The wages of sin is death. That's the declaration of the Apostle Paul in the New Testament. It is the theme of the Bible from the early chapters of Genesis. The wages of sin is death. And we see evidence of that reality all the way through the Bible. And we've seen it already in this book of Ruth. In the days when the judges ruled and there was a famine in the land of Israel, a man of Bethlehem in Judah whose name was Elimelech went to sojourn in the country of Moab seeking life. and there he discovered death. There he died and there his two sons Marlon and Killian also died. The wages of sin is death. They were seeking life but they were seeking it in the wrong place. They were seeking sustenance but they were going away from the source of all sustenance rather than coming to him. God is King. That's the declaration that Elimelech's name gave. And yet, Elimelech didn't acknowledge him as king. He didn't bow to him as sovereign, didn't appeal to him for help. But instead, as so many others in the days of the judges, he did what was right in his own eyes. And though the way of a man may seem right to him, It is the way of death. And now Naomi, his wife, bereft of her husband, bereft of her two sons, has returned to the land of her father's. She's returned to the city of Bethlehem. She's returned to her home. And along with her, she's brought one of her daughters-in-law. Having sought to persuade her to remain in her father's house, Ruth nevertheless travels with Naomi back to Bethlehem. And they've come back then to this city that is so familiar to Naomi. She's been absent from it for a decade or more, but she still remembers the streets and the lanes of this little city. She knows so many of the people. They're all older, of course. They have more wrinkles and more grey hairs, but she knows them nevertheless. She's familiar with the territory and with the region, with the hills around and the fields where the flocks graze and where the barley and the wheat are sown. And she returns here at the time of the barley harvest. Naomi too has come. But for her, this is alien territory. For her, this is unfamiliar ground. She doesn't know the streets of this city. She's not familiar with the terrain that surrounds it. She doesn't know the market stalls or the people who run them. It's also different from what she is used to. and she has to learn the way around and she has to learn where to go and how to trade in this place but there's a problem and the problem is that they have nothing to trade with they've come back to Bethlehem empty though Naomi had left full they're so different one an old weary worn widow and the other young and vibrant, and yet they're so similar. Both of them are widows, and both of them are poor, and together they come back to Bethlehem, and together they are hungry, even starving. And so Ruth says to her mother-in-law, let me go to the field and glean among the ears of grain after him in whose sight I find favor. Ruth realizes she needs to provide for them both. How long will Ruth's resolution last? Those wonderful words that she spoke to Naomi on the way to Bethlehem. How long will she remain strong in this devotion to Naomi? Where you go, I will go. Where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be my people and your God, my God. Where you die, I will die. And there will I be buried. Well, that death might come sooner than she thought. As she returns to Bethlehem in the time of harvest, they come back poor and empty. And she realizes very soon after they've returned, perhaps after a few meals out in other people's homes, the old friends of Naomi who take her in. Oh, so glad to see her and wanting to catch up on all the news. So come to dinner on Thursday night, won't you, Naomi? Oh, and bring Ruth along with you. And so for a few days, They're cared for, for a few days they're provided for, but you know everyone's in difficult circumstances. The Midianites have only just been driven away by Gideon and the armies of Israel. Their stores are depleted, there's nothing really, and they're all dependent on this harvest that is just beginning to be reaped. And so no one really has the resources to take Naomi and Ruth under their wings and to provide for them. and so Ruth asks this question, let me go to the field and glean among the ears of grain after him in whose sight I shall find favour. Ruth is on a mission then, Ruth is searching, she's searching for sustenance, she's searching for life and she takes a number of steps in this search for life and for sustenance. Firstly she recognises She acknowledges that she and Naomi are in need. Well, that may seem self-evident to us. They've come back empty, they have nothing. Of course, of course they're in need. And yet, need is a funny thing. Because need is often in opposition to pride. And most people are proud people. Most people don't want to acknowledge need, and I wonder to some degree how much Naomi was really willing for Ruth to go out into the fields and to glean. When I read this passage, I get the sense that there's a degree of reluctance there. After all, well, Naomi's from Bethlehem, and everyone knows her. They know her family and they're beginning to learn her circumstances but Naomi has some degree of pride left in her. She doesn't want everyone to know just to what depths of despair she has come and how much she has lost in the attempt to retain life and to flourish even in Moab. Perhaps initially she's reluctant to allow Ruth to go, but Ruth is insistent. And so she takes the initiative. It's not Naomi who says to Ruth, you know, we're in such dire straits. I hate to ask you to do this, but you really will need to go out. You need to find some way of getting food for us, otherwise we're going to starve to death. And you know in the provision of God's law, God has provided for us, it's a bit demeaning I must admit, but God has provided the harvesters as they reap in the barley, they are not allowed to take every stalk of barley. Not every kernel is allowed to be picked up. They must leave for the poor in the land. So go my daughter, go to the fields, go and glean in the fields, go and get bread for us so that we will not starve. Naomi says none of this. And Ruth has to take the initiative. Ruth who doesn't know the customs but perhaps, perhaps she has already observed at the beginning of this barley harvest that there are others in the field and they don't look as though they're harvesting. They don't look as though they're gathering the barley into sheaves and stacking it and preparing it to be taken into storage. No, they hang back from the reapers and they seem to be picking up the bits and pieces that are left over. And perhaps Ruth has sensed that there may be an opportunity here for her. And so she asks, again to Naomi, let me go to the field and glean among the ears of grain after him in whose sight I might find favour. And Naomi says, well yes, okay my daughter, you go, you go and you see if you can gather enough to make us a loaf of bread at the end of the day. And this was very demeaning work, this was the worst type of work to be engaged in. This was the work of beggars. Able-bodied beggars. She could walk. She could reach out with her hands and pick something up. She wasn't blind that she couldn't see it. She didn't have to be propped up outside in the marketplace begging. But this was as close as you got to begging without actually begging. to go out into the fields after the reapers and to engage in this work of picking up the leftovers of the harvest. But Ruth recognises the need and she's not too proud to respond. She's not too proud as a foreigner in this village. Everyone's going to notice her. She's different. but she's not too proud to go out and have all of the eyes of the people of Bethlehem fixed on her as she walks out to the fields and as she begins this work of gleaning in the fields. She's willing to acknowledge that she is in need, that her mother-in-law is in need. They need to be fed. or they will starve and die. And this is very akin to life today. It's very much like the life of most people today. People who are in need. They're in need of sustenance. They're in need of being fed. And yet, the remarkable thing is that they don't notice. They don't recognize the need. And though some recognize the need, they don't want to acknowledge the need. They don't want to accept that there is something in their own hearts and lives that that cannot be met, that cannot be fulfilled by the usual routines of life in this world. By rising up and dressing and going out and doing a day's labor and coming home at night and getting a good night's sleep. There's something more to life than that. what Blaise Pascal described as the God-shaped vacuum in every person. A need that is spiritual rather than physical but that doesn't make it any less real or any less of a need. And there are some who recognize the need. They don't ignore the need. They don't deny the need. They accept that there is a need, but how is it to be met, this need, this spiritual hunger? How is this God-shaped vacuum to be filled? Where is it to be filled? Well, Ruth has recognized her need And she takes steps to try to meet the need. We notice that she went where the need could perhaps be met. She went out into the fields. She went where the reapers were reaping the harvest. And there she hoped that she would get enough to feed herself and her mother-in-law. Naomi, perhaps too weary, perhaps she's too frail, perhaps the years have worn her down and she herself is unable, if not simply unwilling, to go out into the fields. But Ruth is going. Ruth is willing to search for food. Ruth is willing to do this labour. And so she goes where it can be met, where the need can be fulfilled. And she went and gleaned in the field after the reapers. And we too need to be aware that a need, a spiritual need can be met and must be met and we must go where that need can be met. Spiritually we need to go where the nourishment may be found. And there is only one place where the nourishment may be found, and that is in the Word of God. It's there that our souls are fed by God. It is there that this God-shaped vacuum in our lives can be filled with the knowledge of God and the presence of God. It is there that we can come to know Him, to understand Him, to know ourselves and understand ourselves in relation to Him. It is there that we can nourish our souls and find life. But this isn't just for those who do not know God, who need to know God, who have not yet found God, who need to search for Him and find Him. But this is a reality for all of us. Christians as well, that our Christian life needs to be sustained, it needs to be nourished and it's nourished through the Word of God. It's nourished through the Word of God as we take it up and we read it day by day in the quiet of our own homes or perhaps in the noisiness of our own homes depending on what your home is like. And it's where we're fed and our hunger is satisfied when we come to the meeting of God's people to hear the preaching of the Word of God week by week. We each have a need to be fed, a need for our lives, our spiritual lives to be sustained and you know that isn't just going to happen somehow by some miracle of manna falling from heaven. The days of manna have gone. But God has given his word. And we must take it up and read it. We must go to where it is preached. And then perhaps the need will be met. then perhaps we will glean something that will nourish our souls and make us strong and sustain our lives. And so, having recognised her need and acknowledged her need and asked permission from her mother-in-law, she went where the need could perhaps be met. And there she worked. She worked from the breaking of dawn. She worked through the morning. And as the man in charge of the Reapers told his boss and the owner of the field, she has been gleaning and gathering from early morning until now except for a short rest. She's been working hard. She's found an opportunity. Here is a field. Here's a field full of barley and there are the reapers and they're going along with their scythes and their sickles and they're cutting it down and they're gathering it into bunches and then they're stepping forward and they're cutting some more and gathering some more and as they move forward through this field behind them, there's a stalk of barley here. There's another one there. There's a few kernels over here. and Ruth is there, and she's bent double, picking up, looking, searching in the stalks that remain in the ground, trying to find those that have ears of barley on them, and gathering them together. This is back-breaking work, but it's life-giving work, and she needs it. And her mother-in-law depends on her to engage in this work, as difficult as it is. And no doubt, at the beginning of the barley harvest, as she first goes out on that first day, I expect after the first half hour has passed, she's thinking, how am I going to get to the end of this day? Perhaps you've engaged in work like that at some time. Perhaps you've been out berry picking. You're bending over, picking up strawberries or whatever other berries are close to the ground. Or you bend down on your knees and your knees are hurting and your back is hurting and your fingers are sore. And your fingers get pricked as well. Well, here's Ruth and she's working here in this field and it's not easy. It's hard work, back-breaking work. to glean here in the field, but she's engaged in it. She's determined to do it. She's been working there from early morning until the owner of the field, a man named Boaz, arrives and greets his workers and asks who this stranger is that's gleaning among the sheaves. You know, we come to church and we hear preaching and we hope that it will be good. Don't we? Sometimes we come full of expectation. Oh, it's a passage that we're particularly interested in. How's he going to answer that question? What's he going to do with that? We're all ears. And then there's other times, oh, I'm so familiar with that. He's got nothing new to say on that. And we just drift in and out of consciousness. You know, you don't glean very much when you're drifting in and out of consciousness. You don't take in much that will sustain your spiritual life. When you just come along, laxadaisically, thinking, well, I don't know really whether it's worth it, but I suppose I ought to. I guess someone will miss me. Maybe they'll ask why I wasn't there and I don't really have a good excuse today. But it's not just your presence here that's important, it's your engagement in the ministry of the Word, in listening to what's being said, in taking it in and wondering, how is this speaking to me? Oh, it's very easy to think about how it's speaking to the person next to you, or the person sitting behind you, or the person sitting in front of you, or that person. They've almost fallen asleep there. Well, they're not getting very much out of this. And all the time, your mind isn't on what's being said. You're not engaging in it. And therefore, you're not benefiting from it. It would be like Ruth going out to the field and seeing the reapers reaping there and thinking, oh, I love to watch work. and sits down and watches it. Doesn't benefit her, does it? She's got to get in there, she's got to get dirty. And so do we. When we come to hear the preaching of the Word of God, it isn't just the preacher who has to do the work, digging into the Word, formulating a message and seeking to deliver it with clarity. We need to be listening. We need to be engaged. We need to fight off the distractions all around us. We need to try and follow the argument. Sometimes it's clear, and other times we wonder, where on earth is he going with this? But hang on there. Stick with him. Pray to God that God will give him some illumination, and you as well. But you're there, you see. You're working along with the preacher. trying to understand and see the relevance of it for yourself. And then that's true every day, every day of the week, when you take up the Word of God and you read a few verses. And is it just a habit, a routine that you go through? I need to tick off McShane's reading scheme to get through the whole Bible this year yet again for the umpteenth time. That's not going to really benefit you. You need to engage with what you're reading. You need to put your mind to what you're reading. You'll find, while I'm not saying anything against McShane's Bible reading scheme, but if all you're doing is ticking off another year of having read through the Bible, that's not enough. You're not working hard enough. You may be reading three or four or five chapters in a day. But it's not nourishing your soul unless you're thinking about it, engaging with what it's saying, asking the question, what is this passage saying to me today? and you would be better reading a single verse over which you're able to meditate and glean something that nourishes you than read a whole book that you haven't really been reading at all. Your mind hasn't been engaged in it. It's just words on a page and you come to the end of it like I so often do when I'm reading a book and I think, what was that chapter about? And you have to go all the way back to the beginning because your mind's drifted off and you've been thinking about a dozen other things in the meantime. You've read the words, but they haven't gone into your mind and they haven't affected your heart. and that's what I'm saying here, it's not enough to go to the field you see, you have to glean, you have to get to work and spiritually we need to search the scriptures, we need to dig into the Word of God, we need to attend upon the means of grace, not just attend, not just be there, but attend upon them, to engage in them, to put our minds to work and constantly to pray that God will will speak, because that's the fourth thing that Ruth does. She recognises her need, that's the first thing, and acknowledges it. She went to where the need could perhaps be met in the fields where the harvests are being She went hard to work to take full advantage of this opportunity of gleaning in the field. But she also craved the blessing of the one who owned the field. The servant said to Boaz, she said to me, please let me glean and gather among the sheaves after the reapers. She had a legal right to glean. The law of God required that the owners of the fields, when they were harvesting their crops, should not harvest everything, but they should leave around the edges, and what falls to the ground as they're reaping, for the poor to take. And yet, that wasn't enough for her to know that she had the legal right to be there. She wanted the approval of the owner. She wanted the blessing of the owner of the field that she may be there. And that must be true of us as we come to the Word of God. Yes, we ought to be in the Word of God. We have the freedom to take up the Word of God and to read it. And no one's telling us that we can't come in to the preaching, hear the preaching of the Word. But we should want more than the permission to be there, we should want the blessing of the one who has given the word. We need to take up the word, we need to read the word, we need to hear the word, but we also need the blessing of the Spirit of God. Because the contents of this book are like no other book that has been written. These are the words of God and they're the words of God to us for our benefit. But these stories, like the story of Ruth, a nice story, an interesting story, a very culturally specific story of a particular time in the history of Israel that we can learn much about what went on in those days. and the various customs that are associated with life at the time and the difficulties that there would have been in those days that we don't have to worry about so much today with all of our modern conveniences and the ability to bring goods from the other side of the world within a few hours if necessary. But Ruth is far more than a culturally specific book at a particular era in history in a particular location on the globe. It's a book from God for our blessing that is to nourish our souls and equip us to approach him and to glorify him and serve him with our lives. And those things require the Spirit of God to be known to us so that we can understand and see these things within the storyline of the book. And so it is with so much of the scriptures. Unless the Spirit of God blesses us with illumination, we'll just be reading interesting stories or moral teaching. And so we ought to crave the blessing of God as we engage in this work, this sometimes very hard work. of digging into the word of God for sustenance for our souls. Well, that was Ruth's search. But then we see that Ruth has success. What are the results of Ruth's acknowledging of her need and going into the field and gleaning hard all day under the blessing of the owner? Well, she was fed. We didn't read beyond verse 13, but in verse 14, at the mealtime, Boaz said to her, come here and eat some bread and dip your morsel in the wine. So she sat beside the reapers and he passed her the roasted grain and she ate until she was satisfied and she had some left over. She hadn't anticipated that when she went to the field and she asked the master of the reapers whether she could glean among the sheaves. And she went home at the end of that day, and she went home loaded. She had been so successful, not only because she had been so hard at work all day, but because, unknown to her, the reapers had been instructed to leave extra for her. And so she went home at the end of that day with the equivalent of 22 liters of barley that she had gleaned. I'm not quite sure how she carried it home. But as soon as she got home, her mother-in-law realized that something special had happened that day. She went home with an abundance. And more than that, she also began that day a new relationship, which would lead to great blessing, but that's a story for another week. The point that I simply want to make at this stage is that when we recognize we have a need, a spiritual need in our souls to be nourished, when we recognize that that need can be met through the study of the word of God and attending upon the preaching of that word, and when we engage in those activities with all seriousness and diligence, seeking the blessing of the giver of the word, that he might illuminate our minds and move our hearts to understand and receive it. Then we receive, and we receive more than we imagine. God abundantly blesses, as Ruth was abundantly blessed here on this day in which she gleaned in the field of Boaz. There is success attached to this activity. And we will find that our souls are not just fed, but satisfied. And we will find that we'll gain weight. And that's a good thing. It's not bad, okay? It might be bad for your body, but it's not bad for your soul. You grow. in knowledge and understanding and wisdom as you're blessed by the Spirit of God in your studies of the Word of God. And this is the promise of God to us. that his word is living and it is active, that his word produces fruit in the lives of those who consume it, that his word has a purpose which will be fulfilled, not because we're so good at digging into it, but because God is so good at making it relevant to our lives day by day and blessing us through it. And so we can expect and should expect that as we dig into the Word of God, as we attend upon the preaching of the Word of God, that we will return from that activity loaded with the blessings of God. Ruth was in search of sustenance and she found far more than a meal that day, far more than enough kernels of barley to make a loaf of bread for her and her mother-in-law that they may live to see another day. What would have happened if Ruth hadn't gone out into the fields? At the very least, she and Naomi would have gone hungry. And of course, we are so familiar with the story, we know what transpires. Well, she wouldn't have met Boaz and those things wouldn't have transpired. Now that's of course very hypothetical, isn't it? But is it hypothetical in your life? Are you going to the Word of God? Is it feeding your soul? Are you digging into it? Are you attending upon the preaching of the word and engaging in these activities with determination and diligence? I fear that for some of you, you're not. And it's no surprise then that spiritually, you're weak and sickly. and unhealthy and maybe dying because that's what happens when we don't see our need and we don't pursue the means of meeting that need and therefore the hunger, the need isn't satisfied. So what will you do with your need and the opportunities that are there in all of your homes And here, every Sunday, what will you do with the means of meeting your need? Your need that isn't just about living another day, but is about living for eternity. God says you will find him if you seek him with all of your heart. This is his promise, and we find him in his word. Let's pray. Our Father God, we do pray that you would help us to not only recognise that we have a need for your word to nourish our souls, not only that we would acknowledge this need, but that we would do something about it. We pray that you would help us to to work hard and be diligent in reading your word and in attending upon the preaching of your word that you have promised to bless to our souls. And that we would do so, not out of routine, but that we would do so with an expectation that you will bless us by your spirit, who is the teacher of truth. and pray that as we go to our homes this night that the words that we have heard would continue to dwell upon our minds and affect our lives so that we would not walk around as those who are spiritually malnourished but that we would take every advantage that you have given to us to feed our souls to fatten ourselves upon the rich delicacies of your word that you have given to us for our eternal blessing. And we pray that this will result in glory and honour to your name. We ask through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.