We'll refresh our souls once again by looking at his word. We want to go back to the book of Ruth and be thinking about this homey, comfortable, easy, unsophisticated story, and yet the remarkable simple lessons of spiritual refreshment and blessing that are available for us. The book of Ruth. The book opens up in the days of the Judges. The Spirit of God has chosen to use the Hebrew word, judge or judges, and he uses it only from Judges chapter three through First Samuel chapter four. And thereafter, every reference or allusion to that refers to that period of time. And it seems to be that the Spirit of God is trying to create in our minds an awareness that the time of the judges was a very unique special time when God raised up individuals to deliver God's people, but their constant failure in their ministry. their own inconsistency in their lives, and the wretched, miserable, discontent and rebellion of God's people left them in great spiritual darkness at the time of declension and constant failure. And yet, out of the very earliest times of the Book of Judges, we find an individual being worked upon by the Spirit of God and drawn into a relationship with God's people, and she calls this woman Ruth, into a most unique position as being part of the very genealogy of Christ. She is a Moabitus. Why they travel to Moab, we have no way of knowing. But the fact that this woman being a Moabitus and six out of the twelve times that she is alluded to, it's drawn to our attention. She is a Moabitus. Ruth, a Moabitus. The Spirit of God wants to keep before your attention in mind. She has no right. She has no authorities. She has no posture, she has no inheritance, and yet God shows grace. Moab was a child born out of an incestuous relationship with Lot and his eldest daughter when he was in a drunken stupor. And oftentimes the flesh and the activity of the flesh and the results of the activity of the flesh create great problems for God's people. And the whole nation the Moabites were in opposition to God's people. They're defined by Isaiah the prophet and Jeremiah both as being proud. Now it's a very difficult thing to understand why they are proud, but let me read to you from Jeremiah forty-eight. Moab hath been at ease from his youth, and he hath settled on his leaves and hath not been emptied from vessel to vessel, neither hath he gone into captivity. Therefore his taste remaineth in him, and his scent is not changed. He hath never suffered trials or disciplines. He had never been under the chastening hand of God. For you see, God chastens and disciplines his own children. Now, Naomi has gone through this, and she has borne some sweet fruits of exercise and profitable concerns in her own life. And she sees the hand of God in her life. But Moab and all of his experience never experienced the disciplines of God. Never had been changed from place to place. He moved in and settled in his own locale, became complacent, self-content, and just accepting of his own role. And God goes further and says, We have heard of the pride of Moab. He is exceeding proud his loftiness and his arrogance and his pride and his haughtiness of heart. And Rea says the Lord, So shall it be, and it shall not affect him. The Moabitis. He has very little to offer God. except she has been touched by her mother-in-law, Naomi. Now in Ruth chapter one, verse eight, there's a very simple but an interesting statement. 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. The Lord grant you that you may find rest, each of you in the house of her husband. Then she kissed them and they lifted up their voice and wept. Naomi thought that she was going to shed herself of these two Moabitis girls and go back to her own home and try to settle in as best as she was able. She had no way of knowing what was before her. Her poverty, her bereavement, her loss of all of her family, every logical provision for her need, and she was just going to make her way back because she had heard in verse six how God had visited his people and provided them with bread. It's such a nice thing when God's people are enjoying their inheritance. And I'm speaking now in a spiritual New Testament sense. But when you enjoy the Word of God, and when you enjoy the spiritual provisions that are made for you, you have bread. You have bread to give to others. If you are reading and musing and thinking and being exercised, you have spiritual nourishment, and you can share and give of yourself to God's people. And that draws the Lord's people. We need to have those that have ample provision, bread enough and to spare, back at the Father's house. Naomi is heading herself back, and she says, why don't you just go back? And she could well have said, go back and serve Kimosh, your God. Or may Kimosh bless you. But she doesn't say that. And she doesn't even say, may Elohim bless you, the great God, and a familiar word, meaning the God and ruler or controller of all things. But she uses the word Yahweh, Jehovah. And she says, Return, and may Jehovah deal kindly with you. Now, that means little to us, unless we stop and think that she had a personal relationship with God. He was Jehovah God to her, the great I am, the great covenant-keeping personal God of her own. And she would familiarly ask that that God would bless these women. And even at such, it means that her personal relationship with the Lord, through all of these exercises and losses of heart, that she still recognized that he was the one that was the source of blessing. And she looks for that personal blessing of Jehovah to rest upon these girls. And then proceeds and says, you have dealt kindly. Loving kindness and kindness isn't really adequate. for the meaning of the word, because it has a more of a thrust of consistency, of perpetuity, and one has suggested it be loyally. You have dealt loyally with the dead. You have been a fine, gracious, good wife to my son. It's nice to commend your daughter-in-law. I hope you do it. It's a lovely thing to be a source of blessing and bring your in-laws unto the framework of your spiritual blessing. There is many times for strife in the family. Many times the tensions are put upon the family. But here as a woman has gone through so much of bereavement and sorrow, ten lonely years, and now has to head back on her own, and yet she's still looking for the blessing of God, her God, to rest upon those girls. And you have dealt kindly. Young ladies, I hope you deal loyally and kindly with your spouse. It's to be commended. It's to be encouraged. Little simple things come up in the story that are written so elementally, so easy and comfortable in the flow of a natural conversation. Fifty out of the eighty-five verses of the book are personal conversation. It's designed not to be a doctrinal thing, but for you and me to read and get the flow and get the spirit and feel of the time and ultimately have our hearts so softened by the awareness that even in these bad, desperate days, God was in the heart of some. There was a little company like those in Malachi's day who talked about the Lord, and the Lord harkened and recorded their conversation, and a book of remembrance was written. Don't just give up. Your things are difficult in your home and in your local church or in your family or in your large city that you live in, and you feel pressure and strain. Don't be disheartened. You preserve with integrity and with a deep, sweet commitment of soul. to the treasured things that you know of in your relationship to the Lord. The Lord grant you that you might find rest, that you might find a cessation of labor, that you might come to the place and be relieved of stress and pressure and tension. That's what your home is designed to be by God. That's how God wants that marriage relationship to be. This is reaffirmed in chapter three in verse one. Naomi, her mother-in-law, said to her, My daughter, shall I not seek rest for thee, that it may be well with thee? We are living in a time when the marriage relationship has been attacked, deteriorated, despised, but that's no reason why you and I should enter into anything of the Spirit, because we need to stop loving the world and its precepts and its standards and commit ourselves with a great deal of resolve, that it's you and your Lord. You and your God, and you're going to practice and be and do as God enables, as best as you are able, to fit into the picture that is held out to us in the Word of God. Now, this lovely little scene is interrupted by or about leaves. She kisses her and leaves, and then Ruth is now under quite a bit of stress. Ruth has the temptation of her mother-in-law's dissuasion. She has the added temptation of her sister's return to her gods, where she feels some kind of an assurance and a comfort and a confidence. She's familiar with Kimosh and all the things that it offers, and what's there in Moab, and everything before her is kind of nebulous. She is unsure of what it is, but she does know that she wants to have a personal relationship with this woman, Naomi, and her god, and her people. What a winsome testimony. You know, I've been with some of the Lord's people, and I don't know to what degree I have erred in the same way, but I've been with some of the Lord's people that have gone through trials, and they haven't been winsome at all. They've been quite opposite. They have not borne the difficulty or the pressure very well at all. Abraham Kuiper has written a remarkable book, former Prime Minister of the Netherlands. It's the Valley of Death. And he brings to our attention a number of times that going through the experience of death or being associated with loved ones that pass away, that our testimony is such that we deter souls from coming to a relationship with God. And here is a woman that goes through the bereavement, threefold bereavement, loneliness, widowhood, impoverishment, grief and sorrow, and the long trek homeward and the shame that's on her heart because she feels that God has dealt with her bitterly. She knew that when she left now, she looks back and says, when I left Bethlehem, I was full. I had a husband, and I had sickly children, maybe, but still I had a family and comfort and need, and now I am a lonely, bitter woman. That's how she feels inside. But her outside testimony was such that she drew her daughter-in-law to the Lord. And Ruth says in verse sixteen, entreat me not to leave thee. nor 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 my God. Where thou diest will I die, and there will I be buried. The Lord do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and me. She says, my social life, my practical life, my national life, my spiritual life, my total committal. I am going to commit myself to you and spend the rest of my life with you. She's not talking about husbands. She's not talking about family. She is enamored with this woman, and this woman has introduced her to God. And she has a heart for spiritual things. Now, unknown, we have language now in the New Testament that lets us know that the Spirit of God has his own wooing and winning way. And he does that quickening and awakening and convicting work in our spirit. And just as the Lord says, as the wind bloweth, I can't not tell whence it cometh and whither it goeth, so is everyone that is born of God. There's no way for us to know when God does this quickening, dramatic, enlivening work in our soul. It's a great mystery. But we bask in the joy of knowing that God has drawn us. And that yours is the pleasure and the privilege. You may not be a preacher. You may not be a great teacher. It may not be that God has called you to a mission field. You may not influence hundreds. But the love of God, you have a tremendous impact on far more people than you realize. In a recent research, General Motors has decided that every individual person has a very vital effect upon three hundred and seventy people. A vital effect upon three hundred and seventy people in their lives. Naomi has touched the heart of her daughter-in-law and has drawn her to God. There's nothing better than that in your life. You might start with your spouse. You might start with your children. You might start with the loved ones that from whom you might be a bit estranged. Your own brothers and sisters in the local assembly. Make it our purpose. that our lives, even in times of trial and burden of soul, will still have something of the warmth and the touch of the presence of God in our lives and draw others to our blessed Savior. He is seeking to use you and me, and he has started something in this woman's heart, and the Spirit of God does not want anything to be drawn to any other person's attention, and yet without actually saying God is doing this, he is going to introduce us to fact coincidences, providential circumstances that see that the mighty sovereign hand of God is at work. The nation is in chaos. Gideon is trying to marshal an army and struggle against the Midianites. He's paired down to three hundred soldiers, and he thinks that a whole wealthier of the nation depends upon him, and God is quietly working in the home of a widow. I have many opportunities to thank God for gracious, godly, older women who walk with the Lord. Some of the sweetest fragrant testimonies in our local assembly does not come verbally expressed, but is lived out by a crippled widow, by an aged woman and her remarkable warmth and vitality and interest in things spiritual. And not one of our young people that are urged to talk to these godly women ever come away dry, they're refreshed, they're drawn. They're encouraged. Beloved of God, you have so much in your heart and life, and so many exercises of soul. You mustn't deprive the rest of us by keeping it just to yourself. Share it. Enjoy the Lord and draw others to himself. Poor Naomi. When they were coming to Bethlehem, she had to express herself. Isn't it natural? Is this Naomi? There's no such thing as, welcome home, Naomi. We have a remarkable way of making people feel uncomfortable sometimes. The first thing that was said to me by a dear, and I realize it was said in warmth and affection, said, my, is this Bob Clark? You certainly have aged since I've seen you, Leia. And they hadn't even seen my face. They saw me from the back. They were measuring everything from the backside. Can you imagine that? Is this Naomi? And Naomi pours out her heart. I'm my glad to be back with you. Let me tell you, has the Lord dealt with me? And she begins to pour out her soul. Don't call me Naomi anymore. I am bitter. How can that be, though? The Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me. I went out full, and the Lord has brought me home empty. But you see, the treasured beauty of it is she sees the hand of God. Pretty much at this same time, Gideon is threshing wheat. And in around this same era, if we place it accurately, but as an illustration, Gideon is threshing wheat, and the angel comes to him and says, The Lord is with you, thou mighty man of valor. And Gideon says, If the Lord is with me, why has all this happened? Why, the Lord has delivered us into the hands of the enemy. The Lord has deprived us. We're in a wretched condition at the hands of the discipline of God. And the angel extends his hand and says, And this is your strength. You have seen the hand of the Lord in your life. You have accepted that God is dealing with you, and you are bearing up under it and resolvably doing what you are able under the conditions that you are in. Beloved of God, you may be laboring and threshing wheat yourself and doing whatever you are able and feeling very disheartened because of the little assembly of believers or the little work or the stress or the pressure of your family or feeling that you are in an immense city and you are totally lost amongst all of the others. We must not feel that way. God knows and He is well aware. He brought them back at the time of barley harvest. There's a rich provision, a basic food. It was a barley bread that God said that Gideon was like. If ever I wanted to be like something, I never thought of being a dried-up piece of barley bread. I might have envisioned myself maybe on a white charge or a leading people's or something like that, but never a dried-up piece of barley bread that's been spilled and falling and rolling down and hit the tent. It's a very humbling thing. And barley bread is a very modest provision, but it's a basic food, a staple great harvest. And you notice at the end of verse twenty-two, they came to Bethlehem at the beginning of barley harvest. And God has made provision for the needy. In the same chapter that Bill drew through our attention about the holiness of God, and the greatness of God, the same chapter that wants to declare His mighty, glorious purity and power, who says again and again, I am the Lord, your God. Do you know what he says? When you're gleaning your fields, Leviticus nineteen and nine and ten, says when you're gleaning your fields, don't get into the corners. Leave the corners open for the poor and the widow and the stranger. And it's repeated again in chapter twenty-three. And repeat it again in Deuteronomy chapter twenty-four. When you're working in your fields, don't stretch it out and beat it out and get every little bit out of what you can. Leave some for the poor and the stranger and the widow. God was already thinking of Ruth. But you see, Ruth had to take that low place and say, I am a Moabite. I am only a stranger here. I am a poor woman. I am widowed. So I'm going to get some of God's inheritance. I'm going to claim God's blessing. And when you and I are ready to stoop to the bottom shelf, that's where the blessings of God are. Most of us really feel that they're up on the top and we have to tiptoe and rise up. And God says, my blessings are down on the bottom shelf and we need to stoop and kneel. Modesty becomes us. Humility is an appropriate disposition. When I think of myself as that little speck, that little dust, compared to the vast, great, majestic glory of our loving Father. How appropriate that I be willing to say, yes, I'm only a stranger, and I'll be glad to take some of the gleaning and do what I'm able to do. At the same time, we are reminded at the end of Chapter One that there is a beginning of provision and food and nourishment. Something else is drawn to our attention in Chapter Two. Naomi had a kinsman of her husband, a mighty man of wealth, of the family of Alimelech. His name was Boaz. And Ruth the Moabitis 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 unto her, Go, my daughter. And she went and came and gleaned in the field after the reapers, and her hat, her happenstance, it was coincidental that she came upon the part of the field that belongs to Boaz. who is of the kindred of a Limelech. The Spirit of God early wants to let us know God's behind this whole story. The circumstance she has gone through wasn't coincidental. The return of this woman wasn't just providence. God using that woman's testimony to touch her life, that wasn't just happenstance. I've been behind it all, and of all the fields that circumference the city of Bethlehem, and that little plot that was staked out, maybe with stakes, possibly with a pile of stones, a little segment of the field, everyone is milling around in the fields, working and doing, but the section that she happens to come to where she merges out the gate and walks her eye cast around. Where will I go? What will I do? I'll pick this field. And it's the field of Boaz, a mighty man of wealth, a close relative of a limelick, Naomi's husband. and we're introduced to the possibility of a great blessing. But the woman has to glean. The widow must look for nourishment in the inheritance of God. The land was God's provision for the earthly people, and you have a spiritual inheritance. And when I am ready to find myself spiritually in need and longing for the needs of life and sustenance and blessing, there is a great inheritance. Do you know what the inheritance of God is? Forgiveness of sin, the priesthood of believers, access into his presence, the bestowment of the Holy Spirit, and a gift for you to function, that you might find that which is good and perfect and acceptable will of God. Tremendous spiritual blessings available, and every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places is yours. because of the grand redemptive work of our Lord Jesus. Are you a gleaner? Are you a hungry, thirsty gleaner? Do you rise and face the day with intent to go out and gather for yourself and have something to feed? We may be alone in life. Our spouse may be an unbeliever. We may have the responsibilities of family, but we cannot imperil ourselves to the point where we fail to get into the Word of God And allow the Word of God to bring our hearts and souls up into fellowship with the Lord. And drink deeply of all the good things He's provided for you and me. There's a spiritual enrichment for us. And God has made provision for you. He knows where you are. He knows your needs. I can remember a woman that I thought was just a remarkably competent, poised, assured person. And unbeknown to many of the people in the local church, he had gone through a crushing experience. And she was at the threshold of a total dissolution of her person and all of her mental capacities. And she felt herself just becoming unhinged, trying to keep that poise and social propriety in the local church and just beyond herself with anxiousness and fretting deep in her own soul. And she confided to Joyce and myself one time in a personal conversation that her only salvation was to read the Word of God, sometimes not even knowing what she was reading. The only thing that kept her coherent and cognizant of her surroundings and the care of her family and her responsibilities to her husband. And no one realized this crushing burden that she was bearing, but God did. And he brought her through a tremendous healing process. And to date, that woman is a very rich, warm, loving, caring soul that touches the lives of other people. That's what God has in store for us. That's why the trial. That's why the difficulty. That's why the pressure. That's why those loving tensions introduced into our lives in order that we can be rich, profited people. Boaz came from Bethlehem and said unto the reapers, The Lord be with you. And they answered, The Lord bless you. Now you read the book of Judges, and you'd never think that anybody was talking favorably about the Lord then. And yet here is a man that greets his employees, his servants. The Lord bless you. And their response out of appreciation to that kind of a manager or foreman, the Lord bless you. We don't hear that very often. I don't know how well it would do in your office. You come in and said that to the secretary. It might be very pleasant and encouraging. You know, telling how she'd respond. But it would be very nice if you might say that in the house. Do we ever ask the blessing of God upon our loved ones other than quietly and secretly in prayer? Do we ever speak to them? and show that we are interested in their spiritual welfare and ask the Lord to bless and care for them. I think that this is such a homely, charming, comfortable scene. It doesn't outweigh any of the great doctrines of Scripture, but it introduces into my thinking the remarkable possibility of living in such a family and amongst God's people in such a manner that people will know that you love and enjoy the Lord and the things of the Lord. And here is Boaz, a mighty man, a wealthy man, a mature man. And he says, the Lord be with you. And their answer is, the Lord bless you. And that's going to come constantly now, all the way through this book, the sense of the presence of the Lord in their lives and in their thinking. And Boaz said to his servant, which was over the reapers, whose damsel is this? And of all of those laboring in the field, he immediately saw the stranger. And of all the people that come in, you only see your friends. And of all the people you pass by in the corridor going to your Sunday school class, you only see those of your age. And it's so few of the children that ever receive a pat on the head or a deep voice of one of the older men saying anything to them, because they don't know their name. There's a tall, bald, important-looking Scottish man that stood at the door of our local church when I was a boy. And he'd reach out and shake my hand and help me off with his coat, and he'd take off my earmuffs in the wintertime, and he'd call me Robbie. I kept correcting him. He says, my name's Bob, you know. You know how those older people are. They never seem to pay attention. He says, Robbie, glad to see you today. It turned out, after I grew up and realized that the man was the ambassador from Scotland, a very important man who had been knighted by King George, but he had time to talk to me. And I knew nothing about that, but he had a heart. And he knew every boy and child in the Sunday school. And he knew every soul and was warm and hearty and loved God's people. Here is a man that cares for them and knows where the reapers are and who they are and wants to make provision. It's two-sided. When you start to reap and you start to give and you start to mature, God is going to provide the blessings. But he's waiting for us to seek first. waiting for our initiative, waiting for those self-sacrificial moments of hard exercise of soul. We want something of the inheritance that God has provided. Beloved of God, I commend you to God and to the word of His grace, which is able to give you an inheritance among all when there are sanctified. That's your part. You're a human responsibility, and God will provide all that we need. Our Father, we are thankful for their few moments together and to look afresh at this story and pray thy blessing upon thy word. We ask thee that this would prepare our spirits to hear as thou would speak to us further about the greatness and the beauties of thine own attributes and character. We ask this in the name of our Lord Jesus.