The Love of Boaz

This is a love story. And we have looked in chapter one and discovered Ruth's love for her mother-in-law, Naomi. Chapter two, we're going to discover the love of Boaz for Ruth. Chapter three, Ruth's love for Boaz, and chapter four, everybody's love for a little baby that was born. All kinds of love in the book of Ruth.

And the amazing thing is that the book of Ruth takes place during the period of the judges, and you don't find much love in the book of Judges. You find murder. You find brother fighting against brother. You find idolatry. You find anarchy, every man doing that which was right in his own eyes, but you don't find much love. But you do in Ruth.

And behind and beneath and within all of this human love is God's love. "We love because he first loved us." And God loved Naomi and Ruth, and so he disciplined them in love to bring them to Bethlehem. And God loved Ruth and guided her to the right field. And just all through this book, you see the loving hand of God. And that encourages me.

I don't know what your concept of God is. When I was at the Moody Church in Chicago, it was my privilege to teach the college class, that is all the students from Moody Bible Institute and Northwestern Medical School and any of the other schools in Chicago, and we had several hundred of these students meeting together.

And we were going through the Sermon on the Mount, and we came to the Lord's Prayer, and so I spent a lesson period discussing with the students "our Father." And after the class was ended, a student came up to me and he said, "God is our father?"

I said, "Yes, if Jesus is your Savior."

And he looked at me and said, "If God is like my father, I'm not interested," and turned and walked away.

I don't know what his father was like, but I know what my Father in heaven is like. My Bible says "God is love." I feel sorry for people who tiptoe through life like slaves hiding from a master, instead of walking boldly through life and saying, "My Heavenly Father loves me. My neighbors may not like me, my relatives may not want me, but there's a God in heaven who loves me." That's the book of Ruth.

In chapter one, we saw how Naomi made some bad decisions. First, she lost her faith and tried to run from her problems. She left the famine land of Bethlehem and went to Moab, and there she watched them dig three graves: one for her husband and two graves for her two sons.

That left her with two daughters-in-law, and and she made a second mistake. She not only lost her faith, but she lost her hope. She said, "I have no hope for the future. Why should you girls go back with me?" And so, Orpah went back to Moab and worshiped idols, and Ruth said, "I'm going with you. I love you, and more than that, I've been converted. Your God is my God."

And then Ruth went with Naomi, and on the way, we read that Naomi got bitter. She lost her love. Faith, hope, and love, that's what keeps life going. Faith, hope, and love. You lose any one of those, and life becomes miserable. You want to make your life miserable? Just do what Naomi did. She tried to run away from her problems, lost her faith.

Then she tried to cover her mistakes, and lost her hope. And then she got bitter against God, and she lost her love. Life is too short to be bitter against anybody. Not worth it. If you're going to have an enemy, pick a good one. They're very expensive.

But now in chapter two, something is going to happen. You'll notice at the end of chapter one that they arrived at Bethlehem at the beginning of the barley harvest. This is, oh, about the middle of April through May. I like that word "beginning." The chapter ends with the word "beginning." God brought these two widows back to Bethlehem for a beginning.

Now, the barley harvest was a special time, because the priest would go into the harvest field and take the first fruits and offer them up to God. They had the feast of the first fruits during this barley harvest. And the first fruits speaks of the resurrection. Christ is the first fruits. And so we're moving from chapter one, which was filled with death, to chapter two, a new beginning, first fruits, resurrection.

By the way, if you're a Christian, you're not living in the cemetery, you're living on resurrection ground. Some of the saints look like they're living in the cemetery. "Why seek ye the living among the dead?" We're not living in in in in the cemetery. We are living on resurrection ground, because Christ the first fruits has been raised on our behalf.

Now in chapter two, there's not a good deal about Naomi. The focus is on Ruth. You see, Naomi is bitter. She said, "Don't call me Naomi, that means pleasant. I'm not pleasant, I'm bitter. Call me Mara," which is from myrrh. And myrrh was a a spice, a balm, that was very bitter. It was used for embalming. Of course she'd been through three funerals, and she was bitter. Don't let the disappointments and the heartaches of life make you bitter. I'll tell you how it works: when your heart is broken and cut, and you don't let the Lord Jesus heal those wounds, they fester, and then you get bitter, and then you lose your joy, you lose your faith, God can't use you.

So, God said, "Naomi, you just sit there for a while. I'm going to use Ruth." But wait a minute, Ruth hasn't been saved very long. That's usually what God does. If it were not for the new converts in our churches, I don't know what would get get done. In fact, one of the best things that can happen to a church is to have a steady stream of new babies coming into the church family to remind the rest of us of what we ought to be doing. It's good for us. A new Christian comes along and says, "You know, why do you do this?"

"Well, we've always done that."

"Well, I don't find it in the Bible."

"Oh, well, but we've always done it that way."

"Well, why do you do something that's not in the Bible?"

"Oh, I don't know."

Isn't it good when your children ask you questions? And so God says, "I'm going to use Ruth. She's not been saved too long, but I'm going to use her."

And you'll notice in in Ruth 2:1, 2, and 3, he uses Ruth's faith. See, Naomi lost her faith, and ran away. But here in Ruth 2:1-3, we have an evidence of faith. "There was a relative of Naomi's husband, a man of great wealth, of the family of Elimelech. His name was Boaz."

Now nowhere in the New Testament that I know of are we told that Ruth is a picture of the church and Boaz is a picture of Jesus. So I won't call this a type, but it's a beautiful illustration. Nowhere in the New Testament are we told that Joseph is a type of the Lord Jesus, but he's a magnificent illustration of the Lord Jesus. So here's Boaz coming on the scene.

"So Ruth the Moabitess said to Naomi, 'Please let me go to the field.'" Seven times in this chapter, you're going to find one word repeated: field, field, field, field. Naomi's sitting in the house. Ruth says, "I want to go to the field."

What are you doing? What are you doing? The Lord says, "My table is full, but my fields are empty." I'm privileged to serve on the board of The Evangelical Alliance Mission right now. As I stand before you, we need over 600 people right now. Where are they? Oh, we can find short-termers. That's fine. We need some long-termers. And our board is just one of many. There's a desperate need right now for someone to say, "Let me go to the field and glean heads of grain after him in whose sight I may find favor."

"And she said to her, 'Go, my daughter.'" Now, in the previous chapter, she said, "Go back." But now Naomi is starting to get her perspectives right, and she says, "Go. Go to the field, Ruth. Go." "Then she left, and went and gleaned in the field after the reapers. And she happened to come to the part of the field belonging to Boaz, who was of the family of Elimelech."

Now, these three verses illustrate faith. Faith, first of all, because she wanted to go and glean. Now, how did she know she could do this? What right did she have, a foreigner, that's bad enough, from Moab, that's worse, and a widow? You must remember that widows were kind of a special clan back in that day. There were no government agencies to take care of the widow. And so here she was, a woman in a man's society, a widow in a family society, and a foreigner in a Jewish society. She says, "I'm going to go to the field and glean. We have to have some food." How did she know she could do that?

The word told her. When you read Leviticus 19, and when you read Leviticus 23, and Deuteronomy 24, you find a law like this. Moses said, "When you harvest your fields, or when you harvest your grapes, or your trees, don't complete the harvest. Leave the corners of the field for the poor. Don't go back and pick up everything. Don't be cheap. Think of the widow, think of the fatherless, and think of the stranger."

Now, God wrote that in the law, because when you read the Old Testament, you discover God has a very special love for widows, and for orphans, and for strangers. In fact, several times in the law, he says to the Jews, "Don't you be hard on the visitors. If somebody from another land comes to Israel, don't you be hard on the strangers. Don't forget, you were once a stranger back in Egypt. So you be kind to them."

So, how did she know by faith she could go into the fields and glean? The Bible told her. Did you know that anything the Bible tells you to do, you can do by faith? "Faith comes by hearing," and what? "Hearing by the word of God." And so if the word of God tells me to do something, I can say, "Father, by faith, I'm going to do this." And she said to Naomi, "Can I go out and glean?" And Naomi said, "Go ahead and go. The law gives you the right. The word of God gives you the privilege. Go ahead and go."

It's interesting that faith always leads to works. She didn't sit there and say, "Well, I believe that that's a good law. I believe that that gleaning is a marvelous thing, and I just praise Jehovah that he made a wonderful rule for gleaning." You'd starve to death doing that. She said, "I believe, and I'm going to go out and do it." "Faith without works is" what? "Dead." And they would have been dead if she had not gone out to work.

Now there's a new word that comes into our vocabulary in Ruth 2:2. It's the word "favor" or "grace." She said, "I'm going to go out and find grace. There's there's bound to be some landowner out there." You must remember they did not have fences and signs. There were no arrows pointing with a neon light flashing saying, "This way to the field of Boaz." No.

They had a great, big field, and they had little markers put for the different parts of the field that belonged to different people. And you did not move these landmarks. That's one of the things you just didn't do. They were there. She didn't know Boaz existed. She didn't know that there was a field out there that belonged to Boaz.

But as she, by faith, obeyed the word of God, you know what happened? God led her. You know why God doesn't lead some of you? You aren't moving. Ever try to steer a car in neutral? You know, people come to me and say, "I want to know the will of God." Well, that's no mystery. God God wants us to know his will. We've had the privilege of raising four children, and whenever they wanted to know what we wanted, we could tell them. The trouble was sometimes they didn't want to know. Or if they wanted to know, they weren't sure they wanted to do.

When she stepped out and took that first step of faith, God began to lead her, and unbeknownst to her she arrived in the section of the field that belonged to Boaz. You want God's guidance in your life? Just start obeying him. You say, "I don't know what to do." Then do what you do know what to do. Obey the next thing God wants you to do, and you take that step, and he'll give you the next step.

"Your word is a lamp unto my feet, a light unto my path." It's not a spotlight that shines for 18 miles. And as you take another step, you see the next part of the path. Faith, God guided her. Now I'm speaking right now to somebody who is wondering about the next step. Just do what God wants you to do. Take the next step, and then he'll show you the next step, and then then he'll show you the next step.

And other people entered into her decisions. Naomi gave her counsel, Boaz gave her counsel. I thank God for the counsel of Christian friends. It's been my privilege to pastor 1, 2, 3 churches and to work on the staff of two parachurch ministries, and to be the chairman of the board of a mission agency, and now to serve on a board of a mission organization. And so, I've had just a little bit of experience in some of these things. I've come to an interesting conclusion: I don't think God always gives one person the whole story of his will for the future.

When I was at Back to the Bible, I'd get our staff together and say, "Folks, I'm not sure about all we're supposed to do. Now, I'm sure about this, and I'm sure about this." And somebody will say, "Well, here's what the Lord's been saying to me." I'd say, "Well, that fits right here." And somebody else says, "Well, here's the burden of my heart." I'd say, "Well, that fits right here." You know, if one person had all the answers, he'd be a dangerous person.

I think the will of God is like those little picture puzzles I put together with with my grandchildren. And they do it faster than I do. One member of the board has a piece of the puzzle, and somebody else has a piece of the puzzle, and when you get together and you pray and you search the word of God, one by one these pieces come together. That's what keeps the devil mad. He doesn't know which one of us to chase. If one person had all the pieces of the puzzle, oh my, that would be dangerous.

And so the Lord just leads us a step at a time, a piece at a time. Don't be afraid. Just live a day at a time. The whole universe runs a day at a time. Everything in the world that God made lives a day at a time, except people. They try to cram a week into every day. And it doesn't work. Faith, she obeyed the word of God.

Now this leads to love. In Ruth 2:4, "Now behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem and said to the reapers, 'The Lord be with you.'" Isn't that great to have a boss like that? "The Lord be with you." "And they answered him, 'The Lord bless you.'" Great to have employees like that. "Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity."

It's like the oil that went down on Aaron's head, and came down on his beard, and when it left its be his beard, it covered up the breastplate that he was wearing, the the ephod that had the 12 stones. And here you had the 12 stones, all bathed in the oil. It's kind of a picture of the unity of the Holy Spirit. Oh, it's a blessed thing when when your pastor can come to the church and say, "The Lord be with you," and the whole congregation says, "And the Lord bless you."

Here's a good man. Now these are tough days. Remember, this happens during Judges, when you've got all sorts of terrible things going on. I don't want to name the things that went on in the book of Judges. But every time you turned on the news, it was bad. But here is a good man in bad days. Sometimes we get the idea that there are no good people left. We read the papers, we hear about scandals and one thing or another, and we say, "Well, the church is gone down the drain, and there are no good people."

I call this the Elijah complex. It's the way Elijah was. Jezebel sent him a a night letter and said, "If you don't get out, I'm going to kill you." So he ran. He ran. And he asked God to kill him. Now if he'd wanted to die, Jezebel would have taken care of it. He didn't want to die. He just was self-pity. We all do this. Sit and lick our wounds, have a spiritual autopsy, prop up the mirror and sit and look at ourselves, and tell ourselves what a bad situation we're in. Finally he says, "I'm the only one left. There are no other expositors of the word left. There are no more biblical teachers left. I'm the last one left." Later on God said, "I got 7,000 just like you haven't bowed the knee to Baal."

David had that problem. Read Psalm 12 someday. David cries out and says, "Hear me, oh Lord. Faithful men have ceased from the earth." Really? Watch out when you talk like that. Here's a good man in a bad time, a fellow named Boaz. He was a blessing to his employees, and he was a blessing to the people, and he got to be a blessing to this beautiful girl named Ruth. He shows up on the scene, and he's concerned about strangers. He knows what the law says. The law says you be kind to strangers, and he's going to obey the law.

"Then Boaz said to a servant who was in charge of the reapers, 'Whose young woman is this?'" Oh, he didn't ask about the harvest. He didn't ask what the grain market was getting that day. He saw this girl. You know what happened? His heart went flip-flop, and he fell in love. Fell in love. Who is she? Well, he knew who she was. She'd been there all morning. She'd gotten up early and gone out, and she'd asked. He tells us about that. "So the servant who was in charge of the reapers answered and said, 'It's the young Moabite woman who came back with Naomi from the country of Moab.'" Oh, the whole whole city knew about this. "And she said, 'Please let me glean and gather after the reapers among the sheaves.'"

Oh, I like that. Friends, be courteous. I sat at a convention a few years ago and listened to a young man froth at the mouth about we need to get angry. No. There's a difference between anger and anguish. You know what the difference is? Love. My Lord had anguish. That's anger mixed with love. Jeremiah had anguish. We're not going to convert the enemy with anger. Be courteous. Ruth didn't show up and say, "Well, I'm a Moabitess, and I'm a foreigner, but your law says I can do this. So, get out of my way." That's what some of us would have done. She didn't do that. She was courteous. She just came and said, "Please, would you mind if I did some gleaning and gathering?"

Daniel was this way. They They served Daniel his first meal when he'd gotten to the foreign land, Babylon, and he couldn't eat it. It had been offered to idols, and it was the kind of menu a Jewish boy couldn't eat. And so he didn't throw the tray on the ground, on the floor, and break all the glasses and snarl at the waiter and say, "Don't bring me that filthy stuff." I've seen things like that happen in restaurants with people who were trying to be spiritual. You know what Daniel said? He said, "Please, I don't want to get you into trouble.

Now, if I want to get myself into trouble, that's my business. I have no right to get you in trouble. You've got your orders. You're told what to do. I can't get you into trouble. I can get myself into trouble. Now, would you perform an experiment with me? Would you try my diet for a while, let's see if it works. Doesn't work, we haven't lost a thing." Well, it worked. Is it any wonder why the people loved Daniel? Why they loved Ruth? They're courteous.

I was flying out to Boston to be with John DeBrine at a conference. And as usual at O'Hare Field, we had some delays. They put us on the plane, and then there were some problems. So, they had to rush us all as quickly as possible two or three gates up the road, up the hall, to get on another plane.

But there were already people on that plane, so you couldn't take your seating. And there was one man who had a first-class seat, and there were no first-class seats left. Oh, was he angry! And he took the the gate agent and reamed him out royally. It was pitiful, and the fellow just took it. And finally, the man went in and sat down, in the only seat left, and off we went. I think I checked into the motel, at the hotel, about 1:30 in the morning by the time we got there.

Well, so happens a few days later, I'm back at O'Hare Field. Here's that same agent. Same fellow. I went up to him. I said, "Sir, I want to thank you for what you did last Thursday." He said, "What did I do?"

I said, "I was on that delayed flight to Boston, and that fellow dragged you out and chewed you out," and I said, "I just want to tell you thank you. You were a great example. You took it. You didn't argue. And that's what makes it nice for those of us who do a lot of flying, people like you."

He said, "Stay right here." So I stayed right there. He disappeared. He came back. He handed me two envelopes. He said, "Thanks. I needed that." So off I went. Opened the envelopes, here were two $50 deduction certificates just for being nice. She was courteous.

"So she came and has continued from morning until now, though she rested a little in the house." You do have to rest occasionally. I can still hear Vance Havner say, "You better come apart and rest awhile, or you'll come apart." I have some spiritual friends who have no time for days off. No time to tune up the instrument, no time to spend with the children, no time to talk to their wives. They're They're busy in the Lord's work. She rested. Jesus rested. "Come apart and rest a while."

But now I've got to get to the love story. So, Boaz now speaks to Ruth. He's in love with her. Love at first sight. And he says to her in Ruth 2:8, "Then Boaz said to Ruth, 'You will listen, my daughter?'" First, he gets her ear. "Listen to me." That's what the Lord Jesus wants. He wants my ear. Throughout the Gospels, you hear him saying, "If you have ears to hear, hear. Listen." In Matthew, Mark, and Luke, the emphasis is on the ears: "Hear, hear, hear." In John, it's on the eyes: "See, see, see." "Do not go to glean in another field, nor go from here, but stay close to my young women."

You see, he loves her, and because he loves her, he speaks to her. How do I know God loves me? He talks to me. Oh, I don't hear voices. I'd be frightened if I did. I don't see visions. But when I open this book, God opens his mouth. And I don't just open anywhere. I I meet these people who treat the Bible like some kind of a magic book, you know, sort of a religious roulette kind of a thing. I don't do that. That's foolish. I just read the word consist— I read it like I read any other book.

Just keep reading and keep reading. It's amazing how every day God says to me just what I need. How does he show his love to us? He talks to us. How does he show his love to us? He guides us. He says, "Now here's where I want you to go."

Back in 1948, I got fed up with being a student at Indiana University on scholarship and the Lord directed me to go to seminary. And I had never been away from home too much. I was the baby of our family. My mother sort of hovered over me. And I was only 40 miles away from home, in Chicago. My home was in East Chicago, Indiana.

And I remember my dad drove me up with my desk lamp and my books and all the things I needed, and I went into my little room, and sat at my little table, and I felt like a monk in a cell, and I was lonely. I had not been away from home very much. I was lonely.

And I'd bought myself a brand-new Bible. And I said, "Now, Lord, I'm starting a course that's going to take a long time, and I don't know a whole lot. I've only been saved three years, and I don't know a whole lot, and so I want you to give me a promise I can hold onto all of my life. Now, I know this book is full of them, but I don't know where they are." And he did.

I opened my Bible, began to read in the book of Psalms, and I got to Psalm 16:11, and the trumpets blew, and the lights came on! "Thou wilt show me the path of life. In thy presence is fullness of joy. At thy right hand there are pleasures forevermore." And I've lived on that verse now all these years. It works. He shows us the path of life. Because he loves me, he talks to me; because he loves me, he guides me; because he loves me, he provides for me.

Ruth 2:9: "Let your eyes be on the field which they reap, and go after them. Have I not commanded the young men not to touch you? And when you are thirsty, go to the vessels and drink from what the young men have drawn." Hold it! In Israel, the foreigners drew the water. That was their job. If you were a foreigner, you want to live in our land, you draw the water and carry the wood. But here we have a foreigner, and they're drawing the water for her. That's love. In love, he spoke to her. In love, he directed her. In love, he protected her. He said, "Nobody's going to touch you." In love, he provided for her. Not just water, but down in Ruth 2:14, food.

"Now Boaz said to her at mealtime, 'Come here and eat of the bread, and dip your piece of bread into the vinegar.' So she sat beside the reapers." She didn't go sit next to him. He would have liked that. But she knew her place. She knew her place. "And he passed parched grain to her, and she ate and was satisfied, and she kept some back." She kept it back for Naomi.

You know one of the best ways to test character is to see what people do with privileges? Responsibilities are not a test of very much. Anybody can carry a responsibility. Not everybody can carry privileges. She's the only gleaner, the only gleaner in the field who had the privilege of sitting with the boss and his crew. And then the boss hands her special food! You know the first thing is that she does? She says to herself, "My mother-in-law'd like to have some of this." And so she took enough for herself and for her mother-in-law. What do you do when you have privileges? Do you think about other people?

And so he spoke to her, and he guided her, and he gave her food, and he gave her water, and he protected her, and he said, "Come up here and sit with me." Remember now, she's a foreigner. I was a foreigner once. Probably you were, too, unless you're Jewish. According to Ephesians 2:11, all of us Gentiles were foreigners. We were foreigners from the nation of Israel. We were aliens from the covenants and the promises.

God never gave any covenants to Moab. You know what he said about Moab? "Moab is my wash pot." That's where I throw my garbage. God never gave any laws to Moab, or promises to Moab. But, you know Boaz said, "Would you come up here and sit with me?" "But I'm a foreigner."

There's an interesting interesting play on words in Ruth 2:10. "So she fell on her face, bowed down to the ground, and said to him, 'Why have I found favor in your eyes that you should take notice of me, since I am a foreigner?'" There's a there's a kind of a play on words in the Hebrew. We could translate it into the English language something like this: "Why are you showing respect to a reject?" That's what it means.

But I was that way, according to Ephesians 2. God never gave me any covenants. God never gave me any promises. I was an alien from everything God gave to Israel. But he took this foreigner and said, "Come up here and sit with me." He raised me out of the grave, lifted me up, gave me life, and said, "I want you to be seated with my Son in the heavenlies." That's what happened to Ruth.

In Ruth 2:11, "Boaz answered and said to her, 'It has been fully reported to me all that you have done for your mother-in-law.'" What's that got to do with anything? Aren't you supposed to be kind to your mother-in-law? Yes. But remember now, this is important. She, Ruth, was not a Jew. Naomi was a Jew. God made a promise to Abraham, saying, "Those who bless you, I will bless." Ruth blessed Naomi. Ruth loved Naomi. A Gentile loved a Jew. A Gentile cared for a Jew.

And God looked down and said, "I can bless that girl. Because I made a promise that if they bless the Jews, I'll bless them." And so, Boaz says, "You have been a blessing to Naomi, a Jewess. And so, we're going to be a blessing to you." "Pray for the peace of Jerusalem. They shall prosper who love you." "For your mother-in-law since the death of your husband, and how you have left your father and mother and the land of your birth, and have come to a people whom you did not know before."

Now, Ruth 2:12 is such a beautiful verse: "The Lord repay your work, and a full reward be given you by the Lord God of Israel." She would never have gotten that if she'd gone back to Moab. "Under whose wings you have come for refuge." Now, that's usually pictured as the little chicks running under the wings of the mother hen, or the eaglets under the wings of the eagle, and and both of those pictures are in the Old Testament, but I don't think that's what it is. I think when the scriptures talk about being under his wings, it's talking about the mercy seat in the Holy of Holies, under the wings of the cherubim.

Look with me at some verses, please. Book of Psalms, Psalm 36. Psalm 36:7: "How precious is your loving kindness, oh God! Therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of your wings." Psalm 36:8: "They are abundantly satisfied with the fullness of your house." Now, it's not a henhouse. It's the tabernacle. Under his wings.

You know what he's saying? Back there in Moab you were worshipping a false god, then you trusted Jehovah. When you did that, he said, "My daughter, Ruth, is now in the Holy of Holies under my wings." Look at Psalm 61. Psalm 61:4: "I will abide in your tabernacle forever; I will trust in the shelter of your wings." Where? In the tabernacle.

So, next time you sing "Under His Wings," he's talking about being in the Holy of Holies. What's so marvelous about the Holy of Holies? That's where God lived. That mercy seat was the throne of God. That's where sin was taken care of. The blood was put on the mercy seat.

And so, he was saying to Ruth, "When you trusted in Jehovah God to be your savior, he picked you up from being a foreigner and made you one of his children. He took an alien and made you a citizen. He took you from darkness and death and doom, and put you into the Holy of Holies, and you're protected by the blood of the sacrifice." This man knew his theology. "Under whose wings you have come for refuge."

And then, she said, "Let me find favor in your sight, my lord, for you have comforted me." I'd like to go through life doing that. I write in the front of— I don't have it in this Bible, but in several of my Bibles I've written in the front the quotation from John Watson, famous Scottish preacher who wrote under the pen name of Ian Maclaren, and he used to say, "Be kind. Everyone you meet is fighting a battle." I try to remind myself of that. The waitress is a little bit sharp; she's had a rough morning. The mechanic at the at the garage, he's got problems at home. The fellow who mows the lawn, his baby's in the hospital. Be kind. Everyone you meet is fighting a battle.

"You've comforted me and have spoken kindly to your maidservant, though I am not like one of your maidservants." "I I'm not even a part of the team. I don't have a a card over at the clock to punch in, but you've treated me right." You've spoken kindly, you've spoken— the Hebrew says you've spoken to my heart. That's what it says. What she really said was, "You have spoken to my heart."

Does God talk to your heart? We have a lot of saints in in our churches, God talks to their head. They have a lot of knowledge. They understand justification, and sanctification, and propitiation, and redemption, and they know what's between the toes of Daniel's image. They found it in the footnotes. And they're up on prophecy, and they they know all these fine distinctions, but nobody can get along with them. Their Christianity is all up in their head. It's cerebral. Now, you can always find these people. They love to argue at the drop of a verse. They love to argue.

When I read my Bible, I use my brains. I don't want to be stupid. I use my brains, but I want God to talk to my heart. And he does. And the purpose of my morning quiet time is not to get sermon outlines or verses to quote to my in-laws. The purpose of my morning quiet time is to get my heart warm before God, so I love him and want to do his will. She said, "You've talked to my heart. Thank you. You've comforted me."

When I go to other services and have the privilege of hearing other people preach, that's what I want them to do. I want them to talk to my heart. An outline is not a message anymore than a menu or a recipe is a meal. You can read the back of the of the cereal box and starve to death. You can outline the contents of the Betty Crocker cookbook and die. And I've met people who have outlined the scriptures and analyzed the scriptures— but they never feed on the scriptures. I want God to talk to my heart.

Love. Ruth 2:14, she sat beside him. She was satisfied. Ruth 2:15, she rose up to glean, and quietly Boaz said to the young men, "Keep your hands off of her." But in Ruth 2:16, he said, "Also let grain from the bundles fall purposely for her. Leave it that she may glean, and do not rebuke her." She didn't follow after all of the reapers. She was allowed to go in between the reapers.

You see, a man would go with a scythe, right? He'd grab a big sheaf of the grain and cut it, and of course some grain would fall, and then he'd move on. And a woman would come behind him and gather all this and tie it together, and some would fall. And if all the rest of the gleaners were way back there, there was a lot of competition. Boaz said, "Let her come in between." That's love. Then he said, "By the way, while you're at it, drop some on purpose. Don't tell her. She'll think I'm giving her a pity party. Don't do that. Just drop some on purpose."

As I've gone through life, I look back and see how many times he just dropped things on purpose. I used to think that David wrote Psalm 23 early in his life. I've changed my mind. I think he wrote Psalm 23 during the rebellion of Absalom. Difficult time in an old man's life. You know what he says? "Surely, goodness and mercy have followed me." He looks back and says, "What I thought were trials and difficulties turned out to be goodness and mercy." Well, tonight you're discouraged, I want you to know something. The Lord of the harvest is dropping handfuls on purpose for you. Just pick them up. That's love.

Ruth 2:17-23, hope. Naomi had lost her hope. She said, "I have no hope," Ruth 1. She'd lost her faith; she ran away from her problems. She lost her love; she was bitter. But now, Ruth is experiencing love, and she's experiencing faith, and now she experiences hope. She gleaned in the field until the evening, and she ended up with about a week's supply of food, and she went to her mother-in-law's and shared with her mother-in-law the food she'd picked up and the food she'd saved from lunch. Said, "Here, I got some leftovers here."

"Her mother-in-law said to her, 'Where have you gleaned today? And where did you work?'" When she saw all the food she had— I mean, this is remarkable. A gleaner didn't get that much. Here's a new word on on on her lips. Now there's hope for the mother-in-law. "Blessed."

Boy, I haven't heard that word in a long time from her. "Blessed be the one who took notice of you." She didn't know who it was. "So she told her mother-in-law with whom she had worked and said, 'The man's name with whom I worked today is Boaz.' And Naomi said to her daughter-in-law, 'Blessed'"—ooh, twice in one day—"'Blessed be he of the Lord who has not forsaken his kindness to the living and to the dead.' Naomi said to her, 'This man is a relation of ours, one of our close relatives.' And Ruth the Moabitess said, 'He also said to me'"—hey, she remembered what he said.

Do you remember what Jesus says? You remember His word? As she was coming home with her grain, she kept rehearsing what He had said to her. Why? Because He's the Lord. She remembered every word of what He said. We don't do that. Why, if the devil met us in the wilderness the way he met Jesus, and if he tempted us, we'd have been done for. Our Lord didn't have a concordance. He didn't say, "Hold it just a minute there, Lucifer, I got to find a verse here someplace." You remember what He says? You love him enough to listen to what he says? "He said to me, 'You shall stay close to my young men until they have finished all my harvest.'" My harvest. My harvest, He's the Lord of the harvest.

"And Naomi said to Ruth her daughter-in-law, 'It's good.'" Oho. "Blessed," "blessed," "it's good." You want to change somebody's heart from bitterness to blessing? Love them. Ruth didn't preach sermons, didn't send away for cassettes. All she did was say, "Mother, I brought you a little treat from lunch today. Here's some parched grain. And look, I got all of this grain; it'll last us a week. And here's what the man said where I was working."

And before long, hope starts to grow in both of their hearts. Things looked pretty hopeless there for a while. "It's good, my daughter, you do what he says." And so she did. She stayed close to those laborers throughout the whole harvest.

We have a great Boaz. His name is Jesus. He's our kinsman. He became flesh and blood to become our kinsman. And then he went one step further and became sin for us. He's our kinsman. Now if you're going to sit and be bitter, and sit and bemoan your fate, and be bitter against God and people, He can't do a thing for you. But if you get out there in the field and start thinking about somebody else. Ruth said, "My mother-in-law can't do this, but I'll do it for her. I'll go out and get some food for her."

One of my favorite Christian poets wrote his poetry over a hundred years ago. He's not well-known today. In fact, many of my favorite writers are not well-known today. I feel more and more like a dinosaur, sort of extinct. John Keble. John Keble wrote the the lovely hymn, "Sun of my soul, Thou Savior dear, it is not night if Thou art near." Beautiful song which we don't use anymore. I'm going to put out a series of books called Hymns You Used to Love. Hymns You Hate, Number Eight.

John Keble said this: "Whenever you're discouraged and defeated, and you feel like quitting, go out and do something for somebody else." You know what? It works. It worked. Ruth by faith went out to the field. While she was there doing something for somebody else, she experienced love, and when she came home with all these blessed things, there was hope, and the best is yet to come.

I like the sequence here. Ruth 2:2, "Let me go to the field." Ruth 2:9, "Keep your eyes on the field." Ruth 2:17, "Work until it's evening." Jesus said that: "I must work the works of Him that sent me while it's yet day; the night comes when no man can work." Work till it's evening. And remember, it's His harvest. "And now abide faith, hope, love, and the greatest of these is love." And Boaz hasn't really had a chance to show her his love.

Let me drop one more thought into your mind, and we shall be on our way. Boaz was not interested in solving Ruth's problems. I am so tired of books and cassettes and sermons that say you should trust Jesus because He'll solve your problems. I have news for you. Jesus did not die to solve your problems. Now, He'll do it.

All Boaz had to do to solve Ruth's problems was write her a check. That's all he had to do. What was her problem? Food, a home, some future. "Here's some money." Boaz was not interested in solving her problems. He wanted her. And when she entered into a relationship with Boaz, her problems were solved. She didn't have to worry about money. Everything he had, she had.

Jesus died so that you and I could be reconciled to Him and love Him and let Him love us. And when I've got a problem and it looks like the valley is deep and long, I just get closer to Him, because the heart of every problem is the problem in the heart. And when my heart is consumed by the Lord Jesus and He can change my character, He starts to solve my problems. It's a blessed byproduct.

And so, you say, "Well, I got this problem or that problem." We all have problems. And I imagine if we just all took our problems and piled them up on this platform, and then we could all come back and take whatever problems we wanted, we'd take our own. I don't want yours. You probably don't want mine.

But Jesus didn't die to solve your problems. He died to show you He loved you, and He wants us to love Him. And when we do, a a wonderful miracle takes place: He starts to solve our problems and make life what it ought to be. He starts to put life together again. Where was Ruth? At the feet of the Lord of the harvest.

Father, we are amazed, amazed that the Lord Jesus wants a personal fellowship with us. Who are we? What are we? Oh, what love. Oh, what love. Forgive us for wanting Your wealth, but not You. Forgive us for wanting the gifts, but not the Giver. Forgive us, Father, for wanting to use You instead of being available for You to use us. Thank You for the example of Ruth. Help us to follow it, and to be at the feet of the Lord Jesus. This is our prayer through Christ our Lord. Amen.