If you'd like to open your Bibles
with me, we're going to be looking at the first 11 verses of Ruth
chapter 3. Ruth chapter 3. Before reading this story, let
me just say that my hope and prayer and objective is to be
for you what Naomi was to Ruth. To be for you what Naomi was
to Ruth. Naomi is instructing Ruth from
Scripture how to approach her kinsman-redeemer, Boaz. We know
that Boaz is a type of Christ and that Ruth would not have
been familiar with what God had given to the children of Israel
as far as what was required and what was promised in her salvation. And so Naomi gives her some very
clear instructions on how to approach Boaz. I've titled this message, How
to Approach Christ. I want to know from scripture
how it is that a Moabitist, a foreigner, a sinner can approach the Lord
Jesus Christ and find rest for their souls. Verse 1. Then Naomi, her mother-in-law,
said unto her, My daughter, shall I seek rest for thee? This is
clearly a rhetorical question. She's A rhetorical question is
a statement put in the form of a question for the purpose of
emphasis. And so this isn't a question,
it's a statement. She's saying, I want to, I want to find rest
for you, that it may be well with thee. That's my hope, that
I can find a place of rest for you so that it will be well with
you. You'll be able to sing, it is
well with my soul, regardless of the circumstances that God
has ordained for you to go through in this life. And more importantly,
that you will be able to stand in the day of judgment and know
that it is well, it's well. You have a place of rest. So our first verse lays out what
The purpose of this message is. Verse two, and now is not Boaz
of our kindred? With whose maidens thou wast?
Behold, he went with barley tonight in the threshing floor. Wash
thyself therefore, and anoint thee, and put thy raiment upon
thee, and get thee down to the floor. but make not thyself known
unto the man until he shall have done eating and drinking. And
it shall be when he lieth down that thou shalt mark the place
where he lie, and thou shalt go in and uncover his feet and
lay thee down, and he will tell thee what thou shalt do. And
she said unto her, all that thou sayest unto me, I will do. And that is my hope for you,
that you will be able to say all that you've told me, I'm
gonna do it. Verse six, and she went down
into the floor and did according to all that her mother-in-law
bade her, And when Boaz had eaten and drunk and his heart was merry, let me say this, there's no indication
in the language here that Boaz was intoxicated. That's not the point. The word
here, merry, is thankful. The Lord had given him an abundant
harvest. And Boaz, in working all day
and in concluding his day with a good meal, was thankful. And when Boaz had eaten and drunk
and his heart was merry, he went to lie down at the end of the
heap of corn. And she came softly and uncovered
his feet and laid her down. And it came to pass at midnight
that the man was afraid. and turned himself, and behold,
a woman lay at his feet. And he said, who art thou? And
she said, I am Ruth, thine handmaid. Spread therefore thy skirt over
thine handmaid, for thou art a mere kinsman. And he said,
blessed be thou of the Lord, my daughter, for thou hast showed
more kindness in the latter end than at the beginning. Inasmuch
as thou followest not young men, whether poor or rich, and now,
my daughter, fear not. I will do to thee all that thou
requirest, for all the city of my people doth know that thou
art a virtuous woman." If we read this story without
understanding what God has given in his Old Testament law concerning
the kinsman-redeemer, concerning the gospel, concerning the Messiah,
then we might be tempted to think that Naomi is instructing her
daughter-in-law on how she might seduce Boaz, how she might take
advantage of him. Nothing could be farther from
the truth. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Now there are
plenty of examples of characters in the Bible of deceit and of
seduction, but this is not one of them. Ruth is not being flirtatious
or improper in any way. She's coming to Boaz in perfect
accordance with the legal means that the Lord had given the children
of Israel. And Naomi has instructed her
on these means. And she is following God's prescription
on how she might find rest and redemption. The statement that Boaz makes
at the very end of verse 11 ought to clarify that, if nothing else,
when he says to her that all the people in the city know that
you are a virtuous woman. Unfamiliar as she would have
been with the Old Testament law, Naomi instructs her on how God
has provided a way for the salvation of a woman
who has lost her husband and has no children. Now, we know
that the Bible is a gospel story and children were a woman's hope
for salvation. Every Jewish woman longed for
that opportunity to be the womb of the one that would bring forth
the child that would crush the head of the serpent. You see,
this goes all the way back to the fall. The seed of the woman was promised
by God, and every Jewish woman hoped that she might be the one
to bring about that seed. that what Israel needed more
than anything else was that they needed a Messiah. They needed
a Savior. And if a woman lost her husband
without children, then she was without hope in that regard.
That's the reason why we have so many stories of women in the
Old Testament who are grieving over their barren womb. We have
the story of Sarah and Jephthah and Rebekah and Hannah. just
to name a few, pleading with God to give them
a child. This is a picture, an Old Testament
picture of salvation. We're not in any way suggesting that a woman without children
is somehow cursed or that one who has an abundance of children
is somehow blessed. This is a gospel message. This
is a gospel story. These things are to be understood
in light of the Messiah and the seed of the woman. Deuteronomy chapter 25. God gave
clear instructions on what was to happen if a man died and left
his wife without children. The brother was to take her in.
Her near kinsman was to take her in. And that she might have
children by him, that her husband's name die not away. You see, that's the salvation
of his home. It's a picture of land and descent. and descendants is a physical
picture of a spiritual reality. It has to do with salvation. And so, We see this even carried on into
the New Testament, don't we, in Matthew chapter 22, when the
Sadducees, who did not believe in the resurrection, came tempting
the Lord, and they said, they gave him this scenario. They
said, Lord, a man dies, and his widow was without children, and
his brother took her in. and then he died and his widow
was without children as she remained without children and his brother
the next brother in line took her in until seven brothers had
her as a wife and in the resurrection whose wife shall she be you see
the the ridiculous question that these Sadducees ask the Lord
is as ridiculous as trying to make a physical blessing or a
physical curse out of children or lack thereof from these stories,
because what did the Lord say to those Sadducees? You do err,
not knowing the scriptures nor the power of God, for this doesn't
have anything to do. Those who are in heaven are like
the angels. They're not marrying and giving him marriage in heaven.
So they were taking this gospel type and trying to make a physical
law out of it, and the Lord said, no, you're erring, you don't
understand. May God guard us against that. This is a gospel
type. Ruth desperately, Ruth's father-in-law,
a limeleck, had two sons, Malon and Chilion. And we're not sure
from scriptures exactly which one of those two boys was Ruth's
daughter's husband and which one was Orpah's husband, but
they both died in Moab and left them without children. And now
Naomi brings Ruth back from Moab to Bethlehem and they are seeking
a savior. These are women without any hope
of salvation. unless a near kinsman. Now what Boaz says to Naomi in
the text that we just read leads me to think that Boaz was probably
a Limelech's brother, which would have made her Ruth's
uncle by marriage. Because he says to her, you know,
you're not seeking, but it would have been, and according to the
law of Leviticus 25, it would have been a Limelech's brother
that would have had to step up to take responsibility for Ruth
and for Naomi. So that's the picture. The near kinsman is a type of
Christ. And so we have been left as a
result of sin, barren and lost without hope of salvation. We've
been left destitute. We've been left dead in our trespasses
and sins. And according to the law of God,
we have a kinsman. We have a brother. an elder brother who is able. Remember Boaz? Boaz was a man
of wealth, mighty man of wealth. His name means strength, and
he's able to save to the uttermost them that come unto him, come
unto God by him. So we see in this story, not
a flirtatious woman trying to take advantage of an older man.
We see in this story, A woman who's been instructed by her
mother-in-law who understood the law exactly how she was to
find a kinsman according to the law of God, according to the
instructions of Scripture. And that's how we come. That's
how we come. We are barren. We're left without
heritage, without descendant, without family, without hope. And we have an elder brother
who has fulfilled the responsibility of the law. That's what Leviticus
25 is. He, Elimelech, was under duty
of the law to redeem Ruth. And so, Ruth goes understanding
that this all has to be done in accordance to God's prescribed
law. And that's exactly how our salvation
happens. The Lord Jesus Christ fulfilled
all these types, all these pictures. And so we have one who has said
to us, go. There's a kinsman, his name is
Boaz, and he's able to say, In Leviticus chapter 25, you
remember Elimelech, Naomi's husband, from the very first part of chapter
1, left Bethlehem, Judah, during a famine and went to Moab and
died in Moab. And now Naomi comes back and
her property has been sold. I'm sure Elimelech sold it before
he left. Probably didn't get much for it. You know, they were
in dire straits. So now she comes back, and the
Lord has not only provided for a woman who is without child,
He also has provided for a near kinsman to buy back the property
that his brother has lost. You see, once again, not only
children, but physical property represent under the Old Covenant,
under the Old Testament, a picture of our salvation. to be without
children or to be without property was to be without any connection
to Israel. It was to be without any hope
of salvation. And so the Lord not only provided
for the brother to take the woman who was without child, but also
provided a near kinsman who was able to buy back the property
that had been sold and restore it into the family. And that's
found in Leviticus chapter 25. And so Naomi's telling her, oh,
there's a kinsman. There's a kinsman. He's able
to take you in and to bring children. And here's the glorious truth
of this whole story. We're talking about the Messiah,
who was the child that Ruth and Naomi Bring in to be. Who is it? It was Obed. And Obed
and his wife gave birth to Jesse. And Jesse and his wife gave birth
to David. And so Ruth, this Moabitess,
dreaming with Naomi how to be a part of the Messiah who's been
promised, the Savior of Israel. That's all that's important.
What's important is not property, not children, we've got to have
a savior. And now we find Ruth, the great
grandmother of King David, mentioned in Matthew chapter one in the
very lineage of the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ. And so
her dreams and her hopes are fulfilled. And here we are. The Lord says unto you and I,
he says, no longer do I call you servants for a servant doesn't
know what his master does. I call you my friends. He calls
himself our elder brother, our husband, our father, part of
the family of God, adopted into the family of God. You see these
Old Testament stories. are pictures of what has to be
fulfilled spiritually in order for you and I to be saved. You
see that? Naomi is giving Ruth an understanding
of what God has provided in the Levitical law for just the kind
of woman that she was. just in the plight that she found
herself. There's hope for redemption.
And I'm saying to you this morning, what Naomi said to Ruth, there's
a kinsman, there's a redeemer. You are barren without life and
without hope of salvation. Your father, Adam, sold you out. And you have agreed to everything
that he did in the garden by your own sin. And you're left
without any stake in Israel, without any property, without
any rights in the family of God. But there's a kinsman. There's
a kinsman. His name is Boaz. He's a mighty
man of wealth. And so she tells him, go down
to the threshing floor. How do we come to the Lord Jesus
Christ? We come to him as one who is
able to save in accordance with the law that God has given. And
we come to him as the judge of all the earth. What is the winnowing
floor? What does the threshing floor
represent? Do you know what it represents?
The threshing floor was an elevated rocky area, smooth rock normally
or flat ground, where a gentle breeze would come through and
they would take the grain up there and gently they would crush
the grain while it was in the stalk. And then they would take
the forks and cast it up into the air and the breeze would
come just at the right time of day. They would do this until
the chaff would be blown off the hillside. and the heavier
grain would fall to the ground and then they could gather up
the grain. You see what that's a picture of. The judge of all
the earth is going to crush. And, you know, they didn't use
animals to crush the grain. They would just beat it softly
to separate the grain from the chaff. And here's a picture of
what the Lord does in our lives in order to separate that chaff,
which will be carried off into the fire, the scriptures are
clear, and be burned with an unquenchable fire. That chaff
is the unbeliever. And the grain will be gathered
up and put into the barn. And it's all, the division of
the grain from the chaff is not to be decided by us, it's decided
by the Spirit of God. It's the Spirit of God that blows,
that separates. The Lord said, don't try to uproot
the tares from the wheat. You're just gonna damage the
wheat if you do that. We don't know who the tares and
wheat are, but the Spirit of God does. And so we come to the
Lord Jesus Christ as the one who separates the sheep from
the goats, the wheat from the tares, the chaff from the wheat.
from the grain and brings into his eternal barn his wheat. Go down to the threshing floor. Notice where this, turn back
with me to the, beginning of chapter 3, and now, is not Boaz
of our kindred? With whose maidens thou wast?
Behold, he went with barley to-night. I suspect that the breeze was
just right at night. Too strong of a wind would blow
away the wheat. Not enough wind would not do
the job, so it's done at night. What is that? What is night a
picture of? You see what it's a picture of.
A picture of the cross of Christ, the darkness that took place
from the sixth to the third hour. When the Lord Jesus Christ was
being winnowed, being separated, bearing the penalty of our sin
and suffering the rejection of his father. He was forsaken of
God. Kind of like that plague that
took place in Egypt. It was a darkness that could
be felt. And that plague took place for three days in Egypt.
One of the plagues was the darkness. And for three hours, This number
three is so significant. It pictures the completeness
of our salvation and God the Father who chose a people and
Christ who redeemed them and the Holy Spirit who regenerates
them. And so here's what happens in darkness. And we come to God
in the darkness of our sin. We're like Nicodemus who came
to the Lord Jesus Christ at night. Why did Nicodemus come at night?
Because it represented his spiritual condition. And that's how we
come. We come to Him as sinners. We
come to Him as the one who satisfied the requirements and the types
of the law. We come to Him as the judge of
all the earth. We come to Him confessing Him. Notice in verse 3, wash therefore
therefore and anoint thee and put thy raiment upon thee and
get thee down to the floor. What is the washing of? It's
the washing of regeneration. Peter makes it clear that our
baptism, our water baptism doesn't wash away sins. But it's a outward picture of
an inward grace that takes place when the water of God's Word
washes away our sins. And he says, come to Him in the
confession of baptism and washing of regeneration by the water
of God's Word. And put on your robe, put on
the robe of righteousness, come to Him looking to Christ for
all of your righteousness before God. Anoint thee. How do we come? Lord, if you don't anoint me
with your Holy Spirit, the anointing is always a picture of the work
of the Spirit of God. Lord, if you by your Spirit don't
anoint my heart and clothe me in thy righteousness, I can't
come before God. I can't come. Lord, you're going
to have to make me acceptable in his sight. And
that's exactly what he does when he anoints us with his Spirit.
It's the Spirit of God that enables us to have ear and ears. You
remember the story of the Valley of Dry Bones when Ezekiel was
told to preach to those dry bones? There we are. It's the whole
house of Israel. We're the dry bones. Prophesy
unto them the Son of Man. And he preached and the bones
began to take shape. But there was yet no life in
them. Why? Because the Spirit of God had not come. Cry out
to the wind. that he might come and anoint
the blessing and bless the message of the gospel to the hearts of
God's people. Here's how we come. We come to
him with the anointing of the spirit of God, clothed in the
righteousness of Christ, cleansed from our sins by the washing
of the water of God's word, confessing him in baptism. But make not thyself known unto
the man until he has done eating and drinking." What is this a picture of? In 1 Chronicles chapter 12, when
David's men came to meet him and to anoint him as king, The
scripture says that they spent three days eating and drinking. And at the end of those three
days, they anointed him as king. When the Lord Jesus Christ came
into this world, what did his detractors say of him? What did
his enemies say of him? They said, he's a gluttonous
man. He's come eating and drinking.
He hangs out with sinners. They look at him. You see, the
three days of David's men with David, prior to anointing him
king, points to those three years when the Lord Jesus Christ, in
His public ministry, would demonstrate the power of God as He showed
forth His mercy and His grace towards men and preached the
gospel before He would die on Calvary's cross in those three
hours of darkness. This is how we come. Wait until
he's finished eating and drinking. It's not the life of the Lord
Jesus Christ that is ultimately required for you. It's his death.
It's his death. It's the shedding of his blood.
Wait till he's finished eating and drinking. And there he will
be anointed as king when he sheds his precious blood on Calvary's
cross. as it was in the days of Noah. Men were eating and drinking
and marrying and giving in marriage and there's no indication in
that language that it means that men were living some sort of I don't even know how to describe
some of the things that people show about the days of Noah.
It just means that people were living like they do today. They
were eating and drinking and giving and marriage and marrying
and they were just living life, just living life without any
interest in Boaz, Christ. Wait till he finishes eating
and drinking. The Lord said, the son of man
came eating and drinking. And they said, behold, he is
a gluttonous man, a wine bibber. He is a friend of publicans and
sinners. And then the Lord said this, but wisdom is justified
by her children. Who are the children of God?
Those who like Ruth has waited for him to finish eating and
drinking. that he might bear their sins
before God, put them away by the sacrifice of himself, shed
his precious blood, be anointed as king over the living and the
dead. Wait till he lies down. Isn't
that what Naomi said? Wait till he's finished and he
lies down. And that's exactly what the Lord Jesus Christ did.
He finished the work of redemption. The last thing he cried from
Calvary's cross was, it is finished. You see, I'm trying to say to
you exactly what Naomi was saying to Ruth on how to find a kinsman
redeemer. Here we are, Moabitess, barren, without children,
without land, without any hope of salvation. God has provided
in his law one who goes to the threshing floor, one who separates
himself, the wheat from the chaff, one who will eat and drink and
finish his work and lie down. And then, then you will come
unto Him. And she did, look at verse five, I'm sorry, verse four. And it
shall be when he lieth down that thou shalt mark the spot. Mark the man. Oh, take notice
of exactly where he is. Where is the Lord Jesus Christ?
He's promised to be in his word. You read the scriptures, look
for Christ. He's promised to reveal himself
through private worship, prayer. When you pray to God, come to
God in the name of and for the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. He's promised where two or three
are met together in his name to be there in the midst of them.
Mark the place. Know where he is and be where
he's promised to be. Mark the man. It's the only hope you're going
to have to be covered by his skirt, to know exactly where
he is. You see, you and I are marked. Like Cain, we are marked. We're marked with a mark of sin.
And Cain, you remember, cried out. He said, my punishment is
too great for me. I cannot bear it. Oh, might we
join our voice with the voice of Cain. Lord, my punishment's
too. Lord, if thou shalt mark iniquity, who shall stand? Lord,
I need a man. I need a man. I need to know where he is. Mark, David said in Psalm 37,
verse 37, mark the perfect man and uphold the upright for the
end of that man is peace. Let me say that again. Psalm
37, 37, mark the perfect man. Know where he is. And behold,
he is upright. He's righteous before God. For
the end of that man is peace. Isn't that what Naomi is telling
Ruth? I'm gonna find a place of rest
for you. And if you'll do this exactly
like I'm telling you to do it, and you'll go before him, it'll
be well with your soul and you'll find peace with God. This all happened at midnight.
Go back to our text. Mark the place where he lie,
and thou shalt go in and uncover his feet and lay down there,
and he will tell thee what thou shalt do. And she said unto her,
all that thou sayest unto me I will do. Uncover his feet. We have feet of clay, you and
I do, because we're creatures. We are created sinful beings. Our feet are our connection. Again, these are pictures, aren't
they? Your feet are your connection
to this earth. And we walk about in this world
with feet of clay. That's why the Lord washed the
disciples' feet. And you remember, Peter said,
no, Lord, you're not gonna wash my feet. And the Lord said, if
I don't wash your feet, you've got no part in me. And Peter
said, well, wash me all over. And what did the Lord say? No,
Peter, there's no need for me to wash you all over, only to
wash your feet, because you're already clean
all over. But your feet are your connection to this world. And
we walk about in this world, we get our feet dirty, don't
we? We gotta have our feet washed. When the seraphim in Isaiah chapter
six were hovering over the throne of God, they had six wings and
with two, they covered their eyes. And with two, they covered
their feet. And with two, they did fly. And
they cried, holy, holy, holy. These are innocent, sinless angels. But the holiness of the Lord
Jesus Christ sitting upon that throne was so glorious that they
were not able to look upon him. And they were distinctly different
from him in that he was the creator and they were creatures. And
because they were creatures, they too had feet of clay and
they had to cover their feet, the shame of their feet. What
do we learn about the feet of the Lord Jesus Christ? Revelation chapter one verse
15 says that they like fine brass that were burned in a furnace.
There's his feet. Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego
were thrown into that fiery furnace and one like unto the son of
man walked among that fire with them. Why? Because his feet had
been dried with fire of God's wrath. in a furnace, uncover
his feet, you'll see the difference. You'll see the difference between
his feet and your feet. Uncover his feet. They're like
fine brass burned in a furnace. They're not like your feet at
all. When you uncover his feet, you will discover that there's
nothing in him like you. He is holy, harmless, undefiled,
and separate from sinners. He's higher than the heavens. Oh, his feet are beautiful. That's
why the scripture says that the feet of them that carry the gospel
of good news are beautiful. And those first and foremost
are referring to his feet. He's the one that brought the
gospel by bringing himself. He is the gospel and his feet
are beautiful. Beautiful are the feet. of them
that bring good tidings of great news. John, when he saw him in revelation,
fell at his feet as dead. Mary sat at his feet and listened
to him. And the scripture says that God,
the father, has put all things under the subjection of his feet.
And we see the foot of the Lord Jesus Christ on the neck of his
enemies in the day of judgment. Oh, what glorious feet he has.
Here's what Naomi's telling Ruth, uncover his feet and you will
see something in his feet that will give you hope for your salvation. Mary washed the feet of the Lord
Jesus Christ with her tears and dried them with her hair. Oh,
what glorious, what glorious feet he has. Here's our hope. When the Lord puts the armor
of faith on his people, he shods their feet with the preparation
of the gospel. so that we walk in the same manner
in which we were saved. As you receive Christ Jesus the
Lord, so walk in him. We walk in the gospel, we walk
in Christ. Uncover his feet. You'll see something about his
feet that will give you hope in his ability to save. And finally, Notice in verse
six, and she went down into the floor and did according to all
that her mother-in-law, oh, I hope that we will do that. We will
do all that we've been instructed to do. Come to the one who satisfied
the requirements of the law to give life and children and property
to barren widows. Come to the One who winnows the
chaff from the wheat at the threshing floor. Come to the One who has
threshed Himself at Calvary's cross and shed His precious blood
at midnight in the darkest hour, the darkest of hours. Come in faith and repentance,
looking to Him for your clothing, looking to the anointing of His
oil for your faith and looking to the washing of your baptism
as the putting away of your sins by His accomplished work. Come to the one who fulfilled all
the requirements of the law in those three days of eating and
drinking. In three years, he had to satisfy
every requirement made of him in the Old Testament law. And
that's exactly what he did. Come before him who satisfies
justice at midnight. Mark the place where he is. Uncover
his feet. And verse seven, and when Boaz
had eaten and drunk and his heart was merry, again, he was thankful. He went to lie down at the end
of the heap of corn. And she came softly and uncovered
his feet and laid down." What is the significance in the
Bible of this skirt? You remember when Saul was pursuing
David and he was asleep in a cave and David went in and cut off
a piece of his skirt? And the scripture says that David's
heart smote him. He was guilty before God for
exposing the nakedness of the king. He shouldn't have done
that. And he knew he shouldn't have
done it. This skirt is the covering, is the article of clothing that
covers one's nakedness. The Lord said in Deuteronomy
chapter 22, a man shall not take his father's wife nor uncover
his father's skirt. It is a shameful thing to have
one's nakedness exposed. And in Genesis chapter nine,
when Ham went in to Noah's tent and discovered his nakedness,
it was a shameful thing and judgment came against Ham as a result
of that. It's a clothing, it's a covering. It's a picture of hiding under
the... This is what covers our nakedness
and it's what covered his nakedness. It's his righteousness. And his
clothing had to be shamefully removed at the cross. The Lord Jesus Christ died shamefully naked. suffering the
penalty of the wrath of God for the sins of his people so that
he would have a coat to cover us. Let me show you, turn with
me to Ezekiel chapter 16. I want to look at two quick passages
and we'll be finished. Ezekiel 16. We'll begin reading in verse
six. And when I passed by thee and saw thee polluted in thine
own blood, I said unto thee, when thou wast in thy blood,
live. Yea, I said unto thee, when thou
wast in thy blood, live. I have caused thee to multiply
as the bud of the field, and thou hast increased and waxen
great, and thou art come to excellent ornaments. Thy breast are fashioned
and thy hair is grown, whereas thou wast naked and bare. There
we were. We didn't have, Ruth had her,
she was anointed. She had her clothing on. She went, washed, but spiritually
speaking, she was naked. Spiritually speaking, she needed
the covering of Boaz skirt. And when I passed by thee and
looked upon thee, behold, thy time was the time of love, and
I spread my skirt over thee and covered thy nakedness." There
it is. This is not the story of a woman
who's taking advantage of an older man to seduce him into
some sort of relationship. This is a woman who has been
told exactly how to approach her kinsman redeemer according
to the prescribed law of God. that it might be well with her
and that she might find a place of rest. This is God saying to
you and me how it is that we come before the Lord Jesus Christ.
Lord, spread thy skirt over me. Spread thy skirt over me. The
New Testament parallel to this story is the woman with the issue
of blood. For 12 years, She had had this
uncontrolled bleeding and she had been to physicians and you
can only imagine that the physicians of her day would have used bloodletting
as one of the means by which they would try
to heal her. You can imagine how anemic this woman was, how
weak and Near death she was. She had spent all that she had
on physicians, the Bible said, and she was worse off than she
had been at the beginning. And there's a picture of you
and me. We've got the, we've got an issue of blood. Sin is
in our blood. In 12 years, we suffer with this. And, um, which is a number of
completeness. The number 12 is. And we go to this doctor and
that doctor, this religion, that religion, what do they do? They
just bloodlet. Try to heal us by getting to
do more, getting us to do more works. If you'll just try harder
and work harder and be more sincere, you can be saved. And we're worse
off in the end than we were at the beginning. She was supposed
to declare herself unclean, but instead, She marked the spot
where he was and she got on her hands and knees and she crawled
to him and she said, oh, if I could just touch his skirt, if I could
touch the hem of his garment, I could be made whole. And she
did. And she was. She was, and the
disease left her and she felt it. She'd been made whole, she'd
been saved. And the Lord said, who touched
me? And the disciples said, Lord, what do you mean who touched
you? Everybody here is putting their hands on you. Oh, no, no,
virtue has gone out from me. Someone like Ruth marked my spot. a Moabitess, a sinner who had
no children and no land, who needed a kinsman redeemer, who
came to the threshing floor and uncovered my feet and pleaded
with me to take my skirt and cover her nakedness. And she found a place of rest
for herself. And God, give us that covering. Our Heavenly Father, thank you
for your word. Lord, we pray for your Holy Spirit
to give us understanding and to give us faith. We ask it in
Christ's name. Amen. Adam. Number two in the
Sproul hymnal. Let's stand together. Number
two. Lord, we come before thee now. At thy feet we humbly bow. Oh, do not our suit disdain. Shall we seek thee, Lord, in
vain? Lord, on thee our souls depend. In compassion now descend, fill
our hearts with thy rich grace. Tune our lips to sing thy praise. In thine own appointed way, now
we seek Lord, we know not how to go Till
a blessing Thou bestow. Send the message from thy word
that may joy and peace afford. Let thy spirit now impart Christ's
salvation to each heart.