Page 133 - Fundamentals Ebook Final

us to be an oasis in the desert.

A person is always the product of his environment. So, do you see
why it is so important that Jesus Christ be your environment? You
are going to become the environment in which you live. What the
atmosphere is to the bird and what the water is to the fish, Christ is
to the believer and fellowship with God. We were created to have
God as our element, as our environment, and we are to live in Him
and move in Him. It is quite incidental how bad the conditions were
in our past or how bad they are now; where we live, where we work,
where we go to school or where we transact our business. Do not
have the idea, “What can you expect?” God expects an oasis, and
He illustrates it in the book of Ruth. It shows the possibilities of
victory in an environment of defeat.

I do not want you to get the idea that if God burns the message of
Ruth into your heart that your life is going to turn into an oasis
without problems. You see, the whole point of Ruth is that it’s an
oasis in the middle of a desert. The problems do not go away. What
good is an oasis if it is not in the desert? Just from a quick scan,
here are some of the problems Ruth dealt with; widowhood,
backsliding, past sin, in-laws, love affairs, idolatry, prejudice,
capital, labor, poverty, relocating, courtship, marriage, faith, facing
the future, losing loved ones, selfishness and old age.

The Book of Ruth is a sociological masterpiece. Anyone who ever
writes a book on human behavior should study the Book of Ruth. It
is brilliant the way God has given us the solution to all of these
problems. God wants us to become like Ruth, an oasis in the desert
where everything around us is all messed up and cold and
indifferent, and people are failing, and lives are dry and fruitless and
defeated, and hearts are broken.

The first step, the first spiritual event, if we are going to become an
oasis in the desert, is returning to the place of fullness, coming back
to Bethlehem, coming back to where we were when we first got