The sermon 'Under His Wings - The Providence of God' by Paul Carrington explores the theme of God's providence through the story of Ruth and Boaz in Ruth Chapter 2. The sermon highlights how Ruth, a Moabite widow, finds favor in the eyes of Boaz, a wealthy relative of her deceased husband. Boaz's kindness and protection towards Ruth are seen as an embodiment of God's grace and providence. The speaker emphasizes that Ruth's journey represents a shift from destitution to abundance, paralleling the biblical theme of redemption. Ruth's faith and initiative to glean in Boaz's field despite her foreign status reflect her trust in God's providential care. Boaz's actions are depicted as a foreshadowing of Christ's redemptive work, highlighting the concept of a 'kinsman redeemer.' The sermon underscores that God's providence is evident in the seemingly mundane events of life, orchestrating outcomes for the greater good. The sermon concludes by encouraging believers to find refuge under God's wings and recognize His providential work in their lives.

Ruth, chapter 2. There was a relative of Naomi's husband, a man of great wealth of the family of Elimelech. His name was Boaz. So Ruth the Moabitess said to Naomi, please let me go to the field and glean heads of grain after him in whose sight I may find favor.' And she said to her, go my daughter. Then she left and went and gleaned in the field after the reapers, and she happened to come to the part of the field belonging to Boaz, who was of the family of Elimelech.

Now behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem and said to the reapers, The Lord be with you. And they answered him, The Lord bless you. Then Boaz said to his servants, who was in charge of the reapers, whose young woman is this? So the servant who was in charge of the reapers answered and said, it is the young Moabite woman who came back with Naomi from the country of Moab, and she said, Please let me glean and gather after the reapers among the sheaves. So she came and has continued from morning until now, though she rested a little in the house.

Then Boaz said to Ruth, You will listen, my daughter, will you not? Do not go to glean in another field, nor go from here, but stay close by my young women. Let your eyes be on the field which they reap, and go after them. Have I not commanded the young men not to touch you? And when you are thirsty, go to the vessels and drink water from what the young men have drawn." So she fell on her face, bowed down to the ground, and said to him, why have I found favor in your eyes that you should take notice of me since I am a foreigner?

And Boaz answered and said to her, it has been fully reported to me all that you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband and how you have left your father and your mother and the land of your birth and have come to a people whom you did not know before the Lord repay your work and a full reward be given you by the Lord God of Israel under whose wings you have come for refuge. Then she said, let me find favor in your sight my Lord for you have comforted me and have spoken kindly to your maidservant though I am not like one of your maidservants. Now Boaz said to her at mealtime, come here and eat of the bread and dip your piece of the bread in the vinegar. So she sat beside the reapers and he passed the parched grain to her and she ate and was satisfied and kept some back. And when she rose up to glean, Boaz commanded his young men, saying, Let her glean even among the sheaves, and do not reproach her.

Also, let grain from the bundles fall purposely for her. Leave it that she may glean, and do not rebuke her. So she gleaned in the field until evening and beat out that which she had gleaned and it was about an ifah of barley. Then she took it up and went into the city and her mother-in-law saw what she had gleaned. So she brought out and gave to her what she had kept back after she had been satisfied.

And her mother-in-law said to her, Where have you gleaned today and where did you work? Blessed be the one who took notice of you. So she told her mother-in-law with whom she had worked and said, the man's name with whom I work today is Boaz. Then Naomi said to her daughter-in-law, blessed be he of the Lord who has not forsaken his kindness to the living and the dead. And Naomi said to her, this man is a relation of ours, one of our close relatives.

Ruth the Moabite has said, he also said to me, you shall stay close by my young men until they have finished all my harvest. And Naomi said to Ruth, her daughter-in-law, it is good my daughter that you should go out with his young women and that people do not meet you in any other field. So she stayed close by the young women of Boaz to glean until the end of barley harvest and wheat harvest. And she dwelt with her mother-in-law. Let's pray.

Oh father we we come to you this morning thankful for your word and Lord really we have two objectives Lord we We want to see Christ high and lifted up and exalted in our midst. And Lord, for those that are cast down, maybe in the same condition as Ruth and Naomi, those that are acquainted with their great lack and need, Lord I pray that you would feed them and that you would point them to the one who is exalted and lifted up, oh Lord. May you be glorified in our midst now as we go through your word. In Jesus name we pray, amen. Amen.

Well you can be seated. Well this morning we're in this beautiful section of Scripture, Ruth chapter 2, and just to remind us of where we've been in chapter 1, you remember that black backdrop of all that that occurred to both Naomi as well as to Ruth, the intense misery and loss. They had been met with famine and death and now they had been made widows. You could imagine the intensity of the of the sadness and the brokenness that they had experienced. And remember that Naomi had left Bethlehem.

She had left Israel. She had been looking for greener pastures and she ended up in Moab with her family. And as a result of ten years of suffering and difficulty, she had now returned totally empty and utterly destitute really in many ways with no one really to help her. She was now a widow and she was also sonless after everything that occurred to her. And so we're left with this kind of impression of just terror and destruction and all of these things, this picture that's been painted for us, but the last verse of chapter one, it says this at the end, it says, now they came to Bethlehem at the beginning of barley harvest.

This coincides with the new year in the calendar in Israel, where the Passover would have taken place. In many ways it suggests a change of season where things are about to completely kind of turn around. And so chapter two really focuses on a meeting that takes place here. It's a God-ordained meeting which has massive implications. It's going to feature amazingly important down through the course of human history.

It's a meeting not only for the good of those that were involved, but for our benefit here in 2019 sitting in the house of God. Well how could it be that a meeting that took place in a field across the ocean 3, 200 years ago could be for our benefit at all. Well, from this encounter, what we're going to find is that a marriage comes out of it. And from the marriage comes forth a boy. And that boy just so happens to be the grandfather of King David who happens to be the great great great great grandfather of the one to come and who is prophesied In Micah chapter 5 verse 2 it says this, but you Bethlehem, Ephrathah, though you are little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of you shall come forth to me the one to be ruler in Israel, whose going forth are from of old, from everlasting.

And so the central theme really of the of the book of Ruth is redemption. It's really the theme of the Bible, isn't it? When you start in Genesis and you go all the way to Revelation. And what the picture is is that what man has spoiled Through his sin and through his rebellion God will demonstrate his power and his matchless grace To overcome even what man has done in his great rebellion And so that's what this chapter that's before us really is all about. It's the wonderful grace that we see through the providence of a great and merciful and kind God.

And so here I want to ask you just a question. Are you one, perhaps like Ruth as we read in verse 12, who has come to refuge under the shadow of Jehovah's wings. If you are, you should be able to draw courage and comfort from what we're going to be studying today. You know Sinclair Ferguson made this beautiful statement, he says this, that in scripture God writes in block capital letters the principles of his providence so that when he rewrites them in our lives in small sometimes microscopic writing we see that he is the same God. And that's really the hope.

What we see here today before us, we can also take and see in our lives today. But what is providence? Well, rather than giving a definition, what does God do? He shows us what providence is through biography, through these few verses that we have before us here this morning. You know, one of the significant ways that our secular world bombards us and that we often fall victim and our minds become infiltrated oftentimes is with the thought that, yeah, sure, there is a God.

I was actually talking to a man yesterday who thought it was quite a thing to say, yes, I believe in God. He thought he should get a pat on the back, it sounded like, for that. But the God that he believed in was a God that was a far off. And especially if you're a young person, you probably know what I'm talking about today that sure God is there, but how interested and how related is he to my individual life. And this assault, when does it come?

It comes at times of greatest weakness and discouragement. These thoughts of maybe he is a God, sure, but he's far away. Every so often maybe he looks down from heaven and They call it in the world divine intervention, you know just in certain circumstances when things are really really bad I just need some divine intervention as though God other than that. He can kind of keep his distance And really when you think about it that the darkest world to live in is a world that is devoid of an understanding of the providence of God. It's really a terrible place to live but know this that this is our Father's world and what is providence?

Well it's really the outworking of God's rule in the earth. It's his weaving of this tapestry that we can't really always understand, but he's doing something. He's guiding, he's governing absolutely everything down to the minutest detail. He keeps the entire universe in order from the sparrows falling to the ground to the anxious thoughts that Oftentimes assault your mind and bind us and oftentimes surround us This is the God that we serve and so Providence can be summarized really in three words. Men of old used to summarize it like this, God for us.

That is the providence of God. That's what Paul talks about in Romans 8, that if God is for us, who could be against us? The one who spared not his own son but freely gave him up for us. That's really what providence is for those that is rather the called according to his purpose. Not for everyone but for the called according to his purpose.

And we have a chapter in our Second London Baptist Confession. Chapter 5 actually is all about the providence of God, but the Heidelberg Catechism does a great job of summarizing it. And they asked this question, question 28, how does the knowledge of God's providence help us? Well the answer is that we may be patient in adversity, thankful in prosperity, and for what is future have good confidence in our faithful God and Father that no creature shall separate us from his love since all creatures are so in his hand that without his will they cannot so much as move." And so God's providence, whether it's in Joseph being sold into slavery or Miriam, remember her dancing on the shores after the Lord had overthrown the horse and its rider. You could look at Mary after the resurrection, the first one to the tomb or the throng that gathers around the throne in heaven.

All of it, all of it, what Providence does is it causes us to give way to worship when you begin to understand that God is reigning and He's in control and He's working all things for my good. You can't help but just praise Him for all of that. And so before us today, what we're going to see is that even though it's Israel's Darkest period God is he's not any more constrained than in any other period it is even it was their best time In fact what he's gonna demonstrate today is not only is he is he not hampered and not only is he not constrained but he's gonna expand the borders of Israel to welcome in a foreigner into his into his covenant community and so the question is I just want to ask us as we kick off here is do we believe that everything in the world and in our own lives down to those minute details is actually ordained by the providence of God. It's a big question and another question to ask is how often do we meditate on this thought that everything that concerns us is managed by the wise and kind vigilance of a father who's sitting over absolutely everything from first to last.

Your entire life is in his hands. And so oftentimes I know for myself we just can't see it and it causes consternation and flux and we get into all sorts of mind games that we end up deceiving ourselves in. But God is overall and I think that's what he wants us to understand here from Ruth chapter 2. And so the doctrine of God's providence is nowhere better exemplified in the sending of a Redeemer. Here a kinsman Redeemer, but that's only a foreshadowing of the great Redeemer, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.

And so Boaz is really a picture of free grace that pictures the better Boaz that's to come. And so we get to verse 1 and it says here that there was a relative of Naomi's husband, a man of great wealth of the family of Elimelech. His name was Boaz. And we hear meet kind of the anti-Elimelech. Remember where Elimelech left, this man stayed the course through famine.

And it describes him as a man of great wealth and other translations take the Hebrew and render it as a worthy man or a man of a prominent and noble character. This is really the description of how we find this man in verse 1. And what do we know about this man from the record of Scripture? Well, when you flip forward now into the New Testament, right before there's a mention of Ruth, there's a mention of someone else, and it says Salman begot Boaz by Rahab. It's amazing.

You know the book of Joshua, it speaks about this woman, Rahab, the harlot, this Canaanite prostitute really, that let the spies into into Jericho and she's one of two women that are listed in the Hebrew Hall of Faith in Hebrews chapter 11 and only one of two is one is Sarah the other one is by faith Rahab the harlot And it goes on to describe what she did. This was his mother, and so by extension, this man was a man that had been a recipient of grace, and because he was a recipient of grace, He became a great dispenser of grace. This is really the Christian life. If you've received grace, your wonderful privilege and obligation is to become a dispenser of grace. Remember what Paul says in 1st Corinthians chapter 6.

He says, and such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God. And so this is really the entire life of a Christian, whether you were Matthew the publican, or whether you were Mary Magdalene, Saul of Tarsus, that murderer. All throughout history he takes men, A man that was a blasphemer like John Bunyan or a slaver like John Newton. And he takes their lives and he begins to infuse with grace through Jesus Christ.

This is really what we see in this man, Boaz. And what's interesting later on in the account of Scripture in the Old Testament when Solomon builds the temple it says this then he set up the pillars in the vest by the vestibule of the temple he set up the pillar on the right and called its name Jacob and he set up the pillar on the left and called its name Boaz. These two pillars upholding the worship and the temple of God, this indication of strength and stability really. And so out of the gate in verse 1 The author really wants us to consider this man. He's really the central figure in this chapter.

He becomes really the central figure in the book, not because the most is said about him, but because he's the hinge point on which everything turns in this book. And so in verse two, we find out it says this, so Ruth the Moabite has said to Naomi, please let me go to the field and glean heads of grain after him and whose sight I may find favor. And she said, go my daughter. Well we've already spent some time with this remarkable young woman. We heard her words in chapter one, but now we get a sense of the character of this woman and what she's really made up of, what's really been working in her heart.

You know, the the overriding theme of chapter one was return, Return to the land of promise and to the house of bread because she had heard much about god as well as about god's People but it remains to be seen What kind of god will she find in experience and what will she discover? About the people of God that really becomes The unfolding going forward and so by now in verse 2 the initial excitement of arriving back home and the clamor And all the women surrounding Naomi all of that's worn off and hunger pangs now begin to set in on these two destitute women. And so to stave off starvation, we see this initiative that this young lady takes, this diligent spirit. She's not just gonna sit around and wait for provision to drop in her lap. There's no woe is me attitude here at all.

But notice the kind of work that she's willing to do. Really an indication of who she is. It speaks about gleaning heads of grain after the reapers. What was left behind was what she was going to go after. You couldn't find more humble work in Israel.

And she was willing to scrounge. This was hard, hot, unglamorous work, but she was willing to do it joyfully for the sustenance of herself and her mother-in-law because one thing she knew, one thing she knew and that she was relying upon is that God is good. That's the one thing she knew. She saw kindness and grace that was baked into the law of God. And you'll see what I mean in a second here.

Because here's the problem. Sadly, maybe even some here, but sadly, especially even in our modern day Christian world, people don't really see grace in the law of God. They see almost the law of God as a great enemy, something that's opposed to the Christian, but not Ruth. And we don't see that in Boaz either, as we'll see later on in this chapter. In Deuteronomy 24, here what I mean, This is the law of God and it says this, when you reap your harvest, speaking to landowners, when you reap your harvest in your field and forget a sheaf in the field, you shall not go back to get it.

It shall be for the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands." And then the Lord goes on to speak about olives, the olive tree. When you get your olives from the tree, you shake the tree, and if some don't fall, don't go and get every one. If you go through your vineyard and you're plucking the grapes, don't get every single one, but leave some for the destitute of Israel. And then it ends with this. And you shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt.

Therefore I command you to do this thing. You received grace, show grace is really the message here. And this is really what biblical justice is all about. It reflects the tender mercy of God on those who have little or nothing due to oftentimes Circumstances beyond their control and and what happens here is that the poor were not simply to go To Jerusalem and and line up for handouts put their hand out and go to the office of welfare. That wasn't what happened in Israel whatsoever.

And so while this was a law for the nation of Israel, and it no longer directly applies perhaps to farmers today, the general principle is one that should be heeded. The way we've set things up in our modern day that we think is so kind-hearted, you know, you just line up or you get a check every month if you want to just be on welfare, that's not kind. But God's law is kind because through hard work the poor should provide for their needs. It does something, the psychological effects of just receiving a handout is self-destructive. But this here, where you're actually going out and you're laboring, is something that we may want to consider as a nation and as a people, even as the church.

And God is good. That's really what the message is here. And so is the law of God. And so before Boaz and Ruth meet together, we have this interchange in verse 3 to 7. And it says this, then she left and went and gleaned in the field after the Reapers and she happened to come to the part of the field belonging to Boaz who was of the family of a limelight and it just says she just happened to come in the Hebrew it renders as it just simply a chance as chance chanced it just happened to come you know she had no reason to pick one field over another, did she?

There was nothing, she didn't know anything. She was new to this whole place. But remember God's providence, that God is leading, he's ordaining, he's bringing to pass something. And so from a human perspective, it looks like chance. Just happened to choose a field.

But what we're being told is that while things oftentimes happen unbeknownst to us, nothing just happens, does it? See words like chance and fortune are really heathen terms. They're not Christian terms. I chance this happened or this is fortune. No, none of that exists or should exist within the Christian vocabulary.

But again, this is Providence, God for us, that's brought all of this to pass. And in verse 4, we see here, now behold Boaz came from Bethlehem and said to the reapers, the Lord be with you. Notice what happens, the Lord of the harvest, so to speak, shows up in his field. And notice how he greets his laborers. He doesn't just overlook the laborers and go to the foreman.

There's this beautiful spirit, the Lord be with you, and they respond in kind. You know, you could imagine him operating almost as though he's a Christian CEO in the midst of the time of judges. Just maybe like a modern day CEO operating in the midst of everything we see around us. Greed and all of these things, cooking books, trying to make things appear better than they are, trying to reach higher up on the chart of the wealthiest. This man is a Christian CEO operating His corporation in a way that brings honor and glory to God It's such a wonderful thing when you when you see that operating in a dog eat dog world that men still retain their integrity and this is what's happening here you might even think about yourself as an employee and what kind of what kind of Christian ethic do you bring to the workplace?

It's really something that's beautiful to consider. Well, in verse five to seven, he strikes up this conversation with his foreman. And he greets his foreman, and he asks him a question, whose young woman is this? It's amazing, one thing for a man who's great and noble to greet his labors, but to scan the fields and to actually set his eyes upon not a reaper, but upon a gleaner. It tells you much about the nature, the spirit of this man.

And he makes this inquiry And he gets the answer back that it is the young Moabite woman who came back with Naomi from the country of Moab. His foreman is making sure you understand this woman is from Moab. You know, the woman from Moab who came back from Moab. That's kind of how he's saying it. It's she's the talk of the town everyone is speaking about her And he because he says the woman everyone knows it but notice what we see here in these following verses very important notice There's no plotting.

There's no scheming. We'll save that for chapter 3, but but there's no operation Hagar operating right here. There's no taking matters into anyone's hands at all. Ruth has simply begun what appears to be a mundane life in the fields, and Boaz is just going out as he might normally do just to check on his fields every so often maybe he had multiple fields who knows but but God has orchestrated something beautiful here it's perfect timing and it really begs the question doesn't it must we plot must we scheme and manipulate circumstances to bring about what we think should happen? Is that really the the role or can we can we trust and rest in the kind providence of God for our greatest needs?

You know this doesn't mean that we don't go to work. We see a perfect example of Ruth doing that. It doesn't mean we don't educate our children and we're not diligent to educate our children. That doesn't it doesn't mean that at all. But what about the motions of our heart?

How are they? Are we constantly plotting and scheming and looking to figure out how we can turn the dials to make things work out for what we think might be our favor. Well we see the beautiful way that God can orchestrate things because what plotting and scheming is, is really a spirit of opposition to the providence of God. And I want to lay something out for you, just consider this for a second. Remember something.

When we consider this Moabitis, consider the roots of Moab for a second here. Because really, how was this whole nation born? It was born because a young woman didn't understand, maybe was never taught the providence of God and so out of an incestual relationship with her father because there's no man, there's no one, there's no one around. This nation of Moab was born, she wasn't aware or maybe she didn't trust and believe that just over the next mountain range was Abraham with 318 choice men at arms, but she couldn't see that. She had to manipulate and bring circumstances to pass her way, and as a result we end up getting the nation of Moab.

But God, he takes this Moabitus, and it's a different story altogether. Here's a young lady just trusting in the providence of God, doing what she needs to do, being faithful in the things that God has laid before. It's a beautiful, beautiful picture and so all of this that we've said so far, It really sets the stage for the conversation that ensues between Boaz and Ruth. And this is really the meat of the chapter in these next few verses here. It says in verse 8 and 9, You will listen to me, my daughter.

Will you not Boaz to Ruth? Do not go to glean in another field, nor go from here, but stay close by my young women. Let your eyes be on the field which they reap, and go after them. Have I not commanded the young men not to touch you? And when you are thirsty, go to the vessels and drink from what the young men have drawn.

You'd be hard pressed to find a wider social gap than that between Boaz on the one side and Ruth. Because She wasn't just a laborer, was she? In fact, she wasn't a laborer. And she wasn't just a gleaner, but she was a foreign gleaner in the field. There's this massive gap, but look at this spirit of Boaz, this condescension, this kindness that is only surpassed by the kindness of Jesus Christ stooping to people like you and I.

In Isaiah chapter 57, we read these beautiful words, for thus says the high and lofty one who inhabits eternity whose name is holy I dwell in the high and holy place with him who has a contrite and humble spirit to revive the spirit of the humble and to revive the heart of the contrite ones." You know, he he doesn't just speak to her, be warm, but he's kind as well. And you see this kind of this respect, very careful language with Boaz. He calls her daughter as though he's wanting to let her know up front, I want nothing from you. I'm keeping this healthy barrier between us. And then we see this provision, really five things.

Provision, do not go and glean in another field. This inclusion, Stay close by my young women, the women that maybe are associated with my clan. And then offer a protection. He had commanded the young men, do not touch this young lady. That was the protection.

And then care when you're thirsty. He's all of these things are are thought of that he lines up at well ahead of time before he actually goes and Introduces himself and and what can Ruth say look at her response So she fell on her face Bowed down to the ground and said to him, why have I found favor in your eyes that you should take notice of me since I am a foreigner. You know she's utterly overwhelmed by this kindness that anyone would even pay any notice, let alone the man that runs the corporation, which shows such kindness to the one not even able, barely able to sweep the floor. It's this massive chasm. And she has this stigma, you can see it.

I am a foreigner. This real self-consciousness that keeps coming up. And you see it really all the way through the book of Ruth she had made a profession but she still carried the stigma, I'm a Moabitess and everyone she looked no doubt just like you sometimes you might think people are looking at you a certain way as you go through this world maybe because of your past or something else, but in Christ all is forgiven, all things have been made new. And so Boaz answers her question, she asks why and he tells her why, and look at these beautiful words. And Boaz answered and said to her it has been fully reported to me all that you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband and how you have left your father and your mother and the land of your birth and have come to a people whom you did not know before The Lord repay your work and a full reward be given you by the Lord God of Israel under whose wings You have come for refuge As I said earlier word had had gotten around Boaz says it has been fully reported.

He had heard, perhaps, you know, it was a small village in Bethlehem, and had gotten around this woman's reputation. Wonderful when a reputation is one of godly character. You know after Murray McShane died, I remember reading years ago of one of his friends was asked, What do you make of this man's life? He died at 29. He was a pastor, a missionary.

He loved God. That was really the thing that came out of his life. And this man, a man of few words, when he was asked that question, answered, Now that was a life worth looking into That's all he said and we have a woman Whose life is worth looking into her character the way that she carried herself is just beautiful And really again Boaz he is a type of Christ but remember that he's also a real man in a real narrative here and so what did what did Boaz find worthy of regard attractive even what was the thing that that drew his attention to go and approach her well he had heard about what she had done, but now he's actually seeing her adorning the grace of God in her life. Nothing more beautiful than a woman who adorns the grace of God or a man in their lives. That somehow you just know they've been with Jesus.

And the spiritual caliber of this woman is what's most attractive. It couldn't have been her appearance, could it have been, that day? Can you imagine you're out there laboring in the field, it's well many hours into the course of the day, you look at your nails, they're gonna be all covered in dirt, no doubt she was totally disheveled, her hair would have probably been a mess, it couldn't have been her appearance that was the great attraction to Boaz after working many hours in the hot sun. But here's a wonderful example, isn't it? Of a godly man, a man who's walking with God, attracted to a woman of true consecration.

Notice in the entire book of Ruth, we're never told what Ruth looks like. We're never told what Boaz looks like. Who knows? He was older, that's all we really know. But there's no description of their appearance at all.

But what we do is we get shovelfuls, loads and loads of indications about the kind of character that these people possessed. And so God had brought Ruth to his attention through this character, not through superficialities and things like that. And we're human, aren't we? And so I don't want to create this whole thing of there shouldn't be any physical attraction. That's a false representation.

We're human beings. You know, a man should be attracted to a woman and vice versa. The one that he's considering marrying and so on and so forth. So I don't want to paint this picture of just this is it character alone doesn't matter what the appearance looks like but it shouldn't be exclusive that its appearance and especially in a world that we're living in today that puts so much on just outward a godly man should be looking at character and vice versa for the woman. And so he says this that the Lord repay your work and a full reward be given you by the Lord God of Israel under whose wings you have come for refuge.

She had left everything And what she had done is she had cast herself entirely upon the providence of God. She had left her father, her mother, the land of her birth, the culture, everything that was familiar, risking social alienation. Would she ever be accepted? Would she be excluded in this new world that she's now living in? She didn't know, but she cast herself upon what she knew about God, that's the greatest place to be.

And here it is, she's gleaning, it's the lowliest work imaginable. But here's what I want you to mark down remember this that it's far better and far more enduring to be a lowly gleener in God's kingdom than to be a queen in Moab. And this woman, her entire identity has been changed. She's just picking, just like it says in Psalms, far better to be a doorkeeper in the house of God than to dwell in the tents of wickedness. It's a beautiful thing when your identity is in God, no matter how low you might esteem yourself to be on the totem pole.

And so we read in verse 13, then she said, let me find favor in your sight, my lord, for you have comforted me, and have spoken kindly to your maidservant, though I am not like one of your maidservants." Again, she's just so mindful of this great social distance. We've got Boaz, the foreman, the laborers, and then the gleaners, and then the foreign gleaner. But notice what happens here in the following verse Beautiful there's an invitation To his table as though it wasn't enough what he had already done Notice what happens here? Because this is what it means to be under his wings. We're gonna have the Lord's Supper in the next few minutes, but notice what happens here.

He says, come. Now Boaz said to her at mealtime, come here and eat of the bread and dip your piece of bread in the vinegar. Some render it wine. A real picture, isn't it, of what we're going to be celebrating soon. So she sat beside the reapers and he passed parched grain to her.

He's serving her. This man of high esteem in the community is serving this gleaner, this foreign gleaner. And she ate and was satisfied and kept some back he gave her more than she could even consume at one sitting and when she rose up to glean she goes back to work Boaz commanded his young men saying let her glean Even among the sheaves and do not reproach her also let grain from the bundles fall purposely for her Leave it that she may glean and do not rebuke her just I just want you to consider today just reflect on the goodness of God the goodness of the Lord in your life. If you were to consider just how he loads his saints with benefits, just consider that for a moment, just the beauty of what God does for us, how he raises the poor from the dust, and he lifts the beggar from the ash heap to set among them among princes and make them inherit the throne of glory. How much he takes care of you.

Just consider these things for a moment. Like Boaz with Ruth, he's protected us, hasn't he? Here you are today. Who knows how many things could have happened through your life, but here you are today protected. He's caused us to drink not just water from the well but waters from the well of salvation.

He's kept nothing back from you. He makes sure you're fed, doesn't he? He makes sure that you're clothed. He makes sure that you're cared for. A large bulk of the Sermon on the Mount in chapter 6 deals with God's kind provision for His people, ending with, seek first the kingdom of God.

All the other things God will provide, but He's trying to inspire, to let us know God is over all in his providence. And like the grain that dropped from the bundles, if you were to look back in your life, wouldn't you see a trail of goodness? Wouldn't you see that? Oh, you mean you protected me there? Maybe you won't even know until eternity all the ways God has been so kind to us how many Ebenezer's he has left along the way Ebenezer means hitherto the Lord has helped us these milestones along the way just these indications of God's faithfulness all the way through life.

It's a beautiful thing to consider, and so my question to you is what more can the Lord do to show his care, to show his grace? Look what he did for Ruth through Boaz, but what he's done for you is magnitudes, magnitudes more than giving you a meal or even marrying you or anything along those lines and we'll get to that in a minute. Well, mealtime is over and the young lady, she gets back to work in verse 17. So she gleaned in the field until evening and beat out what she had gleaned. And it was about an ifa of Barley.

Remember how she left that morning right? The cupboards were bare, everything was empty in the house, and all she did was she trusted in the goodness of God that she had heard about in the law of God. And she had made that prayer in verse 2, that I may find favor or I may find grace is how that word is most often rendered. God would you supply grace through a man of grace? Well God answers the prayer and she ends up reaping an ephah.

That's about 20 or 30 pounds of barley. I mean, you can imagine the average young lady, I mean that's quite a bit of weight. That's like a bag of dog food or a bag of rice. It's not light, and she's got to walk with that home. She's almost staggering as it were under the weight of the blessings of God.

Having left empty, she's going back home loaded down with perhaps two to three weeks worth of sustenance for her and her mother-in-law. It's amazing just to consider the wonderful reversal that a day can bring. You know Charles Spurgeon he says this, he says, we are too prone, we are too prone to engrave our trials in marble and write our blessings in sand. Such a beautiful thing. We can go back and tell you this offense and that and all these, but the blessings that come like waves every single day, we sometimes forget those don't we?

That's just our lot as fallen human beings even as believers oftentimes. Well these are just the first fruits, the staggering bag of 20-30 pounds of barley, the first fruits of all the blessings that are to come because ultimately he's going to set his name upon this woman and remove any reproach from being a Moabitess. It's gonna be gone. She's gonna actually be engraved in the genealogy of the Lord Jesus Christ. And it's just like the Lord does for us, isn't it?

How he gives us a new name, a new identity, all of these things. And like Ruth, we can rejoice in what Peter says when he says, you who were once not a people but are now the people of God who had not obtained mercy but now have obtained mercy. When we come to these final verses 18 to 23 where she makes her way back home and verse 19 we read and her mother-in-law said to her where have you gleaned she's looking at her coming into the house underneath the weight this staggering weight she says where have you gleaned today and where did you work Blessed be the one who took notice of you. She's just, what happened to you today? Isn't that what should happen when a person meets Christ?

What? Who? How did this... You're different. Something's different in your life.

This is what should happen when a man or woman meets the Redeemer. She's in total shock over what's gone on in her life. There's no way to, there's no way to hide it. You know, you could imagine Ruth saying this morning, we hope for favor, but who is the one, who in the world showed you this kind of grace? Who could it possibly be?

And Ruth tells her all about her day and where she worked. And you could just see these words coming out of Naomi's mouth after she tells Naomi who it is. This man is a relation of ours, one of our close relatives. Relatives. This word relative is really translated Redeemer.

It's the first time that this word is used in the book of Ruth. And what could this mean? You could you could begin to see the wheels kind of churning and in Naomi's mind here and through Boaz what she says is this that the Lord had not forsaken his kindness to the living and to the dead again what do we see we see the beauty of God's law on display twice now here what do I mean look at this in Leviticus 25 we we see the law of the kinsman Redeemer it's a beautiful thing and it really was broken into a couple of different categories You know when a woman loses her husband for example to death and they never had a son, a brother would take that man to be her wife. That was one of the ways that that man's line would be able to be continued and the land inheritance that he actually had been allotted would be sustained through the generations. That's how God had set it up.

But there's another way also in which this principle took place and it was if a man became poor and had sold himself into slavery, maybe to a foreigner for example, he is to be redeemed by a redeemer, by a close relation. And there were really three conditions that a redeemer had to meet in order to redeem someone. The very first one is that he had to be a close relation. Well, Boaz is a close relation of ours. Check.

One who had the means of bringing about the redemption. We read in verse 1 how he was a wealthy man. You could check that box as well. The third one is he had to be one who had a desire to accomplish it and we'll see that in chapter 3 but these are the three requirements that a man had to have a near relation the means as well as the desire to accomplish it And I want to just say as we go through these few verses, you know, Naomi gives some really sound advice to her daughter-in-law in verse 22. And I want you to take Naomi's advice.

I want to take Naomi's advice. She says, it is good, my daughter, that you go out with his young women and that people do not meet you in any other field. Because what happens in this world, in this pilgrim's progress, in Vanity Fair, is that there are many voices. Aren't there clamoring For you to come and to taste and perhaps the grass might even look a little bit greener like Psalm 73 when Asaph is lamenting his lot when he looks at the prosperity of the wicked. There are many places when you go through the door as you walk down this life that are marked life over top, but you go in and it leads to death My recommendation don't go to any other field Stay in the field in Boaz's field the greater and the better Boaz's field Jesus Christ well verse 23 it says so she stayed close by the young women of Boaz she obeyed her mother-in-law to glean until the end of the barley harvest and wheat harvest and she dwelt with her mother-in-law and so three months passed that's about the time of the of the harvest by the way it's beautiful Passover is the beginning and then it ends.

You know you've got Pentecost. You know the Feast of Weeks and First Fruits. All of these things were woven in but they're all pointing to something greater aren't they? And so about three months pass and doesn't seem like a lot happens but just faithful service, keeping doing what she's doing is really what happens. She's serving God.

She's serving her mother-in-law. She's perhaps getting to know the people of God, all of that. But everything really has changed. Just it's not known to her yet. And we'll see that in the next chapter.

But for now, what can I say? What are some concluding thoughts that we can be left with here as we close off? What can we take away? There's much to learn, isn't there, from the character of each of these people. I'm not going to dive too much into their character.

We've talked a lot about that, and there's a lot that we can glean from that ourselves. But I think one of the thoughts that I want to leave us with is a consideration of Boaz. Again, he had been the recipient of grace he was the son of Rahab the harlot and now he had become the great dispenser of grace and what is grace it's undeserved favor unmerited favor that he was now dispensing to someone who had no claim whatsoever on him and here he is a great landowner and businessman and what does he do he's scanning his fields And he makes this inquiry about this indigent young lady with no ill intent, no side motive, nothing like that. If any man in this church after this says, I feel a calling to minister to the young ladies at Hope Baptist, come and see one of your elders and we'll set you right quickly. But what I wanted to say is this, is that do we have eyes like Boaz?

Do you have eyes like Boaz? Looking for the overlooked, maybe the poor or the awkward, those that you can you can serve and minister to or do they remain invisible to you. Well that wasn't the heart of Boaz. It's a wonderful thing just to consider for you young Christians as well, wonderful thing to take another young person and begin to minister whether they're a believer or not, if they are to disciple them, but if not to teach them and talk to them about Christ, about things that are important in this life. But all of us should have these eyes like Boaz.

That was a big conviction for me. Do I have those eyes? Well look at Ruth for a second as well. Remember her wonderful profession in chapter one? Well in chapter two we see the fruit of her profession, don't we?

We see the fruit of conversion. It's so amazing because we live in a Christian world today that there's little to no expectation that when someone comes to Christ their life will change. It's just all about profession, profession, all of that. But this is not the biblical viewpoint and it's not the viewpoint of men of old that when someone comes to Christ There's a transformation, you know Sinclair Ferguson. He said it like this He says we have lost or certainly almost lost the conviction that The grace of God produces such qualities of character in the lives of his people that simply their presence and demeanor express their experience of God's grace and their commitment to him.

Meeting Christ, it begins to change everything. It's slow isn't it? It's slow this process of sanctification, but it's sure. Are you drawing nearer to the Lord? Are you going further and closer to the world?

If you're in Christ, Don't go to any other field. Stay in the field and rejoice. Well the third thing I want to say is this, the greatest provision, the greatest act of the providence of God in the history of the world that will ever happen and that has ever happened is the sending of his son Jesus Christ the Lamb of God the very first time the word Providence is used in the Bible is when Abraham takes Isaac his son and is about to slaughter him but before he does he says these words when Isaac asks where will we get the lamb the Lord will provide Jehovah-Jireh well thousands of years later the great Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world comes into this world and my question is what will you do with Jesus Christ if you just look here in this chapter and you begin to weigh the kind overtures the going above and beyond that Boaz does for Ruth. And then you multiply that by infinity. Then you'll begin to get a conception of who Jesus really is.

Consider this better Boaz in Jesus Christ, who not only gives, but gives his own life to redeem us, not from poverty, but from sin. Something far, far more damaging and destructive. You see, even if there was a million Boazes, they couldn't do what this one man does, because the redemption from sin requires the shedding of blood. And so this great shepherd of the sheep, he gave himself for us. And you remember I mentioned those three requirements of what's required for a Redeemer that he has to first of all be a near relative well just let this just seep into your mind I'm gonna end here a near relative that that when we were far from him, he came near to us.

We read in Philippians chapter 2 how this one came from heaven and it says how he made himself of no reputation. Taking the form of a bond servant and coming in the likeness of men. He made himself to be like us, leaving heaven to come to earth, this sin-stained cesspool, taking the robes of flesh after inhabiting eternity. He becomes a near relative. Does he possess the means?

That was the second thing. Well there's no other name, Peter tells us, given under heaven, whereby men can be saved but through the name of the Lord Jesus Christ the sinless spotless Lamb of God. Well the third one that we don't know in chapter two of Ruth but we'll find out later is does he have the desire Does Christ have the desire as our kinsman redeemer? Well, how could you ever doubt? His desire he came from heaven to earth to save sinners And when you look at the New Testament You see a mention again of that phrase under his wings.

But it's a time of lamenting. Where there is Jesus after his ministry has come to an end. He's done, preached, he's saved, he's healed, he's done all these amazing things. And he comes to these people and he says to them oh Jerusalem Jerusalem you that kill the prophets and you slay those that are sent you how often how often I would have gathered you together as a hen does her chicks but you would not my peel to you today is don't be obstinate how long will you stay when there's such a redeemer as the one we've just got in a little glimpse of today. How long will you stay outside and work in another field when he says and he calls you just like he said to Ruth, come here, come to the table, come and eat, I'll load you with all the benefits because he's a good God.

Well the gospel is not just good news, it's the best news, the greatest news that you're ever going to hear. And so my question to you as we close is what will you do with with Christ, the better Boaz? Let's pray. Oh Lord, I'm thankful. I'm thankful for your word Lord.

We are so thankful that you feed us and give us things that we could never imagine. Lord how you surpass every expectation. And Lord even then we're just only seeing the surface oh God but but this ocean of kindness that has no shore and has no bottom Lord you've caused us to enter in and we know that through all eternity Lord We will just be marveling and reveling in your kind providence through Jesus Christ Lord we praise you and thank you for being our Redeemer There is none like you Lord. We rejoice in Jesus name. We pray amen