Communion Sunday evening service
[0:00] That will be taken by the Reverend Rory Morrison. And just on your behalf, I want to just thank the Reverend Innesian and the Reverend Rory for their ministry over this weekend.
[0:12] We have been very blessed through them and we thank them for all that the Lord has done through them. And we thank the Lord for them over this weekend.
[0:24] The rest of the notices, you can pick them up on the sheets on the way out. And I won't take time to go through them just now. So I'll hand over now to Innesian. Just to acknowledge the welcome that we have received from you as a congregation.
[0:49] And as the Mans family also have received us and treated us well so far. Though maybe they're pushing us to do too much for old folk.
[1:01] He's no respecter of age when it comes to allotting tasks that weren't anticipated. Nevertheless, we are glad to be here.
[1:12] And we have enjoyed fellowship both publicly and privately. And we are indebted to the Lord's goodness that we have had the privilege of sharing in this very important occasion of opening a great chapter in the work of the gospel in this place.
[1:34] And we trust that the seeking to be faithful to the word of God would be reflected in the truth that his word will not return to him void.
[1:47] But will fulfill God's intention to his glory and to the good of souls, lost souls who need salvation.
[2:00] Which we all do. We're going to begin our worship by a Gaelic item of praise and then a prayer. And then the rest of the service will be in English.
[2:13] I follow the instructions I've been given in doing so. So we're going to begin by worshiping God in the words of Psalm 111.
[2:23] From the beginning of the psalm. Psalm 111.
[3:01] I heard some of the both happy boys and we make dreams and stories of emptiness.
[3:24] Let us unite our hearts in prayer. Let us pray.
[4:24] Let us pray.
[4:54] Let us pray.
[5:24] Let us pray.
[5:54] Let us pray.
[6:24] Let us pray. Let us pray. Let us pray.
[6:36] Let us pray. Let us pray.
[6:48] Let us pray. Let us pray.
[7:00] Let us pray. Let us pray.
[7:12] Let us pray. Let us pray. Let us pray. Let us pray.
[7:28] Let us pray. Let us pray.
[7:40] Let us pray. Let us pray. Let us pray.
[7:51] Let us pray. Let us pray. Let us pray.
[8:04] Thank you.
[8:34] Thank you.
[9:04] Thank you.
[9:34] Thank you. Thank you.
[10:06] Thank you. Thank you.
[11:06] Thank you. Thank you.
[12:06] Amen. Amen. Amen.
[12:42] Amen.
[13:14] We saw how Ruth and Naomi arrived at Bethlehem and how Ruth had decided to go into the fields of Bethlehem to glean, to assume the beggar's rule because it was the destitute who went gleaning in the fields of Israel.
[14:06] And with Naomi's permission, she has gone there. And we read from verse 4. Just then, Boaz arrived from Bethlehem and greeted the harvesters.
[14:20] The Lord be with you. The Lord bless you, they called back. When bread was to be found in Israel and when harvests were plentiful, they recognized it as God's giving.
[14:36] And that word, the Lord be with you is the word, God with us, God's presence among his people, even in the provision he was making for them in the promised land.
[14:51] At verse 5, Boaz asked the foreman of his harvesters, whose young woman is that? The foreman replied, she is the Moabites, who came back from Moab with Naomi.
[15:07] She said, please let me glean and gather among the sheaves behind the harvesters. She went into the field and has worked steadily from morning till now, except for a short rest in the shelter.
[15:23] So Boaz said to Ruth, my daughter, listen to me, don't go and glean in another field. And don't go away from here. Stay here with my servant girls.
[15:36] Watch the field where the men are harvesting and follow along with after the girls. I have told the men not to touch you.
[15:47] And whenever you are thirsty, go and get a drink from the water jars the men have filled. At this, she bowed down with her face to the ground.
[15:59] She exclaimed, why have I found such favor in your eyes that you notice me a foreigner? Boaz replied, I have been told all about what you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband.
[16:16] How you left your father and mother and your homeland and came to live with a people you did not know before. May the Lord repay you for what you have done.
[16:29] May you be richly rewarded by the Lord, the God of Israel under whose wings you have come to take refuge. May I continue to find favor in your eyes, my Lord, she said.
[16:44] You have given me comfort and have spoken kindly to your servant, though I do not have the standing of one of your servant girls. At mealtime, Boaz said to her, come over here, have some bread and dip it in the wine vinegar.
[17:02] When she sat down with the harvester, he offered her some roasted grain. She ate all she wanted and had some left over.
[17:14] As she got up to glean, Boaz gave orders to his men. And even if she gathered among the sheaves, don't embarrass her. Rather, pull out some stalks for her from the bundles and leave them for her to pick up and don't rebuke her.
[17:31] So Ruth gleaned in the field until evening. Then she thrushed the barley she had gathered, and it amounted to a boat, Anipha.
[17:43] She carried it back to town, and her mother-in-law saw how much she had gathered. Ruth also brought out and gave her what she had left over after she had eaten enough.
[18:00] Her mother-in-law asked her, where did you glean today? Where did you work? Blessed be the man who took notice of you. Then Ruth told her mother-in-law about the one at whose place she had been working.
[18:18] The name of the man I worked with today is Boaz, she said. The Lord bless him, Naomi said to her daughter-in-law. He has not stopped showing his kindness to the living and the dead.
[18:34] She added, that man is our close relative. He is one of our kinsmen-redeemers. Then Ruth the Moabitess said, He even said to me, stay with my workers until they finish harvesting all my grain.
[18:54] Naomi said to Ruth, her daughter-in-law, It will be good for you, my daughter, to go with these girls because in someone else's field you might be harmed.
[19:07] So Ruth stayed close to the servant girls of Boaz to glean until the barley and wheat harvests were finished, and she lived with her mother-in-law.
[19:21] May God bless to us this reading of his holy word and open our eyes in a spiritual way to behold the wonders of God's word.
[19:33] Let us again unite our hearts in prayer. Gracious Lord, our Heavenly Father, as we acknowledge your goodness to us on this, your day, the day that you have set amongst our days to remind us of him who rose in the power of an endless life and who brought in that Sabbath peace that will find its fulfillment ultimately in your own presence, in that redeemed creation that will rise to honor and to acknowledge the wonder and the glory of the Creator, the God immortal, invisible, the one who is wise with wisdom that transcends all that we may ever devise.
[20:28] We bless you, Lord, for all that you are. We pray your hand upon us here, giving thanks for your many merges throughout this day and seeking that mercy for many others, those who are onlookers and who may be stirred within their hearts and minds.
[20:50] We pray, Lord God, that you would extend your kingdom. Grant your blessing upon all that we would bring from our own situations, our families and our friends, those who are in sorrow, those who are in a critical condition, even of the man's family at this time, when their concern goes out to a brother-in-law and a brother.
[21:17] We pray for him in hospital and we ask your hand upon his family at Ullapur and we commit them to your care and keeping. And we ask, O Heavenly Father, for your mercy in the ministries that are extended to us for our physical and spiritual and mental well-being.
[21:40] We pray your hand upon all that we would bring before you. Hear our prayers. Continue with us, Lord, in this place that has been set aside for this very purpose and in which many of us see the wonder of all that you are in ordering your providence and doing for us far above anything we can ask or think and enabling us to acknowledge that as we bow our knee in humility and acknowledge that our Lord has done wonderful things.
[22:23] We bless you that you are still the God who shows us that your ways are higher than our ways, that your thoughts far transcends anything we might plan for ourselves and that you are the God who knows what is best for your people as they go out empty-handed to know the way in which you fill them.
[22:50] So we pray your blessing upon us here, upon every family represented here, upon all who are in this community who worship in other places of worship.
[23:04] We commit them to you, Lord. We pray your blessing upon them and your goodness to be their portion in equal measure to what we would pray for ourselves that in the obedience of faith we might all rise to acknowledge you in all our ways and to find that you are still the shepherd directing the pathway for your sheep.
[23:35] Hear our prayers. And help us, pardon us, and guide us for Jesus' sake. Amen. We sing again from the hymn book number 1158.
[23:54] Now, I don't think you've sung this one before, but I know that some know the hymn and we just have to learn it as we go along. I think our pianist is going to play the whole tune through.
[24:06] So while he's playing, you tune up by singing to yourself the words and then we shall all stand to sing the hymn. 1158.
[24:17] Beneath the cross of Jesus, beneath the cross of Jesus, that surely is where we decide to be. Beneath desire to be. Beneath the cross of Jesus, I find a place to stand and wonder at such mercy that calls me as I am.
[24:36] For hands that should discard me hold wounds which tell me, come. Beneath the cross of Jesus, my unworthy soul is worn.
[24:53] Now, let us turn together to Ruth chapter 2 and we shall read at verse 19 into verse 20.
[25:05] Her mother-in-law, that's Naomi, asked her, that's Ruth, where did you glean today? Where did you work? Blessed be the man who took notice of you.
[25:19] Then Ruth told her mother-in-law about the one at whose place she had been working. The name of the man I worked with today is Boaz, she said.
[25:32] The Lord bless him. Naomi said to her daughter-in-law, he has not stopped showing his kindness to the living and the dead.
[25:46] She added, that man is our close relative. He is one of our kinsmen, Redeemer. In this last section of the second chapter, we find Ruth returning from her day's adventure into a new arena within her life.
[26:09] She has gone into the fields at Bethlehem for the first time, and she has gone there trusting that somehow the charity which God had instituted in Israel and recorded for us in the book of Leviticus, that is the kind of welfare concern that was current in that day, that you could go into the field and that the destitute and the poor could gather from the edges of the fields and from sheaves that were dropped by the harvesters who could not go back to collect them.
[26:46] You can read about it in Leviticus 23 at verse 22. Ruth went out into the fields of Bethlehem. She went out looking for crumbs, and she came home laden with quite a heavy load of grain.
[27:07] She went out looking for crumbs to keep her alive, and she was met with the abundance of God's blessing. The miracle of kindness that she met in that field was in the passion of a man named Boaz, a man whose name means the one in whom there is strength.
[27:34] So unlike the two boys who had died in Moab, who had been, one of them had been Ruth's husband, one called Sickly, the other called Pining.
[27:48] Here is one who was possibly a contemporary of these two boys, and here is one in whom there is strength and one who is able to provide from the fields that he has sown.
[28:04] He is able to provide, and he is able to offer a generosity to this woman, this new convert, a generosity that went far beyond her expectations.
[28:20] It's a kind of Old Testament picture of the return of the prodigal. The prodigal came home looking for a job in his father's household.
[28:31] He thought perhaps if he could be like one of the servants, but he is met with a liberality and a kindness and a generosity in his father who was looking to the far country that went far beyond his dreams.
[28:49] he became a son in a deeper way than he had ever been a son before. And there is that kind of aspect to this teaching here.
[29:03] In the 18th century when Britain was a great power and controlled much of India, there was a man called Lord Clive who was governor of Bengal.
[29:17] and while he was governor there, he had been a high officer in the British Army before that and when he was a governor and an administrator, he was called in question and challenged for embezzlement.
[29:35] And he was brought before a gathering, a council and he was asked to explain his actions. how was he taking wealth out of Bengal in a personal way?
[29:49] When he went and appeared before the council, he took with him one of the princes of Bengal. And the prince went with him. And Clive told the council who were questioning him, they said, this prince invited me to his home, he feasted me, and then he opened this treasure chest.
[30:14] He had been called to give a count because he was held responsible for taking 100,000 pounds worth of precious stones.
[30:26] The 100,000 pounds, you can hardly buy a house today on it, but you could nearly buy a country on it in the middle of that century. So he was asked to give a count and he told how this prince had feasted him and then how he had opened the treasure chest and said to him, take as much of it as you want.
[30:51] And Lord Clive said to them, the prince is here to corroborate my evidence. And the prince said, yes, it's all true.
[31:03] And then Lord Clive said, I am just amazed at how little I took. I am just amazed at how little, at my own moderation is the way he put it.
[31:24] And that's a picture of what the prince of glory has offered us in the gospel. God's and all that we have been seeing and all that is set before us, the very nature of God's kindness is such that this woman who has come from Moab is just overwhelmed as she returned.
[31:53] And so is Naomi as she has seen how she has returned laden from the fields of Bethlehem. And we're going to think for a little while upon this, because Bethlehem, as I've said here over the few days, and as many of you have heard, means the house of bread.
[32:19] And bread really has great significance in the light of the scripture's teaching. Man shall not live by bread alone, he must live by what comes from the mouth of God.
[32:32] And the manna came down from heaven, but it was symbolic, symbolic of what? Of the real bread, as Jesus said, because he says, I am the bread of life.
[32:45] And in the passion of Boaz, who was actually an ancestor of Jesus, because he was either a grandfather or great-grandfather of David, of the line of David, so here is a representation of all that was to be fulfilled in the Jesus who was the very, and is the very bread of life.
[33:08] We look first of all at the sufficiency that this woman is experiencing. She has been invited to Boaz's table.
[33:20] We see that as she's given some of the special grain. the table in the Bible doesn't mean a piece of furniture. The Lord's table here today doesn't mean a piece of furniture.
[33:36] It means a community of people, a community feeding together. That is why we read in the 23rd Psalm, part of which we sang today, of the Lord furnishing a table in the wilderness, furnishing it before his people.
[33:59] That is why the Apostle Paul speaks of the Lord's table and a table of demons, contrasting what God has done for his people and what the pouch of darkness are trying to imitate in many ways in promising fulfillment that is not there.
[34:20] Ruth had come from the table of demons, in Boab where they had worshipped Temosh, a pagan God that was immoral and was destructive, and she had come to know the God of Israel.
[34:40] Well, what do we know about all the sufficiency that is here? Well, first of all, it is appreciated. The table really that God sets before us is a table that is greatly appreciated, and in the Bible there are images of that.
[35:00] You can go to Joseph's table in Egypt, where he is prime minister, and where he took his renegade brothers and gathered them and revealed himself to them.
[35:13] That was one imagery of it, and there is the imagery of it during the life of David himself, when he calls to his table a son, a grandson of Saul, because of Jonathan, so that he could always sit at David's table and discover there the blessing and the kindness of God to the covenant king, who was David.
[35:41] Christ's hood for our souls through his word, satisfies in a way that no other can.
[35:56] And not only is she feasting at Boaz's table and seeing his sufficiency, he is giving her personal attention by taking some of the roasted grain prepared and giving it to her in a personal kind of way.
[36:11] How does God feed us? Well, by his word, and by the preaching of the word, by reading our Bibles, the word of God from the mouth of God, where is it available to us?
[36:27] It is only available to us through the hand of the Christ who went to Calvary. And where the cross of Calvary is left out of the gospel, as some of the cults do, Christ is central to his word.
[36:47] That's why the Ethiopian eunuch couldn't make head or tail of what he was reading in Isaiah until Philip starts telling him about Jesus.
[37:01] And it's about the Jesus who is the word of God incarnate. that's why we sang that hymn. Because we have to see that this Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, that there is no other way to the Father except through him.
[37:23] And when we cry, even with Philip, show us the Father, how can we know the Father? The Father is revealed in Jesus Christ.
[37:34] There is no other way. he is the bread of life. And so when we come to the Bible, the first thing we need to do is to come to know Jesus.
[37:48] To come to know and recognize that we need this Jesus in a special way. Because until we come to him, we don't feed upon the word of God.
[38:08] But also there are special food that sometimes God gives us passionately. And I'm sure if I went through this congregation here tonight, there are believing people who would say, I remember when I was in difficulty and God gave me this vash.
[38:26] And that vash just lived in my soul. Now we can be together and God feeds us when we are together. but there are times when God gives us the roasted grain that is passionately given and that Naomi and Ruth were able to share together.
[38:48] And that is where the sufficiency is seen here and where the wonder of it being appreciated is. I remember a long, long time ago, I'm an old man and you have to remember that he often comes with reflection.
[39:06] I remember when I was in Barvas and there was a tragic situation where a family lost a child, three years of age, and another child was born to them on the same day, and that child was deformed.
[39:26] and the mother of that child met Christ in that crisis. And I remember going to see her the first time we met her, I had met her in hospital and tried to minister in that situation and then sort of stood back and left it for a while.
[39:46] And I went in and I spoke to her. And she said, you know, she said, I've had a great time today, she said, I've just finished reading 18 chapters of Job.
[39:59] She said, this book is marvelous. I said to myself, I couldn't read six chapters of Job, but I go. Far less that number. And she turned to me and said, what about this other church that I see around here?
[40:17] Someone came in here, she said, from the Jehovah's Witnesses. And she sat there with her Bible on her hand and I sat here with a Bible in my hand. And it was as if there was a big stone wall between us.
[40:33] Why is that? And I explained to her what I've just been talking of to you. The need to know the Jesus who is a substitutionary sacrifice for sinners and who went to the cross of Calvary to take the wrath of God upon himself.
[40:59] You see, without Jesus, we don't feed properly. And my appetite wasn't up to her appetite at that time. That is how God's sufficiency comes to be appreciated.
[41:16] And I know that we could bear testimony tonight, and there are many here who could bear testimony to the way the Lord has carried them through tragedies of many kinds and through difficult times.
[41:33] Because it was as if God was not only feeding them at the general table, but personally extending that roasted grain for their benefit.
[41:47] But there is the sufficiency is appreciated, but the sufficiency is also denigrated. Denigrated. Talked down. Why do I mean by that?
[42:00] Well, I'll try to illustrate it to you. Again, in the 18th century, there was a man, Dr. Johnson, Dr. Samuel Johnson, and he and Boswell came round Scotland.
[42:12] And when he went back, Johnston wrote about the oats that were grown in Scotland. He said, it's the food of people in Scotland.
[42:23] It's the food of animals in England. It was a put-down for the Scots. That's what he was doing. And that's what he was saying.
[42:34] Well, there was that kind of put-down with the Israelites too. Thompson, in his book, The Land and the Book, one of the scholars of a past generation, he speaks about the Midianites and how they called the Israelites the barley eaters.
[42:54] No, it was a derogatory way of speaking. When I lived on the west side, the people of the west side were referred to, in the cultural context, they ate the biroch up there.
[43:10] Do you know what the biroch was? Dogfish. And so they looked down on them because they were eating dogfish. Well, that's the way the Midianites and the Moabites and others were considering.
[43:24] They would look at the Israelites and say, they're the barley eaters. And you see a kind of confirmation of that in the story of Gideon. Remember that Midianite soldier and he fell asleep and he had a dream.
[43:38] And what did he see come rolling into the Midianite camp and destroying the tents? He saw a bannock of barley and it was rolling down the hill and it destroyed the camp.
[43:50] What was that? The victory of Israel over the Midianites through Gideon. The barley eaters were going to win.
[44:03] Who are the barley eaters of our day? I'll tell you, I'm one of them. They're the Bible thumpers. That's who they are.
[44:14] They're the Bible believers. And look at our society in which we live and they'll tell you and I wouldn't be surprised that within the next couple of generations unless God visits us with revival and with renewal the Bible will be a banned book in this land.
[44:38] The Quran will not be but the Bible and the teaching of the Bible. That's what it's about.
[44:52] We are the barley to Shavu Bay. The intellectuals and the philosophers of all day. They will turn to us and they will say to us, that's just the culture of the past.
[45:10] Denigrated. The sufficiency of God denigrated. the sufficiency is denigrated and the sufficiency is appreciated.
[45:24] But there's something else about the sufficiency. It is invigorating. It is invigorating. It is strength giving.
[45:36] And it is something that was giving Ruth as you read over here, as she gets on with her activity of gleaning, there's a strength that is imparted to her.
[45:47] And she's able to do even what amazes the foreman as he sees how hard she is able to work and to apply herself in a certain way.
[45:58] And the rich sufficiency that is in Christ's gracious provision leads Christians when they give themselves to it, to great energy and to attempt great things for God.
[46:16] How is that to affect us? What can whet our appetites? Well, when I was a little boy, we used to sing a chorus more about Jesus, would I know.
[46:30] More of his grace to other show. More of his saving fullness see. More of his grace who died for me.
[46:40] if you continue in my word, you will be my disciples indeed. And you will know the truth.
[46:54] And that truth will be liberating truth. Because you will be liberated in yourself. That's what the truth proved to be to three men in Babylon who were cast bound into the furnace that was burning.
[47:17] And the bonds burnt. And the men walked free with the Son of God. God. The invigorating power of God's word.
[47:32] The sufficiency experienced. But also we see here the sharing that is evidenced. Ruth is returning home and Naomi is prayerfully waiting for her.
[47:47] What will the Lord have done with this young convert who has gone into the fields of Bethlehem? Well the evidence was poured out in tangible fruitfulness before her.
[48:01] The luxury grain is there and she is seeing all that is happening there. And what does she see? Well she sees God's kindness as verse 20 puts it.
[48:14] His kindness to the living and the dead. What's she doing? Well she's looking back and she is seeing that it's as if God had healed. the tragedies of the past.
[48:27] The things that were binding her in her mind and in her spirit. In verse 20 there God is showing his kindness to the living and the dead she's saying.
[48:38] All these things that have been aching within me God is melting them away and spiritually he's bringing his hand to heal me so that my sorrow shall not overwhelm my life.
[48:57] I think it's one of the earlier sermons I can't remember what I'm doing half the time anyway but one of the sermons I spoke about when Rachel was dying and how she took the son and called him instead she called him Benoni the son of my sorrow.
[49:15] and the husband said no no he's going to be the son of my right hand Benjamin the son of my right hand because there is a strength there and here as these two come together the reproach of the past is being melted away.
[49:41] The sorrows and the sufferings are removed. Just shortly after I retired a long time ago I've been over 10 years retired. Somebody said to me yes but you spell it R-E-T-Y-R-E-D because you've got fresh thread on your tire.
[50:01] But that's by the way but here the soon after that I went to the hospital in Nimbledes to see a person who had been a friend during my early college days.
[50:17] He was a professional man. He had been a Christian but had a very very difficult life. He had a problem with alcohol and other problems and he had lived in a bit of a catastrophe you would say.
[50:35] And I went to see him and he had peace and he said to me you know I'm rejoicing in the Lord he said because he said I know that he has done away with my sins.
[50:48] But he said I'm full of remorse and I'm full of sadness about the way I've lived my life. I said to him you know I said Jesus didn't just die for your sins he died for them he died for you but also he did more than that he also lived for you.
[51:14] So when God looks at you he doesn't see the life messed up that you lived. He sees the life of Jesus. that's the picture that's in the story of the prodigal son.
[51:30] He comes home in a mess but he's washed and he's clothed and as I spoke to that friend he gripped what I was saying.
[51:41] He grasped the truth that Christ had lived for him and that God was going to look at him and say wow what a life you lived for me.
[51:53] Why? Because he's clothed in the life of Christ. That's what it is. And that's the wonder of it.
[52:05] You know the gospel is not just about burying the past it's also about healing the past in such a wonderful and glorious way.
[52:18] So the reproach of the past Naomi is saying has been taken away but there is also hope renewed here. Hope renewed why?
[52:29] Because he's a kinsman. He's one who has the potential of being the redeemer. He's the one who can stand and can do what Deuteronomy I think it's chapter 25 verses 5 to 10 tells about how you could be redeemed by a kinsman if you had fallen into death and you had lost your land and you had lost your status in Israel if you had a rich kinsman he could buy your property and then give it back to you.
[53:03] It's where we get the term Gal redeemer that's where it comes from. How Jesus can buy back for us all that we have lost and that's the hope that Naomi has.
[53:20] Can I tell you another story? Long long ago when I went to Inverness first possibly I went there in 1981 I think it was about 1983 I could be wrong but shortly after I had gone there the new Regmore hospital was built and I was I think on my second or third visit to the Regmore hospital I parked my car and I was crossing the road and here was an old lady with a stake crossing the road and her hips were as bad then as mine are now and she was trying to cross the road and I took her arm and I did my bow scoge thing and I took her along and she started talking to me and she said you know I've come to see a friend of mine she's had the hip replacement but she said I hope she's on the ground floor because if she's not on the ground floor there is no way I can reach her I said I know it's floor four that you've got to go to but I said you'll be all right we can go in the lift lift lift was washed downstairs she would never go in the lift and I'm standing there at the lift and I'm shaking as much as she is and I'm saying to myself we'll be stuck in this lift and she will point at me and she will blame me for all the confidence the first confidence and I'm standing there and the lift comes down the lift stops and there's a man in the lift and it's not a surgeon and it's not a nurse it's not even a porter do you know what was on his label lift engineer no I've been in Inverness for over 30 years and that's the only time I've ever seen a lift engineer but what did I need at that very time moment
[55:19] I needed a lift engineer who could take the lift and take me and take the old kayak all the way up to floor 4 I was going to floor 7 and I hope she got back home I'm sure she did what am I saying to you I'm saying to you that Christ is our lift engineer we can't climb the stairs to heaven Martin Luther tried it in Rome over 500 years ago climbing bit by bit and it did nothing for him and what did everything for Martin Luther well what did everything for him was the one who came to the cross of Calvary for him and he found him as he was reading through the book of Romans and you're in here tonight maybe and I wonder if you can see as I saw in a physical way
[56:24] God's provision for taking that old lady to see her friend I walked along there and I was saying well I hope this lift will work but my hopes were taken off myself and they were fixed on the lift engineer and God has provided the lift as he speaks to us through his word and he is saying to us as we sang together will you come will you step inside with me and are we here tonight hesitating on the very threshold with the door of God's lift wide open to us the appointed time the day of salvation the opportunity that God has provided for us the reproach removed the hope renewed that was a shared experience of Naomi as her hope was rekindled and as the bitterness of Mara is melting away from her bewildering life after Moab and God is doing his work in her life as she and her young daughter-in-law relate to one another sufficiency experienced sharing evidenced submission demonstrated submission that was demonstrated the first thing that we should see about Ruth here it's a strange thing that there was a distraction that lured her and you'll find that distraction in verse 21 at the end of the verse verse 21 the end of the verse he even said to me she says stay with my workers until they finish harvesting harvesting all my grain now was that what he really said well first of all notice that verse 21 begins
[58:54] Ruth the Moabite now the Moabite is pointing us back to her old nature to her origins and then it is saying to us stay with my workers until they finish harvesting my grain well look at verse 8 the end of verse 8 in the same chapter what did he really say well this is it don't go and glean in another field and don't go away from here stay here with my servant girls now I've checked this up and in Hebrew where it says workers it means male workers why is Ruth taking what God said about staying with his girls the ladies who were working in the field and saying he said to me to stay among the young men now do you remember what Naomi said to Orpah and Ruth before on their way out of
[60:15] Moab if you go with me they said you might not find men to marry you so Orpah took the queue and off she went why is Ruth saying well he told me to stay among his men workers and you'll see immediately in the light of that how Naomi replied to her verse 22 Naomi said to Ruth her daughter in law it will be good for you my daughter to go with his girls Ruth thought in the fields of Israel that she could go her own way and do her own thing and Naomi is saying to her no don't do your own thing do what
[61:17] God what Boaz told you to do what am I saying through this I'm saying this that you and I have an inclination to think that we can make a better way and a better destiny for ourselves when we sort of give a wee twist to the word of God and make it say what we want it to say rather than hear what God is saying because it wasn't one of the young harvesters that God had in mind for this young woman as a husband God had Boaz for her God had part for her in the family line of the Lord Jesus Christ there was a purpose to be in her life and to all young people who are in here I would say to you tonight if you are in
[62:19] Christ to acknowledge him in all your relationships and to be guided by him in all that you do because that is one of the lessons that Ruth learned because a lot of young people especially in old day will rear up on their hind legs and declare their independence but what did Ruth do read it in verse 23 Ruth stayed close to the servant girls of Boaz she had given it a wee twist and if you don't believe that workers doesn't mean male workers look it up in your authorized version and that's what it says and if you don't believe me coming from a new translation surely you take it from there but there we have it it is saying something to us it will be good for you daughter it will be good for your son it will be good for you mother it will be good for you father it will be good for you granny it will be good for you grandpa to go in the way that
[63:44] God calls you to go in the obedience of a faith that knows what it means when it says my sheep hear my voice and they follow me because I give them something no one else can give I came with eternal life that you might have it for yourself no I have gone past my time and I am sorry if people are in a hurry but here we are tonight and here we are with Christ's sufficiency I ask you are you experiencing it she heard there was bread in Bethlehem she heard it in Moab and she followed all the way and she found the abundance that was in
[64:47] Christ oh Christ in thee my soul has found and found in thee alone nowhere else all the sufficiency the wonder of sharing as we have been sharing together here today but there is also the path that is before us that we be not disobedient to the heavenly vision let us pray heavenly father we pray your hand upon us together here and we pray that the riches of your word might so touch our souls that we may cast from us all that would hinder the flow of your mercy and of your love into our hearts for we ask it in Jesus name amen we are going to sing together from psalm 72 psalm 72 we shall sing the first stance of verse 1
[65:59] O Lord thy judgments give the king his son thy righteousness with right he shall thy people judge the poor with uprightness and from there after the first verse we jump to verse 16 of corn and handful in the earth on tops of mountains high with prosperous fruit shall shake like trees on Lebanon that be the city shall be flourishing her citizens abound in number shall like to the grass that grows upon the ground and will sing the three verses his name forever shall endure to the end of the psalm verse 1 and 2 that's one stanza and then from verse 16 to the end O Lord thy judgments give the king his son thy righteousness now may grace mercy and truth from God Father Son and Holy Spirit one
[67:00] God rest and remain with you all evermore Amen