Ruth 4

Intro

For the last 3 weeks we have been walking though this tiny book of the Bible called Ruth…

In many ways this is a book that transitions us from the book of Judges to 1 Samuel. and its so small you might just skip it but it actually has massive implications…And If you have been enjoying the book of Ruth then I think you came on the best day because it just gets so much better today…

As I have gone over before it is a book is set in the time of the Judges…it is actually the last story in the book of Judges and it is only separated in the bible due to scroll length.

It is a book that is so wildly different from the book of Judges

Judges is like this never ending cycle of violence…It is this never ending cycle of doing evil before the Lord. and starting in the book of Ruth we see this woman from Moab who is different…She is not like her countries founding and she is not like Israel

And we find this man named Boaz who is not like the judges he is different too…

You get this sense that in this couple there is hope…They are redeeming the future of Israel…somehow some way this couple will bring hope to a broken place…

They both show each other kindness “Hesed” Hesed is a God like character of loving kindness.

So let’s tell the story up until this point.

A woman named Naomi goes to Moab because there is a famine in the land of Israel.

There her husband and two sons die

The story is written to make you think..>man it just keeps getting worse

When Naomi and her two daughters in law are headed back to Israel she says to them…Go and leave me go find a husband in Moab

One of the women, Orpha, goes back to Moab never to be heard from again

But Ruth says no! Where you go, I will go, Your people will be my people, your God will be my God where you die, I will die

Ruth is this uncommon woman who committed herself to death to take care of her mother in law

And the next chapter they go back to Bethlehem and there is a kind man there named Boaz who lets her glean in his fields and he gives her food and food for Naomi

This is where the first glimpses God’s Hesed (Loving kindness) is shown…There is just loving kindness all over this situation.

And then the chapter we looked at last week..>Naomi says listen Ruth..>We have to hatch a plan to get you Married…

Boaz is your redeemer (We will look at this more today)

Go to the threshing floor and ask him to marry you

And if you were here last week you’ll remember we see this woman from Moab…>And Moab has really sinful beginnings…

And you see Boaz and Boaz is living now in the tradition of the judges….Israel is just known for its wickedness at this point

But you have these two people both ripe with family histories and bagage that is just so bad…And they are both honoring each other, themselves and the Lord. Ruth is redeeming Moab and Boaz is acting like the opposite of the bad judges of Israel and the story sort of left us hanging last week

Ruth Demanded that Boaz marry her because he is the redeemer….And he said…Look there is one closer that me that is a redeemer for you…So I will get this matter settled today…

So on the very same day after the threshing floor story we come to Ruth 4

Ruth 4:1–2 NIV

Meanwhile Boaz went up to the town gate and sat down there just as the guardian-redeemer he had mentioned came along. Boaz said, “Come over here, my friend, and sit down.” So he went over and sat down. Boaz took ten of the elders of the town and said, “Sit here,” and they did so.

So the scene opens with Boaz setting up what is an ancient court scene…He grabs the other guardian redeemer and 10 elders as witnesses to hear the case and he begins to tell them the story…

So before we go on…We have been talking about this phrase guardian-Redeemer for a few weeks but I barley have talked about it…

What does it mean?

The answer is that it means a lot of things.

But the most basic is that it is a male relative who had the responsibility to act on behalf of a family member in need. This close male relative could be a brother, father, uncle, or cousin who was obligated under Israelite family law to assist relatives in distress.

The guardian-redeemer could buy back mortgaged property or purchase relatives out of slavery, which served to restore the family’s unity and property.

Their roles were diverse, including delivering or rescuing relatives, redeeming property or persons, avenging murder, and receiving restitution for wrongs done to deceased relatives.

So specifically in this Case. Ruth’s husband is dead and her father in law’s relative is Boaz…her father in law had a field that was for sale and he was dead…This is Bronze age Israel we are talking about they needed a man to buy this field…

BUT! The field comes with Redeeming Ruth…Ruth doesn’t have a male heir…So in this time period part of redeeming someone in your family might mean that your nearest male relative takes the widow as a wife and cares for her and gives her a child

So this Thanksgiving…Ladies…I better not hear stories of any of you making eyes at your brother in law….

And guys this is not the law any more no checking out your sisters in law

So Boaz sets up court he finds the man who is a nearer relative to Ruth than him and he is doing the right thing…he has to offer this deal to him first

Ruth 4:3–8 NIV

Then he said to the guardian-redeemer, “Naomi, who has come back from Moab, is selling the piece of land that belonged to our relative Elimelek. I thought I should bring the matter to your attention and suggest that you buy it in the presence of these seated here and in the presence of the elders of my people. If you will redeem it, do so. But if you will not, tell me, so I will know. For no one has the right to do it except you, and I am next in line.” “I will redeem it,” he said. Then Boaz said, “On the day you buy the land from Naomi, you also acquire Ruth the Moabite, the dead man’s widow, in order to maintain the name of the dead with his property.” At this, the guardian-redeemer said, “Then I cannot redeem it because I might endanger my own estate. You redeem it yourself. I cannot do it.” (Now in earlier times in Israel, for the redemption and transfer of property to become final, one party took off his sandal and gave it to the other. This was the method of legalizing transactions in Israel.) So the guardian-redeemer said to Boaz, “Buy it yourself.” And he removed his sandal.

So when you are trying to make a deal..>Often times you will try to sweeten the deal…So not only do you get this land but you get a young lady with it…This might entice some men out there

but I think what Boaz was trying to do was do his duty to bring this opportunity to the nearest male relative

But he was also trying to sour the deal a but

He was probably counting on some Anti-Moabite sentiment…This is why he says Ruth the Moabite!

And then all of the sudden the nearest relative backs out of the deal because it could endanger his own estate

We are not really told how it endangers his estate and the bible just sort of leaves this hanging…

The only thing that we can assume is that he didn’t want any of his inheritance going to someone from a moabite background

So the other redeemer takes off his sandal and says Boaz its all yours…and makes it final by offering his sandal…As we all do right…

But here is the important point

Boaz jumps at the chance to redeem Ruth

Think about this

Do you jump at the chance to forgive people

Do you jump at the chance to make things right with others

Do you welcome the opportunity to help other

Boaz just couldn’t wait for it…And Boaz in the bible is a type…If you recall I talk about how the old testament leads to Jesus…

To the extent that Boaz is excited to buy back Ruth…It is a picture of how Eager Jesus is to redeem you!

So many people go down the old road “if you know what I have done…God would never want me…Blah blah blah” Then why is it that every single picture of Jesus forgiving people is like quick and he is happy to do it?

Jesus’ whole mission on earth is buying you back from darkness! And he paid with his life…He Jumps at the chance to redeem you!

As soon as Ruth asked him for redemption..>he was like I will settle this matter today…

I will iron out the details and he is in a hurry to offer his redemption

Ruth 4:9–12 NIV

Then Boaz announced to the elders and all the people, “Today you are witnesses that I have bought from Naomi all the property of Elimelek, Kilion and Mahlon. I have also acquired Ruth the Moabite, Mahlon’s widow, as my wife, in order to maintain the name of the dead with his property, so that his name will not disappear from among his family or from his hometown. Today you are witnesses!” Then the elders and all the people at the gate said, “We are witnesses. May the Lord make the woman who is coming into your home like Rachel and Leah, who together built up the family of Israel. May you have standing in Ephrathah 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.”

This is significant:

Once the other relative is out of the picture, Boaz is freed up to redeem Ruth

And when the elders of the town see this they lay down a serious blessing on Boaz

May the Lord make the woman who is coming into your home like Leah and Rachel…

These are the mothers of the 12 tribes of Israel! The elders are recognizing the significance of the moment…

May you be included in the patriarchs of Israel!

Here is Ruth this woman from a pagan land with dodgy origins and now the elders of the town are saying…May something great come from your womb!

May you have standing in Ephrathah and famous in Bethlehem!

Paying that Ruth would have a standing among the matriarchs of Israel is a big deal!

May your family be like that of Perez and Tamar whom bore to Judah is a reminder that this story of ruth and Boaz ultimately falls second in another line of stories about people who needed redeemers…

I mean this is huge it is saying, let us be like wow Boaz what you have done is this amazing picture of Redemption…I hope it is remembered forever!

I mean it is such a big story that the elders of Bethlehem are right…Boaz is remembered forever in the Bible

Ruth 4:13–17 NIV

So Boaz took Ruth and she became his wife. When he made love to her, the Lord enabled her to conceive, and she gave birth to a son. The women said to Naomi: “Praise be to the Lord, who this day has not left you without a guardian-redeemer. May he become famous throughout Israel! He will renew your life and sustain you in your old age. For your daughter-in-law, who loves you and who is better to you than seven sons, has given him birth.” Then Naomi took the child in her arms and cared for him. The women living there said, “Naomi has a son!” And they named him Obed. He was the father of Jesse, the father of David.

So what is amazing is that Ruth had been married for 10 years to Naomi’s son, Mahlon…and during that time she was unable to conceive

Now in an answer to prayer for the people at the gate…She like immediately gets married and conceives

And what we find out…What the Narrator knows but Ruth and Boaz couldn’t know is that this woman Ruth becomes part of the Royal line of Israel

Her son Obed will have a son Jessie who will have a son named David, Israel’s greatest king

Then the women of Israel praise Ruth’s commitment to Naomi…

Look Ruth’s commitment to Naomi is better than having 7 sons!

It reminds us something about Love.

Love in todays terms is often based on feeling…

I always try to tell people that its good to have feelings, to know them and to express what you are feeling, but don’t give authority to your feelings. Because our feelings can deceive us.

Love in the terms of ancient times was understood as covenant faithfulness

Its not that you are in love or always have a feeling of butterflies in your stomach…That kind of stuff goes away

Its that you decided its that you choose to love…And this is what Ruth does

It also what Boaz does

I mean this is the kind of love ought to dominate your marriage

It was expressed in acts of Hesed (sacrificial loving kindness)

Love is placing the welfare of others above yourself

In Ruth’s world love was practiced not just spoken about

And Ruth more than anybody kind of shamed Israel…Because here is a foreign woman really living out

Deuteronomy 6:5 NIV

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.

And because Ruth becomes the living embodiment of this…The surprise ending is that we didn’t know it up until this point in the story is that Ruth becomes the great grandmother of Israel’s greatest king.

What we didn't know is that what we have been reading this entire time has been a royal story…

A story to explain the royal origins of the Davidic kingdom

And you have to think about this for a second.

This is a story written by Samuel…

And basically for the whole of the book of Samuel there is another king…

King Saul..>From the Tribe of Benjamin…

And when you read the book of Judges you end with the tribe of Benjamin causing a civil war…You end the story thinking of just the tribe of Benjamin is just bad stock

But wait there is another story

A story where Hesed is re-writing the future of Israel

Its a story of a new king, a king that went after God’s own heart…

See Samuel knows that David is the anointed king and it will be a secret until Saul dies

So he is setting the stage here for Israel to accept David as the king…He is saying look at this story…The story of David’s family line…

How do you think he got to be

Ruth 4:18–22 NIV

This, then, is the family line of Perez: Perez was the father of Hezron, Hezron the father of Ram, Ram the father of Amminadab, Amminadab the father of Nahshon, Nahshon the father of Salmon, Salmon the father of Boaz, Boaz the father of Obed, Obed the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of David.

Look the prayers of the women and the elders came true..>Ruth and Boaz and included in the partiarchs of Israel!

And Boaz is such a great guy…You sort of have to ask the question:

What Made Boaz the way he was?

Well to answer that question…I have to take you deeper into Bible History

Here I have to take you to a totally different story…In fact I hope you wonder why on earth we are telling this story…

But in the story of the Bible…As Moses leads God’s people out of Egypt, it is Joshua’s job to lead Israel into the promised land.

And there is a famous story where when they go to Jericho they send a few spies in and they are helped out by a prositute…Lets read that story

Joshua 2:1–21 NIV

Then Joshua son of Nun secretly sent two spies from Shittim. “Go, look over the land,” he said, “especially Jericho.” So they went and entered the house of a prostitute named Rahab and stayed there. The king of Jericho was told, “Look, some of the Israelites have come here tonight to spy out the land.” So the king of Jericho sent this message to Rahab: “Bring out the men who came to you and entered your house, because they have come to spy out the whole land.” But the woman had taken the two men and hidden them. She said, “Yes, the men came to me, but I did not know where they had come from. At dusk, when it was time to close the city gate, they left. I don’t know which way they went. Go after them quickly. You may catch up with them.” (But she had taken them up to the roof and hidden them under the stalks of flax she had laid out on the roof.) So the men set out in pursuit of the spies on the road that leads to the fords of the Jordan, and as soon as the pursuers had gone out, the gate was shut. Before the spies lay down for the night, she went up on the roof and said to them, “I know that the Lord has given you this land and that a great fear of you has fallen on us, so that all who live in this country are melting in fear because of you. We have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea for you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to Sihon and Og, the two kings of the Amorites east of the Jordan, whom you completely destroyed. When we heard of it, our hearts melted in fear and everyone’s courage failed because of you, for the Lord your God is God in heaven above and on the earth below. “Now then, please swear to me by the Lord that you will show kindness to my family, because I have shown kindness to you. Give me a sure sign that you will spare the lives of my father and mother, my brothers and sisters, and all who belong to them—and that you will save us from death.” “Our lives for your lives!” the men assured her. “If you don’t tell what we are doing, we will treat you kindly and faithfully when the Lord gives us the land.” So she let them down by a rope through the window, for the house she lived in was part of the city wall. She said to them, “Go to the hills so the pursuers will not find you. Hide yourselves there three days until they return, and then go on your way.” Now the men had said to her, “This oath you made us swear will not be binding on us unless, when we enter the land, you have tied this scarlet cord in the window through which you let us down, and unless you have brought your father and mother, your brothers and all your family into your house. If any of them go outside your house into the street, their blood will be on their own heads; we will not be responsible. As for those who are in the house with you, their blood will be on our head if a hand is laid on them. But if you tell what we are doing, we will be released from the oath you made us swear.” “Agreed,” she replied. “Let it be as you say.” So she sent them away, and they departed. And she tied the scarlet cord in the window.

So lets just get the basics of this story

Rehab heard about the power of the Lord and feared the Lord before the spies even got there

When the spies come in opposition to her own city leadership…She hides them because she fears the Lord!

She has them swear an oath to her..>She says hey I have shown you Hesed when you come back, show me Hesed! HMMMM….Could this be connected to Ruth????

And she made a plan to save herself when they came back..>literally she would become like part of Israel…She would be grafted in to God’s covenant people

Its an interesting story isn’t it…

This woman…Who is foreign to Israel…Is kind to outsiders…She shows Hesed

She is saved because of her own kindness

Now in the genealogy of the book of Ruth we just got the paternal geneology..>That is to say the genealogy on the father’s side but there is another place in the Bible that we find the geneology…actually of Jesus…

Matthew 1:5 NIV

Salmon the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab, Boaz the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth, Obed the father of Jesse,

Rahab is the mother of Boaz! It doesn’t say that in Ruth does it! But this is a big deal!

Boaz’s mother was a foreign prostitute who was kind to the Invading forces of Israel…

Where do we think that Boaz got this Idea to welcome outsiders?

Where do you think Boaz learned the Hesed of the Lord?

Kindness (Hesed)became a family tradition for Boaz.

Where do we think Boaz got this idea of being kind to an outsider….Maybe his mom!

and now she is grafted in to this story line that ultimately ends up at Jesus

Look what I want you to see in this whole story is that literally everything leads to Jesus.

The story of Rahab…Leads to the story of Boaz and Ruth who all become some of the great garanparents of Jesus

Which leads us to one last point

You have the entire bible and there are all of these laws about redeeming people…

Being a near relative and buying them back from their misfortune…

But there is only one time in the entire bible where we ever see that happen and it is in the story of Ruth.

It leads us to the point that

Ruth’s most famous relative becomes the guardian redeemer of all of humanity

Look the Old testament tells us this

Leviticus 25:48 NIV

they retain the right of redemption after they have sold themselves. One of their relatives may redeem them:

And what does God do?

Jesus fulfills the role of guardian-redeemer in a profound spiritual sense.

Through His incarnation, in-Carne—-God in the flesh!

God becomes human so that he can be our closest of kin so that he can purchase us!

As the “second Adam,” Jesus entered into the closest relationship with humanity, restoring the inheritance lost through sin and redeeming what was taken from us.

He identified with humanity, becoming part of our family, understanding our struggles, and thus able to help us in our times of need.

As our Kinsman-Redeemer, Jesus restores our lost estate, brings life and immortality, redeems us from bondage and condemnation, and offers forgiveness and cleansing

The essence of faith is to accept His headship, claim His kinship, rely on His redemption, and entrust our entire life—past, present, and future—to Him.

Critically, He is a living Redeemer, raised from the dead, who continually intercedes for those who come to God through Him.

The author of Hebrews makes this amazing connection…And we are low on time so I’ll just read it to you really fast

Hebrews 2:11 NIV

Both the one who makes people holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters.

Jesus becomes brothers and sisters with humanity…Jesus is the kinsman of all humanity!

Hebrews 2:17 NIV

For this reason he had to be made like them, fully human in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people.

Response:

Look God lays plans for generations

There is this really amazing Psalm that just says, Oh God your faithfulness continues trough generations…

God is faithful through the generations

He was faithful for Rahab and Baoz

He was faithful for Ruth and Naomi

He was faithful to David

He was faithful by sending his son Jesus

He is faithful in all he does

If he has been faithful then he will be faithful now!