RESULTS FROM NEARNESS TO CHRIST

N. T. Meek

Ruth 2: 1–3; 3: 1–4 (to “shalt go in”), 9; 4: 13–17

I expect with profit we could have read the whole of this little book, but most, I think, will know of it and what is even greater, know its import. It is a historical book. This situation actually happened. There was a real Ruth and a real Naomi and a real Boaz, but there are many of the kind. There is a real Redeemer, and there are real persons who need redemption, and there is a real result from the gospel. Thank God that is not accomplished by the creature, it is accomplished by God. This soul, her name Ruth, had no claim on God. She was of a family, the children of whom were not to come into God’s habitation. She was not in a favoured position. She had no claim. But that is not true of you; you have a claim, you have a right to claim. People do this, they go to the Ministry of Social Security and they write out their claim; according to the law of the land they claim certain privileges, certain help. But, dear friend, you have a claim, you have a claim on Christ. The thing is, Have you put your claim in? Have you asked for what you are entitled to? When I say that I am not overlooking the fact that our blessing is of pure grace. There is nothing that I can do to merit it, but at the same time that pure grace is available for all men, “the grace of God which carries with it salvation for all men has appeared”, Titus 2: 11. Thank God it is not, as it were, on the horizon now, it is all around you. Everybody here who has been saved has been saved by grace, not of works but of grace. I ask you again as to whether you have appealed to the Lord Jesus.

We read of Boaz here, his name means ‘in him is strength’. How strong Christ is, how strong He is to save, mighty to save, mighty to take up your case. He is a Man of wealth too, He has all the means to take up your case. You see this person Ruth, like you and me, needed redeeming. We carry an encumbrance with us, fallen history. It is like an incubus around us.

Supposing you had never sinned from this day on, if that were possible, supposing you could envisage never sinning from this day till the day you are buried. You still have all that past history unresolved. God never sweeps sins under the carpet. No, He would not do that. What He has done is, He has paid the cost of the sinner’s redemption. He has provided for this incubus that we carry, this whole question of our sins and our sinful history. He has provided for it to be entirely met. There is a great inheritance for you, but the question of your redemption has to be settled first, and for this you need to get to Christ for yourself. It is one thing that comes out very plainly here, that she had in Naomi a great friend, a fine adviser, who knew even Boaz’s movements, knew where He would be on a particular night. She was very favoured. But I can tell you that the Lord Jesus is available for you right now. Not tomorrow, or next Wednesday, or Christmas eve, but right now He is available to take up your case and He is willing for it too. He has a lot on. He is a Man of many affairs, and there are many Ruths, men and women who need Him, and He will not turn one away. He will not put the shutter up either, This office closes at 4:30 p.m. No, never. Sunday? Yes, it is open Sunday too. That is the kind of Sunday opening that God approves, is it not? God uses Sunday too for transactions, not transactions of a material kind, but transactions that affect persons’ souls and their lives, and their whole subsequent history.

This dear woman, Naomi, she was leading Ruth to Boaz, who is a type of Christ. But she could only take her a certain way, and that is all the preacher can do, take you a certain way.

Your father and mother will take you and guide you as far as they can, then in the final resort you must get to Christ for yourself and settle that question of your sins and all the history. If you are going to have a place in eternal glory, you cannot take a sin there. Every one of those sins of yours and every one of my sins, the whole question must be settled. I ask you, friend, as to whether or not that has been your experience? You may have heard the gospel, you may have thought about it, you may even have sometimes felt a little tearful about it, far better you should feel that way than careless, but you must get to the Lord Jesus for yourself. She went to see him. In a way she risked her reputation, but what is her reputation compared with being a sinner, and she went and she got very near him. She lay at his feet, and then she said to him, “spread thy skirt over thy handmaid”.

What does it mean? What is the teaching of it? It means she was asking to be covered; she was asking Boaz to spread his skirt over her so that she should be covered. Covered, why?

What for? Covered to be suitable for him. That would involve at least the covering of one’s sins, would it not? Could you be associated with Christ and still retain your sins? Must not your sins be put away first? Must not that great question be settled before you can get really near? How near does every exercised sinner get? How near do you get? As near as you can, right under the wing. That is what it might be, spread thy wing, a great protective idea. We read about it in the Scriptures, about the eagle spreading out its wings, a great protective idea.

She said, “spread thy skirt over thy handmaid”. Do you really want to be covered by the precious work of Jesus? Do you really want to avail yourself of the shed blood of Jesus?

Then you will have to get near to Jesus, you will have to get into His presence and get that matter settled for yourself. As I say, your father and mother will do all they can to help you, but they will come to a point when they will just have to leave you alone with Jesus. Every soul who is saved has had a personal transaction with the Lord Jesus. We do not have testimony meetings, but it would be very interesting to get everyone here who is a believer to stand up and render a testimony to how they came to the Saviour. It would be very interesting but we are not going to do that, because this is the preaching, the announcement of the gospel. It is not a testimony meeting, but you can ask me if you like, and I would not mind asking you, in fact I would be very interested. We would find, dear friend, that the sum result would be that we would feel more and more attached to the Lord Jesus, each of us, and more and more aware of His saving glory, and the power that He has to save. You say, How near? Get into His presence, I would say. You want to be blessed. ‘How near, how blessed’, we sang. If you want to be blessed you must get near Him first.

As you read this you find there is another man who had a certain right to redeem; that required three things. The redeemer, the one who had the right of redemption, there were three requirements that he must fulfil for that office. One was, he must have a legal right; and the second one was, that he must have the means to do it; and the third thing was that the redeemer must have the heart to do it. Only Boaz fulfilled those three requirements for Ruth.

Only the Lord Jesus has all those three indispensable assets, and He is prepared to use them all to save you. Get rid of that sinful history. If it is not faced and not repented of, and the work of Jesus is not embraced, what utter sadness, what utter sorrow you are in for. We preach the grace of God, but what utter loss you are in for if you do not avail yourself of the work of Jesus. We were saying this afternoon, ‘In Him how near’. How near have you got? I linger over it a little, how near have you got? it is something for you to face. The question is put in all affection. How near have you got?

You might say that you have got near at times, nearly to the point of yielding yourself to Christ, and then you have drawn back. Dear friend, I would just say, Do not trifle with it. You come a certain way in your exercise and then you step back. A solemn thing. The lifeboat comes to the sinking ship; it comes out of port, you can see it there with its lights on, it comes alongside the sinking ship and the waves are breaking, and along it comes. The only hope you have is to get into that lifeboat, and you are told to jump, and one jumps and he is saved. Not to land yet, but he is in the lifeboat. The lifeboat comes again and when they say ‘jump’, the person there on the gunwale hesitates; and he might jump too late, you know. Solemn, is it not? I have no doubt that kind of thing has been enacted. Men have risked their lives to get others into a place of safety and they have thought they could manage without them. While the opportunity is yours, you avail yourself of it. Get as near as you can, get under the wing of Jesus. It is a beautiful expression, ‘spread thy wing over thy handmaid’.

He will undertake to protect you. If you commit yourself to him he will undertake to protect you, to see you through. You wonder how you may get through, a wicked world, a sinful world, whether you can stand it. You will find that He will protect you, in remarkable ways He will protect you. You will find that those persons you were afraid of are more afraid of you than you are of them. I have no doubt many incidents could be repeated, even in our own lives, where we have proved that the Lord was a protector one way and another, a great protector. Maybe that is your worry. You see the need of being saved, you see the need of the work of Christ, the precious redemptive work of Jesus, you see the need of it, but in the back of your mind you are worried about school tomorrow, or work, and what the people you confess the Lord’s name to will think. You are worried about the ridicule, are you not? Well, I was. For a long while I was worried about it, then one day I managed to get the Lord’s name out, managed to say, ‘Ernie, I am a believer in the Lord Jesus, I cannot do that’. I thought Ernie would laugh at me and sneer, instead of which he nearly went white, he did not worry me. That would be a simple testimony. The Lord has a wing, dear young one. You fear the world, do you not? Maybe you want its approval; somewhere or other down the line you want its approval, and you do not want to be the odd one out. Who does? But if you are the Lord’s, at any moment you can ask for His wing, ask for His protection.

Well the story goes on here in this little book of Ruth, and in principle she has her whole need met by Boaz. Is that all the gospel? It is a part of it, a very fine part of it too to have all your need met, but there was more than that. She got closer still, ‘In Him how near, how blessed’.

Dear friend, you do not only need to be near, you need to get the blessing, you need to come into divine blessing. What blessing it was! She could never get closer to Boaz, one who is a type of Christ. The redeemer became her husband. The word ‘husband’ is a fine word.

Those of us who have been husbands would always acknowledge, I think, that from time to time we have failed. It is somewhat linked with the word that means taking care of something, like a husbandman taking care of the crops, he provides what is needed, he husbands the situation along. In the home, when his wife is under stress he goes into the kitchen, that sort of thing, he husbands things along. That is what he does or should do. But it is a fine word, and she found that Boaz became her husband and she became his wife. And you will find that too, “thy Maker is thy husband” (Isaiah 54: 5), the Man of resource who will supply what is needed to carry you through over that difficulty, you will find that He will fix it for you. I think that those of us who have been husbands for a few years will acknowledge that from time to time we have not done too well. But that is the idea of it, “thy Maker is thy husband”. “Thy Maker”, it is tougher than any job, no doubt that is what it means, “thy Maker is thy husband”. You see she got very near, how near. Think of how blessed she got too.

The gospel of the glory of the blessed God is rich, it is extraordinarily rich as providing for the meeting of my sins and providing, too, power to get through adverse circumstances, but also to know the love of Christ that passeth knowledge. We used to sing, ‘It passeth knowledge! that dear love of Thine, Lord Jesus Saviour’. It passeth knowledge, thy Maker is thy Husband, how near, how blessed. Dear friend, how does it leave you? How near? You have to deal with the Lord Jesus for yourself. Do so urgently, it is a priority matter, a real priority matter. Then prove that He is your Husband. We all need a resource. Every one of us needs a resource. She found that her redeemer was her husband, and the book finishes off with a worshipper. That is what the gospel was designed to secure, worshippers. You say, a worshipper, his heart is going up to God. Yes, that is true. His heart is so full that it goes out to God, and in a way, whilst it may be true that there is something flowing from the believer towards the blessed God, yet in a moment like that the believer is peculiarly satisfied himself. It is satisfied persons who worship, because in that very act of worship the believer is filling out his place. The service of God requires worshippers, it requires worship, but it also requires worshippers, and whilst their hearts may be outpouring, they are also simultaneously being refilled. How wonderful that is. There is a kind of fulfilment in the soul of the worshipper, so he is not left empty. His soul has gone out to God; you meet him on Monday and his soul is still going out to God.

Jacob was peculiarly pleasing when he worshipped God. All his feelings, all his emotions, all that he had proved God to be would have come into his mind and soul as he worshipped on the top of his staff. His heart no doubt was full, and when the worshipping was finished his heart was still full. That is the intention, and that is the satisfaction. That is the character of satisfaction of fulfilment. Men speak about that these days, that the job should give a man or a woman fulfilment. But have fulfilment and you will find that the best worshippers are satisfied persons, it is those persons who know this fulfilment and touch a realm of satisfied desires. That was an expression I remember hearing as a child, to touch a realm of satisfied desires. Dear fellow believer, do you not think we could know a little more of that? I certainly do for myself, to enter consciously into a scene of satisfied desires, with my centre in Christ. Well I leave the word with you. How near are you, dear friend? Have you been into the Lord’s presence for yourself? Spread out the whole matter of your troubles, your whole problem and all the details of it, spread it out, and all your failures, and all that you find maybe even today in your heart, spread it all out before the Lord. You will find that His work will cover all of it, and then to be a worshipper. May the Lord in His grace bless the word.

Preaching at Dundee
8 December 1991