| Ruth 3 - 19 October 2008
Andrew Lim
The closing verses of chapter 1 / tells us that “they arrive at Bethlehem
in the beginning of the barley harvest” / 1:22
The harvest time! / what a wonderful time it is to arrive anywhere
Harvest time has to be one of the most beautiful occasions of the year
- there joy / gladness / music / and laughter
When Naomi last saw Bethlehem it was in a state of famine
Now she sees a field / ripe with golden grains of wheat
swaying under the azure sky
and this / must fill Ruth’s heart / with a sense of hope
a sense of new beginning
And it is right at this point / that we see
another very commendable trait / to Ruth’s impeccable character
- she takes the initiative and look for work
- they have been stricken with poverty
- they don't have Meals on Wheels / in those days / no welfare benefit
And Ruth does not think / that the world owes her a living
- neither does she think / to depend on Naomi to provide for her
- she does what she believes she must do
- and she says / “Let me go to the field / and pick up the leftover grain
behind anyone in whose eyes / I find favour” / 2:2
She simply takes the initiative / and goes to work
Stanley Collins says: “God has no time for idlers
- God never chooses His servants
from people who are whiling away their time
- God picks his people while they are working
David is picked / while he is keeping sheep
Saul is picked / while he is looking after his father’s asses
Amos is picked / while he is plucking sycamore fruits
Peter / James / John / and Andrew / they are all picked
while they are mending their fishing nets”
Now / God not only picks His servants this way
this / in fact / is the way God speaks to His people / and guides them
There was a time some thirty years back / when in many churches & camps
the preacher would tell young people
that can and should be able to hear the audible voice of God
- and some young Christian would get really discouraged
when all the other young people would claim
that they have heard God speak to them audibly and they have not
and some dropped out / thinking they must be so far from God
- and only just yesterday / my lawnmower man told me
that he heard God spoke to Him in an audible voice in bed
and he thought it was his wife but it turned out to be God
But to this very day / I have never once heard the audible voice of God
and my faith in God isn’t in the slightest way discouraged or diminished
on account of that
For though I have never heard the audible voice of God
I have always been able to discern the guiding hand of God in my life
especially in the many important milestones of my life
And quite clearly / quite distinctively He’s always revealed that to me
through the very ordinary circumstances of life
At many key intersections of my life
I have been able to discern the clear guidance of God
And this is exactly what we are seeing here in the book of Ruth
There’s not one clear instance of a miraculous act of God
in this entire story
How many times in this book
the door was flung wide open for God to perform a miracle
- there’s a severe famine in the land
but not one stalk of wheat popped out from the ground
to provide a morsel of food for His people
- a husband lies there dying / but he is not healed
- then a son dies / then another
but neither of them were raised from the dead
Is He able to do any of that / Of course He is able / He can do all of that
But the point is that He did not!
In fact in the entire book / God doesn’t even speak one audible word
But all this must never lead us to think that God is absent / or indifferent
On the contrary / if you have eyes to see
you’ll be able to trace His fingerprints all over the place
in this delightful story
And that / is how God most often work in our lives
Yes miracles do happen and can still happen
But that / is not the most usual way God has chosen to speak to us
Instead God has chosen to speak to us / and guide us
as we move thorough the natural circumstances of our lives
and if we have been discerning / we can hear Him
You’ll remember Eliezer /going into a distant land to look for a bride for Isaac
He travels far and wide / looking for the right person
And because he is moving through the normal circumstances of life
the Lord opens a door for him to come face to face with Rebekah
And when Rebekah is found / Eliezer says / quite simply:
“I being in the way / the Lord led me” (Genesis 24:27 - KJV)
Jack Wyrtzen / the founder of Word of Life
starting his ministry with a series of youth rallies in New York City
during World War II
Today / Word of Life ministry touches youth all over the world
through Bible clubs / camps / Bible institutes over 1000 missionaries
In the early days / Jack and a handful of others
all of them in their 20s or early 30s
stepped out in faith to do things that seemed humanly impossible
You might say they didn’t know better
In later years / after Word of Life had become a worldwide ministry
people often asked Jack
“Did you have a vision of what God was going to do?
Did you have a plan in your mind?”
The answer was always the same / Jack would say
“No / I didn’t have a plan / didn’t really have a clue in the early days
of all God wanted to do through Word of Life”
And then / Jack would often use this phrase
to describe how things happened in the early days:
“I being in the way / the Lord led me”
Remember those are the words Abraham’s servant / Eliezer used
to explain how the Lord led him across the desert
right into to the home of Rebekah
who would go on to become the bride of Isaac
This word teaches us that God naturally leads us
as we journey through life / serving Him
You could put it this way / When we are “in the way”
you are in the path / where God is able to guide you
* This promise is true for Abraham’s servant
* It was true for Jack Wyrtzen / and it is still true for you today
I am sure many of you here want God to lead you
in a relationship / in a job / in whatever
Be found “being in the way”
If your heart is right
If you’re walking in the will of the Lord and in the light of his Word
then / the ordinary decisions you make
- to join the Music Team / to help out in a Food Bank
- to attend a Conference / to renew an old friendship
- these ordinary decisions you make
will put you in a place where God can bless you
Don’t despise the simplest decisions in life
- writing an email to a long-lost friend / making a phone call
- making a decision to go on a trip
- going to a conference you didn’t want to go
Your destiny is right there / just around the corner
if you will pause to hear the soft whisper of God
You will see a validation of this when you come to the end of the book
When we’re finished with this book / you will come to see
that this simple / common-sense decision of Ruth to glean the fields
will put her in a place / where she becomes
one of the most blessed women in the whole wide world
Ruth has taken her vow never to leave nor forsake Naomi
Now / she makes good her word
She does not sit at home / bemoaning her widowhood
She comes to Naomi with a simple clear proposition:
“Let me go into the field and glean” / 2:2
So Ruth goes out of the city of Bethlehem / into the surrounding fields
and scripture tells us “as it turned out she found herself
working in a field belonging to Boaz
who was from the clan of Elimelech” / 2:3
In the beauty in the old English of the Authorised Version / it says:
“And her hap was to light on a part of the field belonging to Boaz”
This is to say that from a human standpoint / this looks like an accident
Some people call it “chance” / “coincidence” / “luck”
But there is no such thing as chance or luck in the lives of a Christian
It isn’t luck that brought Ruth to Boaz’s field
God is working out His good purpose for Ruth
She is being led / by the unseen hand of God
It is God Who guides Ruth’s feet that day / to the field of Boaz
God is moving all the events / of the life in this young girl
She may be completely unaware of it
but the course of history is sweeping her on / under her feet
And Ruth finds herself gleaning in his field
and she follows the reapers at a respectable distance
because she’s conscious that she’s merely a Moabite vagabond
And it is at this point / that the owner of the field appears
to see how the work goes on
His name is Boaz
Boaz is described here as an ‘is gibbor hayil “a mighty man of valour”
The closest equivalent to that in our understanding
would be that which describes a medieval knight
He would have been a man who has proven his courage in a battle field
and then in the course of time had accumulated wealth for himself
These are troubling times
The Bedouin are a race of plunderers
and property owners often had to fight to protect what was his
The only law then was might is right
Boaz is an outstanding man of his day
a man of virtue / courage / conviction and integrity
a man who has the law of God / written in his heart
Boaz must have stood out in stark contrast to
Mahlon / Ruth’s first husband
So Boaz enters the field / and as he does / he greets his workers
with a most unusual greeting: “The Lord be with you”
And the workers responded saying: “The Lord bless you”
If you want to know what a man is really like
don't watch him when he’s in church
- watch him when he’s at work / in the field / at the office
- watch his conduct / his language / the integrity of his work
- watch how he deals with other people
And Boaz / in his place of work / shows himself to be a godly man
This is all the more amazing
when we remember that he lives in the days of the judges
- a time of spiritual decay and moral disintegration
Other people might have forgotten God / and turn to idols
but here is one man / who has not forgotten Him
but remembers Him / even in the routines of daily life
And after the greeting / Boaz surveys his field and he notices Ruth
He asks a servant: “Whose young woman is this?”
What a strange way to ask about someone
Well is isn’t strange / if you knew that in a feudal society
everyone is linked with a family
there is no one unattached / relationally
- Everyone is somebody’s somebody
The overseer tells Boaz: “She’s a Moabites
who has returned from Moab with Naomi
and she has worked steadily from morning till now
except for a short rest in the shelter” / v.7
Now Ruth at this point is hearing every word
and you can imagine the tension rising in her heart
- she’s sweating / perspiring / her heart-beat racing
- she cannot tell what might happen the very next minute
You’ve got to picture of strong stark contrast right here
You have Boaz arriving in his field
and you have Ruth / picking up the scraps from his land
He is a strong / powerful rich man
She’s an immigrant / dislocated / poor and utterly helpless
and she is in the field of the one who has just appeared
She’s got to be terrified / she’s got to be intimidated
She hasn’t got a clue how she would be received
- would he snatch his property back / and chase her away
or perhaps do something ever worse to her
Always remember / she lives at a time
“when every person does what is right in his own eyes”
But although Boaz has not met Ruth before
he’s heard much concerning her
- Ruth has been exceptionally kind to Naomi
- her noble character has been appreciated / by the people
- she has won the hearts of the natives of Bethlehem
And so he says to her: “I have come to hear of your kindness to Naomi
since the death of your husband / and how you have left father
mother / land / and the god you used to worship
to come to a people you not even know”
You know something?
- these / are the first recorded words of encouragement
Ruth ever received / since the death of her husband
Encouragement how we all need it
Celeste Holmes once said: / “We live by encouragement
and we die without it / slowly / sadly and angrily”
Mark Twain said: “I can live off one good compliment for a week”
Boaz isn’t just a noble and valiant man / he’s also an encourager
But notice something here / Boaz actually pronounces a blessing upon Ruth
“May you be richly rewarded / by the Lord under whose wings
you have come to take refuge” / v.12
What a beautiful thing he says here to Ruth: “May you be blessed
by the Lord / under Whose wings / you have come to take refuge”
Boaz is able to say this with certainty
because he knows what it means to come under the wings of God
Let’s not forget that Boaz has endured the long years of famine
But unlike Elimelech / he does not pack up and leave the land
- he endures the grave hardship / hunkers down and rides out the storm
- he chooses to stay quiet under the wings of God
- and under those wings / he survives the seasons of scarcity
- when everywhere around him / is barren land
Boaz has been satisfied with the fatness of God’s house
- when all is parched and dry / he has enough to drink
* read Psalms 36:7; 63:7
What great faith we have / if we can say like the psalmist:
“In the shadow of your wings / I will make my refuge
until the disaster has passed” / 57:1 Power-Point
Remember / God would have gathered Elimelech and his family
under his wings / but he would not
Reminds me of the words of our Lord: “O Jerusalem Jerusalem
killing the prophets and stoning those sent to you
How often I have longed to gather your children together
as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings
but you were not willing” / Matt 23:37
I wonder if there is anyone here this morning
who’s been resisting / to come under the wings of God’s protection
Be careful / there is no protection for you
if you’re not under the wings of His protection
Ruth is a child of an accursed race / the Moabites
but she has come to find her rest / under the shadow of the Almighty
Now it is vital to note that Boaz is not really showing any favour to Ruth
What Boaz does here is not grace or charity / but justice
Boaz is not giving Ruth charity / or grace
There is nothing gracious about what he does for her
What Boaz is doing here is keeping justice
Grace is giving someone something she does not deserve
Justice is giving someone something she does deserves
And here even though he’s allowing her to pick in his field
- its not charity / its justice
And here’s why
Before the Israelites settles into the land
God gives them clear commandments
on how they are to look out for the poor
And not once but three times / twice in Leviticus and once in Deut
he gives specific orders about how to provide for the poor
God has great concern for the poor / stranger / fatherless / and the widows
and he gives the people a law
Please turn to Lev 19:9,10 / “When you reap the harvest of your land
do not reap to the very edges of your field
or gather the gleanings of your harvest
Do not go over your vineyard a second time
or pick up the grapes that have fallen
Leave them for the poor and the foreigner / I am the LORD your God”
God is saying when you harvest your field / don’t harvest to the very edges
don’t cut out everything that is yours
don’t even rake up what the reapers have dropped
don’t maximize your profit / you can afford to be a little inefficient
It would’ve been easy to rake up everything
But God says: “Back off / Don’t do that”
Why? So that the poor / the widows / and the alien
can come by and help themselves with a little something to eat
And under this Israelite law / many poor families
were able to see themselves through the long winter months
And Ruth qualifies / in a three ways
she’s a widow / she’s poor / and she’s an alien
Now / just what is happening here
Is God wanting here to teach His people to be charitable
That may be so / but that’s not the most crucial reason
Every single time God gives this command He ends by saying
“I am the LORD your God”
What God is saying here is this: “I am ultimately the owner of the land”
You may be the current owner of the land but ultimately I own everything
Scripture says God owns the cattle on a thousand hills
We don’t really own what we have
We’re only managers / stewards of what we have
entrusted to us for a little while to manage
God is here saying / the plot of land you own / that’s mine
The BMW you drive / that’s mine / the house you live in / that’s mine
Why because your very life / the very breath you draw / is mine
Ps 104:29 / “When you take away our breath / we die”
Ultimately God owns everything
And because the land is mine
the profit is for everyone and not just for the landowner
and all who live in the land may share in the blessings of the land
This is why it is ultimately not a matter of charity / but a matter of justice
A farmer who permits the poor to glean in his field
is one / who knows / and keeps / the Mosaic law
Did every landowner keep this law? / Sadly no
It is sad / but many wealthy and miserly farmers disobeyed this law
They would chase gleaners away from their field
to maximise their profit
and often the poor were denied permission to enter their fields
and they had to walk long distances in the hot sun
before they found a field in which they could glean
by then it is too far to walk home safely the same day
It is not that people didn’t know the law of God / They did
But remember / these were the days of the judges
- a time when everyone did what was right in their own eyes
Don’t pass that by too quickly
Here today in NZ / we might just be living under such a time
But with Ruth / Boaz isn’t just practicing justice
He goes the second mile / He does not stop at justice
He moves beyond simple justice / to grace
He goes beyond merely providing for Ruth / he reaches out to protect her
He says to her / “Glean from my field / Stay here / Don’t go anywhere
If you go anywhere else / you might get hurt”
And he does something else / He goes to her and says
“Hey why don’t you join us when we break up for lunch?
Come / join us for lunch”
Now I know what some of you are thinking right here
You’re thinking / “He’s checking her out” / He’s dropping a line”
But this is so very far from that
If you could imagine the customs of those times
you’ll come to see that this is unheard of / this is shocking!
He is the most important man in that nick of the wood
he’s the powerful rich man
she’s a vagabond / an urchin / a straggler
eking out merely to keep alive
and he’s inviting her to sit with him at the same meal table
In those days / to invite someone to sit for a meal with you
is to accord to her great honour / it is to treat her with dignity
and this must come to Ruth / as a totally incredulous
But he’s going to do much more than just invite her to table
- he introduces her to the circle of his workers
- with his own hands / he takes corn / parch it in the flame
rubs it in his hands / blows away the chaff
dips it into vinegar / and gives it to her to eat
- he even gets her to fill up a doggy-bag / to take home what’s left over
And when lunch is over
- he tells his workers / to make sure no one harms Ruth
- he tells her / that there is really no need to glean from another field
as his property stretches / to as far as the eyes can see
- he even goes so far as to get the workers
to be purposefully clumsy in their harvesting so she may benefit
“Just be clumsy when you’re tying the sheaves together
Let lots of stalks fall to the ground
for Ruth to glean after you” 2:15,16
Ruth realises that Boaz has gone beyond common courtesy / and she’s touched
The Word says: “She bowed down with her face to the ground
and says to Boaz / `Why have I found such favour in your eyes
that you notice me / a foreigner”/ 2:10
Now here / is as far as I to go with the text this morning
I believe God has a word for all of us this morning / from this passage
First a word to those who are not Christians / the other to Christians
First to those of you here who haven’t given your life to Jesus
take a look at the closing verse of this chapter / v.23
It tells us that Ruth went daily into the field of Boaz to glean
until the end of the barley harvest and the wheat harvest
You know Ruth has come to be acquainted with the lord of harvest
and she finds him good / kind / full of everything that she want
but you know what / she’s still not related to him at this point
- she’s merely acquainted with him
And it’s possible for you to come under the grace of God
and to taste the good things He has kindly given you
- food / clothing / shelter / job / relationships
and yet not come to be related to Him yourself
You must remember / that at this point of the story
Ruth is still an alien / She still has no inheritance in Judea
She has been given many good things by the Lord of the harvest
But she’s not related to the lord of the harvest yet
and when the end of the barley harvest draws to a close
if she is still not related to the lord of the harvest
she will have to leave his field / perhaps for good
I wonder where you are this morning
Are you just a gleaner / are you following after some Christian reapers
You’re eating from some fallen pickings
and every week you come in here for some fallen stalks
But you’ve never been related to the Lord of the Harvest
- you’ve never become part of His bride
- you’re contented / just to remain a gleaner
But the reality is this:
One of these days / quite suddenly / you’ll come to the end of the harvest
and because you’re just a gleaner / you’ll have to leave the field
and when the field of human history closes its gates to you
it will be too late
The gates will be shut behind you forever
and there is only one road
for those who are not related to the Lord of the harvest
and its not a very good one
This is a story / of people / who are coming to the end of themselves
- coming to the end of our their resources
- and they see the total spiritual bankruptcy of our hearts
- and they turned to One who is rich / and mighty / and kind
- the One who is the Lord of the Harvest
It is the picture of the needy / barren / bankrupt heart
finding salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ
And just as Ruth comes to recognise her poverty / and turns to the Lord
you should come to the Lord
recognising our spiritual poverty without Him
and choose to be related to Him
That’s my word for you / if you’re not a Christian
My last word is for those of you
who are already related to the Lord of the Harvest
Naomi has been brought very low / She is sure God has forsaken her
She can’t have been brought any lower
You know a person has been brought to the very lowest place
when she tells you that she can’t even bear to hear her own name
Maybe you been brought very low / because of some failure
Maybe you are suffering humiliation / rejection
Maybe you are in a place of adversity / poverty / even shame
Naomi is in such a place / and she thinks the Lord has abandoned her
But He has not / He is working out His purpose in her life
And this should encourage us
to know that God keeps working out His purpose for our lives
even when we have failed Him
Even when we make one mistake after another
He allows us to live another day
Because He is at work / to enable us fulfil His purpose in our lives
God wants for you to fulfil His purpose for you
He wants to guide your steps
so He can get you to where He wants to get you to
But you will need to do one thing
You will need to be obeying God / moment by moment
in everything He is prompting you to do
- forsaking what He tells you to forsake
- embracing what He tells you to embrace
If you will only take your pain / disappointment / fear
in the palm of your hands / and come before God / and say to Him
“God / You are sovereign / through these bad experiences of my life
make something beautiful out of it
Restore to me the years the locusts have eaten”
God can be depended upon
Its safe to put our lives into His hands
When we do / He will be pleased to bless us
Do not distrust the love of God / when we have been afflicted
It is precisely in such a time that we may discover His purpose for us
Human extremity is God’s opportunity
to prove Himself great in your life
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