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In the first session of our study this evening, what I was trying to do was to suggest to you first that the book of Ruth is about Naomi. Her initial grief, bereavement, distress, hopelessness, and bitterness. And the way God moved so that at the end of the story and at the climax, Naomi is restored. That is what the story is about. While the story is about that, I suggested that the leading figures in it are particularly B- Ro- Ruth and Boaz.
But even more Ruth than Boaz. She was her, the, uh, key to the whole situation, her conversion down in Moab and decision to follow Naomi and to put her faith in Naomi's God. Her initiative to go gleaning, her devotion to Naomi and her family, and then her willingness to marry, uh, Boaz, and finally the child born of the result, willing to have it regarded as Naomi's child. Then we thought of the institutions, as you might call them, that are the key elements, uh, the things on which the actions turn.
We considered the concept of inheritance, God-given inheritance that needs to be maintained. Secondly, the implication of the name of a man upon his inheritance. We saw then how those things being in danger of being lost, rescue and salvation came to Naomi and her family by two other institutions. One, that of the kinsman redeemer, who, if he were wealthy enough, when his poor brother or sister or whoever, uh, couldn't keep their inheritance going and came to sell it, the kinsman redeemer would buy it so as to keep the inheritance within the family and let it not go lost outside.
But secondly, in Ruth, it wouldn't have been enough for Boaz to be a kinsman redeemer. There was the other institution called levirate marriage, where a man married a wife and he died before they had children. Then his brother wa- would be invited to marry the deceased's widow. So now it was the widow being married by the brother-in-law, hence the term levirate. Levir in Latin is brother-in-law, do you see? So when the lady's husband died, then her brother-in-law would marry her, and their child would be counted the child of the first brother, Joseph.
So Levir brother-in-law, this was called levirate marriage. And Naomi, it would appear, managed to persuade Boaz not only to buy the field, but be willing also to perform the levirate marriage for Ruth. Now, he wasn't obliged to, and he wasn't her brother-in-law anyway, so it was a very big extension of the levirate institution. He wasn't her brother-in-law, but he was a near of kin. He was persuaded, apparently, if he needed to be persuaded, uh, to undertake that duty and to marry Ruth, and thus their child be counted as keeping the family name of Elimelech and Mahlon and his sons, keeping the inheritance within the family.
They were the institutions then. In this second half, I want briefly to mention, uh, uh, the, uh, four possible ways of applying this story. I shall not be able to preach them, and I don't need to because you know them. But if you are like me, sometimes you tend to get the application a little bit mixed up. At least I do. I start at one level to apply it, and before I know what I am, I'm like a, a butterfly that hopped on the rose first and then forgot it was after roses and went off after dandelions. You see, and I'm all over the place with a butterfly mind, which makes it extraordinarily difficult to follow, you'll see.
And it is helpful sometimes to see that in Holy Scripture there is more than one level of application, interpretation, if you like, and application, and it will enrich our own personal studies and our preaching, eh, eh, eh, after that, if need be, if we can see that there are these different levels, and we make, uh, some effort to keep them moderately distinct. So the first level I call the historical context of the story. If you were expounding this story and wanting to apply it and draw lessons from it for ourselves today, where would you start?
And one good place to start is at the historical context of the story. That is with verse one of chapter one: and it came to pass in the days when the judges ruled. So the whole story is put in that historical context. And what is the point of that? We'll look back to the last verse of Judges, the book of Judges, chapter twenty one, verse twenty five. In those days there was no king in Israel. Every man did that which was right in his own eyes. Now, if that was the state in the times of the Judges, and Ruth's story took place in the times of the Judges, there was no king in Israel.
Every man did what was right in his own eyes. Now you see, when you come to the end of Ruth, verse seventeen of chapter four, the name of the child is Obed. He is the father of Jesse, the father of David. Then there follows the verses of genealogy, arriving once more at the great climax, David, the greatest king that Israel ever knew, prototype and ancestor of the Messiah. Do you see? Ruth's fame is this also, of course, that she likewise became an ancestress, not only of David, but of Christ himself.
There is therefore an obvious movement in history, isn't there, from a time there was no judge in Israel to the time, uh, there was no king in Israel, to the time when, uh, David was born. Yes, but, uh, uh, that's a historical detail. What practical lesson can we learn from it? Well, first of all, we ought to pause with that phrase that in the days of the judges, there was no king in Israel. Every man did that which is right in his own eyes, and our natural instinct would be to say, perhaps, there you are, that serves them right, stupid Israelites, for not having a king, do you see?
It was bound to end up in chaos anyway, with people doing exactly what they liked. Why on earth didn't they have a king, do you see? And, uh, to proceed from that and say, well, in in mercy, of course, things got better, and eventually they did have a king, and his name was David. But that would to be read it superficially, wouldn't it? It is the fact that in the days of the judges, when there was no king, eventually people did that which was right in their own eyes. They didn't start off that way. They didn't have a king because it wasn't God's mind in those days to give them a king. And it wasn't an oversight on God's part that he didn't give them a king.
The reason was that God was king. You will remember the story of Gideon when he achieved his notable victory, and the people came along to him and would make him king. He said, no, no, no, no, no, I will not be your king. The Lord your God is your king. And it was true in those early days, in the days of Joshua and the elders that outlived him. It wasn't just a theological doctrine. It was to those early men a tremendous reality when they gathered the people of God around the tabernacle, believing that God's presence dwelt there, and they, uh, came in the awe of the realized and felt presence of God, then the kingship of God was a reality to them, and worked better, of course, than any institutionalized king.
What led to the chaos? Why, because Israel lost the sense of the reality of the presence and government of God. Or I dare say they still held it as a theological doctrine. But theological doctrines don't work of themselves, you know. If the God's rule and kingship is to going to have an effect, it's got to be more than a doctrine, it has to become a reality to his people.
And the book of Judges will tell you in its way how it was that the people lost that sense of the reality of God as king. It was in part because the judges broke down. And the last judge was a horror of a judge. You see, he was doing the very things from which the first judge had to deliver God's people. The time you come to the last judge, he's doing things that the first judge would have regarded as horrendous, but nobody seemed to notice they were wrong by the time you get to the last one.
And not only did the judges break down, but then, uh, you'll see the all tribal, uh, uh, council broke down. Then the priesthood broke down in the days of Eli and his sons, Hophni and Phineas. So people abhorred the offering of God, and the people lost their sense of the government of God. What was to be the answer to that? Well, you will know the story in Samuel, how that the people got tired of the chaos that was around, and they came to Samuel and said, look, we're not putting up with this anymore, Samuel, make us a king, like the nations have.
And Samuel was upset, and God was upset, because it was a virtual rejection of God. They didn't come to God and say, look here, things have gone wrong, show us where they've gone wrong. Do you see? No. They came to God and said, look, we've had it your way so long, now we're going to have it our way, and that will be better. Actually, God intended eventually to give them a king and gave them a king. His name was David. Why God objected the first time was because when the people came and asked, instead of waiting for God to give them a king, it was a virtual rejection of God and supposing they knew better than God.
When eventually God gave them his king, it was a man after his own heart. And eventually, of course, King David, who descended from Ruthenburs, became the king, did he not? And the genius of him is that he was both God and man. So that in Christ, God is still king. Who said I mean? Jesus Christ is God in car. Christ. That took so many centuries to come about.
But here then, in the historical context, is the significance of the movement that got Israel from the days when there was no king in Israel and all was moral chaos to the time of David and eventually the time of Jesus Christ. Marvelous. How did they do? Well, in the historical sense, there was this man called Elimelech. Now his name was, uh, means Eli, my God, Melech, king, my God is king. I don't know how seriously his parents took the name when they gave it to the boy. Uh, I don't know. Uh, some parents today don't take names very seriously, do they?
They call a son George, oblivious of the fact that he is a farmer, and they might not want him to be a farmer either, you'll see. Uh, you'll see. Anyway, uh, in those days, I fancy it had more meaning to it. The parents were godly parents, and in giving a name to a child expressed their personal belief. Yes, my God is king. Whether he knew it or not, being of Judahite from Bethlehem, belonging to Ephratha, oh, he was right in the physical line for the coming of the king, wasn't he?
You listen to Micah chapter five: thou Bethlehem Ephratha, though thou at least among the thousands of Israel, out of thee, out of thee shall he come that is to be governor to me. He was in the line. His name was therefore expressis of the nation's faith, my God is king. But there came a famine, a feeling the thing couldn't be worked anymore. They went off to Moab. I suppose you mustn't blame him too much, would- must you? Because old Abram, when there came a famine in the land, he went down to to Egypt anyway.
Funny things happened there, of course. Uh, he went down to Egypt. Jacob went down with God's permission. David, when he was rejected by Israel, put his mother and father in the land of Moab for the king's safekeeping there until he came to the throne. So we must go easy on Elimelech. But that said, that can. Why couldn't the man take it from the hand of God and stay for it and dare to believe? Others did, didn't they? Boaz didn't run off, obviously.
And some made a go. And we shall never know why Limelech gave up. But the disastrous result was that, uh, he went to Moab, his sons married Moabite girls, he died, his sons died. That threatened to bring an end to his family line and the whole thing be wiped out. The name perish off the inheritance. Elimelech didn't amount to much. He came to disaster. Family wiped out. Wife, widow couldn't make a go of the inheritance.
All they had started off with such a song and a dance that the Lord had given them their inheritance, and the Lord was their portion, and uh, it didn't work. It was theological talk that didn't have any practical education, uh, uh, uh, merit, and the woman was left helpless. What brought them there? Ah, I suggest it is a profitable thing to read what you doubt- noticed many times is a good thing to dwell upon. In spite of the failure of his people, God himself remained loyal.
God brought them back. At not being pied, they heard that there was corn in Bethlehem. The Lord had visited his people, and Naomi begins to come back. Arrived there in all the bitterness of her, her soul, she's now beginning to feel the Lord has testified against her. Ah, but this extraordinary Gentile girl, where has her faith come from? A most unlikely story, isn't it? One Gentile girl, yes, she's going to get a husband that she can, so she goes back to her gods.
And curious, Naomi advised her to go back to Moab and her gods. Couldn't bring herself to believe that a Gentile girl like that would get converted. And when he said, look, I'll come with you, mom, ma. No, no, she said, you go back, my dear. Extraordinary. God could convert the Gentiles. Just you imagine that. And she came to believe in the God of Israel. And when she got back to Bethlehem, she didn't sit there, uh, and call upon the state to maintain her. She said, let me go gleaning. And her hat was to light upon that bit of the field that belonged to Boaz.
She didn't know him from, uh, from Adam. But her hap was. How would you read that hap? Is there not a God in control of our circumstance? And even where I work. All my brothers, my sisters, if we're going to restore God's people and belief in the kingship of God, we shall have to have in our own personal, practical, daily lives and its affairs, and a sense and strong belief in the providence of God.
It's easy to do it, you say, if you're a Boaz with endless bank balances and good health and whatnot. It's when you're in difficult circumstances like Naomi, isn't it? It's difficult to believe that the Lord's in it. The Lord blessed me, you know, because I got well, and I got a very good job. Uh, how we do interpret the Lord's blessing as though it must always be in good things. We don't say often, and I took ill, and I lost my job, and the Lord blessed me in life. But sometimes that is so.
And the way back was as Naomi began to get a glimmer of hope that God was in this. If God had witnessed against her and made her bitter and emptied her, she went out full, she's coming back empty. But when, uh, uh, uh, Ruth came back with an ephah of grain that she had got and told Naomi that the man was, uh, Boaz, and he'd invited to come back, was kind to her. Oh, she said, blessed is the Lord that has not left off his kindness, meaning his loyalty to the dead. Oh no.
God still is that, isn't he? Loyal. Loyal not only to the present generation, he's loyal to the dead. He'll be loyal to those prayers that have gone up in times past, won't he? And the godly longings and aspirations of his people that prayed and have now gone home, God will be loyal to them. And Naomi is beginning to renew her faith in the providences of God. This is no accident. She got to that particular part of the field. And if it's of the Lord, and Boaz is showing this extraordinary interest, it, uh, moves Naomi to say, right, if that's the Lord, I think I can, in faith, now make a suggestion to Master Boaz.
And so she did. And Boaz accepted. And you know the happy end of the story. And as the women this time, uh, gathered round Naomi and laid the child in her lap, they said, blessed is the Lord who has given you this child as a restorer of your old age. Recovery of the sense of the reality of the government and providence of God in our daily lives. You'll see, if we're going to maintain a testimony for God, you can't do it without cornflakes, can you, if you see what I mean?
You've got to live, and you've got to have a breakfast. You can't go a year without breakfast and still think you're going to carry on a year without meals and think you're still going to carry on testimony to the Lord. We have to believe, surely, in God's rulings and providences in life. Let's leave that one. You could elaborate that one, of course you could, and quote experiences in your own life, surely, in which you have proved God's providential bleeding, both in sorrow and in recovery. There is the next level, not merely the practical level of these ancient people, but then what the theologians would call the soteriological.
That's a magnificent word to come out with at this time of night, isn't it? It means, uh, the aspect, uh, of salvation, uh, the way of salvation. What the way of salvation was for, uh, Naomi in those far off days, and that will suggest as a prototype God's way of salvation for us. You know it well, I needn't repeat it. It was, of course, the widow left, and now the key to her restoration, both Ruth, as we have said, and Na- uh, and Boaz, the kinsman redeemer. That notion comes over into the New Testament, Hebrews chapter two.
For as much as the children were partakers of flesh and blood, he likewise partook of the same. Yes, he became one of us. Wherefore he is not ashamed to be called our brethren, for both he that sanctifies, that is our Lord, and they who are sanctified are all of one. Wherefore is not ashamed to call them brethren. For that reason also he took part of flesh and blood that he might die, that through death he might deliver them who through fear of death for all their lifetime subject to bondage. We can think of his wealth, of course, Boaz, the mighty man of wealth.
The other kinsmen couldn't redeem. Perhaps it was because he didn't have the means. Boaz had the means as well as the will. He was a mighty man of wealth, both to buy this extra estate, and then he could afford buying it to marry Ruth so that their son should inherit in the name of the other family. So that was good, and it speaks its message to us at once. As to inheritance, yes, we once were strangers, weren't we, from Israel's inheritance, but we have our own Gentile inheritance, our hereditary, our persons, everything that is summed up by the thing they put on us, our name, Mary or George or whatever it is.
That unique personality, there's not another you in the whole universe. Given you of God, but broken, broken by sin. Is there any hope for it? Are we old Gentiles? Yes, there is hope. That the Savior, Messiah of the Jews, has come and preached peace to us who were afar off, as well as them that are nigh. And in Christ, we both receive an inheritance, and if you please, are made an inheritance.
Yes? What does that mean? Well, Christ, becoming human, stands with us and has paid the purchase price to redeem us, body, soul, and spirit, to redeem us, and not only to redeem us in the sense of forgiving our sins, but one day to redeem our very bodies and change them like the body of his glory. And all the evil results of a sinful heredity and broken will be gone forever. This will be like him. But there's more than that even to it, isn't there? You'll see this matter of our name, maintaining the name.
It wasn't enough for Mary to, um, sell the land and let Boaz buy it. Well, that would have kept the land in the extended family, but Nani would still have felt, yes, but at least it is it was, you see. I and my husband have been failures, and all the village will know we had to sell up, couldn't make a go of it. And there's a shame in it, isn't there? So she hit upon the trick. She could see which way the wind was blowing and how it would work. And so she sent, uh, Ruth down to Boaz of the night.
She was to lay at his feet. She was to say to him, spread your, your cloak above me. Uh, you are my near kinsman. In other words, redeem me. And so Boaz, growing in with the idea, came to the elders at the gate, and he said, now Naomi is selling a piece of land. I'm not the nearest of kin, you, sir, are the nearest of kin. Would you like to buy it? He said, yes, I'll buy it, you see. Ah, but then they'd arrange this between themselves. Naomi had put on this extra condition. Uh, the condition of your being able to buy it is this, and if you don't fulfill the condition, I shan't sell it.
So now I sell it if you are prepared to acquire rooms and marry her in the levirate tradition, so that your son will take the name of the other family. Will you do that? And the man said, no, I can't. I should mar my own inheritance. But Boaz was prepared to do it. And what a wise old woman Naomi was. She sold the estate and thus kept it. Didn't she know? She sold it out of the family and kept it in the family. You know you can't do that to these women. When they decide upon a course of action, you'll see, why, that was clever, wasn't it?
What ho. What part else of business could you sell a thing and keep it at the same time? But she did. She sold out to Boaz. But Boaz, in the marvelous goodness of his heart, took root. And their son kept the name of the original family, Go. Oh, what a story. I heard of a man in the far outback of Australia once, and he was a rough, rough man indeed. In the difficult old days, he went up and he took a part of the forest to fell as they had to do in those horrible days.
They got so much money for killing, uh, for clearing so much acreage of forest, you see. And there were penalties if they didn't do it in the right time. Well, this man got worried about his soul and eventually came to the preacher trying to get it across how Christ could save him. But this poor chap, being a hu- a uddering great fellow, but not very bright perhaps, he couldn't get hold of this business of salvation. So the evangelist said, well, tell me, old chap, if you had taken a part of the forest from the government to, to, to clear, for God to enjoy, and then he'll write his name on us as well.
Magnificent story, isn't it? At the level of salvation. So, so far we've had two levels. The level of the sheer historical and practical groundwork. First level of actual people who lived those three thousand years ago. And then we have watched how the institutions through which, uh, Naomi was restored, the whole business of inheritance and maintaining the name, and we've seen how that is a picture, a prototype, if you like, of the great redemption that is in Christ. Yeah. And what happens in salvation initially should happen all the way along.
Well, that's another story. Perhaps let's come to it a, a little later. The third. And here, oh, if I wish this had been a Bible reading, not a, a, a talk, uh, do you see, for then I could have picked your brain. But let's step back a little bit and remind ourselves that when the story is about Naomi, her initial going away to Moab and her dereliction and bereavement left absolutely desperate and hopeless Mamie, the girl from Judah, the Israelites.
And we found in our first session that the key to her restoration was not just Boaz. It was without Ruth, Boaz couldn't have done what he did for Naomi. So it was Ruth the Gentile that was the key to the restoration of Naomi, the Israelite, wasn't it? And you will see how the story emphasizes that all the way along the line, the Gentile conversion, coming to believe in the God of Israel, becoming thereby devoted to Israel, and then his maintenance and the family's maintenance, gleaning to support them.
And when the only way to, uh, uh, have them redeemed in the inheritance saved and the name maintained was that the Gentiles should marry Boaz, she was prepared to give up any other chance she had with the younger men. And as Boaz said, you've not followed the younger men, you've followed me to marry these older men. Ah. Um, what was taught for? Is in her. loyalty to the dead, in her loyalty to that Israelite family, to raise up the name of the dead on their inheritance. And when finally redeemed, you see, and uh, she married, and the the the land redeemed, her child was counted Naomi's child.
What should we make of that? I want to suggest it is only a suggestion, and if you find it horrible, uh, then, uh, uh, have mercy upon me and think up some scene for rescuing you show me. Uh, but, um, uh, let's begin at any rate by noticing that very frequently in Holy Scripture, the nation of Israel in general, and Jerusalem in particular, are talked of in the, uh, in the figure of a woman. Notably in the prophecy of Isaiah, but elsewhere.
Zion, a woman, the rest of her children. Then shalt thou say in thine heart, who has begotten me these? When at last the great redeemer comes and brings the children back. She shall say, who has begotten me these, seeing I have been bereaved of my children and am solitary and in exile and wandering to and fro. And this is not any particular one Israelite speaking. It is the nation personified in the form of a woman, and Jerusalem city personified in the form of a woman.
Like we might say, Britannia and her children. But Britannia is not any particular woman. Don't confuse her with Margaret Thatcher or anybody, nor, nor even the Queen. Uh, Britannia is a personification of the nation, yes? So when our Lord was here on earth, he said, oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often would I have gathered your children together? What if, and I put it no more strongly, what if Mammy becomes to us a prophecy, a prototype, a prophetic prototype with the nation on?
Her husband once believed most strongly that God was their king. Now God is my king, therefore Israel stood for. But see the nation wandering sorrowfully and in exile. It happened, of course, in, uh, uh, the time of of the exile under Nebuchadnezzar and earlier under the Assyrians, didn't it? It happened also from AD seventy onwards, and even more so from AD one hundred and thirty onwards. The nation that stood for its belief that God is king in the earth, scattered abroad, with apparently no hope.
And what next? And what is the story of the recovery? Is Israel gone forever? Oh, God forbid. God forbid. Israel shall be restored. But the program? While Israel was all a dithering, there came the Gentile and came to believe not just in any old God, you know. I used to tell my good Jewish friend here in the city, I would say often, my boy, uh, you know, I don't believe just in any old God. I believe in the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob.
There's a conversion for you. The Gentiles come in their thousands and millions to believe on the God of Israel. And true conversion, my brothers, makes true Christians devoted for to the maintenance of Israel. Alas for those misguided notions that thought that the church replaced Israel and that Israel was gone forever. That is not true. That has been the source of much scandal. Paul in Romans nine, ten, and eleven warns us Gentiles not to be high-minded.
It was through Israel's fall that the gospel came. It was by Elimelech and Naomi being forced out and coming among the Gentiles that Ruth first heard and came to believe more firmly than Naomi did, and devoted herself to the preservation of Israel, came to love. And then there was Israel's boy. And it was Ruth the Gentile that was joined to him. Yes. Isn't that marvelous?
That has been done all this Gentile period. The Gentiles brought in, and to use the term that Paul uses in Romans, married to another. What should it lead to? It should lead eventually to the restoration of Israel, yes? For if we may now follow Ruth as she is on the threshing floor with Boaz, they're talking about the coming day, when in the light of the day, in the dawn of the great day, he shall come and perform his redemption and publicly own Ruth as his wife and bride.
And that he did, of course, before the whole nation. And then, as a result, accepted gladly the offspring of the union of Boaz and Ruth as her redeemer. Did you notice what the women said? Not Boaz, they said, this Obed shall be for you a restorer of life and the narrator of your own end. Ah, yes, that's a finished story. In all their sad wanderings. Ah, but it's their fall, their wandering, their exile has been the bringing of the sa- uh, salvation, the riches to the Gentiles.
And the Gentiles have come to know the Jew Jesus as their Messiah, their now kinsman redeemer. When he comes and publicly acknowledges us and fulfills the redemption of our very bodies, and the marriage supper of the Lamb takes place, it shall lead to the restoration of Israel in her old age. Ponder it, my brethren, you may think it's extravagant and nonsense. Uh, if you do, be so kind as eventually to tell me in a civilized fashion. But ponder it.
It could be right. And finally, from a practical point of view, and now we come down practical to ourselves. We started off practical for the ancients. You'll see. We talked then at the level of salvation. We talked at the level of prophecy. May it not be that this story has for us also a lesson once more at the level of our history? Our history as the people of God.
Our history in our churches. You'll see we have a tremendous inheritance, don't we? Now I'm talking not about Jewish history, but our own Christian history, and you and I in particular. It's not only my personal heritage and what I inherited that way in my redemption, but what a magnificent inheritance I have among the people of God, yes? The scriptures to start with. And all the benefit of Israel's example. And then the New Testament, peculiarly the Christian thing.
And then when it was lost, you think of the generations, then the great reformation, what we do owe to Luther and company of Calvin. And then the Baptist movement. Recovering the idea of a gathered church as distinct from a church that is a mixture of believers and unbelievers. Baptism of believers, in other words, in a gathered church. You didn't invent that idea, did you? You inherited it, didn't you? And then the great evangelical awakening, the, the, the Wesleys and the Whitfields.
Wow, we owe our debt to them, don't we, every time we sing their delightful hymns. The need of personal regeneration and not just formal theology. And then the principle of the autonomy of the church. I didn't invent it, I don't know if you did. I inherited it, and inherited it via the apostles, of course, but in more recent history from the congregations, didn't I? Who stood for the principle of the autonomy of each local church in fellowship with others, but their autonomy, and went to America to escape the persecution that they suffered for taking their stand on that principle.
What an inheritance we do have, not to mention men of more recent times, the Mackintoshes and the Dobbs and the Kays and various others of this world. And now we're here. My brother, my sister, what have you done with your inheritance? I thank God for those noble men and women that went before me. How little I have personally learned, that's mostly ninety nine point nine percent got from them, you know.
What have we done with it? Maintaining it? Or could it happen sometimes, like a limonene, we find the theory doesn't work, and there comes a fact, and the old doctrines somehow lose their grip, and we wander and feel there's no future. Could happen, couldn't it?
What shall we do then? First of all, the book of Ruth comes as a tremendous encouragement to me. But when Elimelech, whoever, wherever the blame lied, or perhaps there's no blame at all, it's one of those things that happened. Or when it landed Naomi in utter seemingly hopelessness and helplessness, with no children to carry on, and no hope for the future. God was there. And the God who started it all in the early generations with Perez and people like that, and Abraham before him. God was going to carry on with us.
And God restored. All praise God, that's the first and major, and it will be the last answer. You don't have to keep a movement going, you know. It's God that brings the revival, isn't it? And God that will do the restoring. It was God that raised up Gideon and Jephthah, and you said when the enemy came, make us a king. No, don't say that. It was God that raised up these men, the Lucers and the Calvins and the Whitfields and the rest of them.
And what God has done in the past, God can do and will do again. They're number one. There's a subjective side to it, isn't there? When you get as old as me, you see. And the gap between the generations gets immense. Then you are find, uh, trying to find this story full of charm. Who converted Ruth? Because she was the key to the restoration of Naomi. Who did? And what was it?
Well, God started in the most unlikely place, with a heathen guy, and he was now just saying, oh, things are so far gone. You go back here. You're God. What? Ah. Can't God convert even after all? Can't God do again what he did in the past when he called Abram out of the sheer idolatry of heathendom. God did it with Ruth, and in spite of man is well meant this time, he passed to see in her vigorous belief in God.
Oh, may God do it again in our day and generation. And then God give us young folks like Ruth. Oh, what a wonderful woman she was. She didn't sit at home with Naomi and say, you brought me back here with all these narrow-minded doctrines, and there's nothing for me here. I don't get anything out of this. This is a poverty-stricken place, man. In fact, you don't know. She said, one bite more. Uh, uh, I fall off, let me go glean. Let me go gleaning.
Devoted to the people of God. Do you know conversion, if it's true conversion, will mean that? Conversion to God means loving the people of God and devoting your life to the people of God. You can't have a public testimony without some Kellogg's cornflakes to keep you alive. All the young men and women that are prepared to say, I put my back in it for the sake of these elderly, elderly, curious people of God, but I love them because they're Christ's. And I'm prepared to work hard to maintain them. Let me go gleaning.
I tell you, if you've never tried it, it's hard work is gleaning. Don't you read any romance into this. What, under a burning sun and nose to knees. Wow, did that break anybody's back and heart. And she went gleaning. And it was as she gleaned that, uh, she first came to the notice of the great Boaz. He didn't let on to start with. He began to take it seriously, though, didn't he? Be interesting to know where it all started, wouldn't it, man? Dulce. When did he first take notice of you, your husband? And when did the Lord start to take you seriously.
Though Ayers began to take Ruth seriously, when she started to go gleaming in devotion to her mother-in-law and the people of God, so as to maintain them. At lunchtime, he called her, encouraged her, uh, uh, come and sit, and he gave her some food to eat, and he told the foreman to let out handfuls of purples. He didn't say what some romantic gentleman would have said. Now, Ruth dear, said he worked really, my dear, so after lunch you go back and I'll send a whole sack full of stuff round. No.
After lunch, you let the woman go back to work hard. Oh, God, give us some young men and women that are prepared to work hard. Oh, God save us from the notion of some old people that young people can't take too rigorous doctrine. They can take physics, and they can take computers, and they can take God's word. And be, uh, food in Boaz's palms so as to maintain themselves and the people of God.
And then, not only devoted to the people of God, but devoted to the Lord Jesus. Given all the other attractions of the younger men, Ruth was prepared to say no to that and submit to marriage with Boaz, old as he was and old fashioned perhaps as they thought. Oh, I know you talk about the lovely Lord Jesus. Doesn't always appear like that to some of us, does it? And the world has its many attractions for the young. Oh, but cannot God raise up younger men and women that will decide that they're going to live, their ambition is to live for Christ.
God will reward them. But, uh, Ruth made her decision when to believe God and be devoted to his people seemed to be a dead end in life, getting nowhere. She would have remained a spinster for the rest of her days. God had other plans, but he honored her faith, didn't he? He gave herself to be married to elderly Boaz for the sake of God's people and the maintaining of the name. And how we could do with folks again. They could have a Ruth-like experience and know what it is, so to speak, to lie on the floor of the threshing chamber overnight and discuss with Christ the wonders that he will do when the morning dawns and the marriage supper of the Lamb takes place.
And the wonder of being part of the bride of Christ and to see his schemes for the restoration of Israel and the blessing of the world. And to know that we have a part. Live for God and his people, live for Christ, talked with Christ about his coming intentions of redemption of Israel and the world, and by his grace had a part therein. All these are not fairy stories, and what happened in Bruce Day and happened in many a generation since, we are to believe that God could do still in our day and generation to keep the name of the coming Messiah upon his inheritance.
When he comes, yes, Israel will be vindicated. It will be Israel's God that is proved to be the true God, won't it? And it is Jesus the Jew whose names will be read out. The lion of the tribe of Judah has prevailed to open the book. And I'll catch you later. But then this could be one of those other occasions, couldn't it? And through this inspired word and by God's spirit, we have sat on the threshing floor and talked with Christ about what Christ is intending to do still in our world and in the future for the blessing of his.
Shall we pray? God, we pray now thou wilt help us in our study of this thy word. We perceive the many strands and patterns in it and the various levels of its meaning. We praise thee for its wealth. This too is thy signature upon the page of thy word. Not some dull brown paper, but the rich, sophisticated tapestry of the inspired revelation of God. We praise thee for its riches.
It speaks to our minds, more so it speaks to our hearts and speaks to our spirits. We thank thee that these are no insubstantial things. We hear them as the true sayings of God, and they cause our hope to di- to ri- rise up again and our spirits to rejoice. Oh God, give us to see in our old age the continuance of thy work among the younger people, that they may be grow up valiant men and women of God in their gen- generation, to carry the torch of the great inheritance until the Lord comes, and the final and glorious purposes of God be fully demonstrated before heaven and earth.
So bless us and take us home now safely, we pray, through Jesus Christ our Lord.
