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we’re not adequate. We know that You are adequate. We know
that You don’t need us but You want to use us. Teach us just
to live as we wait to meet the risen Savior. Then, Lord, shed
Your love abroad in our heart that we might evermore fall in
love with Jesus. We ask in Jesus’ name. Amen

EPILOGUE

As far as the chronological order of books in the Bible, the Book
of Ruth comes after the book of Judges, but historically Ruth
does not follow Judges. Ruth 1:1, “Now it came about in the
days when the judges governed...” Ruth is right in the middle
of Judges. Judges 17:6, “In those days there was no king in
Israel, and every man did what was right in his own eyes.”
Judges is the story of a moral deterioration. It is almost
depressing to read about some of the sins in these chapters;
immorality, darkness, murders, rapes, homosexuality, and
idolatry. If any book can be called a moral desert, it is the book
of Judges.

It is important to understand that Ruth took place in those days
because unless you knew that, you would never guess it,
because the Book of Ruth is such a breath of fresh air. Ruth is
a wonderful illustration of an oasis in a desert. I think Ruth
would be a wonderful book anyplace in the Bible, but it is a
more wonderful book because of its setting in the days of the
Judges. You see, the question that we need to ask, and that the
book raises, “Is it possible to have an oasis in a moral desert?”
God does want to create out of us corporately and individually,
an oasis in the desert. You do not have to be a scholar to know
that this world is a desert, and everyone is doing what is right
in their own eyes, and there is no king in the land.

Here is the great truth of the Book of Ruth. In every moral