The following is a lightly edited transcript and may contain errors.
Contents
Welcome Pastor Ed and Dinah
Dinah
Pastor Ed and Koinonia
Provision in Ruth
Hesed Love
The Redeemer
Providence
The Great Physician
Closing Prayer
Welcome Pastor Ed and Dinah
We’ll keep the kids in here for the first part here. Hey, brothers and sisters, this is one of the greatest days in Liberty’s history today. Seriously, because we are blessed to have Pastor Ed and his wife, Dinah, with us. So I’m not overstating that. We have wanted and longed for that for a long time. Years and years ago, he was trying to get a visa up here and every single time rejected, rejected, rejected. They’re like, we think you’re a risk and that you won’t return to your country. And he’s like, my family’s back there, I have a ministry, I run a church, like I’m going to return home, but they wouldn’t believe him. But recently, he was able to get the visa, which opened up the door for him to visit us today. So we are super blessed to have him. Let’s show a couple of pictures real quick if you can pull up the first one. So we’ve been going to Belize for a long time. In fact, Justus still had hair when we first started going. This is one of the earlier pics. It’s not the earliest pic, but it’s one of the earlier pics, and you can see Pastor Ed, his wife, Dinah. Two of their kids are pictured. How old is Betsy, how old is Betsy now? She’s 21. So, she’s 21. So you can see her between Pastor Ed and Dinah. So it’s been a few years since we’ve been going. Go to the next picture. This was again one of our first times there and is when they had first started to build their church. You can see that there’s no walls, so to speak, but there’s a structure. And I think normally I would not wear that to church here or the church there, but I believe we showed up and we’re actually just kind of passing through and they were having service. And so Pastor Ed, as pastors sometimes do in Belize, invited us up to share a brief word. So go to the next picture. This is it, probably a little bit further along, but still kind of early in our time there. You can see Mike Smith there on the right. You can see Justus’s shadow in the picture. But okay, next picture. This was a little bit more recently when we went a couple years ago and we were doing a boat. Actually we’re doing the Maya ruins and we actually ended up going by boat. You can go to the next picture. This is actually probably a little bit earlier time when Justus and Laura are there. Next picture. This is Pastor Ed. You can see Dinah, his family, and some of his staff there. So we were blessed as we usually are when we go there to get to go out to eat with them and spend some time with them. All next. That’s the boat trip. We’re all having a good time heading to the Maya ruins, which if you haven’t been, when we set up our next trip. [audio unclear] like a chill day to kind of regroup, re-energize, and we do something fun. So this is our fun day, so to speak. All right, next. This is Pastor Ed’s church as it’s made a little bit more progress. This is what the inside looks like, couple more pictures. And then, yeah, that’s fine. Go to the next one. And then this is what it currently looks like. You can see [audio unclear]. This is actually very recent. He’s got some amazing stories of how God has provided for his ministry. And God’s just blessed him, his family, a whole lot. And I’ve shared about it over the years. But every time we’ve connected with Pastor Ed, I mean, we’ve connected every single time we’ve been in Belize. This includes our normal trips, but also our pre-trips, you know, either when Justus or Justus, Mike, and I have gone to set up trips for the summer. And Pastor Ed has always been faithful to do whatever we have needed. He’s gotten us supplies. He’s let us use his van before. He figured out a water supply for us last time. He’s been gracious to share his pulpit with Justus and I, which I don’t take that lightly. It’s a very, very, very big honor to speak in someone else’s church in their pulpit. He’s gone above and beyond to serve us while we’re there, and we are very blessed to have a relationship with Pastor Ed, with his wife, Dinah, with their children. Their children are amazing and awesome, and with his church. [audio unclear] Every time we’ve gone, especially in the very beginning, every time we went and visited, I was always like, man, we’re kind of like, we just kind of like show up and expect him to drop everything. And we’re kind of a burden to him, honestly. And so I kind of felt bad, but we liked him so much that we let that override feeling bad about doing it. So we would usually give him a heads up that we were coming down.
And interesting story, so one year we were able to get super cheap tickets and it happened to be on Valentine’s Day, and especially after you’ve been married a little bit, at least for my wife and I and Justus and Laura, Valentine’s Day is not as important and you can shift the date or celebrate it a different day. So it just happened to work out that we were able to go during Valentine’s Day. Well it kind of dawned on us as we were headed down there, hopefully it’s not like a big deal in Belize because we had set up to have dinner with Pastor Ed and Dinah and his family on Valentine’s Day. That’s not like some big deal. We get down there and it’s like a national holiday. I’m not kidding you. You walk into the restaurants, they are decked out, the airport’s decked out, and we’re like, I think we messed this one up. So we end up going, we end up having a great time. We end up taking his family, he and Dinah and his family, out to eat. We go on our merry way. I don’t find out for years later. I find out. This pastor had shared with me. He shared that it is a big deal. It is a big deal in Belize. But they were tight on money that particular month and they were just going to scale back and really not do anything, and then we had called and we’re like, hey, we would love to take your family out, and it was just a huge blessing to them. So it just was like God’s always doing stuff like that in our lives and Pastor Ed and Dinah’s life, and it was just an encouraging thing to hear that God had sovereignly and providentially worked that out. In Belize there are good pastors and then there are great pastors. I could only find a good pastor so that’s why Pastor Ed’s here. I’m just kidding. I have to say that because if you’re around me and him for more than five minutes he will roast me, okay? So I have to take my opportunity when I have it. I’ve been roasted so many times, if you just bring barbecue sauce it’s like time to eat, okay? So anyway. But no, seriously, he’s one of the great pastors and we are super, super blessed. He and his wife, they are the real deal and we are privileged to have them here with us today. Please help me welcome Pastor Ed and his wife, Dinah.
Dinah
God bless you this morning. I do not speak English. So I’m going to translate for her. It’s a blessing to be here. For years we’ve known these pastors. When I say that pastor, Pastor Bonn, is coming, or Mike, I know that they will come to my house. And that makes me really happy. For years we have known them. They have seen the beginning, what God has done for our church. Today is by the grace and mercy of God. Being here is a dream come true. I never thought that God would give us the opportunity to be here. As Pastor Bonn said, on two occasions the visa was denied. [audio unclear] This time, when we reapplied, thank God, God has allowed us to be here. It’s an honor to be here, pastor. I want to be with you. God bless you.
Pastor Ed and Koinonia
I’m going to give you a little bit of a break. Thank you. [audio unclear] I come from Belize. [audio unclear] So Belize, we kind of say we talk English, but [audio unclear] Liberty has done that. Liberty has been in Belize loving and serving my people. And that’s the reason I started, because I identify myself like my local Belizean. I am Belizean. And so on behalf of my people, the reason I’m standing here, other than God having me here, is to say, I want to say thank you very much, my brother. Thank you very much. Thank you very much for loving and serving my people. Thank you for your years of service and dedication. Thank you for investing in our leaders. Thank you for the resources you have brought to our country. Thank you for loving and serving my people. I know I was to share about Koinonia, but I could not start about Koinonia if I do not talk about Liberty. Because what you have done in Belize is great. I may not know the whole story, but I know some of it. As a matter of fact, many years ago, you helped a church get a van. And I was the one who delivered that check. That’s some moons ago. I know I look young, but I’m old. That’s some moons ago. So I know, or I have an idea, not that I know, but I have an idea what you have invested in my people. So I stand here to say muchas gracias. Thank you very much. Only in eternity you will know the impact of what you have done in my country. Because sad to say when you work in ministry, sometimes we expect immediate fruits. But sometimes we don’t see it. And sometimes we question, are we doing the right thing? But only in eternity we will know the impact of it. So, I want to read this verse to you all, especially Reverend Bonn, Justus Witty, all of you who have invested in my country. Probably you know this chapter. Psalm 20, verses 1 to 5, says this. Pastor Bonn:
In times of trouble may the Lord answer your cry. May the name of the God of Jacob keep you safe from harm. May he send you help from his sanctuary and strengthen you from Jerusalem. May he remember all your gifts and look favorably on your offerings. May he grant your heart’s desire and make your plans succeed. May we shout for joy when we hear of your victory and raise a victory banner in the name of our God. May the Lord answer all your prayers. (Psalm 20:1–5)
On behalf of my Belizean people, receive this chapter for you all. Muchas gracias for what you have done with my people, my country, sharing the gospel in a tangible manner. It is said that on one occasion, St. Augustine was sending his disciples to preach. And he said to them, go and preach the gospel. And if there’s a need, use some words. And you have shared a perfect gospel, Pastor Bonn, in our country. You have done a fantastic job. Whether it’s for Koinonia or the churches in Corozal, you have preached a powerful gospel. Thank you for your investment in the kingdom. Muchas gracias.
Going to Koinonia. Koinonia, I want to read a verse to start what I’m going to say. Daniel, I’m a pastor so I read a lot of the Bible, right? Daniel chapter 4, verse 2, says this, this is one of our main verses at Koinonia: “I want you all to know about the miraculous signs and wonders the Most High God has performed for me.” This is powerful. “I want you all to know about the miraculous signs and wonders the Most High God has performed for me.” I want you to know what God has done for Koinonia. Koinonia started in 2009. In 2008, my wife and I were praying as what’s the way forward. We were fellowshiping at the church, but we felt that we wanted to do something, or mean something different, was to reach out to the children. Many people did not understand that aspect. And I had a lot of pastor friends of mine that I think they loved me, including my mother-in-law—it’s hard to believe she loves me, but she would look at us and said, don’t work with children. Children will never finance your vision. Children will never finance what you’ve been called to do. And you know what, they were partially right, but over the years, over 16 years of doing what God has called us to do, we have come to the point that the children did not call us to ministry. It was God. And we say at the end, if it’s his will, it’s his bill. So we started working with children. And it’s true what Pastor Mike said, and God is my witness, I was going to share that story about him inviting us for Valentine. So he beat me to it, so I need to roast him now. But life has not always been easy being a pastor. It’s not a complaint, it’s just been real. But that year, you know, we had no money to go out, and as he said, it’s something big in Belize. And we said, well, we’re not going to do nothing. Then we get a call from them that they’re coming over. Every time they go to Belize, you know, they come over to us, visit us, you know, Mr. Witty, Mike, Pastor Bonn, and then summer when the group would come. Everyone would drive by the house. So that year we had no funds to go out. Nonetheless, they called and they invited my entire family. And we went out and we saw the hand of God providing for us. And probably for them it was, okay, just a meal. But for us it was not just a meal, it was a family time. It was a family time and it meant a lot to my wife and I and my kids because they saw the provision of God. So over the years God has provided. Today, after 16 years of what we are doing, these children that we started to work with, now they are young men, young women at church. They are leading our media department. They are leading our worship. Just for you to have an idea, five weeks ago I was in El Salvador hosting a training, and my daughter, the one who was in the picture in the middle, she preached. Sorry, it was a week before. [audio unclear] theology, a baccalaureate of theology. But after the service was over, one of the sisters in church came to me and said, pastor, you can now retire. For me, that was a great compliment. Last week, her fiancé preached on Sunday because we were traveling towards here. And my son Benjamin, who’s 18, was the translator. Our services in Koinonia are bilingual. But God has made us raise a generation that loves God. Sixteen years later, I can say we are harvesting the fruit of our labor. [audio unclear] on the shoulders of giants. You might think I’m a lazy pastor, but for four Sundays I have not been at church. And it seems like they’re doing better off without me. But it’s an honor to know that even when I’m gone, things can be done great.
This generation, you know, when COVID kicked in in 2020, and all the churches in Belize went to what we call lockdown, the buildings were closed. And all buildings were closed for over a year. So we had to stream. And you know, in Belize, Sunday was called a no-movement day. No one leaves their compound. So we were to stream. And I look at my son, and I said, Jay, he’s my oldest son. And I said, you’re going to stream for us. And in my brain, I was thinking he was going to hold my phone and stream. That’s the way I saw stream. And that was, I think. He comes, and he starts doing it. Eventually says that we need more equipment. And I said, okay, well, write a list of stuff you need. I’m thinking probably he would ask for a tripod or something, you know. He brings a list of almost $30,000. He studied IT. And I’m like, where will we get this? But at the same time, I cannot discourage him. So I said to him, Jay, thank you for the list. But all we can do is pray. I knew we could not get that. But I said, Jay, we’ll pray. Two months later, a church calls and said, you know, we’re thinking about you and we want to help you guys. How can we help you? And I thought about the list we were praying for. And I said, we have a list of stuff we are praying for, and probably you can help us with one or two items. So I sent the list, they requested the list, and I sent it. In the afternoon, they call and said, Ed, we will purchase everything for you all. Good morning. So that’s how our media department was born. We got the stuff, it’s a long story, but we got our stuff. Then on one Sunday, I get a call and it’s someone saying, hey Ed, I just received Jesus—not hey Ed, but I just received Jesus—and I want to come over to your church. And you know, if I was here in the States, I would say, you know, do you know where the widow lives? It’s like next, right there’s the church. So something like that, I told the guy. And he says, I am from Punta Gorda, and [audio unclear] there, but they did not. So we give them a laptop so that they can join us online. We were not in agreement that they would do online, because churches had should go, but they did not want. But eventually when we took them the community they went and invited other people and then sent photos of groups of people in their house. Eventually we had to call, what we now call a satellite church. We purchased, God provided for us to purchase a building there. We built a palapa where they fellowshiped. And God did that.
About two years ago I get a message from a pastor in Malawi, Africa, saying, you know, I’ve been following you guys for over a year, we want you to teach us. And I said fine, I’ll teach you guys. And every Tuesday I would wake up 12:30 in the morning to teach the guys in Africa. And in the process of that they said, can we be under your umbrella, you know. And they said, can you be our apostle? And I said, dude, just call me Ed or call me Pastor Ed. Just that. It was a year of back and forth, should we adopt Africa, should we do it, it’s prayer, and eventually we adopted Africa. But we said to them, there’s no way we can go to Africa. There’s no way, it’s too expensive. If you accept that, then we can work. So we send our church bylaws and our constitution. They accept to work with us, then some guy goes to Belize, a pastor goes to Belize in 2023, asked my wife, hey, what do you want for 2024? And my wife says, if I only knew a millionaire, so God can provide funds, at least for one person to go to Africa to see our churches there. This pastor goes back to Michigan, he’s visiting a friend at a youth camp, and a friend comes by, “Hey Troy, how are you?” And he says, “I’m fine.” Well, he says, I’ve been in Belize at Koinonia. And this ministry does youth ministry, kids program. And he says, I want to know more. And Troy says, okay. And he shares what Koinonia does. And as a matter of fact, they want to go to Africa. And his friend says, his name is Bob. He says, I would love to talk to Ed. So Troy calls and said, Ed, Bob wants to talk with you. He’s a generous. I’m not saying he’s going to help you, but he wants to hear your story. Are you willing to share your story with him? I said, yeah, I’m fine, I’ll share my story with him. I had nothing to lose, right? So I share with him what we are doing and trainings in Central America that we are hoping to go back. And he says, okay, do an estimate and I’ll see what I can do. That night I do not sleep. I work on flights and stuff for Africa. I’m dreaming big. And in my mind, I said, even if he helps us with just a couple of thousands, it’s going to be great. So I sent the [audio unclear] to Africa, and we thought, you know, I was doing church service with churches in Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe, sorry, and Mozambique, and we thought it was just like seven churches. We get there, it’s over 30 churches or branches. So last year we went, and God has provided again for us to go this year again, the same guy. I do not know this guy. I’ve only spoken two times to—I mean he can be probably in this building. I do not know you, Mr. Bob, but on two times I have verbally spoken to him and he has helped us to go to Africa. So God has been faithful to Koinonia. We are blessed by the fact that people as you guys, Americans, believe in what God is doing in our country. I could go on and on, but just know what you’re doing is bearing fruits. What is happening, Koinonia, of the friendship we have, they also have sent offerings. They also have helped us to accomplish the purpose of God. You all, we have received those that you have sent. And we want to say thank you very much. Thank you for receiving us warm and loving on us despite us. So thank you very much. Pastor Bonn, thank you. I know it took too much time, but thank you very much. Whoo! Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, brother. Love you.
You all know I don’t, I try not to overstate or over-exaggerate things. So when I do say this is one of the best days in Liberty’s history, I truly mean that and believe it. And Pastor Ed, probably of all the pastors that I personally know, he and his church have [audio unclear] as well, but the thing that is very neat about it is that it’s not like, oh yeah, I went there 10 years ago and we did a vacation Bible school, which is great, I mean do that, but they go and they keep going and they keep going and they keep going and they keep going. And so as I was over at Justus’s house last, talking with them, Dinah’s going to Guatemala for the next two Sundays to do children’s ministry, then they’re heading up to El Salvador. So those are ministries that they’ve helped start and people have come to them. Like it’s crazy. You hear about those stories where people are like, people come to a person, they’re gifted, and they’re like, hey we need your help, we want you to come, like let’s make it happen. Well Pastor Ed is that guy. You don’t meet too many people like that. God has blessed and gifted him to be able to do that, given him a gift with working with children, which is just, you don’t see that very often. And so they do have ongoing ministries in these countries and just all sorts of crazy stories. They do have, they’re set up in their sound booth and their audiovisual, even though we actually have some amazing equipment. I mean, their stuff blows ours away. But the Lord is using it literally to reach other continents. And so it’s very cool to see that. I believe if I remember the story, some aspect of the Belizean government came to them and was like, we want to put you on TV weekly. And hey, it’s only going to cost like $10,000. And they’re like, we can’t do that. And the long story short, they came like, okay, we’ll just, we’ll stream you for free, weekly, supported on TV. So God just is amazingly using Pastor Ed and Dinah and his ministry and the believers there to do some amazing, amazing things for Jesus. I wish we could take any credit for it, but we really, on this side we really can’t. [audio unclear] of Christ does come together, what can be accomplished for the Lord. Amen.
Let’s turn to the book of Ruth. This is part two of my recap. And as you’re turning there, I’m going to pray. So we thank you, Lord, that you are so good, that we have brothers and sisters in Belize that we’ve partnered with for years and years and years. And we are blessed to have Pastor Ed and his wife Dinah here with us today. Thank you, thank you, thank you so much. That is something that we have longed for for many, many, many years. So thank you, God, for making that happen. We do thank you that the work is going forth from Belize and many different countries for your kingdom to advance, for lives to be changed, for the gospel to go. Lord, let us keep playing our part, and let Koinonia keep playing their part. We do pray your blessing upon Koinonia, your blessing upon Pastor Ed, Dinah, and their family, and we pray that, Lord, whatever they put their hand to would prosper, that you would keep blessing them and blessing them, blessing their ministry. Let it continue to change lives for your kingdom, Lord. We thank you for the privilege of being here today. Help us to hear from your word, help us to receive it, and then help us to act on it. We pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Provision in Ruth
All right, so I’ve been really essentially wrapping up the book of Ruth and recapping it from last week, but also this week. So if you remember last week, there were two themes that I talked about. The first one was the theme of duty over feelings. Duty over, so God gives us commands, we follow them. And so we submit our feelings and desires onto what his word says. That was the first theme. The second theme was really this importance of the family. Like this is about a family. The book of Ruth is about a family coming together. And we see the emphasis played out in a real story in a specific time in Israel’s history right before us. There’s a few more themes we see, and it’s interesting and I love when the Lord does it, but one of the things that Pastor Ed kept mentioning when he was sharing was provision, right? God’s providing, God’s providing, God’s providing. Well, that’s one of the themes of the book of Ruth. Now here’s the thing, before we talk about some of the other themes, there are many different smaller, I don’t know if themes, that’s kind of a big word, but there’s many different things we could glean, no pun intended, from the book of Ruth. And so generosity, I mean, generosity is there. But that’s, I wouldn’t say, like one of the key themes of the book. Well, and provision is a key theme of the book of Ruth. God provides, and he provides many things, but it’s not just for Ruth, but it’s also for Naomi. But it’s not just Naomi, it’s also Boaz. And additionally, he provides for God’s people. So think about Ruth for a moment. What is the end of providing for Ruth? Well, food, a husband, a son, ultimately salvation. What about Naomi? Again, food, a daughter-in-law, a redeemer, Boaz, a wife, a son, the people, a king, a redeemer. Now some of these things, the text clearly says it. Other things are blessings from God that we just might talk about in the normal sense of God providing blessings. He provides relief from the famine. He provides food in the fields for Naomi and Ruth. He provides a spouse and he provides a redeemer. But think about that for a moment. He provides relief from the famine, and we’re going to get into it when we look at the next theme. But all along, God is providing. He is providing and he is providing and he is providing. There’s a famine in the land, what does God do? He provides relief. These two widows need sustenance. And what does the Lord do? He provides food for them. Then one of them needs a spouse. What does the Lord do? He provides the spouse. One of them needs a redeemer. Provides a redeemer. So on and on, the Lord provides. Yahweh, ultimately, what does he provide? Salvation. Salvation comes to Ruth. She’s redeemed by the Lamb. It foreshadows our redemption. Ultimately, God provides a redeemer. Our Redeemer.
Hesed Love
The next theme is, and I spent, I had a whole section, a pretty lengthy one on it because I do think it’s important. It’s key to the book. It’s that word, hesed, in the Hebrew. We translate it steadfast love, a lot of versions. I’m not going to really talk too long on it because I spent quite a few sermons just speaking about it. But it is very important. And we’re not just talking about a hesed love between Ruth and Boaz. We’ve covered that. That’s not really there. But really, at its root, that God has a hesed love for his people. So he loves his people. He actually loves the nations, too. And it’s a key word in Ruth that’s essential to understanding the book, that word, hesed. Now, there’s two mistakes people make when talking about God’s love. Actually, they probably make more. But I’m just going to point out two. One, I hope you’ve seen the hesed love of God clearly in this story. If you didn’t, then you probably, this is your first time today. Welcome. But you should go back and listen because it’s crucial to understanding the book of Ruth. Even more importantly, I hope you, if you haven’t, you begin to see God’s love woven throughout the Old Testament. Because there are two mistakes people make. One is they overemphasize his attribute of love as if it’s higher than the other attributes. That’s a mistake. How much love does God have? How much love does he have? It’s infinite, right? How much justice does he have? Infinite. How much mercy does he have? How much wrath does he have? Okay, so you can’t be like, oh yeah, and what we do is the mistake is we like elevate the love attribute. Why? Because we love it. All right, we elevate that, but that’s actually a mistake to elevate that attribute. Now it’s okay to talk about that attribute, but there’s no single attribute that’s above any other attribute in the Old Testament, but also in the New Testament. So be careful. Now, when you’re going through a book like Ruth, and that’s what’s being emphasized, then it makes sense for me to emphasize it. Now if we’re going through a different book and it’s emphasizing other aspects, other attributes of God, then yes I should emphasize those and bring those out of the text for you to clearly see. But don’t make the mistake of overemphasizing this. We see this all the time. God is love. He would never, fill in the blank. No, God is the one who is going to do some things that are going to be pretty breathtaking. Right? Some in a good way, some in a bad way. God is going to do some things and his love doesn’t just like cover over everything. It’s like this. Like, oh yeah, just do whatever you want because his love covers it. That’s not really how it works. Now, if you’re in the covenant, yeah, his love will cover you. His love will cover you. But that’s because the blood of the Lamb was spilled. That’s why you’re covered. So don’t make the first mistake. Second, don’t make this mistake. And it’s that the God in the Old Testament and the God in the New Testament, they act differently. I actually heard this when I first got saved, and someone was trying to help me, actually numerous people were trying to help me understand like, oh, well, why is this going on in the Old Testament? Why is this going on in the New Testament? And it was like, well, in the Old Testament, like you see God’s wrath and judgment more clearly. But as we get to the New Testament, you kind of see more his like love and grace and mercy. I mean, that’s horrible, folks. That’s not true at all. The most wrath poured out in either Testament would be the New Testament. Why is that? Well, yes, Revelation. But let’s just pause at his own Son. The sins of the world placed on Jesus, and what does God do? Pour out his wrath on his own Son. We have, yes, Revelation as well, but man, just in the Gospels, what God does, and why does he do that? To redeem the people for his own, so that the sin can be atoned for. So Jesus is the propitiation. He’s the sacrifice that bears God’s wrath to the end, right? And in so doing, changes God’s wrath toward us. So God doesn’t act one way in the Old Testament and another way in the New Testament. Think of the recurring verse in the Old Testament. Let’s just look at it, keep your place in Ruth. But look at Exodus 34, verses 6 and 7:
The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.” (Exodus 34:6–7)
Now that word steadfast love, that’s that word, hesed. So abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love—there it is again—keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children to the third and fourth generation. And as we looked at previously, those verses is what is echoed and echoed and echoed, sometimes like clearly just quoted in different sections of the Old Testament. But that is like the flavor and the theme that you see that the prophets bring out, that the writings bring out, that the historical books bring out. That is the theme. That is the flavor. There is a heretic, there’s been many, but there’s a heretic in the early church. Some people pronounce it differently, but Marcion, actually in the very, very early church. And he did all sorts of weird crazy stuff. He only took 10 of Paul’s epistles and he took the Gospel of Luke and kind of re-edited it for his own and called it the Gospel of Marcion, because that’s what heretics do. But what he posited in one of his key things was he actually said, God doesn’t just act differently in the Old Testament than New Testament. It’s actually two different gods. So he couldn’t even reconcile. That’s how hard it was for him to try to reconcile. Obviously, he wasn’t reading his Old Testament very clearly. That’s what he did, one of his many errors, but the God of the Old Testament was a different God. Guess what? Sometimes, practically speaking, some of you might be that way. Did I add, the God of the Old Testament? Oh, the God of the New Testament. No, it’s the same God. The same God. He’s acting the same way throughout history. So see plainly the love flowing throughout the Old Testament. It’s a book about love, yes, it’s a book about love, but not a romantic love between Boaz and Ruth. It’s about a hesed love that a daughter-in-law has for her mother-in-law, and it’s about a hesed love that Boaz has for the Lord and the Lord’s people. Listen, brothers and sisters, if you love the Lord, you will love his people. If you love the Lord, you will love his people. So this definition of hesed as we’ve gone over before has a wide range of meanings. Loyal devotion, kindness, steadfast love, faithfulness, goodness, mercy. I mean it’s all like put together in that Hebrew word hesed. The bottom line kind of being covenant, faithfulness, loyalty, and love.
The Redeemer
The next theme we see is this theme of Redeemer. You guys remember the Hebrew word for that? That’s all right. That’s why I’m here. Goel. What did the goel do? What was his role? He had specific responsibilities spelled out for him in Scripture. What was he supposed to do? He repurchased property once owned by clan members, for economic necessity. He would redeem relatives whose poverty had forced them to sell themselves into slavery. He hears about some relatives selling themselves into slavery. His job is to go redeem that person. He would avenge the killing of a relative by tracking them down. He would receive money as restitution for a wrong committed against someone now deceased. He would assist the clan member in the lawsuit to see that justice was done. So I mean, you’d have many, many, many men playing the role of redeemer, little r, in the Old Testament doing these different things. All these redeemers in the Old Testament, though, you could even call them a type. They’re like a type of Christ. Why? Because they’re really doing the thing that Christ came along to do, to redeem. This time, I mean, it’s always having with people, people are involved in every single step that the redeemer has to do, that the goel is responsible for. All those things, they’re really pointing to Christ. Him as the, hey, we need redemption. Like we need it. God literally instituted into their law for redemption to be able to occur. I mean, you just think that’s like a little accident or something? No. He put it in there. Why? Even the law itself reflects the heart of God. So day after day, the Israelites would see redeemers doing their job. I mean, you just see them. You’d be in the city, you’d see redemption happening all over the place. What’s that? The idea what? Yeah, we need redemption. We need redemption. Unlike their redemption, which might have to happen repeatedly, the Redeemer, his sacrifice was enough once for all. So Ruth is redeemed. It’s a book of redemption. Naomi gets her redeemer, little r. She’s the one that really is the one that needs to be redeemed. Ruth is kind of included in there. But what do we find out? Ruth is redeemed not just temporarily on earth, but her soul is redeemed. “Your God,” Ruth 1:16, “your God will be what? Your God will be my God.” Salvation comes to this foreigner, to this Moabite woman. Salvation comes to her. So she’s not just redeemed by Boaz, she’s redeemed by the Lamb of God. God is weaving his story of redemption throughout time. What does he do? He gives us a glimpse of what it looks like in a specific instance. The whole story is about a young woman being redeemed, but even further, it’s about a young woman being redeemed with a capital R. She goes to the Promised Land, and what does she find there? Salvation. That’s what she finds. She finds salvation, not in the land, but in the one who promised the land, Yahweh.
Providence
And then our last theme that we see is this theme of providence. I mean, we see God working throughout this story. We pointed it out as we’ve been going along, but God is behind the scenes working the entire time he’s weaving his story. And what we see is the book emphasizes human faithfulness and divine sovereignty working together, with God’s role often acknowledged through characters, prayers, blessings, rather than dramatic miracles, even though we have that as well. So here we get to see his providence detailed out in specific lives of a few individuals. Now, when we talk about providence, it’s the doctrine that God is continually involved with all created things in such a way that one, he keeps them existing and maintaining the properties with which he created them. We looked at that a while back, Colossians 1, he sustains everything, right? If he were to remove his hand, we would cease to exist, literally. So that’s one aspect of providence. He keeps them existing and maintaining the properties with which he created them. Grass is grass. You won’t walk out into your front yard tomorrow, and it’s going to be oranges. It will maintain its properties. He has a very ordered creation. But two, there’s an aspect where he cooperates with created things in every action, directing their distinctive properties to cause them to act as they do, and then three, he directs them to fulfill his purposes. Now this idea of providence also goes really hand in hand with his sovereignty. In order for him to work providentially he has to be sovereign. That’s God exercising power over his creation. When we talk about providence there’s kind of a general providence, and then we could call it a special providence. Here’s what Louis Berkhof said: “Theologians generally distinguish between general and special providence, the former denoting God’s control of the universe as a whole, and the latter his care for each part of it in relation to the whole. These are not two kinds of providence, but the same providence exercised in two different relations.” Now here in the book of Ruth, we see it clearly mentioned so that we have no doubt, we don’t have to guess, there’s no conjecture. We see it clearly mentioned two times, the text makes it clear. First, with the famine. Who ended the famine? Who ended it? We don’t have to guess. It says right there in the text, I want you to see it for yourself, turn it to the book of Ruth. Then she arose, verse 6, chapter 1, she arose with her daughters-in-law to return from the country of Moab, for she had heard in the fields of Moab, that what? “The Lord had visited his people and given them food.” Providence. Second, we see it clearly, turn to chapter 4, with Ruth getting pregnant. What does it say? Verse 13, “the Lord gave her conception, and she bore a son.” So it removes any possibility of, oh that’s just the natural thing that happens when two people get married and come together. It removes any of that. The text makes it crystal clear. God granted her and Boaz a baby. We also see it in the book of Ruth, and here it’s not clearly stated, but again if we have this doctrine of providence that God is working as he wills, we see it with reaping in the field, right, in Ruth chapter 2. She’s like, oh we need some food, I need to go reap. Like there’s all these fields out there and all these men who own these fields. What field does she end up in? Boaz’s, coincidence? No, there’s no such thing as coincidence in God’s providence. Where does she end? God leads her to Boaz’s field. So we see it there. We also see it at the beginning of chapter 4 when Boaz needs to make connections with the person we call the failed redeemer, and he’s sitting there at the gates, and what happened? Oh, the guy, I mean, he could have been sick at home for that week. No, what happened? God had it providentially set up. The guy comes walking along. Boaz is there waiting. The meeting happens. The transaction occurs. So we see this over and over, but not just in the book of Ruth. We see God’s providence throughout the Scriptures. Think of the story of Joseph. You all know the story. Brothers sell him to slavery, ends up in Egypt, starts getting promoted, gets falsely accused. What happens? He ends up in prison, ends up interpreting two dreams. I know I’m going kind of quick for you. You all hopefully know the story. But then Pharaoh has a dream, right? And he’s calling all his magicians and enchanters, and none of them know what the dream means. And then the one guy’s like, oh, I remember one time when I was in prison, he’s like, oh yeah, I was supposed to bring this up a lot earlier. Sorry, Joseph. He’s like, I remember when I was in prison, this guy properly interpreted my dream, maybe he could give us the interpretation. So what happens? Yeah, Joseph shows up, God gives him the interpretation, but listen to Genesis 41:25. Then Joseph said to Pharaoh, “The dreams of Pharaoh are one; God has revealed to Pharaoh what he is about to do.” Then a couple of verses later, “It is as I told Pharaoh; God has shown to Pharaoh what he is about to do.” Now here’s the thing, you can overlook something if you’re not careful. The years of plenty are from the Lord. Everyone acknowledges that, but so are the years of want. Go back to that verse, both of them. “God has revealed to Pharaoh what he is about to do.” What is the dream about? Yes, it’s about the years of plenty, but it’s also about the years of want. It’s about the famine, correct? Both are from the hand of the Lord. The years of blessing and the years of curse. Now you’re like, I don’t know about that. I don’t know about that. Well, let’s look at Psalm 105. It’s going to become real clear if you don’t know about that. Psalm 105. So the psalmist is kind of going almost like giving a little history lesson. We’ll start in verse 7.
He is the Lord our God; his judgments are in all the earth. He remembers his covenant forever, the word that he commanded, for a thousand generations, the covenant that he made with Abraham, his sworn promise to Isaac, which he confirmed to Jacob as a statute, to Israel as an everlasting covenant, saying, “To you I will give the land of Canaan as your portion for an inheritance.” When they were few in number, of little account, and sojourners in it, wandering from nation to nation, from one kingdom to another people, he allowed no one to oppress them; he rebuked kings on their account. (Psalm 105:7–14)
[audio unclear] “He summoned a famine on the land.” The Lord is the one who summoned the famine. Here’s what John Piper says. You have to be able to handle things like this. You have to have a God who manages calamity and a God who manages rescue from calamity. He does both. We should not just believe the devil does calamity and God does rescue. That’s a dualism that will not carry today. It won’t work in a world like ours, and it doesn’t work in the Bible. Think about even Job, the very first chapter. What does he say? Everything is taken away from him. “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” I mean, who gave Job everything he had? God, right. Riches and riches and riches, blessings and blessings and blessings, a houseful of children and a nagging wife. He had it all. But who took it away? The Lord has given, I mean, it’s Scripture, right? The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. That’s tough to hear, but he says it again, speaking to that very lovely wife of his, he says to her, Job 2:10, “You speak as one of the foolish women would speak. Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?” In all this Job did not sin with his lips. We don’t like that, but it’s true. Back to Naomi for a moment. She’s in a bad situation. Put yourself in Naomi’s shoes. There’s a famine, so they leave, they’re in a foreign country, there’s the death of your husband, then your sons marry foreign women, explicitly forbidden by the word. There’s no children for 10 years and your sons die. Yeah, you’re having a bad day. That’s why when she comes back, what does she say? “It is exceedingly bitter to me for your sake that the hand of the Lord has gone out against me.” Ruth 1:13. Sounds very similar to Job. But here’s what Piper says again. The ultimate answer, was he against her, was he against Job? The ultimate answer is he’s not ultimately against Naomi. He’s not ultimately against you right now. It feels like he might be against you for half a dozen reasons that you could bring to mind right now. You might say, it feels like God is against me like he’s mad at me. Those verses are first to set up the fact or to confirm the fact that things are going very poorly for Naomi. She feels like God has gone forth against her. But what do we see? That’s not the case. Those things are from his hand, but he’s not against her. He’s not against her. So yeah, horrible things can happen in your life. God is not, he’s not against you. He’s not against you. He’s not trying to do you harm. Think about it for a moment. Your small picture of life. The large picture being God’s sovereign plan on full display. We have it in the Scriptures. We see it right here in this story during the time of the judges. Here’s the thing, brothers and sisters, we ultimately fit in his story. It’s not about God fitting in our story. Whatever story we have, it’s his story. You have a story, but it really is his story of which you’re included. You’re not the principal character, and neither am I. You’re not the principal character. You never were meant to be. John the Baptist does it well. Right? The crowds are coming to him, and he’s grown in popularity. He’s grown in fame. He’s got a following. He’s got disciples. But what does he say? It’s one of my favorite verses. John 3:30, he must increase, talking about Jesus. I must decrease. John got it. He knew whose story it was. He knew he played a role in the story, but it wasn’t about him. So God writes this story. Did God write this story? Yes, literally, he wrote it. His hand is all over the story, and his hand is all over your story. You don’t always know the story God is writing for you, but what you do know is he is the one who writes it. Think about Rahab. We looked at her a little bit a few weeks ago. Think about her, this prostitute, this Canaanite. But what? God transforms her. Do you think she was able to continue her prostitution? No. In fact, she forsook it. She ends up getting married. She’s part of the lineage of Ruth, as we see. She’s part of the lineage, even more importantly, of Jesus. But God is concerned about your ending. Not so much your beginning. He’s concerned about your ending. He’s concerned about your beginning, but he’s concerned about your ending. He’s concerned about you finishing the race, regardless of how slow you started. Maybe you slept with five guys before you got married. Maybe you cheated on your wife years ago. Maybe you were a drunkard. Maybe you had an anger problem, rivaled by none. Don’t let those things define you. If you’ve repented, if you’ve turned, don’t let those things define you. Too many people define themselves by the negatives that have occurred in their lives, by the poor choices that they’ve made. Sometimes, yeah, it’s negative things they choose to do. Other times, it’s negative circumstances they have little to no control over. And perhaps right now, maybe you’re in a messed up place, a dark place, a bad place. Listen, it doesn’t have to be like that any longer. I meet way too many people that are waiting for God to touch them or wake them up or speak to them. And they’ll tell me that, I’m just waiting for God to move. I’m in a bad place, I’m waiting for God to move. I’m waiting for him to speak to me. I’m waiting for him to touch me. Listen, when you say that, you’re already acknowledging that God has spoken to you. He’s removed whatever blinders are there for you to realize some things not right, I need change. So they’re already acknowledging that you need to change. They’re already acknowledging something’s wrong. It’s just an excuse for some. I remember one guy in particular in a really bad place, and he just kept banking on the fact, I’m just going to wait for God to wake me up, I’m going to wait for God to wake me up. Like acknowledging that shows that you realize you need to wake up. And when I’m talking to someone, guess what? God has sent me and probably you at different times to different people to be the wake-up messenger. There’s a reason you’re having that conversation with that person.
The Great Physician
The person who has a deadly disease does not say, well, hopefully the doctor is going to show up at some point. Think of Peter, the first day of Pentecost. He gives the first sermon in Acts 2, people respond to the word. What did they say? Oh, I’m still waiting for the Lord to speak. No, the Lord spoke through Peter. Right? So God’s speaking through Peter. God speaks today through his word. He also speaks through his church. He also speaks through pastors. So yeah, you don’t go to the doctor and you’re like, oh, I have, I mean, you don’t say I have a deadly disease and hopefully the doctor shows up. What do you do? You go to the doctor. You go find him. You get the surgery. And then, I mean, you need medication. What do you do? You go to the pharmacist. You fill the prescription. You take the medication. There are steps that you do. Does the doctor have steps he does? Yes. Does the medicine do its job? Yes. There’s pharmacies. I mean, just in O’Fallon. I don’t know if you can even drive out of here and avoid driving past a pharmacy. Seriously. There’s pharmacies in O’Fallon everywhere. I drive by two on my way home. I think if I took a different route, I’d pass six, if the longer way. But if you take all those medications currently, and all those pharmacies and put them together, not a single one of them does me or you any good, unless what? I take whatever medication that the doctor prescribes me. So I have to swallow the pill. Some people have old medicine in the back of their bedroom closet, right? You know, this is for my shoulder and this is for that thing, right? I mean, those medicines sit on the shelf and do nothing. You can have the treatment, but it doesn’t matter if you don’t take the treatment. And the great physician has made it clear to you what treatment you need. And how does it come about? By letting him do the surgery. But you can sit at home and be like, I need surgery, I need surgery, I need—no, you got to go to the hospital. Right? You got to get on the table. You got to let the physician do some cutting. Does it feel very good? Not at all. But what’s the purpose? To heal, to make you better. Listen, you get on the table, the great physician, he’s wanting to bring ultimately healing and sanctification. Maybe for some of you, salvation. But get on the surgery table. Let the great physician operate. He’s doing his work. But with the providence even, there’s our cooperation. There’s a cooperation. And the Lord wants us to walk in sanctification before him. He wants us to walk in holiness. He wants to do a work from the inside out. He wants us to have the fruit of the Spirit. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, self-control. He wants us to have those in abundance. Well, how to do that? By letting him operate. And sometimes it’s a tiny little surgery. The ones I like is where the doctor’s like, oh, I can take care of that today in my office. Perfect. Like a little something going on in your finger. Other times it’s like, okay, we got to get an MRI, and you got to see this specialist, and it’s going to be six months of rehab. And you’re like, that stinks. But where do you end up on the other side if you go through the surgery? A lot better off, the majority of the time. A lot better off. Well listen, we have a great physician and every time he operates, it’s a perfect surgery. He’s got a 100% success rate. So we got to let him do some surgery right here. Right here, and do his work with whatever we’re at. So whatever things maybe we’ve cast upon him that we shouldn’t have, whatever false views or images, we got to wipe them away, we got to repent. Whatever things that we’ve clung to that aren’t from him, we got to repent, we got to toss them off. Whatever hinders, Hebrews 12, whatever hinders, what are we supposed to do? Get away from it. Whatever entangles us, get rid of. Why? Because God’s people are holy people. God’s people are called to holiness. Why are we called to holiness? “For I am holy.” That’s why. Why does the Father have these? Why [audio unclear]
Closing Prayer
Lord, we do thank you that you are the great physician and that you do a work in us initially at salvation, but you keep doing the work. And we thank you, Lord, that you are a God who saves, that you save foreign Moabite women thousands of years ago, and you’re still saving people today. You’re saving Belizeans and Americans and people from Malawi and Mozambique, and you’re using your church to make that happen. So we ask you to continue to use your church to take forth the gospel. That’s what you’ve entrusted the church with. The keys to the kingdom, Lord. Let us be faithful with that. Let us be faithful to walk with you, and let us heed the call to walk in holiness for your glory. Amen.