Deep Lessons From the Book of Ruth

It pertains to this time of year, and I think many of you know what that book may be. It's the Book of Ruth. The Book of Ruth traditionally was always read, and in many Jewish places today, is still read at this particular time of year, because it fits the period of the late harvest with Pentecost.

With Pentecost tomorrow, I thought it would be a good time for us to go back through the Book of Ruth and glean some lessons from the Book of Ruth. And I use the word glean in the right sense, because that is part of the story of the Book of Ruth. Some women gleaning in the fields with the harvesters, according to the tradition and the teaching that God had placed within the laws of the nation of Israel to take care of people. And it's a good book for you and I to go through and to glean some very important teaching lessons that pertain to all of us at any time, but especially when we focus on the aspects of the Feast of Pentecost and the meaning of Pentecost and what it means for us.

And we will see, I think, as we go through this, exactly how it does fit into the message of this one holy day that God has given to us and some of the things that our minds need to be on as we prepare to observe this day tomorrow and go to God for a full meaning of what this time pictures. I'm going to be going through the Book of Ruth and you can go right ahead and turn to it. I'm going to be reading it from a commentary, the San Sino books of the Bible, and the translation may be just slightly different from your Bible in front of you.

I don't think it will be that much different that you'll wrinkle your nose and furrow your brow too much at what I might be reading. But I will be reading it out of that particular translation here today. The San Sino is a Jewish translation and commentary on the Old Testament scriptures. The Book of Ruth is found right after, of course, the Book of Judges just before the book of Samuel, which is an appropriate place for it because the time setting of the story of Ruth is that period in the story of ancient Israel known as the period of the Judges.

This was prior to the time of the monarchy when Israel wanted a king and God allowed them to have a king beginning with Saul. It was this period of time after the time of Joshua and that generation that settled the Promised Land. When there were groups of individual leaders that would come up and rise that were known as Judges.

It's interesting to understand how Israel was ruled during that particular period. You had Moses and then you had Joshua, very clear leaders designated by God and a group of elders that succeeded them. But then the Book of Judges goes in and it talks about a time of confusion, a time of anarchy, a time when the beginning, no doubt, with the village elders and things began to break down. The authority structure within the nation began to break down and the Book of Judges is probably epitomized by the one line at the end of the Book of Judges where it says, Every man did that which was right in his own eyes.

The Book of Judges chronicles a period of time of several hundred years where various leaders would rise up and have to deliver Israel from the Philistines or from the Moabites or from some of the other nations around them after the periods of decline and those nations gaining kind of an upper hand in an ascendancy over Israel.

And then God would be merciful and he would rise up someone like a Berak or a Deborah or a Gideon and they would rally the people and there would be a sense of structure that would once again return the nation to a worship of God. The whole point was that God really was their king at that point. And when they didn't obey God, things broke down.

And ultimately, of course, when you get to the time of Saul, you find that God gave them a human king because that's all they could see. And that is another part of the story. So the setting for Ruth is during this period of the Judges when there's an ebb and flow or up and down in terms of the fortunes, the economy, the relationships of the people, and most importantly, their relationship with God under that particular period and story. That particular period and structure that God gave to the nation after the conquest of the land and after that period of Moses and Joshua and that period of leadership.

So we come to this time and we'll just go ahead and jump right into it with that as a background and some of the other things we'll bring out as we go along.

Beginning in chapter 1, verse 1, it says, it came to pass in the days when the judges judged that there was a famine in the land. All right? And so at the time when the crops failed, things, you have an economic downturn and people didn't have food. You know, we're in a unique period. Famine is not unknown to our modern world. We have food shortages in parts of the world right now that are causing riots and basic food stuffs like corn and wheat and rice in some parts of the world are having to be rationed because there are shortages for any number of reasons that lead to famine.

And so this occurred and as a result that always creates an upheaval. Now, the story focuses then on a certain man of Bethlehem in Judah who went to Sojourn in the field of Moab, he and his wife and his two sons. Now, Bethlehem was a small town that you can still visit today. It is south of Jerusalem in Judah, meaning that portion of Israel allotted to the tribe of Judah. And so Bethlehem of Judah, of course Bethlehem later becomes the place where Jesus is born, the city in which he was born.

But it was a small village and today you can basically when you leave Jerusalem and you go to Bethlehem you don't really leave Jerusalem. It's kind of the suburbs in the city of Jerusalem and Bethlehem have grown almost together. So you don't even know when you almost when you leave one city to go into the other.

It's developed so much today. But this would have been at the time, probably a couple of hours by walking from the city of Jerusalem down to Bethlehem. And this individual, the name of the man was Illimilech. The name of his wife was Naomi. The name of his two sons, Malin and Killian, epithites of Bethlehem in Judah. They came into the field of Moab and continued there. So here it is said that they decided to migrate. Whenever there's an economic upheaval in history, wherever it takes place, people go to where they can find a job.

They go to where they can find food. They go to where they can find something that they need. And this is a common situation. And so, you know, you just think today, some of you look around and we look. I always think in this part of the country, in our own time, something that we can relate to, in the 1940s and into the 1950s, people migrated out of the South, out of Tennessee and Kentucky and West Virginia and Virginia.

And they came North into Indiana and Ohio and Michigan looking for what? Work. Because they didn't have any down in the hills. And families grew large down in the hills and came out of that Depression period. And you had a major transfer of people from a region into another. And that's why, you know, here in Fort Wayne and Kendallville and all the cities around here and Indianapolis, you have people whose roots are in Tennessee, whose roots are in Kentucky or West Virginia and the Appalachian area of America because of what took place 50 years ago. And that's because of a need. People move to meet their need.

Elimelech was hungry and there was no food. And it's important to realize that he probably had land. It's not that he was necessarily completely destitute. He probably still had a piece of land that was his by right. But because of the famine and because things got caught, they didn't have any food, they had to go someplace else in order to, it seems, survive.

Now, by going to Moab, this was a kind of a verboten situation. You have to realize that Moab was a Gentile country. It was not part of Israel. And God gave plenty of instructions to the Israelites in the Scriptures about their relationships with the neighboring nations. And Moab and Ammon and the Philistines and many of the others that we read about in the history of Israel were Gentile nations.

They did not have God as their God. They didn't have the law of God governing their relationships. God gave very strict teaching about marrying even people from those areas. You know, it went all the way down into the relationships between one to one in terms of marriage. So God had a unique purpose for Israel, and he wanted to keep it such.

So for Elemelak to go to Moab, this was quite a migration. This was a little bit more than just going to another area of Israel. It was going to a foreign country. It'd be like for us going to Mexico. You know, just to give a kind of a rough approximation today, it would be going into a whole other culture. That's the point. An entirely different culture and language. And all that goes with it and religion.

And even though it was very close, you have to understand, the distance between Bethlehem and the region of Moab is probably about the distance between where we're sitting here this morning in Muncie, Indiana. In other words, not very far. I could drive down to Muncie in less than two hours, straight on the interstate, about an hour down the interstate. If you went from Bethlehem today to Moab, if you could go without having the time that you're going to waste at the border crossing, Moab is in the nation of Jordan. And if you were to go from Bethlehem in Israel to the area of Moab, which is Jordan today, it would take you maybe three hours or so.

It goes at the border crossing. If you were to just drive it straight, you could be there in probably less than an hour. You'd go down into the Jordan Valley, you'd cross the Jordan, skirt the northern end of the Dead Sea, go down the eastern edge of the Dead Sea, and up into the mountains of Moab and south of the city of Amman, and there you would be. It's not that far, is the point. Now, for Lemlech and Naomi to have walked it, it took them probably the better part of two days to make that journey by walking or on a donkey, however they did at that time, which was probably one of those two methods.

So it wasn't that far, but it was in a completely different world. That's the point to understand. And the result is part of the whole story here. And so when they went there with their two young sons, a young man unmarried, probably, you know, we can say teenagers, early 20 as I would assume with the very latest, they came to the field of Moab and there they settled, they took up residence.

And then we find in verse 3 that a Lemlech, Naomi's husband, died. And she was left with her two sons. We're not told why. Perhaps the stress of all that had happened that led to their being there created a heart attack. Who knows? He died. And she now was a widow. But she had two sons who were young and could help to take care of her. Verse 4, they took them wives of the women of Moab.

And so, hey, this is what happens. You go to school in Moab, you go down to the mall in Moab, you go to the drive-in in Moab, who are you going to see? Moabites. And so, you know, Moabite woman meets Israelite man. They don't see the distinction. And Naomi's sons didn't see the distinction. Just like so what is often the case today, unless you're really attuned to it, you don't see any difference. And a serviceman who finds himself in Taiwan or Thailand meets an Asian woman.

Different culture, different... what's the difference? And, you know, we see all these situations that take place in terms of how different races interact and cultures, and this is what happened here. And they took to themselves wives of the women of Moab. And the name of the one was Orpa. And the name of the other, Ruth. And they dwelt there about 10 years. I've been told Orpa is, I think, it's an orca whale.

It's a species of whale as an orca, not an Orpa. But I've read that Oprah Winfrey gets her name from somebody misunderstanding the name here, instead of calling her Orpa. Her parents, mother, grandmother, whatever, gave her the name Oprah. And I'm not quite sure if that's true or not. Maybe that's one of those urban legends, but that may be a modern connection there. Anyway, the two sons marry these two women.

And they dwelt there about 10 years. And then in verse 5, we're told that Malen and Killian died, both of them. And so they die. Moab did not settle too well for Israelite men. And maybe the men in this family had a weakness. I don't know, but they first the limalite dies, and then the two other men. And the woman was left of her two children and of her husband. And so there evidently was no other children that we're told about here as well. And so you have three women who are widows after a period of 10 years.

And it came to a point in verse 6 that she arose, Naomi, with her daughters-in-law, that she might return from the field of Moab, for she had heard in the field of Moab how the Lord had remembered His people in giving them bread. So the weather cycle had broken, and crops were flourishing back home in Judah, in the nation of Israel. And she determined to go home. There was nothing for her here. And again, it's just like what happens.

People migrate to another part of the country because of an economic need. And then after 10 years, 20 years, whatever, people get the hankering to go back to their roots. It just happens, doesn't it? And they decide to go home. I had a brother that left home when he was 18 years old, joined the Air Force, traveled to, you know, part of the world, had got married, and wound up in California. And, you know, 20 years later, many different episodes in his life, he wanted to go home. And he wound up coming back to Missouri, to our hometown.

And he's there to this day. It's never hit me to have that desire to go back to my hometown. But it's a part of life. And, you know, if you've never left your home, it's something that you may not be able to relate to, but Naomi wanted to go back home. And again, keep in mind, she was in a strange nation, and the economic structure was not that there was a lot of welfare, there were government programs of assistance.

And she recognized that she needed to get back to her home country, and there was probably, again, a piece of land there, but there were relatives. And she decided that she was going to go. And it says, They went on the way to return unto the land of Judah. And Naomi said to her two daughter-in-laws, Go, return each of you to her mother's house.

And so she, at some point, she realized that it was not going to work for these two Moabite ladies to go with her back to Judah. That it just, they would not be well-received, probably. There would be some strife, there would be some difficulties, they would be foreigners, Gentiles. They were not part of Israel.

She recognized that they probably wouldn't go on too well. And so it would be better for them to stay in their home country. She said, The Lord deal kindly with you, as you have dealt with the dead, meaning their husbands, and with me. The Lord grant you that you may find rest, each of you in the house of her husband. So Naomi kind of gives a, kind of, it's a farewell talk. At some point here is in the journey. Before they depart, Naomi's intent, she's going to go home by herself.

And she gives them a blessing. She wants to part on good terms. And she asks a blessing upon them. Maybe they had a prayer. Maybe they recalled a scripture. Maybe Naomi recalled something as part of all of this, and she kissed them.

And there were hugs. There was a tearful moment here. And they lifted up their voice, and they wept. And so you have three women crying. Not an unusual situation. Okay? All right. I say that with all love and affection, ladies. But that's just what happened. Hey, when I left home, when I was 19 years old, when I went off to Ambassador College, and I left the house, my dad broke down and cried.

And as he said goodbye to me, it was the first time that I ever saw my dad cry. And to that point in my life. So men can cry, too, is my point. There's a time for men to cry, and emotions at partying are just a very important thing. But they said, in verse 10, they said unto her, No, but we will return with you to your people. They wanted, they had an affection for Naomi. This was a relationship of daughter-in-laws with her mother-in-law that worked at this point. It doesn't always work that way, ladies. I understand that.

But these two ladies felt comfortable at this point that they wanted to go and return with Naomi unto her people. Verse 11, Naomi said, Turn back, my daughters, why will you go with me? Have I yet sons in my womb that they may be your husbands? Turn back, my daughters, go your way, for I am too old to have a husband.

If I should say, I have hope, should I have a husband tonight, and also bear sons, would you tarry, or would you wait for them till they were grown? And you shut yourselves off for them, and have no husbands, and know my daughters. For it grieves me much for your sakes, for the hand of the Lord has gone forth against me. Naomi may very well have been still able to have had children.

You can imagine that she may have been no older than 45. It's conceivable that that would have been her age, that she was still in her 40s. She could have born children. But the likelihood was that she would not, because she would not have a husband. And so the idea that she would have a child, a son, for these two daughters, one of the daughter-in-laws to marry, was just not something, obviously, that was practical or was going to happen.

And so she said, look, there is a curse. And she felt that the hand of God was against her and the family because of what had happened over these last 10 years with the death of her husband and then her two sons, and that this was a mistake and that she needed to get back to where she needed to be.

I think that that also is something we should understand, probably working in the mind of a woman like this, Naomi at this time, and she needed to get back to her roots. She needed to get back to and understand this in a sense that we're talking about a physical traveling between nations, but as we read this story, there are spiritual implications because we're talking about not just another nation, we're talking about Israel.

We're talking about an Israelite family, the family of Elimelech and Naomi. And they are under a covenant with God, and that is a spiritual relationship. And we read this story to understand spiritual lessons for us. And Naomi is wanting to return, if you will, to God. She's wanting to return, shall we say, to church after being away from church. She was away from Israel for 10 years or more, and now she wanted to go back. She wanted to get back into a fellowship with her family and the way of life that she was raised in, and she wanted to anchor herself back there. She saw that God's hand was against me.

And so she's not looking to get away from the teaching of her past and of her youth. And she's not making excuses for what has happened. She's realistically looking at her life and seeing that there is something missing, and she has got to get back to it. And this is where I think anyone who is using God's Holy Spirit, a converted Son of God, a Christian, in the true sense of the Word, relates and should understand at this point that if God's Spirit is in our life, there are times when we may drift from it, and it may not be a burning part of our life in guiding us.

And yet, if God has given that Spirit to us at baptism, it is something that is there, and we need to listen to it. And we should not make excuses as we go about our life away from God, thinking that God is blessing us because we are now off on a different way of life, and that getting away from the oppressiveness of the truth in the Church of God has now somehow caused us to find another God. And the God of this world can even bless. People, in some ways, in time and chance, can be a situation that creates what might seem a blessing, but in reality, can be a deadly trap.

Naomi is wanting to get back. And so in verse 14, they lifted up their voice, a wept again, and Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth cleaved to her. And Orpah decided to stay in Moab. And Naomi wants to stay with Naomi. In verse 15, she said, Behold, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her God. Return you after your sister-in-law. So this is what Naomi says to Ruth. Look, Orpah is going back to her land and to her God. You should stay there as well. Orpah turned back. Orpah is like that person who comes so close to the truth, so close to the Promised Land, so close to the Kingdom of God, and then turns back.

It's too hard. Or there's just not enough encouragement or impetus, or whatever it might be. In the parable of the sower, in Matthew 13, Jesus talked about the seed sown on good ground, begins to bear fruit, but the evil one comes and snatches it away. Or the weeds come and the carriers of the world choke out what has already been sown. And so Orpah is a personification of that category that we should understand, of those who come so close in the opportunity and yet don't seize it.

And she doesn't see it. And so she turns back. But Ruth does see it. And so Ruth becomes the one upon whom the story focuses, and we no longer hear anything about Orpah. We don't know what happened to her. We wish her well, but she leaves the story. And so we come down to verse 16, and Ruth says to Naomi, in a very beautiful part of the book, really the central verse of the book that everyone remembers and that you all, you should kind of highlight this and begin to mark it out, because what Ruth says to Naomi is a confession, it's a creed, it's a mantra, it is a saying, it's something that you should, ladies, embroider perhaps on a, you know, something that you would frame, cross stitch and hang on your wall or write it in a bookmark that you put in your Bible, or somehow or better yet, just write it on your heart.

Just write it on your heart, in terms of the meaning, because she says to Naomi, and treat me not to leave you and to return from following after 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.

Where you die, will I die. And there will I be buried. The Lord do so to me, and more also, if anything but death, part you and me. Now that is a speech and a half. One of the most important speeches in the Bible said in just a few seconds, less than 90 seconds, and you don't need a group of men to wordsmith it for hours on end, it is so beautiful in what it says.

And it represents a lifetime commitment between Naomi and Ruth, and a lifetime commitment between us and God. It is what we say at baptism, in essence, to God. We say to God that, you know, I'm going to follow you. And wherever God you go, and have me to go, and want me to go, there I'll go. And I will stay here, I will lodge with you, Father, and your people. Your people, Father, will become my people. Will become family. And I will die with them. In other words, it is for life. There's no turning back.

Christ used the example of the parable of the quest for the kingdom of God is like putting your hand to the plow and not looking back. Ruth, at this point, she makes a decision that she is going to put her hand to, if you will, the apron or the dress of Naomi and cling to it and follow her wherever she goes.

It's what a wife says to a husband at marriage. It's the same spirit of commitment that is brought out here. And it's such a rich section. You know, you go back to verse 16, and Ruth says, and treat me not to leave you. Keep in mind, Naomi was kind of putting up some obstacles and objections and reasoning as to why she shouldn't go. And Ruth was able to kind of knock them aside. You know, sometimes in our relationships, we put obstacles in the way of people embracing our faith.

If you say you're a part of God's church, in your life, in your conduct, doesn't live up to the teachings of the Bible, for someone that we might be trying to set an example for, teach, or whatever it might be, or who knows us as who we are, we may be putting obstacles up in front of them. And Ruth is saying to Naomi, look, quit putting these obstacles up, these objections, these potential problems.

You know, in Treat Me, she says, not to leave you. In other words, give me words of encouragement, give me an example, give me a life, a lifestyle to look to that I can follow. And quit being a hypocrite. Maybe she didn't say that exactly, but it's really the meaning and the intent. Quit being a phony when it comes to your way of life. Now, Ruth is also a Gentile, a non-member, a non-Christian, however we should choose to term it, but she also sees what's taking place, and she speaks kindly to Naomi, and she's saying, look, she sees beyond Naomi's words and her objections. But this time, Ruth is already looking over across the Jordan, as the song says, across river, to the Promised Land, to what it means, to what she's heard through this family about this land and this God and this way of life.

She's already seen that, a part of it, and she wants to go. She wants to live within that covenant and cross those borders and cross Jordan. Sometimes we need to kind of bring some of those songs around, I think, and listen to them again and just some of their meaning about crossing river, and she wants to do that because she wants to partake of the way of life, the covenant, the kingdom of God, exemplified by this nation Israel, and its God and His laws and this way of life. And she's saying to Naomi, look, I hear you, quit putting up this objection, this is where I want to go.

I want to taste it, I want to see it, I've heard your stories around the dinner table these ten years, now I want to see it. I want to be a part of it. So I'm going to go with you. Your God will be my God, I'll follow you wherever you go, your people will become my people. And she had heard enough and she had seen enough through the family to want to do it.

And this is what she did. So this is a confession of love for God, for Naomi, for the people of Israel, for the God of Israel, for the law of God and in every way. And so these two ladies become partners. Verse 18, when she saw that she was steadfastly minded to go, she left off speaking to her. So, okay, this is going to happen. So they went until they came to Bethlehem. So they went on to Bethlehem. They came to pass when they were come to Bethlehem that all their city, all the city was a stir concerning them.

And the woman and the women said, is this Naomi? You have to understand that Bethlehem was not much more than a kind of what we would call a wide spot in the road. Now it had a city wall and there was only one way in and that was through one main gate. So when two people that hadn't, two strangers, and Naomi was a stranger in a sense she hadn't been there for over 10 years. But when they walked through the gate, word quickly spread that strangers were in town. And so it was a very, very small village in that sense.

And they remembered her. She had friends who were still there and family. And they knew the story. And that's why the city was caught up and there was talk about these women that was common. They said, is this Naomi?

She said unto them, Naomi replied, call me not Naomi, call me Mera, which means bitter. For the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me. I went out full and the Lord has brought me back home empty. Why call me Naomi? Seeing the Lord has testified against me and the Almighty has afflicted me.

She said she went out full. Now keep in mind she left because there was a famine and they probably didn't have much money. So how full was she? What she means was she was full in terms she had her husband, she had two sons, she had really the most important things yet with her.

And now she comes back empty. Those men are dead and she's facing a whole different life. So Naomi returned, verse 22, and Ruth the Moabite as her daughter-in-law with her, who returned out of the field of Moab, and they came to Bethlehem in the beginning of the barley harvest, about the time of the spring holy days. This is when it would begin.

The wave sheaf, remember the period during the Days of Unleavened Bread, is waved and given, and then the harvest begins and continues to this particular point in time in terms of the early harvest. And now we move on to chapter 2. Now Naomi had the kinsmen of her husbands, the mighty man of Valor of the family of Alimelik, and his name was Boaz. So we were introduced now to another character in the story, Boaz, a kinsman, a relative. And Ruth the Moabite said to Naomi, Let me now go to the field and glean among the ears of the corn after him, in whose sight I shall find favor.

They have to understand, just a brief summary of the law. You find it back in Deuteronomy 25. We're not going to go back through all of that. But there was such a law within the land that had to, it was a part of the social structure that it was the welfare, social security net of Israel that God embedded within their laws that would take care of widows and perpetuate family. And it dealt with family inheritances. If a man died childless, the next of kin, it might be the older brother or the one next beyond that, there was under the law a duty to take that woman as one's wife and to have children to keep the name of the family going.

It's a totally alien concept to us today. We don't even operate that way. We can't even imagine operating that way today. But, and it would take a whole other sermon to explain the value of that to actually stabilizing a society and eliminating the modern evils or the problems that we strive with in our social problems today among peoples. God's laws, as He designed them, had they been obeyed fully, would have provided for a stable social family structure that would have perpetuated a way of life through the generations and taken care of the needs of people.

But it didn't always happen that way. Now, this one was still on the books, and it was operating after, obviously after a fashion, this idea that a man had an obligation to his brother's widow and, you know, within the family's structure. So Boaz was one of them, as we will see.

And as Naomi began to understand how things were working, she said to, Ruth said to Naomi, let me go to the field and I'll glean among the ears of corn. Now, one of the other parts of the law was that when a harvest was taking place, the landowner was to leave the corners. Now, imagine this big room here as one big, let's say, a field of barley or corn or wheat today. As you'd be going down a line to reap, you were to make a, instead of going all the way to the end and taking every last stalk, you were to leave the corners, you know, turn sharp, short, and leave a portion in the corners for the poor to come, and that was their portion.

And whatever fell off the wagon, whatever fell off of the threshing machine, let it stay there. And the poor then could come in and pick up, and they would have then food as well that was part of the law. And so for Ruth to go down to the fields and to glean, she was following, she knew that that would be a practice.

She would not have been the only one there. And she would be a part of that. So this was part of the system. So Naomi said to her, go, my daughter, and she went and came and gleaned in the field after the reapers. And hers was to light, her hap was to light, on the portion of the field belonging to Boaz, who was of the family of the limelac.

And behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem and said to his reapers, the Lord be with you. And they answered him, the Lord bless you. So Boaz was a landowner, and he had been working for him in the fields, and he came out from the village.

You have to understand that in the ancient world with these walled cities, like Bethlehem being a walled city, that was completely surrounded, the city part, the urban part, and there was one gate. But out around the city walls, extending for miles, were fields. And people lived out there. They all didn't live in the city. They would live out in these fields, and people who may have lived in the city owned land out there, and people lived out there, and they had their holdings.

If ever there was a time of an invasion and an enemy would come, all these people out in the fields living out there, they would all crowd into the city, and they would shut the gates, and there they would have their protection. So Boaz was a landowner, and he had ample enough holdings that he had employees working for him. And even in this exchange, you see, the relations seemed to be good. Boaz was a good employer. He took care of his people. He blessed them. He said, God be with you.

And by that, he was expressing a courtesy as well as a concern, consideration for his workers, that they return by saying, the Lord bless you. Just understand what we're being told here. These guys didn't just wait until they passed by, then turn to each other and say, well, here goes that no good. You know, fill in the blanks. You know how employees work when the boss is in the shop or on the line? And then they slack off whenever he gets by, whether it's the foreman or the plant manager or the actual owner of the business.

We all know how that works, don't we? Because we've all been there. When my dad was not in the gas station, I didn't work quite as hard. When dad was in the gas station, I worked my little, you know what, off. Because my dad was a worker and that's the way he taught. But when he'd be gone for an afternoon or a couple of hours, the help would kind of sometimes slack off.

And in this case, you get the sense that there was a good relationship. Boaz paid good salary, had good benefits, ample vacation time. He had Aflac instead of the other guy in terms of benefits and insurance, and they blessed him to. Then said Boaz, to a servant that was set over his reapers, who was this woman that he saw?

His eyes fell on Ruth. She was new. She was probably attractive. She caught his eye. And the servant that was set over the reapers said, the foreman said, she is a Moabite woman that came back with Naomi out of the field of Moab. She said, let me glean. I pray and gather among the reapers in the harvest. So she came. She's continued here from morning till now, saying that she's carried it a little in the house. In other words, she's saying she's been working pretty hard. She's been out there at first light with everybody else.

She came in with the crew. And she's only taking a break when the others took a break, in the little hut that might have been out there where they had some water and maybe a little bit of food during the allotted break. In other words, she's a hard worker. And she's diligent. Then Boaz said to Ruth, hear you not my daughter. Go not to glean in another field. Neither pass from here, but abide here by my maidens, by my workers.

So he's saying, look, you've got a place here. I like what, you know, you have a good reputation, you have a good report, you get along well with everyone, you're not creating conflict among the other workers.

She's not organizing. Ruth didn't start organizing for a union. If you're a union, don't throw bricks at me. Just making a point here that everybody got along. Let your eyes be on the field that they do reap and go you after them. Have I not charged the young men that they shall not touch you?

So you give an instruction that you take care of her, you look after her. And when you're thirsty, go to the vessels and drink that which the young men have drawn. You go right up there with my workers and go to the, shall we say, maybe the supervisor's table, if you want to put it that way.

And you don't have to eat with the others. So he was giving her a pass to go to the head of the line. He wanted her to stay. And obviously, I think that within this you have to understand there's, you know, a male man-woman relationship beginning to spark here. And there are, he's noticed her. And it's someone that he wants to keep around. And that's what happens in relationships anyway, doesn't it? You make opportunities, you make things advantageous for those that you want to keep.

Or in this case, you know, a man and a woman, in that type of an employee situation, he wanted her to stay around. The first ten tells us that Naomi's reaction, or Ruth's reaction, was to fall on, she fell on the ground and bowed down to the ground and said to him, why have I found favor in your sight, that you should take recognition of me, seeing that I am a foreigner.

Now, Ruth knew her place within even the society, and she knew that this was an unusual step Boaz was taking. And Boaz answered and said, it has been fully told me all that you've done into your mother-in-law since the death of your husband and how you've left your father and your mother in the land of your nativity, and you've come to a people that you know not before.

The Lord recompense your work and be your reward complete from the Lord, God of Israel, under whose wings you've come to take refuge. Boaz knew that even he is an employer, as an Israelite, as a part of the covenant people. That relationship and the work that God was doing with the nation extended all the way down to his work with his employers, employees in the field.

And he said, this is all part of God's work with us. And you have honored your mother-in-law, and by being here you have made a statement that has not gone unnoticed. And that is, God will bless you and he will be with you, he will take you under his wings, which was a symbolic message here of God's protection and God's guidance. And so she said, Let me find favor in your sight, my Lord, for that you have comforted me and for that you have spoken to the heart of your handmaid, though I be not as one of your handmaidens.

In other words, she knows she hadn't been there before. She was last hired.

She was last hired on the floor, but she was being given some special treatment. She knew that could cause some problems. And yet, things were progressing. So Boaz said to her at mealtime, Come here and eat of the bread, dip your morsel in the vinegar. And she sat beside the reapers, and they reached her parched corn, and she did eat and was satisfied and left.

And when she was risen up to glean, Boaz commanded his young men, saying, Let her glean even among the sheaves, and put her not to shame. Treat her well. Treat her with respect. And also pull out some for her of purpose from the bundles, and leave it and let her glean, and don't rebuke her. So, in other words, kick a half a bushel off on the side, as she's coming down the row, and just keep on going and don't look back, and make sure your timing's right. That's what he's saying to his employees there. So, she gleaned in the field till evening, and she's probably thinking, Man, this is working out real well.

She beat out that which she had gleaned, and it was about a nifa of barley. She took it up, went to the city, and her mother-in-law saw what she had gleaned, how much she was coming in with, and she brought forth and gave to her what she had left after she was satisfied.

And her mother-in-law said, Where have you gleaned today? Where did you get this? Where did this come from? And, you know, where did you work? Blessed be he that did take knowledge of you. And she told her mother-in-law with whom she had worked, and she said, The man's name with whom I worked today is Boaz. And Naomi said to her daughter-in-law, The light went on. Oh, Naomi says, she's beginning to make connections. And Naomi's probably beginning to realize that this is more than just chance.

This is God's hand, that she wound up where she did. Blessed be he of the Lord, who has not left off his kindness to the living and to the dead. And Naomi said to her, The man is one of our kinsmen. He's one of our relatives. And Ruth said, Yes, he said to me, that's what he told me, You shall keep fast by my young men, he said, until they've ended all my harvest. And Naomi said to Ruth, her daughter-in-law, It's good, my daughter, that you go out with his maidens and that you be not met in any other field.

So stay where you are. This is good. So she kept fast by the maidens of Boaz to glean to the end of the harvest, and the wheat harvest and barley harvest. And she dwelt with her mother-in-law during that time. Then in chapter 3, Naomi, her mother-in-law said to her, My daughter, shall I not seek rest for you, that it may be well with you? And now she said, Is there not Boaz, our relative, with whose maidens you were?

Behold, he wentals barley tonight in the threshing floor. Wash yourself therefore, and anoint you, and put your raiment upon you, good clothes, and get down to the threshing floor. But make not yourself known to the man until he shall have done eating and drinking. Again, Naomi, it's more than just a conniving mother-in-law, a Jewish mother-in-law who's trying to, you know, hitch up her daughter to someone.

There's more to this than the story. Naomi is making the connections, and she knows that this is not chance, that Ruth is not some lucky shop girl who's now, you know, working on the executive floor and, you know, moving her way up to the top. She knows that this is of God, that God is blessing, that it was fortuitous that she went to that field, and Boaz came and saw that this is not just chance and human thought. And that is a difference. At some point in our life, we begin to realize the hand of God guiding us. It's a point of maturity and a level of conversion.

When you and I began to realize and truly believe that what we are doing, the things that are happening to us, the decisions that we're making, the steps, the matters in our daily, monthly lives are in the hand of God, and that He and truly is. It's not because we wish it. It's not because we hope it so.

It becomes a part that we know is so, that God is guiding our life. And we begin to let go, and we begin to nurture that by obedience, by prayer and study, and by an active mental thinking. Something changes in your life. Where you know that God's hand is upon you, for good or for bad, and how the things that are taking place in your life. And He truly is your partner. This is the way Naomi is working here. And this is one of the big lessons for us to learn. And it comes by the power of God's Spirit working in our hearts and our minds, leading us to a deeper relationship with Him as we yield ourselves, as we finally put off the filth of this world, as Mark Welch was reading from the book of Ezra or Nehemiah a couple of weeks ago in his sermon that he gave here.

Where we put off enough of the filth of this world, and we put that out of our life and out of our minds, and we put on the righteousness of God, to where the connections of God's Spirit in our mind, in our life, in our actions, in our decisions, are all beginning to make sense. And we do and truly see what's happening in our life as a part of God's purpose and plan for us within His church, within the overall plan that God is working out.

That's one of the things for us to learn and to think about on this Pentecost period. As we fit ourselves into Pentecost and understand what God is doing and teaching us through that particular Holy Day, particularly the power of the Holy Spirit. Naomi was making those connections. And so she's giving instruction to Ruth to go and to be a part of what is taking place with Boaz.

She knows it's coming down to the end of the harvest, and Boaz is going to be at a particular point, and Ruth needs to make herself available. Not in a moral sense, but in a righteous sense. And so verse 4, it shall be that when He lies down, you'll go and mark the place where He lies. You go in, uncover His feet, and lay you down, and He will tell you what you shall do. Now, this is a very interesting scenario that is being worked out. Let's just read through it quickly, and we'll comment on it. And she said to her, All that you say to me, I'll do.

This was probably an alien idea to Ruth. What do you mean? Go in and uncover His feet and lay down. What am I, a servant? You know, what am I, a handmaid? What is this? I'm liberated. This is the modern... I've come from the modern Moab, and we don't do that in Moab.

But she said, I'll do it. She went down to the threshing floor, and did according to all their mother and all had instructed. And when Boaz had eaten and drunk, and his heart was merry, the harvest was... it was toward the end of the harvest right at this period of time. And they were beginning to ease off. The work was easing down, and so they were celebrating. And so his heart was merry.

I don't think he was drunk, but he had had some wine or beer, whatever they had. He went to lie down at the end of the heap of corn. And Ruth came softly, and uncovered his feet, and lay down. This was an action of service, of subservience and submission. It is truly an act of that. For a woman to lay down at the feet of a man, this is not a sexual scene.

This is a scene of complete submission. As Ruth lies down at the feet of Boaz, because when Boaz wakes up and sees this, he knows what it means. That he has an obligation. She is saying to him, you are the next of kin. You have an obligation under your law to claim me within the family and to settle this matter. You have a duty. This is really what is taking place.

Now, there is some chemistry flowing here as well. Let's be honest. There are some juices going. All right? So when I say it, it's not a sexual scene. It's not something that's going to end with a lot of flesh being displayed, as it would be in one of the movies we might see, and then fade to black and whatever. But there are emotions, but there is a very deep statement being acted out here that speaks to the legalities of the nation and its laws. It came to pass at midnight that the man was startled.

He saw a woman at his feet, and he said, Who are you? She said, I'm Ruth. He's kind of groggy. He's dark. It's not that he didn't know her, it's just that he didn't recognize her. I am Ruth, your handmaid. Spread, therefore, your skirt over your handmaid, for you are a near kinsman. That was a symbol of betrothal in the Scriptures. You'll find it used prophetically in the book of Ezekiel, as God speaks about his relationship with Israel, for him to have spread his skirt over her.

And he saw what was taking place, and it clicked in verse 10. He said, Blessed be you of the Lord, my daughter. You have shown more kindness in the end than at the beginning, inasmuch as you did not follow the young men, whether poor or rich.

And now, my daughter, fear not. I will do to you all that you say, for all the men in the gate of my people do know that you are a virtuous woman. So Boaz says, I'm going to follow through on my legal duty as the next of kin. Everyone knows that you are a good woman, and it's true I am your near kinsman. How I'll be it, he says, and he reveals here that there is another one who's nearer. There is another man in the family line who is a closer kinsman than Boaz is. And he says, you wait, you know, wait here, or not wait here, but just be patient. So it will be in the morning that if he will perform to you the part of the kinsman, well, that will make sure that it, you know, that will be good. Let him do the kinsman's part, but if he will be not willing to be the part of a kinsman to you, then I will do the part of a kinsman to you as the Lord lives. So he makes her a promise that he will set up the court, the legal duties, to see that either that kinsman does it or he will do it. He's going to make sure that the law is fulfilled. He says, lie down till morning. She laid at his feet till morning. She got up before light so that others could see what was taking place, and she said, let it not be known that, for he had told her, let it not be known that the woman came to the threshing floor. And he said, bring the mantle that is upon you and hold it. She held it. And he measured six measures of barley, laid it on her, and she went into the city. And she came to her mother-in-law, and she said, who are you, my daughter? And she told her all that the man had done to her. And Naomi says, these six measures of barley gave he for me, or Ruth says that, for he said to me, go not empty to your mother-in-law. So he gave her a lot of grain, and she went home with it.

And Naomi says, set still my daughter until you know how the matter will fall, for the man will not rest until he's finished this thing. She knows Boaz will be good to his word, and it'll be settled within twenty-four hours, before dark that day comes again. And so Boaz went up to the gate, and he sat down there. And for him to understand that the gate of these ancient cities was where the business was transacted. It was where the courthouse was.

Drive through our little towns around here, go to the center of town, what do you see? Courthouse.

This is where the legal business was taken up in the gate of the cities, where the elders were. And so he went down there, and he found the next kinsman whom he had spoken of, and he calls him together. He says, turn aside, sit down here. And he did.

And he took ten men of the elders of the city. So he kind of convenes a kind of a hearing and a court here. And he says, sit down, and they sat down. And he said unto the near kinsman, Boaz does, Naomi has come out of the field of Moab, sells the parcel of land which was our brother Elimelech. That's why we know that Elimelech, when he went to Moab, he had some land. He was still a landowner. And I thought to disclose it unto you, saying, Buy it before them that sit here, and before the elders of my people.

If you will redeem it, redeem it. But if it will not be redeemed, then tell me that I may know, for there is none to redeem it beside you, and I am after you. And he said, I will redeem it. So Boaz says to this man, and we're not told his name, he said, you're the first in line, you've got first opportunity to buy this parcel of land and to take Ruth as your wife under the law. And he sees an opportunity, and he says, I will redeem it.

And then Boaz says in verse 5, What day you buy the field of the hand of the Naomi, you've also bought of Ruth the Moabite, the wife of the dead, to raise up the name of the dead unto his inheritance.

That was his ace. He held that back. He got the man to commit, and they said, oh, by the way, there's another part of the deal here. He said, you've got to marry Ruth. Now, this would upset the man's own inheritance, probably. He had a family, firstborn, land. And under the law, land went to the firstborn male. And so he didn't, he says in verse 6, I can't redeem it for myself, lest I mar my own inheritance.

He didn't want to upset his own inheritance. So that's not necessarily bad. You could reason that under the structure, if there was another one standing, another relative standing in line, that then one could pass it on to the other. And in this case, Boaz, he could do it. The law would be fulfilled. So it's not that this man is necessarily evil. He's given a decision. He's given an opportunity.

And he has to make a decision. And he makes it in his own self-interest, which again, that's life. Don't we all make decisions in our own self-interest? We set up our estates. We go and make our wills. We parcel out and have things set up for our children and for our family.

And, you know, if somebody marries late in life, and you've got, you know, two families you try to come together with, a lot of times you just have to realize that, you know, people have to rewrite their wills. You have to have prenuptial agreements. It gets kind of technical, even today.

And this is what this other kinsman comes to the point. He says, you know, I can't. For whatever reason, he says, I can't redeem it. Now, this was the custom in the former time in Israel concerning redeeming and exchanging to confirm all things. A man would draw off his shoe and give it to his neighbor. This was the attestation.

This was the confirmation in Israel. So the near kinsman said to Boaz, Buy it for yourself. He drew off his shoe. And Boaz said to the elders and to all the people, You are my witnesses this day that I have bought all that was a limilex and all that was kylians and malans of the hand of Naomi. Moreover, Ruth the Moabites, the wife of Malin, have I acquired to be my wife, to raise up the name of the dead upon his inheritance, that the name of the dead be not cut off from among his brethren.

It's one of the reasons for the law that a name within a family would continue. Very, very important. Again, a whole other study and story to understand the importance of that within the plan of God that stretches even to the west, society would be set up to perpetuate God's way of life among the generations. He said, Your witnesses this day, and all the people that were in the gate, the elders said, We are witnesses.

Lord, make the woman that has come to Your house, like Rachel and like Leah, which too did build the house of Israel, and do You worthily in Ephra, and be famous in Bethlehem. Everyone, this is all a legal transaction, and so they make a statement here that actually goes back into the history of the land. It says, You make a house like Rachel and like Leah. Rachel and Leah were the two wives of Jacob, and from them, and the two handmaids, were the twelve sons of Jacob, the foundation of the whole nation.

Those were the twelve founding families of the nation of Israel. And they're saying, in essence, to them, Be like Rachel and like Leah, which did build the house of Israel, and become famous. Let Your house be like the house of Peres. That's a whole other story.

This goes back into Genesis. Peres whom Tamar bore unto Judah of the seed, which the Lord shall give you of this young woman. Peres was born of the same type of situation where Tamar was barren after her husband died, and someone had to raise up. Now, the circumstances were a little bit colorful in that story back there, but this is what is referred to here as they tie it into Ruth and her connection being brought into the Israelite family here.

The bottom line is this. Moaz took Ruth. She became his wife. He went into her. She conceived. She bore his son. And a great blessing.