Let's stand together once again,
hymn number 35 in your spiral hymn book, number 35. ? I ask the Lord that I might grow
? ? In faith and love and every grace ? ? Might more of his salvation
know ? ? And seek more earnestly his face ? ? T'was He who taught
me thus to pray ? ? And He, I trust, has answered prayer ? ? But it
has been in such a way ? ? As almost drove me to despair ?
I hoped that in some favored hour At once he'd answer my request
And by his love's constraining power Subdue my sins and give
me rest Instead of this, he made me feel the hidden evils of my
heart. And let the angry powers of hell
assault my soul in every part. Yea, more with his own hand he
seemed Intent to aggravate my woe crossed all the fair designs
I schemed, blasted my gourds, and laid me low. Lord, why is this, I trembling
cried, wilt thou pursue thy worm to death? "'Tis in this way,'
the Lord replied, "'I answer prayer for grace and faith. "'These inward trials I employ,
from self and pride to set thee free and break thy schemes of
earthly joy that thou mayest find thy all in me. Please be seated. Let's open our Bibles together
to the book of Ruth. Ruth chapter 2. I don't even know what to say about
that hymn that we just sang, except for how how true what
we just sang rings in my life, and how the Lord brings us to where
we have nothing else but Him. That's a good thing. It's a good place to be. It's
hard. It's a hard place to be, but it's a good place to be. You know, sometimes we We say,
well, you know, there's nothing left to do but prayer, to pray. It's our last resort. The only time we really ever
pray is when there's nothing else to do. Nothing else, no
place else to go. That's when prayer becomes prayer.
Otherwise we're trying to fix it ourselves, aren't we? This is the place that Ruth found
herself. Desperate and destitute. She had no place else to go but
to Bethlehem, Judah. We've seen this already in our study through the book
of Ruth, Bethlehem translated means house of bread. Judah translated
means praise. And this is where the Moabitess
gather together to praise God in the house of bread. She had
no place else to go. I hope that's the state of our
hearts this morning. We've got to have Christ. We've got to have Him feed us.
We found nothing in this world that will satisfy the need of
our hungry souls. And that we've got to go to the
house of bread where we're able to praise our God as the bread of life. We like Ruth. Look at our passage,
verses two and three from Ruth chapter two. Ruth, the Moabitess
said unto Naomi, let me now go to the field and glean ears of
gold. corn. Now we see that phrase
in several places in the Bible, ears of corn, and in our minds
we're thinking ears of corn, sheaves of grain. Now you remember
the disciples were walking through a field one time and they they
took some grain and they crushed it in their hand and blew the
chaff away and ate them and they were accused for eating with
unclean hands and the scripture calls it ears of corn. So we
already know from what the Lord has told us in this passage that
this is the barley harvest and so this is not ears of corn as
we would think, it's sheaves of grain left behind in the field
by the reapers and Ruth the Moabitess is reduced
to picking up those pieces of barley that she can find. Now
barley is the grain that first was harvested. It's the first
grain that came in in harvest time. So it's the first fruit
and it's the It's the beginning of the Lord Jesus Christ is called
our first fruit. And first fruits always were
offered up to the Lord in faith, in expectation for the Lord to
provide everything else that was necessary in the harvest
to sustain life. And so this barley harvest points
us to the Lord Jesus Christ. Barley also was the grain that
they used to make bread for poor people. It wasn't a very tasty
grain and so they made poor man's bread out of barley. What a glorious picture. of the
Lord Jesus Christ, not tasty to the flesh. When John ate the
scroll, it was sweet to his taste, but bitter to his belly. The belly's always a picture
of flesh. And when we eat Christ, just like that hymn we just sang,
when we take in Christ, it's hard on the flesh. It's
bitter to the flesh. It's not what the flesh likes,
not what it was looking for, but oh, how sweet it is to the
taste. And it's the poor man's bread.
It's those who have nothing, can do nothing, know nothing.
Blessed are the abject poverty, for theirs is the kingdom of
God. Oh, we come before God as poor men, Gleaning the harvest. What I'm trying to say to you
right now is that this story is what we are doing right now. Right now. If Christ is being
lifted up, He's the first fruit of the barley harvest. And if
we are poor in spirit and have nothing and we are destitute
like Ruth and Naomi were, we're reduced to Gleaning. Oh, Lord. And the glory of gleaning is
that like the woman, the Syrophoenician woman said, when the Lord called
her a dog, she said, truth, Lord, that's me. I'm a dog. But even
the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from the master's table.
One crumb from the master's table will feed your soul. One crumb. One glimpse of Christ. One bit of grace and faith. Does the Lord not say, if you
have faith, there's a mustard seed? Faith is a mustard seed. You see, all the dainties, the
Bible calls them, of this world, and all the the swine husk of
religion. You remember the prodigal, he
went in a far country and he fed the swine and he ate the
husk that the swine did eat. All that's what we've been trying
to feed on this week. Swine husk and earthly dainties
and our soul has gone hungry and starving and we've come to
Bethlehem, Judah, the house of bread to rejoice in the accomplished
work of our Lord and to feed on His body as our bread and
drink His blood as our drink. What a, this is not the way of
the world. And it's not going to be pleasant
to the flesh. Here we are following after the
reapers I stand before you as a reaper.
The Lord told the disciples, He said, pray to the Lord of
the harvest that He send forth laborers into the harvest. Say not that there yet be four
months into harvest, for look into the fields, they're white
already under harvest. And so as we stand and preach
the gospel, we are reaping the fruits of God. And as Ruth was following behind
the reapers, you're picking up the scraps, picking up a grain,
a little piece of barley here, a little piece of barley there,
maybe a sheath here. And if God's pleased to make
this story real to our souls today, we will leave here full,
full. Ruth the Moabitess said to Naomi,
let me now go to the field and glean ears of corn after him
in whose sight I shall find grace. And she said unto her, go my
daughter. And she went and came and gleaned in the field after
the reapers. And her hap, just so happened, was to light on
the part of the field belonging unto Boaz, who was of the kindred
of Elimelech. She ended up in Boaz's field. I've called this, I've titled
this message, Are You a Gleaner? A Gleaner, am I a gleaner? And my first point is that gleaners
are desperate. Gleaners must have Christ. We're
talking about not just gleaning some little treasures of truth
from God's Word that might excite our minds and give us some advantage
over another man. We're talking about gleaning,
we're talking about the bread of life. We're talking about
seeing Christ and having to have Christ. Lord, I must have You. I'm following after this reaper
in order to know God. For this is life eternal, that
they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom
Thou hast sent. Lord, I need forgiveness of my
sin. Lord, I've been eating the danies of this world. My flesh
has been feeding on the husk that swine do eat. I need to
glean. I'm desperate. I'm destitute. I've got no place else to go.
That's what we just sang. What a glorious thing it is when
the Lord puts you in that place. Sometimes it happens in Providence,
circumstantially. Either sickness, or relationships,
or marriages, or children. We just, Lord, I've got no place
else to go. I've got to glean, I've got to
have Christ. What a wonderful place that is
to be. Hard, yes. Yes, it's a hard place. It's a place that the flesh doesn't
want to go. But God in His mercy and grace
brought Naomi and Ruth back from Moab and made them beggars. Made them gleaners. Put them in a place where all
they could do was go through the field and pick up scraps
of barley. Paul said that he prayed that
the thorn in his flesh might be removed, and the Lord said
to him, no, no, I'm not going to remove that thorn. You're
gonna suffer with that, but here's what that thorn's gonna do. It's
gonna cause you to understand that my grace is sufficient for
thee. My grace is sufficient for thee. These things cannot satisfy the
soul. They may tend to the needs of
the body and the flesh, but they cannot satisfy the soul. And
I'm, Paul, I'm going to keep that thorn in your flesh, whatever
it was. He bore it until he died. And you have thorns in your flesh.
The Lord didn't identify that thorn in order to show each of
us that this is the same. It wasn't just the Apostle Paul.
You have thorns in your flesh, don't you? And you've asked God
to take it away. And the Lord said, no, it's going
to stay. It's going to stay. That thorn
is going to prick you. Saul, Saul, why kickest thou
against the pricks? Isn't that what he was doing?
He was kicking as a stubborn mule against that prick. What happens when a mule kicks
against a goad? That's what that prick was, it
was a goad. It just makes it go in all the deeper. Makes him
walk all the straighter. Become all the more submissive
and obedient to the master. No, I'm going to keep that goad
there. I'm going to make you dependent on me. I'm going to
make you a gleaner. A gleaner. You're going to have
to come and you're going to have to follow after the reapers.
You're going to have to sit there and you're going to have to listen
to another man, just as sinful as you are, tell you about God
that you might pick up. a sheave here and a grain there. Go bake for yourself a loaf of
poor man's bread. That'll feed your soul. Paul went on in that passage
to say, thy strength is made perfect in my weakness. For when I am weak, then I am
strong. Therefore, I will glory in my
infirmities, that all my strength might be found in Christ." That's
where Ruth and Naomi were. That's where Ruth was. She'd
come back from Moab. Her husband had died. Her father-in-law
had died. It was just her and Naomi. And
in that culture, there were no social nets. They were left destitute
and desperate. Do you find yourself destitute
and desperate when it comes to your sin? You have no place else
to go. You know, all the The angst that
we experience in our circumstances is really caused by our sin. It's not the circumstance. It's not the circumstance that
causes our pain and our suffering. It's our unbelief. It's the sin
that easily besets us. It's the root and cause of all
of our problems. There's a lot of things other
men can help us with when we get in trouble. But here's something
that no man... I look to my right, I look to
my left, there's nobody that can help me, Lord. Lord, it's
my unbelief. It's my sin. It's causing me
not to be able to rejoice and be able to trust God as I ought.
Lord, help thou mine unbelief. That's my problem. That's my
problem. And nobody can help me with that.
The preacher can't help me with that. My wife can't help me with
that. My husband can't help me with that. Lord, I'm a gleaner. I'm desperate. That's my problem. That's a good problem to have. It's a good place to be. So,
are you a gleaner? Are you desperate and destitute
when it comes to the real source of your problem and my problem? We have to be gleaners. Secondly, in order to be a gleaner
and feast on this bread of life, this poor man's bread, who is
Christ, you must have two natures. You must have two natures. You
must be born again. All of us have the nature we
were born with, our natural man. Ruth is known in the Bible by
two descriptions. Notice in our text, she is called
the Moabitess. She had come from the land of
Moab. You were born in Moab. You and
I were born Moabites, a pagan land of unbelief where there
is no God. We like, like Mephibosheth. You remember when David fetched
for Mephibosheth? And Ziba said, he's in Lodabar. He's in a land where there is
no bread, a land where there is no pasture. And David said,
go fetch him. And that's what God does with
His Spirit. He fetches us out of Lodabar. He fetches us out
of Moab. He causes us to come out from
among them. And He gives us a new nature.
What is the new nature? Well, Ruth, secondly, is known
in the Bible by her lineage in Christ. Ruth gets married to
Moab, to Boaz. Boaz and Ruth give birth to Obed,
Obed gives birth to Jesse, Jesse gives birth to David. Ruth is the great grandmother
of King David. And she's mentioned in the book
of Matthew as being in the lineage of the Lord Jesus Christ. You
and I have to be found in the lineage of Christ. And that's our two natures. Moabitess,
according to the flesh. In Christ, according to the spirit. If we're gonna be gleaners, we've
got to have both natures. The old man can't glean the barley.
The old man can't hear the voice of God. The old man can't understand
the truth of the gospel. Only the new man can. And you
brought that old man with you, didn't you? And that's why you
have a hard time. That's why it's hard to glean. It's hard
to glean. It's not easy. Gleaning was difficult. It's not just something that's
just going to fall in your lap. It's a spiritual work. We've got other characters in
the Bible that are known like this, don't we? Jacob's name
means the supplanter. That's what we are by nature,
by birth. Our Moabitess nature is a supplanter,
a liar. All men are liars and deceivers.
But when he wrestled with God that night at the river Japheth,
he wrestled with the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord changed his
name to Israel. You are now a prince. You are
a priest and king in the family of God. You are in the lineage
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now he's got two natures. And
he limped the rest of his life. And you limp. And I limp. Why? Because we've still got
this old flesh. We've still got this old man.
Our sin is ever before us. You know, I was reading an article
the other day by somebody who was talking about our motives
for serving God and for worshiping. And he was saying that if what
you do for God is not out of love, is not out of faith, is
not for the glory of God, that it's all in vain and it's of
no... And I thought, The closer I look
at my motives, the more impure they prove themselves to be. I wish, I wish that I could do
what I do out of love for God, only love for God. I do love
Him. And I seek to, but I wish that was the only motivation
I had. I wish the only goal that I had
in everything I did was God's glory. I wish that the well-being
of others was the only interest that I had in what I do. But
I'm here to confess to you that it's not. Everything I do is infected with
selfishness and sin. There's enough sin in what I'm
doing right now, as I've already said, for me to go to hell for
it. And here's the thing about it,
brethren. That's not going away. I used to think, you know, this
is my thorn in the flesh. This will go away eventually.
This will get better. And it doesn't. It doesn't. The more we look at our motives,
the more impure they prove to be, which is exactly why we need
one who did everything that He did out of perfect love, perfect
faith, perfect glory for His Father, perfect well-being for
His brethren. He's our righteousness. We have
none. We have no righteousness. Oh, we. Gleaners have two natures. Gleaners are desperate and destitute. They cannot find anything in
the world that will satisfy their need for bread in their souls
for the forgiveness of their sin. And they come to Bethlehem,
Judah to pick up barley fragments. Leaners have two natures. They have two natures. Let me
show you that. Turn with me to 1 John 1. 1 John
1, we'll begin reading in verse 8. If we say that we have
no sin, Now the word sin there is a noun,
it's a thing, it's what we are by nature. If we say that we
have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If
we agree with God that we are sinners, and that's a proper explanation of that next phrase,
if we confess our sins, if we agree with God that we are sinful
and sinners, Then He is faithful, He is faithful and just to forgive
us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. God makes
you a sinner, that's exactly what you do. You agree, Lord,
I'm a sinner. If we say that we have not sinned,
now that's a verb, that's an action word. Then we make Him a liar and His
word is not in us. So if we say that our nature
is not sinful, or if we say that we've done something without
sin, and when God says, if you say that
you have not sinned, He's talking about everything you do. He's
not talking about just doing something that's obviously sinful.
If you say that, well, I did that and there was no, there
was no, mixed motives, there was no sin in my heart when I
did that. You're telling a lie. Why? Because we're sinners. We're Moabitist and we're in
the lineage of Christ. We're Jacob and we're Israel. We're Saul Saul's name means
one to be desired. He said, my peers wished that
they had gotten to the level that I got to in religion. And
when God saved him, what did he name him? Paul. A little rock. A little stone. One to be desired
to being made into just a little stone. You see, if we're going
to be gleaners, then this is who we are. This is who we are. We would love to feast. That's
going to happen one day. One day you're going to leave
this flesh behind. And God's going to give us a
new body. We're going to sit at His table
and we're going to feast like we wish we could feast now. And
there'll be no sin and no mixed motive and no flesh. But in the
meantime, we are gleaners. We are gleaners. We're gonna
sit at the master's table. That's what we want now. We long
for that. We come here wishing, oh, I wish
I could just worship God like I ought. We say with Rebecca,
why am I thus? Why am I the way I am? And God
says to you and to me, because there's two natures in you. There's
two nations in you. Jacob and Esau are in you. The
old man and the new man are in you. And you'll never be what
you ought. Until that day. Until that day. See, gleaners are not only desperate,
but gleaners are dissatisfied with themselves. Dissatisfied
with themselves. Third thing I want you to see
about gleaners. Are you a gleaner? Am I a gleaner? This is what Ruth was. Notice
that in verse two, that she asked Naomi permission to go follow
after the gleaners. When we come together in Bethlehem,
Judah, One of the very first things we do is we bow our heads
and we ask the Lord for His mercy and for His grace. You're not
going to believe this, but I'll tell you the truth. I've had
people tell me, you know, you don't have to ask. God's already
given us everything in Christ. You don't have to ask anything.
You don't have to ask to be saved. God's going to save who He's
going to save. You don't have to ask for it. You know, He's our Heavenly
Father. He knows our needs. He's going
to give them to us before we ask. So why do we ask? Gleaners are not presumptuous. Gleaners... Notice in verse 7,
when Boaz notices Ruth, And he asked the reapers, who
is she? And they said, you know, she's
the Moabitess. And well, let's read. We'll read 5, 6, and 7. Then
said Boaz unto his servants that was set over the reapers, whose
damsel is she? And the servant that was set
over the reapers answered and said, it is the Moabitess damsel. that came back with Naomi out
of the country of Moab. And she said, I pray you let
me glean and gather after the reapers. She went to the foreman. And she asked permission from
the foreman if she could glean from the field that was left
behind. Approach God without humility
and submission. Lord, I need your mercy. I need your grace. Now be careful
about becoming a mercy beggar because you can turn that into
a work. You can turn that into a work. Well, I've just begged
enough to where, you know, now I know that God's heard my prayer
because I begged enough. That's not what we're talking
about. The Lord said you have not because you ask not. Ask and it shall be given unto
you. Knock and it shall be opened unto you. Seek and you shall
find for everyone that asketh, receiveth. Everyone. Ask, but that does not preclude
asking, does it? We ask. Turn with me to John
chapter 14. We're not presuming upon the
Lord. Tricia and I were coming back
from St. Pete or somewhere several years
ago. driving through Plant City and
we noticed all the signs for, it must have been in March, I
think that's when the strawberry harvest is. So we pulled off
the road and thought we'll get some strawberries and came up
on this field right off the interstate and they had just harvested all
the strawberries. And they had a stand set up and
they were selling the strawberries and people were buying little
pints of strawberries. Some people walking away with
a flat of strawberries and they were expensive. And I looked
out over the field and I said to the lady that owned the field,
I said, what about all those strawberries that are left? And
she said, well, that's just, you know, we're just going to
leave those. I said, well, can we have them? She said, you got something to
put them in? I looked in the trunk of the car and we had a
laundry basket in the back of the car. We filled up that laundry
basket with strawberries. Gleaning the field. I mean it
was hard, the strawberries weren't as appealing to the eye as the
ones I'm sure that the reapers picked up. But they were good
strawberries. And we got a whole laundry basket
full of them. But we had to get permission.
We had to ask. We couldn't just go on that field.
That field didn't belong to us. And the lady said, go ahead,
help yourself. So, we come before the Lord,
we ask Him, and He says, yes, no man come unto me. I will in
no wise, if any man come unto me, I will in no wise cast him
out. But we do ask. Look at John. You have your Bibles open to
John chapter 14, verse 13. And whatsoever you shall ask
in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in
the Son. If you ask anything in my name, I will do it. The Lord makes us depended upon
Him to ask Him. I had a friend that had restored
an old antique car, and he wanted to give it to his daughter. And
I said, I thought you were going to give that car to Faith. And
he said, I'm waiting for her to ask for it. Waiting for her
to ask for it. She eventually did, and He gave
it to her. Ask. Ask the Lord. She got permission from the reaper.
She got permission from Naomi. Whatever we need, forgiveness
of sin, wisdom, Christ, salvation, All these things are bound up
in the Lord Jesus Christ, who is our barley harvest. He is the bread of life. Ask for Him. Oh Lord, give me
Christ. I was talking to another brother
who said, you know, I sat under the gospel all my life, and I
was going to get married, and my wife was a believer, I said,
well, I'm not sure if the Lord saved me or not. And she said,
well, have you asked Him? Have you asked Him? You know, sometimes we do become
presumptuous, don't we? What did David say? David said,
Lord, forgive me of my presumptuous sins. We presume that God... Ask Him. Come before His throne
of grace. Ask Him to increase your faith.
Ask Him for His mercy. Ask Him for understanding. We
don't obligate God. And God's not obligated by us. He's put us in a place where
we are asking. And here's the confidence that
we have. Here's the confidence that we have. If you ask anything
according to my name, Yeah, I'll give it to you. Come with boldness, with confidence
before the throne of grace that you might find help in your time
of need. Go back with me to our text.
Let me show you this with Ruth. And Ruth the Moabitess said unto
Naomi, verse two, let me now go to the field and glean ears
of corn after him in whose sight I shall find grace. I'm confident, based on the promises
of God, I am confident that He will answer my prayer. We don't come fearful that the Lord is going
to reject us. If you've been rejected, by other
people. Sometimes it's hard to trust
people. If you've been wounded, it's hard to put your trust in
someone after that. The Lord's never wounded anyone.
You can trust Him. He's not like us. He's not a
man like us. He's faithful to His Word. He
said, come unto me, all you that labor and are heavy laden. I
will give you rest. Ruth said, I shall find grace.
I shall, not I might, but I shall. He delights in showing mercy. The Lord told Moses, everyone
who looks at that serpent will live. Everyone that's been bitten by
a serpent and looks shall live. You had to be bitten first. Have
you been bitten by the serpent of sin? And if you don't have
Christ to bear your sins on Calvary's cross for you, that's the serpent
on the sin. God made him to be sin for us
that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. Look, look, you
have the very promise of God. Gleaners that are destitute,
gleaners that are not presumptuous, gleaners that are confident in
the God of promises will be led to Boaz's field.
There's a lot of fields out there, but her hap was that she landed
on Boaz's field. Oh, nothing happens by happenstance,
does it? Let the world talk about chance
and luck and however they want to say it. Here's our admonition
from the Lord. Say not, say not that you go
into this city or that city and buy and sell and make gain, but
say rather if the Lord wills. If the Lord wills, we are dependent
upon him. He will direct our steps. So man, man has his plans, but
God orders his steps. We have a God who has purposed
all things according to his will. And he got, he brought Ruth to
Boaz's field. She didn't go to any other field. The Lord's not against us, He's
for us. You remember when Jacob, the boys came back from Egypt
and they said, you know, we had to leave Simeon behind because
the man said if we didn't bring Benjamin with us that we could
get no more food and we're desperate, we're going to die in this famine. And what did Jacob say? Joseph is not, Simeon is no more,
now you want to take Benjamin? All of these things are against
me. You ever feel that way? Everything
is against you. Truth is, the Lord was putting
together his purpose to give Jacob the best 18 years of his
life, living as the father of the prime minister of the most
powerful country in the world. A lap of luxury. But Jacob thought
everything was against me. I'm sure that as Ruth is gleaning
this field, she's maybe having these fleeting thoughts, you
know, what's going to happen? How are we going to get out of
this? She happed on Boaz's field. You and I have happed on Boaz's
field today, right now. She got Boaz, she got everything
she needed. All her wisdom, all her righteousness,
all of her sanctification and all of her redemption by her Redeemer, her Kinsman
Redeemer. The forgiveness of sin, to stand
in the presence of God, to be made The great grandmother of David,
in the very lineage of the Lord Jesus Christ. Oh, that was every
Jewish woman's dream. Her heart's desire was to give
birth to the Messiah. We have been birthed into his
very family. Gleaners. Are you a gleaner? I hope the Lord will make us
so. Our heavenly Father, we're thankful for your word. We're
thankful for this table. We ask Lord that you would give
to us hearts of faith that we might see in this bread the bread
of life, the Lord Jesus Christ, the sinless, successful savior
of sinners. Lord, that we might see in this
wine a picture of that blood that he spilled and put on the
mercy seat, where you said, here, I will meet with you. Lord, meet
with us for Christ's sake. For it's in his name we pray,
amen. 318, 318, let's stand together, number
318. ? I need Thee every hour ? Most
gracious Lord, no tender voice like Thine can peace afford. I need Thee, O I need Thee, Every
hour I need thee, O bless me now, my Savior, I come to thee. I need thee every hour, stay
thou nearby, temptations ? And Thou art nigh ? ? I need
Thee, oh, I need Thee ? ? Every hour I need Thee ? ? Oh, bless
me now, my Savior ? ? I come to Thee ? ? I need Thee every
hour ? Enjoy your pain. Come quickly and abide, or life
is vain. I need thee. Oh, I need thee. Every hour I need thee. Oh, bless
me now, my Savior, I come to Thee. I need Thee every hour,
most Holy One. Oh, make me Thine indeed, Thou
blessed Son. ? I need Thee, oh, I need Thee
? ? Every hour I need Thee ? ? Oh, bless me now, my Savior, I come
to Thee ? Please be seated. For the Lord's table, let's sing
hymn number 17 in your Spiral Gospel Hymns hymn book, number
17.