| Ruth 4 - 16th November 2008
Andrew Lim
Someone once came up to Napoleon and asked him:
“Is God on the side of France?”
Napoleon turned around / and in his proud and arrogant manner replied:
“God is on the side / of the one who has the heaviest artillery”
Then came the Battle of Waterloo / And of course the rest is history
Napoleon lost / not only the battle / he lost his entire empire
Many years later / when he was spending his dying days
in exile on the island of St Helena
he became chastened / repentant and humbled
And looking back over the passage of time in his life
and realising that he was nothing but a speck of dust
in the vast span of eternity
he quoted the words of Thomas a' Kempis saying:
“Man proposes / God disposes”
This undeniable truth / can often be seen in our own lives
- we make plans / we scheme / we draw up goals and objectives
but in the end / it is the silent hand of God
which measures our steps / and guides our lives
An unseen hand / higher than ours / is guiding us
A beating heart / infinitely more caring is loving us
We see this undeniable truth / played out before our eyes in the story of Ruth
In our story so far / Ruth goes to glean in the field of Boaz
and Boaz treats Ruth most graciously / most kindly
he allows her to glean / invites her to eat with him
even gives her grains to take home to Naomi
This is the second time she is bringing something back to Naomi
Naomi had complained that she has returned to Bethlehem “empty”
But Boaz says to Ruth “Do not return “empty” to your mother-in-law”
But the two widows discover something much more wonderful
than the daily provision they’ve been receiving from Boaz
They discover that Boaz is what is termed in Hebrew a go-el
The word means to redeem
to “buy back” something you sold / when you were poor
God gave this law through Moses / that
- If a poor person is forced to sell part of his property
or even sell himself into slavery / then his nearest relative
could step in and “buy back” what his relative was forced to sell Lev 25:48f
- If a person is forced into slavery
his redeemer can purchased his freedom
- If he became poor and sold his land
his redeemer can step in / and redeem his land for him
- If a man is murdered / his redeemer has the right
to avenge his blood / by hunting down the killer / Nu 35 / Deu 19
- Even if a family member died without an heir
his redeemer can continue his family line by marrying the widow
and bring up a son / to hand down his name / Deut 25 / Gen 38
Now / the two widows discover
that Boaz is a close relative of Elimelech / Ruth’s father-in-law
and he can redeem their property and their lives
And Boaz is not only able / he is willing and happy
to provide a family and security for Ruth
But just when everything finally seems to go right in their lives
they discover that there is one huge problem
There is a relative closer to Elimelech than Boaz
and this man has a prior choice to redeem their property over Boaz
And we say “O No! / Go away!! / We don’t want you here! Go away
Most of us listening to the story so far / we want Ruth to go with Boaz!
It is a disappointment! / Just when things re finally going well
there is a monkey wrench in the works
It is as if the writer / wants to remind us / that such is the stuff of real life
Of course / we feel the frustration of set-backs
but such set-backs is so much a part
of the fabrics of our normal day to day living
- you come close to getting a job
then you find there is someone else the boss is interviewing
- then you get the job / and the boss says
you’ll have to be prepared to relocate in three months time
you want the job badly / at the cost of your family’s happiness
you relocate / and just when new life is only just beginning
your life is diagnosed with a terminal illness
They say it never rains / but pours
Isn’t this what we’ve been seeing with these people
great famine / death of a husband / sons marring foreign women
no children are born to them / the both sons die
then just when they are finally finding hope
in this rich and kind and generous man
they find that it might not work out well after all
That’s the way this story is told / and often
that is the way / the real story of our lives is told
- we seem to live on one set-back after another
So all of a sudden / there’s this huge problem before them
What are they to do?
There is no question as to what Boaz is to do
He will seek a settlement on the matter / first thing in the morning
But what is Ruth to do ?
The answer comes from the mouth of Naomi “Wait / my daughter”
Naomi’s advice to Ruth is something we all need to heed carefully
Waiting is hard / especially hard when the heart is chocked with emotions
Naomi's words are for us this morning
How much we lose / in peace and blessing
because we have not waited for the Lord's time
How many lives have been messed up and homes broken
because we’ve plunged ahead instead of waiting
And we can imagine Ruth / waiting in her home
she’s pacing the floor / she’s biting her nails
it is hard for her to have to wait
And this day / will be the longest day / that she’s ever lived
His words keep ringing in her ears:
“In the morning if he wants to redeem / good / let him redeem
but if he is not willing then as surely as the Lord lives / I will do it”
Ruth is standing at the cross-roads of her life / so near yet so far
But Naomi says to her: “Sit still / for a hand / higher than yours
is leading you / a heart / vastly more loving / is caring for you”
I wonder if this is what God might be saying to you
in this season of your life?
Might God be saying to you: “Hold! Wait! Just wait and trust me
for I am bring to you / something so good
you won’t believe such a blessing can come your way
But will you wait for His time?
And we pick up our story with Boaz going to the city gate
In ancient Palestine / the gate was the centre of the city life
- it was the place / where important legal proceedings were held
And there / at the gates / the elders of the city
the esteemed elders of the city sat / to conduct the civil affairs
and to deal with matters of the law
The gate / was a combination of a city council and a courtroom
So Boaz goes into the city and he comes to the city gate
Boaz says to him / “Buy it back in the presence of the inhabitants
and the elders of my people / If you will redeem it / redeem it
But if you will not redeem it / then tell me / that I may know
for there is no one but you to redeem it / and I am next after you”
Now / when this man first hears of the land deal
- he thinks that it is a good business proposal
- he believes he may have something to gain here
and so he says: “Yes ? I will redeem” / v.4
- His decision is quick and decisive!
But Boaz is too smart for him
he chooses to present the easy part first / and difficult part last
Boaz may be an honest man / and a man of integrity / but he is no fool
He has the cunning of the serpent
And it is the kind of cunning / that Jesus tells us to have
Our Lord Jesus tells us:
“I am sending you out as sheep among wolves
Therefore be as shrew as serpents and as innocent as doves”
- Mt 10:16
And Boaz is one of those men / who is able to balance
the shrewdness of a serpent with the innocence of dove
- a tough mind / a tender heart
And so standing up / from where he is seated Boaz says to the man
“You have made an excellent decision / It is an excellent buy
Except that there is one small snag here
You’ve failed to read the small prints
You know / don’t you / that Naomi has a daughter-in-law
and the day you agree to buy Naomi’s land
you’ve also got to take / for a wife / the woman from Moab
because she is the wife of Naomi’s dead son
And not only that / but you’ve got to raise up offspring
in the name of her husband Mahlon
so that that son / may carry on his father’s name!
Boaz reminds the nearer kinsman / that apart from the land as a redeemer
he has to redeem the family-line of Elimelech as well
Now this kinsman is thinking that Naomi is now old / and childless
and he will not have to be tied down to any claims of inheritance
But he does not realise / that even though Naomi has no children
she has a daughter-in-law
and all of a sudden the table is turned
And he is quick to realise that taking Ruth into his home
and raising up her children / would ruin his own inheritance
Perhaps he has grown sons of his own
and he is reluctant to divide his children’s inheritance
with future children he would have with Ruth
Remember / under God / no one could lose their land permanently
because no land could ever be sold permanently
Every fifty years / no matter to whose hands it had gone
it had be returned to the original family / Leviticus 25:8-17
And this man realises / that he may finally lose
a huge chunk of land to Ruth’s descendants
Not only is the possibility of fathering a Maobite Jew unthinkable
he is no fool / he knows that when he dies
his estate will go to the son of Ruth / and he won’t do it
A good bargain is one thing / but all of a sudden
this sure-fire real estate deal turns sour
because he finds out that far too many strings are attached
And so just as quickly as he decides to buy up the land
just as quickly / he changes his mind / And so he backs off
But what he does next / is something rather strange
He sits down / removes his sandal from his feet / and gives it to Boaz
Now / this is an ancient custom in Israel
Deuteronomy 25 tells us that when a kinsman declined his responsibility
he removes his sandal and gives it away
and the woman / that he has declined to honour
will come up to him / and spit him in his face
All this / to signify to the entire court and witnesses present
that he is giving away his rights / he’s waiving his rights
This man gets away easy / you may say / for he is not spat on by Ruth
but all the same / he gives up his right to redeem
And Boaz / probably with a smile on his face / receives the sandal
That sandal / in one sense / is his marriage license
it is a legal document / bearing all the seals of a court order
- before many witnesses
And with that / the court assigns to Boaz
his right to redeem Naomi’s inheritance / with all its full implications
At this point Boaz stands up / and holding the sandal in his hands he says:
“Today you are witnesses that I have bought from Naomi
all the property of Elimelech / Kilion and Mahlon
I have also acquired Ruth the Maobitess as my wife
in order to maintain the name of the dead
Today you are witnesses” / v 9,10
He is one happy man!
Now with all legal obstacles removed
Boaz leaves the gate / and he goes back looking for Ruth
But she is not hard to find / her nerves are in tatters by this time
she’s been waiting / for the hand of God to guide her life
Let’s pick up from verse 13:
“So Boaz took Ruth / and she became his wife
Then he went to her / and the Lord enabled her to conceive
and she gave birth to a son” / 13
The Lord “enabled her to conceive” / Ruth appears to have been barren
In 1:4 we’re told that she’s been married ten years to Mahlon
and there were no children
A son is born to them / they named him Obed
When Obed reaches manhood / he marries / and has a son called Jesse
And Jesse / has a son named David
And David had a descendant named Jesus!
For it is from the line of David
that our Lord Jesus Christ comes into the world
And some hundreds of years later
the angel would announce to the shepherds:
“Fear not I bring you good tidings of great joy
for to you in Bethelehem is born a Saviour
which is Jesus Christ the Lord” / Lk 2:10
And it is at this point that you might be asking
Well / we’ve come to the end of this book
but - what really is this little book all about?
- what’s the lesson God wants to teach us?
Listen to this / this is most crucial!
We’ve been walking with Naomi / Ruth with Boaz
But our real focus is not on any of them
In chapter one / Elimilech takes the initiative
In chapter two / Ruth takes the initiative
In chapter three / Naomi / And in chapter four / Boaz
And yet this little book is not really about any single one of them
Its about God
We may get a number of valuable teachings from this book / but one stand out
God is watching over His people
to lead their feet / to what is good for them
When you reflect on this story quietly / you will see / that all along
through every step they have taken
God is right there guiding this poor family
From the moment old Elimelech and Naomi and their two young sons
stepped out of their home in Bethlehem
to trek their way into the pagan land of Moab
to this moment at the city gate / back in Bethlehem
- God is watching over His own children
No one could have ever imagined / that when a family of four
made a simple decision to emigrate to another land
in the midst of a severe famine
God is working quietly in their lives / to prepare the way
for the coming of the greatest gift the world has ever seen
- the coming of Jesus Christ into the world!
Through the famine / through the death of Elimelech
through the death of the two sons
through the hunger and long years of misery
God is guiding this family
to fill Naomi and Ruth with such immeasurably great joy
- the famine may appear cruel and unwarranted
- the deaths of her husband and her two sons seem so accidental
- the decision of Ruth to follow her mother-in-law back to Bethlehem
could have been seen as something insignificant
- the meeting of Ruth and Boaz seem so accidental
But no / none of that is an accident
At every turn / God is charting their course
to lead their feet / to what is really the very best for them
Let me show you a clear evidence that this book
is all about the goodness of God on His people
We need to read 13 – 17 very carefully
So Boaz took Ruth / and she became his wife / And he went in to her
and the LORD gave her conception / and she bore a son / Then the
women said to Naomi / “Blessed be the LORD / who has not left you
this day without a redeemer / and may his name be renowned in Israel!
He shall be to you a restorer of life and a nourisher of your old age
for your daughter-in-law who loves you / who is more to you
than seven sons / has given birth to him” / Then Naomi took the child
and laid him on her lap and became his nurse / And the women of the
neighborhood gave him a name, saying / “A son has been born to
Naomi”
Read the text carefully and you will find that when a baby is born to Ruth
the writer of this book makes so much fuss
not about Ruth / which would be the natural thing to do
But he makes all this fuss about Naomi
Why? Because this book is about God’s goodness
and for that it focuses on Naomi as much as it focuses on Ruth
Remember all the agonies and grief that Naomi has gone through
Naomi suffers the misery of a severe famine
then the pain of losing her husband
then the marriage of her sons to Moabite women
then the apparent barrenness of her daughters-in-law for ten years
then the death of both of her sons
and she’s left a widow / with two widows
the search for food / the search for favour
everything looks bleak and gloomy
and she concludes: “I went away full and came back empty
The Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me”
But through it all / we see the hand of the divine Navigator
God has been moving in the lives of Naomi and Ruth
and the wheel has come a full circle / her life is getting full again
In fact / the Word says “A son has been born to Naomi”
Not to Ruth! / But to Naomi! / Why?
It seems strange that the book ends with an emphasis on Naomi / not Ruth
Why?
To show you and I that God has never left Naomi
Naomi may think / that the Lord has brought her back empty from Moab
but God is showing her / that He has not forgotten her
The book of Ruth opens with Naomi’s bitterness
It now closes with Naomi’s blessedness
Naomi holds Obed in her arms
She had never nursed a child in Moab
She had buried children in Moab / but never nursed a child there
But right here / Naomi nurses a baby
It is interesting that in her old age / God is renewing Naomi's youth
I’ve always loved that promise in Ps 92 to older people
The righteous will flourish like a palm tree / they will grow like a cedar of Lebanon
planted in the house of the LORD / they will flourish in the courts of our God.
They will still bear fruit in old age / they will stay fresh and green, / proclaiming
“The LORD is upright / he is my Rock, and there is no wickedness in him”
When for many in her age / the shadows of life lengthens
Naomi is still bearing fruit
This little book of only four chapters / helps us to see
that in the darkest times of our lives / when everything seem so bleak
and when there does not seem to be a way out
God is not only present in your midst / He is active in your life
He is and directing you / leading you and guiding you
to give you a hope and a future
and it will always turn out for good
even if will never get to see it in this life
Is this the story of your life?
You may be in the place Naomi and Ruth have been before
- maybe you’re not in a very good place / right now
- and life is not treating you kindly / and its somewhat bewildering
- you are filled with a quite pain / that nobody knows / and confusion
- your health is failing you / the future looks uncertain
God is at work in your life / to bring good to you
Have great courage / when you face adversities
Have a deep inner peace when all around us our world is crumbling
Does God know about your situation?
Does God know how you feel? Does He even care?
We need to believe once and for all / that no matter what our lot in life is
Nothing / absolutely nothing / can thwart the purpose of God
No matter what adversities of life you face
it is finally the hand of God on you / to give you a future
You are not / never / ever at the mercy of any single human person
Not even Ruth or Naomi
they were never / for a single moment / at the mercy of Boaz
The final equation is this: God rules over the decisions people make
Proverbs 21:1 “The king's heart is in the hand of the LORD
Like the rivers of water / He turns it wherever He wishes”
Let us all grow a greater confidence and security in our God
* There is nothing anyone can do / to harm you
People may be unkind / and mean / and even malicious to us
but not one of them can frustrate God’s purpose for you
* You feel threaten in your place of work
there people there / who have plans to see you pulled down
- stand tall / no one can thwart what God has in mind for you
* You are worried about your health / Take courage
because nothing reaches our doorstep without God ordaining it
In the midst of our pain / suffering / and grief / take comfort
stand secure / and firm / God is on schedule / He is never late
* People die in tsunamis / but it is God / not Satan
who is the final ruler of wind and the waves
Remember / one word from our Savior and the sea stood still
On that Boxing Day several years ago / one word from God
and the oceans would be flat as a pancake
How do I know? Job 38:8
“Who shut in the sea with doors when it burst out from the womb /
and said ‘Thus far shall you come / and no farther
and here shall your proud waves be stayed’?”
* In the case of poor Elimelech / his wife Naomi / and their two sons
even if Satan caused the famine / God could have stopped it
had He wanted to
Psalm 105:16 / It is God Who “summoned a famine on the land
and broke all supply of bread”
* Every moment of every day / God sustains you
It may look / like it is the driver who runs the red light / who hits us
It may look like it is the doctor who misdiagnose your illness
But neither people’s carelessness / nor their wickedness
can thwart God’s purpose for us
It may even look like you’re a victim to people who plot your fall
and you may indeed end up looking like a victim of their plot
But are you?
Not according to Scriptures! / “Who can speak
and have it happen / if the Lord has not decreed it” Lam 3:37
Our sovereign / wise and loving God is tracing your steps each day
to guide your feet to you the light / to give you a future and a hope
You may not be in a good place now
but there is not a shadow of doubt in my mind
that God is working in and through your life
to turn out something good and beautiful for you
He is working through your life
He is paving the way for your feet
He is bringing people into your life to fulfil His purpose
God has a bigger purpose in your life / than you can ever know
The book of Ruth affirms in our hearts / that even during the worst of times
God is doing a hidden work / to give you a future
The key verse of the book is 2:12
“May you be richly be rewarded by the Lord
under whose wings / you have come to take refuge”
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