God's Winding Road to Glory

This is the last chance I'll have to thank Marty Goetz, and so, Marty, thank you. This is our third time together at the Cove, and it began good, and it gets better every time. And so, I thank God for the privilege of being on your team.

My plan this morning is to take this last chapter and to deal with it, and then in the 15 minutes we have before 10 of 12 to read you a poem. I have written four poems on Ruth to tell the story, and they're in this little booklet. For about 19 years, I've written four Advent poems every Advent season on different characters of the Bible, and I read them to my people as a Christmas present, and it's a high point of the year for me, and a lot of them benefit from it.

But they tell me to do anyway, and I brought them along in this little booklet thinking that I wouldn't be able to fill up an hour with my material, and I'd have to read poems to fill in the gaps. But that hasn't proved to be the case, and it probably won't this morning either. But I will, God willing, read you the last one because I want to put it in the context of the teaching of the whole book.

So that's where I'm going, and these are available online. Everything that I ever said in my life, I think, is available online. It's a very dangerous way to live your life.

Everything is taped and recorded and written down. So desiringgod.org is where you can get 20 years' worth of sermons and do whatever else you want to do there with all the books. Somebody told me here they had a hard time finding the missions book, the little green book, God, Supremacy, and Missions, Let the Nations Be Glad.

Well, anytime anything's hard to find, just come on the web. We sell them cheaper than anybody else does and don't make any profit. And so desiringgod.org, whatever you spell that, I can't spell, but just spell desiringgod, no spaces, dot o-r-g, and you can get everything you want there.

The Best is Yet to Come, that's the title I want to put over today's meditations. The Best is Yet to Come. I wonder how you would state the main point now of the book of Ruth.

Let me venture a point, something like this. The life of the godly is not a straight line to glory, but by the sovereign grace of God, they get there. I think that's the way I would say it.

The life of the godly is not a straight line to glory. It's not an interstate across Nebraska. It's a state road in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina with rock slides and mists and fog and hairpin turns which make you go backward to go forward.

It's a very hard place to live in life when you're going away from glory for all you can tell. I'm supposed to be going that way to glory, and I just took this turn, and as far as I can tell, God's behind me going the other direction, and in front of me is one big hole in the wall. I think this book is written to teach you that those roads, when you're godly, lead to glory.

In fact, if you want to continue the metaphor, there are signs along that Blue Ridge Mountain state road that say, you will get to glory. Keep on this road, and down in the bottom, signed in red, namely the blood of Jesus, as I live, says the Lord. This is one of those signs.

We've been just reading the sign together here. Wherever you are on those torturous roads, Ruth is written to keep you on the road and to assure you that it does lead to glory. Let me sum it up.

Chapter one, it's a book about Naomi. It begins with Naomi's losses, and it ends with Naomi's gains, because when this baby is born, we're going to read this in just a minute, when this baby is born, you know whose son they say it is? They say, a son has been born to Naomi. Isn't that an odd thing to say to Ruth's baby, about Ruth's baby? A son has been born to Naomi, and the point is very clear, and the writer, this is beginning with Naomi, and she loses her husband, and she loses her sons.

She has a famine, she leaves her land, she gains, and yet she doesn't feel it very much as a gain at the beginning, a daughter, and she comes home, and she says, the Almighty has dealt bitterly with me, I went away full, I came home empty. It begins with death, and it ends with a birth, and the birth is given to Naomi, and the death was taken from Naomi. The major lesson in this book is written on the storyline of Naomi.

Ruth is a subordinate player, and what we're to learn is Naomi's life. Naomi is the paradigm here. Ruth is a blessing to the main character.

The main character in this story is God, and under God, Naomi. I went away full, and the Lord has brought me back empty, and that was a mistake that she made, and the book is written to correct it and show you didn't come back empty, and the little baby in her arms, who is the great-grandfather of David, the king, who is the father of Jesus, the Messiah, is the proof that she did not come back empty. In fact, one of the poems, I just reread them all last night to remind me of my own imagination sixteen years ago, or whenever, no, five years ago when I wrote this.

I think, from Ruth's standpoint, God's providence was to get Ruth into the line of the Messiah as a Moabitess, and to do it, he brought a famine on the land, and took her husband so that she'd marry Boaz and be in the family that way. It's the same way, you know, God is always doing a thousand things more than you think he's doing in your life. A thousand is an understatement.

When God wanted to get a virgin to bear his son in Bethlehem of Judea, why in the world would he choose a virgin in Nazareth and make life hard for himself to get prophecy fulfilled? Answer, so that he could cause the Caesar to change the whole history of the Roman world by calling for a tax to get this girl from Nazareth to Bethlehem. That's the way God is. God wants to do things.

He wants to rescue a people out of Egypt, so he says, well, we've got to have a famine then. Well, if we're going to have a famine, we have to have a Joseph to get down there. He's always planning in the most unheard of ways to get done his purposes.

Who would move an empire to get a virgin girl from Nazareth to Bethlehem so that the prophecy of Micah would be properly fulfilled? And who, to include a Moabitess in the line of the Messiah, would bring a famine on Judah to get the family of Elimelech to Moab, let all the men die, bring the girl back, unite him with Boaz in a happenstance meeting, and then say, this is the way we do it. You have no idea what God is doing in your life. You have no idea what he's doing in your family.

We murmur and grumble and get critical of God so quickly because we can't see what he's doing. And we say, why would this happen? And why would that happen? And I just want to scream sometimes at how quickly people judge Almighty God as though they've never read their Bibles. Ten thousand things he is doing that we cannot understand, we do not know, and it is none of our business to know at this time.

The secret things belong to the Lord. And the book of Ruth is one of those great books to show the secrecy of providence and to get us to trust him. So chapter two, the whole thing opens up with hope as Boaz comes on the scene.

And now Naomi sees that, yes, there is a kinsman, and yes, there is hope, and her plans and her dreams start to churn in her mind. And then chapter three is the working out of the plan that she and Ruth hit upon together to delicately move toward a marriage relationship. And then this massive boulder falls on the Blue Ridge Parkway in the middle of the night.

Namely, there's another kinsman in the way. That's where we are at chapter four. There's another kinsman in the way.

He has rights. I cannot preempt him if I'm a just and holy, law-abiding Jewish man. No matter how much I love you, no matter how much I want you, there is another man who has rights to you, and we will go to court tomorrow and see what will happen.

That's where we are as we come now to chapter four. So let's read it. Somebody asked me the version I'm using.

I'm reading the Revised Standard Version. I began in 1996 as a sophomore in college to memorize texts from the Revised Standard Version. So like some of you would never give up the King James because that's what you started on.

That's where I am with the RSV. Although I do preach now from the NASV just because it's so much more literal and careful. But as far as my own memory work goes, my own meditations, I'm just stuck with the Revised Standard and that's what I'm reading.

So you read carefully in your version and I hope they aren't different on anything significant. Boaz went up to the gate, that's where business is done now, and sat down there and behold the next of kin of whom Boaz had spoken came by. So Boaz said, turn aside friends, sit down here and be turned aside and he turned aside and sat down.

And he took ten men of the elders of the city and said sit down here. So they sat down. Then he said to the next of kin, Naomi who has come back from the country of Moab is selling the parcel of land which belonged to our kinsman Elimelech.

So I thought I would tell you of it and say buy it in the presence of those sitting here and in the presence of the elders of my people and if you will redeem it, redeem it. But if you will not, tell me that I may know for there is no one besides you to redeem it and I come after you. And he said, and we want to say at this point, no, stop the movie, this is not the right answer, you're not supposed to say I will redeem it.

So we get the suspense builds, oh no, I mean imagine yourself reading this for the first time, you know what's going to happen but if you're reading it for the first time you'd say no, don't do that. Verse five, then Boaz said, but the day that you buy the field in the hand of Naomi, you also buy Ruth, the Moabitess, the widow of the dead, in order to restore the name of the dead. Now notice what he is, he's no dummy here, he says you get a Moabitess.

He didn't say you get a beautiful, righteous young woman. Get a Moabitess, get a widower of a man who copped out and went to Moab when the famine struck and didn't have the faith to stay here, and you got to lose your name. Verse six, then the next of kin said, I cannot redeem it for myself, lest I impair my own inheritance.

Take my right of redemption yourself, for I cannot redeem it. That boulder is off the road now. Now, this was the custom in former times in Israel concerning redeeming and exchanging to confirm a transaction.

The one drew off his sandal and gave it to the other, and this was the manner of attending a testing in Israel. So when the next of kin said to Boaz, buy it for yourself, he drew off his sandal, shoe, and then Boaz said to the elders and all the people, you are witnesses this day that I have bought from the hand of Naomi all that belong to Elimelech and all that belong to Chilion and Malon, also Ruth the Moabitess, the widow of Malon. There we learn for the first time which of these boys she was married to.

I have bought to be my wife, to perpetuate the name of the dead in his inheritance, that the name of the dead may not be cut off from among his brethren and from the gate of his native place. You are witnesses this day, and all the people who were at the gate and the elders said, we are witnesses. May the Lord make the woman who is coming into your house like Rachel and Leah.

I wonder why I said Rachel and Leah. Well, because, I think because Rachel's womb was closed and Leah's God closed and he opened them both and he shut them over and over. He went back and forth.

Do you remember that? How the story was? When Rachel boasted over Leah, he shut Rachel's womb and Leah boasted over Rachel, he shut Leah's womb. And he got 12 boys out of that process and one girl. May he make her like Rachel and Leah who together, and remember as far as we know, Ruth is barren.

Maybe not, but she didn't have babies for 10 years of marriage. Maybe it was her husband, maybe it was her, we don't know. As far as they were concerned, it's the woman's problem in that pre-scientific day.

If a woman doesn't have babies, then she's got the problem. So they had to have some miracle working God ready to go to work here because if Boaz is going to marry this woman who's never had a baby after 10 years of sexual intercourse, then probably she's barren and that doesn't hold out a lot of hope for Naomi or them. So there's more behind, I think, that may you be like Rachel than we might think at first.

May you prosper in Ephrathah and be renowned in Bethlehem. And here comes the very strange words. And may your house be like the house of Perez, whom Tamar bore to Judah because of the children that the Lord will give you by this young woman.

I'll just pause there a minute and think about Perez, Tamar, and Judah. You remember that story, Genesis 38? It's a very seamy story. Judah married a Canaanite woman, a daughter of Shua, a Canaanite woman.

And he had two sons, Onan and Ur, and his wife died. So Judah is like Naomi with boys. God killed them both.

He says, killed them because they were evil. He killed Ur first, and then Onan did the leveret thing and married Tamar. And he didn't want to lose his name, so he spilled his seed on the ground.

And God killed him, leaving Tamar in the position of Ruth with a father-in-law who was a widower, and he had no daughter to give her. And he goes down and looks for a harlot, and she dresses up like a harlot with a veil because he has been unfaithful not to provide her with a husband, and she's going to get seed this way. So he sleeps with his daughter-in-law, and the child born is Perez, a twin.

And that's what's here. That's ugly. That's gross.

Incest. What's the point? I mean, you don't have to say that. You don't have to bring that up.

Leave that history alone. I don't want to know my parents were horse thieves, you know. Well, I think that one of the things going on here is when he marries a Moabitess, a lot of people in the city are going to say, Boaz, you're wealthy.

I don't know if he's good looking or not. You can have who you want. There's a lot of Jewish girls.

What are you doing? Marrying this Moabitess, and then think back a little farther. Where did the Moabites come from? Who was the, say it again. Lot.

How did Lot have a child? Slept with his daughter. Moabites are all children of incest. Now the link with Perez and Judah and Tamar.

In other words, Boaz, you're going to marry a Moabitess. Do you know about the Moabites, what they've done to Israel, and where they come from? They're all born of incest. And these promoters of the marriage here say, yeah, so are we.

Everybody in the tribe of Judah through Perez is born the same way the Moabites were. I think there's a sense of watch out all you finger pointers. Watch out all you people who are pointing your finger and saying this is wrong.

Don't do this, Boaz. And so more than you think, more than you think. This book, I doubt that in our little four hours together, we have begun to plumb the depths of the delicacy and the nuances and the subtlety of the skill artistically and inspirationally that went into this book.

Verse 13. So Boaz took Ruth, and she became his wife. And he went into her, and the Lord gave her conception, and she bore a son.

Notice who gave her conception. He went into her, yes. The Lord gave her the power to conceive.

So God did it. May he make you like Rachel. Yes, he made her like Rachel in that Rachel had to have God's supernatural work, and God did it.

This baby is born of God. Everything in this book is born of God. And she bore a son.

And then the women said to Naomi, to Naomi, not to Ruth, to Naomi, blessed be the Lord who has not left you this day without next of kin, and may his name be renowned in Israel. He shall be to you a restorer of life and a nourisher of your old age, for your daughter-in-law who loves you, who is more to you than seven sons, has born him. Then Naomi took the child, laid him in her bosom, became his nurse, and the women of the neighborhood gave him a name, saying, A son has been born to Naomi.

There's the triumphant, complete turnaround of the book's beginning. A son has been born to Naomi. They named him Obed.

He was the father of Jesse. You know, as if the story weren't happy enough, with just Naomi's complete recovery and happy ending, the writer catches it all up into this bigger, redemptive, historical purpose. He was the father of Jesse and the father of David.

And as if the earlier point had not been driven home enough, he connects Perez, the child of incest, with the messianic line. As if anybody in this room who looks back at a seamy past and feels dirty would miss the point. Messiah, also, of that line.

You may put out of your mind any history in your ancestry that would contaminate you and make you unfit for Christ, because Christ's ancestry is seamy. And they go out of their way to tell it. Now, these are the descendants of Perez.

Perez was the father of Hezron. Hezron of Ram. Ram of Ammonadab.

Ammonadab of Nashon. Nashon of Salmon. Salmon of Boaz.

Boaz of Obed. Obed of Jesse. Jesse of David.

And we now, from our standpoint, say, and of David, the Christ. Christ came from that seamy, adulterous, incestuous situation with Judah and Tamar. And so, Ruth, dear Moabitess, unclean foreigner, born of the uncircumcised, it's all right.

It's all right. Okay. There's the chapter.

He goes to the gate now. He goes to the gate. The near kinsman comes by.

He says, Naomi's giving up her property. It's your duty to buy it. Will you buy it? I'll buy it.

No, don't buy it. He won't buy it. So the way is clear for Boaz to buy it.

And here the people are cheering, being happy, and there's one more bottleneck. We've already mentioned it. Ruth didn't have any children for all those ten years of marriage.

Now she's going to marry another man. And the whole thing hangs on her having children here. That's what they're after.

That's what Naomi's after anyway, and the writer, and God. They want David to be born here. So let me just say again.

The main point of this story is that the godly are on their way to glory. And the way is not straight. It's not a straight line.

It curves all over the place. Setback after setback after setback. And books like this are written to prove the best is yet to come.

The best is always yet to come. And so who gives the birth here? Verse 13. So Boaz took Ruth, she became his wife, and he went into her, and the Lord gave conception.

The Lord gave conception. And she bore a son. And yet all the focus then turns to be on Naomi.

I had a man come into the office a few years ago. Very shabby. We were right downtown church, and so there were a lot of street people around.

And I asked him, what's your name? And he said, hard times. That's all he'd tell me. Hard times.

And I think Naomi would have answered the same early on. We write a poem called Hard Times Naomi. My son's email address is rainydayabur.

It began with Naomi's losses, and it ends with her gain. It begins with the death of her husband and her sons. It ends with the birth of her son.

It's called her son. The women say, verse 17, the women of the neighborhood gave him a name saying, a son has been born to Naomi. To Naomi.

Stressing this book, this storyline of the providence of God, the sweet and bitter providences is written on Naomi's life, with Ruth serving that subordinate role. So we learn to wait. Oh, may you take that lesson away.

Learn to wait and trust God, and all your complaints against him will prove to be unfounded. So that's the aim of the book, I think. The path of the godly is not a straight line to glory, but they do get there by the sovereign work of God.

A son has been born to Naomi. God opens wombs, and he shuts wombs. He's in charge of bitter providences and sweet providences.

Now, I chose the word glory in that sentence. The point of the book is that the life of the godly is not a straight line to glory. I chose the word glory intentionally, because it sounds like, perhaps, an overstatement.

But I want to try to show you why I chose it, and where I get it from the text. Let me do it with an illustration from John Henry Jowett. He was a preacher back in 1912 in New York City, Fifth Presbyterian Church in New York City.

And he gave the Yale Lectures on Preaching that year, 1912. And there was a passage in those lectures that I read some years ago to describe good preaching, and it goes like this. Let me read you this.

A great preacher is one who seems to look at the horizon rather than at an enclosed field or a local landscape. He has a marvelous way of connecting every subject with eternity past and with eternity to come. It is as though you were looking at a bit of carved wood in a Swiss village window, and you lifted your eyes and saw the forest where the wood was nourished and the higher still everlasting snows on the top of the mountains.

Yes, that was Binney's way and Dale's way and Bushnell's way and Newman's way and Spurgeon's way. They were always willing to stop at the village window, but they always linked the streets with the heights and sent your souls a-roaming over the eternal hills of God. In other words, good preaching deals with nitty-gritty things.

It doesn't just deal with ethereal, high-sounding things. It gets down to the nitty-gritty of people's lives, but it never stays there. It moves in there.

It takes hold of the nitty-gritty things that everybody deals with from day to day, and then this is what makes preaching preaching. It lifts it up into a big context, a universal and eternal context, and relates it to God. That's what preachers ought to be doing week in and week out.

Not just getting down and trying to help people feel good in their little problematic lives and relationships, but getting in there, taking hold of problems and blessings, and then lifting them way high up into biblical history and great purposes and glorious designs in relation to God. That's what I see this writer doing in these last verses by connecting this simple story. I mean, it's kind of like a little out-of-the-way family story, except that God is behind it everywhere, and at the end, his purposes are messianic.

They're all about Jesus. This is a book about Jesus. And so the very structure of the writer's mind and how he functions is a lesson to me.

So let me dwell on this lesson for a minute. The lesson goes something like this. One of the greatest curses on American culture in the church and outside the church is the disease of triviality, banality.

TV's the worst culprit of all. The problem with television is not sex and violence. That is not the problem.

The Bible is full of sex and violence. The problem is absolute silliness. Absolute silliness, which is constantly trivializing everything with silliness.

Everything is sold with silliness. Newscasters are silly. Drama is silly.

Sports announcers are silly. Everybody is trivial and silly, which means that if our people sit in front of that box one or two hours a night, you know what happens to their souls? It's not that their souls get contaminated with sexual innuendo and violence. That is not the problem.

That is a problem. It's not the main problem. A big soul can manage sex and violence and put it in its right position.

But you know what happens is the soul shrinks down to a stick figure. Oops, be silly. And so preachers start to preach this way.

Tell little stories, little jokes, have little thing, little things all over the place and you wonder and say, did you know that EMC squared, Einstein, that Einstein, he died in 1955 and stopped going to church long before that. Do you know what he said was the reason he stopped going to church? He said as far as he could tell, all the preachers were blaspheming because I have seen so much more glory in my math and through my telescope than they seem to be remotely acquainted with. That's the way I feel when I visit a lot of churches or listen to tapes.

Have these pastors been watching TV all week? Is that the problem? That souls of our people and many of our pastors have shriveled up that they have no longer any great capacities for worship, any great capacities for the magnificent things about God. They can't even taste the magnitude of Christ and the glories of Christ, let alone become contagiously exalting over them in front of their people. And so you watch some church services happen and you say, has this got any connection to the universe, let alone heaven and eternity? I mean anybody, one of the men in our church, thank God for people like this, he said, John, I hear your homepage on your computer is Google.

I got a better one for you. Try RefDesk because at the top of RefDesk there's an astronomical photograph of the day. And so I went on to RefDesk and made it my homepage.

It's still my homepage. And every time I go on, I can go to this astronomical photograph of the day and click and see galaxies and suns and eclipses and these little poof off the sun that go up about three million miles at about 6,000 degrees centigrade. Just a poof.

And feel as small as I ought to feel and stand in awe that this universe is about one thing. The heavens are telling the glory of God. And hardly anybody, hardly anybody who spends time watching television has the capacity to feel those things anymore.

Turn it off, folks. Turn it off. We don't have one.

We haven't had a television in our house for 32 years. No, that's an overstatement. We haven't owned a television.

I bring them in for the final four. And I have some things to say about sport here. I do.

I do. In fact, it's right there. It goes like this.

Before I say that, let me just finish the story about television. As long as I'm rapping on television here, which is one of my favorite things to beat up on, and all my people know about it. They smile and roll their eyes whenever I get on this roll here.

I've raised four sons in the inner city. And I used to worry, Noel and I did, when we were just married, wondering should we get a television or not, and we didn't. And then when we began to have children, we said, well, now, are they going to be weird, you know, square, out of it? Everybody talking about something, they'll not know anything.

We said, well, let's just see what happens. You know what? I got sons 29, 25, 21, and 18, and not once have they ever complained about not having a television. Not once have they ever felt out of it.

Because you just pick it up, you know? You know what the programs are if you're a kid, I guess. I don't know anything about it, but they do. And I don't say you can't watch it at other people's houses, and I don't say you can't go to P-Tuck because they have TVs.

It's nothing like that. I do not want the curse of triviality and banality in my house. I want to read to my kids at night.

I want to talk to my kids at night. I want them to read great literature at night. And when it comes to, well, aren't you afraid that they're not going to know the real world? I live in the real world.

You want to get to know the real world? Move in, not out. All this talk about, well, they won't get to know the real world if they don't see those movies or watch those TV shows. Baloney.

They sleep with each other in my front yard. I had to pull guys off of girls. There's drunks everywhere.

There's drugs everywhere. There's gunshots a block away. There's a way to know the real world.

Live in it. Don't play games with it. Don't turn it into a little drama.

So when that thought comes to me, I don't have a lot of patience with that argument. God wants us in the real world. He wants savvy sons.

But you don't have to sell your soul to stick figures and silliness in order to become passionate for God in the city. Sport. Well, I've got a bone to pick with sport.

See that little bent finger right there? It's just healing up. February 8th, I split the tendon on this thing, playing basketball. So I've been playing basketball now since February, trying to heal up this finger here.

That's about as straight as the doctor says it's going to get. So when I praise God now, it's a bent praise. So I like sports.

I've always been a C-plus player in just about every sport. Never could do anything any good in high school or college, but I play everything there is to play. Football, basketball, softball, baseball, fast pitch, slow pitch, soccer.

Everything I've ever touched, I play, and I love it. And I think sports are meant to be played, basically, not watched. But here's the problem with sport in America.

It occupies an entire section of the newspaper, and God gets nothing. God doesn't get a section in the paper. I tell you, without fear of being accused of overstatement, it is madness, the level to which we have elevated sport in America.

It is madness that we build a culture, billions upon billions upon billions of dollars, around sport and idolize these jerks who live loose, horrid, unexemplary lives, and they go up on my son's wall, and I say, Barnabas, I know you like basketball, but do you know anything about that man? William, he's a great three-point shooter. Who cares about his three-point shooter? Does he sleep with women? How many women does he sleep with? How many kids has he got in every city? How about putting William Carey up there? He had a bald head. Yeah, but he left a legacy, and nobody will remember any of these fellas, and I know there are a lot of Christians in the professional sport world, and I sometimes wonder how in the world they do it, but I just want to say, wake up, wake up.

You can go anywhere you want with this differently than I go, but I'm just waving a flag here that we Americans are suckered into a lot of stuff with our televisions and with our sport that make it almost impossible for us to feel what this writer of Ruth wants us to feel when he links up this little family with eternity. I mean, you know, the average probably American would read this book and just get real excited about the sex scene. Whoa, a conniving mother and a sexy girl, and whoa, that's a cool story.

Didn't know that was in the Bible. Not even have the potential of understanding what's going on here because they're so soaked with banality and triviality and sensuality and small-mindedness. So I just plead with you.

That's a lesson that I see in this book. When he links in those last five or six verses, when he links this one simple, lowly, out-of-the-way family in a little town, in a little country in the Near East with the Messiah, he means to say nobody's life is insignificant. Nobody was meant to live a life.

You know, somebody asked me about the prayer of Jabez yesterday. I haven't read the whole book, but I've heard enough and I've read enough to say that putting the best face on that book, that's probably the point, that we all settle for too little. We all think too small about our families and too small about our lives.

I mean, is it an accident, is it an accident that Paul said, whatever you do, whether you eat or drink, do all to the glory of God. I mean, you just gotta feel. Can you write an essay, How to Drink Diet Coke to the Glory of God? You should.

I mean, if you drink it, you should. I wrote a star article, a little newsletter article for our church called How to Drink Orange Juice to the Glory of God, because that's what the text says you're supposed to do. In other words, when you take a glass of this wonderful orange juice or all that spread of food they give us in there, and you take a forkful or a glassful, that should be connected to the galaxies and beyond.

There's nothing trivial in life for those who are God-besotted people. Everything's connected to the great and glorious. Famines and the death of a husband and the death of sons and daughters-in-law and homecomings and happenstance meetings and births of babies and meetings in courtrooms.

It's all about God, if you will have it. Of course, if you want to just wrap yourself up in a robe of triviality and small-mindedness, you can live your life that way, tragically. America's a tragic land.

It's a tragic land. It's one of the most tragic countries in the world because of the blessings that we have turned against God. Psalm 67 says, We have been blessed that we may be a blessing to the nations.

How many churches care about the nations? How many churches really care about the unreached nations? And I don't mean political states. I mean peoples like Canaanites, Jebusites, Hittites. There are about several thousand of these folks, these peoples yet to have a strong self-propagating church.

How many churches burn with our prosperity, watching it ruin our hands and our kids instead of pouring our lives out for the nations? I was on the phone with a pastor the other day, and he said, John, I'm just so concerned about my denomination. It's probably not one any of you belong to. Well, maybe one or two, but... And it's not unique, but he said, I'm so concerned because I was talking... Excuse the language again.

I was talking to a pastor the other day, and he said, I'm so tired of hearing about this unreached people crap. A pastor said that. And I said to him, Well, is that because his church is doing such a gangbuster job of it? Do you think he doesn't need any more encouragement? He said, No, they don't do anything.

He just feels threatened by it. That's where a lot of churches are. They're just so wrapped up in their problems that they don't have any capacity for the great, great global purposes of God.

Well, let's see. How should we wrap this up? I don't think glory... All that was an attempt to tell you that I didn't think glory was too strong a word when I said the life of the godly... The life of the godly is not a straight line to glory. So I've been trying to explain to you what I mean now by glory.

It's not a straight line. It's a circuitous line. And all of you are on some turn in the road right now, and you wonder how in the world does this relate to glory? And it does.

This book says it does. So the best is yet to come. And let's finish the link with Jesus, and then I'm going to read you this poem, and we'll be done.

David, the great king of Israel, man after God's own heart, the sweet psalmist of Israel, the son of David, the gospel bringer, atoner, Jesus Christ. Now, just like David foreshadows Jesus, Jesus is the first fruits of the resurrection and foreshadows my rising from the dead, and your rising from the dead. Which means that we in this room can say to every believer, from the youngest, who may die young, or who is in some way disabled and doesn't seem to have a very great prospect in this life, to the oldest, who's just ready to die after having ten years of Alzheimer's, the best is yet to come.

That's the great thing about Christianity. I love being a pastor, and I like funerals better than marriages for preaching, because I have such a spectacular gospel. I can look right in to so many grieving faces or hospital beds where they're about to be dead and say, have I got good news for you.

The best is yet to come. Thinking of older people there who really need to be reminded of that reminds me of one closing illustration. I went to the Caroline Center a few years ago, and this one sticks out.

It's happened another way since then, but it's a nursing home, and nursing homes are a sad place to go sometimes, and sometimes very happy. But this was both. I got in the elevator, and here comes a wheelchair in, and in it sat a woman, goodness knows how old, I couldn't tell, and her head was out of control like this, and her hands were shaking like this, and her hair was a little bit fixed, but disheveled, very old, and her mouth drooped, probably a stroke, and a little bit of drool, and she was babbling on some incoherent way.

I just looked at the carnage of this fallen age, and we stay there together. And then I looked up, and I noticed that the wheelchair was being pushed by a man, probably upper 60s, I don't know, very dignified, well-groomed man, and I wondered, what's the connection here? And as he turned her around, and was going to get out on the next floor, as he pushed her out, he says, Watch your foot, sweetie pie. I just about exploded with sadness and happiness.

I just about exploded. Here was a woman who was just about as far gone and alive as you could get it looked like, and here was a man who could marry again, eat his pie, could leave this thing, right? He said, Watch your foot, sweetie pie. I walked out to my car, and I thought, if a marriage covenant, covenant, and commitment can produce that kind of allegiance, that kind of love, that kind of staying power, then God's superior mercy and superior covenant with his people through Messiah Jesus will make it possible for him to say to me, when I'm old, my brain is gone, my back is gone, my knees are gone, my hips are gone, all my hair is gone, and maybe I've outlived my family, and nobody remembers messages like this anymore.

In fact, nobody remembers me at all. God Almighty will say, Watch your foot, sweetie pie. Don't bump your foot on the elevator ridge there.

You're on your way to glory, and I'll see to that. So the best is yet to come. Now, let me read this, and we'll be done.

This is poem number four. Let me give you the background for it, and this is my way of sending you on your way. We're supposed to do the last 10 minutes here to kind of take it home.

Well, this closes with what I want you to take home, and then Ron's going to come up and bring you all to a close, but here's the setting as I read. You just close everything up and listen. You don't need to look at anything.

David is nine years old. King David is nine years old. His grandfather is Obed.

I'm not sure how Obed is. You know, I'm guessing. His great-grandfather Boaz is still alive.

Ruth is dead now, and so is Obed's wife. The two old men, Obed and Boaz, live in a little shack down by the barley field where Boaz first met Ruth, and Boaz is blind. He's almost 100 years old, and the little boy you'll hear talking is David, and the two old men are Boaz and Obed, and the situation is in a cart that Obed built a long time ago, and they're on their way to the barley field to show David the place where it all happened.

The little boy is going to learn something about his background here by a blind great-grandfather. Blind and lame, the old man drew the blanket close and clutched the shoe that he held in his lap and sat beside his faithful son, and at the back, the boy rode bumping down the same hill from the quiet town of Bethlehem. The wooden cart was witness to the master art of Obed's craft.

When he was 10, he built it for the poorest men and women who would glean the sheaves that every godly farmer leaves in Judah for the ones who own no land. His mother, Ruth, had shown him how she used to gather grain and beat it out, and what a strain it was to take the winnowed seed and walk it up the hill. "'They need a cart,' she said.

"'Don't you believe, my son, that Moses meant "'to weave together with his law "'that we leave something for the poor, "'a plea that, if we can, we help them bear it "'up the hill and take it where they need to go? "'It seems to me the holy Torah ought to be interpreted "'to see as much compassion as we can. "'The touch of love from this great book "'once wakened me from death "'and shook me to the bottom of my soul. "'Why not make something that can roll "'and let the gleaners use it when they're tired?' "'And so the boy at 10 built him a cart.

"'He thought, perhaps my cart, "'made out of love and scraps, "'will help the poor to see the hand of God "'and trust in what he's planned.' "'Now, 60 years have passed. "'Tonight, the aged craftsman "'drives his bright and eager grandson "'and his blind and failing father "'down to find the place he promised David "'they would go when it was dark. "'The gray of twilight turned to night.

"'The boy could see on Boaz's face "'a joy that broadened to a wrinkled smile. "'He knew the ruts of every mile, "'especially the final two around the fields "'that led down through the hollow "'where he used to sift the barley seed at night "'and lift the spirits of his workers there. "'He used to sing a song "'and wear the same clothes as the working men "'and rake and toss his share.

"'And when the other owners asked him why, "'he said, "'The Torah says "'that I should love my neighbor "'just the way I love myself. "'And would you not say that if you labored for a boss, "'it would be good to see him "'toss the barley every now and then? "'We ought to read the Torah, men, "'to see as much compassion as we can. "'Go read and find it has more mercy than you think.'" But these were not the only memories that made the old man smile that night.

"'Stop here, Obed,' he said. "'The light, how much is there tonight? "'Is there a moon? "'Are there stars? "'It's fair, my father, and the moon is full. "'That's good,' he said.

"'Obed, let's pull the cart down to the cedar at the end. "'Great-grandpa, isn't that the one "'where all the people go to watch the play?' "'You know about the play?' "'I don't know much. "'They say it's all about the touch "'between you and great-grandma Ruth.

"'This is my favorite spot,' the old man said. "'And now you shall be told about that touch "'and where it led. "'Here 70 short years have sped away "'since that great night, "'because the heat was great by day "'and I was down winnowing at dark, "'and when the work was done, "'I told the men to fetch the food and wine "'so we could eat and rest.

"'I couldn't see what God was about to do. "'When I was full and tired, "'I threw this blanket over me "'and lay down underneath that tree. "'Today it must be twice as big.

"'I fell asleep and dreamed about my bell. "'You mean great-grandma Ruth? "'I do. "'And David, then my dream came true.

"'At midnight, something stirred "'beneath my blanket at my feet. "'My teeth clamped like a vice. "'I carefully unsheathed my knife "'and tried to see where I could strike the beast to kill "'lest I should miss the head "'and still be bitten by some snake, "'or worse, I knew not what.

"'It is a curse, I thought, for dreaming of my Ruth. "'And as I raised the knife, "'the truth rose like a hand against my wrist "'and I looked and thought, "'This moonlit twist beneath the blanket at my feet "'is not a snake, nor will it eat my leg. "'This is a human form, a child, "'in search of being warm, perhaps, "'or worse, some woman of the street "'whose hopes to sell me love.' "'I whispered, so as not to wake the men, "'Who are you? "'Do not make a sudden move, or you will die.

"'If you are a child and cannot buy, you shall be fed. "'But if a wench, you will find nothing here, "'nor quench your hunger in my bed. "'I would not touch a woman, "'be she good or great outside a covenant, "'though there is one I truly want.' "'I pulled the blanket gently back, "'and there, as still as night, "'the black and piercing eyes of Ruth.

"'My name is Ruth,' she said. "'Your servant came because Naomi told me "'I should lie down at your feet "'and by this action say you are akin to her "'in hope that she may win your willingness "'to raise up seed to Mahlon, if you are agreed.' "'These are Naomi's words, I hear. "'I know her mind, but not, I fear, her daughter's heart.

"'This, too, I would be pleased to learn. "'I hope you could, besides this well-taught speech, "'reveal your own designs "'and how you feel about the prospect in her mind, "'or have you no emotions unassigned?' "'She lay there motionless, then said, "'My heart's desire is that you spread your holy wing "'and cover me.'" Great Grandpa Boaz, I don't see what all this means. Well, David, now you know why they do not allow the kids to come down to the play each year.

But listen, here's the way it ends. "'My heart was beating in my throat "'and crouching there was sin awaiting one misstep. "'I spoke the hardest words and almost broke.

"'There is another kinsman still more close to you than I "'and he is given legal right to take you, if he will. "'Tomorrow make your prayer "'and I will settle this with elders in the gate.' "'No kiss that night. "'But when she left, still dark, "'she took my hand and drew an arc "'and said, "'The God of Exodus and flood at dawn will fight for us.' "'That was our only touch.

"'And so as soon as light shone on the low gate "'leading into Bethlehem, I gathered elders "'and to them laid out my case. "'And to the head whose right preceded mine, I said, "'Naomi's land is yours. "'The claim, you marry Ruth "'and keep the name of Malon in your line.

"'Declare your will, for I am next "'and swear that I will take her if you can't.' "'I wondered how the Lord would grant the longing of my heart "'and by another providence "'comply with Ruth's appeal and my desire. "'And then I learned. "'He said, "'Acquire it for yourself.

"'The land I would have had, for it is very good. "'But Ruth, she is a Moabite "'and we are Jews. "'It isn't right.

"'The land is yours and Malon's name, for what it's worth. "'And Ruth, and shame. "'He took his shoe and gave it to me in the gate.

"'I turned and threw it to Ruth among the crowd. "'She caught it like a wreath and bowed. "'I quieted the shouts and cried, "'What do you think of this, my bride?' "'And she replied, "'I think the Lord has fought today "'and with his sword has stuck a sin up on the gate "'and hung on it our wedding date.

"'As for the badge of shame, you tell. "'The line of Judah bears it well "'and will for generations yet to come. "'The book of Moses set me free.

"'There is a mercy in the law of God "'beyond my skin. "'By faith God makes a person right. "'Be she a Jew or Moabite.

"'Come, Jesus Christ, the way, the truth. "'Ignite in us the faith of Ruth.'" Yes. And now, Father, as we go, please do that.

I pray that what people take home would be the faith of Ruth and the outcome of their lives would be glory because of Christ, who sealed with his own blood every promise explicit and implicit in the story of Ruth and Naomi and Boaz. Lord, deepen the roots of our confidence in your sovereign goodness, I pray. Make oaks of righteousness out of the women and the men in this room, O God.

Forbid, I pray, that we would be wisps in the wind or leaves floating on the sea. Grant, I pray, that we would take refuge under the wings of Christ, who loved us and gave himself for us. And whether our providences be sweet or bitter, say with Job, "'Though he slay me, yet will I trust him.'" I commit these friends to you, Father, for your care.

Bring them safely to their homes and then mobilize them for the nations, I pray. In Jesus' name, amen.