Sermon Tone Analysis

Text: Ruth 2:1-23

Theme: The daily lives of Ruth and Boaz, and their budding romance, seem to have little to do with God’s cosmic purposes, but even so, God is the master conductor orchestrating His plan of redemption.

Date: 08/21/2022 File Name: Ruth_02 Code: OT08-02

Billy Graham was the son of a prosperous dairy farmer, and grew up in rural North Carolina.

In 1934, while attending a revival meeting he underwent a religious experience and professed his faith in Christ.

In 1936 he left his father’s dairy farm to attend college.

He graduated from Florida Bible Institute near Tampa in 1940, and was ordained a minister by the Peniel Baptist Church in Palatka, Florida.

After a brief and undistinguished stint as pastor of Western Springs Baptist Church in the western suburbs of Chicago, Graham decided to become an itinerant evangelist.

The rest, as they say, is history.

But consider the back-story to Billy Graham’s story.

Take Edward Kimball, for an example.

Never heard of him?

Rest assured — most people have never heard of him.

Kimball was a Sunday School teacher who not only prayed for the hyper boys in his class but also sought to personally win each one to the Lord.

One young man, in particular, didn’t seem to understand what the gospel was about so Kimball went to the shoe store where he was stocking shelves and confronted him in the stock room with the importance of a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

That young man was Dwight L. Moody.

In the stockroom on that Saturday, he believed the gospel and received Jesus Christ as his Savior.

D.L. Moody grew up and became an evangelist.

In his lifetime, Moody touched two continents for God, with hundreds of thousands professing Christ through his ministry.

Moody went on to influence a man named F.B. Meyer, a London Baptist pastor.

Meyer’s congregation told him that they wanted this newly famous evangelist, Moody, to come preach to them.

So, Meyer reluctantly agreed to let his congregation bring in Moody.

Upon meeting the evangelist, the highly-educated Meyer took an instant dislike to the barely-educated Moody.

But Moody’s preaching revived his heart.

The two would become fast friends.

Meyer came to America on several preaching tours, and during one of those tours a student by the name of Wilbur Chapman was saved, and he became a great evangelist, leading tens of thousands of people to Christ.

One of them was a former baseball player named Billy Sunday, who then quit baseball and traveled with Chapman doing evangelistic work.

Billy Sunday became one of the most well-known evangelists of his day, and under his preaching Mordecai Ham came to faith in Christ.

Mordecai would grow up to become an evangelist.

One year, Billy Sunday held a revival in Charlotte, North Carolina.

It was so successful that a group of thirty businessmen decided to hold a series of prayer meetings asking God to continue the revival.

In the Spring of 1934 a dairy farmer lent those businessmen some land on which to erect a tent and hold those prayer meetings.

At one of those meetings, Vernon Patterson, the leader of the businessmen prayed, “Out of Charlotte may the Lord raise up someone to preach the Gospel to the ends of the earth.”

Those men then scheduled another revival asking the fiery Mordecai Ham to come and preach.

The farmer who lent the businessmen his field was Franklin Graham, and his son Billy became a Christian during that revival meeting.

It is estimated that Billy Frank Graham preached to 2.2 billion people during his lifetime.

Aren’t those the most amazing set of coincidences you’ve ever heard?

Blind chance is such an amazing predictor of human fate.

Yeah ... right.

I told you last Sunday that there are no coincidences in life.

That truth continues in the second chapter of the Book of Ruth.

The daily lives of Ruth and Boaz, and their budding romance, seem to have little to do with God's cosmic purposes, but even so, God is the master conductor orchestrating His plan of redemption.

I. BOY SEES GIRL

Ruth 2:1–7

1. the second chapter opens with two events that set the stage for this chapter

a. 1st, Ruth and Naomi arrived in Bethlehem at the beginning of the barley harvest

1) this tells us that it was springtime

2) both barley and wheat were sown in the Fall and ripened in the Spring

3) barley was the more important of the two since it would grow in poorer soil and harsher conditions

b. 2nd, Naomi’s deceased husband had a relative in Bethlehem who was a man of standing

1) Boaz evidently had wealth, social standing, and community respect

2) as I shared last week ... he’s one of Bethlehem’s most eligible bachelors

c. by His grace God is going to providentially bring Boaz and Ruth together

A. THE STORY REVEALS RUTH’S CHARACTER

1.

Her Dedication — we already know from chapter one that Ruth reveals herself as a person of devotion who takes the responsibility of relationships seriously

a. when Naomi is at the lowest point in her life Ruth refuses to leave her

1) Naomi is an elderly widow who has also lost both of her sons to death

a) her social net has disappeared

b. though strongly encouraged by her mother-in-law to return to her own family, her own people and her own nation Ruth steadfastly refuses to leave Naomi’s side

“But Ruth said, “Do not urge me to leave you or to return from following you.

For where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge.

Your people shall be my people, and your God my God.

17 Where you die I will die, and there will I be buried.

May the LORD do so to me and more also if anything but death parts me from you.”” (Ruth 1:16–17, ESV)

1) this passage is often used a Christian weddings as a groom and bride pledge their lives to each other

2) but as you can see, it’s actually words of a newly-widowed younger woman spoken to a long-widowed older woman

c.

Ruth tells Naomi, “Stop encouraging me to abandon you — I won’t do it!”

1) this devotion becomes an important part of the story here in chapter two

2) when she asks Boaz “Why have I found favor in your sight?” he singles out her sacrifices

“But Boaz answered her, “All that you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband has been fully told to me, and how you left your father and mother and your native land and came to a people that you did not know before.”

(Ruth 2:11, ESV)

2. Her Devotion — more important than dedicating herself to her mother-in-law, she devotes herself to her mother-in-law’s God

a. Ruth chooses to abandon the pagan deities she had grown up worshiping in Moab

b. she now makes the conscience choice to cling to Israel’s God — Yahweh, the One True God

c. in Ruth 2:12 Boaz praises her for her faith ...

“The LORD repay you for what you have done, and a full reward be given you by the LORD, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge!”” (Ruth 2:12, ESV)

1) isn’t that a beautiful way to describe faith?

2) its taking refuge under the arms of God who protects us as a hen protects her chicks

3. Her Diligence — Ruth is determined to do the hard work of providing for herself and Naomi

a. when Boaz asks who Ruth is, the harvest-boss identifies her as the young Moabite woman who came back with Naomi ... she has continued [gleaning] from early morning until now (Ruth 2:7)

1) Ruth knows that if they’re going to survive she’s going to have to work hard and trust God

a) that’s still pretty good advise for believers!

2) Ruth does the work of a migrant worker ... it's "grunt work" ... it's back-breaking work as she hunches over hour-after-hour working her way through the fields picking up heads of barley and sometimes even individual grains

b.

Ruth fully embraces her new life in a new community among a new people aware that she risked harassment because she was an alien, and worse, a Moabite!

4. Her Demeanor — Ruth politely asks permission to glean in the fields

“Then Boaz said to his young man who was in charge of the reapers, “Whose young woman is this?” 6 And the servant who was in charge of the reapers answered, “She is the young Moabite woman, who came back with Naomi from the country of Moab.

7 She said, ‘Please let me glean and gather among the sheaves after the reapers.’

... .””

(Ruth 2:5–7, ESV)

5. the story tells us much about Ruth’s character

II.

BOY MEETS GIRL

Ruth 2:8-13

1. before Boaz personally meets and converses with Ruth, we see him gathering information about her

a.

it’s later in the afternoon when Boaz came from Bethlehem (vs.

4) to see how the harvesting was going

b. as he arrives he notices a woman who is new; not one of the regular harvesters

2. upon inquiring as to her identity he’s told that “Oh, her.