Could we all turn together, please, to the Book of Ruth and Chapter 2? Book of Ruth and Chapter 2, please. Many of you who've read the Book of Ruth know that it is sometimes referred to as the book, The Romance of Redemption. Of course it is about redemption and it is the story of Ruth and Boaz and what a story it is and how many times through the chapters of this book we find pointers to Christ and that which symbolizes his love and his working and his grace. And we're going to read here in chapter two tonight, chapter two and verse eight, please. Then Boaz, Then said Boaz unto Ruth, Hearest thou not, my daughter, go not to lean in another field, neither go from hence, but abide here fast by my middens. Let thine eyes be on the field that they do reap, and go thou after them. Have I not charged the young men that they shall not touch thee? And when thou art athirst, go unto the vessels, and drink of that which the young men have drawn.' And she fell on her face and bowed herself to the ground, and said unto him, Why have I found grace in thine eyes, that thou shouldest take knowledge of me, seeing I am a stranger? And 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. The Lord recompense thy work, and a full reward be given thee of the Lord God of Israel, under whose wings thou art come to trust. Then she said, let me find favor in thy sight, my Lord, for that thou hast comforted me, And for that thou hast spoken friendly unto thine handmaid, though I be not like unto one of thine handmaidens." Amen, we'll end the reading there. And we're just going to unite our hearts together in prayer. It's always a good thing for believers to ask the Lord to encourage us through the gospel message too. It reminds us of what the Lord has done for us and what he's delivered us from. And also, very importantly, it prompts us and pray on for others that the Lord might change lives and transform lives through his gospel. Lord, we thank you for God's goodness that finds us met together again tonight. Thank you, Lord, for each one that has gathered here and those elsewhere who are taking time to listen on sermon audio, maybe folk with nowhere to go to fellowship and maybe not well, not able to get out of the house. We do pray that the Lord might use the word and we thank thee, Lord, Again, that whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. And Father, we're praying tonight that men and women and boys and girls would be. Thank you, Lord, for God's great plan that when God looked down the corridors of time, he saw our need and he has a great plan whereby Christ would die and pay the price for the sins of all of those who would ever trust in him. And we thank you, Lord, that when we read history, Even down through all of the generations, there have been those who have come. And Lord, we're glad tonight that some are still coming. And we pray that this night, that someone who listens would come. So undertake for us now, shall ascend with thyself, in Jesus' name, amen. And the Apostle Paul was writing to the church at Corinth in 1 Corinthians chapter 15. And verse 10, he wrote words to them that I believe that certainly in some degree were intended to have them be sure that of himself, he was a nothing and a nobody. He was a very capable man. He learned a lot from experience and he certainly had a heart for the church there at Corinth. And in 1 Corinthians chapter 15 and verse 10, He says there, by the grace of God, I am what I am. Good to think of that every day, Christian. Robert Robertson, in his hymn, wrote the words, O to grace, how great a debtor, daily I'm constrained to be. Thought about it every day. Let that grace, Lord, like a fetter, bind my wandering heart to thee. And Ruth, that we've read about here tonight, she understood how great a debtor to the grace of Boaz that she was. If you look there, for instance, at the beginning in verse two, it says, and Ruth the Moabiteess said unto Naomi, let me now go to the field and lean ears of corn after him in whose sight I shall find grace. And she said on to her, go, my daughter. Ruth was quite an unusual young woman. She'd had her first year of troubles and trial, still a young woman, her husband was dead. And now she is in company with Naomi, who has certainly for a good while been filled with bitterness and resentment maybe not the easiest of people to be associated with. And yet Ruth proves herself to be a friend indeed to her. And if you look there at verse eight and nine, you discover that the place she was to glean is specified in the command that is given. You will notice there that there are five parts to that command, if you read verse eight and verse nine carefully. And five in the Bible represents grace. It's a number of graces. Many of you are aware of that. And in this book, there's a great emphasis on grace. And if Ruth had never, if her paths, if her path had never crossed the path of Boaz, or even Naomi for that matter, how different things would have been for her. And if you're a saved person tonight, we always want to remember, when we see those who are addicted to their sin, and maybe even they're resentful of your message at this moment in time, remember those words that are so often spoken by believers, but for the grace of God, there go I. And I want to look with you tonight at this message entitled, But for Grace. And as we have a look at some of the thoughts that come to mind from this passage, I trust that the Lord will speak to your heart if you don't know him. And whatever you're thinking right now as an individual concerning you, I want you to understand that when we come to a gospel message, it is for the whosoever will, so you cannot shut yourself out. It's relevant for you. And with that in mind, we come to the first point here as we study, as we look at but for grace. The first point is the reach of grace. There was a preacher, and he's long dead now, many generations ago, And apparently he had a daughter, and she was noted for her terrible bad temper. I'm sure there's no one here who has a daughter like that or a sister like that. But amusingly, there was a young man, and he wanted to marry her. And she would have married him, but the young man went to her father, the preacher, and he asked if he could have her hand in marriage. And he said, no, you can't. And then he went on to say to the young man, he said, the grace of God can live with some people with whom no one else could live. He was a very honest man. I don't know where the story ended. I'm not going to give the name of the preacher. I have it here, but I know that God's grace is different from that. Because John Newton talked of God's grace as amazing grace. And therefore, as we speak about grace, we can talk about the reach of grace, and we need to do that. Because number one, grace was from a condemned group. See, it was from a condemned group. If you look in verse two, it says there, and Ruth, the Moabites. And also, if you look down there in verse six, it says, and the servant, that was said over the Reapers answered and said, it is the Moabitish damsel that came back with Naomi out of the country of Moab. There's absolutely no doubting where she come from. She come from the land of Moab. And that is very significant because Moab were known as a very wicked race of people, a very wicked group of people not accepted among Israel. In fact, if you look just briefly there in your Bible, in the book of Deuteronomy, and it's chapter 23 and verse three, it says, Anomite or Moabite shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord. Even to their 10th generation shall I not enter into the congregation of the Lord forever. She was from a condemned group of people. And Ruth was a member of those, that group of people whom everyone knew was not allowed into the, you could call it the community of the people of Israel. In fact, looking at Deuteronomy here, they were divinely rejected because of their wickedness. If you look over in John's gospel with me now, and chapter three says there, and why I'm turning here is because I want all of us to not think of Ruth as someone on a lower level, or should I put it another way, to not think of any of ourselves on a higher level than Ruth was. Because in those important words in John chapter three, And verse 18, it says, he that believeth on him, that is on Christ, is not condemned. But he that believeth not is condemned already. Where it says not condemned, the words there in the original mean never, ever, ever, ever. And it'll be hard to put a full stop because it just goes on. The thought is of going on and on and on. Never condemned. But he that believeth not is condemned already. because he's not believed in the name of the only begotten son of God. And this is a condemnation, that light has come into the world and men love darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. What I'm saying is as we turn to this verse, that you and I by nature belong to a condemned group. And it's a group called mankind. And mankind belongs to a group that is separated from God and because of our sin is condemned by God and we're in darkness. And the fact that has to be faced tonight is that as it stands, we would love as Christians to think that every unsafe person that we speak to is just standing there waiting for us to come and tell them that they need to repent of their sin and receive Christ and then it would be happy ever after. People out in the great mission fields of the world are waiting in the sense that they need to be reached. Not that they're looking for you and me. Yeah, there's some exceptions, but generally speaking, they're not looking for you and me because so often it can be said of mankind that they love their darkness. They don't really see it as that. I was a wee boy. There used to be a grocery van that came around our house on a Friday night. My mom would go out. Some of you will remember the grocery vans that used to go around the country. And mommy would go out and get groceries. And there's a man living in a wee tin roofed cottage just down the way. And he was called Davey. And Davey used to leave his note over on a Thursday night. And he would leave his note and his money and so on. And my mom would get him his groceries. And then he would call back over. on a Friday night, and he would stay for a while and tell me and my brother, oh, such stories about UFOs and ghosts and all these things. And he had us sitting on the edge of our seats, but he was always a very friendly man. But sometimes when he was going home, it was really, really dark. I remember my dad and mom used to say to him often, they would say, now, Davey, you watch yourself walking along the road there because it's very dark. And David on more occasions than one replied, he says, but once I walk for a while, I get used to it, and it doesn't seem so dark, and I can find my way over to the cottage all right. And so it is with men and their sin. You're walking in it a while, maybe a decade or two, then it doesn't seem so dark after all. But the point is, as was the case with Ruth here. That is, the Bible plainly states here in John 3 and 18, if we have not believed, then we are condemned already. Over there in Ephesians, in chapter 2, it says in Ephesians 2, verse 2 and 3, wherein in time past, Paul is writing to believers here, wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, The spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience. You could say that regarding 2025. The children of disobedience. Could be someone listening and you're in that category. You've been disobedient your first impression when you heard the gospel. And maybe you've been disobedient to faithful messages for years. You've been disobedient to solemn warnings from the Lord when death has come to someone you know when things have happened. And on more occasions than one, you've been disobedient to his tender speaking voice, to you in particular, and you've disregarded it all. What an awful thing, men and women, to be numbered among those this very night who are referred to as the children of disobedience. And when you think of how it was with the people that Paul was writing to here in Ephesians, before they were converted, sin dominated them, dominated their lives. And folks, there's so many tonight, and sin dominates their life. I remember a young girl on television a few years ago, not sure what it was, it was to do with Northern Ireland, And they were interviewing some young people. And they were saying, what do you do? And there was a group of these girls who were probably late teens. And they went out together and were friendly together. And that's all well and good. But it was where they went. And they asked her, what do you do? And she said, well, every two weeks, we go out together and we buy a new outfit, something new. And then she says, as well as that, we set aside the money to pay all the various costs regarding our cars, that then we drink the rest. We drink the rest. And then she laughed at that, and she didn't seem to understand where all of this could lead to, and all of the heartache and disappointment that that kind of life could bring. And there's no way did she think that her slave was dominated by sin, but try telling them not to do it for a while. People in Ephesians chapter two, their life had been dominated by sin. They had shown by their lifestyle that they were totally depraved. People don't like that sometimes. I was thinking not that very long ago, long before I was saved, I was at a social, I think, if I'm not wrong, that it was in an orange hall somewhere around Killalay, County Armagh. And if you know what goes on in the social there, there was these games and so on, but the people that were running it were Christians. And the night that I was there, some of us there, they had two policemen come in. And the two policemen come in in order that one of them might give his testimony. And he only spoke for about less than 10 minutes. And he told about threats on his life. And then he went beyond that and he said, but beyond that, I had to look at me. And when I looked at me, I saw nothing but sin. And while in my job, it was very important to know that it was well with my soul if anything happened. He said it was the sin that troubled me terribly when I saw how awful that it was before the Lord. Recognized man is totally depraved, man dominated by sin, just like the people here in the book of Ephesians, children of wrath. In other words, men and women who are under condemnation, belonging to that condemned group that we spoke about. Someone said to me one time, we were going somewhere to, I think it's called Arch Stewart. It was a housing development in Sturgetown. And there was green, white, and orange all around the curbs. And we were going out there to give out invitations around the doors. And the person that was with me, one of the people said, you know, says there's awful darkness in here. And the other person said, yes, but it says they're no darker. It's no darker than the Protestant estates. How true that is. See, it doesn't matter, men and women. In the judicial system, I believe that you're innocent until you're proved guilty. But before the Lord, you're guilty until you're justified. I wonder, are you justified tonight? You see, this young woman, Ruth, she was from a condemned group, and yet the grace of God reached her because, I want you to notice another thing about her here, she was received. Do you notice in verse eight that she's called daughter? She's referred to as daughter now. Boaz received her. And that is the story of every Christian. Those who had no hope have now the blessed hope. and those of us who were once afar off are now received. You see, you can take a man who is addicted to, let's say he's addicted to red light areas, or he's addicted to alcohol, or drugs have got a hold upon him, and you can dress him up, and you can teach him manners the very best that you can. And you can make him socially acceptable, but if he does not have Christ, he is still a hell-bound sinner because he belonged to that condemned group. But when God takes that poor sinner that is ruined and lost and on and on, and changes him by his grace, then it is truly a work of amazing grace. Here she was brought in. She was received. We're now seeing the reach of this grace. Some years back, there was a man called Casey, and I'm not going to give his other name because I'm not sure exactly how it is with him or how it has been with him these past years, but I'm going to tell a story, a little bit of it. And he was from El Salvador, And then he grew up fighting on the streets of Los Angeles. He eventually became a gang leader. And he said that every week was spent breaking into homes. He would have broken into and ransacked stores at night for alcohol and cigarettes and other things as well. He stole cars. And in some cases, he stabbed rivals on the streets of Los Angeles. And he said that the Los Angeles Police Department eventually caught up with him. And he was sentenced to 13 years for second degree murder. And there were 52 charges of armed robbery against him. And while this man, Casey, was waiting to transfer to New Folsom police station to a place near Sacramento, to a high security place there. He was put in a detection center. And as he was there, he became what was known as the shot caller. Something had to be done. You see, the gangs still operated in the prison. Something had to be done. He was the man who called the shots. And he controlled what were known as the shanks. And the shanks were these homemade knives, which were lethal. made out of utensils that they had stolen belonging to the prison. And he said that life was very, very cheap. When he was eventually transported to the high security prison, one of the guards said, look at that sign. And he looked at the sign, and the sign simply said, no warning shots given. They knew they were dealing with the most violent and ruthless and dedicated of criminals that you could mention, and they could not afford to take chances. And if you were out of line, you got what was coming to you. And after a time, about a year, he said, one of the guards come down. They shouted down to the cell where he was. They said, there's a Protestant service if anybody's interested. And he said he wasn't interested. He didn't say anything, but he wasn't interested. And then he said that a wee woman with a southern drawl, as he said, she shouted down, is there someone down in that cell? And the guard said, there is. They said, that's Casey, but you don't want to go near him. But she was determined to come down, and she came down to where Casey was. And she said to him, Jesus loves you, and Jesus could use you. And he said, I'm not interested. He said, well, I'm going to pray for you. And she continued to pray for him. And every time she came in, she said to him, I'm praying for you because God can use you. And then one day, Casey found himself absolutely tormented about what he had done, about the people that had been involved in murdering, about all the people that he had hurt. and all of the things that he had stolen. And he became really desperate with all of those things and lying on the floor on his face. He called out to God and he said, God, I'm sorry for all of those things that I have done. And I wonder, can you forgive me? And the burden was lifted. And he didn't fully understand what had happened. He sent for the prison chaplain who he never allowed to come near him before that. And the prison chaplain listened to him explain to him, you have received God's salvation. Men and women, what a story of grace. There are other details we could go into regarding Casey. But whenever God came to the life of that terrible man, surely he could say, amazing grace, how sweet the sound. that saved a wretch like me. Now we're looking here at the reach of grace. And after listening to what we said about Casey, don't tell me that this grace can't reach you, because you're not worse than he was. Yes, Ruth found grace in Boaz's eyes. Boaz is a type of Christ and as in Ruth, such a type of the believer. And the reach of that grace is something which you need to settle in your own mind now. God will save you if you will come to him. There's not just the reach of this grace, but please notice secondly then, the riches of this grace. Ruth, As we see, she was brought into the family now of Boaz, and she was now in a very, very rich family. Whenever the apostle Paul was speaking about God's grace, what did he say? He spoke about the exceeding riches of Christ's grace. The exceeding riches of his grace. And notice some things about this riches of his grace. You will see here, that it gave direction to her life. If you look there in verse eight and verse nine, it says, let thine eyes be on the field that they do reap, and go thou after them, have not I charged the young men that they shall not touch thee? And when thou art at first go unto the vessel, she's receiving now direction from Boaz. And the unsaved person on the broad road is liable to fall into every pit, and every snare that there is, and then reap all the consequences of falling into those pitfalls and into those snare. And in the end, knowing what it is to endure all the misery, the emptiness, the despair, and the feeling of no direction and purpose. This fellow, young fellow, well, I know what age he wouldn't be. He's a bit younger than me, but he's not really young anymore. But he's a Christian now. And he was able to tell us one time that in his life, he just got to a point where he felt he had very little purpose. And then when he come and he trusted the Lord, the Lord gave clear direction to his life. Is that not something that appeals to you tonight? To have purpose? and direction, you think of the words of the Psalm 32, I will teach thee and instruct thee in the way that thou shalt go. Ruth had new direction that was part of the riches of this grace. But she not only knew direction, she had new confidence. Says I have charged the young men that they shall not touch thee. In other words, Boaz would make sure that she would be safe. The world is full of fear, and sometimes you can understand that. One time many years ago, I remember speaking to a person, and maybe you've met people like this as well, and maybe, just maybe, you're one of those people tonight, and you're afraid, but you don't know what you're afraid of. And fear grips your heart. And there's a feeling of insecurity with everything. And then you want to try to get something to blot out that feeling of fear. And those years ago that I'm talking to you about, I was speaking to a person in the barbers. And they said that they were just drinking all the time. I could smell it. And I said, why? And I wasn't a Christian. And the answer was very simple, because I'm very scared. I am very scared. And when a person comes and trusts the Lord, then whatever else is happening in the world, the Lord is my keeper. And we can say with the words of the hymn, it is well with my soul. That brings a calmness and a contentedness to our hearts. I wonder, do you know that tonight? That confidence to live in calmness, knowing him with you, she had. Here, if you look, she'd got direction, she got new confidence, but she got satisfaction. If you look at verse nine, water is mentioned there. And that would bring refreshment to her. And folks, so it is, when you look at it all here, she's completely satisfied in life now. Her status has changed, as it were, altogether. She's at liberty here to drink. And she's instructed that she can do that. Boaz has promised water to quench her physical thirst. What a lesson. Because Christ is the one who can quench your spiritual thirst tonight. I don't watch much on YouTube. Very little. Extremely little, in fact. But one time some while ago, I did watch a part of a YouTube recording. And it was of a U.S. Army veteran. I'll not mention his name. But it's in fairly recent years. And he was a soldier in America. Then he was sent to Afghanistan. And before he went to Afghanistan, he had met this girl. And she was very young. He had said to someone when he went in somewhere, when he met her first, he said, I'm going to marry her someday. I'm going to let you into secret. And he said that to my brother one day. Cherith was in Dungannon with her mother. And her mother was driving. And my brother told everybody about it at our wedding. He said, he told me one day, I'm going to marry her. And then he said to me, but she's already married. I thought he was talking about her mother because she was so young. But he said, I'm going to marry her. And he did. And then everything went pear-shaped. And one thing led to another, and it was mess after mess after mess. He was posted to Afghanistan, and things got worse. And he tried everything that he could find. They tried to give himself a bit of contentment, and he couldn't. And one day, one day he went into a room where he gathered up these tablets for long enough. And he had two containers of them. And he was in total despair, and he swallowed the whole lot, the two containers of tablets. And he said he actually lay back on the bed, and he began to laugh. And this just shows you how distressed a person can become. He began to laugh, and he said, I was laughing because I knew that very soon, all the misery would be what he thought. Very soon, all the misery would be over. And that give him a degree of contentment. But then just as he lay down in the bed and began to laugh, and I'm sorry for talking like this, but he was sick, and all of the tablets, all of them come up again. And then someone come to the door. And they battered on the door until he opened the door, and they began to witness to him. And he trusted the Lord, men and women. And on that YouTube that I was watching, he was sitting there with his wife, he was now married to and had a little girl. He met the wife when she was 15 or something. And they were now, and he was happy. And he was satisfied. And he was being sustained. Why? Because he came to the water of life. He came. to the Lord Jesus Christ, and that is part of the riches of his grace. You can have that tonight. Some of us here have, and we're very, very thankful. There's one final thought, and I'll be very brief. It's the redirection which this grace produced. Things had changed very quickly. One moment, it seemed one day that she had nowhere to rest, she had nothing to eat, she had very little belonging to her, and was just a typical lost sheep. Now in verse 10, she's overwhelmed by what she's received. Then she fell on her face and bowed herself to the ground and said unto him, why have I found grace in thine eyes? That thou should take knowledge of me, seeing I am a stranger. Every Christian in their own heart does that. Why have we found grace in the Lord's eyes, seeing we are strangers? and she was totally redirected. Such blessing was hers in verse 11 and verse 12, the Lord recompensed thee. He's speaking to her here about what's going to happen to her. And the Lord redirected her life. And as we close, we're just saying to you, maybe there's a life and you feel that it's out of control now. All of what Ruth received, you can receive. And this redirection can be yours as well. You cannot earn it, so forget about that. You don't deserve it, I know that as well as you do. But you can have it. Because the Bible says, by grace are you saved through faith. And not of yourselves, it is a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. So if we look tonight here at the reach of grace, it reaches to where you are right now, right now. And that grace, but for grace, every believer here would be lost. When we say but for grace, that grace still abounds, where sin abounds, grace does much more abound. You can have it tonight, but you must come, you must repent and put your faith and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. May you do that tonight and be saved for time and for eternity.