Brethren, let's turn to Ruth. Ruth chapter 3. Now when we left off, Ruth had
come to Boaz in the threshing floor at night. She had laid
herself down at his feet And she'd ask mercy from him, ask
him to have mercy on her, being her near kinsman. In verse 11
it says, Boaz said to her, 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. In Proverbs, a virtuous
woman is someone that fears the Lord. That's the virtuous woman
that fears the Lord, believes on the Lord. Ruth here is a picture
of a chosen child of God who's being saved by the free and sovereign
grace of God. She's been stripped to where
she's poor. She has nothing. She's been brought
to God's house. In Bethlehem, Judah, the house
of bread, she'd been brought to Boaz's field. And Boaz took
notice of her. And Boaz has drawn her to his
table and fed her. And he's teaching her now. He's
teaching her. And he's teaching her, little
by little, that he is the Redeemer. Now, whenever Christ is revealing
Himself to a needy sinner, He doesn't always just do it all
at once. But what He does is He teaches
the needy sinner as only He can. And however He does it, and the
time He takes to do it, is always the best way for it to be done. And we see some pictures of that
here in this passage through the rest of the third chapter.
Let me just read this for us. He says in verse 12, And now
it is true that I am thy near kinsman, howbeit there is a kinsman
nearer than I. Tarry this night, and it shall
be in the morning, that if he will perform unto thee the part
of a kinsman, well, let him do the kinsman's part. But if he
will not do the part of a kinsman to thee, then will I do the part
of a kinsman to thee, as the Lord liveth. Lie down until the
morning." And she laid his feet until the morning. And she arose
up before one could know another. It was early morning, still the
twilight. And he said, let it not be known
that a woman came into the floor. Also, he said, bring the veil,
that sheet or that apron that thou hast upon thee, and hold
it. And when she held it, he measured
six measures of barley and laid it on her, and she went into
the city. And when she came to her mother-in-law,
she said, Who art thou, my daughter? And she told her all that the
man had done to her. It was still dark when she got
to Naomi's house. because Naomi couldn't see her.
They didn't have lights like we do. She couldn't see her.
She had to ask who she was. And she told her all that the
man had done to her. And she said, These six measures
of barley gave he me, for he said to me, Go not empty unto
thy mother-in-law. Then said she, Sit still, my
daughter, until thou know how the matter will fall. For the
man will not be in rest until he have finished the thing this
day. That's our title, until he have
finished. Until he have finished. Now the
first thing Christ is going to teach the newly born child is
that he is God's righteousness. He is God's righteousness. He
said there, now it is true, verse 12, now it is true, I am the
near kinsman. Now that's the truth. I'm the
near kinsman. Howbeit there is a kinsman nearer
than I. Tarry this night, and it shall
be in the morning, that if he will perform unto thee the part
of a kinsman, well, let him do the kinsman part. But if he will
not do the part of a kinsman to thee, then I will do the part
of a kinsman to thee. And he swears, he says, as the
Lord liveth. You lie down here until the morning."
And so she laid his feet until the morning. Now Boaz was willing
to redeem Ruth. He was the near kinsman. He was
willing to do it. But there was somebody else who
was nearer kinsman than Boaz was. And so the nearer kinsman
had the lawful right. He had the lawful right to redeem
Ruth before Boaz did. Now, we're going to look at that
nearer kinsman, Lord willing, next time. That nearer kinsman
had the first claim on her. But Boaz is making it known to
Ruth. He's teaching Ruth something
here. He's teaching Ruth what Christ teaches His child. He's
teaching Ruth that He would first deal with this near kinsman so
that he could accomplish her redemption in righteousness. In other words, Boaz, he wanted
Ruth. He had his heart set on Ruth
and he was determined to redeem her and to marry her and to raise
up children to her. But the honor of God's law, the
honor of God's law was more important to Boaz than even Ruth was to
Boaz. That's what He's teaching her.
That's what Christ teaches His people. The honor of God's holy
law is more important than even the child of God. God's law had to first be honored. Now has Christ taught us that?
This is what He's going to teach. If you truly trust Christ, He's
taught you this. Because you can't truly trust
Him until He teaches you this. Until He teaches you this, you'll
be trying to be redeemed by that other kinsman. That other kinsman
is the law. You'll be trying to be redeemed
by that other kinsman. Until He teaches you that that
kinsman won't redeem you, can't redeem you, that the only one
who can redeem you is Christ, until He teaches us that, we
won't trust Christ. We won't cease from our works
and trust Christ. That's the thing that's more
important to Christ even above the salvation of His people.
It's the honor of God. It's the honor of His law. The
honor of His character. You don't hear things like that
being preached in churches today. Not far and wide. You don't hear
that. You hear the most important thing
is the sinner. Everything's revolving around
the sinner. And God's just chasing after sinners, trying to work
out His wonderful plan He's got for everybody. Well, that's not
the truth of these Scriptures. As Christ begins revealing Himself
to a sinner, He teaches us this. Not only that He's our kinsman
redeemer, but He teaches us that that Christ crucified, Christ
crucified declares to us that He is our kinsman redeemer in
righteousness. He's the kinsman redeemer in
righteousness. He is the righteousness of God. Redemption is redemption in righteousness. What do I mean by that? Well,
in Romans 3 we're told that God set forth Christ to declare His
righteousness for the remission of sins. In other words, He set
Christ forth to declare how He can be a righteous God and remit
sins. He said it again more clearly.
He said, to declare, I say at this time, His righteousness
that God might be just and that God might be the justifier of
him that believes in Jesus. Now, God illustrated that Christ
is the one in whom this glory is manifest. God's glory is manifest
in Christ. He's the one God set forth to
declare His righteousness. And that glory, all that glory
of God is manifest nowhere but Christ. Nowhere but Christ. God said, I won't share my glory
with another. It's manifest in my Son. Now
go over to Exodus 34. Here's how he illustrated it.
He put Moses in the cleft of a rock. And that rock is Christ. Picture Christ where you see
God's glory. He put him there in the cleft
of this rock and then he manifests his glory from that place or
in that rock. That's where God manifests his
glory to Moses. Now here's his glory. Now watch
this. Exodus 34, 6. The Lord passed by before him
and proclaimed, the Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious,
long-suffering and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy
for thousands. For thousands. He's keeping mercy
for a particular number of people. For thousands. Forgiving iniquity
and transgression and sin now everything that he just said
there is God's mercy Does God save only by mercy Does he just
save by mercy? Nope what he's gonna say next
is God's truth listen to it and That will by no means clear the
guilty He said it this way in Proverbs
16, 6. By mercy and by truth, iniquity
is purged. Sins are remitted. Sins are put
away by mercy and truth. Now when it says by mercy, Here's
what that means. Right there next to 34.6. The
Lord God is merciful and gracious, long-suffering and abundant in
goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity
and transgression and sin. There's His mercy. And by truth,
He means this. He will by no means clear the
guilty. By mercy and truth, iniquity is purged. That's all God's glory
wrapped up right there. And it's all manifest in Christ,
His righteousness, His holiness. Somebody asks you, what's God's
preeminent attribute? What do you say? It's holiness. It's holiness. Most of the world is going to
say love. God is love. But God does not love unless
it's holy. Here's what I'm saying. The righteousness
of God is declared by how God can save a sinner in mercy and
pour out justice on that same sinner. That's what Christ came to declare. That's what Christ came to declare.
Every person God chose in Christ before the foundation of the
world and gave to Christ. Every elect child of God, just
like everybody else in this world, we sinned and became unrighteous
when we fell in error. Every one of us. And therefore,
in order for God to be just, for truth to prevail, for God's
honor to prevail, for His law to be upheld, for His justice
to be upheld and honored. Each one that God saves must
die, not just physical death, they must die eternal separation
from God, which is that worm that never dies, that hell that
men will be cast into if they don't have Christ. They've got
to die that death. Everybody God saves has got to
die that death. And at the same time, in order
for God to be merciful, each one God saves has got to
be justified by God Himself. They've got to have wrath poured
out on them to the full satisfaction of the divine justice, and He's
going to show them mercy, justifying them from their sins. Now, how
can that be pulled off? How can that be possible? That
you can die eternal death and yet have eternal life. That you
can suffer divine justice and yet be justified. You see, that's
the righteousness Christ came to declare. That ought to be
preached every time a man stands in a pulpit because that is the
gospel. You take the righteousness of
God out of the gospel, you've taken the offense out of the
gospel. Taking the gospel out of the gospel. This thing is
to do with sin and how God can be just and justify sinners.
And that's what we get pictured here in Boaz. He's telling Ruth,
there's somebody that has to be honored. God's law has got
to be honored here. I can't just redeem you. I've
got to do it in a way consistent with God's holy law. And that's
what Christ is going to teach His child, what Boaz is teaching
Ruth. That's the only way God will
save. How can that happen? How can that happen? Well, the
only way God could save His people in mercy and justice, in mercy
and in truth, the only way mercy and truth could kiss, the only
way death and life could meet in harmony is for God to come
in the person of His Son and take our place on the cross.
That's the only way. To be the kinsman redeemer who
redeems. He had to do it in a way that
honored justice and yet at the same time justified his people. Christ is the only one that could
do that. God's just because Christ Jesus who knew no sin was made
sin. You know there's a scripture
that says in Ezekiel, The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The
father can't die for the son and the son can't die for the
father. The soul that does the sinning, that's the soul that
must die. This thing of Christ coming and
being made sin was such a real headship and such a real representation
of His people there that that was Clay Curtis doing that work.
If you're a child of God, that was you there. He became His
people. and He was made to be what we
were. So that God, in righteousness
now, poured out justice on Him justly, and satisfied His justice. When He died, that final death
of dying was just an exclamation point on what He suffered on
the cross, because that was the death, being set forsaken from
God, That was the eternal death. He was dying. A living death.
He was dying. Suffering there on that cross.
Hell is the fire of hell and the worm of hell and all these
things that are meant to show us how awful hell would be. It's all summed up in this, God
forsaking you. When God takes His presence away
from you, even if a man don't know God, He's benefited by just
having God's presence around him. But when God takes His presence
from you, and yet you know Him fully, you
know everything about Him, you think of Christ hanging on that
cross. There's Christ who hates sin, who hates sin. He knows what sin is now and
He hates it. And He looks at God who He knows
perfectly and loves. And yet he's made the thing he
hates and he's separated from the one he loves. That's hell. And he's suffering
that eternal death for his people because that's what divine justice
demands in order for God to be holy. He's got to be holy. He can't save us. He will not
sweep that part under the rug and say, I'll just redeem you
anyway. Boaz said, there's somebody else that's got to be satisfied
before I can redeem you. That law had to be satisfied.
God had to be honored. He had to be honored. When He
said it's finished, He had honored him. He had finished that. He
declared God just. Every single person that God
will save died to divine justice right that minute when Christ
gave up the ghost. Now hear what I said now. This
is why we preach limited atonement. Every single person for whom
Christ died, died to divine justice with divine justice satisfied
the moment Christ gave up the ghost. They died. God would be
unjust now to pour out justice on anybody that Christ died for
because His justice is satisfied. It's satisfied. And at the same
time, now that's how God established His truth. And at the same time,
the way He made that truth and mercy meet in harmony is Christ
is God in human flesh providing Himself a lamb so that He has
totally, thoroughly justified everybody for whom He died. That's
right. So now you've got God's justice
and God's mercy. They've met in harmony. They've
kissed in harmony. God Christ was eternal, so it's
an eternal redemption. It's an eternal satisfaction.
It's an eternal atonement, an eternal reconciliation to God.
And it's a never-ending mercy because He's eternal. But you
see, the mercy is not at the expense of His justice. And the
justice is not at the expense of His mercy. They meet now in
perfect harmony in Christ. That's the only way God could
do this. Now God says of all those for
whom Christ died, in Romans 8.33, who shall lay anything, who shall
lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifies. Gonna have to charge God before
you can charge one of God's elect. God justifies. Who is it that
condemneth? It's Christ that died, yea rather,
that's risen again, seated at the right hand of God, who also
makes intercession for us. That's what we have in Type here.
Boaz, the kinsman redeemer, is teaching Ruth. I am the near
kinsman, but there's one nearer than me that's got to be honored.
He's got to be satisfied, and then I can redeem you. And I
can redeem you. I was I was, you don't want to
meet God representing yourself. You want to meet God in this
one. You look to the cross and see what Christ suffered and
you'll see why you don't want to meet God on your own. See
what He suffered. Look at what He suffered. I was
in Franklin and there was a fellow in the congregation, we called
him Jay Bird. And Jay Bird had to go to court and he needed
a lawyer. So he got him a lawyer and went
to court. And he's sitting in court and there's a lot of people
in the courtroom and the judge would call a name and a person
would hop up and they'd walk up to the bench, you know, and
talk to the judge and try to persuade the judge to show mercy
to him. And every one of them that walked
up there, the judge said to them, he said, you're guilty. Don't
ever come before me trying to represent yourself. You're guilty.
You don't speak my language. You don't know the law. You don't
know. I'm not in the mercy business.
I'm in the law business. Don't come before me. Guilty. One after another. One after
another. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. And then
he calls Jay. Now I'd be frightened about that,
wouldn't you? All these people, this judge
is saying guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty. He calls Jay's name.
And Jay didn't move a muscle. His lawyer stood up in between
him and the judge and said, I'm representing that man. And the
judge said, come up here to the bench. He walked up there to
the bench. He talked to him. And he said, case dismissed.
And he walked out. What's the difference? Those
other folks didn't have an advocate. They didn't have an intercessor.
They didn't have a substitute. Jay did. He had somebody represent
him to the judge. That's what you got to have.
You got to have somebody represent you to God, the judge of all.
And here's the thing. In that day, the one that's going
to be the judge is the advocate. It is Christ. Reject Christ and
then try to come into Christ's presence having rejected Him.
You're not going to persuade that judge. So that's what He's
teaching her. That's what Christ teaches every
sinner. Now let me show you this next thing. Christ also teaches
a sinner that He's our holiness. And He makes us by that want
to honor Him. That's how He teaches us He's
our holiness, because He makes us want to honor Him. Look here
in verse 14. It says, And she rose up before
one could know another. And He said, Let it not be known
that a woman came into the floor. And Boaz knew that if Ruth let
other people know that she'd come to this threshing floor,
then everybody was going to view her as a harlot. Because there
wasn't anything but men at the threshing floor. And if she's
leaving that threshing floor at twilight, been there all night
long, the only conclusion they're going to come to is she's a harlot.
That she's a harlot. And so Boaz, her kinsman redeemer,
would not have her to be dishonored. He would not have her to be accused
by the accuser. In his heart, his heart was for
her honor. His heart was to protect her.
And because that was his heart, you just look at this. She's
talked to him. She knows he's going to redeem
her. He's teaching her. He's expressed to her how much
he loves her. And when he tells her this, Do
you think she's going to raise up in rebellion against what
he's telling her and argue with him about what he's telling her?
No. He's got her heart. He's got
her heart. She's going to listen to him
in everything he says and do what he says. This is the one
who is all her salvation. She's going to do everything
he says. Now, they knew that she remained
virtuous that whole night. They knew that. Because she slept
at His feet that whole night. But her honor was at stake here
before others. Before others. And He wouldn't
have her dishonored before others. And because that was His heart
toward her, that was her heart towards Him. Now what I'm giving
you here is not a theologian's definition of holiness and sanctification. I'm giving you an experimental
definition of holiness and sanctification. Not only does Christ become the
righteousness of God unto us, Christ becomes our holiness of
heart. What do I mean by that? You know
the scripture says of God is Christ made unto us righteousness
and sanctification. Well, true holiness of heart
is to be made alive by Christ being formed in you. He said,
I am the life. We got to have a new heart to
be able to hear and know and understand and believe Christ.
We got to have a new spirit put in us that we don't have by birth. We have a corrupt nature by birth.
But when Christ enters in, in spirit, that's what causes a
believer now to start hearing Christ, and want to follow Christ,
and want to obey Christ. It's because Christ has sanctified
you. He has become the holiness that
you've got to have to approach unto God. He's given you a heart
to want to approach Him. And in that new heart, He calls
us to glory and virtue. That's right, He calls us to
glory and virtue. He calls us to honor Him and
not dishonor Him because we see what all He's done to honor us
so that we won't be dishonored. It's all from a motive of grace
for what He's done for you and it's by His constraining power
within your heart. He speaks into your heart and
He manifests that it's His heart to protect your honor. And when
He makes you to know that, then it's your heart to protect His
honor. It's what it's called. It's like being one. It's like
a husband and a wife being made one flesh. The husband looks
out for the honor of the wife and the wife is concerned for
the honor of the husband. That's real holiness. That's
what holiness is. Being made one with Christ. Listen
to Peter. His divine power has given unto
us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the
knowledge of Him that's called us to glory and virtue. His power
did this. He gave us this by giving us
a knowledge of Him. Just like she had a knowledge
of Entype, like she had a knowledge of Boaz. But much more than that. This is an inward working. And
he's called you to glory and virtue and he gives you exceeding
great and precious promises She knew Boaz was every word. He said was true, and she was
going to redeem her She don't want to dishonor him Well when
Christ gives you his exceeding great and precious promises you
know that every promise is yes, and amen in him And you don't
want to dishonor him Listen, by these you're made partakers
of the divine nature. You're made one with Christ,
with Christ in you. To be a partaker of a divine
nature, that's to have a nature in you that you didn't have before.
A nature that is from God, with God dwelling in you, that you
didn't have before. And that's what makes you escape
the corruption that's in the world through lust. Let me read
some more scripture to you here on that. Paul put it this way
to the Thessalonians. He said, this is the will of
God, even your sanctification, that you abstain from fornication.
Not just the actual literal act of fornication, although that
is so, but fornication is anything that dishonors Christ. Anything
that's fornication against our heavenly husband. That's what
he's talking about. That's your sanctification, to
be separated so that you don't want to dishonor Him by any kind
of fornication against Him. And He says this, that every
one of you should know how to possess His vessel in sanctification
and in honor. You know how to possess yourself
in sanctification and honor if He's dwelling in you. Because
He's teaching you. Just like He commanded her, don't
turn around here now until it starts getting daylight because
men are going to know you've been in this threshing floor.
What do you think she did? She hot-footed it out of there.
Well, if Christ speaks this in our heart, you're going to know
how to possess yourself in sanctification and honor. Because He's telling
you, go there, don't go there. Do this, don't do that. Why? Why do you do that? Preacher,
we're not under works, we're not saved by works, we're saved
by grace. Well, if we are, this is what
the Spirit of God teaches us in our hearts. He tells the men
and the women, everybody to be discreet and chaste and all these
things, and He says this, that the Word of God be not blasphemed. that Christ Jesus be not blasphemed. He says in another place there,
He says that he that is of the contrary part may be ashamed
having no evil thing to say of you. And He says this, that you
may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior in all things. Why? What would make a man want to
do that? For the grace of God that bringeth salvation has appeared
to all men. Teaching us. He's talking about
all of us that's been taught. Teaching us that denying ungodliness
and worldly lusts, we should live soberly and righteously
and godly in this present world, looking for that blessed hope
and that glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior,
Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for us. That He might redeem
us from all iniquity and purify to Himself a peculiar people,
zealous of good works. You see, that's what we see here.
He's not only told her, I'm doing this in a way that's righteous,
and I'm going to be your righteous Redeemer, but He's telling her
now, let me show you what you do so that you don't dishonor
me and dishonor yourself. That's what holiness is, being
separated from dishonor so that you don't want to dishonor God
anymore. You want to honor Him. You want to honor Him. Now let
me give you this next thing. See, this is just being born
of God, being given a new heart, being taught to keep yourself
unspotted from this world. Now the third thing. None of
this would be so in our hearts at all if Christ didn't give
us a measure of grace in our heart. Now look here, verse 15,
Ruth 3.15. Also He said, Have you noticed everything that's
happened here has been by His voice? He's commanded it. That's
how we're saved, by Christ's voice, by Him speaking. And He
says to her now, bring the veil, the apron that thou hast upon
thee, and hold it. And when she held it, He measured
six measures of barley. He measured out to her into that
veil six measures of barley and laid it on her, and she went
into the city. She went into the city. You remember
when last week we were looking at
a passage and we were looking at how Peter said, let the women
be in subjection to their husbands from that hidden man of the heart
which is not corruptible. That's what's pictured here by
this apron. That's where the measure is measured
out, is into that hidden man of the heart. And the measure
that's measured out is the grace of God. Ephesians 4.7 says, Unto
every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the
gift of Christ. He's head over the house and
He's the one that's measuring out the grace. Listen to Ephesians
4.16, From Christ the whole body is fitly joined together and
compacted by that which every joint supplies. I got my shoulder
here and a joint here that's holding my arm on. They're compacted
and they're supplying one another with what the other one needs.
And there's a joint here supplying this part of my arm with what
this part of my arm needs. And there's a joint here supplying
what this needs and what the other needs. But where are they
all getting supplied from? The head. The head. Every joint supplies according
to the effectual working in the measure of every part. It's Christ
who does that, making increase of the body so that it edifies
itself in love. If it wasn't for Christ measuring
grace to us, we wouldn't know Him. We wouldn't have faith.
We wouldn't have repentance. We wouldn't have any kind of
willingness in our hearts for Him. We would not have anything
from Him. What do you have that you didn't
receive? It all came from Him. Grace,
and just like before, Boaz gave her free bread. Now, what's he
doing? He gives her more free bread.
Don't go home empty. Here's more free bread. What
did James say? He says, He giveth more grace. He gives you a measure of grace.
And He gives you more grace. But who does He give it to? Does
He give it to those that rebel against Him? Does He give it
to those who say, well, I can save myself. Does He do that? It says He gives grace to the
humble and He resists the proud. His grace humbles you to ask
grace and He gives you more grace. That's who he is. That's how
it works. So he says, submit yourselves therefore to God.
This is what Ruth was doing. Ruth was just doing what Boaz
told her to do. Because he's all her hope. Do
you know what condition this woman was in? This woman don't
have a penny to her name. If he didn't give her that bread,
she wasn't eating that night. When you're in that condition,
you don't go up to Boaz and say, I think I'm going to let you
redeem me. I think I'm going to give you my heart and let
you redeem me. He'd say, get out of here. I ain't called you. Get out of here. And you don't
walk up to Christ if you're needed. You don't walk up to Christ that
way. You come to Christ like that sinner that said, Lord,
have mercy on me, the sinner. That's how you come to Christ.
And that's how she came. And this too was to Ruth in earnest. He gave her in earnest by this. He told her he was going to redeem
her and everything he had was going to be hers. And he gave
her some more bread from his field, showing her, I'm taking
care of you, girl. You don't have to worry about
a thing. Well, the Scripture says, in whom? In Christ, you
also trust Him. after that you heard the word
of truth, the gospel of your salvation, in whom also, after
you believed on Him, He sealed you with the Holy Spirit of promise. And that Holy Spirit of promise
is the earnest, it's the foretaste of our inheritance unto the redemption. That's what this was, to the
redemption. This was a foretaste for her unto the redemption.
of the purchased possession. All of us right now, even believers
right now, are in Ruth's shape. She's a picture of a new believer
being taught and taught to trust Christ. But all of us right now
are awaiting the redemption of our bodies into God's glory.
And so we're waiting right now. We have a foretaste because we
got the Spirit, we got this bread, we got this grace He's measuring
to us right now to be able to believe on Him and hear this
Word, rejoice in His Word. We're in the same shape She's
in. You never leave this place depending on our great Boaz. You see her going into that city. She takes that stuff and can
you picture her going to that city? I bet she's running as
fast as she can go, because she can't wait to get back and tell
Naomi about this, about what's happened to her. And I see in
that, you see a believer, when you first begin to see things
and hear things and know what God's teaching you about His
righteousness and His holiness and His earnestness that He gives
you, you flee into that city that has foundations whose builder
and maker is God. You flee to Him. The first thing
that let Ananias know that Christ said the way that He convinced
Ananias that He had created Saul anew was He said, He's praying.
He's praying. First time Paul had ever prayed. All that time that he'd been
saying prayers in the temple, he had never prayed to God. But
for the first time, he was praying. Because he had been made new.
And that's what you... You will run to that city. And
not only that, you'll run to where God's people are. into
his church, which is called a city. Look here, verse 16. When she
came to her mother-in-law, now her mother-in-law remembers a
picture of the church. She said, Who art thou, my daughter? She
told her all that the man had done to her. And she said, These
six measures of barley gave he me, for he said to me, Go not
empty unto thy mother-in-law. She was excited. She was just
thrilled about what had happened to her. And learn from that. If you go to Christ, you won't
go away empty. He'll teach you about His righteousness,
that He's the righteousness of God. He'll teach you He's the
holiness of God. Don't dishonor me, He'll teach
you. He'll teach you by giving you a measure of the bread, giving
you the Holy Spirit, giving you the earnest of the inheritance.
And He's promised this. You shall seek Me and find Me
when you shall search for Me with all your heart. That's what
Ruth's doing. That's what you do by grace, is you seek for
Him with all your heart. Remember that story? Brother
Frank told us about that farmer that was searching for his lost
wallet, because all his savings was in it. He tore that barn
apart. His wife said, he said, I've
searched for God, I haven't found Him. She said, if you search
for Him like you search for that wallet, you would. That's what Ruth's doing. Now
here's the last thing. Now we see something for us who
believe. What does God's saints do when they encounter a sinner
that Christ has begun to do this work in? What do we do? What
are we supposed to do? Look at verse 18. This is what
Naomi said. Sit still, my daughter, until
thou know how the matter will fall. For the man will not be
in rest until he hath finished the thing this day. You know,
Ruth was excited. I picture her wringing her hands,
walking, pacing back and forth, and just probably talking 90
to nothing, and Naomi can't get a word in edgewise, and she's
wondering, you know, should I do this, or should I do that, or
what should I do, whatever. Naomi says, sit still. Sit still. Wait and see how it
falls out. This man's not going to rest
until he's accomplished what he promised you he would accomplish.
Now, that's what we ought to say. That's what we ought to
do. Religion says, work on the emotions. Strike while the iron's
hot. Well, you got them worked up,
get them down the aisle, shake a preacher's hand, and on a church
roll, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. God says this. God says, the Egyptians shall
help in vain and to no purpose. Therefore, I've cried concerning
this, their strength is to sit still. Sit still. Why? Because this is the Word
of the Lord. It's not by might and it's not
by power. It's not by your might and not
by your power, but by the Lord of hosts. By my Spirit, God said. That's how the work is going
to be accomplished. By my Spirit. You and I need to remember that
in trials too. You know, you get a fellow believer
in a trial and you want to help get them out of that trial. Sit
still and see how the thing falls out. The man that's working this,
he won't rest until he's accomplished it. Don't get in the way. Just
don't get in the way. Now by experience, by the same
mercy that we've experienced ourselves, we know this is the
thing to say. We say what Moses said. You remember
they was at that Red Sea? He's leading all these people.
There's the Red Sea in front of them. There's a mountain on
one side. There's a mountain on the other side. And there's
Pharaoh's army and all his entourage bearing down on them as fast
as they can. Don't you know they was in a fuss and all bent out
of shape and running here and there and wondering what to do?
What's a good pastor going to teach them? This is what Moses
said. Fear ye not, stand still, and
see the salvation of the Lord which He will show you today.
Stand still. Watch the Lord save you. I say
that to the young, just starting out, that God's working in. I
say it to an aged believer. I say it to you if you're dealing
with matters of Him teaching the truth in the heart or matters
of Him dealing with you in a trial or matters of just waiting now
on the Lord to return and redeem us in body. Sit still and wait
on the Lord. Be of good courage. He shall
strengthen thine heart. Wait, I say, on the Lord. What's
my assurance to do that? The man will not rest until he's
finished the thing this day. The God-man entered this earth
and he did not rest until he accomplished Our redemption in
perfect righteousness and perfect holiness. He did not rest. And
that's done. He finished that work. And He's
not going to rest right now until He's finished calling out every
single one that He redeemed. He has to get the glory for giving
you a heart, and get the glory for giving you grace, and get
the glory for teaching you, and get the glory for bringing you
home. He has to get the glory for this too. And so he's not
going to rest until he's accomplished this work. He's going forth conquering
and to conquer. And Paul said, I'm confident
of this very thing. He that has begun a good work
in you, he that's begun a good work will perform it until the
day of Jesus Christ. You can be assured of that. And
the rest is sure to this too. I got this from Mr. Hawker. He
said you can be assured of this too. That newly born child is
not more earnest to be saved in Christ than the Lord Jesus
Himself is to save him. And the God-man won't rest until
he's finished the thing in this day of salvation. No soul is
more desirous to win Christ than Christ is to reveal Himself to
that soul. And He won't rest until it's
finished. So, while we're waiting on Him to return, what do we
do? When we get one another, we get
all bent out of shape, we're pacing the floor like Ruth was
doing in front of Naomi. We say to our brother, our sister,
sit still, see how to fall out. The God man's not gonna rest
till he has accomplished this thing. And so we rest, and we're
gonna do that till he comes back. We need to be hearing that word
in this day and time. There's a lot to get you twisted
over, especially in an election season. Let's just sit still
and see how it plays out. He won't rest till he's accomplished
his will. And it'll be for our good and
his glory. Amen.