Let's open this morning's service
with hymn number 62 and your hardbacked hymnal number 62.
And let's all stand together. Number 62. ? Crown Him with many crowns ?
? The Lamb upon His throne ? ? Hark how the heavenly anthem drowns
? ? All music but its own ? ? Awake my soul and sing ? ? Of Him who
died for thee ? and hail him as thy matchless king through
all eternity. Crown him the Lord of love, behold
his hands and side. Rich wounds yet visible above,
in beauty glorified. No angel in the sky can fully
bear that sight, but downward bends his wandering eye at mysteries
so bright. ? Crown Him the Lord of life
? Who triumphed o'er the grave ? Who rose victorious to the
strife ? For those He came to save ? His glories now we sing
? Who died and rose on high who died eternal life to bring and
lives that death may die. ? Crown him the Lord of heaven
? ? One with the Father known ? ? One with the Spirit through
him given ? ? From yonder glorious throne ? ? To thee be endless
praise ? ? For Thou for us hast died ? Be Thou, O Lord, through
endless days ? Adored and magnified Please be seated. Good morning. I don't want in any way to take
away our hope for the Lord meeting with us today, but I want to
place some emphasis on next weekend. So the schedule is in your bulletin. The preachers that are coming
and the times of the meetings are all there. So I hope that
you'll take notice of that. make the effort to be here and
be part of that. We're going to be looking at
Naomi's words to Ruth in Ruth chapter 2 this morning, this
first hour. Ruth chapter 2. Let's ask the Lord's blessings. Our Heavenly Father, we thank you for your good providence
in bringing us here to this place today. We thank you for the promises
that you've made to meet with us and to make known your grace
and your glory in the person of thy dear son. Lord, we hang
all the hopes of our immortal soul on you and on your promises,
and we know that you are faithful. Lord, we take great comfort in
that. We thank you for your word. We
thank you for your Holy Spirit. We thank you for the fellowship
of the saints and the encouragement that you give each to us. one another. Lord, we pray for
next weekend and we ask Lord that you would burden our hearts
with being able to hear what you would have to say to us next
weekend. And we pray for the men that
are coming to preach and ask Lord that you would give them
clear and and Christ-honoring messages. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen. At the end of chapter two in
Ruth, Naomi finds out after Ruth comes back home where she's been,
and she encourages Ruth to stay there. Don't leave. Don't leave
that Boaz's Field. And I was thinking that, once
again, we have dependent and desperate widows that are gathered
in Boaz's Field. And our hope is that the Lord
would be pleased to let fall from his hand another handful
of purpose to feed our souls with the bread of life. That's
always our hope when we gather together. And the encouragement
is remain. Cleve, stay right there. You
remember when Naomi was encouraging her two daughters-in-laws to
go back to Moab, the scripture says that Orpah kissed her mother-in-law
and wept and went back. And Ruth, the Bible says, Cleve
to Naomi. That's the message this morning,
cleaving to Christ, uh, remaining in the field that the Lord has
provided through our kinsmen redeemer, our Boaz, that mighty
man of wealth, that strong man who is able to save. And, uh,
I pray that the Lord will, will comfort us and encourage us and,
and, uh, Keep us. By way of introduction, I'd like
for you to turn with me in your Bibles to John chapter 15. John
chapter 15. I want you to hear these words
from our Lord before we continue in Ruth chapter two. John chapter 15, beginning at
verse one, the Lord said, I am the true vine. Now if he identifies
himself as the true vine, the clear implication is that there
are other vines that aren't true vines. There are false vines.
I am the true vine, and my father is the husbandman. Every branch
in me that beareth not fruit, he taketh away. And every branch
that beareth fruit, he purges it, that it may bring forth more
fruit. Now here's the purging of the father. I was thinking about
what Scott Richardson once said, God keeps his children either
going in trouble or in trouble or coming out of trouble all
the time. And that's a mercy that the Lord would make us so
dependent upon him. He knows how slow of heart we
are to believe and how easily distracted from him we are. And
so he He purges, and he prunes, and he troubles the waters. The way of the Lord is through
the sea. And I'm so thankful that that
he's faithful to persevere, he's faithful to keep us, and this
is the means by which he keeps us, to trouble us, trouble us
with our circumstances, our trials, trouble us most of all with our
sin. And so the Lord goes on in chapter
15 to say, You are clean through the word that I've spoken unto
you. Abide in me, remain, dwell, continue. Don't leave Boaz's
field, stay with Boaz. Abide in me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit
by itself except it abide in the vine, no more can you except
you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches.
He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth
much fruit, for without me you can do nothing. If a man abide
not in me, he is cast forth as a branch and is withered, and
men gather them and cast them into the fire, and they are burned. If you abide in me, and my words
abide in you, you shall ask what you will, and it shall be done
unto you. So our Lord is admonishing us
to remain, to continue, to abide. And that's the picture that we
have given to us in Ruth chapter 2, if you'd like to turn back
with me there. Abiding in Christ is the only
true evidence of salvation. It really is. If we look to anything
else, we will be deceived. The story is told of Charles
Spurgeon having a baptismal service And while they were baptizing,
a young man came up and asked if he could be baptized. And
Charles Spurgeon baptized him. He wanted to be baptized, he
baptized him. And someone came up to Mr. Spurgeon afterwards
and said, do you really believe that that young man was converted?
And Charles Spurgeon wisely said, how can I judge in five minutes
what takes a lifetime to prove? How can I judge in five minutes
what takes a lifetime to prove? The proof of salvation takes
a lifetime. Abiding in Christ, remaining
in Him, looking to Him, trusting Him, believing upon Him to our
dying breath is the only true evidence that we're safe. How
many have shown other evidences of salvation who have not abided,
who have fallen away? Along the way, there will be
many disappointments. There will be offenses. There
will be trials and troubles and tribulations. And these things
will be the cause of many to fall away. And the Lord ordains
these things for his people to prove them, to prove them, to
try them, to cause them to abide in Christ, to cleave to him as
Ruth did to Naomi. They say, I've got no place else
to go. Lord, you alone have the words of eternal life. Ah. To whom, to whom shall we go? Now, surely and clearly our cleaving
to Christ, our ability to abide is because of his faithfulness
to keep us. The first time this word cleave
is used is after the Lord makes Eve from the rib of Adam, a clear
picture of of the bride of Christ, the church of the Lord Jesus
Christ being made from the very heart of her husband, the Lord
Jesus Christ. And the scripture says that Adam
saw her and he said, this is now bone of my bone and flesh
of my flesh. And Adam went on to say, a man
shall leave his father and his mother and shall cleave unto
his wife and the two shall become one flesh. Now surely that's
God's purpose in marriage, but the application of that to the
gospel is that the Lord Jesus Christ, the God-man, left father
and mother and cleaved to his wife, and the two became one
flesh. And our abiding in Christ is
not our salvation is not the reward that God gives us because
we have abided in him our abiding in him is the evidence that he
has kept us it is the evidence that we are married to him that
he has cleaved to us and without our cleaving to him there's no
reason for us to have any hope or comfort that he has cleaved
to us so Here it is. We abide in him because he's
cleaved us. Now the scriptures are full of
God commanding the impossible. And some will hear these commands
given of God and they will interpret them to think, well, if I will
just be obedient to follow the command that God has given, then
I can obligate God to save me. And some will hear the commands
of God and their response will be, Lord, if you'll turn me,
I'll be turned. Lord, if you'll keep me, I'll
remain and abide. Lord, if you'll give me repentance,
I'll repent. Lord, I'm completely... What
you've commanded, you're gonna have to provide. You're gonna
have to provide it. And that's faith. It is the command
of God that the Lord uses to give evidence of true saving
faith. Because true saving faith sees
that these commands are impossible. and true saving faith, here's
what God requires and falls in hope and faith that the God who
requires these things will provide them. So abiding, abiding in
the Lord is the evidence that he has plead to us. It is through the means of commandments,
the commandments that are impossible to keep, that God gets all the
glory in our salvation. You see, if the Lord commands
us to do something that we can't do, then he gets all the glory
for our ability to do that. Lord, if I'm going to cleave
to you, you're going to have to, you're going to have to cleave
to me. You're going to have to work
in me. You're gonna have to keep me. Scriptures are filled with these
kinds of commandments. The book of Deuteronomy, it says,
thou shalt fear the Lord thy God, him shalt thou serve, and
to him shalt thou cleave. To him shalt thou cleave. Now,
our God is a God of means. Some will hear the command to
believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and they will say, oh, you're
making salvation a work. You're giving them something
to do. You're, no. No, this is the command of scripture. This is the command of God. And the response of faith is,
as I said, Lord, you're going to have to provide what you've
commanded. And the response of works is to say, well, I'll do
that. Like the children of Israel, when Moses came down off Mount
Sinai with the law and he told them what the law was and they
said, we're going to do it. We're going to do it. And Moses said,
you can't keep God's law. And he made a sacrifice. He made
a sacrifice, but they in there. in their pride and in their self-righteousness,
thought, well, we'll do that. If it means God's blessings,
we'll do it. We'll do it. God has got a means. Think about physical illness. You get sick. You get sick enough, you don't
run to the doctor. Why? Could God heal every sickness
without the means of physicians and medication? Sure He could.
Does He? No. Rarely. The Lord gets all the glory for
using it. Medications and physicians are
instruments in the hands of the great physician, and He gets
the glory for that. Preaching. is a means by which
the Lord humbles his people. He humbles you in the pew, and
more importantly, he humbles the man who stands behind this
pulpit, and he gets all the glory that God would use, that God
would use the voice of a sinner to glorify himself in salvation. Our God's a God of means. The
cross is a means. You know, the Lord, our God is
omnipotent. He can do whatever He wants,
however He wants. But He was pleased to use the
means of the cross to save His people. And so it is with the commands of Scripture. These are the means by which
the Lord causes His children to bow before Him and say, Lord,
you've told me to abide. You've commanded that I abide,
and I know that without abiding, I'll not be saved. You just said
that in John chapter 15. For them that abide not, they're
throwing into the fire. Lord, I want to abide. For that
to happen, you're going to have to do it, and you're going to
get all the glory for it. All right, you have your Bibles
open to Ruth. Chapter two, let's begin in verse
18. And she took it up and went into
the city. Ruth has an ephah of barley.
She has gleaned out of Boaz's field. This is the, this is a
picture of the child of God. As I said, the, the, the desperate
and the dependent widow from Moab. That's you and that's me. Being led in the providence of
God. to Boaz's field to pick up what falls from his hand,
a handful of purpose, until one day we go home with a whole ephah
barley. She took it up and went into
the city, verse 18, and her mother-in-law saw that she had gleaned, or
what she had gleaned, And she brought forth and gave to her
that she had reserved after she was sufficed. So Ruth ate what
she needed to eat in order to sustain her, and then she gave
the rest of it to Naomi. How are we to look at this in
relationship to the gospel? Are we to look at this as Ruth
taking care of herself before she shows any generosity towards
others? No. No, we're to look at this
as you, you, you have nothing to share with anyone else until
you've eaten of the bread yourself. You can't, you can't lead someone
to a place where you've never been. You can't tell someone
about a person that you don't know. You know, I was thinking
of a simple illustration. You fly on an airplane and the
flight attendant gives you that boring spiel that you have to
sit there and listen to. And one of the things they say
is if the oxygen masks deploy and you have someone near you
that needs assistance, put yours on first before you try to help
them. That makes sense. I mean you're
trying to help someone else in a moment of panic and now you're
out of air and you can't help them and you both die. So put
your own mask on first before you try to help someone else. That's what's being said here. Get the beam out of your own
eye before you try to pick the speck out of your brother's eye.
Do business with God yourself. How often times you've been sitting
in the service and you're hearing a message and you know there's
someone here that you have a burden for and you think, oh I hope
they're hearing that and that's a good thing. That's a good thing,
but let's make sure that we're not just hoping someone else
is hearing the message, or I need to hear that message. The world is full of people who
are performing religious works who have never had a work of
grace done in their own heart. They're trying to give bread
to other men and what they're doing is they're doing what the
what the what the prodigal son did. You remember he did eat
the husk that the swine did eat. The prodigal found himself as
a Sunday school teacher in a Baptist church and he was you know he
was feeding he was feeding his students with the same thing
that he had eaten until finally Until finally he came to himself
and he said, I got to go back to my father's house. I got to
do business with my father. I've got to get right with my
father before I can, you know, all I'm doing is giving these
people the same husks that I've been eating. And that's what's
happening in religion. Men are taking the husk that
swine do eat and they're feeding on themselves and give them to
one another. Ruth sufficed herself. She ate what was necessary. for
her before she gave anything to Naomi. The second part of
this is that grace is gracious. Gracious, gracious, gracious.
Grace is generous. Grace gives. I mean, if she had
an ephah barley, that's 50 pounds of barley. How much would she
have had to eat to suffice herself? And she gave all the rest of
it to her mother-in-law. Oh, God's children do rejoice
in those opportunities that the Lord gives them to share their
barley with others. Look at verse 19. And her mother-in-law
said unto her, where hast thou gleaned today? And where wroughtest
thou? Where'd you get this bread? Where are you gonna get this
bread? What did Ruth's gonna tell her? Naomi says, blessed
be he that did take knowledge of these. Surely someone took
knowledge of you. Surely you didn't glean 50 pounds
of barley in a day as a gleaner without the owner of that field
taking notice of you. He had mercy and grace on you. And And Ruth says, she showed
her mother-in-law with whom she had wrought and said, the man's
name with whom I wrought today is Boaz. Now you remember what
the name Boaz means? It means strength and it means
swiftness, strength and swiftness. And the scriptures make it clear
that our Lord has the power to save and the greatest power of
all is to convert an unbeliever into a believer. There's no power
to be compared to that. The power of creation, God speaking
the universe into existence does not compare to the power of God
when he reaches into the heart of a man and changes that heart
of stone to a heart of flesh. Gives him faith to believe on
Christ. Takes one who hates God and makes him a lover of God.
Uh, that's that power of God's only thing to do that. And that's
our Boaz, a mighty man of wealth. The scripture says a man of ability
and a man of power and a man of swiftness. Turn to me to Romans
chapter, um, chapter eight, Romans chapter eight. Romans chapter nine, I'm sorry.
Romans chapter nine, verse 28. For he, the Lord Jesus Christ
will finish the work. And he did. He finished the work
of redemption, nothing else to be done. He completed it. He hung His glorious head on
Calvary's cross and He declared with confidence, it is finished. The work that the Father gave
me to do in redeeming His people, I have finished it. And He shall
finish the work and cut it short in righteousness because a short
work will the Lord make upon the earth. A short work. Here's the point. Our Boaz, whose
name means strength and swiftness, our Boaz accomplished in a few
hours what you and I could never accomplish in a lifetime. In
a lifetime. He cut it short and he did it
swiftly. In just a few hours, he bore
the full wrath of God's justice. He put away all the sins of God's
elect once and for all. He offered himself to his father
and his father saw the travail of his soul and the father said,
I'm satisfied. He finished the work. He finished
the work. So Naomi is, Ruth is telling
Naomi where she had been gleaning. I've been in Boaz's field. She didn't say that she had gone
to the field of the law. That's where most people go.
And there is a recovering Pharisee, child of God, in your heart and
in my heart, and how prone we are to try to fix our sin problem
with the means of the law rather than fleeing to Christ. rather
than fleeing to Christ. We want to take control, don't
we? There's something in us that
says, I can fix this. And we run to Sinai. In 1 Samuel,
I think it's chapter 14, Jonathan and his armor bearer are going
to attack a group of Philistines. camp of Philistines and they
have to go up this mountain to get to the Philistines and the
scripture says that there was a very narrow passage and here's
the way God put it in his word he said he said there was a sharp
rock on the right side and there was a sharp rock on the left
side Jonathan and his armor bear was stuck between a rock and
a hard place they they were they stayed in that in that narrow
path There's only one man who's able to scale the mountain of
God's law. There's no barley and there's
no wheat growing on the rocky crags of Mount Sinai. You're
not going to find, you're not going to find wheat there. You're
not going to find bread there. The law cannot help you. The
law cannot help me. Only thing the law can do is
be a sharp rock on our right and a sharp rock on our left. Men go to religion to try to
fix their problems, which is basically the same thing as going
to the law. Few come to Christ. Many are
called. Few are chosen. Few are chosen. Men won't by themselves come
to Christ. You remember when those 10 lepers,
they thought that leprosy was their problem. They thought leprosy
was their problem. And so the Lord told them to
go to the temple and show themselves to the priest. And on the way,
they were healed. And one realized the source of
his healing and came back and fell and worshiped the Lord Jesus
Christ. And what'd the Lord say to that
one? Were there not 10 healed? Where are the other nine? Where
are the other nine? Well, they got what they wanted.
They got what they wanted. They just wanted some relief
from their physical leprosy. They didn't see their need to
be right with God. They didn't see their need to
worship God and have their spiritual leprosy healed. Few there are
that do that. Where did you go glean from,
Naomi said to Ruth? Well, I went to Boaz's field.
I didn't go to the law. I didn't go to religion. My problem
was much deeper than that. I had to have a kinsman redeemer. I had to have a mighty man of
wealth, one that was rich enough and powerful enough and quick
enough to redeem me. I had to have Christ. Couldn't
go anywhere else. Where did you go? It's a good
question. Where did you go to glean your
wheat? In verse 20, and Naomi said unto
her daughter-in-law, blessed be he of the Lord who hath not
left off his kindness to the living and to the dead. Oh, what
kindness. What kindness. Our God is a,
he delights. The word kindness here is the
word mercy. As a matter of fact, the same word in which we get
our word, Bethesda. You know, the hospital up in
Maryland, the House of Mercy, that's the name, that's what
Bethesda mean. The Pool of Bethesda was where
the Lord healed that man that had been crippled for 38 years. And he showed mercy. Mercy. He delights in showing
mercy. This is the first cause of His
grace and His salvation and His intervention. He's loved. He
said, I've loved you with an everlasting love and with cords
of kindness I have drawn thee. It is the goodness of God that
leads to repentance. It's not the threats of the law.
The threats of the law never changed a man's heart. Might
change his behavior for a little while, but it's not gonna change
his heart. It's the goodness of God. Naomi
says, blessed be he of the Lord who have not left off his kindness
to the living and to the dead. Oh, some of God, you see the
Lord is kind to those whom he has already given life. Those
who by the Spirit of God have been birthed into the family
of God. Those who have been born again. Those who have been regenerated. Those who have the life of God
in them. And He's also kind to those lost
sheep who are yet dead in their trespasses and sins. And in His
kindness, He is He is showing them mercy, grace before grace,
preparing them for that day when He'll call them out of darkness
into His marvelous light. What a kind God we serve. He's
kind to the living and to the dead. And He's kind to those
who remain alive in this world and those who have passed out
of this world into the next. It is the goodness and the kindness
and the love of God. Hearing His love, not that we
loved God, but that He loved us and gave His Son to be the
propitiation of our sins. That's the evidence of His love,
isn't it? The sacrifice that the Lord Jesus Christ made on
Calvary's cross to redeem His people. And Naomi says, oh, blessed
of God is the man Boaz. who has been so kind to us and
so good to us. Greater love hath no man than
this, that he lay down his life for his friends. Our God has nothing good, nothing
but good for us. Our thoughts, David put it like
this. He said, the Lord knoweth the
thoughts of a man that they are vanity. That's the way our thoughts
are. And then he went on to say, how
precious are thy thoughts unto me, O God, how great is the sum
of them. And the Lord said, as the heavens
are high above the earth, so are my thoughts above your thoughts.
For I know the thoughts that I think toward you. Thoughts
of peace, not of evil. Thoughts of peace, peace with
God, not of evil. I'm not doing evil for you. He's kind towards the living
and he's kind towards the dead and he has nothing but kindness
and goodness to show to his children. The last part of that verse in
Jeremiah, when the Lord said, I know the thoughts that I think
toward you, saith the Lord. Thoughts of peace and not of
evil. to bring you to your expected end. Your expected end. I looked up that word expected.
I don't know if I've ever looked it up before, but it's the same
word translated hope. Your hopeful end. Now, normally
when we use the word hope in our everyday language, we're
expressing a desire for something that may or may not happen. Isn't
that how we use the word hope? But when the Bible uses the word
hope, it speaks of a sure hope. It speaks of a good hope. It
speaks of a hope that is an anchor for our soul. It speaks of a
joyful expectation in a God who is faithful to keep his promises. To bring you to your hopeful
end, you are relying upon God to be faithful. to fulfill the
hope that He has promised. Ezekiel chapter 16, the Lord
speaks of our time of love. Our time of love, your time of
love has come. Now, to try to bring this Back
to where we began. Look at verse 21. And Ruth the
Moabitess said, He said unto me also, Thou shalt
keep fast by my young men until they have ended all my harvest. Here's the message, brethren.
Abide. Keep fast. Keep coming, keep
depending, keep looking, keep believing. Abide in Christ, remain in Christ
and not calling on you to pull yourself up by your bootstraps
and and exercise your determination and your commitment. I'm calling
on you to say, Lord, if there's so many things that would take
me away from Christ, Lord, if I'm going to abide, you're going
to have to keep me. You're going to have to ask my husband, cleave
unto your wife, that the two may be one flesh if I'm going
to be kept. Turn me, Lord, and I'll be turned
is what the prophet said. Cause me to come unto thee and
I will come. And yet here's the means that
the Lord uses. Boaz told Ruth, stay there, stay
with the young men until the harvest is over. When is the
harvest over? We're gonna be picking up handfuls
of purpose the rest of our lives and the harvest will be over
when that appointed hour comes. And God takes us home. Look at verse 21, verse 22. And Naomi, there's no need to
go anywhere else. That's what Boaz is saying. No,
you're not gonna find this bread in any other field. My grace
is sufficient for thee. My grace is suitable for thee.
My grace is sufficient. His name is called El Shaddai,
God Almighty. My power and my grace. Don't
try to supplement it. Just abide in Christ. And Naomi said unto Ruth her
daughter on that name was going to reinforce what Boaz has already
told Ruth. It is good, my daughter, that
thou go out with the maidens, and this word maidens is virgins,
and the Lord uses that term to describe his people, his virgins
who remain faithful to him. The fidelity
that is in faith is that it can't look anywhere else but to Christ.
So he says, stay with the virgins, stay with those that are looking
to Christ. that they may meet thee, not in any other field. Don't be caught anywhere else.
Don't go to another man's field where there is no bread. Don't
try to eat. Stay with Boaz. Stay with Christ. Verse 23. And she kept fast by
the maidens of Boaz to glean unto the end of the barley harvest
and the wheat harvest. And she dwelt with her mother-in-law." You know, it's really not difficult
to cleave to Christ if you have no interest in going anywhere
else. You know, I've discovered one
thing for sure about myself and about other people is we all
pretty much do what we want to do. We do what we want to do. And if God gives you a wanter
for Christ, then abiding in Him is not going to be It's not going
to be a problem. It's not going to be something
you're going to have to work to make yourself want to do.
It's the heart of faith to abide in Boaz Field, to eat of his
harvest, feast on his body and his blood. All right, let's take
a break. Okay.