If you will, turn with me to
the book of Ruth. Our morning Bible studies will
be concentrated on the book of Ruth. This will be our third
study. And we'll be looking at verses
18 through 22. And my subject is the harvest. Left off last week was Ruth Clave
to her mother-in-law. Orca listened to her mother-in-law's
suggestion about going back home, and she decided that's what she'd
do. And so she left, but Ruth Clave,
under Naomi, she wouldn't go home. Didn't want to go back
to Moab, where she was born. Ruth chapter 1, verse 18. When she, that is Naomi, saw
that she, talking about Ruth, was steadfastly minded to go
with her, then she left speaking unto her. 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 you remember in our study,
I told you Naomi and Limelech were very wealthy. They were
well off when they left, and they left because they didn't
want to lose what they had. They went down to Moab. And she
said unto them, verse 20, Call me not Naomi, which means sweet
or pleasant, But call me Mara, mean bitter, for the Almighty
hath dealt very bitterly with me. She said, I went out full,
and the Lord hath brought me home again empty. Why then call you 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 barley harvest. Now verse 19 of Ruth chapter
1 describes the journey of every believer being called home by
the Lord. I've heard many stories, many
testimonies. Many men, including myself, give
their testimony of how the Lord called them. And here's what
it boils down to. So they went. They went until
they came to Bethlehem. There's a process described in
the Word of God concerning the salvation of God's elect. In
Ephesians 1.10, he calls it the gathering together in one, all
things which are in Christ, both which are in heaven and which
are on earth, even in him. That's the process. That's what's
going on. It can refer to people or it
can refer to things. But there's a gathering together.
There's a gathering together of all the attributes of God
that have been manifested in this. There's a gathering together
of God's people to worship Him. And there's a gathering together
of His elect in Christ. In 2 Thessalonians chapter 2
and verse 13, he calls this gathering God's eternal choice of a people
unto salvation. And not only did he choose them
to salvation, but he also put in place the
means. It's through sanctification of
the Spirit and belief of the truth. Whereunto he called them
by our gospel. In John chapter 6, he calls it
the irresistible drawing of God the Father. A drawing of chosen
sinners. to his son. Our Lord in John
6.35 said to those who followed him, I am the bread of life. You remember in our study why
they were going back to Bethlehem. They heard that God had visited
his people with bread. Christ said, I'm the bread. I'm
the bread. And then he makes a shocking
statement. Verse 36, John chapter 6. But
I said unto you that ye also have seen me. You've seen the
bread, you've seen the promise, you've seen the fulfillment of
all the prophecies of Scripture. You've seen me, and believe not. All that the Father giveth me
shall come to me. No exceptions. They're all going
to come to Him. No special cases, no isolated
situations. And Him that cometh to me, He
said, I will in no wise cast out. And then He tells them the reason
why. John 6, 38. For I came down from heaven not
to do my own will, but the will of Him that sent me. Are you
listening? And this is the Father's will
which hath sent me, that of all which He hath given me, I should
lose nothing, but raise it up again at the last day. And this
is the will of Him that sent me, that every one which seeth
the Son, and believeth on Him, may have everlasting life, and
I'll raise Him up at the last day. Was I talking about two
different people? No, I was talking about the same
people. Same people. Now watch this, verse 41, John
chapter 6. The Jews then murmured at him. Why? His life was flawless. Which
of you accuses me of sin? His life was flawless. His work was miraculous. He raised
the dead. He healed the sick. He taught
the ignorant. His work was miraculous. His
ministry was successful. They said, He don't preach like
other preachers. What He says happens. If He calls
a man, He's called. He comes. If He says, Come out
of that tomb, they come out of the tomb. If He says, Be thou
cleansed, the leprosy goes away. His ministry is successful, his
wisdom is overpowering. Who could resist his wisdom?
They tried, and they couldn't do it. Why would anybody murmur
at him? They murmured at him because
he said, I am the heavenly bread. That's why they murmured. Verse 43, Jesus therefore answered
and said unto them, murmur not among yourselves, no man can
come to me except the Father which hath sent me draw him,
and I'll raise him up again at the last day. Alright, so here's
the question, how does the Father draw chosen sinners to his Son? What's the process? What makes
that come about? Why do some come to Christ and
others come to religion? Well, here's the reason. It's
by gracious and merciful providence that's arranged to that end.
That's why. It happens on purpose. And I tell you that's the biggest
obstacle to get over. Because we hadn't heard that. That wasn't what was told me
since I was a little boy. God saves men on purpose. He saves men on purpose. There's
a purpose involved in their salvation. In Ephesians 1.11 it said, In
whom also we have obtained an inheritance. It's one who's gathering
all things to himself. things in heaven, things in earth,
in whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated
according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after
the counsel of his own will. Why? That we should be to the
praise of his glory who first trusted in Christ. You mean God
trusted in Christ, trusted everything into his hand. Gave it all to
him. There's a process being fulfilled
over and over throughout time. It's the calling out of God's
children, His sheep, His bride, His elect, whatever you want
to call them, His church. And everything in time and eternity
is geared to this end. There's no such thing as an accidental
salvation. There's no such thing as a circumstantial
salvation. Well, circumstances being what
they were. Why were they what they were?
That's what I want to know. Salvation from first to last
is of the Lord. And when He calls a man, he's
not going to repent for him. Is that what I'm saying? That
God saves a man no matter what? No. No, he's going to repent. And God's not going to repent
for him. But listen. God leads him to repentance,
don't He? Otherwise, he ain't going to
repent. He don't even know what to repent of. God's not going to believe for
you, but he'll give you the gift of faith or you'll die in your
ignorance, one or the other. Ruth and Naomi went. That's all
you can say about the life before your conversion is you went.
Where were you going? I don't know. Sometimes south,
sometimes north, sometimes east, sometimes west. I just went. There's no other way to describe
it, is there? They went. until they came to
Bethlehem. Oh, my. They went until they
came to Bethlehem. Well, what's so special about
Bethlehem? Well, first of all, the name
itself. You know what Bethlehem means?
House of bread. Huh? House of bread. Bethlehem's where the Messiah,
the Christ, should appear. In Matthew chapter 2, if you
will remember back to our lessons when we went through Matthew.
In Matthew chapter 2 there was an evil king called Herod. And
Herod heard that the Lord's king had come. Israel's king had appeared. And so he gathered together all
the scribes and the chief priests. And he demanded from them where
the Messiah should be born. And they said, well in Bethlehem.
That's what the prophet said and quoted to him the scripture.
And what did he do? He ordered all the people in
that land, all the babies, that were of a certain age to be killed,
hoping that he would destroy the Lord's Messiah. Thus it was written by the prophet.
But here's what I want us to see in this ancient book, how
God calls chosen sinners to His Son. They went until they came
to Bethlehem. She heard that God had visited
His people with bread, and Bethlehem is the house of bread. And Bethlehem
is where the promised Redeemer was to appear. Alright, here's
the second thing I want us to see. Ruth chapter 1, verse 22. They came to Bethlehem in the
beginning of the barley harvest. What's that got to do with anything? What in the world does a barley
harvest have to do with the salvation of the soul? What's it got to
do with God calling His people to Him? Well, it has nothing
to do with it unless you're hungry. The fool sow, he loatheth even
the honeycomb. He ain't interested. He don't
care about barley harvest or weed harvest or corn harvest
or any other kind of harvest. He's full. Now I only heard that the Lord
had visited His people and given them bread and she was hungry.
She was poverty stricken. She was poor. She lost everything.
I went out full and the Lord had brought me home empty. All
God's people are brought home empty. They're hungry. Unlike
this world. This world's not interested in
the gospel. Now if you can get up here and
tell them something new or tell them something that they've never
heard before, they'll sit and listen to you. But they'll get
sick of it after a while. They've got no appetite for bread. They're not hungry. God's people
are hungry. A hungry sinner, tell him about
the bread. Tell him about Christ. Tell him
about salvation. Boy, he'll gobble it up. We got
some little pups. I kind of just got stuck with
them. But I tell you, I'm enjoying those two little pups. And the
other day, we'd gone for several hours over to Taylor. And when
I got home, it was way past their feeding time. And she tells them
every time she feeds them, it's chow time. Man, here they come.
They'll just about bust that little pet door down getting
in there. She blows on this little whistle, dog whistle, and here
they come. And she'll put that out, and man, they're on top
of each other. They're crawling on it. The hungry soul, huh? Men look for all kinds of things.
They look for financial standing. They look for good citizens to
fill up the pews. I tell you what I'm looking for,
somebody with an appetite. A hungry sinner. Somebody that
went out full and God bringing them home empty. Every sinner
comes home empty. Now, The Lord visited his people
and given them bread. He didn't open up the sky back
in the days of Moses. He said, Moses didn't give you
that bread that came down from heaven. When God opened up the
windows of heaven, did he rain down loaves of bread? No. No, he rained down manna. And
they took that manna and they added ingredients to it and baked
and made bread. He didn't open up the sky and
cause it to rain down loaves. He didn't call some benevolent
king to bring them a trailer load of food. But what he did is set before
them the makings of the bread. What's Ruth all about? It's about
the makings of the bread. He caused their crops to mature
and bring forth the primary ingredients of bread. And I'm going to tell
you something, bread is something that requires instruction. You
can make soup. Some of you men, you cook. You
know what I'm talking about. You can make soup out of anything.
You put a little broth in there, add some beef or pork or whatever
you want to put in, add some seasoning. I don't care what
you add to it. Generally, unless you over-salt
it or something, it comes out and it's pretty tasty. You're
gonna roast meat or fry something. You can add this seasoning and
that. Boy, you can't do that with bread. Mm-mm. Bread takes instruction. My first
go-around was bread. It looked like hard biscuits
when it come out. It didn't rise. It wasn't sweet.
It was awful. Bread's something that requires
instruction. It requires instruction and bread
requires a formula. Certain things have to be mixed
together to get bread. It requires a yeast or something
to make it rise, some element to make it rise. Bread requires
time. You don't wait till the last
minute and fix bread. Bread takes time. Somebody said, well, that guy
visited and he left. He can get anything. Give it
some time. Just give it time. Bread requires time. You don't
wait till the last minute. But nothing in that kitchen has
a savor like bread. My dad retired, and he bought
this farm off of his great aunt. He worked there when he was six
years old. They were truck farmers. up in
the mountains. And he said that whole hillside
was terraced and they grew vegetables on it. And he worked up there
when he was just a little boy and had fond memories of his
great aunt. So he bought it. And of course
it had all grown up and full of vines and we had to go up
there and start clearing the land. And I'll never forget,
the old house down there had an old wood stove. Man, it was
nice. It had the big water reservoir
on one side, and all that stuff. And my sister-in-law, she was
there, and my brother, and he and I was going to clear that
land. And we go up on that hillside with a chainsaw, and we'd just
be working away up there. And boy, she'd fire up that wood
stove, and she'd start making bread. I couldn't hardly work smelling
that bread. That smell would come up on that
hillside, and nothing smells like bread when it's being prepared.
Isn't that what the Lord said about His gospel, the gospel
of Christ? It's a sweet savor unto Him whether
you eat it or whether you don't. If you hate it or love it, it's
still a sweet savor to God. And I'll tell you this, bread
making calls for someone who's not a novice. You have to know
how to do it. You have to know how to do it.
You know, when old Noah built the ark, God gave him instruction. And he passed on that instruction
to his children. God told him, I want this piece. And it's got to be shaped a certain
way. It's got to be like that. And he'd tell them. And they'd
go get it. And they'd whittle that thing down until it was
exactly the way Moses told them. And he'd take it down and it'd
go right into place in that ark. And each piece was shaped and
then put into its place until the finished vessel stood ready
to be entered into. And it's the same way we're gospel
preaching. Election is not the whole gospel. It's just a piece. Sovereignty
is not the whole gospel. It's just a little piece. Predestination
is not the whole gospel. It's just a piece. It's just
a piece. To have the bread, all the ingredients
have to go in to the bread. And when it's all finished, you
just have to walk away and let it sit there and wait on it to
rise. Even so, gospel preaching, we
set before men the doctrine of Christ. He's the God-man, and
one God and man, and one glorious person. But not knowing this,
I mean knowing this is not what's going to save you soul. The devils
knew that. We know thee who thou art. That's
what the devils said that. That's not going to save you.
It's just a piece. He's the sovereign. The devils
knew that. Begged him not to destroy them
before their time. They knew he was sovereign. He's
a substitute for sinners. He's the representative of God's
elect. They're just one mediator between
man and God, the man Christ Jesus. He's the mediator. And these are the makings. Bread
is the person. Who is the mediator? Christ is. Who's the substitute? Christ is. You can't live on election.
But you can live on Christ. You see what I'm saying? These are the makings. The bread
is the person set forth in the heart when all the makings are
blended aright. And there were no makings in
Moab. You were hungry for heavenly
bread. You're going to have to go to Bethlehem. Paul said to
Timothy, from a child thou hast known the Holy Scriptures, which
are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith in Christ. And Naomi came to Bethlehem in
the beginning of barley harvest. And barley harvest is significant
here. Barley harvest was the first
grain to be harvested. It was accompanied by an event
called the Feast of the Firstfruits. And the ceremony and the law
of God pointed to Christ. How do I know that? Because that's
what it says. Listen to this. 1 Corinthians
15-20. This is a chapter talking about
the resurrection of Christ. It's the passage that nearly
every funeral is preached from. It's 1 Corinthians 15. Now listen
to what he says. 1 Corinthians 15-20. Paul said,
but now is Christ risen from the dead and become the first
fruits of them that slid. He's the first fruit. That's
what this barley harvest is all about. It's pointing us to Christ.
Pointing us to Christ. Another thing about barley is
that it has an acquired taste. Not everybody likes it. You give
somebody a loaf of barley bread or make them a sandwich and they
take one bite and they just sit it back down. Man, I don't like
that. I don't like that. It's an acquired
taste. And I tell you this, when they
made barley, and I'm going by historians, I'm going by every
source of information I can get my hand on. Barley was always
used as the poor man's bread. They fed it to the goats. They
fed it to their oxen. It was a poor man's bread. It
wasn't the bread everybody wanted to put on the table. It was the
poor man's bread. When Christ would feed the multitude,
he led them out there, knowing that they'd get hungry. And he
never said a word about it. He just kept on preaching. He's
up on the mountainside. And now there's 5,000 men plus
all the women and children. Who knows how many thousand people's
out there. And all of a sudden it hit. He
said, well, they're hungry. We need to feed them. And they
said, feed them? We got a handful to change with. It takes a lot of money to feed
that many people. Somebody said, well, there's
a little lad over here. What's he got? He got two fishes
and a few loaves of what? Barley. What's he gonna feed
his people? Barley. The poor man's bread. And I tell
you, if you're hungry, you'll eat the barley. And you'll love
it. Barley speaks of Christ, the
poor man's bread. The barley harvest speaks of
two things. First of all, it speaks of the
harvest of men's souls throughout the gospel age. What's going
on in our age? I call it the gospel age because
the gospel has been manifested in the person of Christ and brought
to such greater light than it was in the Old Testament. And
I call this the end of days, because that's what it's called
in the Bible. But this speaks of God's harvest throughout the
gospel age, and Christ was the first fruits of that harvest. He's the firstborn among many
brethren. Let me read you a few passages
from John chapter 4. In John 4, verse 34, Jesus said
unto them, My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me, and
finish His work. Now watch this. Say not ye, there
are four months, and then cometh harvest? And that what men say,
there are so many more months, and then harvest. Behold, I say
unto you, lift up your eyes, and look on the fields. What
fields? The world. The world's the field,
ain't that what the Lord said? He said it's white with harvest. Now the funny thing about rye
is when it blooms, it's white. I asked the internet to show
me a barley harvest. I want to see what it looks like.
I clicked that thing on. Now after it's dead ripe, it'll
start to get some tones to it. But here it is, and it's white.
Wheat's not white. Wheat's golden, but not barley. Barley's got a white bloom. And
he said, look on the field. It's white for harvest right
now. Over in Luke chapter 10, having
appointed 70 preachers to precede him in the cities, whether he
had purpose to go himself, He said, the harvest truly is great,
but the labors are few. Pray ye therefore, the Lord of
the harvest, that he would send forth labors into his harvest.
There's a harvest going on. God's calling out his elect,
all oaks. He tells us, don't do that. Don't
go in my field. Don't you go in my field and
start weeding it. You just leave the grain to me. Boy, we pull up the wrong thing
every time, don't we? Well, the harvest speaks of the
gathering in of all God's elect throughout the gospel age. And
secondly, and more to the context of this wonderful book, it speaks
of a local assembly in the preaching of the gospel. How on earth did
you get that preaching? While the visitation of God in
general is a blessed fact. It doesn't satisfy the need of
a guilty sinner. God had visited all his people
throughout the land of Israel. He visited his people with bread.
But when Ruth got there, she couldn't go all over Israel hunting
bread. Where'd she go? Her hat was to
light on Boaz Field. There was one place, one place,
even in Bethlehem, there was one place where this sinner could
get her bread. She had to go to Boaz's field.
Now Boaz is the kinsman redeemer in this and he's a type of Christ. You're going to have to go to
his field if you want bread. I'm talking about living bread
now, I ain't talking about this bread bread. This world is God's field, He
owns it, He maintains it, has in places planted some seed and
good ground. And there was a general harvest
going on in Israel and one going on just as there is in this present
evil world, but where will you go to glean? Huh? You can go anywhere you want
to. Where will you go to glean? And
the fact is that there was a certain field in a certain place owned
by a certain man. And Ruth went out with an empty
basket or apron, and it said her hat was to lie on the part
of the field belonging to Boaz. That's her kinsman redeemer.
And she no doubt could have found a few husks in another field,
but not enough to feed her and her mother-in-law. But in this
field, she was allowed to glean as one of his maidens. Who can glean in Boaz's field? His maidens. She was allowed
to glean as one of his maidens. And listen to this. As one of his maidens, she was
protected. He called his workers over there,
his male servants, and he said, you see that woman out there?
Don't you touch her. Don't you lay a hand on her.
You think God doesn't do that with his people? I'm talking
about before your conversion, before you ever eat the bread.
God's pervenient grace goes out there and you protect it. I should
have been swallowed up a thousand times. She was protected. She was provided for. He said,
you let her go over there where the sheaves are. She can get
grain there. And he said, while you're out
here working, you got that big handful of grain, every now and
then throw one down on the ground. And don't rebuke her when she
picks it up. You'd better have it. You'd better have it. Handfuls of purpose. The local
church of Christ is the field of our kinsmen and redeemer and
the place where God leads chosen sinners to glean. May the Lord
himself teach us the lesson set forth here in the Book of Ruth.
It's harvest time. Where will I go to glean? Huh? Go to your redeemer's field.
That's the best advice I can give you. All right, thank you.