The 12th picture of Christ - Boaz 8. He was an efficient and a successful kinsman redeemer As we begin a new year, we continue our study of the likeness to Christ that is to be found in the story of Boaz and Ruth. The hymn we sung at the beginning of our assembly today sets out the theme of our study today. I know not why God's wondrous grace To me He hath made known, Nor why, unworthy, Christ in love Redeemed me for His own. But "I know Whom I have believed And am persuaded that He is able To keep that which I've committed Unto Him against that day." In the story of Ruth we that: GOD WORKS OUT HIS PLAN SLOWLY AND WONDERFULLY. The Saviour taught is this. "And he said, So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed into the ground; and should sleep, and rise night and day, and the seed should spring and grow up, he knoweth not how. For the earth bringeth forth fruit of herself; first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear. But when the fruit is brought forth, immediately he putteth in the sickle, because the harvest is come," Mark 4:26-29. God works every year beneath the ground until the harvest is wonderfully brought in. So it is with the gospel. Ruth continued to work in the fields of Boaz from shortly after the second day of the feast of unleavened bread, about mid-March in our calendar, until the middle of June, 1:22, 2:21, when wheat harvest would have ended. "So she kept fast by the maidens of Boaz to glean unto the end of barley harvest and of wheat harvest," Ruth 2:23. During that period both Ruth and Boaz would have had opportunity to really get to know each other.