05.03. Ruth 3 and 4
We left Ruth, in our last address, in the field of Boaz. She gleaned all day and in the evening beat out, or threshed, what she had gleaned. The result was “about an ephah of barley.” We see from Exodus 16:1-36, that an omer was the tenth part of an ephah. We see, too, from the same chapter, that an omer of manna per day was each person’s allowance; so that, if barley was as nutritious as manna, Ruth by her diligence had gleaned enough in one day to feed ten persons. In the eighteenth verse we read, “And she took it up, and went into the city.” The city may be called the place of need. And how good and fitting for Christians when they have gleaned, and had parched corn reached them, and handfuls of purpose let fall for them to go to the places of need and carry the precious truth of Christ to souls. So shall our profiting appear to all (1 Timothy 4:15). “And her mother-in-law saw what she had gleaned.” Our spiritual progress and growth in grace should be manifest to our brethren, and to all. “And Ruth brought forth and gave to her.” Our Lord says, “Therefore every scribe which is instructed unto the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is a householder, which brings forth out of his treasure things new and old” (Matthew 13:52). We will have something to impart to others if we are like Ruth, and our ministry will neither be barren nor unfruitful. Many a brother sits dumb in the meetings from one year’s end to another just because he has not been gleaning and threshing out like Ruth. Some try to preach but never have anything to impart because they have not been diligently digging into the Word for themselves; their speaking is just so much noise and they would do better to be silent. The mass of Christians never speak of Christ to others because they neglect their Bibles and feed on the newspaper and the secular magazines. They have nothing to “bring forth” to help souls with and, like Ephraim, they “feed on wind,” or worse. Peter has a word on this line. He says, “As every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God” (1 Peter 4:10). As “faithful stewards” we hold fast the Word committed to us; as “good stewards” we minister it to others; and as “wise stewards” we give it out discriminately, ministering it in due season, not taking the children’s bread and casting it to dogs, or putting pearls before swine. In the chapters read tonight, we have Ruth’s marriage to Boaz and what led up to it. Ruth and Naomi her mother-in-law, were in serious difficulty. Naomi had, as she says, been brought back from the country of Moab “empty,” i.e., a childless widow and in the depths of poverty. Pressed by need, it would seem, she was about to sell the family inheritance, “a parcel of land” which had belonged to Elimelech (Ruth 4:3).
Now there was a law in Israel to this effect. If an estate was sold or taken for debt it was to revert back to the original owner or to his heirs every fiftieth year, which was called “the year of jubilee.” “The land shall not be sold forever,” or to perpetuity, God had said. It was a most wise and gracious provision to put a check to land grabbing, and prevent just that lamentable condition of things which obtains in many of the European states today, notably, poor, downtrodden Ireland, where a few “gentlemen” possess the land and the tenants are reduced almost to the condition of serfs. The average working man looks upon the Bible as a book in which the rich stand in especial favour, and he has become either antagonistic or indifferent to it. He does not know that in God’s model government of Israel there was every provision that could be justly made in favour of the poor; and it was utterly impossible for the rich to monopolise the land which is after all, the important thing in any country given to agriculture. Ignorant infidels have tried to make out that the Bible is the work of a cunning priestcraft, and Moses was just looking out for soft berths for himself and relatives when he gave the people the law. If this is so why did he prohibit any of the priestly family from becoming freeholders? They were not allowed to possess as their own an acre of the soil, which does not look very much as if they had all got their heads together and agreed to hoodwink a semi-barbarous nation of emancipated slaves, and give themselves positions of monetary influence and power over them. See Numbers 18:20-24. But this is a digression. Though all land was to revert every fiftieth year to the family to which it had belonged, it could be bought back, or redeemed by any of the family or their relatives, before that time. See Leviticus 25:23-28. Naomi therefore, as it would seem, being compelled to sell, hoped that one of her kinsmen would buy or redeem it. Boaz, the mighty man of wealth, was one of her nearest kinsmen, and she evidently looked upon him as one likely to redeem it for her. And there was another question involved: the law laid it down that if a man died childless his nearest relative or “brother” was expected to marry his widow, and the first-born of the union was to be called after the deceased, so that his name should not perish, or be cut off, in Israel. See Deuteronomy 25:5-10. So the near kinsman would have a double duty to perform; he would not only be expected, if able, to redeem the land, but also to marry Mahlon’s widow. So, instructed by her mother-in-law, Ruth, anointed and adorned, goes to the threshing-floor of Boaz where he was winnowing barley. If he continued his work well on into the night it was to take advantage of the wind, probably. And when he lays himself down to rest at the end of the heap of grain, Ruth draws trustfully near and lays herself meekly and modestly at his feet. “And it came to pass: at midnight, that the man was afraid, and turned himself; and, behold, a woman lay at his feet. And he said, Who art thou? And she answered, I am Ruth thy handmaid: spread therefore thy skirt over thy handmaid ; for thou art a near kinsman.” It is an Oriental courtship, and strange and unbecoming as Ruth’s conduct might appear in the eyes of Westerns, it was considered perfectly proper in the “days when the judges ruled,” and would be considered so still in the East, we suppose. Her asking Boaz to spread his skirt over her indicated to him that she was willing to become his wife (see Ezekiel 16:8). And though she is but a poor widow of Gentile origin, Boaz expresses himself as quite agreeable to the proposal. He says, “Blessed be thou of the Lord, my daughter: for thou hast showed more kindness in the latter end than at the beginning, inasmuch as thou followedst not young men, whether poor or rich. And now, my daughter, fear not; I will do to thee all that thou requirest: for all the city of my people doth know that thou art a virtuous woman.” He means by this last (“all the city of my people doth know that thou art a virtuous woman”) that he understood her motives perfectly. He had not the slightest question as to the purity of her design in coming to the floor thus at night, and he graciously promises to perform for her all that she desires. He says, “Thou followedst not young men, whether poor or rich.” How is it with you, believer in Christ? What are you following, or with whom do you have fellowship? Ruth, (as it became a widow) lived a life of retiring modesty and separation. And Christians are called to walk in separation from this world’s principles and pleasures. “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world,” writes the beloved John. “For all that is in the world,” he says, “is not of the Father but is of the world.” The young men, poor and rich, from whom Ruth kept herself, are like the things of the world of which John speaks. The poor young men would be like those coarser and gross pleasures from which it is comparatively easy to keep oneself, if saved. “The lust of the flesh,” John calls them. But he speaks, too, of “the pride of life” which would answer more to the rich young men. These would be of special temptation to a poor young woman like Ruth, and it is of the more refined and subtle forms of worldliness that Christians have most to beware. Almost any Christian would shrink from attending a public ball, or witnessing a sensational play or reading a French novel, but Satan is cunning and he has ready for our enticement that which awakens the “desires of the mind,” if he cannot allure through “the lusts of the flesh.” Both forms of depravity are mentioned in Ephesians 2:3. They are equally destructive of holiness, and the devil does not care one whit which he uses to hinder our communion with God or mar our testimony for Christ. Oh saint of God, shun, avoid, eschew whatever is not of Christ or the Father! Follow not these “young men whether poor or rich.” Boaz says to Ruth, “Thou shalt keep fast by my young men, until they have ended all my harvest” (Ruth 2:21). And the apostle exhorts by the Spirit, “Follow righteousness, faith, charity, peace with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart” (2 Timothy 2:22). “And Naomi said unto Ruth her daughter-in-law, It is good, my daughter, that thou go out with his maidens, that they meet thee not in any other field. So she kept fast by the maidens of Boaz to glean unto the end of barley harvest and of wheat harvest” (Ruth 2:22-23). Oh, for grace to persevere in the path of separation to the end. Some, once in it, are giving it up. Oh, they say, we made mistakes in the past, and were too severe and rigid. Possibly; it is easy to become severe and to get rigid, saying to others, like the icy Pharisee, “Stand by thyself; come not near, for I am holier than thou.” And it is possible, too, to occupy a position of outward separation from the world and all the while have the world in our hearts, like the monks and nuns or the grasping, hard, and unspiritual brother, who sits with us around the table of the Lord, and flatters himself that he is no Jonathan, like some other men he knows. He has “come out,” he says. Yes; but do not forget, separated brother, that the passage that teaches separation most distinctly ends with the exhortation to “cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit.” And what is pride of ecclesiastical position, or covetousness, but hateful “filthiness of spirit?” But in spite of mistakes made as to the spirit in which the truth of separation has been held, it is the truth taught in Scripture, if Scripture teaches anything. And what was the character of the men whom some now accuse of having been too rigid in this separation? They were devoted men of God who gave up all for Christ, and whose lives might well put to shame the soft, ease-loving conduct of those who now so freely criticise them. And there was power and blessing in the assemblies then, but where is the power and blessing now? Departed, alas! and “Ichabod” written upon the testimony. Yet we have learned better how not to go too far in separation now, and we are pushing our children out more in the world, and going ourselves to places where we once would have felt self-condemned in being. No, brethren, our guides and separated fathers of the past generations were right, and God was with them. It is we, and not they, who have “gone too far.” We have got in too close touch with the world. We have become so like it they can tolerate us now. The hope of the coming of Christ is in large measure given up (I mean as a living reality in our souls, not the doctrine), and to excuse ourselves for our compromise and unfaithfulness, we pretend that those that went before us were too narrow, and we are in measure correcting their mistakes. Dear young Christian, do not, I beseech you, give ear to these suggestions that the path we are called upon to tread is one whit broader than our Lord says it is — a “narrow way.” So let us never mind if sinners or unspiritual Christians call us narrow. See what Moses said to God in, Exodus 33:16. He says, “Wherein shall it be known here that I and Thy people have found grace in Thy sight? Is it not in that Thou goest with us? So shall we be separated, I and Thy people, from all the people that are upon the face of the earth.” Their separation was to mark them off from other nations, as a people who had been blessed and saved by God. He says to them in Leviticus 20:24, “I am Jehovah your God, which have separated you from other people.” They were first saved and then separated from the godless nations about them, just as the saved soul now is called to walk in separation from the ungodly, whether they be the “lewd fellows of the baser sort,” or “the ungodly who prosper in the world.” Let us seek the approval of Christ as Ruth had that of Boaz. Let us keep fast by the people of God as we glean, as Ruth kept fast by the maidens of Boaz. Let us, by God’s grace, keep it up also, like Ruth until the end of the harvest of Him who is greater than Boaz. His “well done” at the end will be better than to have all our acquaintances as one man pat us on the back now, and tell us we do well not to be so narrow and exclusive. Let us be kind and courteous to all. Let us be gentle, though firm, in our refusal to compromise our position of separation to Christ. Let us, as we have opportunity, do good to all men, but let us never, never allow ourselves to be pressed, coaxed, or laughed into a position which our conscience does not tell us is one of distinctive and unqualified separation from the world. It is the happiest and only safe path, you may rest assured. “It is good,” Naomi says to Ruth, “that they meet thee not in any other field.” And it is good, disciple of Christ, that He find you, when He comes, in just that place into which His grace and truth have called you. But to return to Ruth and Boaz. Boaz says, “And now it is true that I am thy near kinsman: howbeit there is a kinsman nearer than I.” Boaz is perfectly willing to do the kinsman-redeemer’s part, but the nearer kinsman has a prior claim, and Boaz, in righteousness, respects it. Now this is like the law given by Moses and the grace and truth which came by Jesus Christ. Boaz is the undoubted type of Christ, and the nearest kinsman, with his prior claim, personifies the law. Jesus came to save and bless the sinner, but the law with its righteous claims was standing in the way. His blessed heart of love went out to publicans and sinners, and the outcasts of society. Ruth sought after Boaz; but Christ, the Son of God, came seeking the lost. But how could He in righteousness bless those concerning whom the law thundered, CURSED! “Cursed is every one,” it says, “that continues not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them” (Galatians 3:10). Given by God, it is declared to be “holy, and just, and good.” But men are unholy, unjust, and not good, but utterly bad. How then can they be spared and blessed of God? or how can the holy Christ of God befriend them? The sabbath-breaker was stoned under law. He only gathered a few sticks, to cook his sabbath dinner perhaps, and yet the law condemned him to a violent death (Numbers 15:1-41). Shelomith’s son was condemned to death for blasphemy and cursing, under law (Leviticus 24:1-23). The law condemned the disobedient and dissipated son to death. His own parents were to testify against him, and the men of his city were to stone him with stones until he died (Deuteronomy 21:1-23). This was law, just and righteous, however severe it may seem to us now under grace. It was graven on tables of stone, showing that though it might be broken, it could not bend. It was hard, inflexible, and cold. How was it possible then, we repeat, for Christ to befriend and bless transgressors? Could He ignore the law’s demands, or hush its thunders with a word as He silenced the roar of the storm on the sea of Galilee? Could He sweep it aside as an obsolete code and having no present claim on man’s conscience? “Think not,” He says, “that I am come to destroy the law.” But, though He came not to destroy or nullify or set aside the law, neither came He “to destroy men’s lives,” He says, “but to save them.” How was it possible for Him to neither destroy men’s lives nor the law, since that law demands the transgressor’s destruction? The Pharisees had some such question in their minds when they brought the adulteress to Him. She was guilty. There was no question as to that, for she had been taken in the very act. “Now,” they said, “Moses in the law commanded us that such should be stoned: but what sayest Thou?” Moses had spoken; shall Christ contradict him? The law had pronounced its sentence of death; will grace reverse it and grant life? Is the Saviour powerless to save in the presence of these would-be champions and executors of the law? Is the grace of God to be like Darius, intently desirous of delivering Daniel out of the lions’ den, but prevented by the inexorable law of the Medes and Persians “which alters not?” Let us wait and see. Boaz says to Ruth, “Tarry this night, and it shall be in the morning, that if he will perform unto thee the part of a kinsman, well; let him do the kinsman’s part: but if he will not do the part of a kinsman to thee, then will I do the part of a kinsman to thee, as the Lord liveth: lie down until the morning.” It is night and dark when Ruth hears of the nearer kinsman’s claim; and if law is to have its way it is dark, dark, DARK for the sinner. But morning comes and with it the full settlement of the difficulty. “Then went Boaz up to the gate, and sat him down there: and, behold, the kinsman of whom Boazspake came by; unto whom he said, Ho, such an one! turn aside, sit down here. And he turned aside... and he took ten men of the elders of the city, and said, Sit ye down here. And they sat down.” And there, in the gate, the matter was gone into and settled to the satisfaction of all. Boaz went to the gate, mark. Now the gate was the Hebrew court-house — the place of judgment. And Calvary was the place where Jesus, the Saviour, met all the claims of law and justice. It was written of Him that He should “magnify the law and make it honourable.” This He did, not only by keeping it perfectly during His life, but by fully meeting its every claim in His death upon the cross. There was no other way by which He could become the sinner’s kinsman-redeemer. So He “stooped down,” we read, “and with His finger wrote on the ground,,” when urged by the Pharisees as to whether He would have the poor, guilty woman condemned, or her sin remain unjudged and pass unpunished. In His humiliation He “stooped down” to a malefactor’s death on Calvary. There for the sinner’s sin He went down into the dust of death. The law written on stone declared the transgressor must die. Jesus writing on the ground as much as says, “I will die, and bear the sentence of the law upon the transgressor.” He is therefore not compelled to condemn to death the transgressor, but says, “Go, and sin no more.” Grace reigns through righteousness. The nearer kinsman has perfect justice accorded him. The nearer kinsman at first says, “I will redeem it;” but when Boaz puts before him all that was involved in the transaction, he relinquishes all claim, saying, “I cannot redeem it for myself, lest I mar mine own inheritance: redeem thou my right to thyself; for I cannot redeem it.” This was like the law. It first proposed to give man life. “This do, and thou shalt live.” It held before him the promise of blessing on condition of his obedience. But, this obedience man never rendered; and so as a means of blessing to man the law failed utterly. In the twenty-seventh chapter of Deuteronomy two mountains are mentioned, Gerizim, the mount of blessing; and Ebal, the mount of cursing. From these two mountains the Levites, who represented the law, were to pronounce either blessing or cursing on Israel as the case might be — of obedience or disobedience. They were instructed fully as to the curses. Twelve times they were to cry, “Cursed!” and it was to be “with a loud voice.” But they did not once say, “Blessed,” for law can only bless the good; and “there is none good, no not one.” No Levite voice was ever heard on mount Gerizim pronouncing blessings on the head of Israel, for none but the righteous, under law, can inherit blessing; and “there is none righteous, no not one.” Must sinners, then, remain unblest? Must justice effectually and forever withstand God’s purpose of love? No! Listen: “For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin (or, as a sacrifice for sin), condemned sin in the flesh” (Romans 8:3). Sin, not the law, has met its condemnation in the cross of Christ. The law was weak through the flesh. It promised life and blessing on condition of obedience, but the flesh in man prevented his yielding that obedience; so, as a means of blessing, it was “weak.” It demanded, but gave with its demand no power to fulfil. The nearer kinsman said to Boaz that he could not act the part of a redeemer without marring his own inheritance. And how marred would be the majestic dignity of God’s holy law if it could let sin pass unpunished, and bless transgressors whom it was, in its very nature, bound to condemn and curse. So it must step aside, like the nearer kinsman, and say, not, I have no right to curse, but, I cannot bless. So the great Redeemer does what the law could never do. He is the One who “speaks in righteousness, mighty to save.” Hallelujah!
Boaz does the kinsman-redeemer’s part and claims Ruth as his bride. She becomes his wife, and fruit — a son, is the result of the union. In Romans 7:1-25, we have the believer’s deliverance from the law. We are delivered from law’s every claim “that we should be married to another, even to Him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God.” God in His grace grant that each one of us who has been made one with Christ may be “fruitful in every good word and work.” Amen.
Oh soul, if unsaved, Christ stands ready to be your blessed Redeemer tonight. You have not to seek a redeemer to befriend you, like Ruth. The Redeemer and Friend of sinners is Himself seeking the lost. You may be blessed right now and here. “Blessed are all they that put their trust in Him.” In this “writing Upon the ground” the Lord seems also to bring to the accusers’ remembrance that the sentence of death had been pronounced against every sinner, as death is appointed to all. Compare Genesis 2:17 with Romans 5:12. So, conscience convicted, they go out “one by one, beginning at the eldest.”
C. Knapp