I cannot expect to gather you all into the whole message of this conference, nor into any part of what has gone before.
I shall have to try to make the message this evening as self-contained as I can. We come back again to the book of Ruth, which has occupied our attention all today.
We shall now gather it all into that sublime avowal of Ruth—one of the most beautiful things in all the Bible.
In Ruth 1:16-18:
Entreat me not to leave thee,
Or to return from following after thee:
For whither thou goest, I will go;
And where thou lodgest, I will lodge:
Thy people shall be my people,
And thy God my God:
Where thou diest, will I die,
And there will I be buried:
The Lord do so to me, and more also,
If aught but death part thee and me.And when she saw that she was steadfastly minded to go with her, she left speaking unto her.
Faith: the pathway to final fullness.
Oh, this avowal by Ruth—a tremendous decision of faith.
You look at Ruth 2. Boaz answered and said unto her:
It hath fully been showed me, all that thou hast done unto thy mother-in-law since the death of thine husband; and how thou hast left thy father and thy mother, and the land of thy nativity, and art come unto a people which thou knewest not heretofore.
A great venture of faith; a complete renunciation.
You may not think that there was very much to be renounced. You know, Ruth was leaving a place that was all disappointment and privation.
But when you consider her situation, and what she was going to—altogether unknown to herself, without knowing how things were going to work out—I think you would see the picture from another angle.
At least she was at home in her own country, known and recognized, and had a place there. She had a father and a mother and a home.
She was going to a foreign country. She was going with a widowed mother-in-law who was in great sorrow, whose life was a very great tragedy, and who was under a very great cloud of disappointment—not only with her life, but with the Lord Himself.
“The Lord hath testified against me,” she said. “The Almighty hath afflicted me.” Real spiritual disheartenment and perplexity.
And Ruth must have known about it. She must have known of the embargo that rested upon Moab so far as Israel was concerned: the curse that had been pronounced—that the Ammonite and the Moabite should not enter into the congregation of the Lord for ever.
She must have known that, and that it would be very doubtful whether she would get a reception in the land of Israel, be made welcome. Rather, it might be very much the other way: suspected, ostracized.
And, you know, Boaz had to give special instructions to his young men and maidens not to be unkind to her, not to interfere with her, and repeatedly had to tell them to show her some kindness.
Here is this woman under a shadow in their midst, and she must have known something about what it would mean. The future was all unknown, very doubtful. Her heart might well have fainted as she thought of it.
But there was something there—enough by God: “Thy God shall be my God.”
Evidently, with all Naomi’s distress, her daughters-in-law had learned something about her God that made Ruth feel that, anyway, anyway, it was better to be where that God was recognized and acknowledged than where she was in Moab.
There was some faith in her heart in the God of Naomi and the God of Israel. It was sufficient to make her, on the one side, leave the place of security, leave home; and Boaz recognized that it meant something to Ruth: “It hath fully been showed me what thou hast done.”
And, on the other side, she accepted all that it might be, without any real knowledge of what would happen. It was faith-venture, faith-renunciation, with no real knowledge that it would work out all right or that bright prospects would eventually come into view.
That was the first test in the way to this greater fullness.
Oh, how much enticing we need. How many promises and assurances we need to get us going on the way. How much has to be held up before the eyes of people as to the blessings that they are going to get if they will follow the Lord—what will come to them.
We are so calculating, are we not, in our response? We have to have so many bribes. I am afraid that the appeal of the gospel has been leveled down to all that you will get if you become a Christian.
Real faith—the real thing—the Lord wants to find, is very difficult to find. And we are not surprised, are we, that limitation comes into the life?
We are talking about faith, the pathway to fullness. I cannot help feeling very often that spiritual limitation, smallness of spiritual life, limited knowledge of the Lord, and limited knowledge of all that to which we are really called in Christ—this limitation is due to this: we are always thinking of how it is going to affect us, for good or bad; what we are going to get.
Even the disciples who were with the Lord would say, “Lord, we have left all for Thy sake; what shall we have?” What shall we have? And that becomes too often a motive: What shall we have? What are we going to get, or what are we going to lose?
And no wonder the spiritual life is so poor.
If only we had some of this kind of faith that Ruth had—aware that it was very likely going to bring her under reproach, that it was not going to be all easy, that she would have difficulties facing her—nevertheless, nevertheless, “Thy God shall be my God.”
For God’s sake, not for our own, is the motive which will count with the Lord—for the Lord’s sake.
And if it is like that, for the Lord’s sake—not only in our beginning, but in our continuance, because we are brought into much costliness in this way—we should make better progress. We should come more quickly into that fullness of divine purpose. It is the motive, you see, of faith that makes all the difference.
But if we are always thinking about ourselves in this life and how it is going to affect us, we cannot get very far. The Lord is not dangling prizes before us to bribe or entice us. He says quite frankly:
If any man would come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.
You have to see right through and say, “Well, it is better to have the Lord than to have everything else and not have the Lord, whatever it may be. And it is better to have the Lord with privation and adversity and trial and ostracism and persecution, than to be without those things and at the same time be without the Lord.”
Faith-venture; faith-renunciation.
Then faith-resoluteness and finality.
I like that eighteenth verse:
And when Naomi saw that she was steadfastly minded to go with her, she left speaking unto her.
It is no use arguing with this person. It is no use talking to her. She has made up her mind, and that is the end of it. Steadfastly minded—resolute.
She is as good as saying, “No use. You are not going to talk me out of this. You are not going to argue me out of this. You are not going to persuade me out of this. I have made up my mind.”
And Naomi saw that, and she left speaking. The resoluteness, the finality, of faith-decision.
See it like that, and the Lord can do anything. What the Lord did! We shall see that again in a minute.
Such a faith opens the way for the Lord to do wonderful things and to bring us quickly, quickly, into His greater fullness.
Are we not slow because we are irresolute? Is not our progress arrested because there is so little of the spirit of finality about our decision?
Still halting, limping between two opinions; still not quite sure as to what it is going to be right through, whether we are going right on. Therefore the years pass, and we are very much in the same position spiritually after a long time as we were.
It is a very simple word, but, dear friends, it is a good word on which to close the conference. To have all that the Lord wants and has called us unto, we must be really moved and stirred in this matter to say with Ruth:
Entreat me not to leave thee,
Or to return from following after thee:
For whither thou goest, I will go;
And where thou lodgest, I will lodge:
Thy people shall be my people,
And thy God my God:
Where thou diest, will I die,
And there will I be buried:
The Lord do so to me, and more also,
If aught but death part thee and me.
And when she saw that she was steadfastly minded—there was a steadfast-mindedness. Then, again I say, you are not surprised at the sequel.
Ruth 1:16-17, which we have quoted again, is a very comprehensive and inclusive thing, is it not? It covers all the ground—every possible contingency, every aspect.
The whole thing is taken in at one full survey, and then brought down here in this concentrated form. She said, in effect, “I have taken full account of everything, every aspect of this matter.”
“I see it may lead me into a good deal, and it may be a very testing, long-drawn-out business; but it is unto death, if necessary, and all the time between now and then. I reckon that.”
It is an inclusive avowal of faith.
And because it was like that, that was the kind of faith—venturesome faith, faith renouncing, faith resolute, inclusive, comprehensive faith—that opened the door to God’s grace in a most wonderful way.
God’s grace—oh, the story of God’s grace it is.
We pointed out earlier today the handicaps of Ruth. What handicaps that dear soul had. She was under the handicap, the stigma, handed down from her forebear—the stigma of incest.
And then there was the handicap of the curse, the embargo: “A Moabite cannot enter into the congregation of the Lord for ever.” Yet she was going into the midst of the congregation of the Lord, over against that terrible embargo and handicap.
She was a Moabitess, with all that that meant. Yet faith opened the way to the grace of God to remove every handicap.
I think this is wonderful. Let us have a sidelight on this from the New Testament.
In the eleventh chapter of Leviticus, whole lists of unclean creatures are mentioned which the Israelites were not to eat. They were forbidden to eat all these unclean creatures.
Now, no doubt, there was something of a sanitary or hygienic element in this, a health aspect; but it had another meaning.
These unclean creatures were symbols of the pagan and heathen nations with whom Israel was to have no fellowship, no contact, no relationship, and no intermarriage. All those outside of Israel were regarded as unclean, and the Jews knew them as such.
When we come to the New Testament, the apostle Peter had a vision one day. In his vision he saw heaven opened, and a sheet let down by its four corners, full of these very creatures mentioned in Leviticus 11—all manner of unclean creatures.
He was a Jew, and he knew what that meant. And a voice said, “Rise, Peter; kill and eat.”
Peter said, “Not so, Lord; for nothing common and unclean hath ever entered into my mouth.” And this thing was done three times. The sheet was called up into heaven.
Then there were men at the door. “Yes, what do you want?” “Cornelius, away up there in Caesarea, has sent us to ask you to come to his house. He is an Italian, a Gentile, and wants you to speak to him of the things of God.”
Oh, Cornelius—an unclean thing! An unclean thing! “I am forbidden, I am forbidden by the very Scriptures, to have anything to do with him, to do this sort of thing.”
“Not so,” said the Lord, “what God hath cleansed, make not thou common.”
And then, prevailed upon, Peter went. We know the sequel. What had happened? Oh, Calvary had happened.
And the curse had been borne by the Lord Jesus, the great Kinsman-Redeemer. The curse had been borne and removed out of the way, and grace had opened the door for the unclean. Calvary had virtually cleansed all.
Calvary is effective for the cleansing of all the unclean.
A Moabite shall not enter the congregation under a curse. Ah, yes—but Ruth enters into the removal of the curse.
Faith opens the door to the grace of God. Great triumph! Here Ruth stands to declare that in her very being. Oh, the law said, “No, never”; but grace says, “Yes, ever.”
The law says, “A closed door”; grace says, “An open door.” The grace of God in redemption, and faith laying hold of the grace of God, opens the door and removes all the handicaps.
What a message! What a message! You complain about handicaps? Well, the grace of God can get rid of all your handicaps, if you will believe it.
Faith, then, opens the door to grace, and grace removes every embargo, and says:
Let us draw near with a true heart in fullness of faith.
And:
Let us therefore draw near with boldness unto the throne of grace.
Then the door opens. Ruth entered in, and the blessings began—the blessings began to flow.
We spoke of all these this morning: the immediate blessing to begin with; how sovereignty began to operate in her life; wonderful providences.
There was that “hap” of which we spoke. It was Ruth’s hap to light upon the part of the field that belonged to Boaz. In some apparently casual or accidental movement, not knowing what she was doing, but God knowing what He was doing, she came into that field.
Divine sovereignty and divine providence began to work in this wonderful way—so simply, so easily, without the exercise of any power in a demonstrative way from heaven.
It is so easy for divine providence to do things that it sometimes looks just like a hap. You wonder if it ever has taken place—so easy. But to come into that very ease of God!
I am not going to enumerate the immediate blessings. The book itself tells you: from lighting upon the field of Boaz onward, step by step, right up to the union, and beyond.
And that leads us to the rich reward—something far beyond the immediate in her life.
We have pointed out that the last words in this book are these:
And Obed begat Jesse, and Jesse begat David.
Then you leap—a big leap—into the Gospel, and you find David, and then Jesus.
Wonderful being! Ruth, with all that rested upon her—the dark shadows of embargo and curse, and the ancestry—became an ancestress of the Lord Christ, right in the direct line to Jesus.
And all that has come to the world! Oh, what an immense thing has come to this world through Ruth’s faith.
What reward! I wonder if she knows what it is all about. I like to think that she does, that she is conscious. Well, surely that would be a reward, would it not?
She could look back to those days of uncertainty and fear, and yet resolution, seeing everything that has been done, and say, “My word, it was worth it. My word, it was worth it. I never imagined that my poor, feeble effort of faith would result in this.”
It is not possible to exaggerate this. Think of all that has come through the Lord Jesus, through the incarnation. We cannot say too much about that.
We started with this simple, earnest girl’s faith—Ruth’s faith—reaching out and working from that thing unto this great goal, this great goal.
You never know. You never know what the Lord can do, will do, what eternity will reveal.
She did not live to see more than Obed, as far as we know. Her life may have ended with the life of her child—I do not mean at the time of birth, but I suppose his life was more than the extent of her own life. She did not see.
Maybe she sees now. She is going to see. You and I may not know in our time what the Lord has been able to do, and will be able to do, if only He gets a faith in us like the faith of Ruth.
This faith that ventures, this faith that renounces, this faith that resolves; this faith that takes in everything that is involved and is not moved by consequences, but takes it all up and says, “I will. I will. I will.”
We must leave it with you and with ourselves. Well, I am going to close this.
But the Lord’s people need it. This was the word we said this afternoon: more than anything, for their own good, for their own blessing, for their own fullness, for their own ascendancy and victory.
But Israel needed, more than anything else, a king. What a king!
All the tragedies of the book of Judges, we have seen, were because there was no king in Israel—no uniting authority.
The king came through Ruth’s faith. The king came through Ruth’s faith.
Dear friends, if the Lord Jesus should come into His place as Lord, as King, through a costly, vivid, positive way that we take in faith—not knowing, when we take the great inclusive step, what it means; knowing only that it may involve us in some very real and big difficulties—we take it.
If the Lord Jesus should come into His place along that line, will it be worth it?
If these defeated ones are transformed and there comes victory, it will be worth it. It will be worth it.
If you and I are called today—we are called today—to bring the Lord Jesus into His place, it is not easy. It is costly.
It requires real faith to go on with it, because there are such tremendous factors set against His kingship, against His lordship. But if it should be that He comes into that place through our instrumentality, then everything will be worth it and justified.
You ought to read again this great declaration, please, and put ourselves alongside it.
Are you tonight ready, Christians, in a new way, to say it? Any unsaved ones here tonight ready to say it? Are you?
Shall we pause for a last moment and let it challenge us? Shall we?
Will we say:
Entreat me not to leave thee,
Or to return from following after thee:
For whither thou goest, I will go;
And where thou lodgest, I will lodge:
Thy people shall be my people,
And thy God my God:
Where thou diest, will I die,
And there will I be buried:
The Lord do so to me, and more also,
If aught but death part thee and me.
Whatever that means, or may mean, in our relationship to the Lord Jesus, may the Lord give us grace to say it and mean it, and close all arguments and all discussions.
“When she saw that she was steadfastly minded, she left speaking.” Lord, have some people like that.