We’ve been having a great meeting at Calvary this week. Evangelist Tom Gilliam has been leading us through the book of Ruth each service. In his preaching Brother Tom has been unfolding the great theme of grace as it appears in Ruth.

In case you never noticed, the book of Ruth is tremendous picture of the grace of God in salvation.

Consider Ruth, she is from Moab. She is a cursed descendant of a cursed people. She is dead in trespasses and sins, and she is headed for Hell.

She is headed for Hell, that is, until God intervenes in her life. He butts into her situation, opens her eyes, converts her, and leads her out of Moab into Israel. Once there, she is brought by the providence of God, into the field of a man named Boaz.

She thinks she is there the glean a little grain to satisfy her hunger. God has her there to satisfy an even deeper need in her life. In that field, Ruth catches the eyes of a wealthy land owner named Boaz. Through a series of God-sized, providential, sovereignly ordained events, Ruth and Boaz are married.

A woman who was doomed is redeemed through grace. An outcast is taken in. She is brought out of darkness into light. She is delivered from death into life. She is delivered from sadness into joy. She is delivered from poverty and given wealth. She is delivered from loneliness and given a family. She is even brought into the ancestral line of the Lord Jesus Christ. Oh, how amazing the grace of God in this woman’s life. I thrill when I read of the power, the providence, the electing, redeeming, and life changing grace of God in the life of Ruth.

What thrills me, when I stop to think about it, is the fact that I have experienced that same grace in my life. Hallelujah!

There was a time when I lived in Moab. I was lost in sin. I was headed to Hell. I was helpless, hopeless, and completely lost. I was the living embodiment of Eph. 2:1-3, which says, “And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins; Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience: Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.”

That was me! That was my testimony! I was dead! I was deceived! I as depraved! I was doomed! That’s where I should have stayed. I deserved to die in my sins and I deserved to go to Hell. That’s why I am thankful for the first two words of Eph. 2:4, which say, “But God…!” I just want to praise God that He “butted” into my situation.

I was lost, but God! I was dead, but God! I was deceived, but God! I was depraved, but God! I was doomed, but God!

Like Ruth, I have been delivered from my past. I have a new life in Jesus. In fact, according to Eph. 5-6, I have been quickened together with Christ, raised up with together with Christ, and seated together with Christ in heavenly places. You get that? In Romans 6, Paul says that when Jesus died, we died. When He rose from the dead, we rose with Him. When He ascended back to Heaven, and sat down at the right hand of the Father, we went with Him and sat down with Him in glory! Does that sound crazy to you? Read Romans 8:28-30. We are told there that even our glorification is a past event.

What does this all mean?

It means that those who are redeemed by Christ are saved, sealed, and secure!

It means that He has delivered us from the spiritual poverty of our past, and He has lavished the riches of Christ on us! “For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich.” (2 Cor. 8:9)

It means that every redeemed saint of God ought to fall down before Him in worship, adoration, and praise. That is the attitude of Heaven: “And they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation; And hast made us unto our God kings and priests: and we shall reign on the earth. And I beheld, and I heard the voice of many angels round about the throne and the beasts and the elders: and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands; Saying with a loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing. And every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever. And the four beasts said, Amen. And the four and twenty elders fell down and worshipped him that liveth for ever and ever.” (Rev. 5:9–14)

May that same attitude manifest itself in the lives of every redeemed child of God.

Think about it!

Alan