Immanuel Sermon Audio
Ruth (8:66)
Outlines at the front, if you need one, book a Ruth, we're going to dig around a little bit, we have read it, and so we're going to talk about some of the big themes and the big ideas. A lot of times studies I have heard of Ruth get very technical on some of the things happening within the book, and there's value in doing that and digging around with the things in the book, but sometimes you get so lost in that you miss where Ruth fits in the overarching story. And it's not just a nice story about Ruth, but it's one little part of the entire story of Scripture, and so every night on Wednesday nights we're trying to put these books in context and we're going to do that with Ruth. There's something in us as human beings, and I don't know if it's Western culture or if this is universal around the world, but we like to make lists of things, and if you surf around on the internet you see things all the time about the greatest restaurants in a particular city, or the greatest beaches in North America, or the greatest sports teams. Every week you got to get on ESPN and say, "Where are the cowboys at?" on the power ranking. ESPN, did they move up any number two this week? They're getting close, so you got to watch that. Lists, all these different lists, and so as I'm thinking about Ruth, I start thinking about famous couples, and I do a little bit of internet research, which is a dangerous thing, and this is by no means an official list or a comprehensive list of famous couples, but here are some famous couples as I've compiled all this information for you, done all the hard work, all the research, research, all the all the Googling. This is Antony and Cleopatra. Yes, Antony and Cleopatra. Oh, that was not the reaction I expected to that picture. Oh, how sweet. Mark and Carol, Mike and Carol, Mike and Carol. There you go, Brady Bunch. Barbie and Ken, they belong on this list. You ready to know that one? If you're my age, you know who that one is. Zach and Kelly, Zach Morris, Kelly Kapowski, say, "By the bell," you got to put them in on any list of famous couples. Beauty, you know what? I actually found another picture of Beauty and the Beast. Put the next one up. There you go. Very nice. Yeah, that's right. That's right. Homer and Marge groans from the audience for Homer and Marge. John and Yoko, Kennedy's. That's a good picture. Whether you like them or not, that's a good picture. Huh? You knew that was coming. Sunny and Cher. Yes, I got you. Adam and Eve with a nice ribbon across the front. Make it sanctuary appropriate. Billy and his wife, how many of you before you go on? How many of you have read the, I think it's the last book he wrote. I don't think he's written one since then called Going Home or Nearing Home or something like that. Not really a theological treatise of any sort, but really interesting to read a man's thoughts who misses his wife a lot and has done a lot of amazing things but is ready to go. Just a neat read if you haven't read that. So that just popped into my head. There you go. Royal couple. Die in Charles. That's the best picture I could find of Romeo and Juliet. That's from the movie that came out in the late '90s. So you may not recognize them, Decaprio and Claire Danes, but that's Romeo and Juliet. And anybody else I left out? Lucy and Debbie? Desi. Lucy and Desi. You're not talking my language. I love it. Samson and Delilah, maybe it would have been a good one. Famous couple. Anybody else? Anybody else? We just read the book of Ruth. I'm throwing you a softball. Here we go. Anybody else? Ruth and Boaz. Very nice. Ruth and Boaz. Who knows if that's at all what they look like or what they wore, but Ruth and Boaz. So we're going to add them to the list tonight. Put it in the overarching story of Israel. Where does it fit in the big picture Old Testament? We've been talking about the history of Israel. It falls in the period of the judges. And so this is on your outline. The conquest. That's the book of Joshua. The period of the judges. That includes the book of judges and the book of Ruth. Both of those books fall in the judges. And even first Samuel a little bit falls during the period of the judges because it tells us that Samuel was the last judge of Israel. So you could even put first Samuel in there a little bit. Then comes the monarchy under Saul, then David, then Solomon. Division means division of the kingdom. Judah and Israel. Rehoboam takes one. Jeroboam takes one. Rebellion. First among Israel. Then among Judah. Then just back and forth. All out rebellion. God sends the people into exile and then he brings them back. Ezra and Nehemiah is a rubable guy like that. So that's where it fits in the overarching story. If you have your Bible, we've read Ruth so we don't really need to read a whole lot in Ruth. But turn the page back to the left one and remember the very verse that comes before the book of Ruth. The last verse in the book of Judges. Judges 21, 25. It's the exact same thing you read in Judges 17 verse 6. It says in those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes. And so if you're here last week, remember, we talked about judges. The first couple of chapters of Judges say this is sort of how the whole thing goes. There's this cycle of sin and punishment and repentance. Then God sends a judge or a savior or a deliverer. The people are rescued and they respond with sin, punishment, repentance, and just the whole cycle goes over and over. And we looked at the judges. Four major judges, eight minor judges. And the last of all of them is the most famous one is Samson. And we talked last week that after Samson the cycle changes and judges and there's no repentance. It is not mentioned anymore after Judges 16. In Judges 17, 18, 19, 20, 21 all talk about just depravity being unleashed in Israel. There is no more repentance. There's no more rescue from God. There's no more judges being raised up. It just all goes to hell in a hand basket to use a popular phrase. Nothing goes right. There's murder, chaos, just crazy stuff at the end of the book. And that's because there's no repentance. And the author of Judges brackets that last section 17 to 21 at the beginning of chapter 17 and the end of chapter 21, the exact same words. In those days, there was no king in Israel. That's the problem. The people needed a king. There was no king. And the consequence of not having this king is everyone did what was right in his own eyes and everything just went crazy. So this is on your outline and you can fill in some of these blanks if you want to. The warning. We're going to look at this verse two. The warning of Deuteronomy 28 and the depravity of Judges 17 provide the context for the famine of Ruth 1. So when you turn to Ruth and the story starts with there was a famine, you kind of need to know why and you need to know the background. And Judges is part of that, the rebellion of the people. But let's also go back and look at Deuteronomy 28 starting in verse 15 and we'll go down into the 20s. Deuteronomy 28, this is Moses talking, getting the people ready to go in, right? They're right across the river. They can see the promised land. Moses is getting them pumped up. Deuteronomy 28, 15. But if you will not obey the voice of the Lord your God or be careful to do all his commandments and his statutes that I command you today, then all these curses will come upon you and overtake you. Cursed will you be in the city, cursed will you be in the field, cursed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl, cursed shall be the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground, the increase of your herds and the young of your flock, cursed shall you be when you come in and cursed shall you be when you go out. It doesn't sound very good. The Lord will send on you curses, confusion, frustration and all you undertake to do till you are destroyed and perish quickly on account of the evil of your deeds because you forsaken me. The Lord will make pestilence stick to you until he has consumed you off the land that you are entering to take possession of it. The Lord will strike you with wasting disease, fever, inflammation, fire heat, drought, blight, mildew. They will pursue you until you perish and the heavens over your head shall be bronze and the earth under you shall be iron. The Lord will make the reign of your land powder from heaven. Dust shall come down on you until you are destroyed. So Moses says, look, if you're not faithful to God, this is what you can expect. It is not going to go well for you. This land flowing with milk and honey is just going to dry up and you get to judges, the end of judges and you read that and you say they have done what Moses warned them about. It's just total depravity unleashed. Everyone doing what's right in their own eyes. There is no authority. There's no moral check. There's no moral compass. There's no right or wrong. Total chaos. The people have turned away from the Lord and surprise surprise. God does exactly what he promised to do and he sends this famine and so that leads you up to Ruth chapter 1 verse 1. I think I have a picture of a map just to remind you of where this has taken place. This is off Google Earth so you can get on and look at this and I've added the place names. Dead Sea, Jordan River, Jericho over on the left, Plains of Moab on the right, Mount Nebo, Moses's last sort of stomping grounds over there. When Moses said Deuteronomy 28, the people are at the Plains of Moab. They're on this flat land right down there by the Jordan and they're looking across Jericho's right there. That's their first battle about five miles down in this valley and Moses is saying, look, you're going over there. It's awesome. It's great. If you're faithful to God, everything is going to go smooth. If you turn from the Lord, that land is going to consume you and everything is going to go wrong. Everything will go to pot and so Moses warns them about this, the people go over and it goes exactly like Moses said it would, like God said it would. So, Ruth chapter 1, this family leaves. Killian and his wife and his sons, they leave. This is nothing to eat and so this is sort of just the same old story, third, second, fourth, fifth verse right? Nothing to eat in the promised land. Let's go somewhere else. And so, the irony of it is they go back. They go back to where they came from, back to Moab, back out of the promised land. And they leave the promised land and they go and things go from bad to worse because first elemolek dies and then Melon dies and then Killian dies. And now you have Miss Naomi in Moab with her Moabite daughter-in-laws. That's something you need to think about too because God had told these people, his people, don't marry with these folks. Don't intermarry with them. They will drag you down. They'll teach you to worship their gods. Do not do it. So, not only have the people as a whole rebelled but now Killian and his family have left the promised land, something God warned them about. When there's a famine and you need food, don't go running to the other nations. Just ask me, repent and ask me. But we're in Judges 17 to 21. There's no repentance. Nobody's asking. So, they leave and they go and they give their sons to these foreign women. Another thing that they were not supposed to do. And God says, okay, I got to get your attention. Elemolek dies, Melon dies, Killian dies. And you get into chapter 1 and Ruth says, okay, excuse me, Naomi says, there's food back home. The famine's over. I'm going back. You girls stay here. And we are going to read again. Look at chapter 1 starting in verse 16 down to 22. Ruth said, do not urge me to leave you or to return from following you. Where you go, I go. Where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people will be my people. Your God, my God. Where you die, I die. And there I'll be buried. May the Lord do so to me and more also if anything but death parts me from you. And when Naomi saw that she was determined to go with her, she said no more. So, they went until they came to Bethlehem, went back home. When they came to Bethlehem, the whole town was stirred because of them. And the women said, is this Naomi? And she said, do not call me Naomi. And if your Bible has footnotes, there might be a note there that you look down at the bottom says, Naomi means pleasant. Don't call me that anymore. Call me Mara. You look down there. What does Mara mean? It means bitter. Don't call me pleasant. Call me bitter. And here's the reason why. I went away full and the Lord has brought me back empty. Why call me pleasant when the Lord is testified against me and the Almighty has brought calamity upon me. So, Naomi slash Mara returned and Ruth the Moabiter daughter-in-law with her who returned from the country Moab and they came to Bethlehem at the beginning of the barley harvest. Three things. These are on your outline that you need to see about these verses. Three important things. Number one, Ruth became a follower of Yahweh. She converted, you could say, to Judaism. They wouldn't have said it that way at the time, but that's what she did. And for Ruth, and for most people still today who live in this part of the world, this is more than just a religious conversion. This is more than just saying, I'm leaving this God for this God. That was part of it. But she also says, I'm leaving these people for these people. If you're a Caucasian, you say, I'm not going to be Caucasian anymore. I'm going to be Chinese. Those are my people. You are not my people anymore. I'm going to be Chinese. And these gods of Moab are not going to be my gods anymore. This is going to be my God Yahweh. And I'm not going to live in this place anymore. I'm going to go and I'm going to live in this place. So, she becomes a follower of Yahweh. This is her conversion. Second thing is this. Naomi blames God for her misfortune. And you can see that where she changes her name. And she says, I want you to call me bitter because I went away full and the Lord sent me back empty. God has done all these bad things to me. No concept of the reality that in Judges 17 to 21, there's no repentance in the land. You understand that in Judges, when it says the people cried out, that does not mean every person in Israel cried out to the Lord in repentance. That means sometimes a very small group of people cried out to the Lord for repentance. These were not national revivals. These were local revivals. No one is doing that. So, she doesn't recognize that. She doesn't recognize that she left the Promised Land lacking faith that God would provide for them. She doesn't mention the fact that she broke God's law and giving her sons to marry women that she was not supposed to do. She doesn't recognize any of these things where they've transgressed and gone over the line. All she can say is, God just jacked my life up. And I'm angry with God. So, don't call me the nice lady anymore. Call me the mean lady because I'm grouchy about it and I'm not getting over it. So, I'm bitter. So, there you go. She blames God for the whole thing. Last thing is this. They come back at the beginning of the barley harvest and that is not a coincidence. That's not like, ah, neat. That's exactly when God wanted them to come back. It's the exact right time in for God to put all of these things in place and for God to accomplish His purpose. So, you get to chapter 2. Naomi says, look, you go out to this field. You follow the guys. The law says they're supposed to not take all of the grain in the field. They're supposed to leave the corners. So, you just kind of go behind and you get what you can get. And so, she does that. And the text in the English translation is very restrained. If you kind of wanted to paraphrase it and put it into modern language, you could basically say, Boaz looks out there and he gets the hots for Ruth. Who is this lady? Where did she come from? What is she doing out here? Hey, hey, hey, I got some food over here. I got water over here. Hey, you stay with these guys. We're going to take care of you. We're going to protect you. So, he's putting the moves on her. He's flirting with her on and on and on. Chapter 2. Chapter 3. We take the relationship to the next level. And again, the text is pretty restrained. And so, maybe you could just describe it like this. Naomi says, you need to get all dolled up. And you need to go down there to where this guy is at. And after dinner and after a few cocktails, you need to put the moves on this guy. He says, she went and uncovered his feet. What it's saying is, she is putting the moves on Boaz. And she is saying, I'm all in. If you're all in. And Boaz is a righteous guy and he says, hold on, hold on, hold on. Don't let anybody know about this. And let's go through the things that we need to go through. And so, Boaz does all of the right things. And you come to chapter 4. He's jumped through all these hoops. And let's read the last little section in Ruth 4. Ruth 4, starting in verse 13. Boaz took Ruth. She became his wife. He went into her. And the Lord gave her conception. And she bore her son. And 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 noticed throughout the story, the author never calls her Mara. You notice that? She says, I want to be known as Mara. And whoever wrote this says no. We are not calling you that. We're not referring to you as that. You are Naomi. Naomi took the child, laid him on her lap and became his nurse. The women of the neighborhood gave him a name saying the son has been born to Naomi, named him Obed. He was the father of Jesse, the father of David. Here's the generations of Perez. So he picks up at Perez here, but you could go back and you could say Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah, Perez. Perez, Father Tezrin, Hezrin, Ram, Ram, Aminadab, Nashon, Salman, Salman, Boaz, Boaz, Obed, Obed, Jesse, Jesse, David. Three ideas about this last section that are important. Number one, God was the one who enabled Ruth to conceive. The Lord did it. It was not a coincidence. It was not just a, oh, here's a happy ending. God enabled her to conceive. And the text says, "They got married. He went into her. God gave the conception." Right? They did their thing humanly speaking. God was the one who gave conception. And you can just write out in the margin there. You can look this up later. Deuteronomy 32, 39. It says, "I am the Lord. There's no God beside me. I kill. I make alive. I wound. I heal. There is none that can deliver out of my hand." So God is sovereign over all this. Second thing is this, Naomi's friends looked at her life and they saw God's blessing. And it took a while for them to get there. But just notice that they looked at her life completely differently than she looked at her life. She was not the one at the end of the story who said, "Hey, you know when I was going through that sort of emotional state and I told you guys to call me. Don't call me Marney Mark anymore. Call me Naomi." And I realized she never got to that point on her own. But her friends looked at her life and they said, "Look at how God's blessed you. Look at how He has provided for you. Look at what He's done for you. Here's Naomi, Mara, sulking, bitter, angry. And her friends look at her life from a completely different perspective. And I'm just going to say there are times in your life where you are going to want people to call you Mara. And you're going to throw a little pity party and you're going to feel sorry for yourself. And you think God's just messing my life up and it's so terrible. God is sovereign. Deuteronomy, what did I tell you, 32, 39? I kill. I make a life. You don't have to let me off the hook for any of it. I am in complete control. And my shoulders are big enough to carry that. But maybe in that moment you need to ask your friends to look at your life and to give you their perspective on it, to give you their take on it. Because maybe things aren't quite as bad as you think they are. Her friends look at her life from a different perspective and they see this blessing. Last idea is this. Profound. Ruth ends with genealogy. What a great way to end a love story. You can just see this in the next romantic comedy you go to. You are expecting the credits to roll and instead of the credits they put a family tree up there and you think that's just kind of weird. This is more than just a family tree and we talked about this last week. God had made promises to Abraham. And you got to understand this is the same story that kicked off way back in Genesis. We're talking about the same people. This is not first we talk about Abraham. Then we're going to talk about Moses for a while. Then we're going to talk about Joshua for a while. This is all one story. And it's not really about any of these guys. It's really about God. And God promised Abraham three things. I'm going to give you land. I'm going to give you kids. And in your family I'm going to send the Messiah. The blessing for all of the world. You get land. You get kids. You get the Messiah. And so those promises go Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah, Perez, Hesron, Ram, Amenadab, Noshan, Salomon. Who am I leaving out? Boaz, Obed, Jesse, and David. And when Ruth ends the lightbulb goes off. And you draw a line if you could. If you had a scroll you could do this. You can't do it in a book very well. But you draw a line from the last verse of Ruth all the way back to the last verse of Judges. And you say, ah, there is no king in Israel. That's the problem. During the days of all of this, here's what happened. In the end of it is we're looking to David, right? The great king. So two ideas as we finish up about Ruth. This is an important one. In the darkest of days when it seems like God is nowhere to be found, God is at work for His glory and for the good of His people. And you just got to remind yourselves that the whole story of Ruth, you just almost rip it out and tape it back there in Judges 17 to 21. The murder, the cutting up of women, the stealing of wives, the just craziness, idolatry, all the nuts of stuff. This is happening during all of that. There's famine, it looks like God is just pouring judgment, judgment, judgment on His people. And behind the scenes in a way that nobody expects, God is working. It looks like He's not. It looks like He's just abandoned His people. But behind the scenes He's working for His own glory and He's working for the good of His people. And He worked to give them this king that they needed. Here's the last idea. Ruth is a book that points us to the capital K King who solves the problem of Judges 17 and 21. That king is not David, but it's Jesus. And as we keep going in first and second Samuel, first and second kings, we realize that Saul is not the guy they need. David is not the guy they need. Solomon starts off great. He is definitely not the guy they needed. It is not Rehebaum or Jeroboam. It is not any of the good kings who came later. Hezekiah, Jehosaphat, none of those guys, it's Jesus. And we looked at this verse last week, Matthew chapter 1, the genealogy of Jesus. Matthew begins his book with the genealogy. This is the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, Jesus the Messiah, son of David, the son of Abraham. Abraham was a father of Isaac, Isaac the father of Jacob, Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers. Judah the father of Peres and Zara by Tamar, Peres the father of Hezrin, Hezrin the father of Ram, Ram the father of Amenadab, Amenadab the father of Nashan, Nashan the father of Salman, Salman the father of Boaz, by Rahab, Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth, there she is, and Obed the father of Jesse, Jesse the father of David the king. And you go all the way down right up to Jesus Christ. Now, one last idea is this. You look on that outline and you see this, okay, Ruth points me to the king, capital K king, points me to Jesus. And you draw an arrow on your outline and you loop back up to that second to last thought I gave you. Can you put that second to last one back up? Julie the one about in the darkest of days? There it is. When it seems like God is nowhere to be found, God is at work for His glory and for the good of His people. No better example of that than the cross. When Jesus' disciples sit there and say, are you kidding me? This is the worst thing that could possibly happen. This is the worst day that I could ever imagine and they want run away and they're hiding and they're terrified and they're scared and all day Saturday they're just mortified and then Sunday they realize, huh, in the darkest of days when it seemed like God was nowhere to be found behind the scenes in a way that we never expected God was working for His own glory and God was working for our good. And if that doesn't give you hope in your life, when you are feeling like Mara, then nothing will. In the darkest of days when it seems like God is nowhere to be found, He is working, He's working for His glory and for your good. So that's Ruth, points you straight to Jesus. I will pray and then we'll share prayer requests. Father, we love you. Thank you for Ruth, the book. Thank you for this woman and we recognize that you had a plan for her and you brought her into the perfect family at the perfect time. Father, you brought them back to Bethlehem at the exact right time. You allowed her to cross pass with the perfect person for her and for your plan at just the right time. Father, we see your hand in all of this, working out things that seem small and that seem insignificant and that nobody realized the magnitude of what was happening at the time. But Father, you were you were furthering a family and you were establishing a line so that one day you could send your son to live for us and to die for us. And Father, we find hope that at the cross you were working to bring glory to yourself and you were working for our good. Father, we know in our lives that we will have trials and tribulations and troubles and questions and doubts and anxieties. Father, in the midst of all of that, we pray for faith to look to you and to trust in Jesus and to believe that you are working to bless your people. Father, sometimes that's hard. So we pray for grace and we pray for faith to believe and we pray all of these things in the name of our king, the king of all kings, Jesus. Amen.