Greatest Love Story

Be finding in your Bible tonight the Book of Ruth. The Book of Ruth. And, uh, I'm so thankful tonight to be a part of the youth rally yesterday. And, uh, I'm so thankful that the Lord let my path cross with your pastor and his family. They've been a blessing. Uh, Brother Randy has been a, uh, he has been like a, a little brother to me, even though he's bigger than I am. He is like the little brother, and, uh, he's been a blessing.

I remember a couple years ago, we were at Shaoni, uh, Baptist Youth Conference in Louisville, Kentucky. I had preached. I'd met him there the year before. We were preaching there together again the next year. And that particular year, um, they, uh, they offered for you to be able to go to a water park. They rent out, out the water park for a, uh, for a morning. And so they offered us to go to a water park. Y'all remember that? And so the only problem is, you have to go at like 7 o'clock in the morning. And so, uh, my family, we drove from Hattiesburg the day before. I preached in my church on Sunday morning. We drove all the way to Murphysboro, Tennessee. I preached in church that night at 6:00. I got to Brother Mike Norris's church. I preached there for him. Then we drove on a few more hours. Then we got up early the next morning. We drove into Kentucky. We got situated in our hotel, went straight to the youth conference. I preached that afternoon, and we went to the service that night. And I mean, it was just a very exhausting couple of days.

And the next morning, we're supposed to go to the water park at 7:00. And so Brother Randy's asking me, "Are you going to go to the water park?" And I said, "I don't know." "Come on, you got to go to the water park. You got it's going to be awesome. It's going to be awesome." Listen, Brother Randy could see a fly land on the window sill and he, man, that is awesome. Everything is awesome. And is awesome. You're awesome. That's awesome. That's awesome. That's awesome. He, it's going to be awesome. It's going to be epic. You got to go. And so finally, you know, I have three girls, they all wanted to go. So I'm like, "Okay, fine. We'll go."

Now, here's the problem. I hate morning time. Okay? And the Bible even talks about the man who riseth up early in the morning and greets his neighbors with a loud voice. It's a curse. That's what it's in the Bible. Okay? The Bible said don't do that. So it's 7:00 in the morning, and I'm standing in front of the hotel in my flip-flops. And Brother, the Rand and I get in the car. We drive to the, we drive to the to the water park. And I'm driving with Brother Reno and Brother Dave Delaney. And we're driving up there. And you know, I've got a change in the car. We're driving over there. And when we pull up in the parking lot, you can understand it's like 7:15 in the morning, and I've only been awake for like 15 minutes. And I get out of the car. And I, you know, in my mind, this is what I envision. This is my plan. I'm driving over there. I'm just kind of plan my day. I like to have a plan for the day. I like to attack the plan after I get awake. And so my plan was, I'm going to get to the water park. I'm going to go in the water park, and I'm going to find a little inner tube, and I'm going to float on the lazy river. And that'll just be a great time to float around in the lazy river. And then we'll all go home.

But when I open the door to the car, Brother Randy's standing there like a golden retriever. He's like, he's like, "Hey, man!" And he's licking his lips. "It's going to be awesome!" And his tongue is going back and forth like a, like like a golden retriever. He's like, "Man, are you ready? Man, are you ready? We're going on the big one! We're going on the giant Colomba or whatever that thing is called." Well, I didn't know what it was. He's like, "You going to go? You going to go? You going to go?" I'm like, "Fine."

So we walk in the water park, and we're walking over to this water. And I'm looking at this slide, and this slide is 12, 12 stories high. Okay? And so I'm like, "No, I'm not going to." "Yeah, we're going to go. It's going to be awesome!" And walking through the water park, I'm like, "No, Brother Randy, I can't go." And he's like, "I mean, just in full toddler mode, right?" Brother Randy is like, he is like a chimpanzee running through, like, "Come on, Thunder! Let's go!" And he's dragging me through the park to the water slide. And I'm just like walking behind, my flip-flops are like, and he's, you know, "Woo!"

And so we get to the water slide. I'm like, "I am not going up that!" And he's like, "Man, you're going!" So between him and Brother Rino and the peer pressure, I'm going up. I mean, we preach against peer pressure, and now these guys are peer pressuring. I'm thinking, "The lazy river." The first thing I'm on, I'm huffing up 12 flights of stairs, 12 stories. Well, halfway up, they have another water slide that you can, when you get afraid, you can kind of ditch out. And so when we get there, man, Brother Randy's like, "No, you ain't going." He's forcing me up. We're on the upward way. New heights were gaining every day. I'm not, I'm telling you right now. Listen to me. Listen to me. We get up there, and I'm like, on the last couple, there's just a couple more flights of stairs, and we're at the top. And I look over, and the Louisville airport is over there. This is true. Brother Randy, there are airplanes in the air lower than us. Like people on the airplanes were like, "Hey, look at those people up there." We're looking down at the plane. Like, "There's no way!" I mean, I locked up. My feet are sweating. I am locked. And so the last few steps, I mean, they're like carrying me up the stairs.

Well, the way they have it designed is, when you come up the stairs, you can't really see the water slide over here. There's like a, a wall right here. And then they, then they call the next few people up. And they only bring you up at like, five at a time. Okay? So it's going to be like two teenage boys, and then myself, and Brother Randy, and Brother Reno Lyans. And they call us all up. And we get up there. And when I turn the corner, and I see the slide, I mean, not only am I on Mount Everest right now with King Kong, but the slide, there's a tube, a glass tube. And so when we get up there, they're like, they grab this teenage guy, and they're like, "Here, you're up." And so he walks over there, and he gets in the glass tube. And the tube goes around him. They give him some instruction, and I don't remember what it was, 'cause I was like about to pass out. And the next thing I know is the door drops out from underneath him, and he's gone.

Well, let me tell you this. I knew right now if anybody else went, I was done. I, it was either now or never. So I just jumped to the front of the line in sheer panic and said, "Get me on this thing now!" So I get in there, and I step in. And you're standing. Now, listen carefully to this. I'm 12 stories in the air. Airplanes are flying underneath me. King Kong is behind me. And I'm standing on a glass door looking straight down 12 stories. And the, the, the teenage kid, who can't even find his own socks, is telling me, "It's okay, it's safe." I mean, how do you know, kid? You can't even pass math. So the kid goes, "Put, put your head back, cross your feet, and cross your arms." And I'm like, "Do you understand what position I am in right now? This is a brilliant slide. They go ahead and just pre-package you for the morgue. Funeral directors don't have to do anything. You just get to the bottom of the slide, they pick you up, set you right in the casket, and take you to the church."

I'm standing there, and I look back, Brother Randy, and he's like, "This is awesome!" And I remember sitting there like this. And I kept, I kept asking myself the question, "Why am, why do I have my feet crossed?" And then the door goes. And then when you're in the tube, nobody outside the tube can hear what's in the tube. And what's in the tube, it goes countdown. And then this heartbeat. Well, I didn't know it was a speaker, man. I'm looking at my heart like, "Hey, countdown, three, two, one." And I'm like, and I hear a whooshing sound. Nothing. The door just opened back up. And then the kid's like, "Ah, it's, it's, it's broke. Just kidding." And there I go. The last thing I remember in a split second when the door opened, I just kind of hung there in space like Bugs Bunny, you know, just for a second before I fell. And the last thing I remember is I remember hearing, "And down I go!"

Well, in the process, somewhere in there, I kind of uncrossed my legs. And then I realized when I got to the bottom of the slide why they have you do that. Because I could not find my bathing suit when I got to the bottom of the slide. I look back up 12 stories, and Brother Ry's on the edge. "That was awesome!" I'm just going, "I'm alive!" So then I went and found the little lazy river, and I went and floated on that for a while. But I will tell you this, he got me into the wave pool, and then we got kicked out. It's the first time I've ever been kicked out of anything in my life. We got in the wave pool, and he's like, "Hey, Brother Miller, you used to be a quarterback, right?" "Yeah, I used to be in defense." He's in the wave pool, he's just like slamming, body slamming me like, you know, he's picking me up like that. And they're like, "You're out. You're gone. See you guys later." So it's, he's been a great influence on my life. I had no gray hair before I met him, and now I've done the plunge of death, all the rest of it. But it's been a great blessing.

Look at the Book of Ruth, chapter 1. Are you ready to go through the Book of Ruth tonight? We're going to go through the Book of Ruth verse by verse. You think I'm kidding? But here we go. Amen. Are you ready for this journey? Because we're going to fly. Let me talk to you tonight about this wonderful book. And I want to show you, uh, that in many times in life, when we get in places where everything seems to be going wrong, if we will learn to walk by faith, amen, we will learn to live by God's grace. And what does that really mean? Grace is something we always take for granted. We, we assume that we understand grace. But let me just give you a simple understanding of grace. We often say grace is God's riches, riches at Christ's expense. And it's true. It is God's riches at Christ's expense. We say grace is unmerited favor, that God gives us favor because without us doing anything. And that's very true. But let me tell you a very simple form of of grace, and what I really believe it is. Grace is just simply when God steps in. I got saved by grace because God stepped in. And when I have grace in my life, it's just simply God stepping in. And we can only access that by faith, dependence on God. Faith is followed by grace. For by grace are you saved through faith. Every time you see faith, you'll find it followed by grace. Watch the story of Ruth.

Ready? Now, it came to pass in the days when the judges ruled. Now, the judges were the times of Samson and Barak and Gideon and all of that. And you remember in the days of Israel, they were days where they were good days, and the people would serve God for a while. Then every man would do that which is right in his own eyes. It became a very wicked age, and then God would have to judge the people and send a judge to rule over them and to deliver them out of the hands of their enemies. You remember they were very difficult and wicked days, am I right? Okay. So during those days when the judges ruled, there was a famine in the land. And a certain man of Bethlehem, Judah. Now, the word Bethlehem in the Bible, every time you read, read the word Beth in Hebrew, the word Beth is house. And so Bethlehem, like Bethsadia, the house of Sadia. So Bethlehem is the House of Bread. So everybody tell me right now, what does Bethlehem mean? The house. Okay. So when I say Bethlehem, you remind me that it is the house. Okay.

So here's a man living in the House of Bread, and he went to sojourn in the country of Moab. Now, Moab was a wicked country. Let me tell you about Moab. Moab was a country that began with a man who was the son of Lot, right? When Lot fled Sodom and committed that horrible sin in the cave with his own daughters, we won't go into the whole sort of details, but those of you who are understanding of these kind of things, understand that wickedness and that ungodliness and the depths of sin that Lot's life had gone to produced a man whose name was Moab, who became the father of this nation. They were cursed from their very inception. Yes. In fact, they were so cursed. You're in the Book of Ruth right now. Don't leave it. This is the only time we will leave it. Go back to me with me to Deuteronomy 23, very quickly. Go to Deuteronomy 23. Just back a couple of pages. If you don't know where it is, and you're in the Book of Ruth, just take a left, and you'll just flip back a little bit, and you'll come to Deuteronomy chapter 23. Deuteronomy chapter 23, and look at verse number three. Now, Deuteronomy is Jesus's, I think Jesus's favorite book of the Bible. He quoted from it more than any other book. And the Book of Deuteronomy is a book of God's law and God's righteousness. And in that book of Deuteronomy, we find a very important law. Deuteronomy 23 and verse number three. The Bible says, "An Ammonite or Moabit." Now, these are the, the, the great descendants of Lot, these wicked, wicked generations. "A Moabit shall not enter the congregation of the Lord." Now, what that means is, is that a Moabit and an Ammonite are not allowed to be numbered and apart and have an inheritance with the children of Israel. Is everybody with me on that? It's very important to understand that a Moabit cannot enter in, have an inheritance, or a part among the 12 tribes of Israel. In fact, God put a qualifier on that. He said, and notice this, he said, "Even to his tenth generation shall he not enter into the congregation." Now, wait a minute. Not 10 years, not 10 decades, but 10 generations. A Moabit cannot have a part. If a Moabit comes in to live among the people, that Moabit can have nothing to do, can have no ownership of land, can have no part in the inheritance of God's people until they've been there for 10 generations. Everybody understand that? That's how cursed they were.

So a man who lived in the House of Bread went to the land that is definitely and horribly cursed by God, and he went down there to get food. Now, look at verse number two. And the name of the man was Elimelech. His name means "my goddess king." All right, everybody tell me, what does Elimelech mean? My goddess king. Lives in Bethlehem, and Bethlehem is the, so "my goddess king" lives in the House of Bread. And he has a wife, and her name is Naomi. Now, Naomi means Pleasant. So "my goddess king" is married to who? Pleasant. And they live in the land, the House of Bread. Now, isn't this a wonderful marriage? Here's a man whose God is king. Here's a man that's married to a wife who's pleasant, and they live in the House of Bread. What a wonderful home. "My goddess king," "my pleasant wife," "we live in the House of Bread." It's a wonderful life. And they had a baby. And the Bible says they named that baby Mahlon. Mahlon means sick. Now, not like the sick that the young people say today, like, "Ooh, that is sick!" No, we're not talking about something good. We're about sick like sick. So here's this kid who is sick, and he's got a brother by the name of Chilion. And Chilion's name means whining. So "my goddess king" and his pleasant wife have a sick and whining kid. They're driving along to the House of Bread, and the one kid, they're saying, "Hey, what do we want to eat tonight?" And Mahlon's throws up. The other kid's like, "Ah, he's throwing up again in the car. How come he's always throwing up? Why do you always be sick? When are we ever going to get there?" Now, listen, that's really a test to "my goddess king" and a pleasant wife when you have kids that are sick and whining. Is do I have a witness tonight? And the Bible says that there was a famine in the land. So that even makes it worse, because now the poor kid that is sick is no longer even throwing up. He's just dry heaving. He has nothing to throw up because there's no food. And by the way, that is a horrible place to be. If you've ever been sick and you've been throwing up until there's nothing left to throw up but your spleen, and your body wants to desperately get that out of itself, that is a miserable experience. And so here's the poor kid over there just, and then, "Why, why is, why I liked it better when he could throw up." He's just making noises now, you know. And and Pleasant is trying to be pleasant. "My goddess king" is trying not to drive the car off a bridge. And so they're having a wonderful time. And finally, he just has enough and takes the Moab exit and decides that even going through the fast food of Moab, we're just going to go down there and sojourn. We're just going to drive through the drive-thru and pick up something to eat. But they end up staying. And they stayed long enough down there for Mahlon and Chilion to marry wives of the Moabites. They marry Ruth and her famous sister who had a talk show, Orpah. And they married Ruth and Orpah. And they were there for a number of years. And something happened. We don't know what. But "my goddess king" died. And shortly after that, sick died, and Mahlon died. And now you have Naomi and Ruth and Orpah as three widows in the land of Moab. And there they are, these three grieving widows. And finally, Ruth says, uh, Naomi says to these two daughters-in-law, "Listen, I don't have any more children. And even if I did, I wouldn't expect you guys to stick around and wait for them to rise up so you could marry them. So you go back to your people. I'm going home." And so she kissed them and she sent them away.

And I want you to see something very important here. What, uh, what the Bible says in verse number 15. Naomi said, "Behold, thy sister-in-law is gone back unto her people and unto her gods. Return thou after thy sister-in-law." Now, Naomi is in such a wicked state of mind that she sends her daughters-in-law back to the gods of Moab. Now, let me just remind you, the gods of Moab required human sacrifices, and mostly of young women were in human sacrifice. And Naomi just sent them back to the, their gods and said, "Hey, you're there. She's going back to her people, going back to her gods. You go with her." And Ruth says, "No." Ruth says, "Entreat me not to leave thee." In verse 16, "or to return from following after thee: for whithersoever thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: and thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God." See, she had heard enough about the God of Israel. She had heard enough stories to know that there was a God who could divide the Red Sea and provide food in the wilderness and bring his people the Canaan and sustain the people. She said, "There's something about that God that is entirely different than my gods, and I want to know that God. So I'm going with you. I want your people to be my people. I want your God to be my God." Am, that's called faith. In fact, she went all the way in commitment. In verse number 17, she said, "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." And when she saw that she was steadfastly minded to go with her, she left speaking unto her. Ruth said, "I'm going with you, and I'm going with you all the way to death."

Now, listen to me carefully. Ruth said, "I'm following your God. And in fact, he's not just your God, he is Lord, he's Jehovah." And she goes by faith with Ruth, with Naomi. So the Bible said they too went until they came to Bethlehem, the House of Bread. And they came to pass when they were come to Bethlehem, that all the city was moved. And they said, "Is this Naomi?" And Naomi said unto them, "Call me not Naomi, but call me Mara." And Mara means bitter. She went from being Pleasant to being bitter. Now, what made this woman so bitter? She had been down in Moab, the cursed city. She'd been living in this place where it was so wicked and defiled. And she buried her husband, she buried her two boys, and now she's coming home, and she is bitter. And why is she bitter? She's not bitter at Moab. She's not bitter at the sin. Let me show you what she's bitter at. Look at verse number 21. She, uh, verse number 20, she said unto them, "Call me not Naomi, call me Mara: for the Almighty hath dealt very bitterly with me." Now, let me just remind some of you who may be sitting in church tonight, and God is your king, and you're following God, but there's going to come a time in your life when there's a tribulation and a trial and a problem, and you may at that moment have a lapse of faith and get away from God. And you may get out of church. You may take your family away. Jobs may dry up in the area, and you may move away to go get a better job because the grass is greener somewhere else. But you don't get your family into a good church. You get them into the world. And you get away from God. There, the consequences of that sin will start to roll. And you get away from God, and eventually, the wages of sin is death. And I've seen so many people get away from God and get into sin, and then they deal with the consequences of sin, and they turn around and say, "God did it." Yeah, well, God didn't do it. Naomi is bitter against God. She says in verse number 21, and I can imagine, I can't imagine what Ruth felt like when she heard these words come out. She's standing right here by Naomi, and she hears the words come out of Naomi's mouth, "I went out full, and the Lord hath brought me home again empty. I went out with everything. I went out with a husband, I went out with children. I went out full, and God's brought me back with absolutely nothing." And there's Ruth standing there. She's blaming God for taking everything away from her. You see, that's what bitter people do. And by the way, listen to me, if you've got a touch of bitterness in your heart because of what somebody else did to you, if you really, if you really followed that out long enough and were honest enough with yourself, you would really come to the brass tacks of it all, that you are not bitter at them. You're actually bitter at God. That's right. Bitterness is always bitterness at God. And Naomi was not bitter at her situation. She was literally verbalizing, "God did this to me."

And they came back into the country of Bethlehem in the beginning of barley harvest. You see, they've been gone for a long time from the famine, and now, now the barley has begun to grow again. You know, one of the things I found out about God is, if you just stick with him in the lean times, God will make it full again. Verse number one of chapter 2 said, "And Naomi had a kinsman of her husband, a mighty man of wealth." And notice that he was a mighty man of wealth of the family of Elimelech, and his name was Boaz. And Ruth, now notice this verse, everybody mark this verse in your Bible right here. "And Ruth the Moabitess said to Naomi, Let me now go to the field and glean ears of corn after him in whose sight I shall find grace." Do you see the faith? Do you see the faith, young people? That Naomi is this young girl who's just been introduced to this great God. Do you see the faith that she has? She said, "Let me go out and glean in the field of somebody that I shall find grace in." She was confident that if I walk by faith, I will experience grace. Amen. She said, "I want to go glean." Now, let me just explain to you what gleaning is. They didn't have welfare systems and EBT cards and all that kind of stuff back in the Bible days. And if you are a poor person, they didn't just send you money to your house or box up food and take it to your house. What they said was is, "Look, you're welcome to come to the fields of those who have the fields." And as they go through and they glean, and they would take the sickle and they would cut the barley and bind them into sheaves and load them on the wagons. And in the process of doing that, some of the barley would fall. And God, in his law, said, "Whatever barley falls when you're gleaning or when you're harvesting, leave it there. Don't pick that." And let the poor come in, and let them come behind the reapers, and they can pick up the leftovers. Now, what Naomi had in mind, or what Ruth had in mind, was, "We have nothing. We're empty." Remember? So I'm going to just walk out by faith and I'm just going to see if I can find grace. Am, and just pick up a little bit of pieces. And so she did. And I love this.

Now, watch what the Bible says. Naomi said, "Go my daughter." Verse three. "And she went, and came, and gleaned in the field after the reapers." Now, watch. "And her hap was to light on a part of the field belonging unto Boaz." Now, Boaz was a mighty man of wealth. What the Bible's saying here is this, when she walked out by faith, looking and expecting God's grace, it just so happened she came to Boaz's field. You know, it's amazing to me. It's amazing to me that when people walk by faith, how things just so happen to them. That's right. It just so happens she comes to Boaz's field, and she begins to glean in the field. She's bent over, just picking up whatever pieces are on the ground. And, and a gleaner would only expect to maybe get a day's worth of meal. She would only get a meal for that day, and she had to work very hard to get it. She had to pick up the pieces out of the dirt to find it. And she was out there reaping. And the Bible says that Boaz had been in Bethlehem picking up some supplies in verse four. And when he came back from Bethlehem, he said unto the reapers, "The Lord be with you." And they answered him, "The Lord bless him." This is just a casual greeting. His laborers are out in the field, his employees are working, and he gets out of the thing and he said, "Hey, Lord bless you guys." And they're like, "God be with you, Boaz." Just a temple greeting. And he's walking away. But something catches his eye. He just notices that these other gleaners are out there, but he sees a gleaner there. And he calls his head gleaner over. "Hey, hey, hey, come here." His head reaper. So his head reaper, the foreman, comes over and talks to the boss. And Boaz asks him a question. Now, let me tell you how we read our Bibles. This is where we get into a lot of trouble. Let me tell how we read our Bible. We read our Bible like this. We're like, um, "Boaz came from Bethlehem and said to the reapers, 'The Lord be with you,' and they answered, 'Lord bless thee,' and then Boaz said unto the damsel, 'It was said to the reapers, whose damsel is this?' and the servant who was over the reapers answered." That's how we read our Bibles. But that is not how he said it, right? He gets out of the truck, "Hey, Lord, Lord bless you guys." They're like, "Lord bless you, boss." And then he sees this girl, and he stops, and he looks at his foreman, "Hey, Bill, come here." And Bill walks over, and he goes, "Hey, whose damsel is this?" And the reaper, the, the foreman looks at him and he says in verse number six, he said, "Um, it's the Moabitess' damsel that came back with Naomi out of the country of Moab." I mean, can you hear the disgust? He's like, "Hey, whose damsel is this? Hey, don't get any ideas, boss. This is the Moabitess' girl that came back with crazy Naomi out of Moab." Did I mention Moab? And then Boaz just said, says, "Hmm," and walks away from the reaper and walks right over to Ruth. And she's just picking up pieces. Sometimes in our life, we're just in a place where we're just picking up the pieces, just trusting God, expecting grace, and we don't even understand what we've happened into. But God is working. Yes, sir.

And Boaz taps her, and she stands up and looks at him. And she probably doesn't even know who he is. They don't have Facebook. She's never seen this guy before. She has no idea. So she stands up and just looks at this guy. And he looks at her. And this is what he says. Um, he says, um, verse number eight, "Hearest thou not, my daughter? Go not to glean in any other field, neither go from hence, but abide here fast by my maidens. Let thine eyes be on the field that they do reap, and go thou after them. Have I not charged the young men that they shall not touch thee? And when thou art athirst, go unto the vessels and drink of that which the young men have drawn." And you know, those magic moments of those first experiences when man meets girl are always, you know, we think of the spark of romance, but a lot of times they're very awkward moments. Well, this is a very awkward moment. She's gleaning in the field. The guy looks at her. And the first thing that comes out of his mouth is, "How's your hearing? Can you hear me? Hear us not?" And she's standing there like, "Yeah, I, I can hear you. Okay. You follow these girls. Don't even look at another field. You stay in this field. You got it. And I've told the young men, I've told the young men not to touch you. Don't you touch her. And if you want something to drink, go get their vessels and you drink it. They'll give it to to you." And they're like, "What? This is the Moabitess' girl. She's not drinking out of my glass." So he's like, walks up to her and goes, "Can, you know, how's your hearing?" And then look what happens to her in verse 10. "Then she fell on her face." That's an awkward moment, right? Girls, the guy of your dreams walks up, "Hey, how you doing?" "Fine." Now, notice what she says, verse 10. She's on her face before him, and she says, "Why have I found grace in thine eyes?" You see, let me tell you something. When you walk out by faith, expecting God to provide, when you walk by faith, you'll experience grace. She says to Boaz, "Why have I found grace?" And Boaz said unto her, "It hath been fully showed me all that thou hast done unto thy mother-in-law since the day of thine death of thine husband, and how thou hast left thy father and thy mother, and the land of thy nativity, and art come unto the people which thou knewest not heretofore." This really touched Boaz's heart. It touched Boaz's heart that she left her family and her kindred and her nation and she came with Naomi to take care of her into a foreign country that she had no place in. That really spoke to Boaz's heart. And Boaz said to her, "The Lord recompense thy work. A full reward be given to thee." And then he even does something even more. In verse 14, Boaz said to her, "At mealtime, come thou hither." He invites her to lunch. "Hey, what are you doing for lunch?" "Yeah, I don't know. I was just going to be picking up some stuff in the field here." "Why don't you come to the house for lunch?" "Okay." And he said, "You can sit beside me." This is what he's telling her. Look at this. He said, "You can sit beside me and eat of the bread and dip the morsel in the vinegar." Now, listen, man, he's planning a great date. He's like, you know, we're going to have that little place like the Italian restaurant. You tear the bread off, you dip it in the olive oil and the spices. You know, you can stand with me, you can dip the bread and the morsel. And then she came in, and she didn't sit by Boaz. She sat by the reapers. She was a little bit of a shame, you know. She sits over there by the reapers. And the Bible said that he even, look at verse number 14, he even reached her the parched corn. You know what I love about Boaz? He was a mighty man of wealth, but Boaz was a romantic. The simple dates are always the best dates. You know, he reached to the parched corn. He just gave her some popcorn. You know, that's one of the great things about just being married is, you know, you, you put the kids to bed, and you and the wife just sit on the couch, pop some popcorn. You know, you can sit there and hold the bowl, and then you kind of work your arm around. You know what I'm talking about? You know, those are always great, fellas. Aren't those great times? The simple dates like that. And you know, I've kind of gotten away from the popcorn thing because, you know, those are always really good until you get one of those little kernels kind of spot-welded on the back of your tongue. Ever done that? You're just eating, you're like, you know, trying to make the move like, "Hey, how you..." She's like, "What's that?" "It's a..." Before long, you're like trying to reach it, but it's just too far back for your finger to get down there. So you just keep grabbing that little hangy thing in the back of your throat, you know. And she's like, "Milan, is that you? Are you sick?" But man, they're just, they're just, they're just talking. And then she says, "Okay, it's time to go." "When she had did eat, and was suffice, she got up and she risen, went out to glean." She went back to work in the heat of the day. And Boaz called the young men back in, said, "Hey, guys, come here." He said, "Listen, let her glean among the sheaves. Don't just make her pick up the pieces. Let her get in, in the bundles of the barley, and glean out of that too." And I think the look on their faces kind of set him off, 'cause they were like, "A Moabitess touching our sheaves of barley? Unthinkable!" And so he says, "Okay, verse 15, and let fall also some handfuls of purpose under her." He said, "Listen, don't just let her, don't just let her pick out of the sheaves, but the stuff up on the wagon, just throw handfuls down on purpose." You know, you listen, when you start walking by faith and expecting God's grace, you'll start finding that God will just start throwing things down, handfuls on purpose, handfuls on purpose.

So she goes out, she's gleaning in the field all day. And at the end of the day, she took about an ephah of barley. Now, listen, a normal gleaner would have only gotten about one day's worth of meal. She came home with an ephah. That's about a week's worth of food. She comes dragging that in the house. And Naomi says, "Where have you been gleaning? Where did you get that?" I mean, this is like a world's record for gleaners. And so verse number 19, when she said, "Where did you glean? Where did you rob? Blessed be that that he, I mean, who took knowledge of you? Somebody had to give this to you." And then she started showing her mother-in-law everything that happened and whom she had wrought. And she said, "The man's name that I was with was Boaz." She started telling the story. She said, "Look, I was out there just picking up the food, and this guy shows up, and he tells me not to go anywhere else, just to stay in his field. And then he invites me over for lunch. I'm eating lunch with them. I'm dipping bread in this stuff. It was amazing. And we ate some popcorn together. And then I went back out to the field, and I'm back out there gleaning. And I don't know what he told the guys that came out there, 'cause they just started throwing stuff at me." Naomi's like, "Where did you go?" And she said, "This guy named Boaz." And Naomi perked up. And she started kind of doing the little, "We're in the money! We're in the money!" Naomi says in verse 20, "Blessed be he of the Lord, who hath not left off his kindness to the living and to the dead." And Naomi said to her, "The man is near of kin unto us. He's the next of kinsman." That's a very important point. Because in the Bible, they had the law of the kinsman. That if a man died and he left a widow there with no seed, that the Bible says then the next person in line, someone in that family, then could then redeem her or buy everything that that was man, his property, his tent, his flock, box, and he would marry that wife, and then he would raise up children in her name and the dead husband's name. And the reason why God did that was very important, because you got to understand, the children of Israel were in the tribes, and God didn't want any mix-up in the tribes, because God had a plan with those tribes that out of Judah would come Jesus. God wanted to keep the tribes very distinct. And so he set up the law of the kinsman. So that a widow that was in Judah didn't have to go to somewhere in Reuben to then, and that Reuben could not come in and take part of the land of Dan. There was certain land given to those tribes. And so God set up the law of the kinsman redeemer. And she said, "Hey, this man's a kinsman. He's next of kin. This is good. We're in the money." I mean, you have found the big man on campus. He is the most eligible bachelor of Bethlehem, and you are the maiden of Moab. She's starting to matchmake. And see, this is what happens a lot of times with bitter people. Listen to me, people who are bitter, what they really have in their bitterness, it's a fact that they just don't trust God. See, Naomi thought that God had done them wrong, so she didn't really trust God. And what, one of the signs that you can see if you're a bitter person or not, is whether or not in situations of life, you start trying to manipulate things. Naomi started to try to matchmake this thing instead of just trusting God. Yeah.

So she starts telling her, "Hey, don't go into any other field. You go back there." In fact, in chapter three, we won't go through all of this, but in chapter three, Naomi sits Ruth down and says, "Let me tell you what you're going to do. What you're going to do is tonight, when they're threshing the, the, the barley, women aren't supposed to go down there, but tonight, you get down there just before it gets dark, and you stay a little ways away, and you mark in there where Boaz is. Because it's a very, they bring all their barley in, they pile it up in a heap in the threshing floor, and then the men work on it all day, then they lay down and they sleep around it and guard it. And so you find out where Boaz sleeps, and then when it gets dark and he's asleep, you slip in there and you find out where his bed is, and you get right at his feet." She said, "The first thing I want you to do is, you know, you've been gleaning all day, so go take a, go take a bath and wash yourself and change your garments from your work clothes to something nice, and put on some perfume." And by the way, I wish I had time to do this because Naomi was in her flesh, but what she was really doing is she was giving me and you in the New Testament a plan on how to get close to Jesus. Yeah. Said, "Get clean, get the right clothes on." You know, the problem is a lot of times we come to God only when we're in dire need. And we all listen very carefully, many of us, the only time we really fervently pray and seek God is when we're in trouble. We only come to God with our garments of mourning. Wow. And Isaiah chapter 53 says, "Hey, take off the garments of mourning." The, the Isaiah 51, "Take off the garments of mourning and put on the garments of gladness." You know, every once in a while, what, what she was telling Naomi, she said, "Naomi, take off these old clothes you perspired on and put something nice on." You know, it'd be really good sometimes for us if you really want to get close to Jesus, to come in sometimes not with your sackcloth on, but with your praise on. If you really want to get close to Jesus, tomorrow go in your prayer closet and don't ask for anything. Just tell him who he is. Just praise him with the oil of gladness. Just shout for joy in there and tell Jesus who he really is. And she said, "And not only that, but anoint yourself with some perfume. Get some perfume on." Man, I remember the first time I met my wife. I'll never forget the smell. We got in the car, and man, that smell. There's a company that doesn't make that perfume anymore. I heard that they were going out of business making that perfume, so I bought up a bunch of it because I like my wife to spray that stuff on. And the Bible says, what, what she was really doing was she anointed herself with that fragrance. Let me tell you what that is for us in the New Testament. That is to be anointed with the Holy Spirit. When we get anointed with the Holy Spirit, and we start getting close to Jesus, he says, "I like that smell. That smells like home. That's familiar. I like that." A consecrated Christian who is clean and who is rightly clothed in the garments of praise can get close. But not only that, she said, "Get to his feet." And she said, "Uncover his feet and lay at his feet. Uncover them and lay them, lay at his feet." Now, don't read 2017 America and anything bad into this. It was a very pure thing. What, what this was, is a custom. She would lay at his feet and uncover his feet and put herself at his feet. And in the darkness, Boaz woke up and said, "Who is that?" And she said, "It's Ruth the Moabitess." And he said, "Oh, thank goodness, because all my brethren doth know that thou art a virtuous woman." You know, a virtuous woman's hard to find, and she's the only one in the Bible that's called a virtuous woman. He said, "I'm glad it's you, Ruth, who's uncovered my feet, because everybody knows that you're, you're, you're not going to be."

A woman who's inappropriate? You're one to be trusted. You have virtue. And what she was doing here? Here was the custom. When she uncovered his feet and led herself at his feet, what she was saying was this. She was saying to Boaz, "I have nothing, but I'm putting myself at your feet, and I'm putting myself in a position for you to decide to reject me or to put your garments over my feet." And your feet as a symbol that you're bringing me under your roof of protection. She laid herself there, and Boaz takes the blanket, covers her feet, and she laid there till morn at the feet of Boaz. You know, I'll tell you this right now, there's no sweeter place to be than at the feet of Jesus.

Well, Ruth gets up in the morning, and she goes back home. And if you'll look down here in chapter three, look down here in verse number 16. By the way, when she got up, he gave her a ton of barley again and sent her home with more. In verse number 16, when she came to her mother-in-law, she Naomi said, "Who art thou, my daughter?" Now, how many of you right now believe that Naomi knew who Ruth was? So she was not like, "Hey, who are you?" She was saying, "Who are you, my daughter? Are you Ruth the Moabitess, or are you Mrs. Boaz? Who are you?" And she told her all the things the man had done unto her. And she said, "And these six measures of barley he gave to me." This is like a month's worth of food. She said, "I want you to go home. Don't go empty to your mother-in-law." And then Naomi said, "Sit still, my daughter, until thou know how the matter will fall, for the man will not be in rest until he have finished the thing this day."

Now, listen to me. This is important. He said, "Now, you went down there, you put yourself at his feet, he covered you. Now, listen, that's it. Sit down and wait, and let him finish it." See, when you're walking by faith, picking up the pieces along the way, expecting God, just waiting on God to step in, and you've done everything you know to do to get at his feet, there's a point where you have to just stand still and let God finish it. So she does.

Well, Boaz had to go to court because there was a problem. There was a, there was a kinsman that was nearer to Ruth and Naomi than him. Now, that's a problem, guys. That's a problem when you really like a girl, but there's another guy. Right? But I mean, but it's one of those situations where the deal is not done till there's a ring. But Boaz is like, "Oh no, there's another guy." So he takes off down to the gate. He goes to the courthouse. This is the gate where they do all their legal business. And he goes down there and he waits, and he finds the other kinsman walking by. And he says, in verse one, "Ho, such and one, turn aside, sit down here. Come here and sit down." The guy sat down, and he said, "Um, I need 10 elders of the land." And by the way, the Bible says with these 10 elders that they were the witnesses. These, these 10 witnesses, and by their word, every word would be established. So he brings these 10 witnesses in. This is legal. This is legal talk. He sets these men over, kind of like the jury and the judge, and they sit down over there. And he says, "Okay, now everybody's sitting down. I want everybody to hear this."

Verse three, he said, "Now, everybody understand, Naomi that has come out of the country of Moab, sell the parcel of land that was my, our brother Elimelech's. And so I thought to advertise to thee, saying, buy it before the inhabitants and before the elders of my people. If thou wilt redeem it, redeem it. And if thou wilt not redeem it, then tell me that I may know, for there's none to redeem it besides thee, and I am thee, and I'm after thee." And he said, "I will redeem it."

Now, you got to understand something. In order to be a kinsman redeemer, if this guy wants to get everything that's Elimelech's, buy all that was his, and all that was Mahlon's, and all that was Chilion's, and everything that comes with it, in order to be a, in order to be a kinsman redeemer, two things had to happen. Number one, you had to be willing to be the redeemer. I mean, you couldn't be forced to do it, you had to be willing to do it. But not only that, you had to be able to do it. You had to have enough money to buy it all. So there were some people that were like, "Man, I really wish I could buy Elimelech's stuff, but I just don't have any money."

Now, Boaz was willing, and he was able. He was a mighty man of wealth. Everybody with me right now? So he said, "The other guy, hey, look, this is the parcel of land, Elimelech's. If you want it, I'm going to give it to you. Go ahead. I'm going to give you the first chance. You're the first one in line. I'm going to give it to you. If you want it, go ahead and get it. You know, just, you know, you make a decision. If not, you just tell me, and I'll think about it." And the guy's like, "Oh yeah, I'll take it." Oh, can you know what happened in Boaz's heart? Oh, no.

Well, a guy who is really, really in love is going to find a way. So Boaz, the, oh man, he hears it, and he just wheels around. He looks at the guy and goes, "Okay, fine. Okay, in front of everybody, I want to just make this well known. Look over here." Look at verse number five. He said, "Okay, then said Boaz, all right, what day thou buyest the field of the hand of Naomi, thou must buy it also of Ruth of the Moabitess." Now, you understand the emphasis here. He said, "Okay, whenever you buy this land from this Moabitess girl, she also comes. She's a Moabitess, and she comes with a bitter mother-in-law." Boaz was no dummy. "You're going to get a Moabitess girl and a bitter mother-in-law."

And the guy says, "What most guys would say, 'I can't redeem it. I'm out. You lost me at bitter mother-in-law. I mean, I was kind of really weighing it there with the Moabit thing, but bitter mother-in-law, I'm out. I can't redeem it.'" Now, notice what he says in verse six. He said, "I cannot redeem it for myself, lest I mar my own inheritance." He said, "You know, I've built all this wealth. I have all this land. I'm fully entrenched in Bethlehem, Judea. I am a, I'm a major part of the tribe of Judah. And if I do this, if I do this, I'm going to mess up my inheritance." What was he talking about? A Moabitess cannot be involved in the inheritance of the land for 10 generations. He said, "I can't mess this up for me and my family. I'm out."

They had a really weird custom in those days. The custom they had in those days that as soon as the guy said, "I cannot redeem it, lest I mar my own inheritance," he said, "Go ahead and get it to thyself. I can't redeem it." Verse seven kind of has to give us a little qualifier that there was a former, there was a manner in the former time in Israel concerning redeeming and concerning changing, to concern all things that a man plucked off his shoe and gave it to his neighbor, and this was a testimony in Israel. That's kind of a weird thing. So, so he says, "Okay, fine. If you're going to get it, you know, it's a Moabitess girl and, and a bitter mother-in-law." The guy's like, "I'm out. I, I can't inherit. If you want it, you can redeem it. I'm out. Go ahead and get it for yourself." And Boaz is like, "Okay, it's mine." Everybody see the shoe? The shoe's off. This is mine. And he hands the shoe to the guy. So the guy's just standing there with Boaz, a shoe. And Boaz is walking around with one shoe on, saying, "I'll take her. I'm, I'm, I'm going to inherit this."

Boaz draws off his shoe, and Boaz said to the elders in verse nine, "And all the people, ye are witnesses this day." Now, remember these 10 witnesses, they're going to establish every word he said. "I want you to understand that you're witnesses this day that I have bought all that was Elimelech's, and all that was Chilion's, and all that was Mahlon's." Oh, listen very carefully, friend. Listen to me. This throws a major monkey wrench in the beliefs of the Calvinists. This throws a major monkey wrench in those who say that God, God only selects some, that God only chose Ruth and not Oprah. The Bible teaches here that everything that was Mahlon's, that's Ruth, and everything that was Chilion's, that's Orpah, all of it was redeemed. Orpah was redeemed. She just didn't know it. Wow. Come on. Jesus didn't just die for your sins. He died for the sins of the whole world. There's just a lot of them that just don't know it.

He said, "Moreover, Ruth the Moabitess, the wife of Mahlon, have I purchased to be my wife, to raise up the name of the dead to his inheritance, that the name of the dead be not cut off from among his brethren from the gate of his place. Ye are witnesses this day." And all the people in the gate and the elders said, "We are witnesses." And by the way, in God's law, that confirmed it, that sealed the deal. It was done.

And then the witnesses did something very interesting. They approached Boaz, and they said to Boaz, look at this. They said to Boaz, "The Lord make the woman that is come into thine house like Rachel and Leah, which two did build the house of Israel. And do thou worthily in Ephratah, and be famous in Bethlehem." And then they said this. What they said was, "We're putting this blessing of Rachel and Leah. We want your home to be famous in Bethlehem." And then they made another, they made another blessing. They became that became law. This is what God established in these witnesses. And God then had them say these words, "And let thy house be like the house of Pharez, whom Tamar bare unto Judah, of the seed which the Lord shall give thee of this young woman."

He said, "Listen, not only do we want your house to be like Rachel and Leah and to be part of the great blessing of that, not only that, but we want to put you under the same blessing and lineage of Pharez." You say, "What's important about that?" Way back in Genesis chapter 38, Judah took off down to the Edomites with his friend Hirah. He went and lived among the ungodly women. He married a woman that he was not supposed to marry, of the Gentiles, and had a son with her. And that son became so wicked that God killed him. And so then that son had married a girl named Tamar. Tamar then became the wife of Judah's next son, and that son was so wicked that God killed him. And remember who Judah was? Judah was the man who conspired to kill his own brother Joseph, and threw him in a pit and sold him for $9 to the Israelites, and then tore up his coat and dipped it in blood and took it back to his father Jacob and said, "Our your son was killed by a wild beast." Listen, if Judah was that kind of a wicked man, and he was that wicked, and God didn't kill him, what kind of things were his sons doing?

So then Judah sends Tamar back home. Tamar goes home. And a few months later, at the time of the sheep shearing, Judah goes down looking for another party. He's a wicked, ungodly man. He goes down looking for a party. And when he gets down there in the sheep shearing days, he turns into a tent of a harlot and he lays with a harlot, and she conceives. Come to find out that that harlot was Tamar, his daughter-in-law. She has these two boys named Pharez and Zerah. What a wicked family. What sin was doing to the life of Judah. And yet, because of the faithfulness of Joseph, they came out of that land and came to Goshen, and God restored Judah. Judah repented. God restored him. And somehow Pharez's home became a home that was godly. And they said to Boaz, many years later, they said, "Hey, we want your family to be under the blessing of Pharez."

So here, now listen to this carefully. Benjamin Franklin, in the early days of America, many people don't know this, was an ambassador to France. And he was over in France. And as he was sitting around with all the aristocrats and all the up-ups and the educated people in France, they were discussing literature. And these men were godless men, many of them atheists. They were talking about the greatest stories ever told. And Benjamin Franklin told the story of this Moabitess, this girl, this widowed maiden who came to a foreign land, and this wealthy man purchased her and loved her and bought her and gave everything he had to be with her. And they said, "Man, what a beautiful love story." They said, "Man, Ben, that ought to be in print somewhere. That's a beautiful love story. The most beautiful we've ever heard." And they said, "You ought to put that in print." He said, "It's already in print." They said, "Where?" And he said, "In the book that you despise, the Bible." What a beautiful love story.

Listen to me. I want you young girls to listen to this. When you start walking by faith and trusting God, God's going to bring you to your Boaz. There's such a beautiful story of walking by faith and picking up the pieces, and God pouring out handfuls of grace. Then the story of Ruth, this beautiful story ends with a genealogy. You know, genealogies? When I was a kid, every year I wanted to read my Bible through, and I would do so good till I got to First Chronicles, and then I'd be like, "This guy begat this guy." And I'm looking at the page, you know, next year I'm going to finish. Is anybody ever with me on the, on the, on the Chronicles? Do you know that in the Bible, there are only eight verses that tell us of the origin of the universe? Only eight verses explain where all the galaxies, the trillions of galaxies and infinite space came from, in eight verses. And then there are chapters filled with names we can't even pronounce. I asked the Lord about that one day. I said, "God, why in the world would you put eight verses to tell us where everything came from, and then fill the rest with all these names we can't even pronounce?" You know, the Lord just spoke to my heart with, you know, "Dean, I love people more than things." And then the Holy Spirit just nudged my heart with this. He said, "Aren't you glad that you serve a God that likes to write names in his book?" Amen. And God said, "You know, while you're stumbling over all those names, and you have no idea who they are, I know every one of them. I know where they were born. I know what they did. I know where they died. I know them by name. I formed them. I made them. And I recorded their name in the book." And aren't you glad tonight, church, that you have a God who likes to write names in his book? And there is a book in heaven. There are nothing in there but names. There's a new name written down in glory, and it's mine. And God ends the book of Ruth with a genealogy. And you know, I just thought, "That's a terrible way to end a love story." And then one day, I just began to read through it again, and the Lord began to show me some things.

Look at verse 18. The elders had put them under the blessing of Pharez. In verse 18, it said, "Now these are the generations of Pharez." Now, by the way, let me just stop and ask you a question for just a minute. The other kinsman did not want to take Ruth because he didn't want to mar his inheritance. Does anybody here know who Boaz's mother was? Boaz's mother was Rahab, the harlot. And a Hebrew boy saw a woman who let down a red rope of hope, who believed in Almighty God. The wicked girl of Jericho. He married her. Boaz knew what it was for a young girl to leave her family and her kindred and her nation and her gods and come to a foreign land and turn to a God of Israel. He had seen something about his mama in Ruth. When he saw her gleaning in the field, he saw his mama as that outcast woman who was loved by Salmon, and Salmon had given everything of his inheritance to love this woman who had put her faith in the God of Israel. And Salmon said, "I would rather have a woman, a woman of faith, than all the land of Israel. I'd rather have her. A virtuous woman is far harder to find, her price is far above rubies." And when Boaz saw this little girl from a foreign land, he said, "There's something familiar about her. I would become poor to have a woman rich in faith." And he who was rich became poor. Boaz set aside his inheritance to take the little Moabitess maid. But God allowed the elders of Israel to put them under the blessings of Pharez. And watch it, everybody. Look at verse 18. "These are the generations of Pharez." Pharez born of a woman named Tamar, his wicked relationship. And here it is. Pharez, everybody say Pharez. One. Ready? Pharez. One. And Pharez begat Hezron. Two. And Hezron begat Ram. Three. And Ram begat Amminadab. Four. And Amminadab begat Nahshon. Five. And Nahshon begat Salmon. Six. And Salmon begat Boaz. Seven. And Boaz begat Obed. Eight. And Obed begat Jesse. Nine. And Jesse begat David. Ten. And at the 10th generation, God said, "Anoint that baby that is going to be the son in whose house my son will dwell. He will have a throne established forever and ever. Give the land to him, the blessed King of Israel, with me, whose house will be born the King of Kings and Lord of Lords forever and ever shall reign in that home." Amen.

Wow. When you walk by faith, and God steps in by grace, he brings Jesus out of it. Amen. I want to say to everybody at Bible Baptist Church, you listen to me. There's going to come some times in your life when you're going to be forced to pick up pieces. And if you'll walk by faith and begin to pick up pieces by faith, waiting for God's grace, God will be doing a work that you have no idea. God had begun a work way back with Pharez, and God was building a work all the way through. And those people who walk by faith, God stepped in by grace, and the outcome of that was Jesus. Do you know the greatest testimony that ever could be told of your life was that you walked so much by faith, and God intervened in your life with so much grace, that the only thing that people could see in you was Jesus? What a wonderful story of the maiden of Moab and the bachelor of Bethlehem, united in matrimony by the grace of God to bring forth King Jesus. Our Father, I pray tonight that you will increase our faith. Lord, I pray tonight that we would be people with