Put Your Mantle Over Me

Introduction

A. I have made a fresh study of the Book of Ruth through the gateway of personal need and that is the gate through which it is always best to approach the Scriptures.

1. There is a chorus - I don't know the music Ä but the lyric is as follows:

a. Cover me, cover me, Extend the border of Thy mantle over me,
Because Thou art my nearest Kinsman, cover me, cover me, cover me.
b. It is based on the words of Ruth to Boaz in 3:9. Spread thy skirt over thine
handmaid.
c. As I read those words, I saw myself a Christian as impoverished as Ruth was but I also saw the Lord Jesus as my nearest Kinsman.
d. He like Boaz had the right to redeem me out of my situation of failure and need.

2. I prayed almost those same words - I confessed my sin and need and asked Him to cover me and to bail me out once again.

a. He did that very thing for me as I confessed my faith in His precious blood that ever cleanses sinners when they take that place before Him.
b. I have sometimes found myself so cold in heart that I began to wonder if the mantle of His grace would stretch as far as me.
c. I need not to have feared, for I have found that mantle to be made of wonderfully stretchable material.

3. God's grace by its very nature extends to every
conceivable condition of need and failure.

II. The Background of the Story.

A. The whole story is one of redemption based on two laws of scripture.

1. Leviticus 25:8 -17 , Leviticus 25:23 - 25 , Leviticus 25:47 - 48 and Deut. 25:5 - 10.
2. The two laws dealt with the redemption of land and persons.

a. Both the land and the people could be redeemed by a GOEL or Kinsman Redeemer.

B. Redemption is the supreme activity of the grace of God to which all the energies of the holy Trinity are be

1. There are two activities of God - one is creation. The other is redemption.
2 The result of the first (creation) went wrong.

a. Satan came and spoiled the whole of creation - it now groans and awaits a glorious redemption.
b. God in redemption did not despair of things but made of man a vessel as seemed good to Him.
c. To create God had but to speak but to redeem He had to bleed.

3. In spite of that fact, He was willing to bleed suffer and die in order that He might save us.

a. This was sheer grace on His part for He owed us nothing.
b. Grace is defined in one dictionary as: "a concession not claim able as a right."
c. How true it is that man had no claim, no right to be redeemed, yet God in grace did so.

4. Usually we equate redemption with the forgiveness of sin, but you will find that it includes much more than that.

a. Redemption not only forgives a person's sin, but restores all the loss occasioned by the
b. Through sin, we lose our happy relationships with others, we set people against us.
c. We make wrong choices and find ourselves in grievous and complicated situations.
d. But failure with God is never final.
e. Jesus Christ is the Redeemer of lost people and lost situations.

C. When Jesus moves in to redeem, He not only forgives the sin we confess, but He also overrules for good the whole situation in which we have landed ourselves.

1. He often gives us back far more than we have forfeited.
2. He does this in order that we don't go on blaming ourselves but rather find ourselves praising Jesus for all He has done for a poor failure like myself.
3. What a marvelous and gracious God we serve.

III. The Wider Meaning of the Word

A. The wider meaning in this word redemption is not unlike the other great word that begins with RE REVIVAL.

1. RE is the LATIN prefix meaning "again." .
2. The Bible words beginning with it always speaks of the grace of God.
3. Restoring, renewing, regenerating, reviving.

B. It is God doing something again after man has spoiled it

1. Finney says; revival is nothing less than a series of new beginnings.
2. God doing something again and if that goes wrong, He does it yet again.
3. Redemption and revival are the truths of which the book of Ruth contains a very special picture.

IV. Illustrations of this Picture.

A. Naomi lived in Bethlehem Ä house of bread but she left it for Moab.

1. Moab is called in scripture Ä God's washpot or more literally garbage can. (Psalm 60:8)
2. She abandoned her home to escape a famine.

a. The result was she lost her home, her husband and her sons.
b. She repented toward God and returned home empty handed and empty hearted.

3. However, God did not leave her destitute but acted in grace to restore more to her in gracethan she lost in her backsliding.
4. God gave her back her lands and gave her a grandson through whom would come Israel - greatest King (David) and Savior Christ.
5. Some of us like Naomi have left or maybe in the process of leaving the house of bread in order to find fullness and happiness in Moab - this worlds system. THE bars, the booze , the sexual satisfaction that you feel you are not getting in house of bread.
6. However little there seems to be in Bethlehem believe the allurements of Moab are not the answer.