We'll look at the book of Ruth
this morning. Interesting, I think it's an
interesting. way this lesson. I spoke a couple of weeks ago,
Brother Rupert Reichenbach. And they are. We're beginning
to look at the Book of Ruth, and he said, Well, just make
some comments on the Book of Ruth. And there was a situation
at 13th Street that had greatly troubled me. And Briefly, I'll tell you what that
situation was. There's a gentleman there who
has made the decision to pick his family up and move them to
a major metropolitan area. And he's attended 13th Street
for over 20 years. His wife was raised there. Absolutely. My knowledge. Consult with his pastor. You
know 13th Street's a large assembly and one of the reasons that Henry
has appointed elders is that he can't Actually, talk to everybody
about every situation. And by the way, whether it's
moving or a new job or what it is, as a believer, I would never
make a major decision without consulting my pastor. I mean,
his it's a little like we don't ever do anything without using
our brain, do we? We wouldn't go out and say, OK,
I'm going to buy a new car, but it's going to be pure emotion.
I'm not going to use any brain at all. I'm just going to go
in. My heart's going to lead me to whatever I want, whatever
it costs, who cares? We use our brain, don't we? Or
we wind up regretting greatly what we do. Well, your pastor's
ahead. I wouldn't do anything without
really consulting him first, whether it's a major decision
or whether it's just a heart-wrenching decision. Because what he does
is he prays all day, he studies, he prepares. His, we can't, I
mean, you know, you get out there on a job, Rick, you can't in
the middle of the day go, oh, well, I think I'll go over here
and meditate. Think I'll seek the Lord's wisdom for the next
hour on this matter. You're hammering away. You've
got to work. But your pastor can do those things. And the
Lord may well lead him and teach him. Plus, his experience is
so much broader in so many areas because he deals with so many
things. And he may well be very familiar with the problem that
you're encountering for the first time. But at any rate, to my
knowledge, and I believe I know, I know he hasn't spoken to our
pastor, nor the elders, as he even mentioned this to, just
doing it. Much to the chagrin and distress
of his wife and family. And. I don't like him out right
now, I mean, I mean, there's that. Let me tell you, there's
so much better in San Francisco or Miami or Washington, D.C.
I'll tell you what, I'm so thankful that the Lord put my pastor in
Ashton, Kentucky instead of one of those places for my children's
sake. So. This really troubled me. It just meant so much in my mind,
and yet I was reluctant to just go up and say something to somebody
or speak to somebody without some spiritual basis or being
led to do it. And I was looking at the book
of Ruth and found the example that I think is applicable here. You got Ruth chapter 1, verse
1. Now, it came to pass in the days when the judges ruled that
there was a famine in the land. And a certain man of Bethlehem,
Judah, went to sojourn in the country of Moab, he and his wife
and his two sons. And the name of the man was Elimelech,
and the name of his wife, Naomi, and the name of his two sons,
Melon and Chelon. Ephraites of Bethlehem, Judah,
and they came into the country of Moab and continued there.
There's a lot said in those two verses that may not be obvious
or apparent on first reading. There was a famine in the land.
Now, that's going to cause some problems. That's going to be
a distress. You've known famine in this part of the country.
In the extent that lots of these factories are shut down, the
good jobs are gone, it's a temptation to say, well, you know, I'll
pick up and go somewhere. And if the Lord were to lead you
to do that, that's one thing. But it's not likely, if he brought
you here in the first place. God gives a people an ear for
the gospel. But he also gives them an ear
for a man who preaches the gospel. You may love to hear Henry preach
the gospel, or lots of other fellows. You may enjoy and rejoice
in them preaching the gospel. But if you're like me, I love
to hear you. Boy, Paul recently came up to Ashton. He's preaching
the 23rd Psalm, and I just want to stand up and go, yes! I mean,
it was great. I mean, I rejoiced, and it was
just what I needed. But I tell you what, I know I'm
where I'm supposed to be. My ear is tuned to Henry Mahan. And it'd be a mistake if I just
said, well, you know, it's kind of hard times around here in
Nashville, and I think I'll move to somewhere else. Even here?
I mean, I could sit under Paul Mahan's ministry and love to,
but I know I'm not supposed to right now. I'm supposed to be
where I am. It's a serious thing, just to
up and say I'm going to do something. And that's what, despite the
circumstances, and that's what a limelight did. There was a
famine. But, I mean, did all of Bethlehem up and move? All
of Israel didn't vacate just because, if you go back and read
in Judges, The reason what happened here and and you don't look it
up, but I'll read you the verse judges here what brought this
famine on was interesting. The cause of it was and the children
of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord and the Lord delivered
them into the hand of me and for seven years. You know what
the media night did they came up with every cow, camel, goat,
sheep and the whole land and took all of us back for seven
years. So, it was, you see, I mean,
they were not exactly innocent in this bringing the famine on
in the first place. So, they didn't really have any
reason to be going, well, you know, I need to get up and leave
this place. Bethlehem was still the place. I mean, Bethlehem, that city
is greatly blessed of God. Our Lord was going to be born
there. So, was he going to forsake Bethlehem to the point where
it was vacant and desolate and deserted? Absolutely not. But a limelight. It would be
different if it said in this verse of the word level and down
into the land of Noah. That's not what it says. It says
he just sojourned. He decided, well, best thing
for me to do is go down there. And that's what he did. Now,
what happened to him when he got down there? And another thing
I might mention is I don't know whether limelight. I really don't
know whether he knew Christ or not. He's really not clear. Anywhere in this book is not
clear about limelight. So I'm not going to say he didn't.
I'm not going to say he did. I would say his behavior, his
behavior indicates that maybe he didn't know our Lord. And
behavior's not always a sign, because we all, well, if it's
based on our behavior, none of us would be identified with Christ,
wouldn't we? They'd all go, ha, ha, ha. That
person, they got to be lost. They wouldn't do that or whatever.
So I don't know where to come down on that, but it's greatly
troubling when somebody does something just, I mean, to stand
against light, to willfully turn against the scriptural principles
is not a good sign. But and you look what happened
here with a limelight when he got down there, there's three
results. And let me read a few more verses here. And by the
way, you see the last phrase there in verse two, it says he
continued there. Now, this is this is very, very
important. What happened is that the famine
ended up in Bethlehem after seven years. He stayed here. You see what I'm saying? I wouldn't
blame one of you men if I mean, all the work dried up here, and
you found out, well, I got to go to Greensboro five days a
week, and then come home on the weekend and worship, because
there's just no work. And I got a job there. If you
had to do that for a while, so things picked up here again.
I can understand. That's not what Limelech did. He got down there, and he
liked it there. And he said, I'm going to stay
here instead of going back to where I should be. He continued
there. Now look at verse three. In a
Limelech, Naomi's husband died. And she was left and her two
sons. And they took them wives of the women of Moab. The name
of the one was Orpah, and the name of the other Ruth. And they
dwelt there about ten years. See how long they were there?
The family was only seven. They stayed ten more after that.
Then, verse 6 says, Then she arose, and her daughters in law,
that she might return to the country of Moab. But notice there's
three things that happened there. Number one is God killed Lemuel. He killed him, didn't he? Number
two, he killed his two boys. And the third thing, and this
may be the worst one yet, you know what happened as a result
of him taking those boys down to that place? They married a
couple of pagan girls. They married two girls who had
no interest in the gospel, in God Almighty, Jehovah, or the
Lord Jesus Christ. So, can you see my concern for
this man is yanking up his family and going to take them into a
farm land, all for the sake of a job. And that's what this was
about, a better paying job. Not that the job he had wasn't
good enough. I saw him, don't we know, the family's getting
along all right. So anyway, it terrifies me what happened here
and what might happen to this man. So all three of those things
were bad and happened as a result of this decision, but let's look
and see what happens now. So Naomi, Naomi, and I think
it's clear that Naomi was one of the lower zone. Naomi, I'm
convinced she didn't want to go down to Moab in the first
place. She didn't like it down there the whole time she was
there because the first thing she could do when, and back then
a woman who became widowed became basically the responsibility
of her children. And she had to do what those
boys, As grown men pretty much dictated, she was dependent on
them. But once everything was in her hands, she said, I'm going
back. I'm going back to the Lord's
people. And you see, she arose with her daughters-in-law that
she might see they became her responsibility now. to return
from the country of Moab, for she had heard in the country
of Moab how that the Lord had visited his people in giving
them bread. She said, Hey, there's bread
back up there in Bethlehem. I'm going back. And who's the
bread of life? The Lord Jesus Christ. I'll tell
you, if a believer gets very far from the bread, first opportunity
they get to get back under it, they're going. And that's what
she did. She said, I'm going back. In verse seven, wherefore
she went forth out of the place where she was, and her two daughter-in-laws
with her. They started back, and they went
in the way to return unto the land of Judah. And Naomi said
unto her two daughters-in-law, Go, return each to her mother's
house. The Lord deal kindly with you,
as you have dealt with the dead and with me." Now, notice about
these two girls, Orpah and Ruth. They're similar in some ways.
Apparently, they both were very kind and sweet girls. They were
obedient wives. They loved their husbands, were
faithful to them. They were good to her. And she
did. She loved them both. I mean,
these were fine young girls, despite the fact that they were
pagan in the sense that they didn't know anything about the
gospel when they married into the family. Notice that Naomi tried to get
both of them to go back. She said, you know, it's going
to be bad for me. She's thinking, going back up
here with nothing to, you know, I don't have anything to support
you and you'd be better off to go back, humanly speaking, to
your family. Well, they, what happened then? She said in verse nine, the Lord
grant you that you may find rest, each of you, in the house of
her husband, meaning they could go and remarry. Then she kissed
them, and they lifted up their voice and wept. They loved Naomi,
and she loved them. This was not an easy party for
them. In verse 10, And they said unto her, Surely we will return
with thee unto thy people. And notice this in verse 10,
They both said. They both said. Okay, we'll go
back. Saying and doing. It's two different
things. Verse 11, And Naomi said again,
Turn again, my daughters, why will you go with me? Are there
yet any more sons in my womb, that they may be your husbands?
Back then the law was that if your husband died and there was
another son, you married that son. And she said, I don't have
any more sons, and I'm not going to have any more. So you're better
off to go back to where you came from. She said, turn again, my
daughters, go your way, for I'm too old to have a husband. And
if I should, it won't bear any sins. Would you wait or tarry
for them till they were grown? Would you stay for them from
having husbands? Nay, my daughters, for it grieved
me much for your sakes that the hand of the Lord has gone out
against me. Now, follow us, because it's going to play out. You'll
see, she's right here saying, God's against me. He's against
me. Took me out of my home, brought
me down to this pagan land. Took my husband, took my children.
He's against me. And because you're with me, if
you stay with me, you're going to be against you, too. And we'll
see that's wrong thinking. But she said, You girls need
to get away from me. Go on back. Now, you know what
Orpah did? Orpah went, Maybe she's right. Maybe she's right. Because you
see here what Orpah did in verse fourteen. And they lifted up
their voice and they wept again. And Orpah kissed her mother-in-law. You know what that means? She
kissed her goodbye. She's going back. And Ruth, it
said, claimed to her. Now look at the difference here.
Verse fifteen. And Ruth said, I mean, Naomi
said to Ruth, Behold, your sister, Orpah, your sister-in-law, is
gone back unto her people, and look what else, this is what
took her back now, and to her God. Return thou after thy sister-in-law. That's the worst thing about
taking your children out of the gospel that will be raised under
paganism. Let me tell you, it's the hardest
thing to break there is. Those of us who were raised in
paganism, my paganism was Methodism. It's a miracle God woke me out
of that. I've seen Tom Harding was a Mormon,
Dan Morgan was a Christian. A Catholic, I mean, it doesn't
matter, Baptists, lots of you who are Pagan Baptists, but the
hardest thing in the world is to get broken out of that, because
it's in you. The draw of our gods, whatever
they are, is so strong. And poor Orpah, Orpah breaks
my heart. She left and went back. It's
just like when coming out of Sodom and
Gomorrah. She looked back, didn't she?
She looked back to those gods she loved and was turned into
a pillar of salt. So, Orpah went back, but now what did Ruth do?
And Ruth said, Ruth said, Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return
from following after thee. For whither thou goest, I will
go, and where thou lodgest, I will lodge. Thy people shall be my
people, and thy God shall be my God. Now, you know what has
happened here? Let me tell you what's happened. Ruth married into this family.
Naomi, even though she was down there in this pagan land, Naomi
knew the gospel. She knew Christ. And you know
what she did? She not only acted like it, she
talked about it. Somehow she had told Ruth who
Christ was, what he did, why he did it, and where he was now. And Ruth heard it and believed
it by the grace of God. And therefore, she couldn't go
back to those gods. And she said, please. She entreated. She said, please. She claimed
to her. She was angry. She said, don't
make me go back to them. Don't make me go back to those
gods. They're not, He's not my God
anymore. Your God's my God. She said, let me go with you.
And I'll tell you what, you can't drive a believer off. What reason
did she have to leave? She could go back to her home,
food and drink aplenty and whatever. She's going to go with this widow
woman up here who had nothing, back to some place she'd never
been. Why would she go? She had no choice in the matter.
The Lord was wooing her, pulling her. And recently we had another
situation at 13th Street where a girl had been dating a young
fellow for a couple of months and up and went to Henry and
said, I want you to marry us. Well, as Henry says, he's getting
about old enough he can say whatever he wants to, whoever he wants
to. He doesn't pull punches too much anymore. And boy, he turned
on her and said, now you listen to me. He said, I'm going to
talk to you just like I did your dad. He said, you do this, he
said, and you'll regret it the rest of your life. He said, you
don't know that man well enough. He said, he doesn't give any
indication whatsoever yet that he has heard the gospel and loves
Christ. He said, you're going to marry
him, and then pretty soon you'll be gone. You'll be gone. You'll
be in a mess you'll wish you never got into. And he was telling
me about it later, and this girl's got a sister and a husband and
a lot of family there. He said, You think they're going
to be offended? And I smiled, and he smiled about
the same time, and he knew the answer to that. You can't drive
God's people away. You can't drive them away. I
don't care what you do. The pastor can't drive them away. And sure
enough, she postponed the wedding. He said, Let's just wait and
see what happens. And that doesn't happen very often, I'll tell
you. Usually, usually, now Henry's had a lot of experience with
this. Usually the biggest problem is we don't ask for advice. We
don't go to our pastor or some elder because we don't want advice
because we've already made up our mind what we want to do.
And we know good and well we're going to be told not to do that.
And we're going to do it anyway. And I think we need to learn.
We need to seek the counsel of our God and do what he says. Because as we'll see, as we'll
see, his purpose, his purpose, let's see where all this is leading.
I'm going to take too long. Let's hurry here. Let me read
these some verses down through here. And Ruth went on to say, Where
you die, that's where I'll die. There will I be buried. And the
Lord do so to me and more also, if aught but death part thee
and me. And I tell you, nothing but death
is going to separate a believer from the gospel, from his pastor
and the church family and the gospel. Nothing else is going
to. And Ruth said, I'm going with
you now. I'm going with you. And when Naomi saw that Ruth
was steadfastly minded to go with her, then she left speaking
unto her. She said, All right, good, you
go with me. Verse nineteen, So they too went until they came
to Bethlehem. And it came to pass, when they
were come to Bethlehem, that all the city was moved about
them. And they said, Is this Naomi? Now, she's been gone seventeen
years. She comes a-walking back into
town. They're all going, I mean Bethlehem's a small town. They
come walking back in, what's that, Naomi? Is that Naomi? And
somebody finally asked her that, and she said unto them, call
me not Naomi. And Naomi, y'all know what that
means? That means pleasant. That name is pleasant. She said,
don't call me Naomi, call me Mara. Mara. And if you look over
there, that means bitter. She said, for the Almighty hath
dealt very bitterly with me. I went out full, and the Lord
hath brought me home again empty. Why then call ye me Naomi, seeing
the Lord hath testified against me, and the Almighty hath afflicted
me?" So Naomi returned, and Ruth the Moabitess, her daughter-in-law,
with her, which returned out of the country of Moab, and they
came to Bethlehem in the beginning of the borrowed harvest. I'll
take just a minute and deal with this about Naomi saying, Call
me bitter. I remember some boys, when I
was a little bitty thing, tricked me into eating a raw persimmon. They were going, oh, these are
so good. I thought they were eating one. And here, Bob, you
take one. OK. And it was like, I mean, it liked
to suck my head inside out. I didn't know what I had a hold
of. I just knew it was seriously
bitter. Well, there's only two ways to
get rid of a bitter taste. One is to just wait long enough
and it goes away. Doesn't it? Now listen, and memory
never fades. I still can shut my eyes and
think about that bitter. But the taste is actually gone.
The other way is to have something sweet to cover it up. Now, as I say, I understand there
are, and notice it says here, he says he dealt very bitterly
with me. And if you look this up in your
reports, you're going to find out what it says is that he has dealt
exceedingly grievous to me. And I have found that there are
degrees of trials, there really are. And the best I can tell,
I mean, there are, there's lots of trials, there's bitter trials,
there's more bitter trials, and there's exceedingly bitter trials.
I'd have to say Naomi had the full gamut. She was justified
in saying this was very bitter, exceedingly grievous. But I don't
think I can go with her and say that the Almighty has afflicted
me, or has testified against me, is the term she used. And she's saying, I think he's
against me now. And if you look in the scriptures, we know that
can't be right, because it says repeatedly, the Lord is for me.
And if he's for me, he can't be against me. So what's happening
here is understandable. She feels she's been treated
bitterly. She's distressed and upset. And
the problem is, you see, that in the purpose of God, sometimes
there is bitterness before the sweetness in order to accomplish
his purpose. So let's see what the sweetness
is in this situation. And the sweetness begins the
minute she got back to Bethlehem. And the minute she got back,
because you see here in the last phrase of verse 22, it says they
got back in the beginning of the barley season. You know what
they could have come back at? The end of the barley season.
But no, they just happened, just happened to get back at the beginning
of the barley season. And then look what else. And
Naomi had a kinsman of her husband's, a mighty man of wealth, of the
family of Elimelech, and his name was Boaz. Boaz, isn't it
something? She just happened. She just happened
to have this near kinsman named Boaz. And he just happened to
be a mighty man. And he just happened to be a
wealthy man. Just happened. Well, isn't that something? And
everybody understands that Boaz, the whole Book of Ruth is about
Boaz as a type of the Lord Jesus Christ. Boaz is Christ. Boaz
is going to take this woman up. He's going to lift her out of
abject poverty. She's got nothing, is nothing,
from nowhere, and he's going to reach in the pit and lift
her out with all his might and his strength. And he's going
to bestow on her gifts and mercy, and he's going to actually marry
her. This widowed, nothing from nobody. He's going to marry her and make
her his bride. And do you know what else? The
mercies don't stop there. It's going to go on and on, as
we'll see. But it just happened. They got there at the beginning
of Barnabas. It just happened Boaz was near Kempton. It just
happened he's mighty. It just happened he's wealthy.
And then look here a little further down. It says, And Ruth the Moabitess
said unto Naomi, Let me now go to the field, and glean ears
of corn, after him in whose sight I shall find grace. Now, she
doesn't mean Boaz there. She doesn't even know who Boaz
is at this point. She's just saying, Let me try
to find somebody who will be kind to me. You know, those fellows
didn't have to let those women come through, the beggars come
through the fields and pick up the glean out of it. They didn't
have to do that. She said, I'm going to go out and try to find
something. And this is interesting, too. She didn't get up there
and go, well, we're broke. Let's just go to Salvation Army.
Let's go, let's go beg. Let's go see if we can't find
some church who's, you know, willing, we can con them out
of some money for telling them we need gas. In fact, we just
want to buy, want the cash. We're seeing a lot of that in
our country right now, aren't we? Covered up with it. At 13th Street anymore,
you can't go over there. I can't go over there and study
anymore without the door being knocked on five times in an afternoon.
Somebody won a handout. Tell me, with 96% employment
in this country, somebody can't find a job? Believers are willing to work.
And this Ruth, it's another sign she was a believer. She didn't
get up there and say, well, let's go beg. She said, I'm going to work.
Now, that's it. That also makes a
comment about the fact that a believer, I mean, in fact,
if somebody won't work, well, then we had a lesson at 13th
Street in Second Thessalonians 3 recently, in which it clearly
said, if somebody won't work, don't let them in. So a believer
is going to go to work, the best they can, if they're able, understand?
Now, if somebody can't work, I don't want to sound bitter
at heart, if somebody can't work, let's help them. Let's do for
them what we're able to. But Ruth, here's a believer,
went to work, and God's people may not be wealthy or rich or
strong, or overly intelligent, but they're always willing to
work. Do you see in verse 3 what happened? She said, I'm going
out and seek somebody who will be gracious to me. And she went
and came and gleaned in the field after the reapers. And look at
this word, in her hat. Just happened. It just happened. that her hat was to light on
a part of the field belonging unto Boaz, who was the kindred
of Elimelech. Isn't that something? I mean,
she just went out in the first field she walked up to, just
happened to be Boaz, the kindred redeemer, the wealthy, mighty
man of God. And it happened to be the beginning
of the barley season, not the end, when there wasn't any grain. Provenance may seem bitter. And
the Lord knows how to make it sweet. His end is not bitterness,
it's sweetness. But we may have to go through
some of that to get there. Look at verse 4 of that chapter. And
behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem. Now, he just happened to ride
out to this field on that evening. Do you think that's the only
field he had, this mighty man, this wealthy man? He just happened to ride
out to that field from Bethlehem on this day when she was there.
And, behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem, and said unto the reapers, The
Lord be with you. And they answered him, The Lord
bless thee. This identifies Boaz as a picture of Christ, too,
because when he rode up, you know what they did? Everybody
blessed him. They bowed to Boaz. They knew
he was a mighty man, a wealthy man, a righteous man. They greeted
him. They blessed him. And you know
what Boaz did? He blessed them. All the servants of our Lord
are blessed, always blessed. In verse five, then said Boaz
unto his servants, that was set over the reapers. Whose damsel
is this? Here's another picture of Christ
and believers. Ruth wasn't looking for Boaz,
but he rides up, he's going to cross her path, and before she,
she's gleaming, she's going through the field like this. She's not
even looking for Boaz. She probably doesn't want to
see the owner of the field because she's afraid he'll do something
bad to her and make her leave. She's just going through cleaning.
And Boaz, though, saw her afar off. He said, Who's that? Who's that? Not that he needed
to. Our Lord doesn't need to know who he's looking for. But
Boaz said, Who is that? Whose damsel is she? Verse 6,
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 among the sheaves. So
she came and continued, even from morning until now, and she
carried a little in the house. Says a lot of things. Number
one, she's a hard worker. Number two, she came seeking work. Number
three, she came as a beggar. She didn't have any right to
be there. And she didn't, she gleaned from
morning until evening, and just tarried as heck for a drink of
water and a bite of bread. And she went on. And then verse
8, Then Boab went right up to her, and he said unto her, Hearest
thou not my daughter? And she looked up at him, and
he said, Go not to glean in any other field, neither go from
hence, that you abide here fast by my maidens. Let thine eyes
be on the field that they do reap, and go thou after them. Have I not charged the young
men that they shall not touch thee? And when thou art athirst,
go into the vessels and drink of that which the young men have
drawn." You see what he did to her? All of a sudden she goes
from this little poor beggar girl going along to the master
of the whole kingdom has come and said to her, You're mine. And you do what mine do. My maidens,
nobody touches them without my permission. Nobody's going to
molest you. Nobody's going to bother you.
Nobody's going to lay a hand on you without my permission.
And you're going to glean in my field. You're going to have
all you need. When you're thirsty, you don't
go draw up the well. I'll provide the water. I'll
have my men bring you the drink. And you stay right here with
me. Oh, it's not so better now, isn't it? He's sweeter all the
time, isn't he? You see that? I'm sorry, verse ten. Then she
fell on her face and bowed herself to the ground and said unto him.
And I'll tell you, this is what every believer does when Christ
comes. When he first comes, oh, we hit
the ground. We bow before him, knowing we
met the master. We met the ruler. And that's
what she did. She knew she'd met someone that
was important. She bowed herself to the ground
and said unto him, and this is the question believers ask, Why
have I found grace in thine eyes? Who am I that I deserve to be
treated like this? Thou shouldest take knowledge
of me, seeing that I am a stranger. And that's what I'm saying, that
we're just filthy beggars, we're sinners before God. Who are we
to deserve any goodness from our Master? And yet he's so good
to us. How good is he? Look, and Boaz
answered and said unto her, It hath fully been shown me all
that thou hast done unto thy mother in law since the death
of thy husband, and how thou hast left thy father and thy
mother in the land of thy nativity, and are coming to a people which
thou knewest not heretofore. You see what a believer also
does? If they have to, they'll forsake mother, father, brother,
sister, husband, whatever it is, to come to Christ. And that's
what she did. She forsook everything to come
there. And Boaz said, I took note of
that. I've taken note of it. And verse 12 then, and he said,
And the Lord recompensed thy work, and a full reward be given
thee of the Lord God of Israel, under whose wings thou art come
to trust. Well, here is the key. And here's
the key to this, is that Ruth cast herself at the feet of Boaz,
before her God. And that's what we have to do.
No matter how bitter it seems, sweetness is coming. We must
wait. We must bow at his feet and await that sweetness. It'll
come in due time. And we don't have to wait long,
usually. Look what happened here. Let me read this now. And then
she said, Let me find favor in thy sight, my Lord, for thou
hast comforted me, and for thou hast spoken friendly unto thine
handmaid. Though I be not like unto one of thine maidens. She's
saying, I don't deserve any of this. I'm not worthy. It's not
anything I've done. It's just, she's saying, I'm
amazed that you're going to do this for me. And Boaz said unto
her, At mealtime, cometh thou hither, and eat of the bread,
and dip thy morsel in the vinegar. And she sat beside the reapers,
and he reached for parched corn, and she did eat, and was sufficed
and left. You see what he did? He gave
her two things. Right there he said, you eat
my bread. And back over in verse 9, it said, You drink my water. There it is. Christ is the bread
of life. He's the water of life. And our
Lord's going to give us all we need. Maybe not all of what we
think is best or what we want, but He's going to provide every
need as He did here for this destitute girl. But then watch
in verse fifteen, and when she was risen to go to Glean, look
what Boaz did. Now, he's already done for her
all she needs, hasn't he? He said, I mean, if he never
let her Glean another thing, he's already said, well, you
just come here and drink my water and eat my bread and dip it in the vinegar.
He said, you just, I'll give you all you need, but that's,
he's not done yet. After she's out of sight, he's
going to do more for her she doesn't even realize. We don't
have, we don't have this much idea of how much our God does
for us. How good, how merciful Christ
is to us, we don't have the tenth part of a portion of understanding. And I'll prove that tenth part
in just a minute. He said to her, I mean, he said after she
left, When she was risen to go, when Boaz commanded his young
men, saying, Let her glean among the sheaves, and don't reproach
her. Don't you dare tell her she can't have that. Anything
she wants, she needs, she can have. Not what she wants, what
she needs. He said, and look at this, And let fall also some
of the handfuls of purpose for her. and leave them that she
may glean them in rebuke or not. You know what those fellows,
I mean, when's the last time a boss told somebody, look, just
go out there every once in a while to the employees and just throw
money in the air. Let them just get all they want.
All they can pick at. And he told his men, he said,
what are you going through? Whoever's in front of her, when
you go along gathering up those sheets, he said, just go Like that. Just throw handfuls
on purpose down there. Don't eat it. Just throw them
down there. And see, poor old Ruth is doing this. A whole handful. And that's how
it is with us. We're sublime by nature. We don't
understand God. Just pouring out the handfuls
as we go along. You know, when we just get one
grain, we think, I don't have a thing here. We're so blind
by nature, we just see so damn well, don't we? He says, pour
it out in handfuls there, don't rebuke her at all. So, verse
seventeen, So she gleaned in the field until even, and beat
out that she had gleaned, and it was about an eighth of barley. And she took it up and went into
the city, and her mother-in-law saw what she had gleaned, and
she brought forth and gave to her that she had reserved after
she was sufficed. What she did is she gathered
up the barley, took it back, had it winnowed out and what
have you, and she came back to Naomi with what she had. Now,
you know what she brought back? An ephah. You know how much an
ephah is? Well, y'all ever seen a field
of sheep gathered up? An ifa takes ten omars. I mean, I'm sorry, an oma is
a sheath. An oma is a sheath, okay? It takes ten omars to make one
ifa. This girl went through a field
in one day and got ten sheaves of grain gleaning after men who
are supposed to be picking up all the grain. Is it any wonder
Naomi went, where have you been? What bank have you robbed? She
goes, where have you been? You see it down here? And her
mother-in-law said unto her, where have you been today? And where did you rob? Blessed
be he that took knowledge. You see, Naomi, as a believer,
knew this didn't come naturally. This blessing was poured out
at the hand of somebody, and she knew it came from our God.
Naomi's bitterness is starting to turn sweet. She sees the Lord's providing
for me, and she showed her mother-in-law with whom she had wrought and
said, The man's name with whom I wrought this day just happened
to be the Lamb's. Don't you know, Naomi went, Oh,
how sweet my Lord is. He's brought us to Boaz, the
only man in all of Bethlehem who could do for them what they
needed done, who could reach down where they were and lift
them out and set them, who could redeem them from their poverty.
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."
You see, Naomi thought, she might as well be dead. She's lost everything
she had, husband, children, everything she had, and she just packed
it. She said, I just might as well be dead. He said, the Lord's
been good to me even though I'm alive and thought I was dead.
He's been good to me. And Naomi said unto her, the
man is near kin to us, one of our next kinsmen. And Ruth the
Moabitess said, he said unto me also, he not only said, you
come green here, he said, thou shalt keep fast by my young men
until they have ended all of the harvest. He's going to keep
us from now on. He said, you just stay with me
and you're always going to have enough to eat. And Naomi said
unto Ruth her daughter-in-law, it is good. It's good. You see, she's gone from, it's
bitter. And she said, It is good, it
is good, it is good. But wait in the Lord, it will
be good. And when he said unto Ruth her daughter, It is good,
my daughter, that thou go out with his maidens, and that they
meet thee not in any other field. She said, Don't you do what my
husband did. Don't you go out here in some foreign place. Don't
you go to another field in St. Lois. You stay right where he
told you to stay. So, what did she do? She did
what this elder woman told her to do. And when you come to your
pastor and ask his advice, you better follow it. I don't care
whether you think it's right or wrong or not. You better follow
it. And don't misunderstand me. And your pastor wouldn't advise
you any way against the scriptures. I'm telling you, you need to
seek his advice, and when he gives it, it needs to be obeyed.
And that's all Ruth did. She just did what her... Naomi
was her spiritual advisor. And she told her to do this and
she did it. Do you remember back over there she said, you tell
me what to do and I will. I'll go. And Naomi said unto
Ruth, Perdomo, It is good, my daughter, that thou go out with
his maidens, and meet thee not in any other field. So she kept
fast by the maidens of Boaz, to green unto the end of the
barley season. Oh, was that the end of the Lord's
mercies? Oh, next came the wheat harvest. End of the wheat harvest. This happened to be a wheat harvest
next, didn't it? Oh, the harvest never ends in
the Lord's grace. And she dwelt with her mother-in-law.
She stayed right where she's supposed to. Now, I don't have
time to finish all this, but let me just, let me give you,
let me summarize the rest of this. Naomi then told her to
do something else. She said, you go now. We know
where Boaz is. They found out where he's going
to be, where he stayed. She said, you go there, and you
lay down at his feet, and you sleep at his feet. You, you,
you become a bond slave to this man. And you do whatever he tells
you to do, because he'll tell you what's right, and he'll do
what's right by you. Now, you know, most folks would
say, I don't know whether I should do that or not. That's pretty
bold. Scriptures tell us, come boldly
before the Lord. When we're in trouble, come boldly
before the Lord, because he'll do what's right. He'll do for
us. He knows better what's right for us than we know.