Sermon Tone Analysis

Ruth 2

INTRODUCTION

Illus.

– Brenda was a young woman who wanted to learn rock climbing.

She went with a group to climb a tremendous cliff of rock.

During the ascent, the climber above her snapped a rope against Brenda’s eye and knocked out her contact lens.

Now, you know how tiny contact lenses are and how difficult they are to find.

Here she was: very far from home, with everything around her blurry in one eye, somewhere up in the mountains and no place close by to replace her lost contact lens.

She looked out across range after range of mountains with her one good eye, thinking of that Bible verse that says, “The eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth.”

She thought, Lord, You can see all these mountains.

You know every single stone and leaf on those mountains, and You know exactly where my contact lens is.

Finally, the time came to hike down the trail to the bottom of the mountain.

When they arrived, there was a new party of rock climbers coming up the trail.

One of them shouted, “Hey, guys!

Anybody lose a contact lens?”

In astonishment, Brenda looked down at a contact lens that looked like hers.

The only way to know for sure was to put it in, and sure enough, she could see clearly: It WAS her lost contact lens!

Well, that would be amazing in itself, wouldn’t it?

But the rest of the story is even more startling.

When Brenda asked the young lady where she found her lens, she said an ant was slowly carrying that contact lens across the face of a rock!

That story illustrates the main focus of Ruth 2—The truth that God is not a God who is way out there, uninvolved in the lives of His children.

No, He is very near—intimately involved in the details of our lives.

Jesus said

I. WE SEE GOD’S PROVIDENCE – Verses 1-3

The very first verse is a clue to the theme of this chapter, and indeed the whole book.

Naomi returned to Bethlehem-judah

Penniless

Husband-less

Childless

Hopeless

Her only asset was her foreign daughter-in-law who was in the same situation as she.

Yet all along, the solution to their dilemma was known to God – Ruth 2:1 This man Boaz was the one who would be the answer to their problems.

But, at this point Naomi and Ruth did not have a clue that God was working behind the scenes in their behalf.

Once they settled into their new home, their first concern was food.

Rather than sitting around to see what would happen or bemoaning their bad situation, Ruth immediately shows initiative, and decides to go out and find some food.

– verse 2 – “And Ruth the Moabitess said unto Naomi, ‘Let me…go to the field, and glean ears of grain after him in whose sight I shall find favor.’

And she said unto her, ‘Go, my daughter.’”

Now what is “gleaning”?

Gleaning was an interesting practice unknown outside Israel.

In Leviticus 19:9-10

Gleaning Involved

1. First, the workers were not to go back through a second time to pick up any grain that had been missed or had fallen to the ground.

2. Second, they were not to harvest the corners of his fields.

What was left in the fields and the corners were known as the “gleanings” and “to glean” was the process of gathering the gleanings.

The purpose of these provisions in the Law of Moses was to provide for the able-bodied poor and needy by going through the fiends and harvesting the leftover sand corners for food to survive on.

Now look with me at verse 3 – “And she set out, and went, and gleaned in the field after the reapers: and she happened to come to the part of the field belonging to Boaz, who was of the family of Elimelech.”

The author of Ruth says she “happened” to come to a part of a field belonging to Boaz, who was related to Naomi’s husband, Elimelech, who would turn out to be Ruth’s and Naomi’s savior!

Now let me ask you: Did this happen by chance?

Did Ruth just get lucky?

Was this one of those amazing “coincidences” of life?

No, it was none of these.

Do you know how many times the words coincidence and luck are found in the Bible?—Exactly zero times.

Ruth’s “happening” to come into Boaz’s field was not a coincidence at all—IT WAS BY GOD’S DESIGN.

It was an act of God’s providence.

Timothy George in The Holman Bible Dictionary defines providence as “God’s faithful and effective care and guidance of everything which He has made toward the end which he has chosen.”

As believers, we’ve all seen God bring about circumstances in most amazing ways, just like God used an ant to deliver to a young lady her lost contact lens.

Proverbs 16:9

The truth of God’s providence ought to be a great comfort to believers.

It teaches that God loves us, and like any good parent, He watches over us.

It teaches that God is behind the scenes working for our best even in those circumstances that seem “bad” to us as Romans 8:28 teaches us.

None of us escape things like illness, financial loss, death of loved ones, job and family stresses, loneliness, injustice, or the many other thorns of life.

The point is not that following Christ will exempt us from trouble or pain, but the assurance that God’s presence is in the winds of life’s stormy tempests and that God is working in them to bring about good in our lives.

God is not some distant being uninvolved in His children’s lives.

No, He is present with us through every situation—working in the background, guiding, and orchestrating circumstances in our lives.

II.

WE SEE GOD’S PROVISION.

When Ruth went out to glean, she went out by faith, trusting God to supply someone who would be gracious and allow her to glean enough food to survive on.

Look what happened: Verses 4-9

A. He Fulfilled the Barest of Obligations

The field that Ruth came upon was owned by a very gracious man.

Boaz had no obligation to show any special kindness to Ruth other than to leave the gleanings and his un-harvested corners of the fields according to the Mosaic Law.

Ruth was an outsider, a foreigner, and for all he knew, an idolater.

But he implored her to not go to any other fields, but to glean only from his own.

And to protect her, he told the young men not to bother her, and he told her that when she got thirsty, she could drink from his workers’ vessels.

Verses 14-19

B. He Elevated Her Position Beyond His Obligations

Here Boaz goes even further.

He doesn’t just extend to her the rights of a foreigner as laid out in the Law of Moses, but the same rights as his Jewish laborers.

He invited her to eat with the other reapers in verse 14.

C.

He Exceedingly Blessed Her for Her Faith

So she did, and she ate until she was full—perhaps for the first time in weeks.

When she returned to the fields, unbeknown to her, Boaz commanded his reapers to do some special favors for Ruth besides simply letting her glean the fields: They were to DELIBERATELY drop handfuls of stalks of barley in her path so that she would have abundant provision.

– As she was gleaning, she must have thought, Wow!

These reapers are really careless.

Look at all this food!

Also, the reapers were not to rebuke her or hinder her in any way.

You know, that’s what God does for us—He gives us extra “handfuls on purpose.”

God only promises to supply our most basic of needs.

The only two absolute necessities for survival are food and clothing.

God says if you have those and nothing else in this life, you should be content.

And yet God gives us handfuls on purpose—extra provision for things beyond needs.

Think of all that you have: many changes of clothes for any occasion; a nice house with plenty of furniture; plenty to eat—really TOO MUCH to eat!; many luxuries you really neither need nor deserve.

These are just more evidence of God’s loving care over His children.

III.

WE SEE GOD’S PROMOTION Vs 10-13

God has a way of exalting those who do good.

Ruth was a poor foreigner who did the right thing.

She remained faithful to her mother-in-law even though Naomi had become a bitter, cynical, angry woman.

Ruth abandoned her false gods and accepted the one true God of Israel.