Big staff comes from the little beginnings. Let's talk about it on this edition of Key Wife. You're listening to Key Life, practical principles for daily living. I'm my Kellogg, and our teacher is Steve Brown. Now, let's study the Bible together. Steve? Thanks, Mike. If you have your Bible opening to the Book of Ruth, we are talking... We are in the middle of a rather long Old Testament survey, and I'm not doing line upon line and precept upon precept, but I am... And I'm working hard at this, trying to give you enough information about each of the books of the Older Testament, so that when you go and dig into its richness, you'll be able to have some handles that will help you understand. I really believe that's a lack among Christians, that we carry little New Testament around, and we read New Testament, and we memorize New Testament. It's maybe the Book of Psalms, but that's about it in the Older Testament. And we lose so much the same God who gave us the Older Testament, gave us the Newer Testament, and as a matter of fact, he never changed his mind. Great teaching on grace, the fact that God isn't angry with his people. Some ways to understand that we're going to see as we go through. And we're up to the Book of Ruth, and I'm just making two or three, maybe four, maybe five comments on the Book of Ruth. We talked about who wrote it, we don't know when it was written, we don't know. And I suggested that the main thing about the Book of Ruth is that it's just a good story. It really is, by the way. You just sit down and read it for you go to bed tonight. It will take you a minute, it just has four chapters, and it's just a wonderful love story, and it has suspense. It is a model of a short story, and you'll like it. And the second thing we said yesterday about it is how simple it is. There is a simplicity, a slice out of life. Sometimes we forget that life goes on, because we get caught up in big events like politics, and the religious right, and the cultural wars, and then doing changes in the world for Jesus and all the stuff that we forget that boys and girls still fall in love. People still get married, farmers are still tending their crops, children still make mud pies and stuff like that, and that's good stuff. That's what life is made of, and when we forget it, because we spend too much time on a computer, we get into trouble. There is a wonderful freedom, a wonderful joy in simplicity. Let me tell you something else about the Book of Ruth that I think is good. The Book of Ruth is a great illustration of how big events come from little happenings. If you have your Bible, open to the very last chapter of the Book of Ruth. It says Solomon, the last two verses. Solomon begot Boaz. Now, you remember the love stories between Boaz and Ruth, and they had a child, and it says so in the 21st verse. And Boaz begot Obed, and Obed begot Jesse. Do you know who Jesse was? Well, it says it in the 22nd verse, and Jesse begot David, who was David. David was the king, the man after God's own heart, and where did Jesus come from, the house and the lineage of David? Isn't it wonderful to think of the cause and effect of this love story in Ruth? That when Boaz and Ruth, and you remember Boaz was a lot older than Ruth, perhaps 20 years older than Ruth, and he saw her and he kind of backed off and said, you know, she's awfully young, I really can't, but she's so pretty. I just can't, I can't do it, and there's this tension. Did you ever think that when they were dating and when they were falling in love, when God had given that kind of gift to Ruth, that God in his mind was thinking about David, the king, and God was thinking about Jesus, the Messiah, and that in Jesus, the Messiah, God was thinking about you. Listen, God starts with little things, so you got to watch the little things, you got to be careful. You remember when Hoover met the little news boy who was selling papers on Chicago on a cold winter night, and he stopped and he talked to that little boy for a long time. One of his eights said, Mr. President, what, why did you spend so much time with that little boy, and he said, because you never know what's buttoned underneath that coat, some greatness, some power, that's true. You got to be careful, because God begins with little things. Susanna Wesley, for instance, 1690, she was a pastor's wife. She had a little boy who was not always good, and another boy who was always bad. They're good friends of mine. Their names are John and Charles Wesley. They were two of many children, and she was a faithful mother, and because of them their whole life was changed. In England, and I love this story, it was a pastor preaching to a congregation of eight. Now, they can't even pay your salary. I want you to know. When you've got eight people on a congregation, you've got some serious problems, man. If that's all you've got to make your living in your pastor. There was a boy in that congregation in England, his name was Joseph Milner, and you never even heard the name Joseph Milner. You know what he did? Milner was faithful because of the preaching of that pastor in that little congregation of eight. And Joseph Milner was the one who led Wibble Force, William Wibble Force, to Jesus. And Wibble Force is the man who was the founder of the abolitionist movement that eventually came to America. Well, you could go on, and on, and on, and on. Be careful about little things. Be careful about the little things happening to your life right now. Because God starts that way, and He does some really big stuff, and you might not even live to see it. Then just a couple of things I've got to, I've got to point out before we leave the book of Ruth. In the third chapter in the 11th verse, the writer of Ruth says that Ruth was a virtuous woman, and she was that, by the way, at a time when the people of God were going through great unfaithfulness, worshipping other gods didn't care about things that were important, but Ruth was faithful. And then if you go in, as you read this story, you begin to read about the wonders and the joys of God balancing those books because of her faithfulness. Now, if you've been listening to this broadcast very long, we have talked about, we talked about divine earthly retribution, and we said that's not absolute, but the world does work. If you do it right, it comes out all right. And then one other thing, the word Kinsman, and I'm saying this for the theologians among us, because they'll be upset if I don't. The words Kinsman, and that used some 13, 14 dimes in the book of Ruth. Let me tell you an interesting thing about the Hebrew etymology of that particular word. It means Redeemer. And so people who study this book often talk about the implications of a Kinsman Redeemer. Now, who is that? That's Jesus, who is our Kinsman, and our Redeemer. And so even in the book of Ruth, and in fact in every book of the Bible, every place you go and everything you think, you see Jesus who is Lord of all. You think about that? I mean, well, having finished reasonably adequately, the book of Ruth, tomorrow I'll start introducing you to first and second Samuel, and that's you don't think so, but that is an absolutely great book. A couple of things before I turn to some of these questions, and I need to read this, a reminder, he lives as a member of the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability ECFA. The council is widely recognized as a Christian financial organization created to assure ethical monetary practices by its members. So there, secondly, we have a website, keylife.org. You can learn a lot about key life. There's a lot of great resources on that website, and you can hear the broadcast you're listening to right now, and the previous 30 days broadcasts that are archived there. And then one other thing we'll get to the questions. I sure would appreciate your prayers tonight. I'm going to be speaking at New Covenant Community Church in Fresno, California. And then we're going to have a, we're bringing a staff, and we have a great time. We've got a radio rally in Modesto at Motivista Chapel in Turlock. That's tomorrow, February the 8th, and you can call us 1-800 key life year, or you can call the church and get some details on it. If you live in that area, sure would love to see you in those places, and if you don't, sure would appreciate your prayers. I have some time to get to a couple of questions. By the way, we'd love to get your questions, but you got to write them down. Send them to our mailing address, keylife post office box 5,000. Madeleine Florida 32794, keylife Canada post office box 32150, Cambridge Ontario in 3H5M3. You can email us, Steve at keylife.org, but be sure include your regular mailing address if you want a response, and you always do get a response. Don't use the 1-800 number for questions. You can get the booklets we offer, the tapes we offer free. You can make a contribution, but you need to write out the questions. Alright, enough chitchat. I've got time for a couple of these. This one North Carolina, what is the purpose of doctrine? Doctrine is really important, but let me tell you why it's important. Insofar as doctrine is true doctrine, it's true biblical doctrine it points to God and gives us an accurate picture of who God is, the triune God. And if doctrine is just something you need to know because you memorize the theology book of Birkhoff or Chafer, then you need to watch television or go to a movie or something. Doctrine is important, and it is very important. Some people get the idea, I don't think it is. I do. I think the study of theology is very important because when it's biblical, it points to Jesus. And that's what it's all about. Can you get the doctrine wrong and still get to Jesus? Yeah, that happens sometimes. I mean, there's some people when I met them, people tell me all kinds of things about them. And when I met them, they weren't what I thought they were. So false doctrine, sometimes people are able, despite the false doctrine, to come to Christ, but that's because God's sovereign and he knows what he's doing. But the best way is to speak the truth, biblical, reveal, propositional truth, systematized, indulged to point us to the truth of God. This is from Pennsylvania. What does the Bible teaches about our rewards in heaven? Well, it teaches about the crowns that we're going to present before God. My first Corinthians 3 has this statement about how the work that we do, if it really didn't have a foundation right or we didn't do it, God didn't do it through us, it'll all be burned up and what's left. But you've got to be careful about that because if you're not really careful and you start teaching too much about rewards in heaven, then you're on a works thing again. And you say, you know, I don't want to just get to heaven by the end of my Chinese engine. I really want to be kind of, I want to be kind of right under the king, sit at the right hand. And if you get into that too much, you're getting too much trouble. Yes, they're going to be rewards in heaven, but the rewards will only be given so that you will get them back to heaven and say, man, didn't you shine. You've got to go. Before I go, let me do suggest them whenever you write or call that you give us the call letters of this great station. And one other thing before I go, key life, is a production of key life networks.