, if they were to return to the Lord in obedience, it wasn't that their obedience would merit God's blessing, or that their obedience would earn God's favor. That would be a covenant of works, and this it is not. But rather, what we see in Scripture is that God had conditioned His blessings, the blessings of the land of Canaan, upon their obedience to Him as their Lord. And this was in order to teach them the necessity of walking in sincere obedience before their Lord. And it was also designed to teach them the poisonous effect that living in sin has on the Christian life. God was teaching His people that while His grace is sufficient to forgive all their sins. And He promised to forgive all their sins. Yet, He was teaching them that He will not stand for those who abuse His grace. But He will withhold His blessings and His covenant privileges from those who try to serve Him by fits and starts. He will withhold His blessings from those who only want to serve Him when they are in trouble and then return to their own gods when the storm has passed. And this is what Israel was doing. We read this last time. They would serve God when they were in trouble, but the minute things were well, they went back to their gods, the gods of Canaan. You see, God's people are to be holy. And when God's people are willfully rebelliously unholy, God sends a famine to teach them that a life of sin and rebellion and disobedience leads to starvation. Not just physically, but more importantly, it leads to spiritual famine. Now, of course, this is not to say that our famines are always God's chastisement for our sins. Because in the wisdom of God, suffering often befalls the people of God, not because of our sin, but because the Lord seeks to grow us and test us by trial, to test us by fire. Which is why James 1, verses 2-4 says, Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds. For you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And when steadfastness has its full effect, you will be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. Rejoice in your trials. Rejoice in your testings. What sin had Abraham done when God told him to take his son up to the mountain as a burnt offering? Abraham was guilty of no sin, but was it not a test? A trial? We are simply told the Lord tested him. It's not an act of discipline. It's not an act of chastisement upon Abraham. Of what sin was Job guilty? Of course, Job was a sinner. Of course, Abraham was a sinner. But no direct sin occasioned Job's trials. Rather, we're told that Job was righteous. God put forth a test for Job. To test him. To grow him. To mature him. And so that's the message of the book of Job then as a whole. That God matriculates His people into the university of adversity. Not as a chastisement for our impenitence, but that He might be glorified in our godly response to trial. and that we might praise God for His faithfulness to us during the trial. Of what sin were the disciples guilty when God took them into the sea, where He knew a storm would overtake them? Was it for guilt? Was it for shame and for sin? Was it an act of judgment that He said, let's go to the other side? For none of these. But rather, they might see him to be the Lord of all or the earth, and they might see the weakness of their own hearts. He brought them to into a place where he knew a storm would overtake them. And what did they learn in the storm? What manner of man is this? For even the wind and the sea obey him. And they were told that they were weak of faith. You see, that is the message of Job, but this is not the book of Job. nor does it contradict it. This is the book of Ruth. It is from the same God. It is through the same people of God. And so it comes to us today just as well as Job does. But it comes to us with a different message. And the message of the book of Ruth, combining it, of course, with the book of Judges, the message is this, that there is always a famine when we walk independently of God. that it is impossible to serve the Lord and our own gods and be happy. That serving God only when we are in trouble cannot succeed. The message is that the moment we move rebelliously away from the path of God's commandments, we are on the road to physical and worst of all, spiritual starvation. The message is that famine is an act of God's loving and fatherly chastisement, occasioned by our persistent rebellion and sin. The message is that famine is God's strongest medicine, which He resorts to when our rebellion has proven unresponsive to the lesser remedies He has used upon us. This is a hard message. But this is the message in this verse this morning and in Judges. This is the message which God intends to teach us this morning by telling us in this verse that He sent a famine upon His own people. in those rebellious days when the judges ruled. And therefore, this is the message from which we need to draw our applications this morning. So let me give you three reflections this morning, all of which I think grow out of what we have learned. And the first reflection for you is this. That our sin deserves God's judgment. Even as we confessed already, what does every sin deserve? We're talking about sin as sin and what it deserves, no matter what sin it is, whether we call it small or great, and no matter in whom it is found. God judged His own people here. This testifies to us that God will spare no one. when we persist in sin. But out of love, He will bring to us His chastisement. We often forget, however, just how serious sin is. And we often forget what sin deserves at God's hands, because by the grace of God, We are on the receiving end of an inexhaustible divine forgiveness. And we're on the saving side of a fountain of cleansing that always flows from the cross and never runs dry. Let us be reminded of this this morning. Mark 3.28, Jesus says, all sins will be forgiven the children of man. 1 John 1.9, found pardon in it earlier. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. In Psalm 130, verse 7, O Israel, hope in the Lord, for with the Lord there is steadfast love and with Him is plentiful or abundant redemption. And so we have every encouragement and every reason to hope in the Lord and to seek His face in repentance with confidence, knowing that He will forgive us our sins for the sake of Jesus Christ, that He will cleanse us from all unrighteousness, and that His forgiveness is a bottomless and a shoreless ocean of pardon for His people. Let us not forget that. But just because God doesn't destroy us when we sin, just because God doesn't come down in wrath upon us when we sin, doesn't mean our sin doesn't deserve it. Let's be reminded of some other verses. Ezekiel 18, verse 20, the Lord says, The soul who sins shall die. We all know Romans 6, verse 23. The wages of sin is death. Galatians 3, verse 10, Paul says, Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law, and do them. Cursed is everyone who doesn't keep every commandment all the time 100%. Cursed is that person. And Ephesians 5, 6, Paul says, the wrath of God comes upon the children of disobedience. So when we ask the question, what does sin deserve? Our catechism speaks truly. Every sin deserves the wrath and curse of God both in this life and in the life to come. Let us pause there just for a moment. God destroyed the old world with a flood because of sin. God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah with fire from heaven because of sin. God destroyed Herod with worms because of sin. not because they were the worst sinners on earth, but to testify to us just this, that sin deserves His judgment. And so, that's one lesson which God means to teach us by the sending of this famine. That sin deserves His judgment. that our sins make us guilty before God, and that our sins will necessitate His discipline, if we do not, as we also confessed this morning in Question 85 of the Shorter Catechism, if we do not seek His forgiveness in the Lord Jesus Christ. What does God require of us that we may escape His wrath due for our sins? Faith in Jesus Christ, repentance of our sins, and a using of all the means of grace. Notice what the Catechism says. What does God require of us? God calls us to seek refuge in Christ. Lamentations chapter 3 says, the Lord does not afflict His people willingly. A famine is God's last resort and strongest medicine. It is only when we have not heeded His Word to us in our devotions, when we have not heeded the conviction of the Spirit, when we have not heeded the preaching of the Word, when we have not heeded our brothers admonition, a brother's rebuke, and we have not heeded the call of the Gospel to turn from sin, it is then in our rebellion, in our persistence, that the Lord awakens us at last by a famine, because we are His people. And so, if we would avoid God's discipline against our sin, then we must either prevent sin by not committing it, or repent of our sins, as soon as we feel the Spirit's conviction, as soon as the Word is brought to us as it was to David, you are that man. And this is what Paul says to us in 1 Corinthians 11 31, which is the verse directly following what we read so often as the words of institution for the Lord's Supper. Let a man examine himself and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. Paul goes on to say, For if we judged ourselves truly, we would not be judged by the Lord. Examine yourself, Paul is saying. Why continue in sin as the church in Corinth was at that time? Why continue in sin and bring God's greater chastisement upon you? You remember, some of them were dead. They had died. And some of them were sick because of the way they abused God's grace. Paul says if we judged ourselves truly according to the Word, we would not be judged by God. So we can avoid God's discipline if we turn from sin, because sin deserves judgment. And if God will not spare sin in the stranger, let's say, He definitely will not spare it in His own people. And do we need to be reminded of that only by looking at the cross. If God did not spare His own Son when our sin was upon Him, then can we expect God to spare us and allow us to continue in sin foolishly, rebelliously? Out of love and grace, He will not spare us. He will bring out His greatest medicine, if need be, and cure us of our hard heart. A second thing we learned, therefore, flowing out of that. We learned this morning from this passage that it is our sins that rob us of our blessings and our privileges as God's people. And we need to hear this, because most of the time we blame others for our hardships, whether it be an employer, whether it be a sibling, a parent or even God. We blame others. But the lesson here is that we usually bring our own miseries upon our own heads. Listen to a couple of verses here for us to confirm this. Isaiah 59, verses 1 and 2. We use this sometimes in our confession of sin. Behold, the Lord's hand is not shortened that it cannot save, or His ear dulled that it cannot hear, but your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God. and your sins have hidden His face from you." Those are words that could only be said to the people of God, the child of God. And we are still confirmed, we are still affirmed that God is still our God. He is still with us. It's just that we have invited His back. We have turned His face from us because we have continued in sin. God hears your prayers. God is not so short in His arm that He cannot answer. He's not deaf that He cannot hear. But your sins have separated you from you and God. He has had to turn His face from you for God is too purized to look upon evil and you are persisting in evil. That's what the Word is saying. You are continuing in sin. Can you expect God to look upon you with the same eyes of love and favor? Do we not look a squint at our children when they disobey us? We love them dearly, but we don't look at them the same way. We look sternly. We look with the need to discipline. We look at them so because they need to be corrected. And it hurts us so. Well, how much must it pain God to hide His face from His own people because we continue knowingly, willfully in sin? Israel blamed God that they did not receive blessings. We brought the sacrifice, they would say. We've done everything you said. Why haven't you blessed our crops? God says, your hands are full of blood. I will not bless you. I cannot. God doesn't deny that He's our God. God doesn't here deny that we are His people. God just affirms that we must not, we cannot continue in sin as His people. Did not the Apostle say in the New Testament, walk worthy of your calling? Did He not say, having received the Lord Jesus, so walk in Him? Christ is King of our hearts. Savior from sin, yes, but King of our lives. We must obey Him. Listen to Psalm 81, verses 13-14. God says, oh, that My people would listen to Me. That Israel would walk in My ways. I would soon subdue their enemies and turn My hand against their foes. Of course, at the time that was written, God's hand was against His people. God would turn His hand against their foes if they would but turn. He calls them by discipline to come back. And Lamentations 3, verses 39 and 40, why should a living man complain about the punishment of his sins? Let us test and examine our ways and return to the Lord. Don't complain when God afflicts you. Just examine your heart and turn and be blessed. And so the point of these verses is this. Our fellowship with God, our fellowship with God is directly related to our walk before God. If we walk in the light as God is in the light, John says, then we enjoy the blessings of His light, the privileges of being with Him who is light and life. But if we turn our backs to God's light and if we walk in the darkness of sin, then we can only blame ourselves when we stumble into pits of despair and when we trip over hardships in our way. We have brought it upon ourselves. God has told us not to take that path, and yet we took it. If we stayed in the light of God's face, we would see the troubles in our way and we would be able to avoid them. But if we turn from God into sin, then we rob ourselves of the light of His face. We rob ourselves of the wisdom of His counsel. A brother comes to you with words of counsel and you have no ear for him. We rob ourselves of the comforts of His Holy Spirit. The Word is preached and we have no ear for the Word. God speaks to you in the preaching and we have no ear for it. We are living in sin. We cannot hear. We rob ourselves of the assurance of God's salvation, of our salvation. We begin to doubt and wonder and worry. We begin to lose confidence that we are the people of God. Well, because you're living in sin. We rob ourselves of the blessings of his fatherhood. Oh, the gifts we give our children, we dote upon them, spend upon them, love them, overflow them with gifts. How much more will God give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him? And yet, when we live in sin, when we turn from God into sin, we rob ourselves of blessings. Amos, chapter three, verse three, says, Can two walk together except they be agreed? Can you walk with God except you be agreed with God? And so if we find ourselves robbed of our privileges by a famine, rather than blaming others, rather than automatically assuming our innocence, the first thing we need to do is humble ourselves and consider where we have gone away from the Lord and repent. And thirdly this morning, finally, another lesson I think that comes out of this passage is that we learn from this famine in the land that God's threats are real. We so often make light of God's threats because we imagine that they were written only for the unbeliever and that they don't pertain to us because we are Christians. We read God's warnings and threats in Scripture where Jesus says, don't fear man, fear Him. I'll tell you who to fear. He says, fear Him who can throw both body and soul in hell forever. Fear Him, I say. We conclude that since we are already Christians, we are fearing God as we should. Therefore, that verse doesn't apply. Hebrews chapter 3, beware lest there be in any of you a deceitful heart, a wicked heart, an unbelieving heart. We tell ourselves we are already Christians. That verse doesn't apply to us. How foolish. Jesus spoke to His people. The book of Hebrews is written to the church. Let us not ignore. Let us not make light of God's threats. And indeed, God's threats of wrath do not pertain to the church. God's threats of wrath do not pertain to those of us who belong to Jesus Christ by faith, because Paul so definitively stated in Romans 8.1, as you all know, there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. But discipline. as we've already learned, is not wrath. They are different. And not all God's threats are threats of wrath. Many, like the ones He gave Israel in Deuteronomy 28, are threats of fatherly discipline, threats of adversity and discomfort as the inevitable consequences of walking in darkness when we have a Father in whom is no darkness at all. And these don't only pertain to us as Christians, but as we've learned, they pertain to us because we are Christians. Amos chapter 3, verse 2, God says, you only have I known or loved of all the families of the earth. Therefore, I will punish you for all of your iniquities. The understanding is that God doesn't always punish the wicked. He reserves his punishment until judgment day, but his people he will punish. To keep them in the way and walking in accordance with this truth, that they might be a testimony and a witness for his name and salvation. And so the point made in the sending of this famine upon his own people. is that the threats and warnings which God gives to us are not to be taken lightly. Paul tells the church in Galatians 6, 7 and 8, Do not be deceived. God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. Just a statement of fact. We are the people of God, but we reap what we sow. If we sow into sin, we will reap God's discipline. If we sow to the Spirit, we will reap greater life. And therefore, we must fear God's threats as the roaring of a lion, the Lion of Judah, and not deceive ourselves into thinking that we can live in sin because we're Christians and presume upon His mercy that it'll always be there, He'll always forgive. Don't deceive ourselves into thinking that we can ignore God's threats and still enjoy His grace. Because listen to what God says in Deuteronomy 29 verses 18 to 20 about the man who ignores his threats. And he speaks this to his people because there will always be people among the people of God who ignore his threats and presume upon his mercy. The Lord says, beware, lest there be any among you. Lest there be among you a root bearing poisonous and bitter fruit. One who, when he hears the words of this sworn covenant, after all the blessings and curses were laid out, blesses himself in his heart saying, I shall be safe, though I walk in the stubbornness of my own heart. The Lord will not be willing to forgive him, but rather the anger of the Lord and his jealousy will smoke against that man. And the curses written in this book will settle upon him and the Lord will blot out his name from under heaven. What a strong word of judgment against the God of grace, the God of the covenant. What the Lord is saying to those who ignore His threats, to those who presume upon His grace, is this. If we harden our hearts against God's warnings, if we refuse to put off our sins, even when God sends a famine, but persist in willful rebellion, then we should not be surprised if we wake up one day and find ourselves at the judgment bar and the Lord says, depart from Me. We should not be surprised, despite our bold profession of faith, if we actually come short of heaven. Because while there is no shortage of grace for the humble penitent, there is no grace at all for the presumptuous impenitent. That's what Jesus, that's what the Lord is saying in this passage. And we have this echoed in Hebrews 10, 26 and 27. There the writer says, if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there remains only a fearful expectation of judgment. It's a warning to the church. It's a call that we turn to God. And it's a call to heed the famine in our life, if there be one. And so, how do we apply this passage? Well, we have to ask ourselves, of course, if there is a famine in our life. Are we experiencing a famine? Maybe your comforts have dried up. Maybe your strength has turned to weakness. Maybe your stability has turned into flux. Maybe your safety net was pulled right out from underneath your feet. Or maybe you are suffering a time of spiritual dryness and deadness and depression. If so, then you ought to quietly submit yourself to God's providence in your life. And you ought to give thanks to God for His covenant mercy, because whatever loss you suffer is less than what your sins deserve. But the question we need to ask ourselves this morning is this, is my loss, is my famine, is my suffering, is it an act of fatherly chastisement? Is it a famine by which God is trying to get my attention? Is it God's way of telling me that I have departed from Him? Is it God's way of telling me that I am pursuing a course independent of him and therefore against him? Is my famine a storm, the likes of which you remember Christian and hopeful faced when they stepped out of the way that they were in into Bypass Meadow and Pilgrim's Progress? You remember the famine their rebellion brought upon them? They were never without God, never without His grace. They were never without their salvation, but they lost all the comforts of the king's highway. They suffered a terrible storm and they suffered a bout of horrible depression in Doubting Castle from which they were hardly delivered. Does this sound familiar this morning? Ask yourself, congregation, have you drifted from God? Have you lost your first love? Have you lost your passion for God, for His word, for His house? Have you grown cold in your devotions? And is your prayer closet a stranger to you? Have you deliberately turned out of the way of His commandments? Have you chosen for a time a path of rebellion so that you're living in known sin and you're stifling every day the conviction of the Spirit? Think of specific habits in your life. Sometimes our hobbies become idols. Sometimes our recreations hinder us from really serving God. Sometimes we're selfish with our time and we won't give to God what He requires of us. Sometimes we're just greedy for gain in the workplace. Sometimes we entertain ungodliness in what we read and what we watch. Sometimes we selfishly squander all the things the Lord has given us as gifts. And sometimes we use His day for ourselves. If any of these things are so in our lives, then it is no wonder there is a famine in our lives, because we've forsaken the Lord and we've served idols. And it's no wonder what God means by the famine. He's calling us back to Himself in mercy. And it's no wonder what we need to do about the famine. We need to put our idols away. We need to repent and turn from our sins. We need to seek our refuge and forgiveness in the same God who is afflicting us. Because He who afflicts us, afflicts us out of love. And He will restore us out of love. And so I urge you this morning, beloved, to seriously consider the message before you today, to consider if there is a famine in your life, whether it is God's clarion call that you repent and return to Him, whether it's God's merciful warning to you that the path of rebellion you're on is the path of starvation, and whether it is God's gracious invitation that you seek your life, your provision, your joy, in Him alone. For blessed only are those whose God is the Lord and who walk before Him uprightly. Amen.