Ruth No. 6 Boaz Benediction

We've been looking at this delightful, slender book in the Old Testament for six weeks. We come to our final study and my remarks are based on what's contained between the eleventh verse right to the end of the fourth chapter. If you're not familiar with the story of Ruth, because you don't normally come here, then let me commend to you as a good after Sunday dinner treat this afternoon reading the three previous chapters.

I wonder where you start when you come to consider this book. You see, as I bring you to a conclusion, what I want to now bring to your attention before we look in these final verses is the time at which the book was written. Now to get the perspective historically, you've got to go to the first chapter and indeed to the last verse of the previous book, which is the book of Judges.

And there tucked away at the end of that book is one of the saddest scriptures in the whole of the Old Testament. In those days, Israel had no king. Everyone did as he saw fit.

You see, that is the type of society in which these three people who figure largely in the next book were living their lives. Ruth, Naomi, Boaz. At a time when generally speaking, people did not look to nor implement themselves the law of God.

You see, if the book of Ruth will tell you anything, it tells you this. I say this off of these few thoughts by way of introduction to this final talk. It tells you this, that when you find yourself in a society which is somewhat permissive, there is always a remnant of people who nonetheless don't go against the general trend or don't go with the general trend, but they mark themselves out with a distinctive lifestyle.

You see, not many people were living like Boaz. Not many people had the concerns of Naomi. Although she felt the Lord had dealt bitterly with her, she did acknowledge God.

There were a tiny remnant, an odd community of people there in the famous city of Bethlehem. Now, my friend, don't you find yourself like that? The people largely outside this sanctuary, largely outside the evangelical church acknowledge the principles of the gospel. You who go to the sixth form college, do 90% of the sixth form college in Worthing attend church? You who are ordinary businessmen, do you find that all businesses are run in this country with the ethics of the New Testament, commanding the relationships and the style of transactions? No, you don't.

We live at a time when, though we do not have anarchy, thank God, the Christian church is basically in a minority. And so I draw your attention to this little book of Ruth, because it was at a time when these folk who prominently feature were very, very much the exceptions to the rule, that they lived out their lives so successfully in the service of God. And what's more, you see, this book narrows things down to the basis of individuals.

Now, this is most important. You see, the great distinction between Christianity and any other philosophy is basically this, the impact, the value that it places on the individual. God does not deal with us on a mass production principle.

Now, this is most exciting. You see, in the book of Judges and later on in Samuel and Kings and Chronicles, that the sweeps of world history are brought into focus. As God's people live out their lives, you get the great empires ultimately arising.

But here in the heart of the Old Testament, there's a little book, the book of Ruth, which features three or four people in particular. Why? Well, you see, God is telling you. He'll tell you in the New Testament, but he tells you in the Old Testament.

He is not just concerned with people on mass. Have I a widow woman in my congregation? Almost an absurd question to ask here in this coastal resort of Worthing. Do you feel somewhat despondent? Do you feel somewhat insignificant? Is there someone who's coming to the tabernacle like Ruth as she was when she went into Bethlehem, unmarried, marital chances, very, very meager? Is there someone here for whom life has dealt some very, very cruel blows? Well, my friend, take out from this church at least this one principle that God is concerned with your circumstances, with you as an individual.

I preached an address here the other Sunday evening. I said the other Sunday. The time goes by so quickly, three months or so ago.

On the value of the individual's self-respect, self-esteem, and it's rare that I've had so many comments or so much mail in my posts in regard to folk who tell me we never believe that God had a real concern for us as individuals as you demonstrated from Scripture. Well, you see the book of Ruth. It indicates this.

He's concerned about these three people, Naomi, Ruth, Boaz, and indeed all the others who figure in the book. And what's more, it seems to me that in this book you have the triumph of grace over law. You see, if you were to look into the book of Deuteronomy chapter 23 and read through verse three to six, you would discover that no Moabites was ever to be allowed within the sanctuary of God.

Moses was a great law giver. The prohibitions of the Old Testament, they're severe, they're somber. It looked as though God only had concern for the Jewish nation.

But you see, in the book of Ruth, you begin to pick up what our Lord will make clear in the centuries to come. Moses said, but verily I say unto you, the heart of the law is found within the personality of God. And God the Heavenly Father has concern for Jew and Gentile, for this Moabites lady, who according to Mosaic legislation should have no purposes within the provisions, within the plan of God whatsoever.

But Ruth comes to nestle under the wings of the God of Israel. Do you remember that lovely expression? And it seems to me that Ruth prefigures all Gentile people. You see, ultimately, when I get to what I'm going to say this morning, these are just ad hoc thoughts.

Ultimately, when she's married to Boaz, she illustrates, if you please, the marriage of the Church of Jesus Christ to the Son of God, our kinsman redeemer. You see, the large proportion of the church today is not Jewish. It's, if you like, Moabitish.

It's Gentile. But Boaz falls in love with Ruth. The Lord Jesus has a love relationship to non-Jewish people, as well as to Jews.

And in the wedding, Twix, Boaz, and Ruth, there is, if you like, an anticipation of that great gospel invitation to the wedding, that you and I, who are Christians, have responded to our Boaz, Jesus, inviting us to come under the shadow of the wings of the God of Israel. And we discover, as a knock-on effect, that we are, to him, as closely related as a bride is to the groom. There is something else that this book will teach you.

It will teach you a great deal about the patience of God. You know, if you're born with a temperament like mine, then patience is not a quality that was yours at birth. You see, the incredible thing about this God is the way that he is prepared to be misunderstood and still have an interest in you.

Here's Naomi. The Lord has dealt bitterly with me. Do you remember? The indictment that she levels against God at the beginning of the book? No longer, you women folk of Bethlehem, no longer call me Naomi.

Call me Mara. Why call me Mara? Because Mara is the Hebrew for bitter, and that is how God has dealt with me. Carlisle, a great theologian and preacher of yesteryear, said the incredible thing about God is his infinite patience and how he is prepared to be misunderstood by his people.

Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, but trust him for his grace. Beneath the frowning providence, he hides a smiling face. And by the time you get to the end chapter, you discover that Naomi is really in an apologetic state, as with a smile now on her sun-scorched, wrinkled face, she clings to that little baby that Ruth has brought into this world.

And this book, moreover, it will teach you grand things about the Redeemer that is ours. You see, if you don't get excited about what the Lord Jesus Christ has done for you, then you have a little appreciation of what the New Testament means by being a child of God. I've yet to meet a miserable bride.

They come down this aisle with great enthusiasm. Sometimes I've had to hold them back a little bit in terms of the vows. They've got to go at my speed.

There are no shortcuts. I want them to be properly married when they leave this church. But there's tremendous enthusiasm both on the bride and on the part of the bridegroom.

Now, look, my friend, Jesus Christ is our Redeemer. Ah, bless. Love's Redeemer who intercedes for us.

Is that not something that should set our hearts aglow? Does that not in and of itself indicate that Christianity, in effect, says, may all your miseries be abolished. Him serve with mirth, his praise foretell. You and I have so much for which to praise our Lord Jesus as we recognize that our Redeemer lives.

Well, enough of that or else we'll never get back to this fourth chapter. Let's pick up the story. We're towards the end.

Dear Boaz has brought together all the elders or at least 10 of the elders from the city of Bethlehem. They are stacked around the city gate, so to speak. The city gate, as I described last week, was quite an area of activity.

You needed 10 men to form a synagogue. 10 men were a significant number in Israel. A business transaction is to be effected.

So Boaz has the elders of Bethlehem in front of him and all those who happen to be passing by who with Middle Eastern curiosity stop back and stop and inspect the scene. You recall how the nearest relative, the nearest kinsman of Naomi, has taken his shoe from off his foot and handed it to Boaz, indicating that legal rights have now been transferred to Boaz. He can take up the land that originally belonged to Elimelech, Naomi's husband, deceased husband, and he can have the responsibility of marrying into the family by taking Ruth to be his bride.

Then the elders and all those at the gate said, we are witnesses. May the Lord make the woman who is coming into your home like Rachel and Leah. Have you ever thought, my Christian friend, that when our Lord Jesus made reference to those who forsook everything to follow him, who denied, if you like, the comforts of home life of mother and father and brothers and sisters, that he would ensure that in this world they would be compensated.

The gospel of Mark and chapter 10 will tell you this. And here is Ruth who has come into Bethlehem and discovered now that she has been brought directly into the family circle of Boaz with all the attendant blessings. And so they say to Ruth and Boaz as they proceed with this wedding, they give a benediction.

May you have standing in Ephrata and be famous in Bethlehem. And they go on to say, and may you have as many blessings attending you as attended Rachel and Leah. Now, why do they make reference to Rachel and Leah? Well, if you ever have the opportunity of going to Israel, you will obviously visit Bethlehem.

And some distance away from the city, you will come across the traditional burial place of Rachel. Now, Rachel was the favored wife of Jacob. Rachel died within the precincts, at least very near to the town of Bethlehem.

Rachel and Leah and their servants were the means whereby the children of Israel had their original founders. In other words, Jacob was the father of 12 men. And from the line of Rachel were to come many, many Israelites.

And here are the elders of Israel giving this benediction to Boaz and saying, may you and your new bride Ruth, may you be as fruitful as Rachel was. May you be as fruitful as Leah was. May you have standing in Ephrata and be famous in Bethlehem.

Through the offspring the Lord gives you by this young woman, may your family be like that of Perez, whom Tamar bore to Judah. Perez was one of the sons of Judah. And ultimately, as a result of his union with Tamar, further descendants were born.

And it was the descendants of Perez who actually inhabited the area where the Bethlehemites were. In other words, he was their ancestor. And so to this young married couple, I say young, young on the part of Ruth, this benediction, this blessing is being directed, may you be so fruitful, may you be so blessed as your ancestors were.

So verse 13, Boaz took Ruth and she became his wife, and the Lord enabled her to conceive, and so forth. Now isn't it interesting that when you move into the latter part of the story, the attention now focuses upon Naomi. The attention focuses upon Naomi.

No longer Ruth, no longer Boaz, but from the 12th verse through to the genealogy in the 18th, the person that you have in mind is Naomi. This old woman, this one who has made the prediction, or rather has made the declaration, that God has dealt in a very bitter fashion with her. And we're introduced again to the women who first greeted her when Naomi returned to Bethlehem.

Look at verse 14. These women folk, you recall, they saw Naomi as she approached Bethlehem, and she looked so despondent. The Bible says that we are to rejoice with those who rejoice, we are to mourn with those who mourn.

And they entered into the feelings of sorrow that when Naomi's, she'd returned to Bethlehem, you recall, her husband was dead, her brothers were dead. And as this great sorrow eclipsed her, so as the circumstances changed, and as Ruth falls in love with Boaz, and as ultimately a child is born, these women now rejoice with Naomi, who is beginning herself to rejoice. And they say, praise be to the Lord this day, who has not left you without a kinsman redeemer.

It's a consistent emphasis throughout this book that whatever happens to you in life comes about as a result of God's intervention. You see, he had his hand upon this elderly lady during those days in Moab, he has his hand upon this lady right now. And these women folk from Bethlehem, they recognize this.

As they give a benediction to her, as the elders have given a benediction to Boaz, so they look upwards and they look onwards. Upwards, praise to the Lord, he is responsible for this baby who's now being cradled in your arms. They look onward, praise be to the Lord for this kinsman redeemer who is going to nourish you, who is going to sustain you.

Isn't it interesting that as far as these women are concerned, as they look upon Naomi and her circumstances, they see the child as being her kinsman redeemer. Not Boaz, but this little baby who's now being cradled in her lap. Praise be to the Lord, who this day has not left you without a kinsman redeemer.

May he become famous throughout Israel. He will renew your life and sustain you in your old age. What does an old person want? Some of you feel that I'm speaking with experience.

An old person wants rejuvenation, particularly if your circumstances have been unpleasant. Is that not so? You want something to live for. I mean, this is a pastoral situation, repeated many times in my experience here.

Something's happened in life, a partner has gone, and someone's left on their own. And life, as a result, is so empty. And if any pastoral help can be given at all, it must be on this level of showing that life still has meaning.

There is something that one can still effectively do, effectively contribute in a family situation within the Christian community. Now, these dear womenfolk of Bethlehem, they look to the Lord, and they thank the Lord for what's happened to Naomi. They look to the child, and then they predict the ministry that the child will offer to, if you please, his grandmother.

He will renew your life and sustain you in your old age. He will be your rejuvenation. Incidentally, why did you come to the Lord Jesus? You say, well, that's a strange question.

Well, yes, it is, but I'm a strange person, so I'll put it again. Why did you come to the Lord Jesus? I'm not just speaking of older people, I'm speaking of younger people. Why, as well, why did you become a Christian? Well, you say, now I'm beginning to understand something about the gospel of salvation.

I appreciated now, though I didn't then, that before I was a Christian, I was in effect dead. There was no spiritual life in me at all, but when I responded to the claims of the Lord Jesus, He came in by the power of His Spirit, and He filled my life. That is what we call regeneration.

Not so? Renewal. Bringing vigor into your life. Bringing spirituality there, when before there'd been utter barrenness, you hadn't a care for the Lord.

You knew nothing of spiritual zeal, of spiritual power. You see, it's always the task of the Redeemer to renew life. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.

He restoreth my soul. Isn't that what God does for you? You see, it's one of the ministries of the Redeemer, to restore the soul, to restore the soul of Naomi in her bitter experiences, to bring new life to her. At that level, yes, it's true at that level, but at an even deeper level, it is true.

You see, this salvation blessing of which we speak, of which we sing, it so grips our hearts. Why is that, as Christian people? Well, it's real to us, you see. It's, in one sense, the most important thing in life.

My relationship with Him, that's what keeps me going. I love my own wife dearly, but if everything was stripped from me in my life, I think that I could cope, provided I still had Him. But take Him away.

Take the strengthening that He brings into my life away, and then I'm lost. I have nothing to live for whatsoever. It's the spiritual dimension, you see, which is most important.

Now, this, in one sense, is anticipated in the babe that is now cradled by Naomi. He restores her life. He rejuvenates her, as you and I are rejuvenated by our Lord Jesus Christ.

Thank God for our kinsman, Redeemer, who restores our soul. Now, look what these rather delightful Bethlehem women folk have to say. I reckon that the Bethlehem church, had there been a church in those days, which, of course, there weren't, that there wasn't, would have had the best women's fellowship going.

In fact, I offered this to Mrs. Harding, and all the women who meet on a Tuesday afternoon met your fellowship as good as these Bethlehem women folk who gather together around Naomi at the beginning of our tale and at the end. You see, they've got great spiritual perception, these women. Not only do they say of Naomi that she has been sustained by this birth of this child, but they make some very interesting comments about her daughter-in-law.

For your daughter-in-law, verse 15, for your daughter-in-law who loves you and who is better to you than seven sons has given him birth. Now, seven, seven sons, that was the absolute epitome of any blessing that you could have in Israel. I mean, those of you who've only got two or three children, you haven't really started.

Seven sons, that was the ultimate. That was the BMW of the Old Testament. And they were saying to Naomi of Ruth, the Moabites, that her blessings, this foreigner, your daughter-in-law, the blessings that she has produced in your life are equivalent to the ultimate that anyone could ever receive in those days in terms of the providential hand of God being upon them.

For your daughter-in-law who loves you and who is better to you than seven sons has given him birth. You remember what I said a few moments ago about not judging the Lord by our human sense? You see, Naomi had to eat her words, didn't she? Incidentally, have you ever done that? Have you ever had to eat your words in terms of the way that you reacted to God's dealings? You know, there you were in a certain situation. Why did you let that happen to me? It's not that you blew your relationship with the Lord.

You just refused at that moment to accept those circumstances as being part of a charitable distribution of God's blessings, inverted commas, to you. And then the months were bought into years. And from the vantage point of the future you look back to the past and you had to eat your words.

Lord, you knew what you were all about. You knew why you allowed that fallout in my experience. And you can see our Father God with his benevolent rise smile upon his face, saying in effect, I knew you'd come to that point sooner or later.

You see, he always plans in love. Are you aware of that, my friend? Not one of your tomorrows will reach you before it's past the inspection of God, because he is the God of the past and the present and the future. Now here is Naomi, and I say she's been ministered to not only by her daughter, but also by the daughter-in-law, but also by these women folk in Bethlehem who have great spiritual perception.

God has blessed you abundantly, Naomi. That Ruth of yours, she's pure gold. She's worth far more than seven sums to you.

Then verse 16, then Naomi took the child, laid it in her lap and cared for him. Now it's at that point I wish they'd had photography in the Old Testament. I'd love to have seen a picture, wouldn't you? You know, dear Horace Saunders, I always thought of brother Horace Saunders as being the granddad of the town.

Don't you think so? He had such a lovely disposition, such a gracious man. If you could choose a granddad in addition to the one that you had, I reckon, well, Horace Saunders would have come way up the top of my list. Now I think without being unduly sentimental, here is the case in regard to Naomi.

You see, she's going to be a great grandmother, isn't she? I mean, Boaz and Ruth, they're never going to need an au pair. She won't let this baby out of her sight. I mean, it's this baby that's rejuvenated her.

Now isn't it amazing how when you once allow ladies to get going in terms of spiritual perception, how they go on and on and on. Wait a minute, I'm not insulting you ladies, I'm complimenting you. Hold it.

You see, these women folk who've come in with such great spiritual evaluations as to what has happened, they now determine that they're going to name the baby. Not so? And they, the women folk, end of verse 17, and they named him Obed. Obed means servant.

And in a very wonderful way, this baby is going to serve Naomi. You see, the fact of the matter is that Boaz is much older than Ruth and the predictions are that Boaz will die, possibly even before Naomi. And Naomi's future as a pensioner is going to be bound up with the fidelity, with the faithfulness of that little chap when he matures, becomes a teenager, and moves into the ranks of the 20s and the 30s.

Obed, if you want it in the Hebrew, Hebrew Eved. And those of you who perhaps have studied in some measure Hebrew words will know of the significance of the Yahweh, the servant of the Lord, the prefiguring in the Old Testament of the Greek names of our Lord Jesus Christ, Iesus. Why has he come on earth? Well, he will save his people.

He has come as a servant. You see, this is the ministry of the Kingsman Redeemer. It is he who bows before the disciples and washes their feet and takes the garment and dries the feet.

He's always ministering. He's always serving. You see, my future is bound up into the benefits that my Kingsman Redeemer will offer me.

I had a good dad, one of the best in the world. He's now with the Lord. I praise God for that.

But there was a time obviously coming in his life when he couldn't minister to me. There's a time coming in your lives when your nearest and dearest cannot minister to you. They'll melt away as death absorbs them and as their spirits are taken to be with the Lord who gave it.

But you see, there is this Eveth Yahweh. There is this servant of the Lord. There is this Kingsman Redeemer who never fails, who always ministers.

The same Jesus Christ, yesterday, today, forever, ultimately faithful. You see, this is the beauty of this story. This is why it warms my heart.

This is why there's no problem in getting you to listen. You see, you can identify with this, can't you? This is living matter taken from centuries ago but fleshed out in terms of the situations that confront you and me in the world today. We do need an Obed.

We do need our Kingsman Redeemer. Have you ever thought why the last few verses of this book are given over to a family record, genealogy? We discover, taking from the name Perez, you remember I told you that Perez was the person who was the founder, so to speak, of the Bethlehemites. They trace their ancestry to Perez.

And now they're tracing it onwards to David because Obed is going to be the father of Jesse and Jesse will be the father of David. Obed, therefore, is the granddad of King David, the greatest king that Israel ever knew, with the exception of one. What's the exception? Jesus Christ.

And ultimately, the lineage of Jesus is going to be traced back from Obed. Now, isn't this incredible, folks? Just stay with me for a moment or two longer. Ruth is in the family circle.

She's in the family tree, but she wasn't a Jew. She was a Moabites, precisely because the gospel of the Lord Jesus is for Jew and also for Gentile. Now, are you concerned about a family tree? Of course you must be.

Not so much in the literal sense, but in the spiritual sense. The chronologies, the genealogies of the Old Testament, if I may use my own phrase, are the thumbprints of God upon human history. You see, He controls the affairs of individuals and the great sweeps of history within the nations.

But the most important thing is that by faith in Jesus, your name has been multiplied to that of your Kingsman Redeemer, so that it's part and parcel, if you like, of the family circle of Him who is the Alpha and Omega. I am not concerned as to whether I was related to Oliver Cromwell, though I rather think that he was a fairly decent British man. And my wife is going to tell me off because she thinks he was a pretty terrible character.

But it doesn't really matter whether at the physical level my ancestors were from the aristocracy or even if they were from the criminal brigade. What I am concerned about that my spiritual lineage is directly traceable to the Lord Jesus Christ, because it's that that gives spiritual hope and offers vitality and rejuvenation for you and for me. So, here is Ruth.

From an obscurity in Moab, she becomes one of the ancestors of the Lord Jesus, an author for whom so much likewise could have been discovered. She bypasses the blessings. Here is Boaz, who becomes one of the most prominent men in Hebrew history, and yet the nearest Kingsman Redeemer who could have done what he wanted to do, he passed by the opportunity.

You see, I come to the point of decision. My congregation is in effect constituted of two groups. We have got Ruth and Orpheus.

We have got Boaz and the unknown nearest relative. The thing that marked Ruth out, the thing that marked Boaz out was they submitted to the purposes of God in their lives. Do you do the same? Because that's the only way that you could ever live on throughout eternity in the company of God.

For by emulating them, you can discover that your name is written in the Lamb's book of life and that you are part of the family circle of Jesus Christ, our Goel, our Ebbeth Yahweh, our Kingsman Redeemer.