Ruth in Bethlehem

Turn to Judges chapter 17. I will have to fill in some of the blanks because we don't have time to read through everything, but just to set the stage for what we're going to be looking at. Judges 17 and we're going to break into verse number 7. There was a young man out of Bethlehem, Judah, of the family of Judah, who was a Levite.

He sojourned there and then departed out of the city from Bethlehem, Judah, to sojourn where he would find a place. He came to Mount Ephraim, to the house of Micah, as he sojourned, and so on. Now the story here, we'll go back a few verses, a man named Micah made a graven image.

Strangely enough, he had stolen money from his mother. He confessed it. She gave him the money.

He made a graven image. This young Levite comes to Micah's house and he becomes a priest to the family of Micah. Then in the next chapter, verse 18, chapter 18, verse 1, in those days there was no king in Israel, and in those days the tribe of the Danites sought them an inheritance to dwell in, and the result is they come to this house, hear the Levite, take the Levite, take the idols, and it ends up, verse number 20, verse number 30 of that chapter, the children of Dan set up a graven image, and Jonathan, the son of Gershon, the son of Manasseh, he and his sons were brought to the house of Micah, and there was no king in Israel, and in those days the tribe of the Danites sought them an inheritance to dwell in, and the result is they come to this house, hear the Levite, take the Levite, take the idols, and it ends up, verse number 30 of that chapter, the children of Dan set up a graven image, and Jonathan, the son of Gershon, the son of Manasseh, he and his sons were brought to this house, hear the Levite, take the Levite, take the idols, and it ends up, verse number 31 of that chapter, the children of Dan set up a graven image, and Jonathan, the son of Gershon, he and his sons were brought to this house, hear the Levite, take the Levite, take the idols, and it ends up, verse number 31 of that chapter, I've mentioned a number of other things concerning some of the individuals we've spoken of, but I just want to paint a picture for you, if we can, from what we have read together from these different scriptures.

The take-home lesson, maybe it's a bad thing to do this, but I think this is the best way to keep in mind all we're going to be looking at, the take-home message from this is that it is possible to live for God in any day. We are going to look at one of the darkest days in the history of Israel, a day marked by failure, and we're going to see a man who lived faithfully for God. Faithfulness amidst failure.

Now, there are seven mentions of Bethlehem Judah in the book of Judges. There are seven mentions of Bethlehem Judah in the book of Ruth, and they are there for a purpose, they are contrasting with each other to a large extent. Now, the first thing I have to do to you is prove to you something that may not be apparent.

We are looking at third generation believers. Come with me back to the book of Judges for just a minute. Look at chapter number 18 and verse number 30.

We've read this already, but I've read it as it is in our authorized version, not as it is in truth. I shouldn't put it that way. Not as it is more accurately.

Look at verse number 30. The children of Dan set up a graven image, and Jonathan, the son of Gershom, the son of Manasseh, no, not the son of Manasseh, the son of Moses. The son of Moses.

So you're looking at Moses' grandson introduced idolatry into the tribe of Dan, and eventually into the entire ten northern tribes of Israel. So this is third generation, okay? Judges 17, 18, 19, 20, and 21 are third generation. Come now to chapter number 20.

This concerns the near extinction of the tribe of Benjamin. They've gone to war a couple of times, the tribes against Benjamin. Look at verse number 27.

And the children of Israel inquired of the Lord. The ark of the covenant of God was there in those days. And Phinehas, the son of Eliezer, the son of Aaron.

Third generation, okay? Third generation. Turn to chapter 4 of Ruth. Just to break into verse number 20.

And Abinadab begat Nasham, and Nasham begat Salmon, and Salmon begat Boaz. Now, Salmon was second generation himself. Recall, all the first generation died.

Second generation were coming into the land. So Salmon was second generation. That means Boaz was third generation.

So you have Jonathan, you have Phinehas, and you have Boaz. All third generation from the days of the Exodus. The reason I want to stress that is this.

That means that what we have in the book of Ruth, what we have in Judges 17, 18, 19, and 20, what we have in Judges 1, 2, and 3 are all occurring at the same time. All occurring at the same time. So, out of Bethlehem, Judah, the same place.

So the same time, the same place, the same conditions. Three men marked by failure. One man marked by faithfulness.

So we're going to look at these things very hurriedly. And just again underline that in a very dark day, there was one man that stood out. And we're going to see why he stood out.

And we're going to see the result of his standing out. What was so important about this individual. So come with me then, without necessarily turning to all this, I want you just to think with me if you will, of these individuals who all are linked with Bethlehem, Judah.

So they lived at the same time. They were exposed to the same thinking of the day. No king in Israel could have done that, which was right in his own eyes.

They were all faced by the same test, the test of the famine. And three men fell. One man stood.

Where are you and I going to fit into this picture? So just think with me for a moment about the Levite and spiritual blindness, spiritual. The first problem was, you notice what it said. He was drifting.

He was looking for a place. The same thing with the tribe of Dan. They were looking for an inheritance.

They weren't enjoying the inheritance God gave them in the land. Now you go back and read the book of Judges. They did not drive the enemy out.

Talk about compromise. They don't like compromise. They gave up.

They were looking for another place, an easier place to live. Individuals not living in the good of their inheritance. Now just so I'm not speaking Greek to anybody here, what that simply means is this.

Not enjoying your Christianity. Not enjoying your salvation. Not living in the good of what Christ has procured for you as a result of salvation.

Not just that you won't be in hell. Not just that you won't be eternally lost. But all the wealth that Christ has brought us into, not living in the good of it, not enjoying it, not possessing, in the words of the New Testament, possessing the land.

Here were individuals who were drifting. Not only was he drifting, but there was a denial of scripture, a compromise. Now, we read that he was of the tribe of Levi, which of course Moses was of the tribe of Levi, so his grandson would be of the tribe of Levi.

But he wasn't of the tribe of Aaron. Aaron's family were the priests. Here's a man who's going to make himself a priest.

Compromising scripture, denying scripture, and he's drifting, he's denying, and he's soon very much at home in a totally different spiritual condition than God ever intended him to be. Spiritually blind and dark, and so on. And soon what begins in the house of one man spreads to a tribe and blights a nation and eventually brings that nation into captivity.

Talk about little seeds and big fruit. I don't think that Micah or Jonathan ever thought what we're playing with here, what we're dabbling with here, is eventually going to lead to ten tribes being carried away as captives to the Assyrians. I know it was centuries later, but it began here.

That's why it is so solemn to read those words that we are given to us there in the end of Judges. Until the days of the captivity, until the linking together, the idolatry that sprang from one family all the way to infesting an entire nation and the nation being brought into captivity. Dabbling, compromising, not enjoying his inheritance, all of that eventually brought him to and brought the nation to that tragic end.

What about Judges 19? It's not now so much spiritual blindness, but moral bankruptcy. I mean, you can't read those chapters without thinking how could the nation how could the nation descend so low? In fact, without going into detail, what was true of Sodom is now true of Israel, now true of the tribe of Benjamin. It's a time of absolute moral bankruptcy.

A lack of any, here's a man, a Levite, marrying a concubine, and he's talking about setting aside standards of moral living. And the concubine plays the whore, and there's a total lack of any sense of God's pattern for marriage, God's purpose in marriage, God's purity in marriage, God's permanency in marriage. It's all set aside.

Morally bankrupt. That's where the nation had to set, just third generation. We're not talking about centuries after Moses and the children of Israel went out of Egypt.

Just third generation. Most of us are third generation believers. Maybe there's some here longer than that, but most are second or third generation believers.

And it's so easy to begin to lose sight of divine standards, making compromises for ourselves. Chapter goes on to show a lack of hospitality, a lack of care, a lack of sensitivity. It is a tragic picture painted for us at the end of the book of Judges, in those dark chapters, when there was no king in Israel, that repeated refrain to remind us that any sense of a standard was totally set aside.

And everyone was doing what was right in their own eyes. And so we have then the moral bankruptcy that marked the Levite and his concubine out of Bethlehem, Judah. We come then to Elimelech, the third man from Bethlehem, Judah.

Again, all contemporaries living at the same time as this man they're going to look at Boaz in just a few moments. First of all, we're reminded at the very beginning of the chapter, in the days when the judges ruled, right? In the days when the judges ruled, there was a famine in the lands. Conditions around us can have a heartening effect upon our consciences and upon our interest in spiritual things.

In the days when the judges ruled, very, very sad time in Israel's history. A day of constant declension. We all know the seven spirals that occurred, recurring the spirals of the book of Judges of sin, supplication, salvation, failure again.

Each time it's a bit lower, each time it's a bit further from God, each time it's a bit longer. Those are the days that this man Elimelech lived. And the day has a heartening effect on conscience.

We become less sensitive. I have to confess to you, honestly, this is not humility, this is honest confession. I am less sensitive to sin now than I was when I first got saved.

That's tragedy. I become so accustomed. I recall one time in my practice, there was an individual who I thought was in a same-sex relationship and it used to bother me and I wondered how to handle it, what to talk to him about.

Until one day he comes in and tells me he went on this particular weekend with his girlfriend. And I breathed a sigh of relief. But then I thought, wait a minute.

That's not morally right either. But I was so sensitized to the extreme that anything that fell short of that extreme, I thought, well, that's not really bad. But it is.

Whether it's cohabiting with your girlfriend or your whatever, it's still wrong. But I realized how hardened I had become to sin, that things that once would have bothered me, I almost had found relief in. And the world around us, it has become so enmeshed in its own evil that we have become indifferent at times.

And we tend to pass off things that once would have bothered us because they're not as bad as other things. Here's a man who became hardened. And when the time of famine came, it didn't seem to touch his conscience.

Famine has, in the word of God, different purposes. Mentioned already, intimated already, one thing can be to touch consciences. That's what happened in the days, you recall, of David, when there was famine year after year, and David inquired of the Lord why the famine, and God told him because of what Saul had done at the house of Gilead and so on, and it touched David's conscience.

There's got to be some reason for this. So it can touch consciences. Or it can test commitment.

That's what it did with Boris. Tested commitment. But when the famine came, it failed to touch the conscience of this man Elimelech, and he takes off.

The proximity, the necessity, the availability, it's all there. If you look on your Bible map, Moab isn't very far away from Bethlehem. Just a matter of crossing over to Jordan, going into another country, you can almost see it.

From the heights of Bethlehem, you can almost see the land of Moab. And he went there to sojourn. In fact, just look back at chapter one.

This is not a message on Boeth, on Elimelech necessarily, but look at verse number one. He went to sojourn in the country of Moab. Look at what it says in verse number two.

And they continued there. And look at what it says at the end of verse number four. They dwelled there.

Went to sojourn. I gather from that, it was just a matter of a brief trip. But then they continued, they stayed.

And then before you know it, they're gone. It reminds us of how easy it is to become accustomed to being away from God. It begins so imperceptibly.

We get busy, and work takes over, and suddenly you're swamped with work, swamped with things that have to get done, or swamped with work around the house, and the children are demanding more and more time, and you stop reading the word of God, you stop spending time praying, and it's just going to be for a little while until you get caught up. And before you know it, you're doing it for weeks. And then it becomes a way of life.

That's what happened to this man, Elimelech. I don't think if you could have interviewed him as he's leaving Bethlehem, Judah, how long do you expect to be away for? Oh, just the next harvest. You just have to get enough food for it.

Do you realize you're going to leave graves, and grief, and guilt for your wife? The heartening effect of sin on all of us. God had put a hedge around the nation, a hedge of separation, and Elimelech, instead of turning to God in the time of famine, broke through the hedge. So it's a dangerous place.

I don't want to sound like I'm being hard or critical, it just can be a very, very difficult place. And the hand of God, be ignored. When God began dealing with the family, it didn't seem like it affected anyone in the family.

Everyone seems to be totally indifferent to it. And the heritage of this man's life is, he leaves a widow who's lost her land. A widow who's lost her hope.

A widow who's lost her family. And all she has to show for ten years in the land of Boaz is some gravestones, a lot of grief, and a sense of guilt. I went out full, the Lord brought me home empty.

So, that's just the background. I'm just painting that background, not to be negative, but to help you see the landscape upon which the Spirit of God presents this man, Boaz. Totally different.

Without going into all of those chapters that concern Boaz, again, remember, he lived at the same time, he faced the same tests, he was exposed to the same trends and thinking of the day, yet he was able to stand for God. Again, underlining my main message, you can stand for God regardless of the society around you. Regardless of spiritual blindness, moral bankruptcy, and personal barrenness of life, you can stand for God in our day.

And as I look upon younger believers, you are going to have a far more difficult day to stand for God if the Lord doesn't come. We have very little hope that things are going to get better in our land, that somehow society is going to suddenly revert to Judeo-Christian principles. It's like a careening runaway car that is just accelerating its departure from God and its departure from everything that is associated with God.

You can still live. So let's look then together at this man, Boaz. Won't you notice, first of all, in contrast to Elimelech, this man is marked by personal integrity.

Personal integrity. He is faithful despite the famine. So let me address everyone because individuals, families, and assemblies go through famines.

Now, if you've never been in a famine condition, God bless you, and may you never know, but assemblies can go famines. How long since you saw a few people say that that isn't the assembly? When was the last time you felt that God visited His people in giving bread? Assemblies can go famines. And it can be very, very easy to say, I'm not getting anything here, I'm going to go elsewhere.

Maybe God is trying to touch consciences. Doesn't mean there's got to be sin and confession, but am I doing what I should be doing? Am I contributing as I should be contributing? Am I coming to the Bible reading with something to offer? Am I coming to the breaking of bread with my heart full of worship? Am I trying to be a help to the other believers? Am I being an encouragement? Maybe if we were concerned about famine conditions, we might see what we have in the book of Ruth where God visits His people and gives bread and gives blessing. Famine conditions.

Easy to give up. Easy to get discouraged. Here's a man who, despite famine conditions, stayed.

He stayed. He was committed. He was willing to work and to stay by the field during a time of famine.

It takes commitment. It takes a willingness to endure difficulty, hard times, difficult times, times that are lacking in what you might call blessing. Most of you know I live on the East Coast.

I live about 125 miles from Washington, D.C. We get a lot of visitors from other countries as well as other parts of this country who come and they like to go to Washington. And a place I often take people when we travel there is to Arlington National Cemetery and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Very, very dramatic, very moving spectacle to see the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

Since April 6, 1948, members of the United States Second Cavalry, is it? Have kept guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks in a year, there has been someone standing guard walking before the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. 2012, Hurricane Sandy was coming up the coast.

The soldiers were told they were excused from duty because the hurricane would be severe, the hurricane would be deadly, and they were to leave their posts and come in. They refused. They kept walking.

They kept guard by the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. They were committed, despite the weather, despite the obstacles, despite the hurricane. And they did it when no one was watching.

The park was closed because of the storm. No one was allowed to come in to Arlington National Cemetery to watch them. And yet, amidst the hurricane conditions, they stood guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

They were committed. They weren't going to leave because things got difficult. What's your measure of commitment to God's Assembly? Things get difficult, are you ready to leave? Things are just a little bit unpleasant, not to your liking, somebody else getting a bit more prominence than you, and you think you deserve it, and this man alone, like, problems came and he left.

He was history. Doesn't take much commitment to leave. Takes a lot of conviction to stay.

That's what marked this man with all that as we see him, a man marked by spiritual and personal integrity in contrast to a monarch. He was faithful to the Lord. Number one, that's the chief thing.

I don't want you to think that faithfulness to the Assembly is the big thing. If I'm faithful to the Lord, I will be faithful to the Assembly, but faithfulness to Him comes first. He was faithful to the Lord.

He was faithful to the land. He didn't leave the land. He was faithful to the law.

He continued to obey the law of God. Now what do I mean? A hundred years earlier, a hundred years earlier, Moses had said through the Spirit of God, when you reap your lands, leave the corners of the field for the poor and for the little. Okay? So we've just gone through famine conditions.

Suddenly there's a bumper crop. We would have thought, you know, that was a hundred years ago that Moses said that. We really don't have to follow that today.

I mean, after all, we've just been faithful through the famine. Now's our chance to get as much in as we can. God has repaid us for staying, and we should go ahead and reap the whole boy.

No. A hundred years ago, Moses says, leave the corners. It's exactly what Boaz did.

And because Boaz did that, there was a young widow whose name was Ruth. And if she was looking for a field where the corners were free to reap, it was the field of Boaz. So because he kept the corners of his field as God intended, a hundred years earlier in his dictum, a young widow was able to come into the field, beseech him on the front floor, come into the family, and be in the Lord's future.

All because a man was marked by personal integrity in being faithful to the Lord, faithful to the land, faithful to the law. So keep that in mind. He was faithful amidst the family.

He was gracious, despite his greatness. There was a mighty man of wealth, and his name was Boaz. And yet, how gently, how tenderly he speaks to this young woman.

He's gracious to her. He appreciates her. He bounties her.

He's scriptural despite his own desires. He stands in such tremendous contrast to Alumilike. Sensitive, caring, faithful.

Alumilike is marked by spiritual barrenness. There's really nothing in it. In fact, his name means, My Lord is King.

My God is King. And yet he rejects the whole thing and seeks out elsewhere. Here's a man, Boaz, and he is seen as being faithful.

Personal integrity is manifest in this man in contrast to what we have in Alumilike. What about in contrast to the man of Bethlehem, Judah? And his idolatry? As I mentioned already, here's a man who's willing to compromise scripture. It's all about what's good for me.

Now, we didn't look at that, but Jonathan says, you know, I've been priest to a family. Boy, I could be priest to a whole tribe. I mean, talk about promotion.

I mean, this must be of the Lord. Promotion is always of the Lord, right? I mean, that's how we all think. Get a promotion at work, it's gotta be the Lord that's done it.

You know, and, uh, really? Here's a man that's all about what's good for me. When you come to this man, Boaz, it's not all about what's good for me. It's all about others.

What can I do for this little? What can I do for Ruth? And if you go through chapter 2, we don't have time to look at it in detail. He's trying to open greater turrets. She starts at the corners.

He brings her into the center of the field. The law allowed her the corners. Grace brought her into the middle of the field to pick up handfuls of sheep that were left for her by the young men at his instruction.

So, here's a man, and there is no compromise in his life. Not gonna compromise. He's gonna be as gracious, he's gonna be as liberal as he possibly can be, but he's never gonna compromise divine principles.

The corners of the field, the widow comes in, sanctity, purity in the field, all of that marks this man in contrast to what we have. So, he's faithful in his personal life, he's faithful in his business life, he's faithful in his family life, he's faithful in his spiritual life. A man who is marked by spiritual stability.

Not by what marked that man at Bethlehem, Judah. But I want you to think, especially, if I could say that, of the blessing he brought. The blessing he brought.

Pick up it in stages, if you will. First of all, he's able to be a blessing to Naomi. He's able to redeem the field for Naomi, and to take a widow who was actually hopeless, and as the people of the town say later, there's a child born to Naomi.

Right? But they don't say there's a child born to Ruth, a child born to Naomi. In other words, here his son was brought hope to the widow. He has made it possible for her to have a prospect of hope for the future.

The land will be hers, and all that comes with it. So he was able to be a blessing to a widow. He was able to be a blessing to Ruth.

But it doesn't stop there. He's able to be a blessing as well to the tribe of Judah. He's able to be a blessing to the nation of Israel.

Because through Boaz comes in David the king, right? We should have noticed that at the end of chapter 4. In fact, just as a little point of trivia, this is the only book in the Bible that ends with the name of a man, other than the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Right? The last word in the book of Ruth is David. And that gives you one of the clues as to why this book is in our Bible.

It's all about going from no king in Israel to David. And God's anointed king. And they're bringing in David.

And so he's able to bring in, because of his faithfulness, and his union with Ruth, he is able to bring eventually, after several generations, into the nation of Israel, David the king. Now if I were asking some of you young men, who was Boaz's mother? Which it doesn't tell us. Does it? You know why Boaz was marked by such grace? You know who his mother was? Mother was Rahab the father.

Now if you need me to prove that, we can go to Matthew chapter 1, not to Ruth chapter 4, but his mother was Rahab. He was conscious that it was grace that was operative in his life. And as a result, he could show grace to others.

So, here's a man who is able, as a result of the grace he has shown to Ruth, he is able to bring a tremendous blessing to the nation of Israel. Now that stands in contrast, doesn't it? Think of that young man out of Lebanon who married a woman from Bethlehem, Judah, the concubine. The result of his action was almost an entire tribe was decimated.

Okay? They almost decimated the tribe of Benjamin and had to really use some very, very extreme measures to preserve the tribe at the end of all their civil war and battle. What about this man Goaz? Destroying a tribe? No. Bless the nation.

But I don't want to stop there. Because it goes beyond that. Because through David comes the Messiah.

And he's able to be a blessing to the entire world. Can you see the huge difference? One man from Bethlehem, Judah, his background is destruction. Loss of life.

Loss of a tribe. Goaz? Now I don't think, for a moment, that Goaz had any idea what he was doing was going to lead to David the king, much less to the Messiah, much less to a blessing for the entire globe. One of the secrets that God reveals in his word is that acts of devotion have consequences far beyond what you will ever imagine.

A small act of consecration done in devotion to Christ will have consequences you will never see in this life. Let me just prove to you by a couple of small illustrations from the word of God. We all know about a little maid who's taken captive and she is a slave to Naaman's wife.

And that little slave girl, rather than being marked by bitterness and cynicism and cruelty and a sense of vengeance, she says, Would God, my Lord, have let the prophets of Samaria? He would heal them with his blood. And so you know all of the story, all the different mistakes that Naaman makes until finally he gets before Elisha and he says, Go wash in the pool of Shira. And eventually.

And so he's cleansed. So a little maiden's faithful testimony leads to Naaman being cleansed and in New Testament parlance being saved. You may say, Well that's lovely.

One little girl's testimony, one man gets saved. That's nice. Does it end there? How many people do you think have been saved as a result of the story of Naaman? I think people will line up in heaven to thank that little maid.

That she was willing to testify in a difficult time. She had no idea that scores of people would be saved. Come with me to the New Testament, quickly.

The scribes and Pharisees are, the chief priests and Pharisees are intent on putting Christ to death. They have one stipulation. Not on the feast day lest there be an uproar among the people.

God said, Sorry boys, it's going to be on the feast day. So, the leadership says, Not on the feast day. God says, On the feast day.

How's that all going to come about? Enter Mary with an alabaster box of ointment. She pours it on his feet or head, depending on whether you're reading John or the other Gospels. Judas is so incensed, so angry that he's lost 300 pieces of silver, whatever it was, the worth of the value, the value of the alabaster box.

So incensed by it, he goes to the chief priest, What will you give me if I deliver him up unto you? They have to compromise their one stipulation. So when it's convenient, when it's convenient, at a convenient time, deliver him up. Now, I don't think that Mary ever realized that what she did, frustrated the councils of the ungodly, and accomplished God's purposes and will to the very day.

But he did. Acts of devotion, whether it's a little boy with five loaves and two fishes, I don't know if he ever knew of the tremendous sermon that came in John chapter 6 in the synagogue in Capernaum because of what he had done. Acts of devotion to Christ will far exceed your greatest, wildest imagination of what they could do.

Little things. Here's a man, and he is going to be faithful to God despite what others might do. So, instead of being marked by the spiritual blindness that marks the Levite, he is marked by moral sensitivity, spiritual stability, personal integrity.

All of these things mark it. Let me just come quickly then. What about moral sensitivity? We didn't read chapter 3. All of his dealings with Ruth.

In a very immoral world, here's a man who's very sensitive to moral purity. Now, you don't have to be very sensitive to that, especially a younger generation. Older people my age, we have no concept of what's going on out there, and the tremendous danger that young people in the workforce face.

This is not hypothetical. This is real. A young Christian, he's in the police force.

His partner in his car, driving around 8 hours a day or 10 hours a day, is a young attractive single woman. She's a police officer as well. They're taught to cover for each other, taught to protect each other's lives, taught to bond, and there you are in the car with an attractive young woman, and you're with her 8 to 10 hours a day, 5 days a week, and you're eating together, you're talking together, you're virtually living together in the car.

You know how easy it is to fall? It takes tremendous moral sensitivity to realize the need for protection. Same thing in the workplace. Same thing in the office.

It's all so easy. Work today, when it's done in the office, it's frequently done in groups. And you work overtime.

You're there sharing a meal. You're sharing reminiscence. You're bonding together.

And it becomes so easy to cross that line, that imaginary line between just cordial friendship and going beyond. You need to be very careful. If you're going to stand in an immoral world, you're going to have to be very, very sensitive to moral issues.

That's what Mark Boaz in chapter 3 doesn't want anything to look improper. He wants to make sure that her testimony is preserved before the community. And so everything is just done totally above board.

Now listen, you get a wrong idea. The one wing of barley and the threshing floor was on an elevated place, open for everyone to see. But he's still very, very concerned about her purity and her testimony.

So different. So different from the Levite and his concubine out of Bethlehem, Jude. It's totally different to moral standards.

So what is it that's going to preserve you in a very immoral world? In a very spiritually dark world? In a very, very inconsistent world? The very same things that preserved this man Boaz. Being a man who is marked by personal integrity. No compromise in my life.

The word of God will be what controls me, what directs me. I will be faithful to the Lord, faithful to the law, faithful to the land, however you want to view that. But personal integrity.

Moral sensitivity. To be sensitive to the moral climate in which we live. And to seek with God's help to maintain purity of life.

Nothing interfering. Be very, very sensitive. Now I say that because I'm a little bit aware, not as much as you some would be here.

A little bit aware of the kinds of things you hear, the kinds of things you see. You know, YouTube and Netflix and everything else and subtle innuendos, not-so-subtle innuendos. And it begins to dull our spiritual sensitivity to moral issues.

We become very comfortable. That's why there was such a thing as the ashes of the red heifer for defilement. Not just for sin, but for defilement.

We become insensitive to moral issues. Here's a man who was marked by personal integrity, I have to close, moral sensitivity, spiritual stability. He was going to stand if everyone else went their own way.

Would you be able to leave this meeting today with a conviction, not just something emotional because of the meeting, but a conviction in your soul that come what may, I am going to be faithful to the Lord. I am going to be consecrated to Him and to His truth, whatever the cost, whatever the family condition. I want to be faithful to God.

I want to be a Boaz. I would like to be able, as Boaz did, and I'll use this in a spiritual sense, to introduce Christ to the world. That's what Boaz did.

He eventually introduced Christ to the entire world. And a believer who is willing to live the Boaz-like in his life can bring Christ into the assembly, Christ into his family, Christ into his very society, shall we pray. Our Father who art in heaven, we thank you for one who is greater than Boaz, our Lord Jesus.

We thank you that he was faithful to thee amidst unfaithfulness, he was darkness amidst light. We thank you for all the pleasure he brought to thee, all the glory he brought to thy name. And we love to think of all that he will yet bring for all eternity as he leads the company of redeemed in an endless chorus of praise.

For him again we give thanks. Thank you for the privilege of being together with thy people and of reading thy word and trust that we'll make impressions upon young Christ that each one of us might leave with the conviction that we would love to live for him in a dark age and the assurance the confidence that there is in the word of God and in the indwelling spirit of God all that we need to be able to live such a life. Help us we pray.

Receive our thanks now for refreshment that the assembly has so kindly provided as we acknowledge thee again in our Savior's worthy and precious name. Amen.