Are You Playing Marbles with Diamonds?

From the beautiful sunshine coast of Australia, this is the Awake Nations Ministries podcast, equipping the church for revival, reformation and kingdom impact. Learn more about us by visiting awakeaus.com last week, Bill and his message. We zoomed in and we were super encouraged just to hear what was a timely, really was a testimony. He was just testifying about the work of God and how the kingdom just moves when, when you're hungry for the kingdom. The kingdom, the king of the kingdom, I should say moves, you know, when you chase it.

And yeah, I'm excited because I believe what he said is true, that we are coming into a time of revival, a time of end time revival, a time where the world is going to need to see the full gospel, the heaven on earth that Jesus told us to pray about. Your kingdom come, your will be done. With every spiritual blessing, every physical blessing, the realms of healing just opened up abroad and it's all going to happen through you. Amen. Amen.

So looking forward to that. I'm excited. I want to share something about just tapping into that momentum that Bill was talking about and continuing on. And I wanted to share with you just a quick illustration that came from a guy. There was a guy named Vance Havner.

Anyone ever heard of him? He was an old time preacher. Vance Havner, old time preacher and well renowned. He was quite famous, wrote a lot of books and things like that. And one book that he wrote was Playing Marbles with Diamonds.

And this is back in 1985. So nearly all of you weren't even around then. Look at that. I'm being generous today. Yeah, yeah, that's right.

You're all looking young to me. And so he wrote this book way back then and in it he tells the story of a traveler who goes through South Africa and just traveling through there and goes to some of the poorest communities. And he came to this South African village and he saw a bunch of kids playing with marbles. And as a kid himself, he loved to play with marbles. So he decided that he'd take a closer look and he went over there and he asked one of the kids if he could have a look at the marble he was playing with.

Because it wasn't like the cat's eye or the, what do they call them, the toe breakers or whatever it was back in the 80s, you know, 70s. Does anyone remember playing marbles as a kid? Okay, sorry. I really take back that you're not that old now after that because I think that's disappeared with the generations. But anyway, he loved It.

So he wanted to take a closer look. And when he went in to have a look at the games they were playing with these marbles, he noticed something really odd. The marbles that they were using were not perfectly round, they were spherical. And so he asked one of the kids, can I have a look at what you're using for your marbles? And one of the kids gave him the marble and he realized that he wasn't looking at a marble, he was looking at a diamond.

And it wasn't just any old diamond, it was a blue diamond. They are the rarest of diamonds that you can get. If you sort of mix up in the diamond world, it's. In the diamond world, a blue diamond is about 1 in 10,000.

And Vance Havner tells his story and then he goes on to say, these kids that were in this community, in this poor ghetto of a community, didn't realise what they had in their hand, because what they had in their hand could have solved the poverty for that community for decades.

Yes, decades. And they didn't know what they had in the hand. And Bill and Vance said, do you know what the challenge for the church today is to understand what you have in your hand. Because if you don't understand what you have in your hand, you're going to miss the moment, you're going to miss the movement, you're going to miss the kingdom of God coming. So today I want to talk about a book, the Book of Ruth.

The Book of Ruth, it's a story of redemption and it's one of my favorite books in the Bible and I liken it to a gospel. It's amazing. It's just like a gospel because the themes of Jesus and the New Testament teaching that you will read are all in seed in this book. It's a picture of Israel. Naomi is this person that is a type of Israel.

There's the picture of the church, which is Ruth, you know, this Gentile girl who comes into favor. There's a picture of Jesus in there, in this man called Boaz, who is a redeemer, who's a happy guy in here today. You're going to redeem us all, Boaz. That's a name you are carrying redemption in you. In fact, we're all Boaz's.

We're all carrying a seed of redemption for planting. I love it. I love it. What a name. That's an awesome name.

Love and loyalty. This is another story, Kesed, you heard of it? Love and loyalty. It addresses some of the limitations of the law. But at the same time, it addresses the inexhaustible provision that is in grace.

It's a relationship. It elevates the relationship of grace to bold faith. And it's a story that is the gospel from beginning to end. Redemption, Pentecost, Holy Spirit, fire. This happened around Pentecost and the marriage, isn't that where we're heading?

The marriage? Supper of the Lamb. And so this little book for me, because I'm quite simple in the way I look at stuff, is easy. I can read the Gospel in, in four chapters. And it explodes the New Testament with themes, theology, with where we've come from and where we're going.

And it's a story of what covenant living looks like. A little four chapter story that details tragedy of an older Jewish woman who loses everything and a younger gentile girl who had experienced loss of self and yet at the same time shows that kseid love and kindness to this Jewish woman and wants to see a restoration of the kingdom back to her, wants to see this woman receive back what was lost in this tragic event. The scene set in the days of Judges. Okay, if you've read through Judges, it's a book that's terrible in parts. It has high highs and very low lows.

And in this book you see a nation that's under fire. And this story of this woman and the daughter in law is nestled in a much bigger picture of national tragedy. And yet God wanted to make something of this story. Do you know the sad thing or one of the things about this story is she was a wife, mother of two boys, now a widow and without the children. You know, we would say, you know, if we see someone, a woman, a mom who's lost a, a child or children, we would say that woman has lost her children.

But the Jews in the Hebrew, they have a name for a woman who loses her children. And it's called Shekula. It's like a title. So they'd say this woman is shukula. And it is a word that means literally she has suffered the reversal of the natural order.

No mother should be burying their children. And that's what they said. This is a reversal of the natural order. And here is this woman that has lost everything and she's left with these two daughter in laws, both themselves widows. But then there's a transformation that takes place through Ruth to hope.

And it's a story that touches loyalty, the care and love of a daughter in law that leads her estranged Jewish mother in law back into covenant, back into the house of God, it's awesome. If we have a look at Ruth, chapter one, verse five, we'll see this a little bit more clearly. Now, it came to pass in the days when the Judges ruled that there was a famine in the land. And. And a certain man of Bethlehem, Judah, went to dwell in the country of Moab, he and his wife and two sons.

The name of the man was Elimelech, the name of his wife was Naomi. And the name of his two sons were Mahlon and Kilion, Ephrathites of Bethlehem, Judah. And they went to the country of Moab and remained there. Then Elimelech, Naomi's husband, died and she was left with her two sons. Now they took for themselves wives of the women of Moab.

The name of one was Orpah, and the name of the other was Ruth. And they dwelt about 10 years in Moab. Then both Marlon and Kilion also died. And so this woman survived her two sons and a husband. She had nothing left at the end of that.

You know, her husband, Elimelech was a well to do guy. He was one of those rich primary producers that was only about 10k's away from Jerusalem in this area of Bethlehem. And he was an Ephrathite. That literally means that he was fruitful. So he is wealthy.

And here is the story of this man and his family just moving away from the place of blessing. They were in the place, Bethlehem. What does that mean, the house of bread, doesn't it? The house of bread. And what is funny is there's no bread in the house of bread.

And this is in God's, this is in his land, the land of promise. And so we see that what happens from this is that they leave and they move into another place. Do you know, they shouldn't have left. There's a sense where perhaps they should have stayed in that place. And it's a tragic story for us to think about.

When we think about the natural tragedy that had unfolded, it's heartbreaking. But when we think about the walk out of the land of promise, it is spirit quenching. And here she was at the end of her rope with no future that she thought. And I just want to mention a couple of insights into this. And the first thing is you've got to examine your famine.

If there's one story that I can get out of these first verses, it's have a look at what is going on in your famine. If you are going through the valley floor, then have a good look at what was going on, what was happening here at the valley floor or how they ended up here was there was a famine. It wasn't a famine by drought, flood or fire. It was a famine that was self. A man made self made famine.

Israel's idolatry to start with, led them to lose the blessing. It just drifted away. And not only did it drift away, but it opened up the door for demonic activity. In fact, when you look at Amalekites, the Amalekites and Canaanites were more than happy to walk through that open door. And the famine actually happened because these people, these foreigners came in and they robbed, they stole from their crops and anything they couldn't take, they would destroy in the hope that they could wipe out these people.

Isn't that what it says in John 10:10? The thief comes to steal, to kill and destroy. But I have come to give you life and give it to the fullest measure. And you see that this idolatry in this position meant that they were under attack. And we can put ourselves in that place if we let idolatrous practices creep into creep.

And it is. It's like a slow incoming tide. You can sit at the beach and you can watch the water and you can't see it ingressing, but you wait six hours and it is lapping at your ankles. It's exactly the same thing. There is a call to the church today to throw off everything, every snare that entangles, and to seek first his kingdom and his righteousness.

Because all these other things will be added as we do that. Praise God. He is good. He is good. Second thing I wanted to say about that is even in that place, it's not the end of the story.

When you read through the book of Ruth, you'll notice that five verses are given to 10 years plus of tragedy and then the rest of the book is all about redemption. See, I want to tell you that God's more interested in your future than your past. And he's wanting if there's anything that's broken or holding you down. Today is the day of your salvation. Today is the day where you turn that around.

Because God wants to turn your story into an epic event of grace and mercy and bringing forward everything that he's purposed for you. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. And the third thing is, or the other thing is that God will do what he set out to do. God is committed to his covenant and his covenant people.

What happens next? In the next verse, verse six, it says, then she arose with her daughter in law, and she that she might return from the country of Moab. For she had heard that the country of Moab, that the Lord had visited there and his people had been given bread. Do you notice something here about this broken identity of this woman? She was a part of the Covenant community, but now she's saying, oh, no, they're his people.

Not my people, not our people, his people. She has come to a point of being so broken that she can't see a way that God would receive her back.

She feels that it's so broken what has happened. Whatever it was that led them away. That sense of running away from the Covenant community, that sense of selling all their property and then buying in a foreign land and then going back, she felt like she could not be forgiven. Her status now was down here. Do you know, last time I had a message here, I talked about Fernando.

Fernando had such a broken storyline that he thought that God could never forgive him. And when he heard that God loves him, heaven broke open for him. Hell started to be stripped away from him. The lie of the devil was stripped away and heaven broke through and he got miraculously saved and healed. Hallelujah.

We've got to find ourselves and understand that, you know, we don't. Every time we turn around, every time we turn back to God, God. God throws our sin as far as the east is from the rest, the west. He's always ready just to say, let's go again. And he just cleans us up like nothing happened.

And he starts to look forward to our future and the call to our future. And he's saying, step back in, Step back in to what I have for you. Verse 16. It goes on a little way and they start out, you know, and they don't get far on the journey. Just a little bit.

Bit of a sort of narration in between. They don't get far on the journey. And Naomi turns around to both Ruth, Ruth and Orpah and says, go home, go home instead, you know, she says, go back to your families. She said there is basically what she was saying, there is no future for you with me, even though I'm a Covenant daughter. So that identity had already started to rob her.

No future. And after many tears, you read that Orpah turns back to Moab. But Ruth says to Naomi in verse 16, stop urging me to leave you. I'm not going to leave you alone. Oh, man, that could be annoying with the wrong person, right?

But she was the right person. She said, stop urging you to leave me or to turn back from following you for wherever you go, I will go. And wherever 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. And the Lord do to me so. And more also, if anything, but death separates us.

This is the focus of the message. This is loving loyalty. This is the language of certainty. You hear someone speak like that, you know there's something certain going to take place. This is the language of heaven.

That's the sort of language you expect in heaven. This is the language of covenant. This is the very language of God. And, you know, she's in this story. She's in this small story that's existing in a national story of destruction, idolatry.

You know, brokenness breaks through. See, the small story to God is always heard. And I think this is what I think that language of certainty, of heaven, of covenant and of God. That's the sort of language that. That can cut right through the white noise of an idolatrous nation and words that can pierce right through to the throne room of God.

Because that's the sort of language that God uses. And he knows when he hears that language. That's a child of mine. This one is in my household. This is my child.

And I think that this little story, you know, God just sort of separated what was going on, you know, with all this idolatry and all this stuff, and just went straight down to this. This event, to this woman who had declared the language of God himself. I will never leave you, nor forsake you. Aren't those the words of our messiah, Jesus?

See, covenant, we got to understand something here. Covenant is more than a contract. When you speak like that, you're speaking covenant. Contracts finish, you know, they just finish. But a covenant says, what is yours is mine and what is mine is yours.

A covenant basically says that, you know, everything. All my assets are yours, and all your assets are mine. And when we think about a blood covenant, it's not something that was in the cultures of the ancient Near East. It's not something that Israel just sort of happened upon because it was already going there. It was what God had written into creation when he created man.

He said, this is how I operate. I operate in covenants. And so all these nations that were over and about were operating in a sense of, you know, the residue of God's call.

And the thing about the covenant that I love is that there's no limit of exchange when there's a blood covenant. Hear what I say? There's no limit of exchange. It doesn't run out. It continues.

And this covenant that God had made with Abram, remember back in the day, God made a covenant with Abraham. And he said, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to make a blood covenant with you, Abraham. But what I'm going to do is put you to sleep so that you don't mess it up. Do you remember that in chapter 15 you see that Abraham's there and he's arguing with God?

You can read it later. But God puts him into a deep sleep. He cuts these animals and you see the. The smoking fire, pot that goes between them. A picture of God.

God committed or covenanted with himself to fulfill it. Because he knew that Abraham had let him down. He knew that Isaac would let him down, Jacob would let him down, Moses would let him down. Everyone else would let him down except himself. I want to tell you this is exciting because Ruth knew that.

Do you know Ruth was a Moabitess? She was from the country of Moab. And Moab came from the young man named Moab, who happened to be Lot's son. And Lot happened to be a relative of Abraham. And so here is this woman who is living with this very faithful Jewish lady, Naomi, who must have taught her the word of God, must have taught her the Torah very well.

But the one thing that Ruth latched onto was the covenant of her great, great, great, great, great, great uncle Abraham. A covenant that was by believing God, believing that he's got more. And she started to believe more and more and more about this covenant keeping God. She started to move away from Naomi's idea of identity. She started to think, this is the God who wants me, the God who says, come, come.

I'm going to believe in this God, this covenant keeping God. I'm going to speak the language and I'm going to live the language. And it reads in verse 19 to 21 that they left and they went to Bethlehem. And I'm just going to move on from that. We'll go to the next chapter.

Chapter two, it says, and Naomi had a kinsman of a husband, a mighty man of wealth, of the family of Elimelech. And his name was Boaz. Boaz. See, they ended up going after Ruth, said, stop it. I'm coming whether you like it or not.

And I'm going to be with you through everything. Naomi gave up and said, okay, let's go. But she still was carrying that sense of a broken identity, that sense of being pushed aside from the covenant community and relegated to somewhere Less than where she was before.

It was Ruth that said in verse two, let me go now to the field and glean ears of corn after him whose sight I shall find grace.

And she went and came and gleaned in the field after the reapers. And it just so happened that she gleaned on a part of the field belonging unto Boaz. And Boaz asked her, who is this young woman? And the servant said to him, this is the Moabite girl that came back from Naomi out of the country of Moab. And she said, I ask you, let me glean and gather after the reapers among the sheaves.

So she came and she stood here until all morning, until now. And then Boaz said to Ruth, listen to me. Don't go into another field, but stay here and abide here with the other young men and women servants. There was an expectation in Ruth. There was an expectation that she would find grace.

That's what she said, I'm going to. She didn't say, I hope to find grace. I will find grace. I know this covenant God. I know this covenant God.

He is full of grace, mercy and grace. And then it goes on to say that in verse 10, chapter 2, then she fell on her face and bowed herself to the ground and said unto him, why have I found grace in your sight, seeing I am a stranger? I mean, in verse two, she says, I'm going to find grace. And then she finds it and she goes, why am I finding this grace?

You know, it's almost like, yeah, I'm stepping out in faith and I actually got the grace. That's how God's covenant people think. We're on the right side of a covenant of blood through Jesus Christ that says, yeah, we can be boldly saying, of course it's going to happen. Of course I'll find that favor in God. It goes on to say, and Boaz answered and said unto her, it has fully been shown to me all that you have done to your mother in law since the death of your husband, and how you left your father and your mother and your homeland, and you have come unto a people whom you don't know.

She chased the covenant. And the Lord reward your work with a full wage, and a full wage be given to you from the Lord God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to trust. Then she said, let me find favor in your sight, my Lord, for you have comforted me and have spoken kindly unto your handmaid, even though I'm not like the other handmaidens. There was such a stark difference Between Naomi and Ruth. Under the Lord, Naomi could only feel the failure.

But under grace, Ruth was able to release faith in God's inexhaustible graces.

I don't know, you know, how we walk. I think sometimes I limit God, you know, walking along and I sometimes, you know, lose sight of him. I get distracted, I'm doing something. But we, and I need to be a person that comes into that place of understanding that there is inexhaustible grace that is being thrown at us.

She was prepared to lose everything that she had and chase this God, and chase these people and chase a relationship of loyalty with the covenant people of God.

You know, one of the things that's really amazing about this is, you know, the first five verses. We don't get much information on the story of these two daughters in law of Naomi and we don't know where they've come from. But for the Hebrews, you know, and rabbinic tradition says that in all likelihood this woman was a daughter of Eglon, who happened to be the king of Moab. So when she said, I'm chasing you and I'm not going back to my home, she was leaving wealth, comfort, family, everything behind to pursue God. And I thought, gee, isn't that amazing?

It's sort of like that. The story in the New Testament just started to resonate with me where that young rich ruler came to Jesus and he said, hey Jesus, how do I inherit eternal life? And Jesus said, well, you obey all the laws. And he said, yeah, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. And he said, okay, there's one more thing.

Go and sell everything you have, give it to the poor, come and follow me. And he went away. Sad. It's like Ruth is the antithesis of that story because she said, I'm leaving that all behind and I'm pursuing you and your kingdom. Lord God, that message has not changed for any of us.

It's still the same. The same yesterday, the same, today, the same forever. It's chasing after the king and the kingdom with everything we've got. It's the preparedness to live in such an open handed capacity that God can put stuff into our hands that we can pick up the kingdom. You know, it's amazing what happened to Ruth.

She was grafted into or she was used as the, the great great grandmother of David.

Wow. Imagine get grafted into another kingly line. She moved away from one and she got grafted into the line of heaven in David, where ultimately Jesus himself comes from. Hallelujah. You know, the basis of this message, and I'm going to finish here, but I just want to give you a few things just to nail to your spirit this morning.

The basis of all deliverance, of all healing, of all salvation, of every blessing of heaven is covenant. It's based on this indissoluble, inexhaustible covenant that was secured ultimately by King Jesus with his own blood. A blood covenant that he committed to first so that we could start to walk the walk of covenant and talk the talk of covenant. To walk the kingdom of heaven on earth and to talk the kingdom of heaven on earth. To look like his children.

Look at the power of the covenant. Hebrews 13, verses 20 to 21 says this. Now the God of peace that brought again, I don't think that's up there, but now the God of peace that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus Christ, the great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant.

God's presence through the covenants available to us through the blood. Enter the holy of holies by the blood of Jesus. Hebrews 10. God's healing is available to us through by the blood, by his stripes, we were healed. God protects us by the blood.

I love this. In the first Passover in Egypt, and God said, put the blood of the lamb on your doorposts and go in. And the angel's coming. And the angel came through and they were protected under the blood. But I want to tell you something that's even more amazing to me is if there was any Egyptian who wanted to come into a place of protection under Yahweh's care, all he had to do was knock on the door and say, can I come in under this blood?

Because the angel didn't go in there looking for anyone. The angel only passed over. If you were under the blood, you were safe. So you can come from anywhere. It doesn't matter where you've been, what your past has been.

You can come into a covenant, a covering of blood that will completely set you free. Hallelujah. Is someone pleased about that? And all these benefits of the blood of Jesus. You have peace and reconciliation with him because of this covenant.

He made peace through the blood on the cross, and he reconciled all things to himself. Everything is in the process of this covenant reconciling because of the blood. He cleanses our conscience. And boy, didn't Naomi need her conscience cleansed. Listen to this.

It says, this blood will purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God. Here she was. There were a lot of dead works in her past. But all of a sudden this blood of Jesus has the power to purge that from you. So you don't have to live in the past, you don't have to live in the deadness of what was, but you can live in the living grace of God, the power of the resurrected Jesus.

And Jesus himself said when he was going to that cross, and these are powerful words. This cup is the new testament in my blood which is shed for you. Every one of those blood blessings, every one of those blood promises are for you today because of his blood, the very blood of God has secured and torn heaven open. You're not under a brass heaven. You can receive right now every spiritual blessing from heaven above.

You can release yourself into what God has purposed for you. Listen to this, Ruth, chapter two, verse 15.

And when she was risen up to glean, Boaz commanded his young men, saying, let her glean even among the sheaths and reproach her not. The law had allowed for, you know, for the poor, for the widow, for the stranger to go into the fields of people who, you know, the, the primary producers. God had said to them, don't touch the corners, make sure there's something for the poor, the needy, the orphan, the stranger.

And so she could have just gone in there and grabbed some stalks, you know, she could have sort of lived subsistently in this, this provision. But look at verse 16.

Boaz again says this, but let fall some of the handfuls of purpose for her and leave them that she may glean them and rebuke her not. I want to tell you, these were the bundles. These weren't just the spindly stalks on the periphery. He was saying, leave them the bundles of grain, let them take, let her take the sheath, let her gather the sheaths. You just make sure that you pack them up for her nicely so she can take them.

Wow. She knew that there was more to God and she received more from God because she knew he was a covenant keeping God. And he was the sort of God that responded to people who say, you've got everything I have. Do you know you can't out give God, you can't outstrip him of his blessings for you. That he wants us, his people, to walk in those blessings right now, in the fullness, to carry the fullness of that kingdom.

He has prepared immeasurably, abundantly, more than you can think or imagine. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Ruth didn't just know that she would find grace. She knew that when she found grace, there'd be more grace.

Because it says in the Scriptures that Jesus came, he was full of grace and truth, truth and of this fullness we have received. And it says grace for grace. This is a revelation. Did you know that God has grace for the grace he already gives you?

That's amazing. He gives you grace. You go, oh, wow, thank you, Lord. That's exactly what I needed. That.

That healing or that provision or whatever it is. And he says, oh, yeah, just. Just wait a sec. There's some more grace coming. He just keeps on coming and coming and giving and giving that grace.

In fact, Paul, the apostle Paul in Ephesians knew that abundance of the grace. He talked about the exceeding measure of grace that God brings towards us. That word exceeding is a word where we get our English word ballistic. Ever heard of a ballistic missile? They go really, really quick.

It's the idea of God is throwing grace at us. God is throwing grace at you right now. Don't try and dodge it. Just stand there and say, here I am. Hit me, Lord.

Hit me with your grace. That is the power of the kingdom. And I've got to say, God is wanting us to move into that kingdom place. But there is one thing I gotta say. You gotta chase it.

You gotta chase the covenant. You've gotta. We need to move like Ruth into this covenant. We need to let everything else that is, you know, on the periphery fall to the side or bring it and weigh it up and say, God, what about this?

We have to have everything at his disposal to receive the grace for grace, for grace of this everlasting kingdom that never ends.