Could we turn again for a few moments to the passage from which we were reading. That's Ruth chapter 3 and we'll read again from verse 9. Ruth 3 and reading again at verse 9. And he, that is Boaz, said, Who art thou? And she answered, I am Ruth, thine handmaid. Spread therefore thy skirt over thine handmaid, for thou are to near kinsmen. Now it's an exceedingly precious subject that we come to tonight. In this story we have set before us Ruth, the foreign woman, the widowed woman, the poor woman, coming to ask for grace, coming to ask for favour that is not deserved. from Boaz, the Israelite, one of the people of God, a man of wealth, a man of prominence, a man of importance. She is coming to ask for grace. And in that sense, she speaks to us with great clarity of us as poor, needy sinners coming to approach the Lord Jesus Christ, He who has wealth and prominence beyond imagining, coming to ask for His grace. Here we see ourselves pictured. Here we see us as the Church of Jesus Christ pictured. Here we see our need. Here we see our insignificance. Here we see the love, the marvellous compassion of the Lord Jesus Christ in bestowing grace and favour and salvation upon people such as us. What specifically is Ruth asking for here. What's going on when she says to Boaz, spread therefore thy skirt over thine handmaid? I'm sure the children don't understand this. It's a very strange request to make. But let's understand that what we have here is a marriage proposal. In our culture, we have normally the man makes the proposal to the woman and he offers her a ring as his way of asking her to be his wife. Ruth is coming asking that Boaz will be her husband. She is proposing marriage to him. She is saying, spread therefore thy skirt over thine handmaid. And the meaning of that refers to the custom at Hebrew weddings, that the groom and the bride would be up at the front of the church, both wearing their long flowing garments. And once they were pronounced man and wife, then the bridegroom would take his robe and he would lay it over the head of his wife. The symbolism being very clear. They were now one. They had been united. Two had become one. And therefore, his possessions, all that he had, his wealth, was hers. It was bestowed upon her. His affections, his love, they were hers. They were bestowed upon her. Even his name was now taken by her. Which, of course, we have a remnant of in our culture. when a man marries a woman and she takes his name and a Miss Smith becomes a Mrs Jones if that is the name of her husband. She takes the husband's name to indicate two have become one. Hence it is with this Jewish wedding custom. And so she is saying to Boaz, spread therefore thy skirt over thine handmaid. This is the significance of what is going on. And of course it speaks to us with great clarity. of our salvation. God's relationship with his church is so often spoken of in scripture in terms of a marriage bond. We are united in a relationship of covenant with God, that is a relationship that is bound by promise, just like a marriage bond. And this this direct comparison is frequently made. For example, the Apostle Paul writing to the Ephesians after giving many practical directives in terms of marriage and the duties of husbands and of wives. He then goes on to say, this is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church. A statement of great depth, there is much to reflect on when you come to a statement like that. This marriage relationship we have in this world, it is but an illustration of the much deeper covenant bond, bond of promise that is established between the Lord Jesus Christ and his bride, the Church. And indeed, even this custom that we've been speaking of with the robe laid over the head of the bride, even that itself is used of God's relationship with his people. It's used by the prophet Ezekiel. I'm reading now a verse from chapter 16 of Ezekiel. Hear the word of the Lord. Now when I passed by thee, and looked upon thee, behold, thy time was the time of love. And I spread my skirt over thee, and covered thy nakedness. Yea, I swear unto thee, and entered into a covenant with thee, saith the Lord God, and thou becamest mine. You see how in these words it's expressed in even more stark terms. It's as though the bride, we, the people of God, are so poverty stricken that we are, as it were, unclothed, we are bare, we have nothing. And the Lord comes along and he covers us and makes us his own. It's a beautiful picture, the people of God being drawn into that covenant relationship with him. So this then will be our theme for a few moments. tonight, the Believer's Marriage Proposal. The Believer's Marriage Proposal. And we will be thinking of how we can relate in our experience to Ruth's appeal to Boaz in this passage. Spread therefore thy skirt over thine handmaid. Now you might be inclined at this point to stop me and say, but hold on, hold on. Surely it is that it is God who asks us to enter into a relationship with him. It is surely God who makes the marriage proposal, not us. And of course there is truth in that. All through the Scriptures we have this continual urging of us to come to the Lord, these expressions of the Lord's love for His own, His desire that they would come to Him, the blessings that are there for them if they will but come. And these are precious passages of Scripture indeed. That's the truth in the eternal sense that we are only enabled to come to the Lord when the Lord makes us willing, when he starts to work within us by the power of his sovereign Holy Spirit. But our experience of that is often the reverse, is it not? Our experience of it is often that of appealing to God, asking God, imploring God that he will indeed save us. begging that the Lord Jesus Christ will indeed look upon us in compassion, will indeed make us his people. So we're looking here from the standpoint of our experience. We understand God is sovereign, we understand God must draw us, but our experience is of seeking, and therefore it is our experience that we will address tonight from this passage. So that then is our subject, the believer's marriage proposal. And with that in mind, let's come firstly to consider an unworthy suitor. Let's see the reality of who we are as we come asking for the Lord's hand in marriage. Our text reads, And Boaz said, Who art thou? And she answered, I am Ruth, thine handmaid. Think of it, Ruth is coming to ask him to marry her and she came knowing how unworthy she must appear in his eyes and how unworthy too we must appear in the eyes of Christ as we come seeking his salvation. Think of Ruth, she was a widow, she was one who'd already been someone else's wife, she'd got married in the foreign land of Moab where she'd grown up And she'd lived her life there with her husband, Malon, who had come from Israel at a time of famine to live in Moab. And they'd lived there, were told in scripture, for about 10 years, living together. And no doubt they'd started off in married life, like all young couples, full of hopes, full of dreams, with all their plans for how the future would unfold, no doubt expecting that they would be able to provide for a family, no doubt expecting that children would come along, no doubt anticipating happiness. And the reality was very different. She'd had no children. Her husband had died. And now she was left alone, saddened, broken, aged, by the experiences that she'd gone through. Coming to Bethlehem, not as some bright, blushing, young suitor seeking another husband, but as a tired, weary, embittered widow who had seen too much of the hard side of life. You remember what her mother-in-law Naomi said, call me not Naomi, call me Mara, for the Lord has dealt very bitterly with me. Naomi, it means pleasantness. She said, don't call me pleasant, call me Mara, bitterness. That expresses my experience of life. And to some extent it must have been the same with Ruth. She too had experienced the bitterness of life. And in a culture and society where brides would have married young, probably in their middle teenage years, To someone like Ruth, who was so much older than that and who had seen so much of the hard side of life and so many hard experiences, she must have seemed like a very unattractive prospect in comparison with the many younger women who were available as potential brides. You and I are like that. We are the widows of this world. We've started off in life, just like all young people start off in life, full of hopes and dreams, imagining our lives will work out in this way. Everything will be just perfect. We will go on like this, we will go on like this, we will get married, maybe, and we will be happy. We will succeed. We will settle down. We will live where we wish. We will have as much money as we plan. We will be happy. And haven't we found out that life doesn't work out like that? And so many of our plans have failed to meet our expectations. Many of our goals we have not achieved and we will never achieve. Many of the plans that we have set ourselves and that we have brought to fulfilment sometimes bring us nothing but grief and sadness and misery. And all too often the happiness that we anticipate from the things of this life is rather sadness and grief and despondency. We come to the Lord seeking his hand not as those who are bright and energetic and enthusiastic and ready to be moulded as he would have us to be, but as those who have lived our life in this world, as those who have wandered far from the kingdom, who have done things that we are ashamed of, who have said things that we are ashamed of, who have thought things that we are ashamed of. And now we come broken, weary, embittered, asking, that the Lord would save us, asking that the Lord would give us a new hope of happiness that's not rooted in this world but rooted in eternity to come, asking that he would give us a more deeper and a more certain prospect of contentment than ever we had in this life. Yes, we are widows and therefore we are unworthy of his love. Then again, Ruth is a foreigner. She's not one of the Israelites. She's not one of the people of God. She has come in from the foreign country of Moab. She would have grown up as a young person worshipping false gods, no doubt engaged in all the sins that were involved in these pagan religions. And the Israelites have been taught to despise and to shun these worshippers of false gods. Now it's true that Ruth had left that false religion and had come to worship the true God, but in many other respects she must have still been as a foreigner to Boaz. No doubt her appearance was different, no doubt her clothing and her dress would be different, her accent, maybe her knowledge of the Hebrew language, certainly her culture and her customs would be different. She was a foreigner and she was asking that Boaz would make her part of the people of God. She was coming as one unworthy to ask for his hand in marriage. And you and I, we are foreigners to the Lord our God. Let's acknowledge it. We are sinners. We are not those who are living lives as God would have us to live. We are not those who are walking in his ways, who are living in accordance with his rules. We're not. We're sinners. We live in sin, we're steeped in sin, we're wayward in sin, and hasty to go this way and that way in sin, and open to every temptation that comes along. We are foreigners to God, foreigners. And now we come asking that He would marry us. As the prophet Isaiah says, your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid His face from you. that he will not hear. Well, that's how we would expect it to be, isn't it? That our sins would represent an insuperable barrier that could never be crossed. A distance between us and God that could never be bridged. It is the mercy of the Lord Jesus Christ that reaches across that bridge to make a way of access. It is in Jesus that we foreigners, we sinners, can approach. and ask his hand in marriage. And most of all, of course, Ruth is a poor person. She is not wealthy. She is not well off. She comes as one deep in poverty with nothing to her name. She's living as a gleaner. And I'm sure the children don't know what that means to be a gleaner. It was an old Israelite custom laid down in the law of God as a way of providing for the very poorest of the people. When the farmers were having their harvesters to go through the crop and gather up all the corn and bind it in sheaves and carry it away, all the little bits of excess and scraps that dropped onto the field were to be left. And after the harvesters had gone through the field and had gathered up all of the crop, then these remains, these bits on the ground, would be gathered up by gleaners. by the poorest of the people who would have the right to go through the field and gather up these scraps and extras that were left so that eventually they would have enough corn to grind and to make bread for themselves. It's not exactly begging as such because it was honest work. But if we can think of a parallel in our society, I suppose it's a wee bit like somebody selling the big issue. It's honest work But it marks a person out. When you see someone selling the big issue, you realize that is a person who has needed help, who has been vulnerable, who has been marginalized, who's needed the help of this charitable organization to get a job and to get a way of providing for themselves and making something to live on. It's that kind of thing, someone making use of charitable provision. And this is Ruth, the poor gleaner, coming to the owner of the field, the wealthy farmer, and asking for his hand in marriage. It's a marvelous picture, isn't it? It speaks to us of us, poor people, coming to the Lord Jesus Christ who is wealthy beyond imagining and asking for his hand in marriage. It's incredible, isn't it? We don't just come as poor people. We don't just come with nothing. Yes, we come with nothing, but worse than nothing, we come with debt. We come with all the sins that we have committed against the justice of God time and time again. If we think of that picture of the big issue seller, we are like the big issue seller, not with empty pockets, but with pockets packed full of credit cards, and every one of them has been maxed out to the limit. And now we have nothing even to pay the minimum payments required on these cards. We are nothing but a mass of bad debt. And we come to the wealthy man asking, will he take us to be his bride? This is the picture, the poor coming to the wealthy. Maybe you hate that idea. Maybe you think of yourself as someone who's maybe interested in religion and you want to find out more and you'd like to learn a bit more about the Bible and a bit more about this and that. But as soon as you start to hear this kind of thing, coming as a beggar, coming with nothing, coming with open hands, to ask for a salvation that God will bestow. That changes the terms of it, doesn't it? That shows you yourself, you see. Yourself as a needy sinner, and Christ as the one who has everything. We come like that, with nothing in our hands to bring, but simply to His cross to cling. That is the only hope that we have, His wealth. his provision for us. As the Lord said to the church in Laodicea, thou sayest, I am rich and increased with goods and have need of nothing. But thou knowest not that thou art wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked. And by nature, that's each one of us, each one of us with nothing seeking God's grace. So then let's all of us see our unfitness, see your unfitness, as you come asking that God would save you. Who are you as you come to Jesus Christ and ask Him to be your Savior? Who are you? You are the widow of this world, the foreigner. You are the sinner. You are the poor person. You are the person with nothing but bad debts. You are the person with nothing to offer Him, just asking, asking, for grace, asking for his undeserved provision. Says the Lord Jesus Christ, whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased, and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted. If you would seek the face of the Lord Jesus Christ, begin here with humbling yourself before him. You're not bargaining, you're not bartering, you're not offering, you're asking, you're begging. that he would give you his mercy. Spread therefore thy skirt over thine handmaid. That's us before Almighty God. And yet, let us not be discouraged. Yes, we are unworthy. Yes, we must get down in the dust before so great a Savior. But let us see his fitness to be our husband. We've been talking about an unworthy suitor. Let us now secondly come to see an ideal husband. An unworthy suitor, that's us. An ideal husband. Boaz speaking to us of the Lord Jesus Christ. Our text says, I am Ruth thine handmaid. Spread therefore thy skirt over thine handmaid. And Ruth, you see, knew that Boaz was ideal, that he was ideal to meet all of her needs as a husband in several different respects. He was a man of great wealth. We're told that right at the beginning of chapter 2, Naomi had a kinsman of her husband's, a mighty man of wealth. And we see him, as we read through the rest of the book of Ruth, we see him as an owner of property, as a man employing people to gather in his harvest, We see him as one of the powerful men of his city bartering and organizing the legal settlement of this arrangement in the fourth chapter of this book. He is a man of wealth, of sustenance, of position, who is able to provide for Ruth's every need. He has the wealth, you see, to do so, to provide for her. But how much more the Lord Jesus Christ as we come to him, wealthy beyond comparison. He is the one who has lived a life of perfect holiness. The only human being who ever lived a perfect life, the Lord Jesus Christ. He who was the Son of God. And therefore he has a life of perfect holiness that deserves heaven. And his offer is to share that. Just like we're saying to cast thy robe over thine handmaid, his offer is to share that with all who will come to Him and be united with Him in a covenant relationship. He's offering to share His perfection, His absolute moral purity. And more than that, of course, His wealth lies in His blood. He died on the cross for all His people, shedding His blood so that our blood need not be shed. And again, He offers it to His people offering to them a covering of a robe washed clean in His blood so that all their bad debts are wiped out and they have nothing but the positive value of His righteousness. And He has risen again and risen into heaven and there intercedes on the right hand of God for His people. Think of the value of the prayers of Jesus Christ. And these things are at the bestowal of Christ. These things are available to his people. The value of his prayers, the value of his blood, the value of his perfect life, all are offered to those who will be united to him in marriage. He is the perfect husband for us, his church. Perfectly suited to meet all our needs. Placed, as the Apostle Paul writes, far above all principality and power and might and dominion and every name that is named, not just in this world, but in that which is to come. His wealth is sufficient. He's a man of wealth, but he's also, and this is crucial, a near kinsman. And this, you see, is a reason that Ruth appends to her request. You see it in her text. She says to Boaz, Spread therefore thy skirts over thine handmaid, for thou art a near kinsman." Here's a reason why Boaz should be her husband. He is a near kinsman. Not a blood relation of Ruth, she was of course a foreigner. He was a blood relative rather of her husband Malon. And because of that relationship, there was a Hebrew custom that Ruth was now reminding him of. It was the custom which is opened up for us in more detail in Deuteronomy 25. It's sometimes called Leverate Marriage. And the idea was if a brother, if the older brother in that family died without leaving any children, but leaving a widow, then one of his younger brothers would marry the widow and would raise that family for him. so that the family name would continue, so that the family inheritance would continue. Now Boaz wasn't a brother of Elimelech or of Mahlon, he wasn't as close a relation as that, but he was a near kinsman, and so she's asking him, will you not marry me in the same manner as a near kinsman? Marry me in that way so that there will be a family and an inheritance for my children as though they were belonging to my late husband. So what she's using is, she's using the relationship that Boaz had, the love that he had for his near relatives. She's saying, because you loved the relatives, because you valued your relationship with them, can you not also love and value me and raise up for them a family and an inheritance? And we can use much the same argument as we come to the Lord Jesus Christ, because he too has become a near kinsman to us. The Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God from all eternity, He took to Himself a human nature. He took our nature and He lived as a man on this earth. He lived as a near kinsman, as one of us. And so now we can ask Him, will He not receive us as a near kinsman into His family? Will He not make us part of His great everlasting inheritance? as that near kinsman. As the Apostle Paul encourages the Ephesians, he says, For no man ever yet hated his own flesh, but nourisheth and cherished it, even as the Lord the church. We are, you see, his flesh, his bones, says the passage earlier on. We are united to him so closely, it is as though we are one with him. He is truly our near kinsman and therefore we can look to him in hope and in expectancy that he will indeed receive us and take us to himself. But there's also another reason here that encourages Ruth to come that must encourage us to come also. And that is that Boaz is a man of kindness. A man of kindness. We see this brought out in a few different ways in the passage before us. We see that Boaz was a wealthy man, but his wealth was shared with others. In chapter 2, when Boaz saw Ruth gleaning, he told his harvesters to let some handfuls fall on purpose, so that there would be plenty for her to gather up, so she wouldn't be gathering up just a few wisps, so that there would be plenty of good corn for her to gather up as she was gathering behind the harvesters. And you remember how he showed direct kindness to her, telling her to drink from the water bottles of the young men that he was employing as his harvester and to take shelter under their roof when she needed shelter. So he was showing kindness to her in that direct way. Kindness that encouraged her to believe that he would even do her this kindness and be to her a husband. But we see it also in another way. It's in this passage here in chapter 3. We see it in verse 10. And to my mind, nothing speaks more of the character of Boaz than this verse, because it speaks his response when Ruth makes her request to him. See verse 10. He said, Blessed be thou of the Lord my daughter, for thou hast showed more kindness in the latter end than at the beginning. inasmuch as thou followest not young men, whether poor or rich." Imagine all that we've just been seeing. Here is the wealthy man. She is poor beyond imagining. Here is a man of power, and she is a person of complete insignificance. He doesn't respond to her request in a begrudging way, saying, oh, well, I might as well, or, oh, well, maybe I could just have outstretched to that. No, he's actually appreciating her request. He's actually saying, you are showing kindness to me in making this request. He appreciates it, appreciates that she has come to him rather than chasing after some of the young men in the town. That, you see, speaks of his generosity of character, that he would respond in that way. And that is wonderful to think of, his generosity of character, in this sense. And we too, as we come to the Lord Jesus Christ, we see generosity of character beyond imagining. Think of how the Lord Jesus Christ was once, in his early ministry, confronted with a leper who said to him, if thou wilt, Thou canst make me clean. And you remember the Lord moved with compassion, stretched forth his hand and said, I will be thou clean. The generosity of Christ to the man in need. But more than that, not just generosity when it was asked for, but also this appreciation of which we've been speaking. The Lord delights to show mercy. It's almost too wonderful to think of that the Lord himself should delight in his people asking for his mercy, and yet it is true. We can prove it, for example, Jeremiah chapter 2 verse 2, Thus saith the Lord, I remember thee, the people of Israel, the kindness of thy youth, the love of thine espousal, When thou wentest after me in the wilderness, in a land that was not sown, Israel was holiness unto the Lord, and the firstfruits of his increase. And the Lord is saying to Israel, I remember your kindness when you followed me in the wilderness. Isn't that marvelous? We, you see, we can turn back. We can go back to the history. We can see that Israel in the wilderness was actually a pretty sinful race, a pretty sinful nation. That they did many acts of rebellion and treason against their God. That they were not very dependable at all. But the Lord is not bringing these things before His mind. He has before His mind the times of faithfulness, the times of seeking, the times of earnest worship. And He is appreciating He's speaking of them as acts of love, as acts of kindness from His people towards Him. He is appreciating that worship that His people have given, and that encourages us. When we see such a character in our God, generosity, graciousness, appreciation, can we not come to such a God? Can we not come to such a Savior when He's revealed in such a loving and such a kind and such a merciful character. See then his perfect suitability. See how Boaz is perfectly suited to be Ruth's husband, perfectly suited to meet her every need. See how the Lord Jesus is perfectly suited to meet your needs. If you're one who has not come to him, see him tonight as the one who has abundant wealth sufficient to meet all your needs, sufficient to pay the price for every one of your wicked sins against Him. See Him as the one who is gracious and loving and generous to accept you. See Him as the near kinsman who has a bond of unity already with you, as one who has lived as a man, the near kinsman that you can ask to be your Savior too. as he has been the saviour of many others of God's people now and in times past. Can we not come to seek the hand of this ideal husband? And that then brings us of course, thirdly, to consider the solemn proposal of marriage. We've considered an unworthy suitor that speaks of ourselves unworthy, an ideal husband that speaks of the Lord Jesus Christ in his perfect suitability. Think now of the proposal, a solemn proposal of marriage. Ruth appeals to this man, spread therefore thy skirt over thy handmaid. It's an appeal for protection. She is asking that Boaz will protect her, that his wealth will be laid upon her, that all his provision will be hers, that she will no longer need to be a gleaner. She will no longer be poor. She will have a home. She will have a household. Ultimately, she will have a family. She will have a place in Israel, a place amongst the people of God. She's asking for his protection. And you and I, we come to Christ appealing that He would be our Savior, appealing for His protection. We know our vulnerability. We know that before Him, we deserve His wrath. We deserve hell itself. But we also know that He is able to protect us, that His robe of perfect righteousness is sufficient to cover all of our sins. He is able to save, therefore we come. We appeal for His protection. We long for His protection. We ask, we implore Him that He would be our Savior. We call upon Him to the praise of the glory of His grace, as the Apostle Paul puts it, wherein He hath made us accepted in the beloved. That is our way of hope. That is our way of salvation. To be accepted, not in ourselves, but accepted in Christ. United to Christ. Precious to Christ. That is the way of safety. That's the way of hope. That is how we can come. An appeal for protection. But also an appeal for redemption. She's asking that Boaz purchase her. in the sense that Boaz take her to be his wife, not just in the normal sense, but in the sense, as we were saying earlier, of being a kinsman to her. of taking her to raise up a family in the name of her late husband. And to do that, as we see in chapter 4, he will have to purchase the fields, the land that belonged to her late husband, so that his children by her will have that as an inheritance. And so the name of that family and that inheritance would continue within Israel. She's appealing to him to redeem her. to purchase her, as it were, out of widowhood and to give her that prospect of a family and of children and of a line to follow her. We too have the same request as we come to God. We ask that the Lord Jesus Christ would purchase us, would pay the price for all our sins, every single one, like these maxed out credit cards we were speaking of earlier. We're asking He would pay off every single one, every single one of our bad debts, that He would clear them entirely. And we're asking that He would provide us an everlasting family, an everlasting home in His promised land to come. We're asking a lot. It's a big request. We're asking for Him to expend Himself upon us. We're asking for His blood to be ours. Nothing short of that. His blood. And yet, as we come to Christ, what do we find? Unwillingness? Hesitancy? Caution to accept us? Not at all. When we come to Christ, we find love. We find compassion, just as Ruth found compassion in Boaz. One to redeem her from widowhood, one to redeem us from our spiritual poverty and misery and widowhood into the glorious prospect being children of God. And of course that leads us to see that it is ultimately an appeal for union. It is an appeal to be united to Jesus Christ forever. Just as Ruth and Boaz were to be united in a marriage that would last for the rest of their lives, so you and I are called into union with Christ, to be one with Him What a prospect before us! What wonder to be, as the Apostle Paul puts it, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ. Or as he writes to the Corinthians, Therefore let no man glory in men, for all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or things present or things to come, all are yours, and ye are Christ. at Christ as God's. Wonderful, isn't it? We united to Christ, Christ united to God. We, at one with God, forever. This is the prospect of the Gospel. You see how this goes beyond marriage. Marriage is just a feeble, inadequate illustration of the relationship we're talking about. This is an everlasting covenant bond, sealed by the promise of God himself that is sure and that is certain. and that will last forever. Here is our great encouragement to lift up our voices in an appeal to the Lord Jesus Christ that he would spread therefore his skirt over us, his handmaid, and that he would make us his beloved spouse forever. This is the wonder of the Believer's Marriage Proposal. Just as we draw to a close, let's offer some final thoughts of application to those of you who are seeking, who are seeking God, who wants to become Christians, and who are asking the Lord to help you. See the encouragement this passage gives you. See here a perfect picture of you appealing to the Lord Jesus to spread therefore His skirt over you, His handmaid. Keep praying that prayer. Keep asking. Keep seeking the Lord. Earnestly seek Him. As Sturgeon put it, batter down the doors of heaven with your prayers. We cannot snap our fingers. We cannot make God answer in a moment. He will answer in His good time. But the Word encourages us. Him that cometh unto me, I will in no wise cast out. So if we truly are coming to Him, He will hear. He will answer. He has promised it. Therefore let us come. Therefore, let us seek, seek with all our hearts, seek earnestly that the Lord would indeed make us his own and would bind us and unite us to himself forever. To those of us who have found him, let us see the wonder of that union. Let's see again our poverty, his riches, the great gulf between us and the love that has bridged that gulf and made us his own. and let that wonder bring forth worship and praise to Him in our hearts as we reflect upon these things. And to those of you who are careless, who are not wanting to become Christians, who are just here because someone has dragged you here, who doesn't want to be here, and who doesn't want to be one of the Lord's people, see the urgency of your situation. See it. Understand it. If the Lord's people need to seek with this urgency that they be the Lord's, if they need to seek earnestly this man to be their saviour, what about you? What hope do you have if you will not ask him to be your saviour? If you will not seek his hand in marriage? If you will not ask? If you will not ask, you will not receive. If you do not receive, then you will have nothing. and you will have no hope in this life and no hope in all eternity. Let that not be the end of the story for you. Seek Him. Even now, seek Him. With all your heart, ask that He would indeed be your Saviour. Seek and ye shall find. Knock and the door shall be opened unto you. May the Lord enable us so to come, so to seek Him, so to find Him in His good times. Let us call upon Him in prayer. Let us seek His face.