Page 133 - Fundamentals Ebook

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
saved. That is how the book of Ruth begins – in the place of fullness.
You can never be an oasis until you begin there. Moab just
represents everything outside of Christ. It can be good, it can be bad
and it can sound quite spiritual. Anything except Jesus is Moab.

Bethlehem, “The House of Bread”, is a picture of our Lord Jesus
Christ. Fullness is not a goal; fullness is the starting point. In this
book, fruit is the goal. We are moving toward the production of the
Lord Jesus Christ and giving Him to the world, but it all starts in
fullness. There are a thousand and one reasons we leave fullness
and go to Moab. Maybe we try to find fullness in spiritual gifts or
in Christian service or in Christian fellowship or in education or in
the world. We leave fullness and all we find is emptiness. But once
we come back, that is the beginning of the oasis in the desert.

Elimelech and Naomi and their two sons Mahlon and Chilion left
the place of fullness because of a famine, because they said there
was no bread in the House of Bread. They did not understand
fullness and they went off to Moab, and they spent ten years in Moab
and shed a lot of tears in the land of Moab. Naomi loses her
husband, and she loses her two sons. Then, God finally opened
Naomi’s eyes and she heard that the Lord had visited His people in
Bethlehem. She lifted her head toward Bethlehem, and saw the
visitation of God and that there was blessing in the land of fullness.
So, she decided to go back to Bethlehem. As soon as she purposed
in her heart to go back, God already began turning the curse into a
blessing, and it was at that point that Naomi led Ruth, her daughter-
in-law, to the Savior.