October 22, 2020

Orpah Falls From Grace
Ruth 1:11-15
 
Orpah turned back, and was impossible to renew her again unto repentance. God blots her name out of His book, and we read of her no more. Her story revolves around three choices.
 
Her first choice was to marry into a family of believers. She came to know the family very well. Perhaps often around the family supper table she would hear Elimelech and Naomi talk nostalgically about the true and living God, how He had sent them a kinsman-redeemer to deliver them from bondage and death. He had put them under the blood, He had brought them through the water, and He had gathered them around the table. He had given them His laws and had given them their land. She listened to their Bible stories, fascinating and factual stories about Adam and Eve, Enoch and Noah, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. She heard about Gods wisdom, love, and power. But, alas for Orpah, she was wedded to her idols. Truth penetrated her mind but never touched her heart.
 
So Orpah made her first choice. She married into a family that had personal knowledge of God. Before her lay the opportunity of coming to know that God for herself.
 
Then came her further choice. Sorrow came into her life. Death came calling again and again until Naomi, Ruth, and Orpah all became widows. Then Naomi decided she’d had enough. News that God had been visiting His people back there in Bethlehem helped her make her decision, She would return to her people and her God. That was when Orpah made her second choice. She would go with Naomi. Naomi’s God would become her God, and Naomi’s people would become her people. Ruth made the same decision. So far, so good. But everything would hinge on what happened next. The three widows said their last, sad farewells at the graves of their departed loved ones and set their faces toward the Promised Land.
 
But now comes the tragedy in Orpah’s life—her final choice, She began to lag behind. Naomi’s warning about there being little or no hope of remarriage among the Hebrews took over her mind, Perhaps it would be best to go back to Moab. At least she might find a Moabite husband; after all. she was a Moabite, She came to a stop, and the other two came back to her; but Orpah had made up her mind. She would go back to her people and her gods. And so she did. The call of the true God faded away in her soul. She went back to seek rest with a Moabite husband.
 
Let us suppose that, still young and attractive, she married a Moabite man. Let us suppose, too, she did find rest in his house. What kind of rest would it be? At best it could be just temporal rest—a measure of peace and quiet, a share of this world’s goods, enjoyment of this world’s pleasures and pastimes, attendance at the more pacific and harmless rituals at the local temples and shrines—followed by a Christless death.
 
But there was a darker side to pagan religion, one that Orpah seems to have forgotten. Perhaps Orpah gave birth to a girl, a pretty girl with the earthly promise of beauty of face and form. The priests of Baal might mark her for the temple, to become a harlot, consecrated to the foul Moabite gods and to be debauched by priests and people alike. And Orpah’s rest was gone forever.
 
Or, perhaps, Orpah gave birth to a boy, The priest of Chemosh might cast his evil eye on her little boy and put a mark on him, “Bring him to me at the temple tomorrow,” he might say. “We’ll find a place for him on Chemosh’s lap. You are a woman favored of the god.” What then of Orpah’s rest? Gone! Forever gone. It was a terrible choice she made—to settle for the world’s uneasy peace.

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