Okay, turn with me, if you would,
please, in your Bibles to the book of Ruth. We're continuing
on there. And it's possible to take this
book and continue preaching from it for the rest of our lives
because it's the story of redemption. And the Bible is the story of
redemption. The gospel is the message of redemption. In Romans
chapter 3 and verse 24, it says, being justified freely, by His grace through the redemption
that is in Christ Jesus. So our justification is because
of and by the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. So that God justifies his people
because of what Christ has done in our redemption, as our Redeemer.
And if we keep that in our mind, then we'll see that this is the
subject of Scripture. But redemption not only includes
our justification, as we read last week, I think, in Hebrews
chapter 9, that Christ entered into the holy place with his
own blood. And that holy place was heaven
itself in the very presence of God in all of His holiness with
His own blood. And having done that, having
shed His blood in submission of obedience and love to God
for His people, He obtained our eternal redemption. And this
was according to, according to Hebrews 9, this was according
to the everlasting covenant Christ made. Christ is the one who made
the last will and testament of our New Testament. The New Testament
in His blood, which when He died, put it all into force, and that's
why we are justified. But it doesn't include just our
justification, though that would be enough. It includes everything
that flows from that, which is life, life eternal, and an internal
inheritance, too. And so redemption is, you can
see by covering all these things, the redemption of Christ is our
freedom from sin, our justification before God, our eternal life,
and our eternal inheritance. Therefore, it covers the full
extent of the subject of all of scripture. And there's a verse
in 1 Peter 1, I wanna read this to you at the outset, which I
don't think I've mentioned in particular. in this context,
but this is very important. He says in 1 Peter 1, he says,
verse 24, for all flesh is his grass, and all the glory of man
as the flower of grass, the grass withereth and the flower thereof
falleth away. So we look on the fields, we
see the grass. It doesn't just mean grass as
we think of grass like hay, but it means also the flowers. And
we look at it and it's very beautiful, especially this time of the year
when everything's green and the sun is shining, the clouds sort
of cast a contrast in the sky, it's all very beautiful. And
we can sit there and look for it, it relaxes us. And God says
that that grass is going to pass, it's going to wither. We've seen
it every season, it withers. The flowers that are so beautiful
fall away. But this is given to us by God
so that he would know that this is our life. Our life itself
is like the grass, it's going to wither. The best of us and
the best part of us, like the flower, will fall away. But notice
in verse 25, but the word of the Lord endureth forever. God's
word alone endures forever. And this is the word which by
the gospel is preached to you. What is the message of God's
word? The gospel. How do we understand God's word?
The gospel. What do we preach? The gospel.
And so preaching the gospel, we're preaching the word of God
throughout. And so the book of Ruth about
redemption, therefore, is the comprehensive message of scripture. And so we see this here. Now,
we see this subject of redemption throughout scripture, but I want
to point out a couple of things I didn't get time to show you
in our last times, our last messages, but turn to Proverbs chapter... Proverbs chapter 23. I want to
show you these, a couple of texts of scripture in Proverbs. When
you're reading the Proverbs, every verse, every couple of
verses sometimes contains a notion of truth in it, because Solomon,
the wisest man, was led by the Spirit of God to record these
truths in these Proverbs. And some of them are obvious
and some of them not so obvious. So look at actually chapter 22
first, Proverbs 22 and verse 22. It says, Rob not the poor. Now Ruth was poor, Naomi was
poor. They were poor because when Elimelech
took the family to Moab, and he died and his two sons died,
they were left with nothing. They had left their inheritance
in Bethlehem, they came to Moab, they were left impoverished.
They came back to Bethlehem, they were poor people. But he
says here, rob not the poor because he is poor, neither oppress the
afflicted in the gate. To rob the poor is to take from
the poor what little he has, and to oppress the afflicted
is to oppress someone who's already been troubled by God's hand. He says, for the Lord will plead
their cause and spoil the soul of those that spoiled them. Now,
this is a proverb. Understand this, that the poor
in scripture refer to God's people. We're poor in spirit. We have
nothing. In ourselves, we have nothing.
In ourselves, we have no potential. We can't contribute like an infant. We can't contribute to the family.
There's nothing we can do to earn a living for the rest of
the family or to pay back our parents. We're recipients only. We have to be given everything.
So the poor are like that. They have nothing. They don't
have any promise of contribution. They're poor. There's a lot of
people who can contribute, but not the poor. They have nothing.
And they're already oppressed because of their poverty. But
he says, don't oppress them. They're already afflicted. The
Lord is going to plead their cause. The Lord is going to plead
their cause. Now, this is a great comfort
because when the Lord pleads our cause, then our cause is
going to succeed, won't it? He's going to plead our cause.
And those who afflict the poor and rob them, try to take from
God's people the inheritance that God has given them in Christ.
That's what it means. So understand this, when God
is saying, don't rob the poor, don't through the preaching of
a false gospel try to steal from God's people their eternal life
and righteousness and all the blessings of the gospel that
God has given to them in Christ. It's in Christ, it's theirs,
God has given it to them. And when you try to accuse them,
when you try to bring them, afflict them through a gospel that preaches
that they must lift themselves up out of their poverty and produce
in themselves what God requires in order to know their Now having
the assurance before God and confidence before God, all these
things are robbing the poor. So we see that here. Now look
over at chapter 23, the same thing there. He says in verse
10, remove not the old landmark. When it says old, think of eternally
old. Remove not the old landmark,
the boundaries that God has described, and enter not into the fields
of the fatherless. The fatherless are those who
have no father. They have no one to watch over
them, to provide, to protect, to lead them, to teach them.
They're fatherless. Their father, therefore, has
to be God, because the Lord is the father of the fatherless.
So these are those who have been given, again, an eternal inheritance
by God's eternal will. He has made himself their father.
They have no father. Their father Adam died. They
died in him. They were not children of Satan's
kingdom, they were children of God's kingdom, so they're fatherless.
And therefore, he says in verse 11, for their Redeemer is mighty,
and He shall plead their cause with thee. You see, our Redeemer
is mighty, and He's the one who pleads our cause. Now, that's
what we see in the book of Ruth. Ruth enters into Bethlehem. She has nothing. Boaz, her great
Redeemer, is mighty, and he pleads her cause in order to have her
as his wife and to enrich her with all that is his. Now I want
to look back here in Ruth with you, and I want to consider some
things that as I was going through the course of our week, that
we think of these things, and then it seems like I should bring
these out to your attention so that you can benefit from it
too. Ruth is a very practical book. It's practical because
it teaches us about a very poor woman who had nothing, who was
redeemed by such a great man. So when we consider Ruth, we
can see ourselves in her when we see what God has taught us
about our own sin and our ruin in Adam. But it's also very practical
on an everyday life level. Because Ruth pledged to follow
Naomi for her whole life. And we saw in this that the believer
is given, by the operation of God, grace to commit themselves
not only into the keeping hand of the Lord Jesus Christ, but
into everything. So that's called trusting God.
Sometimes we ask these questions throughout our life, I know I
have, and they often occupy a large amount of our effort and concern.
Here's some questions for you that maybe you've had. What would
my occupation be in this life? Think about Ruth asking this
question. What shall my occupation in life be? Who shall I marry? Shouldn't I worry that I'm getting
too old because she had been married 10 years and had no children?
Too old to support myself, unable to support myself, too old to
get married, too old to have children. Maybe she asked where
should I live or who would be able to provide since I can't,
how can I provide for myself? Who will provide for me? Who
will protect me? all these questions. But notice Ruth's main concern,
the thing that captured her affections and her desire was to follow
Naomi because she had heard from Naomi about the God of Israel. So all these questions to Ruth
were answered when she heard of Christ who is the King and
God of Israel. When her heart was opened by
God, she therefore resolved to follow him. And the answers of
her life were answered in her heart, in her heart. Sometimes we think, well, if
I don't get these things right, the answers to these questions
right, then my life will be what? It'll be wasted. I missed opportunities.
But that's not the issue. In Proverbs 4, verse 23, it says,
my son, Keep thy heart with all diligence,
for out of it are the issues of life." So what are the issues
of life then? It's what's going on in the heart.
It's not what we do physically, or in a career, or even in our
family, whether we're married or have children, or the timing
of all these things. What matters to God, and what
God wants us to be concerned with, is what's going on in the
heart. Keep your heart with all diligence,
for out of it are the issues of life. So that what this leads
us to as we see in Ruth is that she was compelled by what she
had heard from Naomi and her love for Naomi to follow Naomi
and to relinquish and to commit the course of her life for her
whole life over to whatever would happen with Naomi. Her people
would be her people, her God, her God. Naomi's dwelling, where
she lived would be where she lived, and where she died would
be where she died. She wanted to be buried where
Naomi was buried. That seems like she had devoted
herself to the heart issue of being with Naomi, which is a
word picture, a historical picture of being with Christ. If we have
Christ, it doesn't matter where we live. It doesn't matter what
our occupation is. It doesn't matter who we marry
or how many children or if we have children or are married.
None of those things matter if Christ is our King in our heart. And so what does this mean practically?
Well, it means trusting Christ means that we ask. Don't we? In the book of Ruth in chapter
3, Ruth in verse 9, she asked Boaz, she said, spread your skirt
over your handmaid, for thou art a near kinsman. In other words, you're a near
kinsman, you're my redeemer. You're my Redeemer, the only
one who can redeem me, therefore spread your skirt over me." She
asked him to take her and her cause, her life and everything,
and bear her up himself. Take my case and hold me up in
everything, in my life, for all eternity, in life and for all
eternity. She was really pledging herself
into the care of her Redeemer. That's what we do in our heart.
The heart matters are committing everything to the Lord Jesus
Christ. And so trusting Christ, we lay
everything on him. I've emphasized this in our Bible
study too, but it deserves being re-emphasized over and over.
It says in Psalm 37, I want you to listen to these words in Psalm
37, fret not thyself because of evildoers, neither be thou
envious against the workers of iniquity. When we live our lives
in this world, we see a lot of prosperity, we see people pursuing
their lives and being successful, and we see their success and
we wonder, what's happened to me? I don't have the knowledge,
I don't have the skills, I don't have the opportunities, things
aren't opening up for me, I don't have the right friends, all these
things we lack. Fret not thyself, because of
evildoers, neither be thou envious against the workers of iniquity.
For they shall soon be cut down like the grass, and wither as
the green herb. Here's what God says to his people.
Trust in the Lord, and do good, so shalt thou dwell in the land,
and verily thou shalt be fed. The land is salvation, the feeding
is Christ and him crucified. delight thyself also in the Lord,
and He shall give thee the desires of thine heart." In other words,
God's not only going to give you what you desire, He's going
to give you the very desire to desire it. "...commit thy way
unto the Lord, Just like Ruth, I'm going to go where you go,
live where you live. Your people, your God will be my people and
my God where you die. That's where I want to die and
be buried there. Commit thy way to the Lord. Trust also in him
and he shall bring it to pass. That's what trusting God is.
Lord, I have this tremendous need to be saved from my sin.
That's our need. That's a heart need. That's not
just a life need, that's an eternal need, committed to the Lord.
Well, what about all these other things in this life? What should
I do then? Should I just lay around and wait for lightning
to strike? No, commit your way to the Lord.
You commit your way to Christ, seek first the kingdom of God,
everything else will be added to it. So that whatever you do,
whether you're a farmer or you're a financial advisor, whether
you're impoverished or whether you're rich, those things don't
matter because the heart is where the life is. And if you have
Christ in your heart and Christ as the food of your life and
by faith and live upon Him, then it doesn't matter whether you're
wealthy or not. Those things don't matter, is Christ. And
He will direct your paths. He said, commit your way to the
Lord. Trust also in Him. He shall bring it to pass. He
shall bring forth thy righteousness as the light and thy judgment
as the noonday. He'll reveal to you and to others
that your righteousness is Christ. and he'll make it known to you,
rest in the Lord. Wait patiently for him and fret
not thyself because of him who prospers in his way. Because
of the man who brings wicked devices to pass, cease from anger
and forsake wrath. Don't get all wrapped around
the axle of these things that cause stress in your life and
you lash out at people, right? No, because you're trusting God.
If I don't have something, God didn't give it to me. If I labor
and I get weary, be thankful for that ability to labor. Everything
you do, be thankful for it and endure hardship because it's
all from God. His gift and his tempering hand
in our lives. Be thankful for it. Wait on the
Lord. That's what he says in Psalm
37. And we could go on and on in this, but I just, I feel that
that's enough to give you the, just think of Ruth, how she was
impoverished. She went out into the field.
She was gathering grain. That wasn't no great, she wasn't
a doctor or a lawyer or a, some great woman. I remember I was
getting my teeth cleaned at the dentist years ago, and this woman
had a plaque on the wall and said, the greatest thing that
you can have is to be admired by your peers. I thought, oh
my goodness. And you know what? That woman
died before she was 40 years old. I thought, what a tragedy. What a tragedy. The highest attainment
in her life was to be admired by her peers. What a sad, sad
thing that is. May God give us grace to find
Christ in Him crucified, the very delight of our heart, trust
in Him so that everything in our life, it doesn't matter what
you do, it doesn't matter whether you're successful or in the eyes
of this world, totally a flop. Is Christ enough? Is He all? If He is in your heart, then
you have all things. You have the very, what God says
in Colossians 2, you are complete in Him. Okay, now back to Ruth
in chapter one. Look at this together with me
in verse 19. So they too, Ruth and Naomi,
went until they came to Bethlehem. And it came to pass, when they
were come to Bethlehem, that all the city was moved about
them. And they said, is this Naomi? Because obviously she
was probably ragtag. She was just with one daughter.
Where's her family? Is this Naomi? She said to them,
call me not Naomi, Pleasant. Don't call me Pleasant. Call
me Mara. For the Almighty hath dealt very
bitterly with me. I went out full, and the Lord
hath brought me home again empty. Why then call ye me Naomi, seeing
the Lord hath testified against me, and the Almighty hath afflicted
me?" So Naomi returned, and Ruth the Moabites, her daughter-in-law,
with her, which returned out of the country of Moab, and they
came to Bethlehem in the beginning of barley harvest. So what is
all this teaching us? Remember, this is an allegory.
It happened. It was historical. These were
real people. They had real names and real
relations. They lived a real life. But it
was all orchestrated by God and recorded by the Holy Spirit in
Scripture to teach us a greater message. The things that were
written of old, according to the Apostle Paul, were written
for our learning, for our learning, our learning of the gospel. And
so here we see that Ruth and Naomi came to Bethlehem. They
came back there. And when they got there, Naomi
was greeted as if she was pleasant. But she said, don't call me Naomi.
Don't call me pleasant. God has afflicted me. He has
dealt very bitterly with me. Now, what is this saying here?
How does this teach us the gospel here? Well, if you read through
scripture, especially in the Old Testament, There's one thing
that sort of stands out to you and it keeps coming back again
and again and again, almost ad nauseum, almost to the point
where you get tired of hearing about it and so frustrated by
it. And what is that? That Israel,
the nation, constantly disobeyed God And because of their disobedience,
God brought them into the subjection of their enemies and chastised
them seriously by their enemies. Remember? You can read about
this from the beginning. They were in Egypt for over 400
years. They came out of Egypt. They
were in the wilderness. Their enemies would attack them. And
when they got into Canaan, there were still enemies always attacking
them. Finally, after a long period of time, they were sold as captives. They sold themselves because
of their sin as captives to the Assyrians and to the Babylonians,
and then at the time of Christ they were under the hand of the
Romans, and then their nation was destroyed. You look at this
nation and you wonder, these people were so beat up and wrung
out and ruined. What is the message here? Isn't
that what Naomi's saying here? God has afflicted me. He's dealt
very bitterly with me. Well, what's the message in that?
It seems like it's repeated so often, there has to be a very
clear message in it. Turn to Isaiah chapter one. We
see this, I think I read this once already regarding the book
of Ruth, but I want you to see this connection here. Naomi is
saying something to Ruth. Ruth in this account in the book
of Ruth, she represents the redeemed of the Lord. Ruth is the redeemed
of the Lord in the allegory. Boaz is her redeemer. But remember,
she comes from where? She comes from the country of
Moab, the people of Moab. And the people of Moab, according
to scripture, were proud. They lived in ease. They were
never troubled like the nation of Israel was. And they were
idle worshipers. And they came from Lot. through
an incestuous relationship, so they were, even in the law of
God, Deuteronomy 23, verse three, they were under this isolation
from Israel, not part of the promises, not part of the covenants.
They were not God's people, they were strangers, they were idolaters,
they were corrupt, they were cursed people. Okay, that's where
Ruth came from, and she was poor, and she's the redeemed of the
Lord. She was a Gentile. Amazing, huh? Now, keep that,
hold that in mind. This is Ruth. And God is setting
this up to teach us this is the way God redeems His people. We are, all of us here, certainly,
are Gentiles. And if you were born a Jew, you
are a Gentile in heart. You're cursed by God's law. You're
a stranger to the promises of God and the covenants of grace.
And until God in Christ removes the barrier that separates us
from Him and gives us the things that are Christ, we have nothing.
We're poor. And we're separated. We're idolaters
in our heart. God has to do this. But the nation
of Israel, in the words of Naomi, are going to now show us how
God sees His people before He redeems them and what happens,
what this is about. Look at this in Isaiah chapter
1. He says in verse one, the vision
of Isaiah, the son of Amos, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem
in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, Hezekiah, kings of Judah. Notice verse two, hear, O heavens,
and give ear, O earth, for the Lord has spoken. I have nourished
and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me.
The ox knows his owner, and the ass his master's crib, but Israel
does not know. My people does not consider.
Ah, sinful nation, a people laid in with iniquity, a seed of evildoers,
children that are corruptors. They have forsaken the Lord.
They have provoked the Holy One of Israel to anger. They are
gone away backward. That's a pretty bad condemnation,
isn't it? That's a sentence against these
people. Why should you be stricken anymore? It's like a father who
has a son. I've beaten the tar out of you
and you're still so hard-headed that all of the stripes on your
behind are not making a difference in your mind. Why should you
be stricken anymore? You will revolt more and more.
The whole head is sick and the heart faint. From the sole of
the foot to the head, there's no soundness in it but wounds
and bruises and putrefying sores. They have not been closed, neither
bound up, neither mollified with ointment. You're just, you've
been beaten and all of the consequences of your sin are evidently, openly,
apparent to all who look upon you. Your country is desolate,
your cities are burned with fire, your land, strangers devour it
in your presence, and it is desolate as overthrown by strangers. And
the daughter of Zion is left as a cottage in a vineyard, as
a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, as a besieged city. This strong
city is like a besieged city, like in the middle of a garden
of cucumbers, no defenses. Except the Lord of hosts. The armies of heaven, the Lord
of the armies of heaven had left unto us a very small remnant. We should have been as Sodom
and we should have been as Gomorrah. All right, there's the sentence.
And this describes the nation of Israel. But it also describes
all of God's people because this is what we are. Now, look at
verse 18. Come now. Let us reason together,
saith the Lord, though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be
as white as snow, though they be red like crimson. These colors,
red and scarlet, they refer to the fact that we're under the
sentence of death. They shall be as wool, as pure
as the ribbon snow, as pure as wool, white, clean. You see, what God is saying here
is that the bitterness that Naomi experienced and the bitterness
that the nation of Israel experienced because of their sin could not
undo our sin against God. It could not change our hearts. Our whole self is sick from the
sole of our foot to the top of our head. And all of God's chastisement
on us will not take away our sin before God, and it won't
turn us in our heart. What has to happen then? The
Redeemer has to come. A substitution has to be made.
He has to take on our place. The bitterness that we deserved
has to be rendered in satisfaction to God. because we couldn't do
it. And it's in the Redeemer that
not only are we brought to God, but that our heart is wooed by
His love. That's what this is saying in
Ruth chapter one. So Naomi, as I mentioned before,
as the Spirit of God speaking through the Old Testament prophets
now, is speaking to Ruth as a sinner. God's Spirit is teaching the
sinner the first principle of the redemption, which is what?
A substitution has to take place. And satisfaction to God has to
be made. All of the bitterness you've
experienced has led you to this point. You're utterly empty,
wasted, and ruined, and lost until the Redeemer comes. And
that's what happens here in the end of chapter 1. So Naomi returned. Because she had heard about the
bread in Bethlehem, she returned and Ruth, her daughter-in-law,
the Moabites, the cursed woman from a cursed people, came with
her. So here God's Church is. The
Old Testament and New Testament Church, led by the Spirit of
God, are returned out of the country of Moab And they come
to Bethlehem, the house of bread, in the beginning of barley harvest,
as we saw last week, that teaches us Christ's resurrection from
the dead. He was delivered for our offenses.
He was raised again for our justification. And this is our Redeemer. He
took our case, He took us, and He paid God all the debt we owed
in the crimes of our sin against God in order to bring us to God
and to join us to Him. And that's what the Spirit of
God does, as seen here in Naomi. She teaches Ruth to go to Christ. She brings Ruth, the Moabitess,
the poor and destitute woman who had no husband now, to Christ. And in Christ, she's going to
bear fruit just as God saved the Gentiles and the Lord Jesus
Christ by his death and resurrection. And it was only then, only then,
that she could bear fruit to God and have children as happens
here in the book of Ruth. Okay? So now you see there in
sort of an overview of this, the important point of this.
In the book of Ruth, what we're seeing here is not somehow compromising
of God's truth. What we're seeing here is a fulfillment
of a satisfaction, a balancing of the scales in order that God's
grace can be lavished on the undeserving, the ill-deserving,
the helpless and condemned sinner who's corrupted themselves and
in a terrible state of ruin and destituteness. All in the Redeemer,
all because God did this for her in Christ. And so we'll have
to continue this next time. I know I keep saying we're gonna
get into chapter two, and we will next time, Lord willing.
We're getting into chapter two. It's a love story. It's the love
of the Redeemer for the redeemed. And we're gonna see this, how
in Boaz, we're gonna see the Redeemer. I'll give you one hint
here. The name Boaz, what does it mean? According to John Gill, it means
in him is strength. In him is strength. And I want
to look at how Boaz's genealogy too. Because it turns out that
Boaz was the son of Salmon, and Salmon was the son of Nashon,
who was the son of Abinadab, who was the son back to Judah.
And these people in the whole tribe of Judah teach us that
the Lord Jesus Christ is the King of Israel, in the ultimate
sense. Let's pray. Father, thank you
for your goodness that you orchestrated the salvation of your people
in the Lord Jesus Christ to your glory, out of their ruin, by
his redemption, into riches and glory untold. Really, the half has not been
told. And we know, Lord, that this
redemption is complete in Christ. He did it all. He is the Redeemer. We are those who could contribute
nothing. We were the ones who needed Him
to take us and cover us with His own righteousness and to
give us His own riches. Out of His riches, all grace
that we need to believe Him, to live, and to know Him, and
to come to Him, and to be conformed to His image. Everything we need
is in our Redeemer. Thank you for this. text of Scripture. We pray, Lord, that you'd bless
it to our hearts. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.