MAC KIRK

  Ruth Chapter 1 Highlights.    A severe famine had engulfed the land and Elimelech left to take his family to Moab.   The land of Moab was a fertile land.   The family had to cross a plateau over 4000 feet and lay east of the Dead Sea.   Elimelech went to sojourn   ( Hebrew ger)which at the root means to live among people who were not blood relatives enjoying the native civil rights dependent on foreign hospitality.   Abraham had done this as well as we see in Genesis 12:10 ," And there was a famine in the land: and Abram went down into Egypt to sojourn there.." We as believers in God and in Jesus His Son too are sojourners here in this land. I Peter 1:1 is addressed to the sojourners   scattered who are elect verse 2 .    Lit the Greek word means someone passing through.   Hebrews 11 :13 has the same word , strangers and pilgrims on the earth...These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and confe

  Ruth II.    There is a certain kind of belief which many of the " Christian" sort teach today that we will be blessed wherever and whatever we do.   That flies against the Bible, human nature, and the God of the Bible.   Of course as Christians we are blessed in   spiritual places, that is in Christ by faith here,   and will one day be eternally blessed in heaven where there will be no more difficulties, taxes, or pesky elections or illness ---expected or unexpected and sinful actions on our part or others I should add.   But now here we are talking about Ruth and last week we heard, " ...there was a famine in the land."   1:1 Ruth.   Her name may mean friend in the Hebrew, and that she was as she followed Naomi her mother-in-law , and her   God who she eventually claimed to be her own, "   Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge; thy people shall be my pe

 

8th S. after Trinity Matthew 7:13..... Romans viii. 12. BRETHREN, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh. For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit himself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: and if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.   Matthew 7: Ask, Seek, Knock ( Luke 11:5-13 ) 7 Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to you:  8 For every one that asks receives; and he that seeks finds; and to him that knocks it shall be opened.  9 Or what man is there of you, whom if his son