05.02. Ruth 2
We come to Ruth tonight. Naomi the wanderer has been restored, and Ruth the sinner goes to Bethlehem with her. Orpah, too, pictures a sinner: only she never reaches Bethlehem, or Bethlehem’s Boaz. She seems to start well, just like Ruth, but she turns back to her people and to her gods. She had said to Naomi “Surely we will return with thee unto thy people” (Ruth 1:10). She only thinks of Naomi’s people, take note. Ruth has Naomi’s God before her. She says, “Thy God shall be my God” (Ruth 1:16). Orpah is like many a so-called “convert” of the present day. They make a start, apparently, but soon go back to their former idols and associates. They never, in their thoughts, get beyond joining some religious body of “people,” like poor Orpah. The real convert, like Ruth, has had to do with God Himself, and such abide.
Both were now tested, as everyone must be. Naomi urges them to go back. Our Lord said to His disciples, “Will ye also go away?” When great crowds of nominal followers “went back and walked no more with Him.” “What seek ye?” He asks of the two disciples of John who started to follow Him, as if to turn them back. So here Naomi seeks to dissuade them from coming further. “And Orpah kissed her mother-in-law; but Ruth clave unto her.” There was no turning back of Ruth. She clings to Naomi and says, “Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy 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 ought but death part thee and me.” Her mind is wholly made up, fully persuaded. Unlike her, Orpah is “almost persuaded,” and returns to her people and her gods. Ruth has deliberately made her happy choice, and will not allow herself to be moved by her sister’s declension, or turned aside by Naomi. So “when she saw that she was steadfastly minded to go with her, then she left speaking unto her.” So they go on together to Bethlehem. And when they arrive “all the city was moved about them.” There was a great stir in the place, just as when a sinner repents, all heaven is moved over the event. “There is joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth.” It delights God’s heart to see a sinner turn to Him, and heaven rings with music over every case of real conversion. Oh, unsaved one! Make Christ your choice tonight and let all heaven rejoice over your repentance. In the chapter read tonight we have Ruth, the young convert, as we might call her. She desires almost the first thing to become a gleaner. “And Ruth the Moabitess said unto Naomi, Let me now go to the field, and glean ears of corn after him in whose sight I shall find grace. And she said unto her, Go, my daughter.” The new convert instinctively turns to the word of God. I remember when God first saved me how I read the whole twenty-eight chapters of the book of Acts at one sitting. I had never read the Bible before. It had had no interest for me and I had looked upon it as the dullest of all dull books. I became like the new-born babe which, it is said, instinctively turns to its mother’s breast. So Peter says, “As new-born babes desire the sincere milk of the Word that ye may grow thereby.”
Ruth says, “In whose sight I shall find grace.” These pictures are all more or less imperfect and fall far short of the reality. The believer now has already found grace or favour with God. He is “graced in the Beloved One” (Ephesians 1:6, literal). “By grace ye are saved,” Paul writes. So she goes out to glean and she happens into the field of Boaz. This “mighty man of wealth,” whose name means “strength,” is a striking and beautiful type of Christ. What wealth of honour and majesty and glory and love and grace are His. And oh, His “strength”! He is “the Almighty” (Revelation 1:8). “All power is given unto Me in heaven and on earth,” He says. Isaiah calls Him, “The mighty God, the Father of eternity.” We, His own, may be poor and weak, but we rejoice to know that riches and power are His. And we have Him, just as Ruth, at last, got Boaz. As Ruth is gleaning, Boaz comes from Bethlehem to see how his harvest is progressing. As he enters the field he says to his reapers, “The Lord be with you.” “The Lord bless thee,” they reply. What beautiful greetings between master and servants. Boaz was a good master. There were no strikes among his workmen; no getting of heads together and grumbling about long hours, hard work, or low wages. He greets his servants kindly and they answer him with blessing. There is nothing but good feeling and accord between them. Oh, Christ is a blessed Master! “My yoke is easy,” He says, “and My burden is light.” Would that He were your Master, sinner. You will find the devil’s service bitter enough in the end and the yoke of sin will some day prove to be intolerable. Let the Lord Jesus Himself break that yoke from off your neck tonight and give you His own “easy” one instead.
“Then said Boaz unto his servant that was set over the reapers, Whose damsel is this?” Who is this servant set over the reapers? He is mentioned twice (Ruth 2:5-6), but his name is not once given. He is like the servant of Abraham sent after a bride for Isaac in Genesis 24:1-67. We should never know his name from that chapter. He is doubtless a type of the Holy Spirit as this servant here appears to be. He was “set over the reapers,” directing them in their work, saying to one, Go there; and to another, Come here; and to still another, Do this — all under his orders and obedient to him. Now the Lord Jesus is having His great harvest of grace reaped, and the person set over the reapers is the Holy Spirit. Take, for example, the sixteenth of Acts. There in Acts 16:6, Paul and his fellow-reapers “were forbidden of the Holy Spirit to preach the Word in Asia.” In the next verse we read, “They assayed to go into Bithynia: but the Spirit suffered them not.” It was not some archbishop, or missionary board, or self-styled “general” directing their movements, but THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST. In the same book of Acts, thirteenth chapter, when Paul and his companions start out on a tour of evangelisation, we read, “So they, being sent forth BY THE HOLY SPIRIT, departed,” etc. Evangelists, pastors, and teachers are the Lord’s servants and only He has any right to direct or command them. True “holy orders” come from Him, through His Spirit. The Holy Spirit Himself is called “Lord” in 2 Corinthians 3:18, (“The Spirit of the Lord” there should read, “The Lord, the Spirit.”)
Well, this servant set over the reapers tells Boaz who this Moabitish damsel is. And Boaz, though “a mighty man of wealth,” deigns to speak to the poor Gentile widow. “Then said Boaz unto Ruth, Hearest thou not, my daughter? Go not to glean in another field, neither go from hence, but abide here fast by my maidens.” He graciously encourages her to continue gleaning in his field. And has not our Boaz encouraged us all to glean in His fields? “Search the Scriptures,” He says, “for they are they which testify of Me.” How different this from the Romish priest who says, “You must not search or read the Scriptures, but listen to us and implicitly believe all that we tell you.” “Go not to glean in another field,” Boaz says. And the word of God is sufficient for the Christian. There are the fields of philosophy, Higher Criticism, and evolutionary science, and what not. Let us cleave to our Bible as God has given it to us. Never mind the taunt of not being abreast of the times. The Bible was, is, and always will be strictly “up-to-date.” David says, “I have more understanding than all my teachers: for Thy testimonies are my meditation” (Psalms 119:99). He says, “I understand more than the ancients.” That is the way to be truly wise, to stick to God’s testimonies and “search the Scriptures daily” like God’s nobility at Berea. All this world’s boasted wisdom is foolishness with God and to faith. And there is separation, too, or fellowship, rather. Boaz says, “Abide here fast by my maidens.” Young Christian, seek the fellowship of the Lord’s disciples, and shun all others. Beware of ungodly associations. “Come out from among them, and be ye separate, says the Lord.” You will find the friendship of this world a snare to your soul. Be like David. Do you know that he tells us, what sort of company he kept? He says, “I am a companion of all them that fear Thee, and of them that keep Thy precepts” (Psalms 119:63). You may put up the old plea of hoping to do the ungodly good by mixing with them, but it will end like the lady and her canary bird. Her bird was a very fine singer, and one day she hung his cage in one of the trees of the garden. This she repeated for a number of days until she noticed that he hardly sang at all any more but simply chirped, something like a sparrow. He had been in the company of the sparrows in the garden — in their society, if you will — and, by listening to and imitating their unmusical chirp he had lost his lovely song. And when the lady went into the garden did she see sparrows sitting about on the branches, singing like canary birds? You may be sure not. They had not gained anything by the canary’s company, but the canary had lost, for the time being, its melodious song. Be not deceived! “Evil communications corrupt good, manners.”
It is not good manners correcting corrupt communications. It always works the very reverse. You can never bring the ungodly up to your level; you will only lose that new song of salvation that the Lord has put into your mouth. Go after souls, anywhere, like your Lord and Master who ate with publicans and sinners, but make sure that is your object, and not companionship. But Boaz says more. “When you art thirsty,” he says, “go unto the vessels, and drink of that which the young men have drawn.” The young men here, or reapers, of Boaz, may well represent the “gifts” or specially called servants of Christ, as the maidens with whom Ruth was to abide closely, picture the saints in general. The maidens were gleaning or gathering for their own eating, while the young men were reaping the harvest for Boaz. These young men drew water out of the depth of the well, and of this Ruth was to avail herself when thirsty. This is, like the ministry of God’s servants. With joy they draw water out of “the wells of salvation,’’ and a sweet, refreshing ministry of the Word is the result. And any Christian who refuses or neglects to profit by this ministry is sure to suffer for it in his soul. We cannot, of course, always have this ministry as orally spoken; but there is abundance of it in printed form, and thus accessible to all. I remember how when first converted I used to revel in this ministry. My pastor (as I called him then) a Presbyterian, loaned me the C.H.M. “Notes,” and I may say that I fairly devoured them. I would read tracts and pamphlets on the way from the post-office where I had received them, and sometimes stumbled over the curbings, so intently was I occupied with the precious things I was getting for my soul. My heart was full of joy, and my spirit like a watered garden then — whatever it may or may not be now. It is an excellent plan to have some good book or pamphlet always on hand and, if you have any time to spare after reading the Word itself, take it up and “drink of that which the young men have drawn.” So shall your “profiting,” like Timothy’s, “appear unto all.” Spiritual progress will be the result; for the Lord who gave these gifts intended them “for the perfecting of the saints for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ.” The “vessels” are the publications which contain this ministry. The servants of the greater than Boaz have “drawn” it, sometimes with no little labour to themselves, and you, young gleaner, have but to “drink.”
“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?” Grace always humbles us. Mephibosheth in the presence of the grace of David, says, “What is thy servant that thou shouldst look upon, such a dead dog as I am?” Ruth confesses she was but “a stranger.” But there was a vast deal more than this, though she herself may not have known it. The law of Moses said, “An Ammonite or a Moabite shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord, even to their tenth generation shall they not enter into the congregation of the Lord forever.” It said further, “Thou shalt not seek their peace nor their prosperity all thy days forever” (Deuteronomy 23:3, Deuteronomy 23:6). What then could she have expected from Boaz but to be rebuked and driven from his field? And that same stern law, that cursed and shut out the Moabites from blessing, curses and shuts up heaven against us all. “Cursed,” it thunders, “is every one that continues not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them.” But, thank God, if the law “given by Moses” condemns the sinner, “grace and truth” which “came by Jesus Christ” saves him when he trusts that gracious Saviour. The same saving faith which wrought in Rahab the harlot, was found in Ruth. Boaz says, “The Lord God of Israel, under whose wings thou art come to trust.” Though by nature a cursed Moabite, her faith had saved her; though condemned by the law, she was justified by faith. And you, my unconverted hearer, though by nature a child of wrath and cursed by the law you have broken, may put your trust in Christ tonight, and thus be saved. “By grace are ye saved through faith,” is the testimony of Scripture (Ephesians 2:8).
“And Boaz said unto her, At meal-time come thou hither, 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.” He mentions “meal-time.” Have you spiritual meal-times, Christian? Do you make it a rule to read the Word at least once a day? Do not say you have no time. You find, make, or take the time to eat three meals a day of bodily food. But Job says, “I have esteemed the words of His mouth more than my necessary food.” He esteemed them more, take note. And it does not take so much time after all. If we have our Bibles handy, at odd moments, it is surprising how much one can gather up in a short time. Then there are the regular assembly meetings. These are often precious meal-times for the soul. If you willingly absent yourself from them, you will miss many a bit of choice ministry, such as you could not get at home, — important as private reading of the Word may be. Then there are the general meetings, or conferences, too, which none should miss who can attend them. They are like Ruth’s meal-times. It was at such times Boaz reached her parched corn. At such times she received from his hand direct, as she sat besides the reapers. Being near the reapers she was close to Boaz. “Lo, I am with you always,” our Boaz said to His reapers, as he sent them forth. They are not the sole custodians of the treasures, of truth, but they are channels, and the Christian who haughtily affects independence of the gifts of Christ to the Church is invariably found to be cold, hard, and heady. Ruth sits beside the reapers, but it is not they who reach her those rich portions of parched corn; it is Boaz himself. Oh, to receive from Himself direct, whatever or whoever may be the vessel He may use to convey it to us. If we get it otherwise, our intellect only will be ministered to; and it will be mere knowledge which “puffs up.” “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, that she may glean them, and rebuke her not.”
“Let her glean even among the sheaves,” says Boaz. She has the right of range to all his field. There are no limits or restrictions to be placed upon her. And the Christian has the range of all the word of God given him, from Genesis to Revelation. “Search the Scriptures.” “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God.” Whatsoever things were written aforetime, were written for our learning.” Some read only the New Testament and look upon the equally inspired Old Testament as they do a last year’s almanac. They even speak of it as the “old Bible.” All Scripture testifies, of Christ, and therefore must be profitable. “In all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself,” Luke says. “Moses wrote of Me,” Christ said. Philip says to Nathanael, “We have found Him, of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets, did write, Jesus of Nazareth.” I have by me here a fifty centimes coin of Spain. On the reverse side are two columns, or pillars, representing the Pillars of Hercules, or the promontories on either side of the Strait of Gibraltar. Beyond these points the ancients believed there was nothing more to be discovered, and previous to the discovery of America all Spanish coins had the legend “Ne plus ultra” (no more beyond) inscribed across these pillars. But since the voyage of Columbus and his discovery of the American continent, they have omitted the “Ne;” and the inscription, on my coin reads “Plus ultra” — more beyond. The old Spaniards were like those who turn backwards in their Bibles to the “family record” between the Testaments and there they stop. “No more beyond,” they say. No, brother, change your motto — there is more beyond. Go back from Malachi to Genesis, and you will find “profitable” Scripture all along the way. Some professing Christians seem to have about as much use for the Old Testament as a Jew has for the New.
Then there are others who have their favourite chapters which they read and re-read over and over again to the utter neglect of other equally important chapters. Others again read so much of it as they find in the Prayer Book. But “all the word of God for all the people of God” is a first-rate motto. “Let her glean even among the sheaves, and reproach her not,” was Boaz’ charge to his reapers. “Forbid the children not their lawful heritage and bread,” we say to Rome. Child of God, it is all yours, its sixty-six books; and the Spirit who inspired it can make every portion of it profitable to your soul.
And, let me tell you something about the reading of the Bible. You may not feel at the time of reading that you are getting very much out of that particular portion of the Word. You may not understand it, and nothing in it may seem to strike you particularly. But never mind, read on. It is bound to leave its impress on your soul. Being the word of God it is, sure to affect you for good, and you will he unconsciously moulded and your thoughts formed by it. It has this effect even on unconverted children. How much more, then, will it affect and form those who have been born again and have the indwelling Spirit. We are sure to be affected by the company we keep, and when we read the Bible we are in the company of those holy men of God who spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit — patriarchs, prophets, and apostles, “the excellent of the earth.” And when we read the Gospels we are in the company of the blessed Lord Himself. And men, beholding our transformed lives, will “take knowledge” of us that we “have been with Jesus.” Boaz further instructs his young men, saying, “Let fall also some of the handfuls of purpose for her.” This is something different from Boaz reaching her parched corn. Did you ever feel when somebody was preaching that they could read your thoughts, or that somebody had told them all about you? The word seemed to suit you so perfectly. That was a handful “let fall of purpose” for you. God’s servants are not “mind readers,” but the Spirit in them is, and it is He who directs them, at such times, in their speaking. Sometimes it is a word of warning, or exhortation, or instruction, or comfort, as the case may be.
I remember once in Minnesota speaking of the believer’s eternal security. I was trying to show how the exhortation of Barnabas to the young converts to cleave to the Lord with purpose of heart (Acts 11:1-30) was perfectly compatible with our security depending entirely on Christ’s hold on us (John 10:1-42). I related how, when visiting at my brother’s a short time before, I had amused his little boy of two years, one stormy day, by taking him on my back at the top of the stairs and carrying him to the bottom. Before starting I would say, “Now, Clayton, hold on tight,” and I could feel his little arms tighten round my neck and his little legs twist themselves around my body. And, I said, I suppose that when I told him to hold on tight he really thought his safety depended on his grip of me. But it was another grip that kept him safe. I was holding on, and it was my strong arm that kept him from falling. I was responsible for that boy’s safety. But it was nice, I tell you, to feel his warm little arms and legs clinging so confidingly to me; and our blessed Lord Jesus, too, loves to have His own cling to Him in faith, but it is His own almighty grip that keeps us safe upon His shoulders. He says, “Neither shall any (man or demon) pluck them out of My hand.” I cannot even pluck myself out, any more than my little nephew could cast himself from my shoulders and break his back or neck upon the stairs — which, of course, he was careful not to do: nor would a child of God ever turn wilfully from Christ. A few days later a lady who was present said to me, “Mr. Knapp, your illustration and remarks, on our holding on, and Christ’s holding on, cleared the matter up perfectly for me. It was just the thing that was bothering me, and you seemed to read my doubts and difficulties. I understand now how it is Christ’s holding on that keeps us safe, though we too are exhorted to cleave or cling to Him.” It was just a handful let fall of purpose for her. She is a writer, and I sometimes now see her name in some of the semi-religious papers for children. I hope she may keep Christ before her, and sometimes tell the little ones of Him who once held children in His arms and laid His blessed hands upon their heads.
I could relate many such incidents showing how the reapers of the Greater than Boaz have, instructed by their Master, let fall some handfuls of purpose for the favoured Ruths. So she gleaned in the field until even.” She does not cease her toil until the day has ended. She had continued from the morning (Ruth 2:7). She made a good beginning, as many do. But, like few, she made an equally good ending. It is comparatively easy to start, but most difficult to continue on. “Let not him that girds on his harness boast himself as he that puts it off.” That was a very good proverb, though spoken by a very bad king (1 Kings 20:11). And Ruth “beats out what she had gleaned.” “The slothful man roasts not that which he took in hunting,” another proverb says (Proverbs 12:27). Many read the Bible, buy expository books and run to meetings, and really “hunt” for something. But it does them little good because what is learned is lodged merely in the region of the intellect and is not meditated on and prayed over in the spirit of self-judgment. This, I apprehend, would be like “beating out” what was gleaned, or “roasting” what was taken in hunting.
I hope that we have all been gleaners here tonight. I trust, too, that there has been something in the vessel for thirsty souls to drink. And perhaps, too, some “handfuls of purpose” have been let fall for any who may have needed a special word of exhortation or comfort. May the Lord Himself add His own rich blessing to it all. Amen.