I. THE LONELINESS OF DEPARTURE FROM GOD.

There is perhaps no sadder book in the Scriptures than the one tailed Judges. The darkness is not only intensified by contrast with the brilliant narrative of Joshua, but we are saddened at the thought that the state of things was foreseen by him, and was the result of the people's departure from God, spite of all warning.

Throughout the book, the darkness deepens. At the beginning, there is a crying to God, confession of sin, and recovery in His mercy; but the work of deliverance grows more and more shallow, the deliverers themselves less and less men of faith, until the last deliverer, Samson, himself dies in captivity. The remainder of the book contains the shameful narratives of idolatrous departure from God, and its concomitant corruption of man, with the bloody civil war that well-nigh exterminated an entire tribe. There are glimpses of God's mercy all through, so far as the wretched people would permit Him to show Himself in their behalf, but the tendency of everything is downward and away from the light. Nationally, the people were proving themselves without faith and everything pointed to the necessity of a new order. There was no king in Israel. While later they did have a king, it was only as a type of the true King for whom the nation must yet wait, whose coming shall be as the morning without clouds.

In Ruth we have the bright picture, not of man but of God's grace. It begins, morally, as we shall see, where Judges ends, in departure from God. But it is a history of mercy all through, mercy beyond all thought, abounding thus in the surprises which mercy delights to give. Historically, it is evidently the link between the times of the Judges and those of the Kings. It gives us the lineage of the man after God's heart, and typically shows how all blessing comes from David's Son.

Primarily, it has to do with Israel; and we shall find that it unfolds clearly the nation's past course, present condition and the way of future blessing. But grace is the same, whether shown to Israel or to the Gentiles; to a nation, or to the individual. It will be found therefore that, while the form is dispensational and national, the lesson can be applied to the individual as well. There is a common life and a common bond that links together all the people of God, in all dispensations. Family traits can be easily distinguished all through. Abraham is our father, and the family of faith is ever marked by the same humility, obedience and dependence that justified him before God and men.

We will find therefore in this book the history of blessing for the soul, as real and profitable for ourselves as for Israel of whom it is directly the type. While seeking to get the lesson in both, we will see the unity in all God's ways of grace.

The narrative begins at Bethlehem Judah, at a time of famine. The names here, as doubtless throughout the Scriptures, are significant. Bethlehem is "the House of Bread," fittingly the birthplace, long afterward, of Him who as the "Bread of God "came down from heaven to give life to the world. Judah, "praise," is the royal tribe through which in grace the "King" was to come. Praise ever flows from a knowledge of the fulness of blessing which is ours in Christ. Thus food and worship are intimately connected-Bethlehem is in Judah. And it is most natural to find them linked thus together:"I will abundantly bless her provision:I will satisfy her poor with bread. I will also clothe her priests with salvation, and her saints shall shout aloud for joy" (Ps. 132:15, 16).

It seems a strange contradiction to have a famine at Bethlehem. If there is no food at the "house of bread," where can it be found? And yet famines are not unknown in God's land. Abraham found one in his day, and so did Isaac. The character of the country, with its rugged hills and hot climate, without many perennial streams, made it particularly susceptible to drought. It was dependent upon the periodic rains, and if these failed there was no river, as in Egypt, to take their place. Thus the land was in a marked way dependent upon heaven, which but illustrates the spiritual meaning. Our heritage is a goodly one, none so fertile, and supplying spiritual food in abundance. But it must be in constant intercourse with heaven for this richness to be made good to us.

If then, for any reason, divine blessing is withheld, the house of bread becomes a place of famine. Well do we know that it is not the desire of God that His people should suffer. He is no niggard, and if the rain is withheld, the fault is with His people and not with Him. He had emphasized this for them, so that they well understood that when heaven was "shut up" it was in chastening.

It need hardly be said that for us the withdrawal is on our side, and that if joy and spiritual food and
power fail, we are straitened in ourselves alone. God does not hide Himself, the Spirit is not grieved away, but the barrenness and loneliness of soul are just as real as though it were so. Thanks to His grace, the presence of the Spirit with us is a pledge of our recovery to the joy of the Lord.

The famine then was God's call to repentance, and should ever have been so considered. "When heaven is shut up, and there is no rain because they have sinned against Thee." Even where there had been no public departure from God, such an affliction should always have brought them upon their faces, in heart-searching inquiry, Why is this?

Further, the saint's walk is not by sight, and God will sometimes test his faith. This seems to have been the reason for the famine in the time of Abraham. God would see whether he had such confidence in His goodness that even a famine could not shake it. Alas, Abraham did as we are all too prone to do; he sought relief from his difficulties, rather than profit from the trial. How true this is with most of us. Is sickness or distress of any kind sent? At once we seek to extricate ourselves from the trouble, rather than to learn the lesson God would teach us. In sickness more attention is given to thoughts of recovery, and to methods of healing rather than to hearing God's voice to us in sickness. Without doubt we should take knowledge of the sickness, and seek also to find relief. But that should not be our first thought.

We should be with God about our sickness, and after bowing under His mighty hand, we may rest assured that He will raise us up. This is not at all a question of so-called faith cure. There is often more pride in what is called that than in the humble employment of proper means for recovery. God may, and doubtless often does, heal in answer to prayer, and without the use of medicines, just as He often blesses the instrumentalities used. But the point of importance is that recovery is not the first object. What would God have us learn in our sickness? Has there been disobedience for which we are feeling His chastening hand? Or, if there has been no direct act of disobedience, has there been a low, carnal, worldly state, worse than actual outbreaking evil? How foolish to expect or want recovery to bodily health before the soul is healed.
So that along with prayerful use of means, or whatever one is led to do for recovery, there should be the ardent, constant prayer, "Search me O God and know my heart, try me and know my thoughts, and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting."

Abraham failed here, and his failure had most disastrous and enduring results. He could not stay in the land and learn his lesson with God, but he must go down into Egypt, at a distance from Him, and there learn by shameful experience what it is to depart from God. May we, dear brethren, be kept from seeking relief in any but God's way.

We have dwelt upon this, for it is of the greatest importance, and explains what follows. No matter what the sorrow, how great the distress, it can never be right or wise to turn the back upon God. Relief can never come in that way. What seems to be that is but the prelude to deeper sorrow.

Moab, as we know, was the child of Lot's sin. Lot was a child of God, who was not content with the
life of obedient dependence upon Him, but had rather go down into Sodom for worldly advantage. Moab represents the results of this departure. It is fitting therefore that the nation springing from him should be typical of mere profession, an outward connection with God without any reality.

This man from Bethlehem, the house of bread, departs into the place of empty formalism. Perhaps the pressing distress was relieved for the moment, but at what a cost! the death of himself and his two sons. But let us look a little closely at what is here.

The man's name was Elimelech, "My God is King." He figures Israel under the benign government of God. What a blessed relationship, had there been faith to recognize it. Alas, the nation soon grew weary of the holy government of God, and desired a king" "like all the nations." The famine was but part of His government, and should have been accepted as that. Instead, they desired another ruler, and practically forsook their divine King. So it was when Saul was chosen.

The names of the two sons seem to show both the unbelief of the father and the results of God's chastening. Instead of giving them names suggesting His goodness and love, the parents fasten upon them that which was but a temporary cloud, and thus render it permanent by their unbelief, and prophetic of the final and sorrowful culmination.

Naomi, "pleasant," reminds us of those ways of wisdom which are that. Had the nation but remained in subjection to God, how pleasant would all have been. The very trials would have but sanctified them and brought them into a fuller knowledge of His love, holiness and care. But alas, they will not learn in that way. "Forasmuch as this people refuseth the waters of Shiloah that go softly, . . . behold the Lord bringeth up upon them the waters of the river, strong and many " (Isa. 8:6, 7). Because the nation would not remain in subjection, they must be given up to the enemy.

Elimelech dies. What else could there be for one who turns his back upon his King? When Israel turned from God, it gave Him up, and that, so far as relationship with Him was concerned, was the end of the nation. It is now, " Lo-Ammi," not my people. Naomi's pleasantness is turned to ashes. The nation has become a widow; God is no longer her King.

But the end has not yet been reached. There has been dreadful chastening but apparently without effect. Instead of turning to God in her affliction, the widowed mother stays on, and sees her two sons form permanent alliances with the enemies of her people, in direct disregard of God's prohibition. Evidently there is no remedy, no hope of recall for those who refuse even to hear the rod; and nothing remains but the final cutting off. Mahlon, "sick," and Chilion," pining," make good the names which apparently had described the state of their parents' hearts, long before. Their faith had been a sickly, pining thing before any outward sign of declension was visible, and now death puts its seal upon the unbelief of long years. The Lord in His mercy keep us, beloved brethren, from such weakness of faith:its end is the bitterness of death.

There seem to have been two stages in Israel's history, answering to the deaths successively of Elimelech and his two sons. The captivity to Babylon would seem to answer to the death of the father, for the nation was never recognized as the people of God after that. God was not their king, the scepter had been delivered to the Gentiles. After the seventy years, there was a restoration to the land in some measure; but " Elimelech " was not there. It was but a sickly, pining thing after all, that allied itself with mere pharisaic profession, and after the full period of responsibility had passed, the last vestige of national existence ceased in the destruction of Jerusalem, after the rejection and crucifixion of our blessed Lord.

Such now is the condition of Israel, a widow, hopeless and desolate, an alien from the home of her youth and from her God. The witness of her departure from God is seen in her Gentile daughters-in-law. So now the very existence of a Jewish people, scattered among the Gentiles, is a solemn witness that God has been forsaken by them, that they have no further claim upon Him. It is a widowed, desolate nation.

We need hardly speak of the application of all this to the individual soul. Alas, it is only too common, this declension from God in soul, and settling down into mere formalism. Christian parents have to mourn the spiritual death of children, who after all are but the reflection of their own hearts. There is no peace and no safety save as we abide near to God.

Are you alone, dear reader ? Have you lost the joy of God, and wandered into distance from Him? Pause and ask why it has all been. Go back to the time when your heart first became dissatisfied with God and His government, and there you will find the root of all your sorrow. Do you mourn that your children are unconverted ? Ask yourself if their state is not the result of your own sickly, pining faith. If you are a widow, let there be the widow's tears, the widow's heart-break. There is still One who is the Husband of the widows.

(To be continued, if the Lord please.)