Charles Spurgeon told about a young minister who had been
invited to one of the old Welch chapels to preach. He came down from the preacher's
training school, the seminary of his day, and he went up into the pulpit
and he delivered his message. And after he had finished the
message, he stepped down from the pulpit and walked down the
stairs and stood in front of the congregation, and the people
came by to express appreciation for his message. And they all
greeted him and thanked him for the message and thanked him for
coming. He saw in the line a man whom
he knew. one of the old, white-haired,
respected elders of the Church. And he was anxious to hear the
old man's comment about his message. We work hard on messages, and
we prepare them, and we preach them, and it's encouraging to
hear someone say something favorable, or that they got a blessing or
something. So finally the old white-haired elder got up face
to face with a young man and he took him by the hand, shook
his hand and didn't say one word, and started by. And the young
man didn't turn loose of his hand, he pulled him back and
he said, Sir, he said, I've always admired you and respect your
opinion. He said, you didn't say anything
about my message. And the old gentleman said, well,
son, it was a mighty poor sermon. And that stung like the arrow
of a strike in the heart. And the young man frowned, clouds
covered his face, and he said, I worked hard on that message.
I spent a long time preparing it, and I thought it was well
prepared. The old man said, it was well
prepared. He said, you put a lot of time
in on that, and he said it was well prepared. And the young
man said, well, was my delivery poor? Is that the reason it was
poor? Oh, he said, son, you've got unusual gifts, got a lot
of ability. You're a good speaker. Well,
he said, what was wrong? My illustrations, were they perhaps
in the wrong place, or did I not use them effectively? He said,
Son, your antidotes and illustrations were exceptionally well presented. He said, If I prepared well and
presented it well, and the illustrations were well presented, how in the
world can you say it was a poor, mighty, poor sermon? The old man leveled a long bony
finger in his face, and he said, Because there was no Christ in
your sermon. And any sermon that doesn't have
Christ in it is a mighty poor sermon. And the young man said,
But sir, Christ was not in my text. He said, Hold it, young
fellow. Christ is in every text. And
your job as a preacher is to find that text, study it, find
Christ in that text and get to Calvary as quickly as you can.
And I think a word for everyone who stands in the pulpit and
everyone who endeavors to preach and teach is this. On your way
to Sinai's mountain, it would do well for you and the congregation
for you to stop at Calvary and camp there for a while. And I
would say on your way to the Jordan, to check in on all the
ordinances, making sure that you have the right baptism and
so forth, it would do well for you to stop at Calvary and just
camp there. And on your way to Pentecost,
to talk about the gifts of the Spirit. and all these other unusual
and supernatural things, it would be better if you'd just go to
Calvary and sit there and observe the Lord Jesus Christ. And I
would say, on your way to Jerusalem to get the ceremonies and all
these rituals and legalism and everything else fixed up, stop
at Calvary, and I would say to those who are making a beeline
for Armageddon, it would be better for your congregation if you'd
stop at Calvary. And observe what the Apostle
Paul said, I am determined and know nothing among you save Jesus
Christ and him crucified. Old Brother Barnard used to preach
a sermon that had four points. It was entitled, When will a
man be saved? When will a man be saved? That's
a good question. And he answered it in this way,
just briefly. A man will be saved when it pleases
the Lord. That's what a man is going to
be saved when it pleases God. That's what Paul said. Paul,
who grew up in ceremonialism and ritualism and religion, studied
the Bible, attended the universities, preacher High ecclesiastical position,
said, when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's
womb, to reveal his Son in me. That's what I say, when it pleased
God. Secondly, a man will be saved, according to Brother Barnard,
when he comes to some understanding, to some understanding of the
glory and the holiness and the righteousness of God Almighty.
I cannot emphasize that too strongly. We've humanized God. Our preachers,
our theologians, have literally and actually reached up and taken
God off the throne and brought him down here so that we can
understand him and comprehend him. And we've given him little
foolish, silly, humanistic names, like the man upstairs. God is
infinitely, unchangeably immaculately, eternally holy, incomprehensible
and unapproachable. That's just all, as God said,
all there is to it. God's on the throne. And we're going to have to find
out something about the holiness of God. Out of where are we going
to find it out if somebody doesn't start preaching it? And then thirdly, a man will
be saved when he sees to some extent in the light of that holiness
and that righteousness of God, his own sins. And that's where
sin is learned, before the holy throne of God. Sin is not really
learned, it's not really understood in the light of Sinai. I know
the law is the schoolmaster that brings us to Christ, by the law
is the knowledge of sin. I'm familiar with all those scriptures,
and I know to some extent that that Application is important. But I'm saying that Isaiah didn't
know sin until he saw God in his holiness. He cried, Woe is
me, I'm undone. Job sat around defending his
righteousness until he saw the Lord in his power and holiness.
One day Peter, who was in the company of Christ every time
he preached, one day Christ demonstrated his is unlimited power to Peter,
after Peter had fished all night in that sea and caught nothing. And Christ walked up and he said,
cast your boat out a little bit and throw the net over here.
Peter, I imagine, looked at his buddies and grinned, you know.
He fished there. He was a fisherman. So he cast
the net out and they couldn't pull the fish in, there were
so many of them, broke the nets. You know what he did? He fell
at the knees of Christ and said, Lord, depart from me, I am a
sinful man. He saw power. He saw glory. He saw God in control. And what
did he see himself? That's right. John on Patmos
saw the glory of Christ and fell like a dead man. when I saw the
Lord." Daniel was a pretty well-learned man in the things of the law. But he said, when I saw God,
my beauty melted into corruption. Isn't that what he said? And
I'm saying we're going to come to learn, to some extent, in
the light of God's holiness, our absolute unholiness. which leads me to my message
tonight, a man will be saved, fourthly, when he hears, hears,
not with these ears only, though he must hear with these ears,
but he will be saved when he hears, when he hears by the power
of God's Spirit, the gospel of God's glory and grace in Christ
Jesus. Now, I appreciate To some extent,
the primitive Baptists, I appreciate their stand for doctrine. And I know all of them don't
hold to this. There are some who do not hold
to it. But I do not appreciate anyone
saying that a man can be saved without hearing the gospel. My
friends, I strongly, with all that's within me, despise such
teaching because it will lead you to hell. Whosoever shall call upon the
name of the Lord shall be saved, but how shall they call on him
in whom they have not believed? And how are they going to believe
in him of whom they have not heard? And how are they going
to hear without preaching? And how shall they preach except
they be sick?" Our Lord told his disciples to go and preach
the gospel, and he said, He that believeth and is baptized shall
be saved, and he that believeth not the gospel shall be damned. I don't care who he is. You can't
trust an unrevealed Christ. Faith cometh by hearing, and
hearing by the word of God, and without faith it's impossible
to please God. We're going to have to hear the
gospel. We're going to have to perceive the wisdom and power
of God in that gospel. And we're going to have to consciously,
willingly believe that gospel, and we're going to have to willingly,
with our hearts, embrace the Christ of that gospel. And we're
going to have to publicly endorse, by confession, that gospel. That's so. He said, He that denieth
me before me, and I'll deny him before the angels in heaven.
But whoso shall confess me before me, and I'll confess him before
my Father, which is And I'm afraid of this doctrine that says, well,
I'm just going to sit here in my rocking chair with my old
arms folded, waiting on the lightning to strike. It'll strike everywhere
but you. That's exactly right, everywhere
but you. It will not strike that. And
here's the strange thing. These predestinarians, super,
ultra-predestinarians, and I'm a predestinarian, but these folks
that character the fatalistic end, Don't use it in any other
area of life except that. Do you notice that? They say,
if God's going to save a man, he's going to save a man whether
he hears the gospel or not. That's predestination. Oh, no,
no. That's fatalism and foolishness. But they don't use that anywhere
else. Why doesn't a farmer go out to the field in the spring,
April, May, or whenever they plow, and say, well, if I'm going
to have a good crop of corn, I'm going to have a good crop
of corn. It ain't no use planting. He doesn't do that. He doesn't
do that at all. If he goes out and looks at his
house and says, she's going to fall down, she's going to fall
down, she's going to span, she's going to span, though he's taking
care of it or painting it or repairing it, he doesn't say
that at all. God is the God not only of salvation
but of all things. And God is the God of end, but
he's the God of means as well as the God of the end, and he
uses means. And those means are given to
understanding, intelligent, responsible people. And you better use them. And now turn to the book of Ruth.
I say that to take you to the book of Ruth. And it doesn't
matter to me where you go in the Bible, whether you go to
Joshua or Judges or in Genesis, he's the woman's seed. He's the seed of Abraham. In
Exodus, he's the Passover lamb. It doesn't matter where you go.
In Numbers, He's the brazen serpent lifted up, he's the rock smitten.
In Leviticus, he's the atonement. You can go right on through the
word. And here in Ruth, he's the kinsman redeemer. About all
most people know about the book of Ruth is found in verse 16
and 17. And that's about it. But I say that
that's not the key to the book of Ruth. You're familiar with
that. Ruth said, "...entreat me not to lead thee," look at
it, verse 16, "...or to return from following after thee. Where
thou goest I will go, and where thou lodgest I will lodge, and
thy people shall be my people, thy God my God. Where thou diest
will I die, and there will I be buried. The Lord do so to me,
and more also, if aught but death part thee and me." Isn't that
beautiful? That is beautiful. And we come away from that with
great admiration for Ruth, which is not the end of Bible study. That's not the end. The end and
goal of Bible study is to come away with a great admiration
and love for Christ. Now, here is the story behind
that statement there. There was a family in Bethlehem
of Judea. A man called Elimelech and a
woman called Naomi. They were married and had two
sons. And Elimelech was a wealthy man.
He owned land. He had a home, farms, barley
fields. His name means, My God is King. His wife's name is Naomi. They
used to name children with names that meant something to them.
Her name was Sweet and Pleasant. And they had the two sons, and
a famine hit the land, a hard time, a little recession. So
Lemelick got the bright idea that he'd sell out, which he
did. He sold out. He sold everything,
put it up for auction, and sold out. And then he took his family,
and they were a well-known family around that part of the country.
He took his family, and he got some camels and carts and donkeys
or whatever, and they said, Where are you going to, Lemelick? He
said, I'm going to Moab. Moab's a pagan country, an idolatrous
country. And they said, you're going to
Moab. Yeah, I'm leaving. I'm going to Moab. And boy, I
tell you, they had things fixed up. They had their household
belongings, and Naomi was dressed up fit to kill. She'd bought
her a new outfit with the money they'd sold the place for, you
know. And Elimelech was dressed up, and the boys, I don't know
how old they were. of 8, 10, 12, something like that, and
they were dressed up, and they got on the wagon and they waved
goodbye to their friends, you know, goodbye, they were leaving,
they were going to Moab. And the folks stood and watched
them go off in the distance. Well, they got down there to
Moab, and Elimelech died. He lived there just a short time,
and he died. And the two boys married girls, Moabite girls,
heathen, idyllic, idol-worshiping girls. And those two boys lived
ten years, and they died. And that left Naomi, a widow,
bankrupt, poverty-stricken, with nothing. No husband, no sons,
no property, no land, no nothing. Everything they had, they'd spent,
like the prodigal son. It was gone. And she heard by
way of the grapevine that there was, God was blessing Bethlehem,
and they had food in Bethlehem, that times were good. So she
said to her daughter, she said, I'm going back home. I'm going
back home. Now, you girls stay here. She
said, I can't do anything for you. I don't have a thing. I
don't have a thing but what I've got on my back. And she said,
I'm going back home. You all just stay here. There
are no sons in my womb, and if there were, you wouldn't wait
for them to grow up and so forth. Just go on back and marry, boys.
in your own country. And so one of the girls did.
She went back, but that's when Ruth took a hold of Naomi and
said, I don't want to leave you. And where you go, I'll go. And
I see right here already the workings of grace. God singled
out Ruth. See, there were two girls, and
one of them went back, one of them went back. But one of them,
for reasons not even known to herself, But God had something
for her. She was one of God's own. You're
going to see that. She was the great-grandmother of David. She
was Jesse's grandmother, David's daddy. This fellow pagan girl
out of Moab, a widow without a husband, God had predestined
her to be the great-grandmother of King David in the line of
the Messiah. How wonderful is our God! is
the workings of his providence. And that's where it all started.
She didn't know why she stayed there, stayed with Naomi. She didn't know why she didn't
go away with her sister, but something in her heart. It wasn't
that she was better than her sister. It wasn't that she was
smarter. It was something in her heart
that said, I will not leave you. I will go with you, and I will
lodge where you lodge, and I'll die where you die, and your God
will be my God. So these two women, one of them
way up in years, stooped, wrinkled, and old, started walking toward
Bethlehem. How long it took, I don't know.
But they came toward Bethlehem, and that brings me to my first
point in Ruth 1, verse 19. So they, too, went until they
came to Bethlehem, and it came to pass When they had come to
Bethlehem, all the city was moved about them. People were out here,
the women were at the well, and the folks were milling about
and talking, and they looked up and here came two women walking
through the desert. One of them was an old woman,
and her clothes were probably very well worn and ragged and
stooped and wrinkled. She had had some hard times,
some hard trials. She was brokenhearted. And here
was walking beside her some young lady, a very poor young lady. And they gathered around her
and they said, verse 19, Is this Naomi? Is this Naomi? Is this the one a few years ago,
20 or 30 years ago, we told goodbye? Naomi sitting up there in that
carriage? Naomi dressed with her hair fixed,
you know, and earrings and bracelets and necklaces, a young-looking
face with two young--"Is this Naomi? Is this Naomi?" And she
said, Don't call me Naomi, sweet and pleasant. Call me Mara, bitter. That is bitter. For the Almighty
hath dealt their bitter bitterly with me, I went out full, and
the Lord hath brought me home again empty. So why then call
me Naomi, seeing the Lord hath testified against me, and the
Almighty hath afflicted me?" What do you see in that? You
know what I see? I see the fall of man. I see
Adam in the Garden of Eden. God made him in his own image,
in his own image. You talk about Adam was so strong
and healthy and vigorous and such a genius, even after his
sin and sin entered his bones and heart and life, it took 800
years for him to die. 800 years. It won't take me quite
that long, you either. But Adam named all the animals. You know, he was a genius. God
brought him a little red-breasted bird and said, What's that, Adam?
And then God sent a blue jay by with a blue tip on his head,
and Adam said, That's a blue jay. And God brought a lion by,
and he said, That's a lion, that's a tiger, that's a cheetah, that's
a zebra, that's a horse, that's a dog, that's a bulldog. That's right, he named them.
Isn't that what scripture says? Genius. He was king! My God is King, and he was God's
Prince and God's Son. But oh, my soul, after he went
to Moab, after he sinned, the Prince became a pauper, the King
became a beggar, sweet and pleasant became bitter, the pleasant became
sorrowful, the full is plum empty, and the blessed is now under
the curse of God. I was holding a meeting somewhere,
and some fellow said, I wonder if you'd go up the rest home
and see this man, I believe it was a woman's father. So I had
on a white Mexican shirt, because I got down to Mexico like You
know, Andy, like we wear, you work in them sometimes in the
summertime, but I went in there and it always depresses me a
little to go on a rest home, but I walked in and I arrived
at the door and somebody reached and grabbed me by the shirt and
said, are you a doctor? I said, I'm a preacher. Well, he's a doctor, he's got
a doctor's shirt on. They started discussing that
between them, you know, they're just hazy folks. And we went
in where this old man was sitting there, he was in his eighties,
and had his hat on. He was sitting there, poorly
dressed, in the lounge, with a vest and a suit and a hat on,
smoking a cigar, and looking blankly into space. And one of
us sat on one side of him, one on the other, and we tried to
get through to him, and we couldn't get through. No faculties. Who are you fellas? Who are you
fellas? Who's that again, you know? And
I thought as I looked at him and all those pitiful people
around, is this Naomi? Is this Adam? Is this what God
made? No, that's what's left of it.
That's what's left of it. All of the mental disease and
all of the results of old ages, all the results of sin. And you
go down to the morgue, and they just brought in a body. I watched
a fellow in bomb a body not so awful long ago, and there was
that body lying on a slab, and that skin so cold and leathery
and dead and pale and so decaying and smelling. Is this God's creation? Is this Adam? And that's when
Naomi came over that hill, and they looked at her. And one of
them said, Is this Naomi? Is this Naomi? She said, No,
this is better. And that's what I say about this
whole outfit, all of us, because of our sin, better. You know
how the Bible starts Genesis 1? Genesis 1 starts, In the beginning,
God. In the beginning, God! In the
beginning, God! You know how Genesis ends? Anybody
know? A coffin in Egypt. That's where
Genesis ends, a cult in Egypt. That's the fall, and it's demonstrated
right there. Here's the second thing. These
folks, Naomi and Ruth, came back to Bethlehem, and when they did,
it was the beginning of the harvest, the barley harvest. I don't know
anything about barley, but I do know this. I do know that when
they were reaping the barley, the rye, the corn, or whatever,
whatever they had, out of barley, rye, and whatever, wheat, that
they allowed beggars, they allowed beggars, they reaped it with
those big blades like this, and then they'd gather it in a bundle,
and then they'd put it in something and take it off to the threshing
floor to be wintered or something. But these beggars, folks that
were So poor, they didn't have welfare food stamps, that kind
of stuff. Those folks, they just starved
some up. And beggars were allowed, according
to the Word of God, to follow these reapers and pick up whatever
they left. Now, that's the way to exist,
isn't it? Picking up, here's a piece and
here's a piece of barley, here's a piece, they'd put it in their
little sacks and pick it up. And Ruth came to Naomi. She said,
I'm going out and try to pick up something to eat. I'll follow
the reapers. Naomi told her about the Jewish
custom. So she went out, and if you look
now at chapter 2, verse 2, 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. And she said, Go, my daughter.
And she went, and came, and gleaned in a field, after the reapers,
and her hap," that's not you, Hap, that's Hapon, her hap, Evelyn's
hap, you know. But this is she Hapon, she Hapon,
to lie on a part of the field that belonged to Now, you know
who Boaz was? And this is the first time we
run into it, right here. Boaz was a kinsman. Look at verse
3. He was a kinsman related to Elimelech,
kinsman, kindred, kinsman. This is the key to the book of
Ruth, the kinsman redeemer, the kinsman. Now, there was a custom. You find in Leviticus 25, I'll
just tell you about it, you can trust me on this. In Leviticus
25, there was a custom and a rule and a law among the Jews. Like
a fellow like a limeleck sells out, if a man sells his property
or loses his property, if he has a kinsman who is his near
kinsman, who is able and who is willing, he can buy it back
for him. He can buy back everything he
wants. But now, those three things have got to be true. He's got
to be kin to him, got to be a near kinsman. He's got to be able
to buy it, not on credit, able to buy it. Second, thirdly, he's
got to be willing. Well, this man Boaz, this wealthy,
prominent, influential man called Boaz owned a field where Ruth
went to glean. Now, wasn't that fortunate? She's
sure lucky. That's God's predestination.
Of all those fields around there, she picked out that one. That's
God led her there. And I'll tell you this, if God's
going to save you, he'll lead you to Christ. He'll lead you
to Christ. And he brought her to that field,
and look here, in verse 4, and behold, it just so happened that
Boaz came out that day. That's lucky, too. But Boaz came
from Bethlehem and sent to the reapers. I can just see him come
riding up there on his white horse. He wasn't a-walking, I
bet. He came out there riding up.
He owned all that property. Came riding up on his white horse.
He was a godly man. And his people worked for him,
liked him. He said, The Lord be with you. And they answered, The Lord bless
you, Boaz. The Lord bless you. He owned
all he surveyed. He was the king of that place.
And he looked over there, Boaz said to his servants, they were
set over the reapers, his foremen. Verse 5, he said, Who's that
young lady over there? He spotted Ruth. Now, let me
tell you something. Ruth was dressed in rags, and
Ruth was a beggar, and Ruth was following the reapers. Squatting down there picking
up barley, and she didn't look like no deputy debutant I know
but she must had some attraction because this man fell in love
with her He looked out there and saw her and he wonder who
she was Well when I see that I see Christ king of all On his
white horse of victory and triumph Riding through the fields of
this world and he saw me Claire down there a beggar, a worm,
sitting on a dunghill, and he loved me, not because of what
I was or what I did or how I looked, because I looked awful, I was
like that baby in the field, polluted in my blood, but it
was the time of love. But God commended his love toward
us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
But God, who is rich in love for his great love, wherewith
he loved us, and there I saw that woman." And he said, Who
is this? The man said, Well, she's Ruth.
She's that heathen girl from Moab that Naomi brought back
with her. He went over to her. And he said,
Young lady, you go on gleaning in my field. And he turned to
the foreman. He said, Don't you let anybody
abuse her? Don't you let any of the young
men agitate her or assault or violate her or trouble her in
any way, I'm telling you. Don't you let them touch her.
He set his hedge about her, protect her. That's what the Lord did. I told you all that this morning.
You can't kill one of God's sheep until God gets ready. I believe
that. I tell you, you ought to stop
being afraid to go up in airplanes and other things else, because
if you ever find out, you ain't going to die until God wills it. If
I didn't believe that, I'd just throw in the towel, I believe.
But he set the number of my months and my bounds, and I cannot,
nobody can hurt me without God's permission. Just like Boaz said,
don't you let anybody touch you. And he said, tell you what, look
down here at verse 16, chapter 2, and he said, Let fall also
some of the handfuls of purpose for her, and leave them that
she may glean them, and don't you scold her. In other words,
he said, when you fellows are going through the field and you're
picking up, leave some extra for Ruth. Leave some extra. Leave some extra. Oh, I tell
you, he sure, Paul, he's left us a lot of extras, hasn't he?
All the way through. Good night. Oh, my soul. Even when we were getting to
know God, didn't have any time for God, we got a lot of extras,
a lot of handfuls of purpose. I guarantee you there was purpose.
Everything God does, he does on purpose. Purpose. Nothing happens in life by accident.
Not in God's people. All on purpose. Well, Ruth went
to picking up that barley, and she came home that night, look
at verse 18. She took it up and went to the
city, and her mother-in-law saw, that's chapter 2, verse 18, her
mother-in-law saw what she had gleaned. And she brought forth
and gave to her that she had reserved after she had survived,
and her mother-in-law said, Where did you glean today? Where wroughtest
thou? Blessed is that man that took
knowledge of you. Somebody, somebody blessed you,
girl. Where did you get those toe sacks
full of barley?" And she showed her mother-in-law with whom she
had wrought, and she said, I think his name was Boaz. Naomi jumped
about that high. She shouted, Praise the Lord,
my soul. Naomi said to her daughter-in-law,
verse 20, Blessed be the Lord God. Oh, that name Boaz, that's
the kinsman redeemer. Boaz, that's my husband's kin,
folks. Boaz, that's the only man that
can get us out of the trouble we're in. Boaz, that's the one
that's able, that's the one that's able to save us from poverty. That's the one. Oh, that name
rung a bell. Jesus, how sweet the name! Precious name! Fragrance! I tell you, I tell you. Oh, she said the Lord hadn't
left off his kindness to the living. Brother Scott Richardson
called me a while ago before I came to church. Talked around
a while, and then he said, Well, what I wanted to tell you, said
this morning, My whole family was in church,
all four of my boys, all four of my daughters-in-law, and all
my grandchildren, for the first time in a long time. And he said,
just wanted you to know about it. Said I prayed for them and
prayed for those boys and prayed for them. He said, got up and
preached this morning. There was the whole shooting
match. He was so happy. And that's the way Naomi was
here, just the mention, just the possibility. Just the possibility
that she had crossed the path of Boaz. And oh, how sweet it
is to hear somebody drop a word that they have crossed the path
of Christ. I don't lift up my ears very
alertly when somebody talks religion and the church and all this stuff,
you know. But oh, when somebody mentions
that name, which is above every name, I turn and say to myself,
I sure hope he's met him. I hope the Lord in grace and
mercy has been pleased to reveal himself. And she said, verse
20, I've got to read the rest of that, God has not left off
his kindness to the living and to the dead. And Naomi said to
her, that man is near kin to us, he's one of our near kinsmen. Have you got a marginal Bible?
that's got a 2 on there and ends the barge in there, it says,
one that has the right to redeem. Now, that's what that means. That's the reason she's so excited.
She'd left everything. She'd lost everything. She and
the limeleck had been somebody in that town, and now she was
a nobody. They'd been wealthy, and now
she was poverty-stricken. They had plenty, and now they
had nothing. And this man was the key to the restoration of
all that they had. That's when she's excited. Oh,
but now wait a minute. That man doesn't have to do anything. Now, he doesn't, he didn't, the
limerick sold out. He didn't sell him out. He doesn't
owe them anything. I wish we'd get that through
our head. God is not obligated in any way to do anything for
us than what he's done, permit us to live. Anything this side
of hell's mercy. He's mercy to all his works,
you read that. So she treaded softly, and she said to her daughter,
look at chapter 3. Naomi, her mother-in-law, said
to Ruth, My daughter, shall I not seek rest for thee? And it may
be well with thee. I want real rest for you, I want
happiness for you. I want happiness. I don't want
just a phony claim and a phony profession. I want you to have
real rest, real happiness. And that's what I want for people
to whom I preach. I don't want them to come down
there and make some silly, phony profession and get an exterior
veneer religion and run around telling everybody they're saved.
I want them to enter into, by marriage to Christ, the inheritance
of the Redeemer. And that's what Naomi is saying
to Rush. She said, I want to be well with you. I want the
best for you. I want you to have rest. Now,
verse 2, He is not Boaz, our kinsman-redeemer, our near kinsman. You were with his maidens today
in the field. Behold, he winneth barley tonight
in the threshing-floor. Now, you wash yourself And you
anoint yourself with perfume and spices and oil and all these
things. Put your arraignment, the best you've got, and get
thee down to the floor, but don't you say anything to him. Don't
you make yourself known to him until he's finished eating and
drinking. She's not a very good soul-winner. They ought to say,
well, just rush in there where he is and say, you're my kinsman,
redeem me. I'm going to let you redeem me. I'm going to let you
save me, that's what I'm going to do. Now, I've taken the first
step, and it's up to you. Just go on, just go on, just
rush right on up to the throne of God and tell him what he's
got to do, and what you're going to let him do. Naomi is smarter
than most preachers. She said, you keep your mouth
shut. And verse 4, it shall be, when he lies down, do what he
will, when he will, with whom he will, and he lies down, you
mark the place You watch where he is. It would be a good idea
for sinners to find out where Christ is, where he is preached. Christ in his omnipresence is
everywhere, but Christ in his revealed grace is not everywhere. Christ in his gospel is not everywhere. Christ's gospel is where it is.
Christ in his true gospel is where it is. Now, you remember
that. And that Naomi said, you watch, don't you get the wrong
Boaz now. You just might cuddle up with
somebody that ain't Boaz, and he'll get you nowhere. He'll
get you a husband, but no good. She said, you're going to have
to mark where he lies down. He! You keep your eye on him,
you find out where he is! You mark the place where he is,
where people are preaching Christ! You'd better mark that place.
And when he lies down, you go there. When he lies down, mark
that place and uncover his feet, lift the clothes that are on
his feet, and you lie down at his feet. kind of flinched a little bit
there, you know. I mean, even a poverty-stricken
woman is too proud to lie down at a man's feet. I mean, even
that girl standing there in rags, you know, after all, who does
he think he is? I'll shake hands with him, I'll
go up to the front and shake hands with the preacher. But
for me to humble myself and to come down and uncover a man's
feet and lie down around his feet Well, that's what the harlot
did in the house of Simon. She kissed his feet. She kissed
his feet and grabbed him with the hair of her head. That's
where Mary was, sitting at his feet. That's where the leper
was when he came down from the mountain. He fell at his feet!
Judas kissed him on the cheek. Think about that a little bit.
Judas called him friend. Mary called him master. Keep on. It's all right, you
do what you want to now. You keep on fooling around, calling
him these things that you have no right to call him, until you
come to know him as master and Lord. That's where you start,
at his feet. at his feet. You see, salvation is of the
Lord, but salvation is by his will. It's not of him that willeth
nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy. We
are born not of blood, not of the will of the flesh, not of
the will of man, but the will of God. Of his own will begat
he us. I'm telling you the truth. It
may not be a preacher distance of here or even mailing distance
that will tell people this, but I'm telling you this, God does
not have to save you. He does not owe you anything
but the wages of sin, those you've earned and those we're going
to collect. And this man Boaz, he was under no obligation whatsoever
to do anything about what Alemanek had lost and the condition of
those two And this girl knew that, and she curled up around
his feet. A little time passed, and he
woke up. He felt someone down his feet. You'll see that in verse 4, verse
5. She said, All that he says to
you, you do. She went down the floor and did
according to what she said. Look at verse 8. It came to pass
that at midnight the man was afraid. Turned himself, behold,
a woman was at his feet. He said, who are you? She said,
I'm Ruth, thine handmaid. Spread therefore thy skirt over
thy handmaid, for thou art my kinsman, redeemer. Oh, I like
that. You are my hope. You're the one that has the right
to redeem me. And here I am at your feet. Total
submission. That's a whole lot different
from what they're telling folks today. There's not even a kinship
to this and the invitation that's given at the last verse of the
song, catch the last train out, and all that junk. Here's a poverty-stricken
beggar doing business, talking. At his invitation, who are you? I'm Ruth, the heathen. What are
you doing down there? I need mercy. You're the only
one who can do anything for me. He said, Blessed be thou of the
Lord, my daughter. Oh, I tell you, you showed more
kindness in the latter end than at the beginning. Inasmuch as
thou followest not young men, whether rich or poor, now, daughter,
don't be afraid. I'll do to thee all that's required. For all the city of my people
doth know that thou art a virtuous woman. Now it is true that I
am thy near kinsman, howbeit there's a kinsman nearer than
I." Uh-oh, we got trouble. He said, I want you, I love you,
and I want to redeem you. But there's somebody in the way.
Somebody got first claim on you. Somebody got first claim. You
know who that is? That's the law and the justice
of God. My Lord looks at me with everlasting
love and loves me and wants me. And I sit at his feet. I want
him. But he said, you're in bondage to the law. And the law's got
first claim on you and the justice of God. So I'm going to have
to do something about that." And he did, didn't he? He bought
everything. Look at Ruth 4.9, "...and Boaz
said to the elders, Your witnesses this day, that I bought all that
was Alemalech's, and all that was Chalion's, and Malon's of
the hand of Naomi. Moreover, Ruth the Moabitess,
the wife of Malon, have I purchased to be my wife." He married her. He married her. And you know,
they had a little boy. Look down at verse 16 of Ruth
4. And Naomi took the child and laid it in her bosom and became
nursing to it. And the women, her neighbors,
gave it a name. Boaz bought them, he bought back
everything they'd lost. Ruth was at rest. Joy, she was the wife of the
prince of the city. He redeemed everything she had.
And they had a son. And the women, her neighbors,
gave it a name saying, there's a son born to Naomi. That's Naomi,
a grandson. Our grandsons can be called our
sons, too. They call them that in the Bible.
It's Ruth's son, but they said Naomi's got a son. And they called
his name Obed, and he's the father of Jesse, the father of David,
the king. I'll tell you, the Word of God
is so beautiful in setting forth the redemptive glory of Christ.
You see, when you give the story of Ruth that way, it's not praising. Who do you praise here? Boaz. Boaz. He's the conqueror. He's the gracious one. He's the merciful one. He's the
one that did everything for Ruth. Everything that Ruth did in coming
out of that pagan country was the hand of God. When she came
back with Naomi and went down to the field, that particular
field, Boaz came out that particular time, and he spotted her and
fell in love with her. And all these things is ordered
of the Lord, ordered of God.