Here in Ruth 1.22, I want to look at just the last statement in that verse. And they came to Bethlehem in the beginning of barley harvest. Now earlier we read about the fact that Naomi and Ruth, her daughter-in-law, have finally returned to Naomi's home in Bethlehem, Judah. They've made a long journey. At least to me it's a long journey. Walking 80 miles sounds like a long way to me. Naomi's quite an elderly woman by this time. And Naomi had been welcomed and she'd been embraced by the people of Bethlehem. They were surprised to see her. Many of the people there remember her from before she went to Moab. But in this last verse, there's this interesting statement that they came there in the beginning of the barley harvest. In Palestine, in the farming villages which make up most of the country, there are two important times in the year. The first one is when they plant the crops. And they plant the crops every year with hopes that God will bless them, that God will give them a good harvest. And the other time is harvest time. When after the seasons have passed and the rains have come and the crops have been tilled, it's harvest time. There's fruit on the trees and fruit on the bushes. crops in the ground and the grain has heads on it. And so at that time the success of the efforts of farmers is acclaimed by the fact that it's the beginning of harvest. And I want to preach to you tonight, the Lord helped me for a little while, a message that I simply just call it the beginning of harvest. And there are three or four things that I want to try to show you. uh... from this the first thing is we need to keep in mind the time of their arrival in bethlehem i am always amazed and the older i get the more i'm amazed at how little most people who call themselves christians uh... give credence to the purpose of God in the events of their life. It was no accident that Naomi and Ruth came to Bethlehem at the beginning of barley harvest. It was God's good providence for them to arrive in the city at that time. Back in farming communities and I don't know, I can remember this, I don't know how many of you can, I can remember when you lived on a farm back years ago, it got to be a little sparse about the time for harvest time to come, about time for the back crop to come in and the corn to come in, so money got awful tight, and it got awful scarce, and the jars, fruit and vegetables in the closet. Got to be a lot of empty space there. And it was that way in their day, too. They'd come in the middle of the winter or they'd come in between the seasons. There might not have been too many folks willing to help them. And Naomi had testified up here in this earlier verse. Don't call me Naomi. Call me Mara. I'm bitter. I have nothing. I've lost everything I had. I went out full and the Lord hath brought me home again empty." It was in God's good providence for them to arrive at this time. Now we're not told anything about their trip. I always think that's interesting. I love to read this book and I'm always intrigued by the things it doesn't tell you. It doesn't say a word about their trip. This young woman, well she wasn't Really a young woman. She was probably 32 or 33 years old. And Naomi was probably 50 or better. And for two women to walk 80 miles in that day and time with robbers all over the place and everything else. There wasn't any interstate highways with sidewalks on them. There wasn't any rest stops with a shade. They just wandered through the wilderness. Quite an accomplishment. I dare say for you ladies, for most of you all, if you had to walk from here to Louisville, you might think that's a pretty good walk. And we don't know anything about them. The only thing we know is they left Moab and they got to Bethlehem. And I guess that's all that matters. They came to this place where their needs could be met. Bethlehem, the city of bread. Their arrival created a great stir of excitement. It tells us there that all the city was moved about that. All the city was moved. Why would the arrival of these two poor women create such a stir? You wonder about that. They were just two more mouths to feed, two more people to provide for. And I think about them and I think about people who've died and gone to heaven. There's a similar stir over every sinner, saved by grace, who comes to the heavenly city. And Luke 15.10 says, Likewise, I say unto you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth. We get all excited about things down here on the earth. Don't mount too much. But in heaven there is a celebration every time one of those saints comes home. Every prodigal is warmly welcomed by being received by the Father. I have no idea how many times I have read that story of the prodigal son. And I am always moved. That boy is wandering along up that road hungry. destitute, half-dressed, dirty. He's thinking, if I can just get back there and they'll let me be a slave, I'll be happy. But all of a sudden, he looks up and here comes an old man running down the hill as fast as he can. And he welcomes. Ruth and Naomi have come to the right place. There's a warm welcome for them in Bethlehem. The women gather around and they say, is this Naomi? They're surprised to see her. They came at the perfect time. It was harvest time. There was an abundance in the land. Enough for them. The barley was healthy. Celebrations were joyous. I can remember when I was a kid, we used to get pretty excited when the end of the year came, crops came in. sell that tobacco. It might not make three or four hundred dollars. That was a lot of money back then, you know. That was a lot of money. Man, even the kids might get a nickel or a dime or a quarter. It was an exciting time. But the fruit of the earth had come to bear with great significance. These two women have come a long way. They have walked almost 80 miles through the hillsides and the valleys of Palestine to get here. And they get there and it's the beginning of barley harvest. Now, in the Old Testament, there's a lot told in the book of Exodus and the book of Leviticus about the festivals of the Hebrew people. They had a lot of festivals. A lot of religious festivals, a lot of secular festivals. But there were three in particular that they kept every year. These three stood out above all the others. The Feast of Passover was a significant one. Hold your finger there and turn back to Leviticus chapter 23. in Leviticus chapter 23, verse 4. These are the feasts of the Lord, even holy convocations, which ye shall proclaim in their seasons. In the fourteenth day of the first month, and even, is the Lord's Passover. And on the fifteenth day of the same month is the feast of unleavened bread unto the Lord, seven days you must eat unleavened bread. In the first day you shall have a holy convocation, and you shall do no servile work therein, but you shall offer an offering made by fire unto the Lord seven days. And the seventh day is a holy convocation, and you shall do no servile work therein." This feast, the Feast of Passover, originated during God's judgment on the Egyptians. He had promised that he would set his people free. Told them how long they'd be there. And they were there that long. And when he came, he sent Moses with this message. Everybody get in a house and you kill a Passover lamb. And you take its blood and you mark the door with it. and you roast that lamb whole and you eat it on the day of Passover. That Passover lamb was symbolic. It was a type, a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ who is our substitute. When He died on the cross, He died for us. He took our place. He bore our sin and provided redemption for us in His mercy. It was at the Passover feast The Lord Jesus Christ initiated the Lord's Supper. Every time we take the Lord's Supper, we follow in the pattern that they did in the early church. They took the bread and the cup of blessing from the Passover feast and they celebrated it as a new ordinance, a new institute in the church to symbolize the Lord's death until He comes again. This do in remembrance of me. the passover feast points us to christ and it points us to the unity that we as believers have in him in first corinthians ten sixteen paul wrote the cup of blessing which we bless is it not the communion of the blood of christ the bread which we break is it not the communion of the body of christ i don't uh... i don't know how you all feel about this it really doesn't make much difference to me but i the lord suffers very special time it is it just uh... it it focuses our attention on christ like nothing else that i know of and it also reminds me of the fellowship and the unity that the believers have with each other there are all kinds of people that have uh... lots of funny ideas about it but they they all come back to this it represents christ And it talks about our unity in Him. Now the second feast that they kept every year was the Feast of Firstfruits. There in Leviticus 23, look at verse number 9. And the Lord spoke unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye be coming to the land which I give unto you, and shall reap the harvest thereof, then you shall bring a sheaf of the firstfruits of your harvest unto the priest, and he shall wave the sheaf before the Lord to be accepted for you on the morrow after the Sabbath, the priest shall wave it." The people, when they harvested their crops, they would bring a portion of that harvest, whatever it was. it was grain or if it was cattle or lambs or whatever it was, they would bring a portion of it and the priest would take that portion, whatever it was, grain or whatever, most of it usually was grain, and they would make sheaths of it and they would wave it before the Lord and the people would worship as they waved that. And that's what they were doing here. Everything we do as people, I know you all work at one thing or another. Some of you ladies are housewives. Some of you work at jobs. Men work. It's something that we all do. But all the results of our labor belongs to the Lord. It belongs to the Lord. If it wasn't for Him, you couldn't do what you do. And he wanted them to know that and to understand it and reflect upon it. It was on this Feast of the Firstfruits, on the first day of the week that the Lord Jesus Christ rose up as the firstfruits of the resurrection. He's not going to be the last one. He was the first one. And all the fruit of the cross is God's great work for us. It was all His plan, all in His purpose, all in His initiative. And it was all for you and me and other people who are called to faith in Christ. All the ransomed of Christ along to God as His distinct people, where He is, where He is. I like people. I think people are funny. And I'm always attracted. All my life I have always been fascinated with why certain husbands and wives got together. They're total opposites of each other. I don't understand how they got hooked up. I don't know. They just seem to be so different and it just seems to be so far out of the way. I know people who've adopted children, and after they adopted them, I wondered why you did that, because it didn't work out too well. And I look at us, and I realize how flawed we are, how imperfect we are. I was reading the scriptures this morning, and I just got this on my mind. I'm such a sinner. And yet Christ has done so much for me to make me acceptable to the Father and I'm glad of that. The third feast that they kept every year was the Feast of Pentecost. And it took place 50 days after the celebration of Passover. There in Leviticus 23 verse 15, And you shall count unto you from the morrow after the Sabbath From that day that you brought the sheaf of the wave offering, seven sabbaths shall be complete. Even unto the morrow after the seventh sabbath shall you number fifty days, and you shall offer a new meat offering unto the Lord. You shall bring out of your habitations two wave loaves of two-tenth deals. They shall be a fine flour. They shall be bacon with leaven. They are the firstfruits unto the Lord. You shall offer with the bread seven lambs without blemish of the first year, and one young bullock and two rams they shall be for a burnt offering unto the Lord, with their meat offering and their drink offerings, even an offering made by fire of sweet savour unto the Lord. Then you shall sacrifice one kid of the goats for a sin offering, and two lambs of the first year for a sacrifice of peace offerings. And the priest shall wave them with the bread of the firstfruits for a wave often before the Lord with the two lambs, and they shall be holy to the Lord for the priest. And you shall proclaim on the selfsame day that it may be a holy convocation unto you. You shall do no servile work therein. It shall be a statute forever in all your dwellings throughout your generation." On this day, on the day of Pentecost, They renewed all their vows. They consecrated themselves to God this entire day. This whole period of time was set apart and they did no work. They were at the tabernacle or later on at the temple and they renewed their vows and consecrated themselves completely to God. The feast pictures the gift of the Holy Spirit. I run across people with funny ideas every once in a while. And there's a whole lot of people that think that somewhere in time we're all going to go back to having sacrifices and offering them at a temple. Listen to me, there isn't any such thing. The sacrifice has been offered. God doesn't want bulls and goats and shocks of wheat. He's got his son. And that's what pleases him. the second chapter of acts when they were celebrating the day of pentecost holy spirit came they were given this massive gift of the spirit of god to the saints of the church did miraculous things people were healed people spoke in languages they didn't know and uh... god reached people through the holy spirit We want to focus on this First Fruits Festival. It's the beginning of harvest. And I want you to hold your finger there and root. We're through Leviticus. But if you'll turn back to 1 Corinthians chapter 15, I want to read you two or three verses. 1 Corinthians 15 verse 20. Here Paul says this, But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept. For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive, But every man in his own order Christ the firstfruits afterward they that are Christ at his coming. There's going to be a resurrection. This old body we live in is most of you are getting a little bit older and you know you've got aches and pains you didn't used to have. And it keeps falling apart. And it gets some people worse than others. Then they're going to take you out there one day and put you in a box and bury you in the ground. And it always intrigues me. And I'm not making fun of anybody. Please don't take it that way. But it always amuses me how much people go to such efforts to protect that body. They put folks in sealed coffins and they put them in sealed vaults and put them together. Some people, they wrap around them and everything else. Down in Georgia, they have water in the ground so they put the coffins down in a concrete box, the vault down in a concrete box. They put a slab on top of it and they pour another slab on top of that to keep it from floating up. They do everything they can to protect that body. There's one problem. The body deteriorates from within. You can do anything you want to. And this old house we lived in is going to fall apart. Somebody was talking about that this morning. They had dug somebody's grave up and they were moving them. They were moving a coffin. And the person had been dead about 10 years and they dug it up and said the vault was crumbling and the coffin was crumbling and everything like that. So I'd suggest wherever they put you down, stay there. Don't move. But this beginning of the barley harvest connects with this first fruits festival. Ruth and Naomi come to Bethlehem. just as it begins this festival as i said earlier represents christ's resurrection uh... they definitely pointed to the resurrection 1 corinthians 1520 says but now has christ risen from the dead and become the first fruits of them that slept i uh... can remember when i was a kid You'd see a blackberry growing on a blackberry bush. Boy, you couldn't wait to get a hold of it. Persons weren't fit to eat. They were as tired as they could be, and bitter, and usually hard, and they weren't very good. But it was the idea that pretty soon the blackberries were coming. Well, I'll tell you what, the resurrection's coming. And, you know, all that are in Christ are going to enjoy it. Paul said in Colossians 1.18, he is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things he might have the preeminence. He has the preeminence. That's quite certain. This is an event that's saturated with the gospel truth of the resurrection. This is first fruits. First fruits. We think life is sometimes long and troublesome. I was sitting back there before you came tonight and I noticed a book over on my bookshelf and still had cellophane around it. A lot of those books come from England, that's where they come. And I tore that off there. It was The Life of William Gadsby, a great hymn writer. And I started reading it. And I thought, boy, how much emphasis we put on things in this world. They really don't matter. They come and they go. It doesn't make any difference. You're like me. I suspicion you're like me. You've accumulated a bunch of stuff in your life. I have no idea. Well, most of us don't have the idea how much we got. And one of these days, you're going to die. And I don't know about you, but I can tell you my two sons don't care. They wouldn't give a bucket of warm spit for all the stuff I've got. It doesn't mean anything to them. And if I'm gone, I don't care either. But this is an event. that points us to the resurrection. The first fruits. It shows the beginnings of new life in Christ. After the deadness of winter, after the deadness of the off-season, after the deadness of the time when there is nothing growing in the ground, we see new life on that first harvest. I was watching I look out the window and I see folks going up and down the road with tractors and farm equipment on behind them, and I think somebody's getting ready for harvest. Some of the spring crops are coming in now, getting ready for them. And it goes on all through the summer, first crops. Our Lord compared His resurrection to a great field that was ready to harvest. He told the disciples, you know, This field is widened to harvest. And I go down through Mississippi and Louisiana and South Alabama and some places Georgia at certain times of the year. And I don't know if you've ever seen cotton grow, but if you've never seen cotton grow, it looks like it's snow all over the ground for as far as you can see. And the first time I ever saw that, I was amazed. It just intrigued me. Look at that cotton. But that first fruit was waved before the Lord, and it's related to our Lord's resurrection. He's coming. That first fruit says to everybody in the community, harvest is coming. Victory is coming. Success is coming. The silos are going to be filled. The feed troughs are going to be jammed. And to us it says the Lord is coming again. This is a time of great joy to every believer. I love that old song. He lives. He lives. You ask me how I know he lives. He lives within my heart. Every born again believer is a first fruit unto God. James 1.18 says of his own will, beget he us with the word of truth that we should be a kind of first fruits of his creatures. They held this feast on the first day of the week. The Jewish Sabbath was from 6 o'clock Friday night to 6 o'clock Saturday night. And the first day of the week was on Sunday. The Romans were the ones that set up that calendar. And it was on the first day that the harvest came. And it was on the first day that Jesus arose from the grave. I like to read that passage of Scripture. That woman went out there and she looked in the grave. Nobody there. Grave clothes were still there. The angel said, He's not here. He's risen. And she's just distraught. And she goes wandering to the grave. And she runs into the Lord. And she doesn't recognize Him. She thinks He's a gardener. She said, I don't know what you did with Him. But if you'll just tell me where He is, I'll take Him. I'm going to finish this process and I'll bury her again." And he says, Mary, and she knows who it is. She knows who it is. Psalm 118 verse 23 says this, this is the Lord's doing. It is marvelous in our eyes. This is the day which the Lord hath made. We will rejoice and be glad in Him. Do you rejoice in every day God gives you? You should. Say, but pastor, you don't know, I've got bad news today. It's in the will of God. I've got sickness today. It's in the will of God. I've got hardship today. It's in the will of God. This feast symbolizes our justification. You look at that empty tomb, and what it says is this, that the Lord is not there anymore. He's raised again for our justification. This was a feast of great joy, and so is the redemption that we have in Christ. I rejoice over that. I don't know what else is going on in the world. I don't think about it too much anymore, but I know this. Because He rose, I live. Where we were accepted only in the imputed righteousness of our surety. When I call out to the Father, He hears me. And He hears me as my father. Because His son is my kinsman. My kids were. This feast was also a pledge that not only do you have these blessings, but more blessings are coming. More blessings are coming. It was a tribute to God that was based on the firstfruits. Oh, God's given us the firstfruits. He's going to give us some more. I think about the children of Israel wandering in that wilderness for all those years, and God would send bread down to them every night. I'd get up in the morning, first thing I did was go pick up the bread. God did that. You may not have to go pick up the bread, but I tell you, if you went to the Kroger store today and you got a loaf of bread, God gave it to you. God gave it to you. Resurrection manifests the freeness of God's grace. It's so free. So free. It's a tribute to our resurrection. Not only to Christ's resurrection, but to ours. You're going to have a resurrection too. So am I. In Him. This feast is a picture of the age of the grace that we have in the gospel. You know, multitudes have come, but the festival still continues. I don't know, I hope you pray this way, Every time I walk out of that study back there and I come through and get this pulpit, I pray that somebody here that doesn't know the Lord will come to know Him. That God will show Himself to somebody. Every time I preach. There's an immediate expectancy about His coming. I don't know what's going to happen tomorrow. I don't know what's going to happen next week. I don't know what's going to happen next year. I don't know what's going to happen in the next decade. But I do know this, the Lord Jesus Christ is coming. He's coming. I don't know when, but He's coming. He's coming when He aims to come. The cursed become the cured in Christ. The condemned are cleared in His righteousness. Every believing sinner comes to Christ as the true bread that God's given. The Gospel declares Christ to be alive, to be reigning over His own people. He sits on the throne of universal redemption with the scepter of God's sovereignty in His holy hand. This feast also looks back to Christ's death. You know, that Christ who rose from that grave, He was the sacrificial Lamb of God. He wasn't just another dead man. He wasn't just some fella that had a heart attack or some fella that bled to death or some fella that had an aneurysm. No, He was the Son of God. He was the Lamb of God who died as a substitute to vicarious sacrifice of His covenant people. And justice must be satisfied or atonement can never be complete. Atonement can never be complete. The Bible teaches that Jesus died for those that the Father gave Him for the foundation of the world. He didn't die for everybody. He doesn't intend to save everybody. And all these people that think Jesus has done all He can do and it's up to them to finish it just miss the point. They just miss the point. Atonement required God's Son to become a man and He did. It required God's Son to become our perfect substitute and He did. It required the Lamb of Glory to become our Redeemer and He did. and they came to Bethlehem in the beginning of barley harvest. You know, man sinned. And man deserves to die. But atonement has already been made. And that's good news. Justice demanded satisfaction. You know, most of you have been coming here a long time and you've heard me preach about Mephibosheth. I don't know how many times I love old Mephibosheth. You know, Mephibosheth should have been killed. He should have been executed. He was a descendant of Saul, David's enemy. And all of Saul's children were killed except Mephibosheth. And Mephibosheth was spared by David, not because he knew him, but because he had made a covenant with his father, Jonathan. And in this very same way, we're spared in Christ. The Father made a covenant with His Son. And He died for us. And He lives for us. And we live in Him. The curse of God was removed from all the elect when Christ died and rose again. Justice has been completely achieved by Christ's reconciliation for the elect. Now, I don't know if you understand this or believe it, and if you don't, then don't feel too bad because I'm not sure I do either. But by faith, by faith, I know that I stand before God perfectly righteous in His Son. And if you're a believer, so do you. They came to Bethlehem in the beginning of barley harvest. Amen.