LIFE ON THE ALTAR

Taken from the book, Reflections on the Book of Ruth, by A. B. Saint

Chapter 2

“If you faint in the time of adversity your strength is small,”
or as the Good News Bible puts it:
“If you are weak in a crisis you are weak indeed.”
 Proverbs 24: 10

How varied and how interesting is the Word of God. Last time we looked and saw that a famine had taken place. Just think of this again for a moment and recall those times, those occasions, when for whatever reason a change of circumstance takes place around us. Maybe what was once an abundant supply in our lives, in whatever form that took, suddenly is no more and what we once enjoyed and may even have taken for granted suddenly dries up and we find ourselves in a dry place.

Whether the fault is at our own door, or not, whether the judgement of the Lord is in evidence or not, the bible reveals it is better to stay in Bethlehem, the House of Bread, in the day of famine, than to take our journey into Moab in the time of plenty. Think of it, does ever a true believer benefit from turning away from God and turning to Egypt, often seen as a spiritual picture of this world? I think not. Better to feed on the bread that we have than to fill our bellies with the husks that the swine would eat. Better to go through difficult times with God than seek to escape from them without Him, for what may appear to be profitable from the outside could in the end have a sting in its tail and prove very unprofitable. 

Life sometimes demands choices. Some choices are easy to make, and some are more difficult. Each person in our story had a choice to make. Often the true result of these choices is only known further down the road. Following the signpost to Moab was not the way to go for the blessing of the Lord was not in that move and no good came from it, and to be sure in a spiritual sense, seven lean years replaced the seven fat.

Even as I contemplate on the famine spoken of in the book of Ruth, the Holy Spirit has brought to mind several other famines which are mentioned elsewhere in the bible. These have been accompanied by the overriding thought that something happens in each of us every time these things take place, whether it be an actual physical drought upon the land or a spiritual drought which enters the life, and it will be seen that when these things take place we may not view things in exactly the same way.

Joseph was a man who prepared for famine.

Take the famine which took place during the lifetime of Joseph. His story is well-known. Sold by his brothers into Egypt he eventually became the Prime Minister of all Egypt, second in line only to Pharaoh. This man could probably speak about famine and also speak about fullness, because of the difficult times, the tests of endurance which with the Grace of God upon his life he had to undergo in his earlier years. Painful experiences as they were, they served to deepen his character development. He had to learn to trust God through times of hardship and trial.

These experiences helped place grit on the inside of him. Joseph was known to speak out his dreams which were prophetic of that which would come to pass, and it proved to be that it was not boyishness, bravado or boastfulness which spoke at these times. God may indeed choose a man in his earlier years and have quite a destiny for him, but a horn will not necessarily sound its arrival, rather there will be many obstacles to overcome, for the pit and the prison cell usually precede the palace. 

Thinking for a moment on his ‘coat of many colours’ I am aware that if a man is conscious of the length of his coat and of its cut and its weave, he is not quite ready for all that God has in store for him. I often think how it is that the road is often long and winding sometimes ere we reach our destination. Needless to say, however, God was with Joseph and the storehouses were built and when the famine came there was corn in Egypt. 

Now nobody relishes drought, and no individual ever has any pressing desire to go through difficult situations. It isn’t something we look forward to, but it comes. In life we experience the highs as well as the lows, the downside as well as the upside. We encounter the times of scarcity as well as the times of plenty but if we keep true to God, He will keep true to us and will prove himself faithful. Has the Lord forgotten us, and will the Lord not raise us up? If we meet the conditions, has He not promised to satisfy our soul in drought and that we will be like a well-watered garden and like a spring of water whose waters fail not?

David was a man who enquired of the Lord as to the reason for the famine

Moving on, can you remember the famine which came in David’s lifetime? In 2 Samuel Chapter 21, it begins with: “Then there was a famine in the days of David, three years, year after year; and David enquired of the Lord.” These latter words are very telling and very striking for they give us another insight into David’s character in less than happy times. 

Something had to be wrong, terribly wrong for the famine to continue year after year. The bible labours the point. Perhaps the first and second year of the drought David might have ascribed it to natural means, but going into the third year begged the question as to whether or not this could be something of a more spiritual nature, perhaps a judgement even from God. As we read on, we find this was the case and had to do with Saul the previous king and before this matter was resolved David had to endeavour to put things right which of course he did.

Just as in the story which Jesus told of the prodigal son, the bible makes it quite clear that in a sense this young man’s famine was of his own making. It seems he had spent all that he had on riotous living, and then the famine came. Lacking his own resources now made him stop and think. The famine caused him to do something about the situation. He came back to father and home. The bright lights were not all they were acclaimed to be, but it took the famine to show him. God help us if a famine of our own making is staring us in the face, yet it doesn’t move us to do anything about it.

We have all experienced spiritual dryness at some time or other, but prolonged dryness, long term lack of fruitfulness, consistently parched souls, are all signs that something is wrong within the life, something which needs to be put right. If it is that sin is indeed in the camp it must be dealt with quickly before there can be any reversal. David was not afraid to inquire of the Lord, he was not afraid of the answer, and neither should we be. It is best to get everything out into the open with Him.  Thank God David had the wisdom to seek the Lord about it.

I woke up this morning with this lovely little devotional chorus on my mind:
Let the dew of heaven fall upon my thirsty soul.
Let the dew of heaven fall on me.
Blessed Holy Spirit come and take control,
Let the dew of heaven fall on me.

Has not the Lord in His Word told us that He will pour water on him that is thirsty and floods upon the dry ground?   Isaiah chapter 44 and verse 3. Did He not also say that He would be as the dew unto Israel? (Hosea chapter 14 verse 5.) 

Remember we were not made to live in a desert but to live in Him!

Famines should serve to do something. We can tell what type of people we are by the way we react in time of want.

In a day of famine Isaac sowed seed in the Land!

What of the famine in the days of Abraham’s son Isaac in Genesis chapter twenty-six.  Unlike his father, Isaac was warned of God not to go down into Egypt at this time but was to hold on to God in Gerar, a Philistine city.  

Irrespective of external conditions Isaac trusted in God, believing the promises. In the time of famine, he didn’t just hang around waiting for something to happen; he was proactive and believed for the harvest to come. Amazingly, and all due to the glory of God, the bible tells us that Isaac in the same year received a hundred-fold; in other words, he received a hundred times as much as he had sown. In verse 13 of Genesis 26 the bible says: “And the man waxed great, and went forward, and grew until he became very great.” 

Faith in God in any time of famine is absolutely important for us. We need it when the midnight hour comes upon us, that point of desperation which could drive us to despair if we knew not the Lord. Isaac wasn’t only sowing seed, but he was also sowing faith. As the people of the Lord, we have to keep on going. When others tell us to stop we have to keep on asking in spite of the lateness of the hour. We have to keep on seeking despite any delay.  We have to keep on knocking no matter the size of the problem. In a way we are not to stop until we hold as it were the loaves of bread in our hands. Famines should serve to do something within us.

Although we will not seek to look into the book of the prophet Habakkuk in any great depth at this time, yet in these writings there is something for us today. Because of the sin of Judah, a great calamity, absolute destruction is on its way in the form of the Babylonian armies and one of the traits, the characteristics of these invading armies was that when they invaded a land they mostly had a ‘we take no prisoners’ approach. They wanted to win at all costs. They would kill both man and beast and destroy any crops growing in the fields.  Everything was destroyed and nothing was salvageable.

Habakkuk was aware of this and right at the end of the last chapter of his book he says: “Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls: yet will I rejoice in the Lord I will joy in the God of my salvation.” Look up this little word ‘joy’ and you will find it is not a mediocre joy but an absolutely jubilant joy; a joy which makes you jump up high in the air! Habakkuk had learned the lesson of rejoicing in the Lord although he may not be able to rejoice in his circumstances.What did he say?“The just, or the righteous,shall live by their faith.”

Sadly, the problem with Elimelech was that he ran away from it. 

I wonder, even though the bible does not say, did Elimelech in the quietness of any moment ever enquire of the Lord? Did it ever cross his mind that maybe he, even in a small way could have been part of the bigger problem? Was there sin in his life? Had he not stood guard over the harvest? Why had he not put any contingency plans into operation? There was a famine in the land and even if he had not been party to the sins which had taken place at that time and which in the end had caused this catastrophe, running away from a bad situation is not always the right thing to do.

We must not put all the blame upon poor Elimelech though as if he were the only person to do this. At times we could ourselves have all been guilty. A desert place opens around us, or we find ourselves in a wilderness setting and words like grace, grit and gumption seem to take flight. Choices in life can affect our destiny.

Now of course there will be occasions when the Lord Himself will move us out of a bad situation. It is He who will give the green light and will move us on. That is a different thing. In a spiritually weakened state Elimelech must have sat down and with a misplaced faith thought that Moab was the answer, and it would be Moab which would save him and be the salvation for his family. On hindsight however, and looking back, it will prove to be that Moab would be a place of death, disaster and spiritual dearth for this little family unit.

Night followed day, the weeks and the months flew by, the years passing. They had made a home for themselves. They were accepted by their Moabite neighbours. It was like they had lived there forever. This brother and his wife had gone out of the will of God and in so doing affected the lives of other people around them. What the husband plans will affect the wife.  What the parents do will affect the children. What the leadership does will affect the Church. What the boss does will affect the workplace. Everything for good or ill has a ‘knock-on‘ effect. 

Should a nation suffer famine in some way because of its sins before Almighty God? Does this mean therefore that those who truly love the Lord will not be looked after by Him? What about all those who stayed loyal to their Land, those who might have been in the minority, yet continued to pray and look to the Lord? Never do anything out of blind panic.  It isn’t always the best thing to find the nearest escape route available and use it.

Unlike Joseph, Elimelech didn’t prepare for it. Unlike the Prodigal Son, he never had the opportunity to return to his homeland. Unlike David, maybe he never enquired of the Lord about it for surely if he had our Lord would never have pointed him in the direction of Moab.

Taken from the book, Reflections on the Book of Ruth, by A. B. Saint