Both young women loved Naomi, and both started the journey with her back to Judah. But then came the test. Naomi, with remarkable unselfishness, laid out exactly what hardships awaited them. If they wanted comfort and security, she said, they should return to their Moabite families.

At first, both women insisted they would throw in their lot with God's people. But when Naomi pressed them to think it through, Orpah changed her mind. With tears and a respectful kiss, she left her mother-in-law, left God's people, left God himself, and went back to her idolatrous world. But Ruth? She gave herself completely to the God of her mother-in-law.

It's one thing to love God's ways when the sun is shining. It's quite another to cling to them when everything goes dark. A kiss of outward profession costs nothing. But actually cleaving to the Lord? That demands holy decisions for truth and righteousness, no matter the price.

So where do you stand? Is your heart truly fixed on Jesus? Is your sacrifice bound with cords to the altar, or will it slip away at the first tug? Have you counted the cost? Are you genuinely ready to lose everything worldly for the Master's sake?

The reward will far outweigh the loss. Egypt's treasures are not to be compared with the glory that awaits. But look at how their stories end: Orpah vanishes from history. Her life of ease and idolatrous pleasure melts into the gloom of death. But Ruth? She lives forever in history and heaven, placed by grace in the royal line that brought forth the King of kings.

Blessed are those who can give up everything for Christ's sake. But forgotten—and worse than forgotten—are those who do violence to their own conscience in the hour of testing and turn back to the world.

This morning, don't settle for mere religious sentiment! Orpah's kiss was sincere, but it wasn't enough. May the Holy Spirit work in us a cleaving, a binding of our whole heart to the Lord Jesus that nothing can break.