Ordinary People Series

What woman do you know who has had a thousand men

propose to her from fisherman to millionaires; from the penniless

on the bowry to the prince of a royal European

family? And who was still getting regular proposals after

she was 70 years old? There was such a woman, and her

name was Evangeline Booth. She was the first woman to be

the general of the Salvation Army. She was a very unique

and extraordinary woman. At the age of 63 she swan

across Lake George in 4 hours. At age 70 she broke a wild

horse that the owner was afraid to ride. There is much

literature on this woman, for she was not one in a million,

but one in a billion.

When gold was discovered in Alaska before the turn of

the century, masses of men rushed to the Yukon. She knew

the Salvation Army would be needed there, and so with a

few trained nurses she was on her way. All the talk when

she arrived was about "Soopy Smith" the killer of the

Klondike. Soopy and his gang would ambush minors

coming back from the gold fields, shoot them down, and

take their gold. The U. S. government sent a posse after

him, but he shot them all and escaped. It was not a nice

place for a lady. Five men were killed the day Evangeline

arrived.

That night she held a meeting on the banks of the Yukon

River. She preached to 25 thousand men, and got them all

singing songs they had heard their mothers sing, such as,

Jesus, Lover Of My Soul, and Nearer My God To Thee.

They sang until one in the morning. When it was over, and

they sat around the camp fire to keep warm, five men with

guns approached her. One said, "I'm Soopy Smith, and I've

come to tell you how much I enjoyed your singing."

Evangeline talked with Soopy in the white light of the

midnight sun for 3 hours. He admitted he use to attend the

Salvation Army with his grandmother and sing these songs.

Evangeline finally asked him to kneel with her, and the

most notorious bandit that ever terrorized the North got

down on his knees and prayed and wept, and vowed to stop

killing, and give himself up. This kind of thing does not

happen to just ordinary women. This is rare and unique,

and way beyond the ordinary. Her life and gifts are the

kind that keep Hollywood going, and which sell books and

magazines, for her life is filled with thoughts and actions

which are spectacular and amazing.

There are only two books in the Bible named after

women. One of them is Esther, and she was in this category

of extraordinary. She was a dazzling beauty, and she

played a role in history that was public and spectacular,

and she saved the lives of thousands of people.

Hers too was a movie type life. But the other book of the

Bible named after a woman is Ruth, and what a radical

difference. Ruth was as ordinary as they come. Apart from

a few words of beautiful commitment to follow Naomi, and

a part from being a hard worker in the fields, she never did

anything, or said anything spectacular. She is not described

as being beautiful or brilliant. There is no great event of

which she was a part. There is no great influence she had

on her day that is recorded. She had no outstanding gift

that ministered to people.

Ruth was just one of the vast majority of the human race

of ordinary people. She lived in the time of the judges, but

she was not Deborah leading the people of Israel to victory

over her enemies. Boaz, the leading man in this story, was

also no Gideon or Samson, doing wonders as a military

genius or man of strength. Everybody in this book is

ordinary. Obed, the baby who gives the book a happy

ending, does not grow up to do anything of significance that

we know of. There are no great battles, no miracles, and no

profound theological statements in this book. Not one

person in this book would have ever escaped form under the

blanket of obscurity that covers over most of human history

had this book not been written. Yet these ordinary people

are the people we see in the genealogy of the Messiah. The

judges, who were very gifted people, who made the

headlines of their day, are not the people in the blood line to

the Messiah. What is God trying to tell us by this? I think

He is simply revealing-

I. THE IMPORTANCE OF THE ORDINARY.

We have a tendency to think that history revolves

around great events, and that to understand history we