Carolina Conference: 2012
Table of Contents
Ruth 1:1-8
Reading
DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.
Uh, yes.
I'm tired. The hell for her. I think I'm again.
Where we pray? I wonder if we could read a few verses. Umm.
First of all, in Ephesians.
Chapter One.
I was just thinking of the prayers of the apostle.
For his people, for the people, his children. And, uh, so often, I know it's important for us to, to pray for one another physically and all this, all and all that. And how important that is. And we've been reminded of, uh, in the prayer meeting of the compassion of the Lord for us in that regard. And, uh, but I, I think also when we read, uh, the prayers of the apostles of the apostle Paul, especially his prayer is more for the, the spiritual welfare of his people.
And sometimes we tend to forget that I speak for myself and that, that, umm, the Lord's real desire is that we might grow in grace and in knowledge of him. So I was just thinking we'd read these, uh, prior to beginning our meetings in chapter one.
And in verse 15, Wherefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and love unto all the Saints, cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened, that ye may know what is the hope of His calling, and what the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the Saints.
And what is the exceeding greatness of His power to us? Word, who believe according to the working of His mighty power, which he wrought in Christ?
When He raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality.
And power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named not only in this world, but also now, which is to come. And have put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him that filleth All in all. And then, umm, a light passage in Colossians.
Chapter one as well.
And verse umm 9 For this 'cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of His will.
00:05:05
In all wisdom and spiritual understanding, that he might walk worthy of the Lord unto all, pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God.
Strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power unto the patience and long-suffering with joyfulness. Giving thanks unto the Father, which have made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the Saints in light, who have delivered us from the power of darkness and translated us into the into the Kingdom of His dear Son, in whom we have redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness of sins, who is the image of the invisible God, the first born of every creature.
For by Him we're all things created that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be Thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things are created by Him and for Him, and He is before all things, and by Him all things consistent. He is the head of the body, the Church, who is the beginning of first, born from the dead, that in all things He might have the preeminence.
Shall we pray?
Our God and our loving Father, we do thank thee this morning that we begin these meetings with thee and, uh, with the consciousness of our needs that, uh, we might be built up on our most holy faith, that we might increase in the knowledge of God and increase in the knowledge of my purposes. Indeed, our God, our Father, this is thy desire for thy children, that we might not remain babes, but that we might be full grown and that we might be de desirous not only of the milk of the word, but of the meat of the word as well. And we are here this morning, our God and our Father, because we are our needy people. And we do pray that it's all impress us with the, the destitution of our spiritual needs.
Where we sometimes to forget that we are destitute as compared to what we should be. And our Father, we do pray that that will help us to, uh, increase in the knowledge of myself in these meetings. And that it might be our desire, as has been mentioned before, too, that we might help to break up one another and to, uh, uh, to encourage one another on the pathway of faith down here. So our Father, as we open these meetings, we pray that they'll guide and direct us as to the portion.
That would be suitable for us and that, uh, could be for the honor and glory of our Lord Jesus. And, uh, that would be good for not only the older ones, but the younger ones as well. Do thou give guidance and pray that we might wait on one another and on thy Spirit to guide and direct us and, uh, in all the thoughts and participation that their flesh might be held down. Our God and our Father, we do just look to thee now as we begin these meetings and give these thanks for this opportunity.
And we ask all with Thanksgiving and the worthy name of our Lord Jesus.
Hey my.
I would like to suggest, brethren, that we meditate on the Bucharest. I had it on my heart before I came down here, and what we've had to in our prayer meeting both last night and this morning, and seems to tie in with what the book presents to us, a practical case of restoration and bringing into the knowledge of.
The large thoughts to bless an impossible situation.
Our brothers read from Ephesians and Colossians about our the one body, our relationship to our head, the Lord Jesus, and that is also in the book of Ruth in picture.
What do the rest of the brethren think if we read the 1St chapter this morning?
Let's do it.
I wouldn't want us to stay in the Old Testament brethren, but I, I I trust there will be liberty to re refer to the New Testament, which is really our the feeding ground. But we do need some practical part of it too that comes out in the buckaroo.
Now it came to pass in the days when the judges ruled that there was a famine in the land, and a certain man of Bethlehem, Judah, went to sojourn in the country of Moab, he and his wife and his two sons.
00:10:01
And the name of the man for the Limelack, and the name of his wife Naomi, and the name of his two sons, Mahlon and Chilean aphrophytes of Bethlehem, Judah. And they came into the country of Moab and continued there. And Elim Elimilac, Naomi's husband, died, and she was left, and her two sons.
And they took them wives of the women of Moab. The name of the one was Oprah, and the name of the other Ruth. And they dwelled there about 10 years at Milan. And Chilean died, but also both of them. And the woman was left of her two sons and her husband. Then she arose with her daughters in law, that she might return from the country of Moab. For she had heard in the country of Moab how the that the Lord had visited his people in giving them bread. Wherefore she went forth out of the place where she was.
And her two daughters in law with her, and they went on the way to return into the land of Judah.
And Naomi said unto her, two daughters in law, Go return each to her mother's house. The Lord deal kindly with you as ye have dealt with the dead, and with me the Lord grants 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. And they said, Adora, surely we will return with thee unto thy people. And Naomi said, Turn again, my daughters, why will you go with me? Are there yet any more sons in my womb, that they may be your husbands? Turn again, my daughters, go your way, for I am too old to have a husband.
If I should say I have hope.
If I should have a husband also tonight, and should also bear sons, would you tarry for them till they were grown? Would you stay for them from having husbands? Name my daughters, or agree with me much for your sakes, that the hand of the Lord has gone out against me. And they lifted up their voice, and wept again. And Orpa kissed her mother-in-law, But Ruth clave unto her. And she said, Behold, thy sister-in-law has gone back unto her people, and unto her gods. Return thou after thy sister-in-law.
And Ruth said, Entreat me not to leave, the Orts return from following after thee, for whither thou goest I will go, and where thou largest I will lodge. My 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 aught but death part thee and me. When she saw that she was steadfastly minded to go with her, then she left, speaking unto her. So they too went, until they came to Bethlehem, and it came to pass, when they were come to Bethlehem, that all the city.
Was moved about them, and they said, Is this Naomi? And she said it to them. Call me not Naomi, call me Mara, for the Almighty hath dealt VE very bitterly with me. I went out full, and the Lord hath brought me home again empty. Why then call ye me, Naomi, seeing the Lord hath testified against me, and the Almighty hath afflicted me? So Naomi returned, and Ruth the Moabitess, her daughter-in-law with her, which returned out of the country of Moab, and they came to Bethlehem in the beginning.
Of barley harvest.
Mm-hmm. I think it's good that we have, uh, that we do take off the practical side of our spiritual blessings because sometimes it becomes, if we just take up the spiritual side, it becomes a head knowledge to us. And, and we don't always realize that that we are in, in, in this age are the same as what those present were in that age and that God was dealing with them.
As he deals with us and he cared for them as he cares for us. But we need to remember also that God is not just interested in how we get along in this world, but he has a, he has a purpose. He has a program in this world for his people. And, uh, he would, uh, have you and me walk in the scene in a practical way of dependence and obedience. And so, uh, I think we do get this in the book of Ruth, We have to remember.
So that, that was God's, God had his eye on the center. He had his eye on a place. And, uh, in this place we find even what Rachel was buried, you know what, a lot of that, uh, uh, Abraham's children and, and his family centered in this area. Did they not? And, uh, in fact, I believe that Bethlehem, uh, really is a, it's a son of effort to who is, I understand was Caleb's wife. I may be wrong in that, but there was that connection.
Uh, we understand, we're familiar with Caleb and Joshua and all those and, uh, Bethlehem was a center as far as God was concerned. And what we're getting here in, in this chapter and in this book is the fact that there were those that were that left that place a blessing and they suffered for it. And umm, yet God would bring certain ones back again and does not do this now, brother, than in our pathway too, there is a going and a coming.
00:15:19
And yet God has a center, a particular place that he would bring us to and that is, uh, centered in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. So, uh, we need the, the practical side of things so that we, we feel that we have an attachment to the truth in a physical way that, uh, we might realize that God has put us here for a purpose. And there is a, uh, uh, there is not certain walking ways that he would desire of us.
In order to experience blessing, uh, at this time, at the end of the chapter, we find that it was in the beginning of barley harvest, just at the time when they were ready to dispense blessing. And this is when there was a return to that, that place that, shall we say, if we wanna use that, the place of his appointment. And so, uh, let us tie this in with the, with the spiritual side that we get in the, uh, the, in the epistles because this is God's purpose for us.
We don't see understanding of what was going on in the beginning of this book, uh, as to what God was doing and how he was going to bless that family.
Uh, if we could just mention that before we get into the details of it, uh, the book closes up with the genealogy of, of David and our brother read, uh, yesterday about how God chose David.
And he raised him up and he used him. Well, he's a picture of the Lord Jesus, of course. So you have the beginnings of that right here. How, what the Lord began with and how Ruth is, uh, used of the Lord, a Gentile, a Moabite to provide what the people of Israel had given up and lost. And so she could, she is a picture in that way.
Of.
The Gentiles, how they can be be brought into blessing because the Jews failed and that's how we brethren have come into blessing. God has chosen us in this time to be united to Christ, uh, our head in heaven.
And, uh, he gets children through the Gentiles, spiritual children. And we are those spiritual children here gathered and with some measure of understanding about these things. We're very favored brethren. But when the Lord began with each one of us, every one of us have a, have a history similar to this chapter, I believe.
And we've been through experiences that have been hard to break us down and to bring us to cling to the Lord.
And so I, I trust that as we meditate it, that practical side will, will, will be emphasized as well as the, uh, the teaching of appreciation of what Ruth and Naomi were brought into and how God, nothing was too hard for God to bless them. And so nothing has been too hard for God to bless the Gentiles today and narrowing it down to our individual families.
Nothing has been too hard for God to bless us and here we are and we need to rehearse these things and remind ourselves how the Lord is where He brought us from and He what He's brought us into.
So Ruth is a real picture of grace, one that's brought into blessings by grace. A Mobitus wasn't to come into Israel to the 10th generation. And so if we have time, we'll notice later on, she says to Boaz a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ. She says, why have I found grace in thine eyes, seeing that I am a stranger? She recognized that any blessing she could claim, any place she could have amongst the people of God was on the grounds of pure sovereign grace. And that's good for all of us to realize we've all been brought in on the grounds of grace. But just to get the picture, the setting of the story here, you really have to go back.
To the last verse of the Book of Judges. Let me just read it.
The 25th verse of Judges, chapter 21. In those days there was number king in Israel.
Every man did that which was right in his own eyes. This is the setting of what we have before us. It was a very low point morally and spiritually amongst the people of God in Israel. They had turned away from God. And this verse is actually been a quote from an earlier portion in the book of Judges. In the 17th chapter you have a similar statement and all through the book of Judges you see this. You find that they turned away from God.
00:20:27
God came in, in his governmental ways, in one way or another, there would be restoration. He'd raise up a godly judge in Israel and there'd be restoration. God would come in and blessing. Then they turn away again. And it just was a continual regression until we've come to the end of the book. Every man was doing that which is right, was right in his own eyes. But then we have this beautiful story. And as this story unfolds, I think of what it says in Romans where sin abounded, grace did much more abound. And isn't it beautiful, Brethren, we look around.
At our own situation, we see low.
Uh, uh, lo, we're at a low point morally and spiritually the Christian profession and we're part of it. We have to hang our head and admit that we're, we're part of it. But isn't it wonderful to realize that there is still grace abounding and that there is still grace to preserve? There's grace to restore when there's failure. There's grace to keep us to the, to the very end. The grace that Ruth experienced, that Naomi re experienced in restoration. It's the same limitless supply that all we've been available to the people of God.
I think we can take heart to realize that amidst all this darkness, amidst this very difficult background, God was still working amongst his people in one way or another, and God is still working today. If we just look at the circumstances, if we just look at the context of where we are in our history, we're going to get discouraged. It's gonna cast us down. But if we being aware of where we're at in our history.
Yet turn to the Lord and realize the resources and the grace that is found in Him and that we can avail ourselves of those resources. That's what's going to encourage us. We're not going to see brighter days down here, but we can find a path through it all.
My brother Doug, I have a question. Was your thought to try to cover the whole book in the three meetings we have? If it's possible, well, let the Spirit of God direct how far we get and that I, uh, uh, you have a thought that you want to express.
Well, I was just thinking it'd be nice to get the complete picture if, if we, if we can, but that requires that we, we try to get the outline rather than, well, too much and too many details, doesn't it? We have 3 readings. If the Lord direct, we could at least cover 3 chapters of Lord willing and the last is sure so shorter. So I just, uh, had a thought about, uh, this book where my brother Jim was speaking about the historic setting. And when we look at scripture, it's always good to start with the historic settings, isn't it?
Because that gives us, uh, uh, the way this was in the very beginning.
And so as we look through the Old Testament and the New Testament, we find that there's a number of historic ethics which took place of periods of time. They're not exactly dispensations exact, uh, because dispensations have to do with the distinction between Jew, Gentile and Church of God. And we need to talk about the dispensational aspect of Ruth. And I'm sure we will to get that in our heads. But first of all, uh, it's good, I think, to look at the historic setting as, as Jim has been mentioning, some, I would suggest that goes back even before the book of Judges.
Back to the beginning of Joshua, that was the beginning of a happy time. In some sense, it corresponds with our present day, uh, with the beginning of the church period in the 1St century of the church, uh, the Lord was freshly calling. Uh, it was a new generation that entered into the land of Canaan under the auspices of, uh, Joshua's we well known. And so there was a great deal of gaining during that book of Joshua. But then when we turned to the book of Judges, we find that there's now a downward course. And this has been the moral history of God's people at all time.
In every historic epic, whether we talk about the king.
Whether we talk about the patriarchs, we see the same thing beginning with Abraham, whether we talk about the church period, whether we talk about Israel in the future during the Tribulation, there's the same moral progression. It begins with the call of God, and then we see as its entrusted demands hands, that there's a fall. And so the characteristic verse in Judges, we read it in a very early chapters, is that they came to Bokehen. Bokeem is the place of weeping. And so they fell, as it tells us in the Book of Revelation, chapter 2.
00:25:12
And the first address to the church, to Ephesus, it says, take heed out how thou hast, uh, that thou hast fallen and repent. And so there was the possibility of return to that condition that was found in the book of Judges. We know it was not to be. And so every judge in the book of, uh, Judges is lower than the one before. But there were revivals. The Lord was working. There's always a path for faith, even in the darkest days. And then the point comes when what brethren Nov often referred to as the ruin of the testimony.
Doesn't mean that God gives up on us people. That's not the point at all, is it? But as we say, there's always a path for faith. And so when the whole testimony is in ruins, as Jim was reading there actually mentioned, I think as many as four times in the last four chapters of the book of Judges, that every man did that which was right in his own eyes. The testimony as a whole no longer represented that which God had entrusted to them. And at that point, what always happens in every historic epic.
Whether it's the patriarchs, whether it's the kings, whether it's Joshua judges, whether it's the church period, whether it's Israel in the future during the tribulation is that God separates out a remnant and, and Ruth is morally that remnant, isn't she? She's a picture of that, uh, those who walk in the path of faith even in the various darkest of days. It starts out sad, but it ends very happy, doesn't it?
For somebody who naturally speaking, had no hopes whatsoever. And so this is the historic setting, it's the remnant testimony, much as we have in the end of, uh, Malachi, uh, with, with the end of the King's period, or much as we have in the day when the Lord Jesus came, when there was that little remnant in Luke chapters one and two. So Ruth is a picture of that restored remnant. Naomi is a picture of the promises made to Israel originally, isn't she?
As entrusted to men, men failed. But then, in connection with those promises, there's a new generation, and that's Ruth.
I think it's significant here in these first five verses that you don't get a lot of description of what they, this family gave up when that famine came. We've, it's been mentioned about Bethlehem, Judah, that was a favorite place and that, that was their heritage that they received. Israel had an earthly heritage, brethren, we have a heavenly heritage and uh, we've been brought into that through the Lord Jesus.
And that's all pictured here.
When When Uh.
When our souls get away from the lower, there's declension that comes in. You don't have the Spirit of God pointing out the point, the things that they gave up.
In order to find out what they are, you read through the whole book and you find, for example, how Ruth clave to her mother-in-law, how she said thy God is my God, thy people, my people. That those were the things that this family had given up. And Ruth is the instrument that laid hold of them by faith and got a pack, claimed it, walked in it and stuck with her mother-in-law and went back to her in spite of the, the the bitter circumstances that her mother-in-law spoke of.
And so, brethren, our faith needs to lay hold of the promises in the word of God that he's given to us and not let them slip away. We, we live in a time when much is being given up even among ourselves. And, uh, it's, you don't see the consequences when you give something up. It took ten years here for the consequences to manifest themselves.
When this family left their heritage in Israel and tried to find their sustenance in another land.
That God hadn't particularly given to them.
But but God was able to bring blessing in spite of that, and in this case, it's through the Gentile woman.
Faith delivers us from idols, is it not? And umm, uh, Ruth was subject to idol. She was that's that was her heritage at at the start. She was from a land full of idols, but Faith allowed her to.
To give those things up, just like the Thessalonians Saints, they turn to God from idols who serve the living and the true God and to wait for his Son from heaven. And so you and I, uh, we, we can, as you mentioned, Doug, we, we, we get away from the Lord a little bit on our souls and we turn to idols of some sort. And so when the Lord recovers us, restores us and his grace, he will, umm, that faith will deliver us from those things that we had taken up with.
00:30:30
And so, uh, they can't go on together. And Ruth is a beautiful picture of this college as you, you're, you're saying that thy God shall be my God. Those idols were not her gods anymore.
And so may the Lord deliver us from any idols that are laying hold of our hearts.
This book opens with a salmon in the land of Israel, and I think it's interesting to follow through the Old Testament because this is not the first time there was a famine in Israel. And we find that when there are famines mentioned in Israel, there are different individuals brought before us who responded or reacted to those famines in different ways, and we see either the blessing or the sad consequences as a result of their reactions and what they did. We find there was a famine in the days of Abraham and he went down into Egypt and we know there were sad results.
It was where Lot probably got his taste for, uh, this world, so to speak, and so on. And there were results, consequences in the life of Abraham as a result of what he did. There was a famine in the days of Isaac, too, And the Lord told Isaac to remain and to sow, and he did. And he reaped a hundredfold. There was blessing because he remained where God had told him to, and he sowed in faith and in obedience. And here we find as this book opens, there's a famine. And this man, Elimelech, he takes his family.
Uh, down into the land of Moab. And it's interesting that he is the one that is held responsible. It's a Limerick who takes his family. He was the head of the home. Sometimes as we read the story of Naomi, we shake our heads and say, well, Naomi should have known better. She ought not to have been down in Moab. And that may be so. But it is interesting at the end of the chapter that Naomi says, I went out full. Now, brethren, I don't want to read more into Scripture than is here.
But I have often wondered if perhaps Naomi wasn't caught in a situation where it really wasn't her desire to leave Bethlehem, Judah and go down, but because of her relationship to her husband and no doubt the culture of that day, she had no choice perhaps but to go down to the land of Moab. But she went out full. She came back empty. There were consequences. There was a sad result, but she went out full nevertheless. The point I'd like to make, in a very practical way, is that God hell holds here.
The head of the home responsible for what happened and the sad consequences that ensued in his family. Yes, grace triumphed in the end. Yes, there was blessing in the end. There was restoration for Naomi. Ruth is brought in by grace. But what sad consequences? And this man is held responsible. And I just want to say to those of us who are heads of our home, and I say to my own heart particularly, we are held responsible before God.
As to the decisions we make in our home practically and spiritually, and the decisions that we before the Lord or the lack thereof make are going to have consequences on our family. However, I would just say perhaps there's some here and we feel we've failed in the past, but be encouraged too. If we're willing to own that failure before the Lord, then He can come in. And again, grace is greater than any of our failure, but it is.
It's interesting that the book opens with Elimelech being held directly responsible for what happened.
When I look at a book, I like to look at the title of it. The title of it is Roof.
I'd like to get an overall view in my mind and so it would be about the topic of roof. It's the 8th book in the Bible. It's a new beginning and if I could put a label on that, I would put on there God brings back.
And in this Don has asked us to also touch on the New Testament. And God took us as pagans, and He has made us accepted in the Beloved.
And if you look here, we have Moab in the first verse and it takes you back to Genesis 19 verses 363738. And we see there that lot, two daughters got him drunk and they laid with him. And the oldest daughter had a son named Moab. And Moab means that it is a people with a curse upon him. And the Moabites were the enemies of Israel. They were strangers to Jehovah.
00:35:22
Uh, and here we see that these people with the curse, and she is of the Moabites, Ruth is and she is a widow.
So she is a widow that comes from a cursed race.
And he picks her up and by the end of Ruth.
He has made a noble out of her, and that's what he has done with each and every one of us. He takes us from the lowest point and he lifts us up and he places us accepted in the beloved. And there's what you have in your overall viewpoint and put it in relationship to the New Testament. And we can dissect every little part of it along the way, but we want to keep an overall viewpoint. And I feel in my heart that this is the overall viewpoint that he changes the human nature.
He completely changed her by the time we were done with the Booker. Ruth, Lord willing.
When she left UMM, she had a husband and she had two sons. Maybe she lacked bread.
When she came back, she said she went out full. She changed her perspective of looking at things. After going through that bitter experience, Brethren, we can easily get focused on the wrong things, just the blessings, the bread. The Lord sometimes sends famines in our assemblies or in our families, and He has a reason to do it. The people who stayed in Bethlehem, Utah, didn't die of the famine. They lived through it.
This family left their ground of blessing.
And went to Moabite territory to live. Then when they got into problem in Moab, they were really destitute.
They had to go back to Jewish ground of blessing that God had given them. And so, brethren, if we, if we go out to other places, there's blessing and, and, and other places in the world today that substitute and we can go to help us through when we have problems, they're kind of crutches. But if the Lord takes those away, then where are we gonna be? And that's what this family was brought to.
Well, the wonderful thing is that God wasn't unable to help them and to use Ruth and Moabite as a means to, to give them children again in that family that was cut off. And so he did that. And so we need to, I trust we'd be encouraged, brethren, as we go through problems. Uh, uh, this is, there's dispensational teaching in this, but also.
Along with it, every one of our families go through difficulties and, and we face situations similar to this in principle and how we react to them. I hope we can be kind of encouraged by going over this to, to lay hold of the source of our blessings and not give them up when difficulties come, when there's famine. And so when Ruth came back, I believe the reason she said I went out full of was she was focusing now.
Uh, on what was of real value, her husband and her children. And, uh, and she didn't have them when she, when she went back to Bethlehem, Judah, she had lost them. Well, God made it up to her because she went back to the source, her, her home territory, her place that God promised to bless them. And when she went back there, as hard as it was, you know, when we get away from the Lord in return, it's hard.
I don't believe she wanted to take her daughter's in law back.
To that land because it would be, uh, a blot, It would be a witness of what had happened those past 10 years. And, uh, but when Ruth, uh, clay to her and insisted and really claimed her God, then she couldn't refuse her. Little did nail my know that Ruth was what Ruth was going to be to her after she got back.
Brethren, when we don't know how the Lord can bless us.
When we really come back in humility to him and and he is able to bring blessing.
00:40:04
Think of how God brought his people out of Egypt and what a terrible condition they were in in Egypt under that tyrant Pharaoh, which I believe is a picture of Satan. And so they were subject to, uh, great ******* in Egypt. God miraculously brings them out of that ******* brings them through the Red Sea.
And.
Brings him out into the wilderness.
Now what is the attitude?
What I'm reading here in Exodus chapter 16, apparently they run into some difficulty out there and they were hungry. So what do they want to do? They want to go back to Egypt. Well, they must have very short memories to realize what their true ******* was, their true state of things in Egypt. It was awful. But you know, they wanna go back there and Exodus 16 and verse.
Three.
Uh, verse two, it says, the whole congregation of the children of Israel murmured against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness, and the children of Israel said unto them, once to God, we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the flesh pots, and when we did eat bread to the full.
Well, was it really that good? I mean, was it an accurate description of their condition in Egypt? And then they say, yeah, brought us forth into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.
So do they really think that after God has in a miraculous way brought him out of Egypt through the Red Sea, that he's brought him out there to perish even though they get hungry?
Well, what does it say in verse four? Then said the Lord unto Moses, Behold, I will reign bread from heaven for you. And the people shall go out and gather a certain rate every day that may prove them whether they will walk in my law or no, and so on. And so God provided that food for his people, even though it seemed an impossible situation, being out there in the wilderness, God.
Is the God of the impossible. It's nothing too hard for the Lord and you can trust him in any situation, sad to say, eliminate you run into some problem there. And So what does he do? He runs away, but he's really leaving God. But, uh, thankfully God hadn't left his family and uh, we find that Ruth makes it bad along with, uh, well, Naomi makes it that long with the Ruth, but I just feel that, uh.
Sometimes God's help doesn't come.
Immediately.
No, somebody said one time that, uh.
God's help doesn't come right away that we might know the blessedness of trusting in the dark.
But it doesn't come too late either that we experience the misery of trusting in faith.
Think of it in connection with David.
You know, David said. I waited patiently for the Lord.
And he inclined on me, heard my cry. He brought me up also out of a horrible pit.
So sometimes we need that we patient waiting on the Lord, don't we? But I believe He will come in.
And you always reward space.
And again, there's nothing too hard for the board, but sometimes he allows us to go our own way. But thank God there's always that opportunity for re restoration.
Restoring graces, I believe just as wonderful as saving grace.
I think perhaps it would be helpful too, just to look very briefly at the dispensational aspect here, because when we understand the force of the Scripture, uh, that the Spirit of God has in mind, then we can properly apply it. And sometimes we get the cart before the horse and get a little mixed up. But we talked about the historic setting, but then we UN have to understand its dispensational setting and I think it's enlightening to do that.
One thing is that the name Ruth means beauty, doesn't it? She was a spiritual beauty and that was a real refreshment to the Lord's heart. And that's certainly a lesson for us. Another point that the brethren have often made, Mr. Darby makes it in the synopsis in connection with Genesis, in connection with Isaac and Rebecca, in connection with Abraham and and Sarah, and that is that the woman in Scripture often speaks at the position.
00:45:23
That were called to occupy. And the man speaks of the state we're in in connection with that position and so in connection with the Naomi. And Elimelech's name, of course, means whose God is king. He had the profession that God was his king.
Naomi's name means, of course, my pleasantness. So dispensationally, Naomi is a picture of Israel under the promises of God, the depository of God's promises. That's a wonderful position.
But Elimelech speaks of the state and as we well know, Israel failed as the depository of God's, uh, God's promises. And so, uh, they left the place of Bethlehem, Judah, Bethlehem, uh, Bethlehem, of course, Mimi, the House of bread. That was the true place of bread. It was the place of blessing, but they left it and they found, uh, as we, as we say, things went downhill from there. But to get the picture properly again, I understand that the rabbis when they read Ruth, always scratch their heads.
How can it be that a Gentile is brought into such blessing? Wasn't it true, according to the book of Deuteronomy, that a Moabite was not able to come into the congregation of Israel until the 10th generation, which effectively was forever? How could it possibly be that Ruth is such a beautiful picture?
Well, it's easy to understand if we understand what the dispensational setting is. Again, what it is, is Naomi again is a picture of Israel under the promises of God. The gifts and calling of God are without repentance. And so Naomi is that picture. And in connection with her we have Ruth, who's the restored remnant of the future day. And the reason, again, while the rabbis have such a difficult time, is that she's a Gentile.
What's the what's the secret there? It's very simple, isn't it? Israel will be restored. We have that in in the book of Romans, don't we all? Israel shall be restored. But how is it? It's on the same basis of grace as the Gentile comes in. That's the key to the book of Ruth. Dispensationally she's connected with Naomi. It is true she comes in under the promises made to the fathers, but Israel had forfeited their place first by.
Giving up, uh, and, and breaking the law by bowing down to idols and then by rejecting their Messiah, How can Israel possibly be blessed on the same basis as the Gentile? Pure and free grace. So in that sense, Ruth is a picture, uh, of the future Jewish remnant. She comes in the blessing again, but it's on the basis of pure grace.
What did what did Ruth see or hear that changed her mind? I don't know that we really have any.
Anything in the story here but she saw or heard something that changed her mind.
Thus, she no doubt saw and heard in her mother-in-law those things that were concerning the true God and where they had come from. And I appreciate what Brother Erica said. I think it's very important to get that setting. But just for a moment now, let's take up the three women that are brought before us in this chapter as individuals because there's another, a very practical aspect in connection with God's dealings with these three women. That is, there was Naomi, there was Ruth, and there was Orpha. And if I can start with Orpa, Orpa is a picture to us. I'm speaking in a practical way now, an application.
She's a picture to us of one who had heard about the blessing, made a profession, but when the pressure came, there was no reality. She turned back. And so it's like those who've tasted of the grace of God, they've heard about it, maybe in some way they've experienced it, maybe brought up in a Christian home in a Christian land or Christian setting and they've tasted of it. But when the pressure comes, when the heat is on, it brings out, it's brought out that there was no reality in their heart. And so Orpa, it sounded good at the beginning, sounded like she really had a desire to go back, go with her mother-in-law, back to the land of Israel.
But when the pressure came, I say it showed that there was number reality in her heart and there's many who make a profession, but there's no reality. Naomi is a picture of one who is away from the Lord and is restored by grace and has been already said, the grace of God is as limitless and wonderful as the saving and preserving grace of God. And we're thankful in each of our lives. Some measure at least for the restoring grace of God. And then Ruth is a picture of one who makes a decision.
00:50:23
She had heard from her mother-in-law, probably the same things that her sister Orpa had heard, but those things had taken hold of her heart. Those things were not just things she'd heard now, but they had in some way taken hold of her heart and soul. And she's a picture of one who has reality now in the in the soul. And even though there's pressure put on not to go by your mother-in-law, and sad to say, it's her mother-in-law that puts that pressure on. But even though there was that pressure not to go, it's like the hymn we used to sing when we were young people.
I have decided to follow Jesus. No turning back, no turning back. She'd made a decision that the God of Israel was going to be her God, that she wanted the blessing that, uh, her in-laws had left behind at one time when they came down to the land of Moab. And nothing was going to dissuade her now. So I think it's beautiful to see these three women in that way. Sad to say, Orifa never got the blessing. She professed to want it, but she never got it. But there was one who was restored and one who was brought into the blessing because there was real purpose of heart. I'd like to just say this too, before we pass on.
About Elimelech, I I don't think Elimelech, when he went down to Moab, intended to stay as long as he did. You know, sometimes we feel perhaps as fathers that we need to do something that's going to temporarily fix the situation. Maybe we feel there's a lack of food for our children spiritually where we are. And we feel in the little assembly we come from that just isn't anything there for our young people and so.
We feel there are things perhaps we can do temporarily to help the situation along. The reason I say that is because if you notice a little progression here with the limelight, in the end of the first verse, he goes down to sojourn in the country of Moab. Now the word sojourn has the thought of just being there for a short time. We've come to sojourn here at Lake Genaluska for the weekend. We don't plan to be here more than just a few nights. And so I think he thought, well, this isn't gonna last very long and we'll just go down to Moab and it'll be a quick fix to the situation.
Don't we sometimes feel like that? Well, if we let our young people do something or associate with something, it'll be just for a little time and they'll see the light of it. And, uh, it's, it's just gonna be for a temporary thing. I, I think Elimelech perhaps was thinking along that line, but notice what happened in the end of verse 2 and continued there. He continued there. Perhaps he did find food for his family, natural food, of course. And sometimes perhaps we feel, well, we've allowed this and yeah, our young people are being encouraged and we're being encouraged and we're, they're get, we're getting something. Our families are getting something. And so we stay longer.
We allow something or we stay somewhere longer than we really intended. But what happened as a result, there's another progression in the end of verse four. And they dwelt there about 10 years. To dwell somewhere is different to them to sojourn or even continue somewhere. The thought of surge journeying is just for a little while. The thought of continuing, well, we're still, we're here, but we'll just stay a little longer. But then they dwelt there about 10 years. And again, we know the sad results and consequence. And so I just say that again as a warning, perhaps particularly to those of us who are heads of our homes.
Are we willing to just trust God in the place of blessing that He has brought us into? He can provide for us. And I could just say this too, in connection with what Eric and others have said. When God sets up an institution for the blessing of man on the earth, He provides for us to go on in that institution to the very end, in spite of whatever moral and spiritual darkness and ruin may come in and we find at the end of the history of God's people in the Old Testament.
Things were darker perhaps even than they were in the days of the judges, but there was a little remnant going on, those that were speaking one to another, going on for the Lord's glory, and He valued it. When you come over to the New Testament, you find there were a little remnant in Israel going on, and things had even deteriorated. Rita, secular history of the 400 silent years, those years between Malachi and the coming of Christ, and things had deteriorated even more.
Than they had in the days of Malachi. But there's Anna, there's Simeon, there's Zechariah and Elizabeth, there's Mary and Joseph, as well as all those that look for redemption in Israel.
00:55:09
Now come down to the last days that Paul writes to Timothy about. You know, we often say, brethren, the last days are characterized by spirit, by individual faithfulness. And certainly that is true. And Timothy was told in the third chapter of second Timothy continued out that individual faithfulness in spite of the ruin. But I believe it's significant to notice that even before he's told to continue as an individual.
He's told to go on with those that call on the Lord out of a pure heart. In other words, Paul says to Timothy, you're gonna find others who are desiring to go on and honor me and walk in the truth, and you're to go on with them. Separation is not isolation. Going on in the last days doesn't necessarily mean we're totally alone if individual faithfulness, but it's with others who have the same desire.
And I say that because again, and I'd like to stress this, just bear with me. They're God set up two institutions for the blessing of man on the earth. The first was the family. And God has made provision to go on in the family right until the very end. And it's beautiful in days of ruin, both in the Old Testament and the New Testament to find families going on for the Lord, search out those families. Noah in his day built an art to the saving of his house.
His family went in with him in second Timothy. It's the days of ruin, but there's a no, there's the household of Vanessa Forest. There's there's families going on as well as as Indi individuals. And so God has made provision for that first and great institution, the family to go on to the end. We can go on as families to the end. The second institution set up for the blessing of man on the earth was the church, the assembly, and God has made provision to go on to the very end.
And even in Laodicea, there was provision to go on in spite of the complete indifference that had come in and the lukewarmness, uh, and indifference to the claims of Christ. And so we read a story like this. Yes, it's dark days, but again, like those jewels in Malachi shining against that dark background, God takes note not only of individuals, but of those who seek to go on his families and collectively to us gathered to the Lord's name, Jim, when he was talking about umm.
The husband there and there's famine in the land if there's a matching burst, almost like it in Genesis 12 and verse 10 if we turn to it together.
Genesis 12 and 10 reads and there was a famine in the land and Abraham went down to Egypt to sojourn there. We have the word sojourn. We have the, uh, famine in the land. We have going down and we see parallel things being taught here. Uh, the famine in the land is what you have to look at first to understand it. And the famine in the land is Speaking of God in judgment. This is his people.
This is his people, definitely him. Judah means the House of bread and praise. And they're and they're getting ready to literally leave that and they're getting ready to leave the judgment of God on the famine of the land upon his people. And they are choosing to go down to Moab. They're choosing to go down where Satan and all the crowd and everything else around about it. And if you take note of this, Jim said one of the two things was the family here they had.
Two sons, Naomi and Emilek had two sons, and those two sons took on them two wise, Mobite wise. It does not say that they ever had any children.
The family line was blotted out.
Naomi, the wife had two Moabite daughters and the book goes on from there. When you get to Matthew one and five in the genealogy, the messianic genealogy, you have, uh, both Boaz and Ruth there in Matthew one and five in the genealogy, there is no line left of Emily because he went down.
And he left.
The Lord loveth them who He chasteneth. They would have been better off to have stayed in the famine of the land and the chastening hand of God than to go down where Satan and all the crowd is at. And that is the teaching for the family line is to stay under the hand of God. He loves you even if He's chasing you. It'll be for better in the end. He always brings us out positively.
01:00:20
That's the that's the man's side of it. God's side of it was that.
This family got linked up with the family of Boaz and inherited the blessing of Boaz and, uh, which brought him into the lineage of David and of Christ. And, and that's how God's ways can intervene and bless us. Then I would like to comment on verses 16 and 17, uh, of, in connection with Ruth laying hold of what she laid hold of because I, I, I want to encourage everyone here of us to.
Uh, to, uh, for faith to lay hold of the promises.
Of God, to me, it's very striking that in the midst of Naomi's failure and perhaps Elimelech too, but Naomi here is the one who is still alive. Ruth and, or for both of them witnessed the, uh, life and testimony of the, of this family from, uh, Bethlehem, Judah 1 drew one conclusion and another, another. The other is the other.
Ruth, uh.
In spite of Naomi's failure, there was in her departure from her place a blessing. She was a witness to her daughter-in-law, Ruth. And I believe Ruth saw something of reality in Naomi, Uh, in spite of the failure, you know, I, I take courage in this as a parent, uh, having failed as a parent and uh, not always given the right testimony to those of my children or those that observe.
Uh, and yet, uh, do they see in me be behind my failures, a reality of faith that Ruth saw through the testimony of her mother-in-law. I don't believe she had any other testimony of Israel to, to believe in accept that, uh, her, umm, the family she married into. Notice what it says in the in verses UH-16, what she says.
And this wouldn't be what she gleaned from observing.
Her in laws.
And treat me not to leave thee or to return from following after thee, for whither thou goest, I will go. Well. Where had no Naomi gone? She had le she had he hadn't been perfect. And where she went, she had gone from a good place to Moab. And yet she swears she alone allegiance to go with her. Where thou logist, I will lodge. Jim speaks about how what is supposed to be temporary and it ended up longer term.
Umm, so there's a long term, uh re uh, place. Thy people shall be my people. That was the people of Israel. She was laying hold of the of the people of Israel. She was surrendering up her citizenship to become.
An Israelite proselyte and thy God my God. And so she saw the true God of Israel in the life of Naomi.
Her mother-in-law.
We need.
To believe in what firmly and cling to what we believe in. Young people, don't be fluctuating with the winds of influence around you. Get your convictions of what you believe in and follow it. It will carry you through. It's when we let the influences around us, a famine or a trouble, influence us, a temptation. That's when we become Drifters.
But when we cling to what we really believe in, no matter what this this applies to us today, we need to be sure what we believe in.
One of the ways of doing that right is keeping the proper perspective, keeping our eyes on things that are above, not on things that are on the earth. And I think that's why the Lord sent Ruth for many reasons before Naomi's life, while we love the Scriptures, it reminded her of what Naomi had lost track of, which is what was Israel, Bethlehem, Shiloh, all those things were just, was it just a place? And too often we use the word place and perhaps and it's used correctly in the meetings and so forth, but we get so fixed with the things that.
01:05:15
Are visible to us.
And so when we come to a a week weekday meeting or if we have one at all, and the place where the Lord is in the midst becomes simply the place where individual X through Y is located and maybe having a hard time and so forth. And I was thinking about this at the end of Joshua, since all of Israel has gathered together to the Lord in Shiloh and Shiloh is used once before, obviously when the prophecy concerning Judah where scepters shall not depart from between his knees until Shiloh comes, Shiloh meaning Messiah. And yet when the Lord had asked for a Tabernacle to be built, and this was in Shiloh at this time.
It's because you wanted to dwell with them and Israel is from the beginning has always struggled as we do as well as a type for us in in focusing too much upon the aspects of or the traditions of the visible and they forgot the spiritual significance that it was truly at the in the essence a relationship that God had formed with them. And our brother last night was speaking to the young people and he mentioned the deprivation sort of the privations, I should say, of the Confederacy at the end of the war.
And what?
'Cause those what used to be at the Army of Northern Virginia, some 70,000 men to some 8000, why they stayed for so long. And it was because of the person of Robert E Lee. It was because of the person that they were associated with. And here's Ruth coming out and foiling. He's a foil character for Naomi. She is, she believes by faith. What Naomi should have seen by faith in the land, that it wasn't just the land, it wasn't just a physical location. It was the God who had given it to them and the inheritance that he had separated to each of their families.
And notice Naomi basically claims I am Baron. Why wait for any child that I could have, even if it was possible? And yet, what is Ruth's claim? It is with V, the singular, uh, pronoun there, that we lose in modern translations. It's with thee. Wherethe thou goest I will go. And that identification, which is so much an echo or a 4E of the words of Christ, I send to my father, and to your father, to my God and your God, that sense of identification. So Naomi needed to hear this, and she's not. And she's on a process.
Of, of character development, as it were. So, you know, because at first she says, call me not Naomi, call me Mara bitter. And yet at the end, what does it said of her? Umm, God has given her a son and we see the, the fruit there that comes from that. So I love the fact that Ruth as a type of the church, it will one day will remind Israel of what they've lost sight of that the Tabernacle, the elements, the oracles of God, the Ephah, the Terra theme, all these things were but pictures, shadows that were supposed to represent the, the physical relationship and they will one day look on him.
But so often, umm, we, we neglect to see with the eyes of faith and instead of seeing the person to which we cling, which in the type of marriage through right, through sickness and health, haven't taken those yet. But I'm just saying sickness and in health, right, Because it's to a person. You can't just leave it and come back. In the same sense it was to a God that Jehovah, he he'd given himself in personal relations that this was Elohim revealing himself to them. And umm, she, though she may not be a primary responsibility, had lost sight of that.
In Bethlehem, the House of plenty had become just a place, not a name or spiritual significance given to Judah. Umm, And so, uh, Ruth becomes that for them and sees in faith that personal relationship that Naomi needs to also see and in the greater types, of course, for us. So I think that is the focus, that who is it, Who is it that we cling to? And if it is a person, then we will stay. If it is a place, then we will leave depending on circumstance. And, uh, and yet you can see here this almost and yet so beautiful that Ruth.
In fixing perhaps a faith in someone not worthy of faith, as we mentioned. Umm, what is the end of this story? Well, it's Boaz, the type of Christ that, uh, eventually comes before them and through which they have, uh, mutual blessing.
Strictly speaking is a picture of Israel as a depository of the promises made to the fathers, and that's a wonderful thing. And we it might appear to all outward appearance that those promises have fallen to the ground.
But it's not true, isn't it? And what Ruth lays a hold of is those promises, as we've been saying. And so to apply it to ourselves, it's the same thing, isn't it? What was the promise made to, uh, or the word given to Philadelphia Revelation chapter 3, Thou hast kept my word and not denied my name. It's the same thing in our day. It's a wonderful moral parallel to our own. I think it's helpful too. And I think, uh, the, the, the answer to our brother's question, I think it's been given, but maybe to try to clarify a little bit, But I believe it is those.
01:10:10
Versus 16 and 17, it's plain that Ruth, though she was a Moabite, shows true faith. She chose, she shows true evidence of new life, doesn't she? And our language today, we would say she's born again and she uses the name of the Lord and the Lord had gotten ahold of her soul. And that's a wonderful thing. One thing I've enjoyed in the book of Ruth, there's four chapters and uh, it's been mentioned that there's 4 words used in scripture for the, for the word love.
Perhaps we can go into that as we go through these meetings, but the first word and the the word commonly used in the New Testament for love is agape. That's God's sovereign love, which picks us up and pure grace. And that's what we have in this chapter. God and his sovereign grace is picking up someone who had no rights, only some kind of outward relationship with the Naomi and God and his sovereignty picks her up and uh, she becomes a spiritual beauty as we have here. What a wonderful picture.
And I also would just like to mention just, uh, perhaps in passing, but it's a very fruitful study to look at the nations that surround Israel. They represent various moral principles. Egypt, for instance, as we know, represents this natural world from which we've been called. Babylon, for instance, represents the corruption of Christendom and, uh, even the corruption of the political system. We have it both in both ways in Scripture. Moab, though, what does that speak of? Well, there's a verse injure in Jeremiah 48 that I think helps us understand what Moab speaks of.
Because I think it's something that speaks to us as well. Uh, Moab, uh, Jeremiah 48 and verse 11. Moab has been at ease from his youth, and he has settled on his leads as haunches and hath not been emptied from vessel to vessel to trials, neither hath he gone into captivity. Therefore his taste or his, his, uh, scent remains in him and his sin is not changed. Moab is a picture of the natural man.
Who seeks ease for himself? And So what these two dear people, Elimelech and Naomi wanted they they saw the famine. And they say, well, there must be an easier path. That's what Moab represents. It was an easier path, perhaps outwardly, or at least it seemed to be, but in fact it was to great spiritual loss. The true path of spiritual blessing is to keep His word and not to deny his name. And what beauty we see in this book, we'll see it develop. First Agape.
God choosing, uh, in his sovereign grace, someone who would perhaps never have been brought into such blessing. That's what he's done with each of us. We'll see you in the next chapter. I believe another word that's used in the New Testament for love. That's phileo, the love of friendship and companionship where love is returned and reciprocated. We see that developed in chapter two. Well, Lord willing, we'll go into the other two as we move through these chapters.
We're about out of time, I know, but in verse 16 and 17, we touched upon, uh, the attachment to a real person. She was attached to Ruth and treat me not to leave the, we have, of course, our attachment to Jesus Christ, but there's three more things There's, uh, and treat me not to turn away from following after the, there has to be evidence in salvation and in salvation. We can see that once we truly know the Lord and our Savior and are saved, uh, we, we don't want to, uh, ever turn away from.
Uh, following after him and that is the evidence of our salvation. And so when you get down there where thou logist, I will lodge and the people shall be my people and thy people. My God. We have the assembly, we have the spiritual lodging, don't we?
And that's why we're all here today. We're assembled together, we're getting spiritually fed, aren't we? We're with his people and we're with our people. And so we see in verse 17, the 4th one, where thou diest I will die, and there will I be buried. We see baptism and the truths of baptism that, uh, he died and he was into the waters and that he arose and resurrection. Didn't he see 100 and 93193?
Xavier, teach me to abide both, shelter that thy wounded side each are receiving grace on grace until I see thee face to face.
193.
Reverse in.
Galatians.
Galatians, chapter 4.
And uh, two verses versus 19 and 20.
My little children, of whom I TRA travail and birth again until Christ deformed in you, I desire to be present with you now and to change my voice where I stand in doubt of you. I should have read verse 20 before verse 19, but the thought is of whom I travail and birth again until Christ be formed in you. Give thanks our God and our Father. We just do thank Thee for.
Thy word we do thank Thee for the Spirit of God to lead our our thoughts.
And to bring these things to our consciences, we just do pray that we might truly grasp that, uh, restoration is Christ being formed in us. We pray that we might live for the, no matter how we've been distracted or how we might feel that we've been hurt or have somehow been left empty, we just do know that thou, Lord Jesus Christ, are sufficient for it all. And we need the in our lives.
And, uh, that that was just, uh, uh, to be formed in us, that we might reflect my glories to a world that is truly needy as well. In my name we give thanks, Lord Jesus, Amen. Amen.
Be an Overcomeer in Seven Things
Distress, Debt, Discontentment - David a Type of Christ
Perfect Love Casts Out the Fear That Takes Away Our Peace
Ruth 2:1-20
Reading
DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.
I'd like to suggest we go on and read the 2nd chapter of uh, Ruth. There's need to refer back to chapter one. That's fine. Book of Ruth, chapter 2. And Naomi had a kinsman of her husband's, a mighty man of wealth of the family of Elimelech, and his name was Boaz. And Ruth the Moabites said unto Naomi, Let me now go to the field and glean ears of corn after him, in whose sight I shall find grace. She said unto her, Go my daughter.
And she went and came, and gleaned in the field after the reapers, and her half was to light on a part of the field belonging unto Boaz.
Who was of the kindred of Elimelech? And behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem, and said unto the reefers, The Lord be with you. And they answered him, The Lord bless thee. Then said Boaz unto his servant that was set over the reapers. Whose damsel is this? And the servant that was set over the reaper's answered, and said, It is the Moabitish damsel that came back with Naomi out of the country of Moab. And she said, I pray you, let me glean and gather after the reapers among the sheaves. So she came, and hath continued even from the morning until now, that she tarried a little in the house.
Since it Boaz unto Ruth hearest thou nought my daughter go not to clean glean in another field, neither go from hence, but abide here fast by my maidens. Let thine eyes be on the field that they do reap, and go thou after them. Have I not charged the young men that they shall not touch thee? And when thou art athirst, go into the vessels and drink of that which the young men have drawn. Then she fell on her face, and bowed herself to the ground, and said unto him, Why have I found grace in thine eyes, that thou shouldest take knowledge of me, seeing I am a stranger?
When Boaz answered and said unto her, It has fully been showed me all that thou hast done unto thy mother-in-law since the death of thine husband, and how thou hast left thy father and thy mother, and the land of thy nativity, and art common to a people which thou knewest not heretofore.
The Lord recompensed thy work, and a full reward be given thee of the Lord God of Israel, under whose wings thou art come to trust. Then she said, Let me find favor in thy sight, my Lord, for that thou hast comforted me, and for that thou hast spoken friendly unto thine handmaid, though I be not like unto one of thine handmaidens. And Boaz sent it to her at meal time. Come, thou hit her, and eat of the bread, and dip thy morsel in the vinegar. And she sat beside the reapers, And he reached her parched corn, and she did eat, and was sufficed and left.
And when she was risen up to glean, Boaz commanded his young men, saying, Let her glean even among the sheaves, and reproach her not, and let fall also some of the handfuls of purpose for her.
And leave them, but she may glean them and rebuke her naughty. So she gleamed in the field until even and beat out that she had gleaned. And it was about an epoch of barley. And she took it up and went into the city. And her mother-in-law saw what she had gleaned, and she brought forth.
And gave to her that she had reserved after she was spiced. And her mother-in-law said into her, Where hast thou gleaned today, and where rottest thou? Blessed be he that did take knowledge of thee. And she showed her mother-in-law with whom she had wrought, and said, The man's name with whom I wrought today is Boaz. And Naomi said unto her daughter-in-law, Blessed be he of the Lord, who hath not left off his kindness to the living and to the dead. And Naomi said unto her, The man is near akin unto us, one of our next kinsmen. And Ruth the Moabitess said, He said unto me also, Thou shalt keep fast by my young men until they have ended all my harvests. And Naomi said unto Ruth her daughter-in-law, It is good, my daughter.
That thou go out with his maidens, that they meet thee not in any other field. So she kept fast by the maidens of Boaz to glean unto the end of Harley harvest and of wheat harvest, and dwelt with her mother-in-law.
I would like to make a few comments on the setting here of the barley harvest and wheat harvest. This was the time of year shortly after the Passover. I've been offered in the springtime and after the Passover immediately falling was the feast of Firstfruits when they offered up the first fruits of the corn or.
Uh.
Wheat or barley and which is a picture of the Lord Jesus and resurrection. And the results of what those two feasts speak of are the the, uh, the bread or the grain here that is in a is reaped and the blessing and that is a picture to us of the results of the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus.
Are that the gospel can go out freely and that there is a man in heaven dispensing, blessing, and that's what Boaz represents here and being a picture of the Lord.
00:05:06
It was just two, two or three generations previous to this when their ancestors had first come into the land of Canaan under Joshua. And when they crossed the Jordan, they came into that land of Canaan, which speaks of heavenly best blessing to us. For them, it was their earthly place of blessing. But when they came across that Jordan, they had not eaten bread for 40 years. And there, uh, they began eating what's called the old corn of the land.
That was.
Wheat or barley and they had and that was their food from that day on. It was at that time that the manna ceased her brother were speaking nicely. This last meeting about the manna, which is a picture of the Lord Jesus come down from heaven to earth to bring blessing on earth to the people of God as they experience earthly circumstances and so.
We have that in that spiritually Christ is the bread from heaven come down to meet us and to give us examples and and his fellowship as we go through earthly circumstances or wilderness circumstances. But now it's different. Now they are in the land of blessing. They're not in the wilderness. Now they the the the bread is the old corn of the land or here it's the barley harvest that's followed by.
The wheat harvest, that is a picture of the Lord Jesus going into heaven as a man and the resulting blessing that is ours because a man is in heaven. That's the picture here of that we get a blessing going out and how Ruth can come and glean without any right to receive that. Naomi had a right, but she had lost her land and so they were destitute.
Of this food.
Great answers to the devotedness of these two people to each other. In this chapter Ruth is devoted to her mother and gleans and this devotedness is observed by Boaz and when he sees this he responds in grace and gives her and tells her don't go anywhere else. He told her that because not to be restrictive.
But he wanted purposefully to give her abundance. That's our God, that's the Lord Jesus gone into heaven. That's the mean, the basis upon which we are blessed. We are like Ruth, the Gentiles who have no claims to God's blessing. And we are dependent on the good graces of someone else to take pity on us, show mercy and grace to us. Ephesians speaks about that being dead in trespasses and sins.
Having no right to these promises, we sometimes, brethren, forget where we where God met us and picked us up and brought us. We sometimes think that we deserve things. Did we read that word deserve in this chapter one time? It's not there, it's not there, We don't deserve anything.
But the good graces of our God through the Lord Jesus. And so I I just thought it well to give the spiritual significance of the setting here in the barley harvest. Now let me just say a little bit more about the barley and the wheat. It started with the barley harvest and the barley was the inferior grain to the wheat, but it became first.
It's been said, and I got this from some writings, that barley is a picture of God in grace meeting man.
Uh, according to his Adam nature and blessing him we is a picture of God blessing man in the new relationship of being in Christ and both come here. It starts with the barley harvest.
Which was usually.
The barley was usually for the animals or an inferior grain, whereas the wheat was spoken of sometimes as the finest. And I believe it's a higher order of blessing that the, the, that the wheat, uh, is a picture to us. Umm, the Lord giving us that new life in himself. We're born again, we're a new creation. We partake of the life and nature of the Lord and resurrection.
00:10:23
In his resurrection and he feeds us with himself according accordingly.
On.
I have another question and uh, I hope you don't mind. It might relate a little bit to what we had in the previous chapter.
But there was, shall I say, two issues as far as the nation was concerned.
There was no king, no authority, and so every man did that which which is right in his own eyes. And we see that today in the Church of God, how that the Lord's authority has been despised and made of started churches according to their own ideas.
But perhaps more seriously, there was a famine where the ought to have been blessing. Now we administered this morning, and should those circumstances arise, we don't leave. But what should we do?
I'm aware of Paul's instruction and when, uh, to the elders of efforts, of course, when they commend them to God and the word of his grace, umm, but I just wondered if we should have some practical instruction As for when we find ourselves in a situation where there's a famine where they ought to be blessing amongst the, uh, gatherings.
Brother Jim already kind of addressed that when he was talking about the personal faithfulness that comes in. I remember Gordon Hayhoe saying to me years ago when I was a teenager, discouraged about being in a small meeting where not much was going on and saying that, you know, there is a path for faith for the individual and that the Lord can respond to that. You know, the assembly that I grew up in, uh, when I was a teenager, I got away from the Lord and it was down to about six people.
But due to special prayer meetings in the Lord's sovereign work amongst people there, but a desire to see blessing from individuals, there was a period of time and a year's period of time where it went from six people till the walls were being pushed out. You know, this may be the day of small things, but the Lord will respond to faith and faithfulness in individuals and if one person and one family.
Are a few friends.
Can pray and seek God's face in the midst of the weakness and feebleness he delights to bless. And that's attractive to other people that are of like mind, people who have.
Godly hearts and want to seek the same kind of things. Yeah. I don't know who the evangelist was from days gone by. Who who said this? I thought it's one time it might have been Moody. It was someone went to this evangelist and asked him how could we have revival back where we live in their particular neighborhood, in their particular church, I guess. And this man drew a circle in the dirt. They were outside, took a stick and drew a circle in the dirt. And he asked the gentleman to stand in it. And he said pray for the person in the circle.
That he might be revived. And when that person in the circle is revived, then pray for the ones next to you. And when the ones next to you are revived, then pray for others as well. You know, there's a this book that we're going through and Ruth, there's God's side, the sovereign side. And the key to this whole book is in chapter 2, the whole thing on the on the side of faith that was just read where Boya says.
Uh, the Lord recompense thy work and forward be given the Lord God of Israel, but the Lord God of Israel, under whose wings thou art come to trust. There's individual faith right there.
Where she had trusted, you know, it was brought out in the previous meeting that who knows what she saw, but she saw something in Naomi. She saw heard something, she saw something and Faith responded. So God's work in her soul was going on long before this happened. This is one person and she's in circumstances, She's a Gentile. She has no rights, as our brother was saying, to come in. She has nothing to demand from anyone. But something she heard from Naomi, something she heard in that house, Faith responded and trusted in this God. This is one person by herself. And maybe Naomi wasn't that faithful or had gone through circumstances. It just said, you know, she had to go along with her husband to this land.
But whatever she saw, she trusted. She came to trust in Jehovah, the God of Israel. And in in response to that, her faith leads her to come with Naomi. Even though Naomi says no, stay there, stay there, even pushes her away. She still comes and faith brings her into the land, brings her into blessing and stuff happened. It starts working around. She doesn't even understand that. She questions it. But for one person who will seek God's faith and will trust him and go after it all through Scripture, we find these kinds of things where it doesn't look like any possibility of blessing could come in.
00:15:17
And we're told in Scripture not to despise the day of small things. I, I say it over and over again, don't despise the day of small things. And let God determine how small small is. We may decide, well, this is the way it is nothing. You know, the glory of the first temple is never going to be seen again. Fine. But let God decide what glory he wants to bestow and what kind of blessing he will bring. But the individual person in faithfulness to the Lord, even if no one else wants to be faithful, you can be part of a remnant even if you don't know where the rest of them are. But his brother Jim said in the previous reading.
There are others, Timothy is told there are others and you can go on with them. And when two come together, like 22 brands burning, one by itself is a little bit of light. Put two together, more light comes, more warmth comes. And when there's faithfulness like that, God can respond to that. And he does. And we see it over and over again. And he, he will do it today and he'll do it until he comes. I think we get a little, umm.
Little picture of that in the previous book in judges, if we we follow each one of those judges through and what kind of a what kind of a time were they in? And, and I think in particular of one that just that we're all familiar with and that's Gideon and Gideon could say, where do we find Gideon? He was he was working in the in the umm.
The winepress, sorry, he was it working not by the winepress so much, but in the winepress, because the winepress was empty. And he was, uh, he was, uh, working with the wheat, He was getting his own sustenance and, and, uh, the Angel of the Lord appeared to him and, uh, and so he says to the Angel of the Lord, uh, Oh my Lord, if the Lord be with us, why then is all this befallen us? And where be all his miracles which our fathers told us of saying, did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt and so on and so.
There's, uh, Gideon being faithful in, in the place, he didn't go down into mojo. He didn't, uh, the, the Midianites were in the land and the Midianites speak of, uh, speak of some of those things that are, uh, both enemies of the people of God And, umm, so Gideon was being faithful where he was. And, uh, I believe he was a ready vessel forgot to use, and he took that low place, as we all know, and the, the Lord used him. I, I'm not gonna, we, we're all familiar with the details. So I want, I won't go through them all, but I, I just believe that, uh, there's an example of what we can do.
When times are low, we can be our brother was talking about being overcomers, you know, and I believe Gideon in a sense was an overcomer. And you and I can be overcomers and, uh, in, in, in the situations that we are in and the places that the Lord has put us not to go to someplace else. And maybe we get a little picture of this. Boa says to Ruth, don't go into another field. And we've all heard that that reference made to going other than where the Lord's presence is.
And to try and find some source of help for ourselves and some food over there. Don't do that because we can be overcomers where we are. And if we're, if we're in the right state of soul, I believe the Lord will use us as a vessel for blessing. God is able to feed his people even in the midst of famine when there's personal faith and obedience. And that's why this morning we mentioned another famine and that was in connection with Isaac and Isaac instead of going down into Egypt like Abraham did.
He listened to the word of the Lord, and the Lord told Isaac, as we mentioned this morning, to sow there had to be personal faith and obedience. And you'd say, well, what would be the point of sowing? There's a famine in the land. But I think in faith and obedience He sowed and he reaped that year a hundredfold, not 30 or 60 fold, but he reaped a hundredfold. And God was able to sustain him even in the midst of famine. We find later on in the kings there was another famine and there was a widow woman, and what was she told to do? Go and gather some pots together and pour out the oil and so on. And during that famine God was able to sustain her and her sons in the midst of famine.
But it took personal faith and obedience to the word of the Lord. I'll just give you another little example. It's a little different, but I think the principle is the same. When the multitude was hungry in the days of the Lord Jesus, we find in John six, he says to the disciples, how basically, how are we going to feed this multitude? Why did he say it? He knew how he was going to feed them, but it tells us there. He said it to prove them. He wanted to see if they were going to rely on himself for food.
00:20:00
For themselves and the multitude. And you know, it's interesting there in that occasion, and that's the only miracle that's mentioned in all before the cross. That's mentioned in all four gospels. But it's interesting that when the disciples took the loaves and fishes and at the word of the Lord distributed to the multitude, not only did they feed the multitude, but there were 12 baskets leftover. Why were there 12 baskets? The disciples needed food too. There were 12 disciples and everyone got a basket of food to take away. That was quite a job to feed that multitude, but God sustained them. They were in a wilderness place, but God sustained them.
And believe, at least in part, the answer to Dave's question is that God can feed his people in the midst of of spiritual famine or dearth if there's personal faith and obedience. But I would like to say this too. I believe the hindrance on our part is so often we come to get rather than to give. Are you and I exercise? You say there's no food in the little assembly where I come from. And we come on Wednesday night and we read a chapter and we stumble around and we just don't seem to get much out of it. Well, first of all, just reading the chapter and meditating on it would be to our prophet if there was real exercise.
But brethren, if we're exercised to come, I'm going to say this to the brothers and I'm going to say it very plainly. If we're exercised to come with something and let's, let's be realistic, let's have discernment of the times. We're not in the days when things were a lot stronger spiritually amongst us. Maybe it's a good idea to take the chapter we're going to have on Wednesday night and meditate on a little bit before we come. Maybe we need to do a little digging, maybe pull out some good ministry. Yes, when we come, we want to rely on the Spirit of God and the Spirit of God teaches in the assembly. That's true. But let's have discernment of the time and let's come.
Not necessarily to get, yes, we do get, but let's come with an exercise to give if there seems to be so, so little food there. Let's come next Wednesday with having enjoyed a little food in our souls so we can share it with others. And you know what you'll find heat at Watereth is watered also himself. If you come and, and you, you do a little feeding of the Saints, you'll be fed some extra yourself. And you'll find too, that it will exercise your brethren then, and they may start doing a little more meditating and a little more digging with a little, uh, more on their hearts.
When when we come together for ministry in the assembly. And so let's not have so much the selfish thought of justice coming to get, but being exercised to come to give, to contribute. And remember we can be no more collectively than we are individually. If we're not enjoying the the barley and the wheat in our own souls, we're not going to be able to share it with others. Let me add to that the women that come, if every woman in the meeting would come now, you can't teach audibly in that meeting.
But if you came as though you were, as though you could, as though you would, having read that chapter, having studied it out, and your heart is full when you come there. One of the things that can happen and for younger people too, is, and it's an exciting thing that you discovered something in the chapter you read and then you're in the meeting and it confirms something the Lord showed you. Some older brother is bringing something out. And you go, well, I had that before me yesterday or whenever you were reading that. You know, when people come full like that.
Things change in the assembly and the meeting and you will get more, you will understand more.
And sometimes, umm, I've heard brothers say, well, you know, I'm no teacher. I can't do. Are they used to say I'm not like Gordon Hayhoe or Albert Hayhoe or somebody like that? Well, who, who is, you know, sometimes, uh, those come and you'll never see quite life again. But there's this every single man who has a job and works someplace and goes through circumstances. I don't care what you do. I remember growing up in a meeting where Charles Ludichek, he was a gifted gospel preacher.
And he was very good in the Sunday school and that, well, he was horticulturist. What he brought to meeting with him were experiences and even objects that he used in his work to illustrate some truth. Well, I found that interesting. I'm not a horticulturist. I grew up on a farm and I was a young boy and listening to these things. But those kinds of things made the truth that was was being brought out stick in a picture in a form in my mind. Well, I don't care if you're you're a janitor or whatever you are. There are things that happen in your life.
God uses our ordinary circumstances, He uses our occupations and the things that we do to teach us things. You learn things from whatever you do. Well, when you do, when you sit down in the assembly and some truth is, is being brought out or something in the Scripture that relates to that, Tell the story. You can tell stories and, and, and make things that are interesting to your brethren. If you've learned it and the Lord has taught it to you through your circumstances or interesting stories, funny ones or difficult ones, it makes the meeting much more interesting and the Spirit of God can use that.
00:25:06
Those little things that take place in our lives to, to, to bring it to others. And then you remember it. All of my life sitting in these kinds of meetings, I have benefited greatly from people who've done that, whether it was Ron Reeves or someone telling a story or illustrating something or bringing something into the, the, the podium and showing it. Uh, you know, those truths from the word of God are riveted in my brain in stories, stories, ordinary men, those God bless the farmers in Iowa that, that sat over the word of God and farmed each day. And then when they came to meeting, they told me a story about a cow or a sheep or something that took place.
And I was able to understand something in the reading meeting because they did that and I benefited from it and learned from it. The miracle of the lows and fishes. There were those that, uh, or I should ask the question, where did the baskets come from? Well, someone brought the baskets. There is expectation and we need to bring baskets also. And the story here of Ruth and Ruth goes out to a field and she really doesn't know what, how she's going to be accepted. And she finds that there's handfuls of purpose for her. And later on in the story, she's pretty bold.
And, uh, goes to Boaz and when she goes home, she carries home all this wheat in her in an apron she has, she didn't have a basket, she had an apron and she ran home with the wheat. So there's expectation there is.
Uh, Jim said, you know, we don't always come with a thought to get, but we do get from God and we should expect that. Just another little story, expectation and faith and so forth. Los Angeles, there was a no rain. And so the same, we gathered together spraying hell, but it's not a big meeting and uh, wasn't a big meeting. It's a lot bigger now. But umm, we prayed, we prayed for rain. One person brought an umbrella.
That was old senior Ernie Monk. What a brother he was. He brought an umbrella. Well, how often do we come bringing our basket, bring an umbrella, bringing our apron, whatever. We're just going out expecting handfuls of purposes. And God is a provider. God, he is a.
Yeah, he has provision for his people, and I just wanna say a word about that in connection with these ones that are we have in the chapter here before us because we find that Boaz a picture of the Lord Jesus. He was concerned and interested in the blessing of those who were working in his field. There were the reapers, There were people like Ruth who gleaned the handfuls of purpose. There were the young men who drew the water, one different ones with different responsibilities, but they were all under the direction of Boaz and another man, his servant. And I'd just like to make a comment about these two men because I think it's important to see.
The function of these two men, Boaz and the and the servant and they both had a concern or an if, shall I say an interest in the blessing of those that were working under them. Boaz, as we've said, is a picture to us of the Lord Jesus. But just notice so we get it from Scripture in verse 5. Then said Boaz unto his servant that was set over the reapers, whose damsel is this, and the servant that was said over the reapers answered and so on.
We often find in Scripture that the servant singular, especially when he's unnamed in the portion is a picture to us of the Spirit of God. We find Abraham in the 24th of Genesis sent his servant, and I know the servant is named in another portion, but in that portion he's not named. And he sent there to fetch a bride for his son Isaac. The picture of the servant of God sent down to this world to call out a bride for Christ. We find the man bearing the pitcher of water in Luke 22.
We find the servant in the story of the marriage of the king in one gospel, its servants, plural, and that's us, and we bid to the marriage in another gospel, it's the servant singular who compels them to come in. That's the work of the Spirit of God. I only give that background to show to confirm. What I suggest here is that the servant here singular who's over the reapers is a picture of the Spirit of God. And so when Boaz comes, he first of all speaks to the servant. It's the Lord Jesus and the Spirit of God.
Interested and.
The blessing of souls. And isn't it wonderful to think that even though sometimes we might feel there's a famine and a spiritual dirt, if we are willing to look to the one, the Lord Jesus, who desires our spiritual blessing and defeat us with food convenient for us and to refresh us with water. If we're willing to look to him, then in the power of the Spirit, he is able to provide everything that's needed for us. And so Ruth going out to glean in Boaz Field.
00:30:10
Under the direction of the servant, the a picture of the Spirit of God. What does she receive? She receives not only sustenance and refreshment for herself, but we're going to find when she goes home at night, she has something to share with her mother-in-law as well, something to share with others. And we'll find that if we're willing to look again individually as families collectively, as gathered to the Lord's name. If we look to the Lord Jesus, realizing that it is his desire to feed us and bless us and that there is one that's over the reapers, the Spirit of God.
In whose power he can do it. Then I believe we're going to receive a blessing just like Ruth, for ourselves and for others. Can we turn to Leviticus chapter 19 together, please? Leviticus 19 and verse 9.
And when you reap the harvest of your land, thou shalt not wholly reap the corners of thy field, neither shalt thou gather the bleedings of thy harvest. And thou shalt not glean thy vineyard, neither shalt thou gather every grape of the vineyard. Thou shalt lead them for the poor and the stranger, or the sojourner. I am the Lord your God. Leviticus 23 and verse 22 together 23 and 22. And when you reap the harvest of your land, thou shalt not make clean riddance of the corners of thy field. When thou reap us, neither shalt thou gather any gleanings of thy harvest.
Thou shalt leave them unto the poor and the stranger. Sojourner, I am the Lord your God. What we see here if we turn back to our chapter and look at verse 17. So she gleaned in the field until the evening and beat out what she had gleaned, and it was about an E fat a barley. Now look ahead in chapter 3 and look at verse.
15 I believe it is here yes. And he said also he said bring the uh.
The cloak or the veil that thou hast upon thee and hold it out. And when she held it out, he measured 6 measures of barley and laid it on her and she went into the city. There's quite a difference in the comparison of the two different things, wasn't it? She received and she got more and above the abundance of what she needed. Uh, the Lord here we've been hearing about the servant has Boaz knew what was correct when he come to talk to these people there in verse four, he gave them a greeting. First he said, the Lord be with you.
And so he, he knew that she needed this and he saw to it, according to the word of the Lord, that that she would receive an abundance over and above what she wanted. And I like to look sometimes as an overview. And like I said before, and just slightly to change the subject, if I may, Ruth our brother asked the original question about no king at the end of the last chapter. What does Ruth receive for her reward at the end? Turn over to chapter 4 and look at verse.
13 And we will just kinda go backwards in one sense. 4 and 13 So Boaz took Ruth, and she was his wife, and when he went in unto her, the Lord gave her conception and she bore a son. Now the lineage starts in verse 18 and ends in 22. And the last word of the last chapter of the book of Ruth is King David. And she became the great grandmother of King David and the lineage through which the Messiah would come. This was her reward.
And her reward was for her devotion to Naomi and her, uh, loyalty that she had. When we look at verse 2, that's where we're starting to look at some of this devotion and some of this loyalty. She asked her mother-in-law. She says, let me now in our chapter, let me now go to the field and glean the ears of corn after him, and whose sight I shall find grace. She asked permission from her mother-in-law to go and do this. Turn with me now to First Peter chapter 5. And then I'll read 2 verses and that'll be it. First Peter 5:00 and 5:00.
In like manner, ye younger, submit yourselves unto the elder. Yeah, all of you, Be Subject 1 to another and be clothed with humility for God. Resistance to the proud and giveth grace to the humble. Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time. Ruth humbled herself and we need to look at the humbling, the loyalty and the devotion that she has through the rest of this book so that we now know what her reward was. Her reward was her son. And then the lineage went right down to David.
Who the Messiah would come to, and that was her reward for her loyalty and her devotion. And each and every one of us can have a reward for our loyalty and our devotion in US. I appreciate these comments. Umm, I just wonder, uh, when we look at the Old Testament times, in most cases, many cases, not necessarily all because it's not mentioned here, when there was a famine, there was a cause. Is it appropriate that we should be exercised about the cause of the famine should we find that situation?
00:35:15
Amongst their gathering, yes. And that, that's what Solomon prayed in his prayer. Uh, it's uh, First Chronicles 20, Umm.
There's a second.
Second Chronicles 20 and verse 9.
Umm, uh.
I'm glad you got us back to this, David, because I think, uh, it's important point. Second Chronicles 20 and verse 9.
If when evil cometh upon us as the sword, judgment, or pestilence, or famine, we stand before this house, and in thy presence, for thy name is in this house, and cry unto thee in our affliction, then thou wilt hear and help. I know this was written afterward, but the principle applies. There is a cause.
For the famine and it, it's not enough to be occupied with the blessings that the Lord gives us. The blessings without the blesser are, are empty. And so the Lord wanted his people, not just the wheat or not just the food. And so it is with us. And I, I, I believe that the Lord wants us to go to him in this. And then the other part, which we've already touched on is the, the diligence on our part.
And that's where you see Ruth, where they were slack and easily leaving behind their fields of grain and not planning in faith. Uh.
There were others who did in in our back in our chapter and notice umm verse 4.
Why was there a man, a mighty man of wealth in verse one? Well, because there was an order established, a godly order, and it comes out in verse 4.
And behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem, and said unto the reapers.
The Lord be with you. And they answered him, The Lord bless thee. This to me is so beautiful. Each one is looking out for the good of the other. The Lord is uh, Boaz is saying to them, the Lord be with you and help you. He doesn't say bless me, He's saying the Lord be with you.
He gained their confidence. They were good reapers and they say the Lord blessed thee. They didn't say pay me well.
No, the Lord blessed thee. And so when, when there's that diligence seeking the devotion to each other, then that creates a good harvest, good food. When our assemblies are weak and they are, we feel this. It's not enough, brethren, just to say, well, there's grace.
We have to lay hold of that grace. There has to be that diligence, that devotion.
Like Ruth to her mother-in-law, she was doing this for her mother-in-law. That's what kept her out in the field all day long. She worked hard to bring that in. And so there needs to be that due diligence, that devotion in our assemblies, in our among ourselves to get food for the Lord's people. And I think Jim has touched on that. And you know, it doesn't hurt to read the chapter before the meeting.
I'd like to make a comment on verse 21 of the previous chapter before we try to get an overview of chapter 2. But there's a word I have underlined in my Bible. This is Naomi speaking verse 21. I went out full and the Lord hath brought me home.
That's a good thing, isn't it? So I suppose part of the answer is that we go to the place of blessing, the place the Lord is appointed for blessing. That's our proper home. And as we mentioned, the barley harvest, barley was the very first of the harvest, wasn't it? We might say the poorest of the harvest in many respects, but it was a foretaste of what lie ahead. And so there were other harvests. Doug mentioned wheat. That's a better harvest. There was the figs that were harvested later. There were the grapes that were harvested later and turned into wine.
The joy of the Spirit, but the be it began with a poor harvest. And uh, so it's the promise of better things to come. And I mentioned this morning what I've enjoyed in my own soul. The 1St chapter we have an illustration of agape love. That's a love of commitment. It was first God's commitment to Ruth and then her response to that in consecration. But in the second chapter, I believe we have Phileo illustrated. That's the love of friendship and what we have in this chapter.
00:40:14
Is a beautiful illustration of the order of God's house. And Mr. Hamilton Smith brings this out in his beautiful little, uh, uh, commentary on the book of Ruth. I recommend any read that. As we were saying, it's good to be familiar with the literature and he brings out the various order of God's house. It's interesting. If we look at first Timothy, for instance, what do we have in first Timothy? Well, it speaks about the older sisters, how they're to instruct the younger sisters. That's exactly what we have here. Naomi is an older sister. She's to instruct this younger sister, Ruth. There's other younger sisters. Uh, Ruth is told to go out with the, the maidens in the field.
Well, those are the other, some of the other younger sisters. What we have here again is a beautiful picture, perhaps the most beautiful picture in the Old Testament of the order of God's house. We also have the young men who were mentioned a number of times, the, uh, they have two functions mainly. They were reapers. They were diligent and reaping the word of God. What's reaping speak of? Well, it speaks of our appropriation of our spiritual blessings, doesn't it, making it our own. And then there was cleaners that followed after. So these are all parts of the order of God's house.
Some of the young men wreathed, some drew water. Well water, of course, as we well know, is a common picture of the Spirit of God. So we have the different functions in the House of God. And we mentioned of course, Boaz and the overseer. That's what it's all about. Boaz, of course, is a picture of the Lord Jesus and, uh, the overseers, a picture of the Spirit of God directing according to Boaz's thoughts and purposes. So you can see the different functions here. And as I say, I highly recommend that, uh.
That we each get familiar with Hamilton Smith's little booklet on the book of Ruth. A beautiful picture, beautiful illustration of the order of God's house. That's what Phileo is. It's requited love. It's the love of fellowship and communion one with another. It's a picture of the Christian community. Isn't that a better blessing than just barley? It started with barley for their own needs, but now the blessing is increasing for Ruth and it's going to get better. Look what she gets in chapter 3 and then chapter 4.
She gets a direct relationship with Boas, not just as blessings that she gets in chapter 2, but now she begins a personal relationship with Boaz. And then finally in chapter 4 she has her own family. Chapter 4 is the love of belonging or storge as we have in the New Testament. Chapter 3 is the love of romance, Ahava in the Old Testament. But here in chapter 2 we have the love of friendship and fellowship. Isn't that a wonderful thing?
We just had in our state, in Washington, I know many have prayed for the family. Just a couple of weeks ago, there was a funeral of a young mother and and wife. And yet we've heard that there's been tremendous support for that dear family. It's a sad thing when a young mother passes away. The age I believe was 37, leaving four children behind. But there's been tremendous support there. What if they were by themselves and Moab still and something happened? What support did they have?
We don't read of any, do we? But this is God's way of blessing. What a beautiful picture and what beautiful support there is under the direction, according to the directions of Boas and according to the overseeing of the Spirit of God. And then the place which Ruth Naomi calls home, it's the House of God.
Reading 1St umm 9.
Since Let 9 is beyond the field that they do reap and go without after them, have I not charged the young men that they shall not touch thee?
And when thou art a thirst to go into the vessels and drink of that which the young men have drawn. We've been umm, the question had been asked earlier about what do we do in a period of famine? And I think it's good to, as we've remarked, think of the blessing that is inherent when we are in the right place or focused upon the right person. And then as well the, the fact that there is the personal rigor and responsibility of each one. That idea of that fasting or true fasting in Isaiah, I believe it's 55 or 58 where, umm, our light shines forth and our healing arises when we give.
To others looking not upon our own things, but I think it's good as well to dwell upon an aspect of this which is there are other fields, and there are, as Magnolias would say, wide fields of expediency on either side of that narrow path that we are meant to trod.
And yet the reason for not going to those other fields is that Boas has no oversight there. There is no order that is there for for her benefit. And I want to mention to the young people especially because having and being a young person in this world, we often have to consider, yes, the wonders of the blessing that comes when the Spirit of God is moving. Yes, the blessing that arises when, when you apply yourself to coming prepared to the Lord's day or to a breaking of bread. And yes, the wondrous, umm, love that can come from the brethren around about us. But what about those times where none of those things are available?
00:45:26
There's an abyss that only a person of faith can can comprehend that happens when discouragement enters. And it's in those moments that we turn to, unfortunately, whatever seems to predominate in our culture. And I wanted to just mention as a form of exportation that changing location has not now nor ever will be the answer to one's issues. And I wanna read a verse, umm, our brother read a, a passage in, in the Chronicles and I wanna read a passage in Jeremiah 42 Concerning that very prayer that, umm.
Solomon made and then I want to, umm, illustrate briefly what it is I meant by the pretty general statement.
This is not new to anyone, but uh, chapter 42, this is the umm, the remnant of of those that were left in the land after the captivity asking for Jeremiah to go into the Lord and to inquire the Lord they were planning to go down into Egypt once again. So we can see this word sojourn. So I wanted to read this really quickly and then comment briefly now, therefore, here verse 15, the word of the Lord, ye remnant of Judah. Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel. If ye wholly set your faces to enter into Egypt and go to sojourn there, then it shall come to pass that the sword which he feared shall overtake you in the land of Egypt.
And the famine whereof you were afraid shall follow close after you there in Egypt, and there you shall die. So shall it be with all the men that set their faces to go into Egypt to sojourn there. They shall die by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence, and none of them shall escape from the evil, etcetera. And further at a more in a more, I think heart affecting consequences, the statement which has spiritual overtones. And they shall see this place no more, Umm.
I think it's important for us to recognize that mankind and we ourselves as part of it, often confuse motivation or being motivated with vision, with true vision that sustains for present happiness, which is contingent for joy that is long term, for, umm, some sort of circumstantial pleasure for that which, uh, will sustain through even the darkness of ours. And I want to mention especially as Americans, since most of us here are, or at least are come or descend from those who were, uh, colonists.
People came here seeking, and it's always been an impulse in man's, in man's heart, to find that frontier where we can start over, where we can begin anew. To think of the Puritans and how they came here to start over in freedom and oppression. And the cycles fall of the graveyard, the prison house and the religious church always follow man wherever he goes. And when that was over, we went West. And when W was over, you know, it just keeps on going. And so man is always trying to start anew, but the things that man has follow him.
It's almost as a, there's a wonderful, I don't mean to mention a poet, but it's umm, I guess Paul did so I can umm, but there's a, a George Herbert poem. He's a wonderful poet from the 17th, 17th century. And he, and he envisions God out of this barrel of goodness. Giving man things benefits. I'm giving him wisdom and intelligence and all these things, but he gets to the bottom and in the bottom there lies rest. And he says, I can't give this else he will not seek me. And I wanted to just mention for the young people here when all of these other things don't seem to be relevant or present.
Engine of location for that sake doesn't help and has never helped any group of people regardless of their Christian or not. What is the problem always will follow us and the truth of this chapter here is that when we go to a place that we know not of, there is no Boas there who has instructed the young man. There is no, there is no there is no parameters for the judgment that could come. It's almost as if King David, we can hear him in our uh, in our minds when we when we think about such things because I would rather fall into the hands of God.
Suffering is is of benefit to us and it's almost where that question and answer become one. And I'm sorry for taking so long, but umm, where Peter would say, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of life. There is there is no other person.
Than Christ and simply changing our circumstance or finding some pleasure or pursuing life, liberty, pursuit of happiness. Confusing pain for something that's wrong is ultimately detrimental to our soul. I feel our brother probably has his question and that perhaps the Spirit of God would have more on that.
Umm, you said that. Shouldn't we pay attention to the causes and what happens? Well, going back to the early days of Mr. Darby and those they were, they in their writings and their preaching, they talked about how.
00:50:06
They owned the ruin that was going on in the broad in Christendom, in amongst real believers, amongst those who profess to be in owning that. And if you read the history, they said they had no sense of starting anything. They just wanted to obey. And there was this simplicity, but there was an owning that you can't get out of it. If you're a Christian or a professing Christian, you're part of Christendom, you're part of this. That says that that represents Christ and they own it. And that there's this. If you own something, you own it just as an individual, your state that you own it. You own, you're failing, you own where you're at. God works with that. And I think that that's exactly right.
That you need to own that. Now, you might be like Ruth. She had, no, she didn't have anything to do with that. She didn't fail. She was there. And in the midst of the circumstances, the one thing she didn't do, she didn't say, well, I have nothing to do with this. I have a right to be blessed or come that way. She didn't do that. And maybe a young person coming along would say I have nothing to do with all the troubles and the difficulties. You know, I look at those who the gather Saints and all the history all the way back to Mr. Darby and I see my heart aches because I see a beating and bruised and battered and bloody people, some who are hunkered down just waiting for the Lord to come. Uh, some who feeling that nothing will change, I'm just gonna endure it till the end. You know, those kinds of feelings. But I don't believe that that's correct either. I think we can own it. The Bible in the Old Testament talks about holy convocation.
There is a kind of holy convocation we can have and it's where the prayers that go up are I we and our fathers have sinned and there's an owning that even though you may have nothing to do with a lot of the things that are going on saying that and acknowledging that I am, you know in this place. I am owning that I, we and our fathers have sinned. Lord, I am myself and if we're going to be honest, every individual has also. We have not measured up to what God has for us in our life. But if we do that.
And we do as it were, we're all at circle and pray for the revival of that person. Things will change. Now individual blessing can come into the life of someone like Ruth who had nothing to do with the trouble. She comes to believe she saw something in the the message that was given her out of Naomi's life. She comes to believe and have faith and she doesn't come. She questions why am I even being blessed? She comes. It reminds me of the Syrophoenician woman in the in the New Testament who comes to the Lord Jesus and asks that her child might be delivered from being possessed.
At first the Lord ignores her, but he's already worked a work in her heart and her life beforehand. His sovereign grace has been working. He's going to Draw Something out of her. He ignores her. She keeps coming. There's faith. She comes and says I, I need help. He says to her, well, dogs don't deserve to have food for the children's food from the table. She doesn't rear back and say, well, I'm just as good as any Jew. She doesn't do that. She owns. I'm a dog and I love it. It's so beautiful as it comes in, she says even the dogs deserve the crumbs from the table. She owns where she is. She doesn't pretend to be anything else.
And she received blessing. How many Gentiles received blessing in the in the time the Lord Jesus was here on the earth before the cross? She did out of place, out of time, because faith broke through. She'd heard the stories about Jesus. Who knows what all took place in her life. But she doesn't come demanding anything. And she finds blessing because God honors faith. When you come to our situation presently in our day, we know that things are difficult all around us and Christendom, things are being let go. Our brother was warning us about false doctrine and that we need to be aware that everything is being let go.
Uh, false doctrines that were apparently put away and done with long time ago are being brought out freshly. The nosticism of the, the, the 2nd century and all of that is being brought back as if it's a new revelation from God. We're seeing terrible things going on even amongst, uh, what used to be fairly fundamental evangelical churches. Those things are eroding into amongst us young people going to college and places, even in high school, these things that come in, there's this danger all around. We are a battered bruise people. We have failed I and we and our fathers have sinned and we have failed. But if it's owned, there's a place.
Back in the the 70s, I got away from the Lord and the Lord restored me and my soul. I saw personal things take place.
And personal blessing, O opportunity to lead souls to Christ. And I wondered why no one wanted to come to me. No one wanted to come there. And over time and one Lord's day, brother Carl McCoy said to me, he said, Sam, why don't you come to the midweek meeting, the prayer meeting? And I said, you really want to know him. He says, yes, I want you to be honest with me. I said, because the prayers don't get answered in the midweek meeting.
And uh, brother, Carl was wise. He didn't argue with me or anything. You do so well, brother. I guess that's something we should pray about then, shouldn't we?
00:55:05
And you know what, that prayer meeting, they started praying about that Lord, what is hindering? Is there something about us? Is there something in the way? And you know what? Unbeknownst there were things hindering. And over time, those things were the Lord dealt with them. And then all of a sudden people started coming.
No human being did that. That was something the Lord did, but He responded to faith and He responded to people praying and seeking Lord. We don't know what's wrong. We know something is, but would you show us? Will you remove the hindrances? We would desire blessing from your hand, whatever it might be. I believe that when you own what the situation is, you respond in faith and you seek His face and go after it like the Syrophoenician woman. You will the Lord will respond His blessing. I thought my brother was going to reverse 10 of Jeremiah TWE 42, so perhaps I'll read that now.
If you will still abide in this land, then will I build you and not pull you down, and I will plant you and not pluck you up. For I repent me of the evil that I have done to you. And so the Lord says, I have allowed these things to produce that exercise, but now we can't alter that which is passed.
Now just start being obedient.
In that first verse in chapter 2 we read here, Naomi had a kinsman of her husband.
A mighty man of love, of the family of eliminates, and his name was Boris.
Now I'd like to see here.
That what is said about this kinsman.
That's the same with the relationship is not mentioned whether he was a brother or.
Uh, uncle, he was a kinsman and he was a kids man of her husband.
And he was of the family and of an Elimelech, and his name was Boris.
We see that there was somebody left there who did not leave for more. And then we read also there were more. They did not leave for more. They state that where they are.
And then it says he bought a mighty man of wealth. We often think of most of the time wealth is money.
His wealth was not money, it was paid and it was spirituality. That's what he what his wealth was.
And it is his name, it says.
Means in him is strength. There was a man left there.
And whom was strength? So what was his strength? His strength was not that he left with his brothers, his strengths, that he stayed behind and he sought. And when he sought he also reaped. And we read that from that what he read, he received abundance of strength.
So.
That's what we need. We need somebody who stay behind when everybody runs away.
Somebody who has strength, somebody who displays strength and he starts reaping and he starts sober. And it's not all done in one day. We know it takes a certain time, but then the reaping comes and that's what is is so important here to see.
That when we are faithful.
There will be the results the Lord will bless.
And then it says, and Ruth has a more Ruth and more about this, said entrepreneur Naomi. Let me now go to the field. So there was a field there for Rue to work there. That's important. It says Ruth and Moabite tests. It doesn't say Ruth's sister-in-law. It says the rules, the Moabites.
Where she came from a strange country and a strange religion.
Uh, uh, uh, was actually, uh, idolatry where she grew up.
01:00:01
Betsy, she says to Naomi, Let me now go to the field and clean ears of corn after him, and whose side I shall find grace. So she had the right spirit of mind there to go out and.
Uh.
Green go out and work. That's what we have to do. Go out and work.
Appreciate your comments that Mister McIntosh makes in his writing along those same lines. I know it's, we like to go along with the crowd naturally, don't we? But he made a comment in his writings that struck me, says sometimes the people of God acted as one. He says that's relatively rare, but we see it at certain times. For instance, we see it when they left Egypt, the people of God acted as one, but it didn't last too long, did it? We see it when they entered the land of Canaan under Joshua. The people acted as one. We see it, uh, in Solomon's day, in David's day, the people acted as one. We see it in the early days of the church, but more commonly, he says.
Rather than the people of God acting as one, it's one or a few people of God that act for the whole. That's the secret of Ruth, isn't it? That's the secret of what sometimes called the remnant testimony. Wonder if you act for the whole. And I believe that's what we have in Ruth and that's our position today, isn't it? Even at the M light shines brightly when it's all dark. And so that's what we have. The spiritual beauty of Ruth. She was a not a perhaps, not perhaps a brilliant light. She didn't do anything great, but she did that which shines out.
His spiritual beauty in a dark place. That's what the Lord's called us to in our day. And it's a great privilege, isn't it? And a great blessing. When I read the passages of verse 8 down through 14, I looked at this and I.
Heard a little bit from our brother this morning about that. And coming out from amongst them and unto a separation is always from and to so is deliverance. It's always from one thing and to something else. And in verse eight we see here, if you might say it's the divine speaking to us in one sense.
It it says don't go out there, in other words, stay here, this type of thing. And we're he wants us separated away from and he wants our eyes singular. Like verse nine. Don't let your eye on the field. You know, there's one field your eye can be on, but don't have the eye on the other field. When I look at verse 10, I see her bowing the knee and saying I'm not worthy. It reminds me of Psalms 8 and who who am I? The outlook us upon man. And so when I look at verse 11, I see her being adopted into the family.
Uh, are coming to a people who now know it's not thereof. And then in verse 12, I see under whose wings thou art come to trust. Take refuge underneath the wings, Aren't we? I, I like to take my refuge once in a while underneath the wings and I need that, that stability to tucked in there. And then when we see down there in verse 14, we see her right there in the family at meal time. Now come here and eat of the bread and dip thy Marshall the vinegar. Uh, when you read the gospel of John, yet the gospel of John, you, you get.
I am the way, the truth and life. No man cometh unto the Father, but by me and you get saved and you get just inside of the door. I am the door. Behold, if any man enter, any shall be saved. You're just inside the door. You get through the door in the Gospel John. But when you open up the first epistle to John, you go right on in. You sit down at the table and you have a cup of coffee, don't you? You're right in the family and that's what we got here. All of a sudden she says, come on. He says, come on in. Sit down here at the table and take and after you had your refuge, take your refuge here. Sit at the table, dip your Marshall in the vinegar and that that that's the beauty of this passing down through here.
How she has taken in isn't it seems to me that there's a little bit of a progression in this chapter and I think it's worth worth our while for us to take note in chapter 2. It starts in verse three and it says, umm, and she went and came to glean in the field after the reapers because verse two had said, let me now go into the field and glean after him and whose sight I shall find grace. So she was just gonna do something. She wanted food. She's just gonna do something. And then there's a progression in verse six. She was there. In verse two it says go and glean. Verse six it says.
I pray you let me glean and gather after the reapers. So she went and gleaned and then the spirit comes in. The servant was set over the reapers and she gleaned and she gathered. And then in verse 17, it says she gleaned in the field until even and she beat out that she gleaned. It was an heap of barley. She took it up and went into the city and she brought it forth and gave it. So there's the the going and gleaning. There's a desire, but then there's the servant, the work of the Spirit of God. And then there's interaction with Boaz, who's a type of Christ, and there's a little question there.
Hearest thou not my daughter?
01:05:02
Dearest thou not my daughter? So she started, and she just wanted to do something. She just wanted to go. She just wanted to glean. And the servant did it work. And there was an interaction with Boaz. Hearest thou not? And so she gathered, and she beat it out, and she gave it. And then Ruth repeated what was told her in verse 21. Thou shalt keep fast by my young men until they have ended all my harvest. There was a word to her and she remembered it. Thou shalt keep fast.
And Naomi said, it is good, my daughter, verse 23, she kept fast by the maidens of oh, the glean and to the end of the barley harvest and the wheat harvest, and dwelt with her mother-in-law. So we see there the work of the Spirit of God. We see the type of Christ in Boaz. We see that little question. And there was a work, there was a deepening of her initial desire to go and glean, and then she gleaned and gathered, and then she gathered and she beat it out and she gave it away and she kept fast.
It's beautiful to see, too.
And maybe it's been mentioned and I wasn't listening, but to see the grace of, uh, one of the graces of Ruth here, and that is, uh, the submission of her spirit and, uh, as well as the obedience. And that is the healing principles of humanity for us. We'll never get very far if there aren't those two principles active in our life. And so we find here with Ruth, she was saying, she wasn't saying, I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that. Uh, and there was an exercise of self will there. It was all, let me, let me, let me. And so I think this is beautiful to see that. And this is so important if we're going to get ahead.
And, uh, profit and benefit in our spiritual lives.
Is to have that submission to the Spirit of God in our lives and to the Lord that, uh, uh, he might lead us on in his things. I'd like to make a practical comment in connection with gleaning. We've mentioned it several times and maybe there's some sitting here and say, well, how do we glean? How does this apply to us in our day? We don't go out to a field. I know farmers do, but in a spiritual sense, we're not going to go out to a field and glean spiritual food, but I believe there is a way that we glean and we find that Boas, he tells Ruth not to go into another field. It's been alluded to, but I'm going to repeat it in perhaps a little different way.
What really Boaz is telling Ruth is don't go into another field where my authority is not owned. Don't go into another field where you're not going to be to find me. Don't go into another field where you're not going to have the oversight of my servant who is over the reapers. And I believe that as we feed on God's Word, and also that which God has caused men to write concerning the exposition of the Word of God and that which is given out orally in ministry, this is the great test.
Does it exalt Christ and do is it led by the Spirit of God? You know, if you pick up a book to read on a biblical or spiritual subject, you can usually tell by reading the flyleaf, or at least just the first few pages of the first chapter, whether it's going to exalt Christ or whether it's going to exalt man. You can be in a place where the Word of God is ministered orally, and you will very quickly discern whether this is LED of the Spirit of God or not.
Those are two great tests as to how where we glean, but gleaning is to get to take to ourselves, appropriate to ourselves, the spiritual food that God intends for us, which is really Christ himself, which is going to feed the new man. We have not only a natural life, but as believers we have a spiritual life. That life is a perfect life. It's the very life of Christ, but it is a dependent life. It needs to be fed. It needs food.
But it's going to take energy on our part if there's going to be food. Gideon who was mentioned, he was threshing wheat by the winepress. He didn't just have wheat. The wheat would have done him no good if he wasn't doing something with it. It says there is much food in the tillage of the poor to take that, to take and do with it what is needful to so that we can take it in and appropriate for ourselves and digest it and it becomes part of us and it does something good is going to take spiritual energy and diligence. And again, I want to encourage our hearts. Yes, we need to feed on God's Word. That's the most important.
But again, there are things that God has allowed men to write that are for our spiritual blessing and encouragement. But again, does it exalt Christ? There are times like we're having, uh, today and in the local assembly when there's meetings announced for ministry, when we can be fed and encouraged and, and, uh, that spiritual food is put out there from the word of God. Do we, is it led by the Spirit of God? Does it exalt Christ? Is it for the, the building up of the Saints? If it's not, then we can ques we need to question whether this is really where God would have us glean or not.
01:10:25
I'm not saying it might not be presented in ever so much weakness. It may be presented very, very feebly. That's not what I'm saying. But if there's real exercise, it's the word of God. It brings Christ before us. It's LED of the Spirit of God. Is given liberty defeat us with food convenient, then I believe, brethren, we may not see a great revival. We may not see the end of the famine altogether. But as we said earlier, in the midst of famine, God can feed his people. Can God furnish a table in the wilderness?
Yes, he can can't help but uh, think in this connection about Elisha. You know, Elijah is a picture of Christ as well as Boaz and in the second kings four and verse 38.
Here we find that the sons of the prophets.
They're sitting before Elijah and I believe they're looking to him for food, for nourishment. And it was a time of dirt that says here in verse 38, Elijah came again to Gilgal, and there was a dearth in the land, and the sons of the prophets were sitting before him. And he said unto his servants, set on the great pot, and see the pottage for the sons of the prophets.
Now, I believe we see here that a great God can truly do great things in a time of great weakness. And what is Elijah tell the servant to do? Set out a saucepan. Oh, a great pot, you might say, well, that doesn't seem appropriate with the dirt. But you know, Elijah knew what he was doing and he speak to the servant. You're speaking about the servant as spirit of God That perhaps might have a connection here as well.
Because the Spirit of God, of course. Uh.
Laura face cracked. The Lord Jesus could say that He will receive a mind and show it unto you.
And so how wonderful to be in a place where God by his Spirit can.
Feed our souls with crust.
But, uh, to go into another field can be dangerous. You might find that we're feeding on that which is unhealthy and maybe even poisonous. Nobody wants to eat poison.
Reading on his portion, that's what happened here. You know, in verse 39 it says one went out into the field to gather hers.
And found a wild vine, and gathered thereof. Wild birds just laughed full, and came and shred them into the cottage.
They knew they're not, so they poured out for the men's eating capacity. They were eating at the potty, cried out and said, oh thou man of God, there is death in the pot. He could not eat thereof. It's a big problem. We got wild Gurst in the pot.
Somebody went and they weren't sent by the profit, I suppose they thought.
They were gonna just go out on their own and help the situation and made it worse. How important is that?
The decent, right?
God. But there was an answer to the whole problem, which of course is.
The encouraging thing here in 41 it says, but he says and bring meals. He kept him to the pot. He said pour out for the people they may eat and there was no harm in the pot. I think the meal speaks the price and he's the bread of life and to feed upon Christ is that which will meet our hunger in a wonderful way. But what about these wild horses? What would they be? Well, perhaps something of the culture of this world, you know, world is philosophy and ideas and so on.
They don't help us in our souls.
Right. He's God's living bread.
So it's a wonderful portion here in the second change, uh.
And there's another story following which, uh, well, it says there was no harm in the pot if you put the meal in, but then somebody brings to Elijah.
20 loaves of fire leaf and then full ears of corn. I suppose maybe they thought they'd like to feed the.
Profit. But no, he's concerned about the people. They need something to eat. He wasn't stuck on himself. And he said, give unto the people that they may eat the servant or say, well, how can I set this before 100 men? He said get he was determined that they're going to get something to eat. So I think that's a beautiful attitude on the part of Elijah and Christ. What a wonderful Savior. He wants to satisfy our souls with the finest of wheat.
01:15:25
And when he said the multitudes, there was food leftover.
So they were all filled. That's what God operates. You know, it's a wonderful God that we have come to know. So it says that you said it before them. They did eat.
And they left their out according to the word of the Lord.
Not to digress from the chapter, but uh, I think it's.
Wonderful how God provides in, uh, First Thessalonians 1:00 and 9:00 one and nine, it says that they turn from idols to serve the true and living God. And brother Jim was talking about gleaning there in harvest and we see here that all that she lacked and more of was that and more back in Israel underneath Boaz. And so it's the serving, the true and the living God that we receive.
The satisfaction you can have all the abundance in the world.
It has satisfy you and what we received from him is satisfying. We sometimes sing now none but Christ can satisfy. He's the only one that can satisfy because of the abundance. There is the correct abundance, the right abundance and we see Ruth changing to this serving and she is changing to the serving position, serving the symbolically serving the true and living God. Speaking of us, I just want to say this too. Our time is gone, but we're gonna find that what began here.
Is confirmed in the next two chapters, and that is that Ruth's heart had been attracted to a person. And I believe that's very important. We've been talking about gleaning and where we glean and so on. I don't think by the end of this chapter Ruth had any desire to go into any other field. Why? Because their heart was set.
On demand and brethren, if our heart is set on Christ, that's what's going to keep us close by him and we find that in her heart being attracted to the man Boaz and sticking in his field to glean She has brought into fellowship with others with the young men, with the maidens. But I want to just go to verse 19 to confirm what I'm saying. It's interesting when she went home that night and her in verse 19 and her mother-in-law sent it to her Notice this where has cell gleaned today?
She doesn't go into some geographical explanation about where she gleaned rather than I think it's so precious. She says at the end of her his name is Boaz. So that's where she gleaned brethren. It wasn't some field with a geographical location. It was a person who had captivated her heart. And she said his name was Boaz and brother. And I believe that this is the secret. We can talk about gleaning and and not going to glean in another field. We can talk about separation. We can talk about fellowship with others.
We can talk about restoration, we can talk about and it's wonderful, brethren, we've had some wonderful things before us today, but if our heart at the end of this day don't go out to our Boaz, what we have spoken of today means absolutely nothing. It means nothing to the heart that isn't attracted to the person of Christ. In verse 20, the response of Naomi's heart, it goes right along with that, Jim. Uh, and I believe it shows recovery of what had been given up before that we discussed about going to the Lord.
Uh, Naomi said unto her, verse 20, daughter-in-law, blessed be he of the Lord, She blesses Boaz for his kindness and she goes back to the source. She doesn't say, blessed are you Ruth or blessed are we? No, she blesses the giver. And so the the more we learn brethren, of what grace gives, the more we will be a blesser and go to him.
For our need.
166.
Peace
Are You Ready for the Lord to Come?
Gideon
Address—Paul Hadley
DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.
Let's start with #81.
#81.
Arm of the Lord.
And all day.
God.
Our grandson's love and grace.
I pray by people.
Will tell me.
Never play twisted and well done.
Spelling Prayer.
God and Father, we thank you for.
Times that we have had together like before.
Time in thy presence.
Like before the fellowship of our brethren, we thank before the hospitality of those local to here.
Thank You for that which you've enjoyed of Thy things, Thy word, and we ask now Thy help. As we open it again we ask for Thy blessing.
Yes, thou touch hearts and pray in the name and for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
Now #52 One verse of #52.
Second verse And perhaps we could stand for that.
Lord we.
Right now.
We have had yesterday a few references to Gideon and Gideon is.
Something that we have enjoyed very much in Mount Tabor Assembly where I'm from in the past little while. I'd like to talk a little bit about Gideon today, so let's turn to Judges Chapter 6.
And I'm going to read.
Verse 12 and.
Through 14 The Angel of the Lord appeared unto him, and said unto him, The Lord is with thee, thou mighty man of valor. And Gideon said unto him, O my Lord.
00:05:08
If the Lord be with us, why then is all this befallen us? And where be all his miracles, which our fathers told us of saying? Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt? But now the Lord has forsaken us, and delivered us into the hands of the Midianites. The Lord looked upon him and said, Go, and this thy might. So the first thing I want to speak about concerning Gideon is Gideon, the mighty man of valor.
And what was his mightiness?
It was the same as Naomi's mightiness.
Naomi says I went out, the Lord brought me home. That was her mightiness. I went out, the Lord brought me home.
What she recognized and what Gideon recognized is this one simple fact that it was all about God.
It's all about God.
Gideon knew God, but he didn't understand him. He didn't understand why they were going through these difficult times, but he knew it was all about God. And with that one little piece of information, God calls him a mighty man of valor. Is there one in this room who knows about God? That whatever is in your life has to do with God and God alone? There are some.
A lot of that other things in mind.
Well, maybe we should go to Bell.
Seems like people worship Bail did better. Gideon didn't do that.
You know, it was all about God, and that's why God put his finger on Gideon and so and called him a mighty man of valor. So that's Gideon, the mighty mount of valor, just like Naomi.
Next, we find not the mighty man of Gallery valor.
But Gideon the insignificant. And so let's read verse 15.
And he said.
Oh my Lord, wherewith shall I save Israel? Behold, my family is poor in Manasseh. I'm the least in my father's house.
Gideon knew his nothingness. That was another thing that made him useful to God.
He knew that he was nothing.
He recognized that he was from a small tribe. He wasn't from Judah, he wasn't from Ephraim, he was from Manasseh.
He wasn't even the head of his own household. He hasn't had a father that was.
We might say in charge of him.
He was poor.
He was, in his own lives, useless.
And so.
That was something very beautiful to God, and God was able to use them.
You know.
We spoke yesterday.
About barley.
In the next chapter.
Get in is likened to a barley loaf.
After God, we might say.
Uh prepares Gideon and directs him. He encourages him and he sends him down to hear this conversation between.
Some some of the enemy troops, and that dream is recorded. How that uh, the man says to his friend, Behold, I dreamed a dream. And lo, a cake of barley bread tumbled into the host of Midian and came into attendance. Motive that it fell and overturned it, that the tent lay alone. And his fellow answered and said, This is nothing else save the sword of Gideon the son of Joash, a man of Israel.
For unto his hand.
Hath God delivered Midian and all the hosts?
Rather point it out last week, would you be?
00:10:00
Afraid that a a loaf of bread would come and knock your house down?
If somebody threw a loaf of bread at me, I don't think I'd be even too hurt.
But he didn't say a loaf of bread, he said a barley loaf.
And we learned yesterday that barley was horse food.
Harley was the food of the poor. If we turn to 2nd Kings and read about the, uh, the famine in Samaria, we find out that Varley was half the price of wheat. If we turn to Revelation 6 and read about the famine coming in the future, today we find out it's a third of the price of wheat. Barley was cheap. It's like people nowadays were poor. Looking for nutrition? Eat little dog food.
Varley wasn't something to be proud about.
Neither was a loaf of bread something to be afraid of, but.
This man had a dream and he saw Barley Loaf coming and knocking down that tent.
And, uh, it fell and overturned and he recognized.
That something insignificant was going to come and destroy that which was mighty.
Jerry and the insignificant.
Now if we went back a little bit in that same Chapter 7.
We have another, I believe, reference to Gideon the Insignificant.
You see, it says that's where we have this host of 32,000 being pared down to 10,000.
And then down to 300.
I know that I and many others have envisioned this as something happening by a Riverside.
God says go down to the water.
And you can picture people go down to the water and some drink in one way, some drink in another way.
But notice how it says in verse one of Chapter 7.
So Dribble of all who is Gideon and all the people that were with him, rose up early and pitched beside the well of Herod.
Wasn't a river, it was a well.
Now there's different kinds of wells. There's wells like what we're pretty familiar with and they had those in those days.
I think a couple of spies hit out in one and they put a cloth over the top of it.
But then there's the wells. Like Rebecca went down into you go down and by steps and.
Uh, you go down to the water, that's down.
At the bottom, kind of funnel shaped thing with wine and staircase going around the bottom. I think that must be what we have here.
I can envision Gideon up there at the top of that thing and watching his men go down those stairways down to the water.
I can imagine and.
I'm sure it never happened, but uh, I could imagine for the sake of illustration, a couple of guys going down, down those steps to get their drink.
They get down there and one guy Stoops down and he puts his face in the water.
The other guy.
Drinks another way.
My God, one guy says. My shoe, what are you doing? You're drinking like a dog.
You're drinking like a dog. That's not how you drink. Put your face in the water. Oh, this is the way I drink.
And so then.
They go up the stairs and go and, uh, Gideon says. Young man, what's your name? My name is Bashum.
Send over here, the other guy says to him. I told you you shouldn't drink that way.
You see, Gideon wasn't instructed who was going to go. He just says divide them.
00:15:03
Someone over there. Someone over there.
And then what happens?
God says by those over there, by those 300 that drank like dogs.
Those are the ones that I'm going to use now. I know there's lots of nice thoughts people have brought out about this.
The, uh, the readiness.
Of not being down on your knees.
The fact that.
It's a thought that I've enjoyed myself, that there were those that vowed to the knees needs of the flesh. Everybody needs to drink. They put their knee, they bowed down to the needs of the flesh.
We all need to.
Pay attention so much to our human needs. It's a nice thought.
But I'd like to bring out today that perhaps it was not because those 300 were the mightiest, not because those 300 were.
The most watchful?
Not because they're the best.
But that God might have the glory he took the ones that drank like dogs.
And he used them.
The insignificant ones get in the insignificant with his insignificant army and they broke their insignificant little.
Vessels of clay let their light shine out.
And there was a great V1.
Get in the insignificant.
Now we have next, we might say Gideon the worshipper. So let's read some more.
Chapter 6.
Verse 19.
And Gideon went in and made ready a kid.
An unleavened cakes of an EFA of flour the flesh. She put it in a basket. And he put the broth in a pot, and brought it out unto him under the oak, and presented it. And the Angel of the Lord said unto him, Take the flesh and the unleavened cakes, and lay them upon this rock, and pour out the broth. And he did so.
Then the Angel of the Lord put forth the end of the staff.
That was in his hand, and touched the flesh, and the unleavened cakes. There rose up fire out of the rock, and consumed the flesh and the unleavened cakes, and the Angel of the Lord departed out of his sight.
So we have here Gideon.
Worshiper.
But you know what?
He worshipped in a defective way.
He brought flesh that was sodden.
He brought something that was very nice. A kid speaks of Christ, a sacrifice.
He brought something else very nice, and IFA of Flower tells us in Exodus 16 that it Ephah was 10 omers and Homer was enough to feed a man for a whole day.
10 omers. That's a lot of cakes he brought.
He brought a worthy sacrifice to the Lord.
But you know, he made a little mistake here. What does the Angel do? Does the Angel say, uh, Gideon, you know better than that.
Go back and do this right please.
No, he says. You put the, uh, put the flesh there.
Put the put the cakes there. Now pour out the broth.
You know, you and I.
Often don't worship right.
But isn't it nice to think that?
00:20:00
The broth is poured out.
The broth is poured out and God takes what?
Is for him.
And uses it. I love to we sing. We sing that hymn sometimes about Christ adding his sweet perfume to our prayers. It's based on Revelation 8, verse 3.
Our prayers are so often wrong.
We make mistakes.
What do I do when I hear a brother pray and make a mistake in his prayer? You know what I do? I say Amen because I know that that prayer.
It's filtered, filtered before it gets to the throne of God. And I know it's I can say Amen to the prayer that ascends to that throne. Now some of you young folks are afraid to to pray.
Sometimes you're afraid you make a mistake.
I want to know if you pray and make a mistake, I'm going to say Amen.
Because I know what's in your heart and God knows what's in your heart, in your heart.
You know, sometimes.
There's long silences at the end of the meeting.
Perhaps you have a rating meeting and.
The singer Hammond.
And there's a long silence.
What's that all about? I'll tell you what it might be all about.
It might be about that one. Who?
Took a good bit of part of the meeting waiting for you to close it.
Or somebody else to close it?
I remember her brother once said to me.
Speaking of dear brother **** who was our spiritual leader in Mount Tabor.
Is that he was complaining, Uh, Brother **** didn't get us to our knees early enough in the prayer meeting. Is it Brother Dick's job to get us to our knees in prayer meeting? Is that not something that one of you young people could do? Shall we pray go to our knees?
You know some of the silences are because.
Maybe the Lord has his finger on one of you young people.
To say something.
To give a hem. To give a prayer.
It may be that.
There's a resistance there.
Oh how how encouraging it is for me and for others when we.
Hear questions from the young people when we have a hymn or a prayer from one of the younger ones.
You know Gideon had a dad.
God could have put his finger on his dad, but he didn't.
A lot of you young folks have a dad or a mom.
God could have put his finger.
To one of them, to one of the older folks, but.
You didn't maybe?
So we have here Gideon the worshipper, and he made a little mistake. You know, there's no, there's no sacrifice except for one.
Where the sacrifice was to be sodden.
That one exception.
Is when a Nazarite was to give up his Nazarite ship.
It wasn't to give a sudden sacrifice when he took it on, but when he gave it up.
That was a sodden second sacrifice.
Well, you might, Ponti. What about, uh, in Samuel there where the sons of Eli were sitting greatly?
That's right. They had sudden sacrifices. They were wrong.
And the sons of Eli were insisting on the rightness.
00:25:01
We might say.
Of having their of not doing it the wrong way.
And they were doing it for their own benefit.
And God looked upon that.
As very wicked, you and I can insist on what's right for our own benefit and be like the sons of Eli.
They were not to have a sudden sacrifice.
They had a tradition. They had a tradition where they took that pork in there and whatever came up, that was not the way God ordained the sacrifice to be made. You can read all about the instructions, it's just not the way it was meant to be done. And Eli's son's.
Insisted that they might, that that they get it before it was, uh, offered. You're right, but they were wrong.
So then we have.
After getting the worshipper, we have Gideon's alter. Uh, of course we.
Of that in verse 24. Then Gideon built an altar there under the Lord, and called it Jehovah Shalom. Unto this day it is yet in Ophira of the Abias rights.
There's lots of different altars in the word of God. Abraham built an altar at his home.
And I hope each one of you have an altar in your home.
And.
I remember the one thing I remember from the hour long message at my wedding day was Albert Hey Ho telling me.
And all others.
To build the altar in your home.
I'm not going to tell you how to build an altar. Maybe your altar will be the two of you.
Reading.
A chapter in silence, together.
Or maybe you're gonna do something for two minutes or an hour.
Maybe you're gonna.
Pray with your hands held. It's not what I do, but I know a lot of people do.
However you do it.
That's.
What you need to do, because you need to build your own altar, not mine. I'm not to tell you how to do it.
You build your own altar and have your altar in your home like Abraham did.
Then there was.
Joshua, He built an altar after a victory against the.
Who was it? Somebody help me? Umm Malachites.
Well.
Might have been.
It left me, but uh.
There's times of thankfulness and there's times of victory when we turn to God and worship. An altar is a place of worship. Then there was another altar made by David. He built his offer altar.
At a place of mercy.
You know, David.
Was given a choice of three things.
Either seven years of famine, 3 months being chased about by your enemies.
For three days.
Of pestilence.
David chose the worst possible one.
We're talking about an Angel that could go through the host of the Seneca ribbon, wipe out 185,000 people in one night. We're talking about an Angel that could go through Egypt in every first born of every man.
Animal.
An animal would be dead in the morning.
But then David did one thing right. He fell into the hands of the Lord, and he fell into the hands of mercy. And so he did what was the worst possible choice, And it was the best, the best possible choice because he fell into the hands of God rather than God into the hands of man.
00:30:07
And that Angel went about for perhaps three days, I'm not sure. There's kind of indicates that there might have been three days.
But it comes to Jerusalem and his sword is stopped.
And in the place where that sword is stopped, in the place of mercy.
He builds an altar.
And it's very interesting to me that in that place.
In the place of mercy is where God wants his house to be built.
This house is to be built in the place of mercy.
But then this altar is a little different. This altar is like the altar that Jacob built.
It's like the altar that Manoa built.
This altar.
Is in the place where God appeared to man.
And so.
We have.
Divine presence, we might say, in this place. And it wasn't as I used to erect, uh, vision it that the altar of bail was knocked down and, uh, the altar into the Lord put in his place. That's not what happened.
It says that the Angel told him to build it in on this rock. The R. Where is that?
Umm verse 26 Build an altar under the Lord thy God upon the top of this rock.
And so in the place where that Angel had appeared and touched his staff to the rock, and fire came out of the rock, that's the place where where he built his altar.
You know, I believe that's.
Kind of alter that we have.
Read about it in the next chapter 2.
We find that in the place where God met His people appeared to his people.
We have our altar.
You see, the Jews had a Everything that the Jews had was physical and natural. Everything that you and I have is spiritual.
And heavenly.
Because it was said yesterday, we have a heavenly heritage. We have heavenly hopes.
Our hopes aren't on this world like a Jews hopes.
Our hopes are heavenly.
We don't have a plot of land on this earth that's passed on from generation to generation like the Jews. Our our heritage is heavenly.
We don't have a priesthood that's.
Descends from Aaron and can go into something like what?
Came down to the days of Eli.
Our priesthood is a priesthood based on something that's real and spiritual and heavenly. We don't have a physical.
Testament.
Which the Bible describes as a ministration of death.
Graven and stones.
We have a spiritual testament.
And it says it exceeds in glory we don't have a physical Cir. circumcision.
Bible says made with hands. Our circumcision is not made with hands. It's a spiritual thing.
It's made without hands.
We don't have a Tabernacle or an altar.
Or sacrifices like they did. The Bible says that in Chapter 9 of Hebrews that that that's a pattern of things that are heavenly.
Our worship.
Is.
Heavenly, spiritual, not ritualistic, not natural.
Not physical.
We don't have a physical gathering center. You ask the Jews where their physical, where their gathering center is, they say right here, right there in Jerusalem.
00:35:03
We have a spiritual gathering center, Christ our center.
We don't have.
A natural.
Physical ground of gathering. If you ask a Jew what the ground of gathering is, it's very simple. You have to be.
Of the family of Israel.
And it almost cost Paul his life when they thought he brought somebody outside of the family of Israel, they thought, into the temple.
Ours is a spiritual ground of gathering.
We gather as to Chrysler's center, but the ground upon which we gather is that which we have in Acts chapter 2, the unity of the body of Christ.
This is a spiritual thing. It's a heavenly thing. It's not defined.
By anything here on Earth, it's not defined by a list of gatherings.
For the Darby.
Mentioned.
An assembly that was in.
We might say the list of gatherings in those days.
He said before he'd be willing to break bread there, you'd have to find out what ground to gathered on.
Because he had heard about them.
They weren't receiving believers.
We have.
A spiritual ground of gathering. You can read about that in his letters.
The spiritual ground of gathering the unity of the Body of Christ.
And so everything that we have is spiritual. And so that's a little.
Sideline about this altar and the different altars.
Let me go on and find Gideon.
Now a worship, uh, an encourager and so.
Chapter 6 and verse 34.
But the spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon, and he blew a trumpet, and abuse, or was gathered after him.
The spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon.
He drew a blew a trumpet. Who was it that was gathered after him?
The very ones that we're about to put them to death, Avi Azar, those are the people that he in his town.
Days or minutes, I don't know.
Before they were gonna put him to death and now.
He takes a stand and they are gathered after him. It's kind of like what it says in Hebrews 11 about Moses.
It says I'll read it.
It says about Moses.
By faith, no, for he had respect under the recompense of the reward. Remember Brother Barry pointing this out to us? Moses, he had a he had respect under the recompense of the reward. I think he forsook Egypt.
Not fearing the rest of the King, for he endured us seeing him who is invisible.
Through faith he kept the Passover and the sprinkling of blood, lest he that destroyed the first born should teach them.
Then what does it say?
By faith they passed through the Red Sea as by dry land.
He did it, he did that, he did the next thing.
He did something else.
And then they passed over the Red Sea, you see, because one person took a stand, one person followed the Lord.
They were all brought into blessing. And so this is the case here with Gideon. He did this. He tore down the altar. He did. He blew the trumpet.
They were gathered after him and we find that the the uh.
00:40:00
Circle of blessing went out even further, then we NE next find that Gideon.
The encourager is the encouraged.
And so it is that God encouraged Gideon and he, and it cannot be that you can be an encourager without God encouraging you. And so those two things go together. And we have this famous story about Gideon's fleece.
It's been pointed out that the police was not for guidance. He already had guidance.
He didn't need any guidance.
He needed confirmation, he needed encouragement, and so God gave it to him. And so we have.
The fleece first put out on the floor and.
The next morning he rings out that fleece and he gets a whole bowl full of water out of it.
The dew is on the fleece.
Now the fleece, I think.
Brings before us picture of the Lamb of God.
The dew always brings before us.
The refreshing blessings from above.
God's blessings and so Jacob.
Blessed his children with the dew of heaven.
Sorry.
Not Jacob, Isaac Quest, Jacob with the dew of heaven.
So we have here a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ.
For the dew.
Wrung out like a whole bowl full. And I love to think of of Jesus in the days of his time here on this earth. How that well, it says, it says to Nathaniel, you're going to see like angels ascending and descending upon the Son of man. What does that mean? From then on he was going to see.
The things that.
The do come down on this earth and and he would be the source of blessing. And so it was that they.
Brought people from all over the place just for him to touch or for him to heal from the bless. And so the cripples were.
They came there on their beds of affliction, and they walked away. The blind were touched and healed.
The dead were raised. Oh, that dew that it says it was so there was dew.
It was so it was due in such an abundance like like getting a roll rung out of bowl full.
You'll never find sickness in the presence of the Lord, except for one occasion.
John chapter 5, where he goes to a place where there's hundreds, perhaps thousands of people, I don't know.
Who are going to a different source for blessing than to himself?
And they were waiting for water to move, and they were gonna all see who could get in. Their first one out of all those people could get healed that day.
And.
The Lord Jesus goes through and there was one person healed that day. One person.
Just like had happened every year before one person healed.
Wasn't the one that got into the water.
I don't believe the water stirred that day, but they found out who stirred the water that day because one person came by.
And healed one person.
That one who had stirred the water in years gone by came by again, but in human form.
And I don't believe that those waters were ever stirred again when we were in Israel, in Jerusalem a couple years ago.
00:45:00
Had the privilege of seeing those.
That spot strives a bone.
There's no water there at all, and those waters haven't been stirred for near 2000 years.
But he revealed himself that day.
By being the one who came and brought healing to somebody.
The rest of those thousands of people would have their opportunity if they would just take it.
To come and be healed 1 by 1.
At his feet.
So it was there was dew in the fleece and so much that a whole bowl full was was rung out of it. And then we find that the next thing is, uh, Gideon asked again for something else. Is this time make?
To do all around.
And fleece dry.
And so it was true also that.
When Jesus was on the cross.
That one who is a route out of a dry ground became the dry. We might say he was dry.
He suffered.
His blessings.
We finally stopped.
And he hung there.
With his hands nailed across.
And raise them in blushing anymore, the feet that are locked, the hills in search of the sick and the needy nailed to that cross.
Dry.
Make the dew on all around.
And so it is that you and me.
Believers, the dew has fallen on us.
We're not from Israel. The dew has come down in such a wonderful way to the whole world.
And the whole world has been covered with the dew of his blessing. And, uh, it says this time that it doesn't say there was so.
Says that God did it, God did do it, God did do it.
So we have Gideon.
The encouraged we've had Gideon.
The mighty men of valor.
Gary and the insignificance.
Gideon the worshiper.
Getting the encourager and the encouraged.
Is there a Gideon today in this room?
Is there a Gideon that today in this room, somebody who?
Like Gideon?
As that mightiness, knowing that it's all about God.
Is insignificant and small small enough to be used by God?
Because you're not all filled with yourself.
Someone who will come and worship in His presence.
Willing to bring a sacrifice even if you make a mistake.
Because God will bless you.
Someone who will build an altar in their home and in in their place of thankfulness. Someone who?
Worship at the altar that God has set for us. Someone who's going to blow a horn.
Sound and alarm, you might say.
Take the lead and doing what's right.
Somebody who?
Might have to, shall we say, buck the trend of his father's house?
To do what is for the Lord.
Someone will be encouraged.
Sarah Gideon.
Let's sing.
#39 in the appendix.
00:50:03
Just.
Last two verses.
I remember that only and breathing on.
Our God and Father, we pray they'll give us courage to stand for Thee. Give us a heart for Thee and for Thy word. We pray that Thou raise up those who will.
Be like Gideon.
And though.
They're smaller.
And weak take a stand for thee in this world we.
Pray my blessing on each of us as we part thank you for this time together. Thank you for Thy word and the encouragement of it. We ask in the neighbor, Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
Ruth 3 and 4
Gospel 2
Gospel—Sam Ludvicek
DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.
Pray, Father.
When the gospel is preached. When the gospel is spoken about.
We would have the hears ears open, the heart touched, the conscience touched.
And we know that we need help for both speaker and hearer alike. So in this moment, we trust the.
In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, we pray.
You think I have beautiful feet?
No.
I can prove you wrong.
OK.
Isaiah chapter 52 and verse 7.
How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth.
Good tidings that publish a piece that bring us good Tidings of good that publishes salvation.
So you're wrong.
The message of the Gospel.
Makes your feet beautiful if you bring it.
Last night before the Gospel and the prayer meeting.
There was an expression by some there that there might be some that don't yet know the Lord Jesus as their Savior.
I find it hard to preach the gospel just to preach the gospel. That sense that there might be one here that doesn't yet know the Lord Jesus as Savior puts an urgency in my heart and mind.
Now everybody here probably has heard the gospel in many ways, shapes and forms expressed through many of the stories and the words that are in this book and can quote the scriptures through my own story I was brought to meeting.
Nine months before I was born.
Three days after I was born, my mother and father crossed down power lines and telephone poles and trees to walk up the street to Jacob Bloomer's house, where there was a meeting in his home. Or the Saints sat down and remembered the Lord. So I heard the gospel from the lips of my father and my mother, from Jackie McCoy in Sunday school, from Carl McCoy from the pulpit, from Charles Lubichek, from the pulpit.
And many others that visited from Des Moines.
Many times.
And yet.
By the age of 11, I was not yet saved.
If somebody would have asked me how to get saved, I could have told them.
That's just.
Amazing. That's my fear is that there are others who might be here tonight.
Who have heard it all, have memorized the verses and in a formal way perhaps you could answer the question of how you could get saved how somebody can get saved. There's a heart surgeon that wrote a book called Beyond Death's Door and in this book he tells the story of how he had heard these near death experiences that people had how they see a tunnel and a light and they go towards it and they come back and some of them talk about how.
They didn't want to come back. They wanted to stay there. And he didn't think much of it. He bought into what science says, that it's just chemical reactions and you kind of see whatever, maybe religious beliefs that you have.
But one day he was working on a man who had a heart attack in the middle of the procedure, and they brought him back using the paddles and he came back and he came back screaming.
I see the flames. Don't let me go, don't let me die. Please don't let me die down. He goes again out and they bring him back again. He comes back screaming, saying he sees terrible things. Don't let me go, don't let them take me. Now this man who's a doctor is an agnostic, I guess you would call him at this point.
But he remembers Sunday school verses that he learned a long time ago.
And again, the third time this man comes screaming out, tell me how I can get saved, What can I do? And he just, the doctor says, well.
Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.
00:05:03
If you call on the name of the Lord, you'll be saved. The guy goes down again, comes back, he's at peace.
Well, a few days later, he talks to the man.
In the hospital room. And he doesn't remember much of that. But there was a change in this guy. Now this doctor with all of his education says I better look at something again. I better look into something that's not the normal thing. Every time you hear about these near death experiences, they're not like that.
Well, that's what everybody in this room who knows the Lord Jesus is concerned about, if there was to be one in the family, a brother or sister, a child.
That doesn't yet know the Lord Jesus as their Savior. That they're so used to hearing these words that they're just going along. You go to meeting, you go to the events, you go to places, your parents take you to conferences and that you're just there. And you're in the mix of it all. And you learn the verses and you pick songs that are your favorites. And you do all that, but yet you're not yet saved.
Your sins have not yet been washed away.
Now in my own life, I've told the people before and I perhaps it's a common experience. If you have ever had an experience in your life where you thought the Lord had come, it's a scary thing if you aren't sure if you're saved.
I remember as a young boy coming home one time from school and there was nobody at the farm.
And I started thinking the Lord came and they're gone and I'm left behind now. This happened to me twice. The first time I'm frightened, I'm going in the house, I go outside and I'm really scared.
And I thought to myself, I know Carl McCoy saved, I'm going to call their house. So I called the house and I figured if either he or Jackie McCoy answered, I know that the Lord hadn't come yet. Well, one of them answered, it was Carl. And I hung up the phone.
And I went.
I still didn't trust the Lord. I just was relieved that the Lord hadn't come yet.
It's just, I just can't hardly believe it myself. Some time went by, many gospel meetings, when Albert Hayhoe would come. I was riveted. This guy's face shined with the love of Christ on it. I used to think when they talk about Moses coming down from the mountain, it must be like Albert Hayhoe's face. It shined. It was. And I was riveted by that. And there were those two and the stories that were told. But I was learning those things. They were getting down inside in my memory.
But it happened again. We were someplace and nobody was around. And again I'm thinking, the Lord's come and I, I'm, I'm, I'm done. This time I thought, my uncle Howard, who's in Pella, I know he's saved.
So I called him and I figured if he answered or my Aunt Alice answered one of them, I'd be OK. And sure enough, Uncle Howard answered. I hung up the phone again. This I'm I'm OK. I still didn't trust the Lord as my savior. Is there anybody here like that? Have you just gone along? Have you learned the things? Have you memorized the verses and enjoy the hymns? And you think everything is OK? Well, it's not.
That's scary. It's scary to me that there might be somebody that was like me.
Because I wasn't safe.
I wasn't safe at all.
But something happened after a gospel meeting on Sunday night, and like boys will do, I was acting up in some way. Uh, my father needed to use the Willow switch in the belt many times as I grew up because I misbehaved.
But on the way home this one night, I did something and I knew I was going to get it.
And uh, I my father's habit was to discipline us and then send us to our room.
And then come in and talk with us after we had a chance to stop sobbing and calm down a little bit.
And he would and he, he would come in and do you understand why? Yes, Daddy and I won't do it anymore and I do it again the next day or something. But.
But this time it was different. I'm eleven years old.
And my father comes in and he's talking to me, and we love you, son. But he said your mother and I don't know that you know the Lord Jesus as your Savior and son, if you died tonight, you would enter a lost eternity.
00:10:15
Now, that was on the follow up of a Sunday night gospel meeting preached by, I don't remember Charles Libichek or Carl McCoy or somebody at the meeting room. He then walked out and left me there with the light switch off and I lay there in the dark. That's when everything came flooding into my heart. All the verses, all of the songs, all of the gospel meetings that I'd heard. It just hit me. I'm not saved. I don't know. Jesus is my Savior. I know about him.
And I, I must say that there were times I thought I was OK because I, I believe that there's a Jesus, you know, I believe the stories. My mother and father wouldn't lie to me.
But something that somebody had said kind of hit home there too, that the idea of believing on the Lord Jesus.
Is not just believing that he exists. You know, the Bible tells us that the devils believe and they tremble.
That's just believing about something.
You know, when there's an election coming, like there is now, there's probably going to be two candidates only there will be some other third party people out there someplace, but it looks like, uh, we're gonna have two candidates.
But if you went out on the street right now and just went out and asked somebody, anybody, if you just asked them, do you believe that there's such a person as Barack Obama, you believe that they exist, they would look at you like, are you kidding me? Are you Amish or something? And you don't know what's going on in the country.
They would look at you askance.
If you ask them.
If there was such a person as Mitt Romney.
The same thing. Do you not have a television or a radio or a newspaper? Where have you been hiding? Of course there's a Mitt Romney. But ask them another question. Who do you trust?
Now you'll suddenly find out somebody's conservative Republican, somebody's Democrat. You'll start the line divides very quickly. Who do you trust? Now, there may be people that say I don't trust any of them, but you would start finding out there would be P Oh, I, I'm gonna vote for the Obama guy. I, I trust him. I'm gonna vote for the Mitt Romney guy. I trust him. That's the difference in believing that somebody exists and that somebody actually is real and trusting in that person.
Because the whole gospel message, the truth of it, the story of it, everything that we talk about, everything that we preach about.
Brings you down to one place. A man who is God, who died on the cross and shed his blood, and who was raised to the right hand of the Father, is alive at this moment, saying trust me now, trust me, trust in me, trust in me.
So we need to believe that the story is true. We need to believe that why the story is true and what took place and how it took place, who he is, that he is the man.
He is the God who is the man. He is the man who is God. That he shed his blood, that he was crucified, that he was buried, that he rose again the third day, and that that blood that was shed is offered.
To us is payment to pay the price for all of our sins. We need to understand that. But then he says, trust me, trust in me, I will do what I've told you I will do. And in the gospel message, he's saying I will take away your sins. I will wash them away, I will cleanse you, I will make you whole. All of the promises and all the things that we have. He says I will do those things. Take me at my word. I'm offering you full and free salvation. It's a gift.
Take it from my hand in every way possible, He has explained those things to us, and we have the illustrations in the Old Testament in the New that this offer is being made and that we can do nothing for it. So there I am, a little boy in the dark in my room, and I'm familiar with all the gospel stories and that. And I knew in that moment that if I die, I would enter a lost eternity. And it was there that I.
00:15:05
Called on the name of the Lord to save me, to wash my sins away.
I didn't want to be lost. I didn't want to. I wanted to be saved. I wanted to have them take that free gift and then it as simply as I knew how. As a little boy, afraid but yet knowing who to run to, I trusted in the Lord Jesus as my Savior.
You know, that's the thing that I want to ask tonight.
Young person or anybody?
Ask yourself this question. It may make you nervous what I'm talking about. Maybe you are a little afraid that you're not safe. But if you did die tonight, where would you spend eternity? Where would it be?
You know if your mother and father, who know the Lord Jesus as their savior were to die.
And you were to die. You would never see them again.
You know, when I had the privilege of preaching the gospel at my father's funeral.
I told farmers and people I knew that knew my dad and had heard the gospel from him that we didn't know they were saved. I said, you know, I know that I will one day see my father again, but if you were a friend of my father and you don't know his Savior, you will never see him again.
And you only have blackness and darkness to look forward to yourself. My Father at this very moment is in the presence of the Lord Jesus.
And he's having a grand old time right at this moment. And the tears you see on my face are because I miss him, not because I'm sorry about where he is. But there's nothing like that you can say to somebody who hasn't yet trusted in the Lord Jesus as their Savior, have not yet received that gift. Sometimes when I do a Sunday school gospel, I will have a big thing of candy or something or dollar bills. I've done that. And I will quote that verse in Matthew 1128.
Come unto me all your labor and a heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
And then I'll say something like, Now I'm going to quote it a little differently, but you pay attention.
Come unto me, all ye that have need of money, and I will give you some.
Or come unto me all you would like some candy, and I will give you some.
And it always happens this way. Nobody does anything at first.
And then I will repeat it and there's people kind of smiling and the kids are looking at each other. So I'm looking back at mom and dad and they're kind of wondering, well, is this what is he talking about? But usually the one of the youngest will come and we'll take from my hand whatever it is. And then there's a flood.
Then they will come. Now usually I tell them there's a time for this and when the time is over, that's it. Or I may have only so many in there. And then that last person and the next child looks at me like.
And I often wonder if the Lord is using that now after it's over, I'll say anybody that wants candy, come up here and get some. I don't want anybody crying, but I would want the Lord to use that moment. You know, what if this was me in the gospel?
And you have very little children, but hopefully they will remember it.
But how easy it is for them to come up and just take that simple thing from your hand. It's a gift. You didn't have to do anything for it. I offered it freely. You didn't pay for it. You didn't work for it. You're just here and I offered it to you. I was with a Christian friend of mine who was up in Tampa, FL at a flea market, and he's a disabled guy and he makes a little money selling things and collectibles and stuff to do with the veterans. He's a veteran.
And I went up with him one day and it was going on and on. There wasn't much selling and all up and down this row there were little booths and other people. And he hadn't, he knew of them. And we visited a little bit and I started talking a little bit about the gospel and about grace and what it meant. And I asked somebody if they knew what grace was. And anyway, I said, you know, if you mark things down too cheaply, sometimes people then take it must be junk. It's not worth anything and I won't buy it. And I said you need to have a fair price on things. But I said, I'll tell you what.
There's something in human nature, though.
That even if you offer something free, they're skeptical. And I said, I'll, I'll tell you what, if you stood out here in the aisle and offered free money, I guarantee you that most people wouldn't take it. No, no, no, no, no. I went over to an ATM machine and I got about $41.00 bills. And I stood in the aisle and everybody that walked by, I said free money, here, here, have a dollar, take some money. It's free. And people just looked at me and walked around and parted the ways.
00:20:16
But a little girl watching me from one of the booths down the way watch this and everybody going around and I, I'm the people are chuckling that know what I'm doing and they're go, I can't believe it. You're offering free and they can see it. I've got dollar bills in my hand. I don't know if people thought it was counterfeit or what they thought, but there's something in human nature that just doesn't this, that's just something's wrong. This little girl comes edging her way up. I'll take one, Sir.
And she got a dollar bill.
Whatever is in the way, it's not worth it. Whatever the reason, the Lord Jesus is simply, quietly, tenderly calling and saying, please come and trust me today and I will wash away your sins. I will come into your heart. I will take up a dwelling place. He tells us both the Father and He will dwell with us. This word tells us we will have this wonderful fellowship with the Lord Jesus and with the Father, and the Spirit of God finds it all together.
He doesn't say your life's going to be a bed of roses the rest of your life. Oh, he doesn't say that at all. But he says whatever comes, I will go with you. It's a wonderful thing.
You know, this life is a blink and when you're young and you're a kid, you think it's a long time. And I'll tell you what, I still remember going to school and the school year seemed the longest time there was and summer went by like that. Well, as you get older, your life starts going by like your summers do when you're going to school.
Why this life is a blank even if you live to be 100 years old?
Even if you live to be 120 years old, it's still a blank. Eternity is a long time, but if you will come today.
I want to invite you to come right now.
And when I close my eyes and pray, why don't you just simply tell the Lord Jesus what's in your heart? Tell him, yes, I know you died for me. Tell Him yes, I know you paid a price for my sins. Tell him yes, I know you love me. Tell Him that you want to take His free gift of salvation. Tell him you want him to come into your heart and be your Savior. Believe it, it's the truth.
Father.
There are many who are praying even now.
There are hearts of parents praying for their children. There are others who are praying that there would be blessing in this time. And if there is only one girl or one boy here.
We ask that you would bring them in even now, that they would simply in their hearts receive that simple gift and believe on the Lord Jesus Trustee to come into their hearts and do what you said you would do. We invite them to come and buy Thy Spirit. Bring them in. Lord Jesus, in thy name we pray, Amen.
Open Mtg. 2
Open—B. Shane, W. Dear, S. Ludvicek
DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.
#18 in the back of the book #18.
And if it's all right, shall we light thighs on?
And it is my breath and.
I want.
Yeah.
Last night.
Right, my love and God and Father, we thank Thee for giving us the true bread from heaven. The Lord Jesus and our souls can feed on and be satisfied. We know that it's needed on a daily basis. We thank these for the encouragement of being able to be at special meetings like this. We ask Thee to continue to meet our needs. We think now of the meeting before us and as the two provide that which is needful and helpful for us. Now, we ask you the name of I, dear Son.
Shall we open our Bibles together to revelations, please?
In the first few minutes of the meeting, I'll try not to take too long here, Be real short.
Revelations one. Verse three. Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things where richer written in it, for the time is at hand. Verse 19. Write the things which thou has seen, the things which are, and the things which shall be hereafter.
00:05:13
Chapter one is the things which has seen the past. Chapters two and three are the things which are.
Chapters 4 and back.
Our future, the things which shall be hereafter.
The things which are in chapter two and three.
Are the seven little epistles to the seven churches?
Today I would like to look at one little small portion.
Out of chapter 2.
Break in at verse.
14.
But I have a few things against thee, because thou hast there them that hold the doctrine.
Of Balaam.
We see the word doctrine in verse 14 and the word doctrine.
In Bruce in uh, verse 15. Excuse me?
So the topic there is.
What needs to be corrected? What needs to be overcome in a lifetime?
Against false doctrine, there are other passages about Balaam.
In verse 11 of Jude and in the Epistle to Peter.
One is the heir of Balaam, one is the way of Balaam. But here we have the doctrine of Balaam, and all three are different.
Let me read verse 17 please together.
He that hath an ear to hear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches, do them that overcometh I will give to eat of the hidden manner, and will give him a whitestone, and in a stone a new name written, which no man knoweth, save or accept.
He that receiveth it.
Like to thank my brother.
That just prayed about the bread of heaven. Thank you.
It's wonderful to hear and to know that we have the bread of heaven.
Let's move down to chapter 3 and verse 21.
To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame and am sat down with my father in his throne.
When we look at these passages.
We see the overcomer.
That is a title of a Christian. That is something that we can obtain.
Back where I come from a long time ago, it was said that you cannot measure tree until it's cut down.
Speaking about the end of life in reference to that, now they have new modern needs and technology to measure. While it's still centered via that what we made the thought is at the end of life, we can then receive a title of an overcomer.
If there was an epitaph put in the paper about me that said Bill was an overcomer, it would be the nicest thing I could receive.
I hope you want to be an overcomer.
If we notice the passage that we read here in verse 17 of chapter 2, to him that overcometh is current. Chapters 2 and thing are the two and three are the things which are right now sitting in your seat. You have the opportunity to become an overcomer of seven different things.
But it cannot be said that you're an overcomer until you finished your life.
Once your life is over, the Lord is going to say you overcame. If you look at the chapter 3 here and verse 21, it's a past tense about our Lord and our Savior, even as I also overcame.
He overcame.
We need to know what our Lord and Savior overcame, don't we?
We have to understand what it is to finish it out all the way and to have overcame.
Now we are overcoming.
To him, that overcometh. In the future, when it's all done, turn with me and we'll come back to this, to John, Chapter 16.
And our brother prayed it in his prayer.
00:10:03
John, Chapter 16.
Verse 33.
These things have I spoken unto you, that in me.
You might have peace.
In the world you shall have tribulation.
Viable goodshear for I have overcame the world.
When Jesus was tempted by Satan.
Satan was there and he said look out there at the kingdoms of the world and I'll give them to you.
And Jesus knew better.
The world systems out there have been set up by Satan, the Prince and the power of the air.
He has set up greed.
He has set up covetousness.
He has set up the way to try to make pieces, get guns and have a war, not like the peace that our Lord knows gives us.
Everything that he has set up is like the Antichrist that mimics Christ. What's wrong?
And Jesus can say I have overcame the world.
When we're done on our last day, can it be said that we overcame the world?
Here are seven different things in the world systems that are wrong that we can overcome.
One of those things is false doctrine.
The doctrine of Balaam.
We've been studying about the women of Moab and what did Balaam do? He was hired by the king.
To try and put a curse on the nation of Israel. And he couldn't do it. So he gave him false doctrine to go down and marry the women to Moab. Moab Moabites. Excuse me?
He gave him a false doc.
I don't wanna be specific on any type of false doctrine, I just wanna leave false doctrine in all of its forms.
If we can overcome that.
I want to look at what the beauty is of what we can receive later.
Revelations about things future, but we're in a section of things which are, and we have to come overcome it now.
In order to receive it later a positive thing. How many of these positive things do you want?
I will give.
Verse 17 To him that overcometh, I will give to eat.
Of the hidden manner.
I'd like to read one more verse in First John.
To get my fingers on a chapter 5 and verse four. For whatever is born of God overcometh the world, and this is the victory that overcometh the world even in even our faith in Christ.
The kingdoms of the world in overcoming the world.
The hidden manna.
Before we touch on the hidden manna.
I'd like to look at another type of manner and that's why our brother was praying about the bread of life. It's still the same manner, but it's the obvious manner. I'm gonna put that little title on it, the obvious manner.
Turn with me to Exodus 16.
Please.
We have to understand that hidden manna. If I'm gonna have a goal out there or something I wanna receive, I have to understand it of what I'm setting my goal towards. I went to college, they said there was a light at the end of the tunnel, and as you progress through college, you got closer and the light got brighter and all of a sudden you were done.
And I'm progressing forward later in years and it may be when the Lord comes in a few minutes, it may be down the line I may have to die and then be risen up and by may be raptured. And I'm looking for that upper taker and not the undertaker.
Exodus chapter 16, verse 4.
Then said the Lord unto Moses, Behold, I will bring bread from heaven for you, and the people shall go out and gather at a certain.
00:15:03
Uh, you would have a different word there, a rate or an amount every day that I may tempt them or test them is what that means. And that he may prove them whether they will walk in my law or not. And it shall come to pass it on the 6th day that shall prepare it. In that which it shall bring in, it shall be twice as much as they gather daily. Here is this obvious manner that could step outside the door that was rained down.
Christ, the bread of life, was never hidden to his soul. When he was born on this earth, there was a star that they could find him. And to the Jew, they gave him a sign. They gave the Jew a sign. They said he's gonna be wrapped in swaddling clothes in a Manger. The Jews always want to sign.
And to the rest of the world there was a star, and they could find him. He's never been hidden. To any unsaved one out here, ever on the face of this earth that includes you, he's nigh unto you, right even in your own mouth. Confess with thy mouth, and thou shalt believe in your heart.
That He is your Lord and your Savior. He's never been hidden has he to any unsaved. So we're looking at the obvious man right out there called the Bread of life. Five days they gathered 1 portion by the end of the day at rotted on the 6th day to gather 2 portions ate one portion. The other portion remained without going bad for the 6th day and they ate it. Anything they didn't ate was rotten. Obvious manner called.
The bread from heaven.
Numbers, Chapter 21.
Verse 5.
And the people spoke against God and against Moses. Whether wherefore have ye brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For is there no bread neither is there any water nor and our souls long enough for this light bread? Psalm 78, please.
S.
Psalm 78, verse 24 And it rained down man up on them to eat, and had given them of the corn of heaven.
Man did eat angels food.
He sent them meat to the full.
We're getting a lot of different titles. The bread, the light bread, the corn of heaven, the angel's food. First Corinthians, chapter 10.
Verse one Moreover, brethren, I would not have that ye should be ignorant of all of our fathers were under the cloud and all pass through the sea, and we're all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. And did all eat the same spiritual meat, the same spiritual food. Another title for the manna. We eat of the man of the spiritual food anytime we want to open it up and feed from it, don't we?
It's the obvious manner.
What is the hidden manner?
That's gonna be my goal. What's gonna be the hidden manner?
Manna means what is this? They didn't understand it.
Let's go back to Exodus 16 again. Let's see if we can find out about the hidden manner.
Exodus 16.
Verse 33.
And Moses said to Aaron, take a pot and put an Omer.
Full of manna therein and lay it up before the Lord to be kept for your generations. My mother down in the basement had doors that opened up in shelves and every year she can and made preserves and it kept for the future ahead for us to go down our need.
This manner was laid up. Lay it up before the Lord to be kept.
Take a pot and put a full complete Omer.
A full portion in that pot. Mom would fill her, wrapped the brim, take a little paraffin wax and seal the jar Jelly off and put it down there. You know who'd stick down get in the Jelly, don't you? Yep, right down in the preserves. Good old sweet stuff that Mom made. I'm looking forward to some good old sweet stuff for my heart, my savior.
Some personal mana, some hidden manna. We started to get a little drift of this.
00:20:06
Hidden manner.
Hebrews 9.
Hebrews 9, verse 4.
Which had the golden sensor and the ark of the covenant overlaid around about it with gold. In which was the now we found out it's a golden pot that had mana and Aaron's rod, the button and tables of the covenant. In the holiest of holiest there was only the veil that was kept everybody out except for the high priest.
The nation of Israel could not see the manna in the golden pot in the ark inside the holiest of holies.
It was not visible to them. We now have hidden manna.
We now have hidden manna.
There it was, way back in Exodus 16, putting that pot never to be spoiled, to be kept.
For a future day to the one that overcometh.
Beware of false doctrine.
So you can have some of the hidden manner, every one of these seven things, some of them have double portions like this one. For one thing, they start out with one-on-one, it depends on the severity of it and they all change.
And now we see there in the arc inside the holiest of holiest, the golden pot with the manna being kept.
There in Revelations 2 and 17, when we read it, I will give thee.
To eat of the hidden manna, it's going to be one full portion given to you personally.
If you're an overcomer.
I have a goal now to.
Personally achieve to receive some hidden manner by my Lord and my Savior.
Hidden manner that I can't see right now, but it's gonna be there and I can sit at his feet and he can feed me of the hidden manner. What's the answer? Maybe to the hidden manna is hidden, I don't really know.
Let me read you a portion and it may be.
The Gospel of John, the very last chapter.
The very last verse.
And there are also many other things which Jesus did, which is this if they should be written.
I would suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written.
My Lord, in his humility on this earth.
Did so many perfect things.
That the world couldn't contain all the books written about it.
And if I sit at his feet and he tells me all that he did for me?
I'm gonna appreciate.
And whom will be taught? Martha and Mary did two different things.
Let's work for the hidden manna so we can sit at his feet and he can tell me and give me that one full portion. You can receive it, your personal portion if you're an overcomer and just sit there and let him tell us all about it.
And thrill my soul inside.
Of what my Lord and my Savior had done that I don't even know about. Far more than I can conceive.
Kind of wrap up and close.
Back to Revelations 2 and 17. Let me get back there.
And also.
A whitestone and a snooze, and a stone, a new name written in it, which no man knoweth, save or accept. He that receiveth it A whitestone is his appreciation.
For a special guest.
He calls us lilies Solomon and all this glory couldn't even be raid like 1 Lily of the field. That's how priceful we are to him and special guests. And he says come over here, here's your special stone very private. You ain't going to see it. You ain't going to see it. Only the receiver is going to see it. It's from him to be personally to him that overcometh. Beware of false doctrine.
00:25:26
Get that precious stone.
New name on it. Only the happy recipient knows it now.
Only that person knows it.
Whether it's I will change thy name too, I don't know.
But I'll be ready to receive it if I overcome.
Very, very individual joys that one personally has for becoming an overcomer. He has a very special delight in each and every one of us.
And it has to be because we were triumphant over the world now.
Over the world now.
In order to receive it, there's a secret communication of love between Christ and the Overcomer.
A joy that can be shared.
With someone else? No. It's a joy with me personally and my savior, the same way with you.
There's reserved up there for me, preserved and kept.
The hidden manna is our appreciation.
Of Christ and his amelioration.
And the Whitestone of his his appreciation of us as an overcomer.
So I'm sitting at his feet, getting the man and appreciating Christ in his humiliation.
And over here, I'm receiving a Whitestone with his appreciation of me becoming an overcomer to each and everyone here today. May we look personally at the overcomer, seven of them in the little book.
Chapters 2 and three of Revelations, a beautiful title once were passed. He overcame even also as our Lord and Savior overcame the world.
Our brother has been bringing before us about the manna and how it's a picture, a type of Christ, and we often sing that little hymn. Nothing but Christ is on. We tread nothing but Christ, God's living bread, with staff in hand and feet well shod, nothing but Christ, the Christ of God.
So the Bible's all about.
It's about him.
HIM.
That's what this little book is about, that I hold in my hand.
It's an HIM book and we sing this hymn book. We sing songs about Jesus and we rejoice to sing about the Lord. And when we turn to Scripture, we find that.
Most of the time the singing is unto the Lord.
The theme of the song is Christ.
And I believe the essence of Christianity can be summed up in 3 words. Christ is.
All.
You have support, put it that way, in Colossians 3.
Christ is all. That's Christianity.
Well, what comes before me?
Is this little word him? HIM, and I see it back in second.
Samuel.
Chapter 22. Turning to the Old Testament.
I'm sorry, First Samuel, chapter 22.
First Samuel, chapter 22.
And here we have David.
00:30:03
Outside the city.
He's in a cave.
It's been rejected by the ruling power Saul. A man after the flesh, a man of the world doesn't appreciate David. You know, David was a man after God's own heart. David was one who had faith in God. His trust was in the Lord, and he made it known.
On many occasions.
And so, on the other hand, he trusted in himself. And it tells us in the Proverbs that he that trusteth in his own heart is a fool. A fool, However, it goes on to tell us in Proverbs that whoso puts his trust in the Lord shall be safe. Well, here in this little portion in First Samuel chapter 22, I'd just like to read the first part of this chapter.
And it says David therefore departed thence, and escaped to The Cave of Dullum. And when his brethren and all his father's house heard it, they went down thither.
To The Cave.
Is that what it says?
It says they went down further to him. In other words, David became the object of their heart. It was David.
That they had on their mind.
Now it goes on to say in verse two, and everyone that was in distress and everyone that was in debt and everyone that was discontented gathered themselves onto.
The Cave.
It says, gathered themselves unto him.
Again, David becomes the object of those who were not satisfied.
Under.
You know, Saul was an oppressive person.
And he was more concerned about his own interests than he was about the interests of his people.
He was a man of the world seeking to advance himself. That was his object.
And we find that he did not satisfy the needs of the people, and they had great needs.
It tells us here there were those that were in distress.
In debt?
And discontented, or, as the margin says, bitter of soul.
Distress.
That this contentment.
That sounds like the world around us.
You know this book that we hold in our hands this afternoon? It is the most up to date book.
On this planet, In this world.
What a privilege is ours to pick up this book and know that even though it was written many, many hundreds of years ago, it's just as relevant today as it ever was.
And we can read it with confidence.
And it tells us about how things are in the world at the present time.
You know, sometimes we go to school and we pick up a book.
And maybe it's a science book.
And when we look.
In the first pages to see what the copyright is and if it's 1985 or 1999, we say, well, I don't think I.
We'll be all together satisfied with this book because there's been so many advances in the field of science. I would like to have a book that's more up to date. And if we pick up a book and we see the copyright is 2012, we say, well, I think I'll take this book. It's an up to date book. But I just thought of this in connection with the word of God. You know, God moved men to write this book.
00:35:18
By the power of His Holy Spirit. And they wrote down what God told them to write, and there's been no revision of what has been written ever since.
It's true there's been translations of the Word of God, and there's been changes in translations and sometimes improvements.
1St The meaning of the word of God is he gave it.
To his.
Holy man.
Has never changed. Well.
The stress, debt, discontentment, how much distress we have in the world.
We hear often somebody say, well, what seems to be stressing you out?
And we can see it in faces. People are stressed out.
You know.
The stress in the Word of God. It, uh, comes up as anxiety, as trouble, as being under pressure.
But the wonderful thing is the answer to distress.
Is.
Christ David is a picture of Christ, and I believe that when these ones went in their need to David it tells us.
In verse.
Well, in first.
Three it says, And David went thence to Miss Moab, and he said unto the king of Moab, Let my father and my mother, I pray thee, come forth, and be with you, till I know what God will do for me. And he brought them before the king of Moab, and they dwelt with him all the while that David was in the hold. So we see that David made arrangements for his father and mother while he was in this place. In verse five in the prophet Jad.
Said unto David, Abide not in the whole Depart, and get thee into the land of Judah. Then David departed.
And came into the forest of arithmetic. So here we find the profit dad, who I believe was a true prophet of God. He now comes to the hold. He comes to this place where the true king, the anointed king, who was David was.
Hiding and then later on we have, uh, mention of the priest coming there too. So we have the prophet and the priest of God and the king altogether. But what I was thinking was actually in verse two, it says that David became a captain over them. These ones that were in need, he became a captain over them. Well, you know, it's wonderful to realize that Christ is the captain.
Of our salvation. And you know we think of what He has done for you and for me in giving Himself at the Cross of Calvary.
He came into this world to pay a debt that he didn't owe.
In order.
That the debt you and I we owed might be paid. He paid it at the cross. He gave his life. He could not have given more. He shed his own life's blood now.
If He in love with goes to such an extent, how could we question that He is for us and that He will provide for us? He truly is the captain of our salvation. When we go with Him, we know He goes with us and we're going to find that He gives deliverance from distress. It tells us over in, I think, Matthew 14 about the disciples.
And how that they were out in the ship.
00:40:01
And uh.
I believe it tells us there they were tossed with the waves in another gospel that speaks about how they were toiling in rowing speaks of distress and being in a very difficult situation. But you know the Lord Jesus came to them and when they went into the ship we find it all becomes calm.
No more.
Toiling. No more struggling, no more distress.
And all becomes calm. Now I believe that peace is not necessarily the absence of trouble, but I'll tell you one thing, It is the absence of the absence of fear.
And you and I, we can be in this troubled world.
Enjoying the peace of God.
Knowing that He loves us, He cares for us, and He's going to take us all the way home to glory and we can trust Him. Knowing that perfect love casts out fear.
If you know Somebody Loves You.
Intensely.
If you know somebody is all for you.
Can you trust that kind of person?
Well.
You might say to yourself, I know that person loves me, but you don't seem to have the ability to help me. But you know the Lord Jesus, he has all power. He could say all power is given unto me in heaven and in earth, alright.
You know, the Lord speaks to how he's gonna.
Govern this world and it's gonna be upon his shoulder. His shoulder.
Well, so he holds the world on his shoulder. Well, what about the other shoulder? Could we say he holds heaven? The fact is, he holds the universe.
And he is in control. Of course, we know the shepherd holds the sheep on his shoulders, but a place of strength and power, and the Lord Jesus Christ loves you perfectly and is fully able to do anything for you, that's going to be for your good.
That's what he has in mind. He has your best interests at heart.
Well.
Distress debt.
You know, we live in a world of debt. We think of the national debt. It's appalling trillions of dollars. Well, what's the big problem? Well, debt results, doesn't it? From simply.
Spending more than we take in.
It's not hard to figure out.
Well, why would we do something like that?
Well, could it be perhaps pride? We look at somebody else that has something more and we think, well, why couldn't we have that? Shouldn't we be entitled to this or that? You know, the thought has been expressed that we ought to be living the American dream.
But where do you find that in Scripture?
I believe that.
In Scripture.
The word is.
To be content with such things as you have, for he has said I will never leave thee, nor for safety. I think Mr. Darby has it. Be content with your present circumstances.
Well, how can this be? Because some of us have less than others.
And some have more than others, and so on and so forth.
If we could just and I speak to my own heart, get focused on great David's greater son, the Lord Jesus Christ, He could satisfy our hearts.
He could change our desires. You know. The word in Psalm 37 is delight thyself also in the Lord, and He shall give thee the desires of thine heart.
Don't you want to be happy? Don't you want to have your heart filled up? Well, God has made us in such a way that there's nothing in this world that's going to do it. I don't care how many boats, airplanes, mansions, cars.
00:45:13
Thank you cards won't fill your heart, but the Lord Jesus, He satisfies the longing.
So, and he feels a hungry heart or soul with goodness.
So again.
And the answer to debt? Could it be?
That, uh.
Our eyes are off of.
To satisfy not only the Savior, but to satisfy.
And it tells us in First Timothy, having food and raiment. Let us be there with content. It's quite a word, but there's happiness.
Now.
Discontentment or bitterness of soul.
Lots of bitterness, lots of anger in the world, in politics, in the religious world.
And.
We know it's a result of man's self will. Sin is at the root of the problem.
I think a bitter waters at narrow it tells us the waters we're bitter.
But there was an answer to the problem. The remedy was to throw the tree into the waters and then the waters become sweet. How can we get this bitterness sweetened?
It's the cross of Christ. You know, at the cross of Christ we see the old man crucified put away.
That's the root of problem, somebody said.
Worse than what I do is what I am.
Well, the cost of Christ takes care of what I am as a wretched depraved Sinner.
The old man's put away. It takes care of my sins.
The blood of Christ cleanses us from all sin. It's not an ongoing, ongoing process either. You know, some have the idea that that once every time you sin, the blood of Christ is going to cleanse your sin.
It's like it's an ongoing process. I don't believe so. That verse there simply tells us about the value or the efficacy of the blood of Christ. It cleanses all sin. That's what it can do.
One may dig a well and say now this well will supply 5 houses. It's indicating the value or efficacy of the well.
It's not that it's actually doing that, but it's telling the value. And so the blood of Christ, it cleanses us from all sin. So the cross of Christ.
It's an answer, Somebody said the death of Christ is what puts me away, the blood of Christ is what puts my sins away, and the cross of Christ is what puts the world away. Paul could speak about being crucified to the world.
And that's why I glorified in glory in the cross. Well, I just want to turn over.
In closed, I'm gonna get opportunity somebody else here, uh, Hebrews.
OK, so here are these ones that gather together unto him.
And I understand this cave was up on some limestone cliffs between Bethlehem and the Dead Sea.
And apparently there was some sort of a shelf that one would climb up on that overhang a gorge. And this was on the Cliff. And so it was somewhat difficult to get to this cave, to access this cave. And then there was a big rock, apparently, and this is what I've read and somebody correct me if I'm off on this, but I understand there's a big rock adjacent to the opening. One would have to actually jump into the.
The Cave, uh.
00:50:00
It was easily defended from the enemy, but the point here is that it seemed to be a rather difficult place to access.
But that didn't make a difference to those that wanted David. They went and they gathered themselves onto David. Now Hebrews chapter 13 we have another hymn, and this HIM is right in the middle of the verse.
And I find it interesting.
That uh, we have 3 thirteens. We have Hebrews 13.
We have verse 13.
And there's 13 words in the verse.
Now.
People like to think of 13 as being an unfortunate, unlucky number.
I don't see that in the Word of God.
I like these thirteens.
So if there's 13 words, let's read the 13 and the middle word would be him.
Let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp.
Bearing his reproach.
Those souls in need, they went to David.
Outside the city, outside the palace, they went to David and they associated with him. Now today, I believe it's our privilege to be gathered unto the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And the camp, I believe, refers to a system that man has developed, a religious system.
That appeals to his flesh.
It's that which appeals to his nature.
And.
It isn't that which has a heavenly aspect to it. It's connected with Earth.
But you and I, as believers today have the privilege to go forth without the camp man's ordered system and to go onto.
Him HIN you know the Lord Jesus Christ.
Is God's.
Man, he's the Son of God, and God would have all men to honor his Son.
How God does appreciate any favor that's shown to His Son?
End. I believe that in a world where he is still rejected.
Still cast out, he's not appreciated.
We can find him and may we keep our focus on him. I don't think that cave was a particularly nice place to live. I've been in some caves and they're not very nice, but these ones were gathered. To David, the circumstances didn't matter. And you and I, I believe, if we could be gathered.
We are gathered, I believe.
To the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, keep our focus on Him.
How?
It would help us in the circumstances that are difficult, because he will.
I believe undertake for his church, and we can trust Him. And so the word is, let us. It's not a command, it's a word of grace that the apostle I believe gives.
To these ones, let us go forth. It's a privilege.
And.
Go forth therefore unto him without the camp.
Bearing his reproach.
Jonathan was one. We don't find him in the hold. We don't find him in The Cave. In fact, he was a dear friend of David. He loved him as his own soul.
00:55:09
But there was a parting of the ways. I think it was hard on David.
To find Jonathan, leave him and go back to the court.
And David finds himself alone, and he goes, we know, to the Philistines, and then he goes to.
The case, we don't have time to go into all that detail, but if you wanna find out some of the feelings that David had.
You can read in Psalm 142, he speaks there about how no man cared for my soul. He's looking for a refuge. Uh, some.
I believe 30.
Four and uh.
Was another sum.
That expresses some of his feelings. And then there was, uh, I believe another Psalm.
Psalm 57.
But Jonathan did not, I don't think, want to.
Take that outside place. It was too difficult. He didn't really want the reproach, perhaps.
Connected with identifying with David in an outside place.
And, uh, we feel for Jonathan. We know that his end, uh, is not particularly happy, but, uh.
Here we have reproach connected with going outside the camp onto Jesus. But it is worth it.
Apostle Peter could say, happy are ye if you be reproached for the name of Christ. It's a privilege that we have and there's a brother back in our home assembly.
And sometimes closest to meeting.
With words to this effect, what better place could we possibly have been?
In than where we were this morning in the presence.
Of the Lord Jesus Christ.
What a privilege.
APR Desire.
In spite of the reproach connected with it to go forth unto Jesus.
Without the camp.
Her brother quoted from First John 4.
Verse 18.
It's in the middle of the verse. Perfect love casteth out fear when you get down to rubber meets the road. Christianity, one of the things that the enemy of our souls does more than anything else is to seek to get us to be afraid. Because if we can be afraid, startled, somebody says Boo, you jump. Well, if he can get us to be afraid, we might jump in the wrong direction.
And when you face things in life, whether it's the loss of a job or an illness, the specter of death appears on the horizon. You can become afraid. There's very real reason to be afraid. Things that are dangerous, things that are harmful.
Parents afraid of what might happen as they see their children maybe making wrong choices, fear can come in and take the peace away.
That perfect love casteth out fear.
There was a man who was speaking at his mother's funeral, and he told a story. He said that his mother taught him what love was and what it meant not to be afraid. They lived in California, and when he was a little boy he and his mother were alone at home, and an earthquake came. And so the mother moved the little boy and herself into a doorway, and the little boy was frightened, and he crawled up in her arms and lay in her arms. And he looked up into her face, and the mother was smiling.
And the little boy said, Mommy, how come you're not afraid?
And she smiled and said, I rejoice in my God, who can shake the world.
Fear was gone. I rejoice in my God who can shake the world.
01:00:01
She wasn't thinking about dangers and circumstances and what was. She was thinking about him as our brother was bringing out him. Her focus was on that and why He knows all about me and my little boy sitting in the doorway here. I'm rejoicing in the God, my God, that can shake the world.
But fear comes. Fear comes in. It creeps in, can creep in, in the night, in a long night, sitting by a hospital bed or wherever. Doesn't matter how old you are. Maybe something's happened and you're just a small boy or a small girl and you're afraid of the dark or whatever. Fear, fear comes in and it can take away our enjoyment and our peace.
When illness comes and the specter of death comes, whether it's for yourself or for someone you love, fear comes creeping in. And the enemy in his whispers to bring doubts and always to seek to get us to doubt the goodness of God and get our eyes off of Him, him, him, him. Onto the circumstances that's round. And we look at them and there's something to be afraid of. How many times has somebody referred to the picture?
In the scene of Peter, who walks upon the water, and he's on top of the water as long as his eyes are upon him.
But when he looks away to the circumstance, his heart gets filled with fear and he begins to sink.
But we also see there where he read, cries out and he reaches out. The quicker we do that, the better. So if somebody says Boo, most people jump. I mean, you're going to be startled by things in life. Things will happen where suddenly you're frightened, suddenly you're scared, suddenly the adrenaline is rushing. But I believe with all my heart, because of what this book says, no true believer needs to remain afraid very long.
There have been nights where my heart began to be filled with fear because of circumstances or difficulties, and I quoted this verse 1000 times and fell asleep. Perfect love casteth out fear. Perfect love casteth out fear.
The God who loves me, he says his banner over me is love. He shed his love abroad in my heart. I'm surrounded with his holy angels. His love is around me. It's beneath me, it's over me, it's all around me. You and I can look in the word of God and we can think of those verses. We are bathed in it. No one has ever loved us like Jesus. There's that song.
Says no one ever cared for me like Jesus. When you start looking at that, when you start quoting these things to yourself, every one of us has an inner conversation going on. We talk to ourselves all the time. What do you say to yourself? Well, the enemy is always coming around with those things, trying to get us to have a conversation that goes down. I tell my wife that these are rabbit trails down to the River of Funk and he would have us go there.
And everyone of us, he knows how to push our buttons. There are things some are afraid of that somebody else never even thought of being afraid of. But it's like a jukebox. He knows how to push the button. And we start down that thing, we rehearse these things, this inter conversation. You can stop it. Hit the stop button, hit the pause button and interject into that inner conversation these words from this book. And it will change things. I call it catching yourself. It's catching yourself going in a direction, in your thoughts in some way.
That's negative, harmful, fear, fearful or whatever. You catch it and you go, no, I don't want to go that way. Perfect love casts without fear or whatever verse applies to that and can interrupt that and you begin to focus on that and then the fear goes, it ebbs. You can simply look up to your Father and say, fill me with your peace. Put it in my mind, in my heart, in my body. Take the stress away. Take the fear away.
When we got the news that my wife was facing.
Cancer. The verse the Lord gave us the next day from dear brother Norm Hebert in an e-mail. Nobody knew anything about it. Bold letters right at the top.
Being not afraid, only believe.
What an encouragement that was. I was shaking, trembling in fear.
01:05:01
Before that.
So when I those that news came, those words came into my heart. I had peace from then on because the one who loves me and who loves my wife and told us be not afraid, only believe. You know that story of Jairus is an interesting story. When he came to the Lord Jesus to talk about this child that was ill, that's when he was interrupted by the woman who touched the hem of his garment. This man is.
Inviting the Lord Jesus to come and hurry to his house to heal his child who's at the point of death. And he's interrupted. I wonder went through what went through his mind. He's going along and there's a press and a crowd comes around and Jesus turns and says, who touched me? And he talks to this woman and there's a conversation that takes place and there's time that takes place. Maybe he thought, come, come along. My, my child is dying. But I think more likely he watched.
And he saw a woman healed in front of him. And if he looked and saw and pay attention, surely he must have been encouraged that he just saw in front of him something take place that he desired for his own child. And perhaps fear melted away at that moment. Well, when the news comes and now this is what happens in life, this is exactly what happens and how we can become filled with fear. News comes, some message comes, something from your boss, from your school, from somewhere. News comes.
The servant from the synagogue comes and says don't bother the master anymore, your child has died.
The Lord just turns to him, doesn't say, no, no, I'm gonna heal your son, don't worry about it. And there's no conversation. He just turns to him and says be not afraid, only believe in one gospel. It says I will raise her up.
Be not afraid, only believe, faith, trust, resting in Him.
There are times where nothing can make sense out of what's going on. You don't understand it. Your circumstances are maybe dark. You don't even understand what's going on. You don't even know enough details to explain it to anybody else. And yes, fear has come in.
But you can turn to this one him, turn to him. There have been times in my life where tears running down my face, all I knew to do was say, I don't get this. But Lord Jesus, I choose you. I choose you. It's dark, it's raining, there's a storm, the waves are high. I can't see. I choose you, I choose you. Sometimes we think faith is a kind of a feeling.
Well, we can have a feeling from it, but faith is a choice to trust the one we know is over everything.
To trust that God who can shake the world, you and I have that. And when we trust Him and know that He loves us, He proved it on the cross. We can quote these verses to our own heart and change the inner conversation and say over and over again, perfect love casteth out fear, fear.
Be gone and it will depart and melt away. And when you're in the enjoyment of the love that he has for us, what can you be afraid of? You know, I had a similar circumstance to the little boy I told you the story about. I was with my mother alone as a child, about five years of age, and a tornado came through our farmstead in Iowa, and it was dark at night and the wind was howling. It sounded like a freight train right outside our house. A tornado went right close to the buildings and took some of the buildings on the farm.
My father was gone someplace.
And I was afraid, and I looked in my mother's face.
And I remember talking to her about it and she said, I, she said to me, she's I was afraid when I was a little girl too, about the storm until I read in the scriptures that the Lord.
He's the writer on the storm. There's an old song that says that, but he's the real writer on the storm. He's in control of the storms. And she said as a little girl, when I found out that the Lord Jesus the Creator is in charge of the storm, I wasn't afraid anymore. Well, you don't need to be afraid when the one who loves you above anything else.
Is in charge of the things that are going on around and he will take us through.
A God who can shake the world died for us, shed His blood for us, pursued us, chased us with His love, and saved us.
01:10:01
Nothing saved him in all our ways, giving the theme for ceaseless praise, our whole resource along the road, nothing but Christ, the Christ of God. 24 in the appendix.
And everything was for him.
Taking the frost wherever we love, showing the Lord, and once we come out.
Our God and Father, thou hast heard this little prayer that we have just sung together. We trusted the sincere and earnest desire of each of our souls to have nothing but Christ before us. And now we thank Thee for this time. Over Thy word. We ask Thy blessing, and as we continue on with these meetings, we pray that Christ might be ministered to us in the power of the Spirit. We ask this in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and for His glory. Amen. Amen.
Yes.