<TITLE>05. Par 24-29</TITLE>L-24 When men makes fun of you, they're not making fun of you; they're making fun of Him that sent you. So Jesus said, "Blessed are ye when men shall say all manner of evil against you, falsely, for My Name sake. Blessed are you." And again, "All that live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution." For when God made Hisself known in Christ, they hated Him. Who hated Him worse? The church. The church hated Him worse. They hated Him worse than the--the drunkard. They hated Him worse than all the other people. It was the church that hated Him. So therefore, when you see Kosmos, the world order... "The world knowed Him not" means the "church (so-called) knew Him not." "He came to His own and His own received Him not. But as many as did receive Him, to them gave He the power to become sons of God, to them that believed on His Name." Oh, how we should love Him and worship Him. The purpose of God, wanting to become in fellowship... Like...

L-25 'Fore we leave that text, let's use this. In the days of Ruth, in the law of redemption when Naomi had left the country because of trial, hard times, she went into the Moabite land, which were just lukewarm, nominal Christians, because the Moabites come from the daughter of Lot. And they were so-called believers and mixed up. And then, her husband died and her two sons died. And on the road home Naomi--Ruth and Naomi on their road home, her--one of her daughter-in-laws, Orpah, she said that she would return back to her country, to her gods, and to her church, and to her people. And Naomi tried to get Ruth to go back, but she said, "Your people are my people; your God is my God. Where you die, there I'll die; where you're buried, there I'll be buried. And I'll not turn back."
That's when a person's caught a vision. Don't make any difference what her people said. "You're going over there and become a holy-roller or something." That didn't make any difference to Ruth. There was a purpose of God to be fulfilled.

L-27 And just as sure as you're hungering tonight for the Holy Spirit, it's something in you pulling you, that a purpose of God in your life has got to be fulfilled just like it was with Ruth.
The story's so beautiful; I just can't leave it for a moment. You know, the law of redemption, that when Boaz... You know the story of how Ruth gleaned in the field and found favor with Boaz. And before he could marry her, he had to redeem all that Naomi had lost. And the only one that could redeem Naomi's fallen estate, in the law of redemption, was a near kinsman; had to be kinfolks before he could redeem. And that was her closest kinfolks. And he had to make a public ensign outside of the gate, or a public confession that he had redeemed all that Naomi had lost. And Boaz did it by kicking off his shoe before the elders and said, "If there's anybody here that's got anything that belongs to Naomi, I this day have redeemed it."

L-29 And that's the way God did: followed His own laws. God cannot follow--give you one law to follow and Him follow another. He follows His own laws. Then God, in order to redeem the lost church, the lost world, the lost creation... God, Who is infinite in Spirit, to redeem the lost human race, God Himself become kinfolks, a Man, a Son that He created in the womb of Mary. And then He made an ensign or a testimony. Outside the gates of Jerusalem He was lifted up between the heavens and earth, and died, and redeemed everything. And in bleeding He sanctified a church that He Himself might live in, and fellowship, and commune with, that lost spot of fellowship from the garden of Eden where God came down every evening, church time. Did you notice, God came down in the cool of the day, the setting of the sun. There's something about when it starts to get night, people think of church and of God--Christians. You see the sun setting; you realize that your sun is setting.


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