“Then Naomi, her mother in law, said unto her, My daughter, shall I not seek rest for thee, that it may be well with thee? And now is not Boaz of our kindred, with whose maidens thou wast? Behold, he winnoweth barley tonight in the threshing floor. Wash thyself, therefore, and anoint thee, and put thy raiment upon thee, and get thee down to the floor; but make not thyself known unto the man, until he shall have done eating and drinking. And it shall be when he lieth down, that thou shalt mark the place where he shall lie, and thou shalt go in and uncover his feet, and lay thee down; and he will tell thee what thou shalt do. And she said unto her, All that thou sayest unto me I will do. And she went down unto the floor, and did according to all that her mother in law bade her. And when Boaz had eaten and drunk, and his heart was merry, he went to lie down at the end of the heap of corn: and she came softly and uncovered his feet, and laid her down. And it came to pass at midnight, that the man was afraid, and turned himself: and, behold, a woman lay at his feet. And he said, Who art thou? And she answered, I am Ruth thine handmaid; spread therefore thy skirt over thine handmaid; for thou art a near kinsman. And he said, Blessed be thou of the Lord, my daughter; for thou hast showed more kindness in the latter end than at the beginning, inasmuch as thou followedst not young men, whether poor or rich. And now, my daughter, fear not; I will do to thee all that thou requirest; for all the city of my people doth know that thou art a virtuous woman. And now it is true that I am thy near kinsman: howbeit there is a kinsman nearer than I. Tarry this night, and it shall be in the morning, that if he will perform unto thee the part of a kinsman, well; let him do the kinsman’s part: but if he will not do the part of a kinsman to thee, then will I do the part of a kinsman to thee, as the Lord liveth: lie down until the morning. And she lay at his feet until the morning: and she rose up before one could know another. And he said, Let it not be known that a woman came into the floor. Also he said, Bring the veil that thou hast upon thee, and hold it. And when she held it, he measured six measures of barley, and laid it on her: and she went into the city. And when she came to her mother in law, she said, Who art thou, my daughter? And she told her all that the man had done to her. And she said, These six measures of barley gave he me: for he said to me, Go not empty unto thy mother in law. Then said she, Sit still, my daughter, until thou know how the matter will fall: for the man will not be in rest, until he have finished the thing this day” (Ruth 3).
There is one little word in the first verse of this chapter that seems to characterize the whole chapter—the little word Rest. The early part of the book has given us a soul really decided for God. In chapter 1 we have Ruth decided for God, and the people of God. In chapter 2 we have what were the fruits of decision—meeting with Boaz, who is a type of Christ. She is broken down under a sense of His kindness, by His gracious words, but then she leaves Him, type of a soul that has got a sense of Christ’s grace, touched the hem of His garment, but then somehow gets away out of the conscious enjoyment of His presence and of His Person. Ruth goes back to her mother in law, and we hear, for a time, nothing more about Boaz. Now, to be merely benefited, or saved by Christ, without the full enjoyment of Himself abidingly, is not enough. What Christ gives is rest—full, abiding, present, and eternal rest. We get, then, rest in the third chapter, and relationship we shall find unfolded in the fourth.
Chapter 1 is Decision for Christ; chapter 2 Meeting with Christ; chapter 3 Rest in Christ; and chapter 4 Relationship to Christ — being united to Him.
Naomi says, “My daughter, shall I not seek rest for thee, that it may be well with thee?” I want to ask you, my friend, one little question here. Have you rest? There is no real rest for the soul, till it is actually in the place Ruth illustrates in this chapter, and where is that? Where does Ruth find rest? At the feet of Boaz. And where does a soul find rest? At the feet of Jesus! Ruth feels Boaz is the only one in whom she can implicitly confide, and she goes and places herself under his wing. She does what the Lord allows more than one sinner to do in the gospels,—places herself under his protection,—gets to his feet. Look, for instance, at the woman who was a sinner, in Luke 7 She gets straight to the feet of Jesus, and see how He blesses her! Have you found rest at the feet of Jesus yet? You say, What do you mean? Ah! it is clear, then, you do not know it. You have not found rest yet. You have never yet been quietly, calmly, seated at the feet of Jesus.
There is no real rest in the world; if you watch the faces as you pass along, how you see care, and anxiety, and restlessness, depicted in almost every countenance, leaving indelible lines. How rarely do you meet a person of whom you can say, What a restful face! Now, there are three rests spoken of in Scripture, and it will be my business in this paper to briefly open up the first two. You know where they both occur, in the end of Matt. 11, after what had been a stormy, dark day to the Lord Jesus. John the Baptist, His forerunner, was doubting if He were the Christ; Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum, the cities where His mighty works had been done, had refused to believe Him; men had called Him “a gluttonous man and a winebibber,” and He turns away from this dark, restless scene, upward to His Father, and says, “I thank Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father; for so it seemed good in thy sight. All things are delivered unto me of my Father; and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son; and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him” (Matt. 11:25-2725At that time Jesus answered and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes. 26Even so, Father: for so it seemed good in thy sight. 27All things are delivered unto me of my Father: and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him. (Matthew 11:25‑27)).
Oh, reader, are you a babe to whom the Son can reveal the depths of the Father’s heart? The Father’s heart, the Father’s bosom, can only be known by revelation, but the Son perfectly reveals the Father.
Then the Lord turns round again to this restless, troubled world, and gives the loveliest invitation that ever fell on mortal ears. Resting Himself in the Father’s perfect love, He calls every laboring, laden, restless soul to come to Him, undertaking to introduce the new-comer, whoever he may be, or whatever he may have been, to the same sphere of restful delight which He Himself had in the Father’s love, spite of any surrounding circumstance. Never from His blessed lips fell there words more God—revealing, soul-need-meeting, love-begetting, and heart-breaking than these—”COME UNTO ME ALL YE THAT
LABOR AND ARE HEAVY LADEN, AND I WILL GIVE YOU REST.”
Beloved, there is rest for the laboring, rest for the heavy laden, rest for the weary, rest for the anxious, rest for the troubled, at the feet of Jesus.
IT IS REST OF CONSCIENCE. He gives you rest of conscience first of all, a perfect clearing of all that YOU HAVE DONE, through what HE HAS DONE. Have you been thinking you must do something to be saved? Such a thought is a delusion of the devil, and a snare. You can do nothing but sin, and you have surely done plenty in that line already. “GOD SAW (what you never did, perhaps) that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that EVERY IMAGINATION Of THE THOUGHTS OF HIS HEART (not to name his acts) was ONLY EVIL continually” (Gen. 6:55And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. (Genesis 6:5)). This is your moral condition, and what fit for God can come from you, then? Nothing, simply NOTHING. “Yes,” you reply, “I see that, and I have given up trying to do anything or to be better.” What are you waiting for now, then? “For what Christ will do.” This is another snare and delusion of the devil. Christ’s work is already finished. He will DO no more for you than He has done. He can, in this aspect, do no more. He has died once. He has suffered once. He has borne sins once. He has atoned for them once. His blood has been shed once. All this is finished, and never will or can be repeated. God has accepted His sacrifice, and raised Him from the dead in token of His acceptance thereof, and of His perfect delight in Christ.
If, therefore, your sins are not now put away from God’s sight by what Christ HAS DONE, they never can be, for you cannot do it yourself, and Christ will do no more in order to do it. Now, then, do you see? Either the work which gives rest to the conscience is DONE, or IT NEVER CAN BE. Which is the truth? “IT IS FINISHED,” was the dying Savior’s legacy of love to the heavy laden sinner, and the soul that hears and believes gets REST about the solemn matters of sin, iniquity, transgression, and God’s judgment thereof, through faith in Jesus, who died to secure this rest by putting away the sin which hindered it, and then says, “Come unto me... and I will GIVE YOU REST.”
Then He adds, “Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall FIND REST UNTO your souls.” This rest is quite different from the rest of conscience which I get through the work of Christ; it is the REST OF HEART, the rest of spirit that I get by communion with Him as a living Person from day to day. The first rest is the Sinner’s rest, the second rest is the Saint’s rest, and there is still another rest, of which the apostle speaks in Hebrews 4:99There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God. (Hebrews 4:9): “There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God.” That is God’s rest, which we are going to get by-and-by. A sinner gets rest of conscience in the work of Christ; the saint gets rest of heart in the Person of Christ, and then there is God’s rest—GLORY, where sin and its fruits can never come, into which He is going to take us who believe, spirit, soul, and body, for eternity: and that is the end of the path on which the soul enters who once trusts Jesus, comes to Jesus, confides in Jesus.
Now, tell me, would you not like to know these rests? You know the world cannot give you rest. Have you rest as you think of Death? Have you rest as you think of the Day of Judgment? No! You know you have not; “There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked”; no peace till you come to Christ. Those who have come to Him have rest. It is impossible for a soul to have come to Christ and not to have rest. If you have not rest you have not simply come to Jesus, that’s all; you may have come half-way, and you may be a little self-complacent, too, that you are different now from what you used to be, but there is no real rest save in personal contact with the Lord Himself, getting alone with Him, and finding out how He meets the need of the soul.
In the second chapter, Boaz seeks Ruth, and speaks to her when there are plenty of others by, but in the third chapter Ruth goes where she knows she will find Boaz, and speaks to him alone; and when a soul is bowed down with a sense of its own ungodliness, with a sense of its own utter unworthiness, and the grace that is in Christ, you will find that it will withdraw, and feel that the Lord Jesus alone is the only One to whom it can really go. Ah, beloved, your whole burden is never rolled off until you get to Him alone, until you cast yourself unreservedly upon the bosom of Jesus.
Naomi says, “Shall I not seek rest for thee, that it may be well with thee?” And where does she advise her to seek rest? At the feet of Boaz; and to you, dear unsaved one, I say, at the Savior’s feet there is peace for you, there is pardon for you, there is forgiveness for you, there is life for you, there is rest for you; to Him, then, to Him you must go.
Ruth is the picture of a thoroughly earnest soul. She does what she is bidden. She goes where Boaz is, and she casts herself down at his feet.
Perhaps some soul says, “Must I not make myself better first, must I not do something first?” You cannot, try what you will, you cannot make yourself one bit better, one bit more fit for the Savior’s presence. “All, but,” you say, “Ruth was told to wash and anoint herself.” Yes, hut you are not, and that is the difference, for, as Job says, “If I wash myself with snow water, and make my hands never so clean; yet shalt Thou plunge me in the ditch and mine own clothes shall abhor me.” That is, all the efforts of man are not the least use. Snow water is the very purest of all water, and what does snow water typify? Rites and ceremonies, and everything else that springs merely from man’s flesh. People are trying all this, but it does not do, snow water does not cleanse from sin; nothing can cleanse you before God, or give relief to your soul, but the precious blood of Christ. To try to improve yourself is only a snare of the devil to keep you away from the Savior. There is a little hymn that says:
“If you wait till you are better
You will never come at all.”
The devil knows that, and so he whispers, “Improve yourself, try and make yourself better.” No, no! Heed him not; Come! Come! Come as you are; the more you labor, the more tired you will get, and do you get any nearer? Not a bit, only more burdened. It is a great thing when a soul is heavy laden, and when the burden gets intolerable. The devil tries to hinder you finding it intolerable by slipping the burden first on one shoulder, then on the other; now on the bosom, and then on the back, but the burden is there all the same; rest you never find till you find it at the feet of Jesus. Oh, listen to his loving call: “Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” “I will GIVE,” what a word for a helpless sinner! If you only knew the grace of His heart and how He wants to give you salvation, you would trust Him at once, and receive what your weary soul needs—rest.
And now Boaz speaks to Ruth. She has done nothing but place herself under his protection, “And he said, Who art thou? And she answered, I am Ruth (which means “beauty”) thine handmaid; spread therefore thy skirt over thine handmaid, for thou art a near kinsman. And he said, Blessed be thou of the Lord, my daughter, for thou hast showed more kindness at the latter end than at the beginning.” How the Lord delights to have a soul in living contact with Himself. He says, “Thou hast showed more kindness in the latter end than at the beginning.” What does he mean by that? Why, in the 2nd chapter she had gone into the field merely as a gleaner, and there had met Boaz. Now she had gone straight to him, confided in him, put her case entirely into his hands. “Take charge of all my affairs, I claim thy care,” she seems to say, “thou art a near kinsman,” that is, the heart claims Christ, and cannot do without Christ.
Does your heart say that? Do you claim Him? “How can I claim Him?” you ask. By faith. Faith can always appropriate Christ. Because you and I were under sentence of death, He became a man, died, and by His dying abolished death, and put away sin; and now, in resurrection, He takes all who believe into living union with Himself, so that by faith I can go to Him and say, “Thou art a near kinsman.” What is that lovely word which He sends on the morning of His resurrection to those who trust in Him? Listen, “Go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God.” Who are His brethren? Those who confide in Him. He acknowledges them, He takes the kinsman’s place. He says, “It is true that I am thy near kinsman.” He takes our place, under the judgment of God, in grace upon the cross, takes our sins upon Him, goes into death and the grave, but He rises from among the dead, and the first thing He does is to share all His spoils with us.
Oh, who would not have such a Christ? a Christ who says to the faith that claims Him, “Blessed be thou of the Lord, my daughter.” He delights to have a soul in close quarters with Himself. Look at the blind Bartimaeus; He first brings him near to Him, and then He gives him what he wants. Look at Zaccheus again; He brings him down from the tree and goes with him to his house. He delights to have a soul near to Himself; nothing rejoices His heart like the simple confidence of a soul who can trust Him entirely.
“Thou hast showed more kindness in the latter end than at the beginning.” That is, he says, “You used not to trust me, but now you do. You have more confidence in me than you had.” What a lovely picture of the heart of Jesus! Satan says, “Don’t you trust Him; He will not have you; you are not good enough”; but do not you believe Satan. You trust Jesus, there is nothing He values like confidence; He calls it “kindness” even. He has had hard and cruel treatment from many: will you not show him kindness? Many scorn and despise Him; do you trust Him. Does he see you confiding in Him? Behold then the rich fruit of this confidence. “I will do to thee all that thou requirest.” He says, Every need of your heart I will meet. He owns Himself your kinsman. He owns you. He saves you entirely. He does all you require. You have nothing to do but to be still and trust Him.
“Howbeit there is a kinsman nearer than I.” Yes, there is a kinsman very near, and some of you have had very close dealings with him. You have tried to please him, tried to satisfy his claims, tried to meet his requirements. “Yes,” you say, “I have tried to keep the law.” You are right, there is the nearer kinsman, but can the law redeem? Can the law do a kinsman’s part? No; the law can only condemn, can only prove you guilty; it cannot redeem.
“But if he will not do the part of a kinsman to thee, then will I do the part of a kinsman to thee, as the Lord liveth.” You have nothing to do but to trust Him. He takes all upon Himself. He does the whole work. He blesses you. He brings you to God, and if you have got to go back into the city (and you and I have to go back and walk through the world, after He has saved us), see how He sends you back. He sends you back full. “He said, Bring the veil that thou hast upon thee, and hold it. And when she held it, He measured six measures of barley and laid it on her, and she went into the city.” Six mea• suers of barley! She could glean for herself about one ephah, and not a bad gleaning either; but now see what He gives! And mark this, too. She goes empty to him, holds the empty veil. Ah, there is something carried away that is very tangible,. when I go to Christ. I carry away something very substantial that I have got from Him. Six measures. And what are His measures? They are filled full, pressed down, and running over; that is what He gives a soul that simply trusts in Him.
Then Naomi says, “Sit still, my daughter, until thou know how the matter will fall: for the man will not be in rest until he have finished the thing this day.” My rest depends on the fact that He will not rest until there is something finished that enables Him to bless me perfectly. You have only to sit still and hear what Jesus says. Cast yourself simply on Him, and then you learn what rest really is. Boaz had something to do, but has Christ something to do? No! But will He not do something? No! Has He done it, then? Yes, for we have heard those blessed words, the precious legacy of a dying Savior, “IT IS FINISHED.” “It is finished.”