Ruth: Famine to Family

Well, good morning. Good to see you all. God bless you. God bless us together as we look at His Word some more. I was truly blessed by the instruction and talk of the morning already. I feel we've been richly advised and instructed how to live out the Christ-life already.

For a message this morning, you can turn your Bibles with me to the book of Ruth. Just a—and I'm so excited that God does this to us in the middle of dark times in history. He just brings this short little book of Ruth right in the middle of darkness, of trouble, and judgment, and pain, and all of that, and this truly is a bright spot.

I'd like to go through the whole book. I'm not going to read it for the sake of time, and hopefully we won't take too long, but I want to try to go through and sort of pick out the highlights of it. So in summary, we have the book. It's beginning in a—it opens with famine. It closes with family. It opens with barrenness. It closes with fruitfulness.

It opens with judgment, and it closes with blessing. I'll just read maybe the last couple. Go to Ruth chapter 4, and I want to read beginning in verse 13. "So Boaz took Ruth, and she was his wife. And when he went in unto her, the Lord gave her conception." And we're going to see that this—as we know, I'm guessing this story is very familiar to most of us here, but this lady, Ruth, was married before and could not have children, apparently. And right here it says very clearly, "The Lord gave her conception." "And the woman said unto Naomi," the women said unto Naomi, "Blessed be the Lord which hath not left thee this day without a kinsman, that His name may be famous in Israel.

And He shall be unto thee a restorer of thy life and a nourisher of thine old age. For thy daughter-in-law, which loveth thee, which is better to thee than seven sons, hath borne him. And Naomi took the child and laid it in her bosom and became nurse unto it. And the women—get this—the women—this is the women of the community, her neighbors—gave it a name saying, 'There is a son born to Naomi,' and they called his name Obed. He is the father of Jesse, the father of David." And we follow that down through the father of Jesus.

What an exciting story. So we have this couple by the name of Elimelec. I have trouble saying that sometimes. Elimelech. I might have to say that 10 times. It's a name I don't use every day.

He's married to Naomi, and they flee the land of Bethlehem to get away from the famine. So they go across the mountain or out through—I think according to the map, it could be 60 to 100 miles—to Moab. And God uses this couple to teach us some valuable lessons this morning and to bring this story to a close, the beginning to the end. And we read sort of the end there, the beautiful blessing.

This young lady had a child. It seemed like the child then belonged to the mother-in-law to carry on the family name and so on. So let's see what takes place. What are some of the highlights, and what can we take home as we unpack this beautiful little story here?

One thing we want to notice for sure in this story is God's providence in working out all the details of this story. And I'll go over those in a bit maybe, and just some of the things that stood out to me. And then we notice a conversion taking place when we look at Ruth's life, a true conversion from her background, from her people, from her gods, from her life, her culture. You put the list in there, changing her allegiance to a new God, a brand new people, a new family, a new community, a new everything. And then we see the redemption that takes place. And as we read there in those verses, this man, Boaz, was to be the kinsman—there was a term I believe they used, a kinsman redeemer.

And it says he was a restorer of life, and he was a nourisher of thine old age. Isn't that exciting? That speaks volumes, doesn't it? So let's think a bit about the providence of God. We read much of the miracles of God in both Old and New Testament, miracles that God performs for His own glory, for His own purpose, for the benefit of people. Miracles really excite us, don't they? We read about the crossing of the waters, of the children of Israel, and so on, come into the New Testament.

My wife and I are reading through the book of Acts right now, and there again, there's miracles there. Right after Pentecost, we have Peter and John going to the temple, and this man comes and begs, and they said, "We don't have money, but we give you something better." Performed a miracle, and he rose up and praised God, and he walked for the first time probably in his life.

Miracle after miracle after miracle that we see that Jesus has done. But there's something that God also does throughout life that we often don't take notice, and it's called His providence. And I looked up that word too. In one of the dictionaries, one of the definitions, when we say we can say it's God's divine order, we can say it's sometimes we use the word we use the term that coincidence or it just so happened.

We use those terms, but I think with God, there is no such thing. The one definition gave this idea, and I like this. It says, "For providence, it's prudent management." You see, God does that with evil. Remember Joseph's story when he told his brothers, "You meant it for evil, but God used that same evil, and He used prudent management." That is wise management, and He turned it all around for good. That's providence, the providence of God. And you know that is happening today, every day. It just so happened that I met so-and-so.

We say that sometimes, don't we? Well, you know that's the providence of God. It was interesting. We were at a couple's night here the other week ago at St. Thomas, and they had some of the couples get up and share their testimony and how they met. It's interesting to hear how couples meet. We say, "Well, I happen to be working at a particular place," and so on and so forth. And this person came, and that's the first time we met. It just sort of so happened. But can we put in there that that was God's stepping stone? That was God's way of, "It didn't just so happen." It's God's timing. It's His prudent management. And this stands out in this story.

In His prudent management, He uses people like you and me in everyday circumstances in our daily duties of life, our goings in and out. He uses that, and He uses prudent management to work out His will and His picture, whether we are good or bad.

And that's sort of how He does things. He'll use us when we're bad to accomplish something else of His glory and purpose and honor, but He really prefers our choices. We're going to see in this story, it so happened that when these widows, all three of them were widows, they came back, two of them at least, Ruth and Naomi, they came back right in the beginning of barley harvest.

It so happened it was barley harvest, or was that God's timing? And then when the first day on the jobs as a gleaner, Ruth goes out to the field for gleaning, as was the rules back then for the poor.

And it so happened the first day she went out, out of 100 different fields, she came to Boaz's field. What's the chances? The field that he owned. And it so happened that on the first day of the job, at the clear at the end of the day, it says that Boaz came from his home, and he came out to his field to the gleaners, and, "Oh, who's that young lady there?"

The first day at the end of the day. Boaz wasn't out on the job every day. The reapers had, the harvesters had their instruction. Boaz was the boss, the owner, so on. End of the day, here he comes out on that particular day, and that's how they met, first time. Another one, in chapter 4 we read, when the kinsman that was in line nearer, it says, than Boaz to take on this responsibility to marry her and to take the property and so on, he told her after the proposal that, "I need to go, and I need to go to the courtroom," as we would say, "and do the legal work." So he goes to the courthouse.

I'm going to call it the courthouse. They probably had a different term for it. The elders of the city came, 10 elders, I believe. And it says that when he came to this place, there was this other kinsman that was nearer than him, and they just met there. There was another incident that it didn't seem like there was a lot of planning there, but God was working and orchestrating all this together to make a beautiful story using ordinary situations, no miracle that we see here necessarily.

But there's another important thing. Well, I'll just repeat a testimony in Daniel from Nebuchadnezzar the King, after he was turned out as an animal eating grass and doing weird things. Remember when he came to his senses again, and he sat up, and reality hit. This is a statement he made talking about God. He said, "He doeth according to His will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth, and none can stay His hand."

That's powerful. That is a description of our great God. And if nobody could change God's hand, if somebody could, it could have been Nebuchadnezzar, right, with his authority and intimidation and so on. Another important thing that we notice going on in this story and the coming together on this beautiful marriage and blessing is the choices. So we have God's providence, but we also so on the one hand, we have God in heaven being sovereign.

On the other hand, we have man and the choices we make and how God needs that, and He pulls all together. We need good choices, and we need a God that works out the details. So let's look at the setting first of all. It begins out, the story says, "And it came to pass in the days when the Judges ruled that this thing happened in the middle of somewhere." And I studied, I read through the book of Judges, and I'm like, "Where could I put this story in? About what time? About what chapter of the book of Judges could we fit this thing in?" It happened during. And I've noticed something that I knew before, but it didn't stand out as clear as it did this time when I read it.

We see these cycles through the book of Judges of the children of Israel. I call them the sin cycle. So the cycle is the children of Israel are so prone to chase and turn away from the living God to go after worldly gods.

So they turn away from God, and God withdraws His blessing, and He punishes them or brings judgment upon them. Oh, they can't handle the judgment, and they're distressed. They turn around, and they call on God of heaven again, and God comes to their rescue and takes away the curse or the judgment, and He blesses them again. I don't know how often that was repeated in the book of Judges over and over and over. In fact, it seemed like God was getting tired of it. He told them one place, "Why don't you go and cry out to your foreign gods and see if they can help you in their distress?" That's expressing a little bit of God's emotion, His feelings about this whole thing.

So this is happening right in the middle of all this, and there's a famine in Bethlehem. Now, Bethlehem was the bread basket. That was where the land flowed with milk and honey, and this is the promised land, and there's a drought, there's a famine.

That doesn't fit, does it? So when I looked at the book of Judges in the book of Judges, that was one of the judgments that God told them. He predicted that if you turn away from Me, I'm going to bring a famine. That was one of the prophecies. And here it is, somewhere in the middle of this book or maybe early in the book of Judges, this is happening. Bethlehem is experiencing judgment.

Elijah Malachi and Naomi pack up their family, their two sons, and possibly, maybe as he was out on a clear day, possibly, I'm reading into this, he could see across the Dead Sea, and over there he saw the mountains of Moab.

And there's food there, there's rain there, there's blessing there, and it looked appealing to him, and they escaped. Not a good idea, not with God's blessing. Because remember, the famine in Jerusalem right now at this time at Bethlehem was for a reason. It was to bring again God's people on their face before Him in repentance. And instead, this family said, "We're going to leave. We're going to run away from this trouble. We're going to avoid the repentance, and we're just going to go and try to find life on our own."

Not a good idea. The consequences, for one, they're skipping away from their responsibility to God. They're avoiding repentance, and they're avoiding a lot more yet, as we'll see as time goes through as we look at this story.

He could have they could have thought, so we have two boys here that are about that age where they're going to be interested in marriage. We take them to Moab. The Moabites were not a good bunch of people. They're descendants of Lot, and they're into worldly god worship and in some cases even child sacrificing, so that's no good news. And it was forbidden from the law of Israel to marry of the foreigners. At this point, they were considered foreigners.

So they go over here. Step one, they escape from God's judgment, try to. Number two, the sons marry. Well, I should say back up a bit. This man dies, and then it says the sons marry. So the widow, Naomi, stayed there for a number of years as a widow with her two sons.

The sons get married to these women, Orpha and Ruth, completely ungodly women from what we read. They were foreign god worshipers. Not a good idea.

And Naomi's testimony is her reaction to this is when the senses when it finally hits her what happened to her family and her own life. Can we just pause for a moment and feel for Naomi? So she lost her husband. Now she's a widow, and being widows back then meant something different than being widows today.

The widows couldn't help themselves. I mean, today there's more opportunity in our time, in our country, in our culture, but I mean, they were pretty much left high and dry, the widows of that culture. And now these two daughters-in-law lose their husbands. What in the world is going on?

That is there's a law called sowing and reaping, and I believe this family is reaping firsthand the judgment of God, death. They went to Moab to find life, and they ended up having three burials there instead.

We can't do wrong with God and get by, can we? So now we have this mess, this grieving, this pain, this sorrow, this loss, and Naomi's reaction is she told the women back home that, "God sent me out fool, and I came back empty. I have nothing."

Poor, just pain, emptiness, loss, and all of that she's facing. And she said, "I'm going back to Bethlehem because she got word that there's food back there again."

There's one part of this story I don't know how to think about, and I don't know for sure what was going on in her life. Maybe you have some thoughts. But when Naomi was coming back from Moab back to Bethlehem to find life, the daughters-in-law wanted to go with her big time.

We get that picture. They just pushed their way. And Naomi said, "Don't come with me. Just stay back." Why? When I studied that, I'm like, "I'm trying to pinpoint why." And she even basically told them to go back in their foreign back to their familiar culture, which was foreign gods and all of that, and she knew that. And she encouraged them to go find husbands back in their culture, in their land, amongst their foreign gods.

Why? Did she have her hands full with her own loss? And she wasn't sure how to take them to this new culture. I don't know what was going on there that she just encouraged them. She loved them. I mean, it wasn't like there was a bad relationship. And I don't know how often it says that she it seemed there were at least two very strong attempts with both of the widows, Orpha and Ruth, "Go back. Stay back. Don't come with me." And they were already on their journey.

Well, we know that Orpha, on the third attempt, I believe, or the second or third attempt, Orpha finally said, "Okay," and she turned back. And as far as I know, that's all the history we have of Orpha.

But what about Ruth? Ruth was now walking behind and with her mother-in-law, and her mother-in-law tried it again while after Orpha made her decision. Now she used that yet against her as a pressure and say, "Your sister-in-law, she went back to her life, to her culture, to her foreign gods. Would you go back with her?"

This must have been one of the most difficult things in this grieving process for Orpha or, I mean, for Naomi. I was reminded when I read that of an experience I had as a young fellow at home. I worked for a relative as a hired hand, farmhand in the summer months, and this I traveled there Monday morning with my bicycle and worked there till Saturday evening. I'd bike back home. It's about a five-mile trip.

And we had this family dog that just loved to run with me out in the fields and so on. So when I would leave Monday morning, of course, the family pet, my good old dog, he starts running with me, and I'm like, "Nope, you stay home. Get back. Get back," and I'd stomp at him and he'd get the hint and go back. But he got smart as time went on, and he discovered something. I don't know how dogs think, but I sometimes am intrigued by their intelligence.

So he tried a new trick. He knew I'm leaving. He probably knew where I'm going, and I'm going to be gone all week. So he would sneak out through the fields as I'm heading down the road on my bike. He would take shortcuts through the fields, through the cornfields, through the woods, and he would meet me about two miles out the road. All of a sudden, there's my dog meeting me. I'm here.

Now what are you going to do?

Did you ever try to scoot your best friend away from you? I mean, two miles back home, three miles to the workplace, what do I do? I think he knew that. I'm in a predicament. Maybe I'll take him along this time. No, can't take him over there.

So I would do another trick. Say, "You scoot it on home," and I'd pick up I pretend I'm picking up rocks, and I start doing this, and he takes off running. It worked for a couple of times. He'd run on home. He didn't want to be stoned, but I had no stones. I couldn't throw stones at my best friend. Well, then he got smart to that. He'd meet me out there, particular spot, "Now go home," and he knew I wasn't going to throw rocks.

And one thing I did find that worked. When the corn was tall, I'd tie him to good old heavy-duty corn stalk, and I'd take off pedaling to mean it. By the time he chewed the stalk off, I was gone, and he went home. It did work for a while. I'm just putting myself I know a little bit what Naomi was going through here. I mean, her best friend, one of the only things she had left, she's saying, "You go back. You go back." And now we're going to look at Ruth. What in the world is going on in the heart of Ruth? After that third attempt, Ruth simply says her persistence this part I want to call preparing a bride.

In all the dealings and all the workings of this, God has His hand, and He's using somebody like Ruth to prepare a bride for Boaz. He's preparing a bride for Himself today, and He's going to use people like Ruth. He's going to use people like you and me. Now, what can we learn from the life of Ruth this morning? Her character, her persistence, that God is zeroing in on. First of all, let's look at her background. Ruth didn't have much of a background, did she?

We see that God overlooks the background, and He looks to something deeper because Ruth should have been cut off from the family of Israel. But Ruth said in her heart, "There's something ahead." I believe she had a good inkling that her mother-in-law was going after life. She was going after life. That's the first place they went to Moab for life. Jesus says, "If you seek to save your life, and you do it any other way but through Me, you're going to lose your life." And that's what happened in Moab.

Seeking their life, they lost it, turning around in repentance and going back to Bethlehem. And I believe Ruth had a good idea what's going on at this point and said, "I'm going to go on. I'm going to press my way." She was so persistent after the third try. She said, "I'm not going back. I'm going to be with you," and then she shared her testimony.

Jesus gave us a couple of hints. In one place, He said, "The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure that's hid in a field that when man finds it," what's He say? "He takes it and hides it even harder." I don't quite understand what all that means, and He sells all that He has and buys that field.

I see that going on with Ruth here, just the persistence. Another thought that Jesus brings out, and I don't know for sure what He means by this, but He says, "And from the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force," Matthew 11:12. What does that mean?

I don't know. I don't want to take it out of context. When I read it, I reread it in the context as Jesus saying that the kingdom of heaven has suffered a lot of persecution. There's death. There's pain. There's resistance coming, and Naomi definitely was resisting Ruth. But Jesus turns around and He says, "But the violent take it by force."

What does that mean? Is He suggesting that you and I have to have just enough of Ruth in us that we take this thing with persistence and violence?

I'm going to take this no matter the cost. Jesus said, "Straight is the gate, and narrow is the way that leadeth to life." Ruth was going after life, but to find that life, she had to go through a straight and a narrow gate.

I hate to say it, but it seemed like part of that narrow gate was her own mother-in-law at this point. "Don't come with me." She made it hard for her.

What's the lesson for us?

The Christian life does not have a gate that appears like a bunch of roses and colors and all the glimmering things, does it? The flattering things, but it has an entrance, and there's a cross. But if we become violent like Ruth did, we become persistent, and we know behind that gate and behind that cross is life.

And then Ruth gives her testimony. She told her mother-in-law, "Oh, let's see. Let's just read that." Very familiar. 1:17, "Where thou diest," no, verse 16, "And Ruth said, 'Entreat me not to leave thee.'" This was her last attempt, Naomi's last attempt. "Entreat me not to leave thee or to return from following after thee. For whether thou goest, I will go, and where thou lodgeth, I will lodge.

Thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God." Oh, that is loaded. What is she saying? She is making for herself a new place, a new dwelling, a new people, a new God, and a new cemetery.

You see that? She's cutting off everything. Everything's going to be new, and that's a commitment that she made. You know what this is called? I believe this is an Old Testament conversion. Beautiful. Beautiful. What a testimony. If we realize the choices that Ruth made, the choice right here that Ruth made and the choice that her sister-in-law Orpha made when she caved in and said, "I'm going to go back," and that's zero, I don't know what happened. What was the outcome?

Naomi suggested she went back to her foreign gods, to her way of life, what came out of her life. This could have been very easily the case of Ruth, very easily, and suppose Ruth would have done that, how would David have gotten to Bethlehem?

We wouldn't be singing that little Christmas song, "Beautiful, beautiful star of Bethlehem." This is how Jesus came to Bethlehem, was through this persistent young lady that made choices and commitments. It had not only long-reaching effects in this life, but it had eternal effects. Eternal effects.

What can we learn? We can learn, folks, today that the choices we make today have eternal consequences, and God is going to use that in one way or the other. And in fact, He is looking for hearts like that to build His church.

Remember what He told Peter when He asked Jesus once asked His disciples, "So who do men say that I am?" Well, some say that you're John the Baptist. Some say you're Elias. Some say you're that other prophet and so on. That's not really what Jesus was asking.

It's not really what He was hoping to hear. But who do you say that I am? Ruth said she made a pretty good statement here didn't she? Peter did too. Peter said, "Thou art the Christ." Jesus could have established His church probably a thousand different ways, but He chose to establish His church through a heart like Peter and like Ruth, and He chooses today to establish His bride with hearts like that, testimonies, choices.

The next thing that we see about her life that is beautiful is right away, so she's out here in the new land. Everything's new, new culture, new work, new everything, and right away, she plugs into God's program, and she becomes a gleaner.

This might be a new thing for her. I'm guessing it's the first time she was a gleaner, and she says right away, "I'll go out there," told her mother-in-law, "I'll go out there. I'll be a gleaner." And I'm sure Naomi knew the laws for gleaners and so on and how this works, and you go out, and you just go behind the workers, and you get what they drop. And if you think of the gleaning laws of history, the harvesters were supposed to, on purpose, they're supposed to skip the corners of the fields.

My dad used to be pretty fussy that we get the corners and not skip them, but in this time, they were to skip them on purpose for the poor widows and those coming along. And Ruth says, "Okay, sure. I'll go in. I'll plug right into that system." I think it's a really good system. It's a welfare program God put in place. You know what it did? It encouraged the farmers to be generous.

That's what it was all about on their part. Now, you on purpose leave that and just go over it one time. Don't go over it the second time. First time is yours. Whatever drops is for the poor people. And the neat thing about this, the poor people could go out there and not just sit in their basement and wait for handouts, but they would actually go out there and feel good about themselves that they're actually working. I think that is a neat way that I wonder if the presidents of our country ever thought of a program like that. I think that would work better than just the free handout thing.

What do you think? That was God's way of doing it. And one beautiful thing about her character, she jumps right in and says, "Great,"

right into the program. When Boaz then came out as the owner of this property, there's another character that stands out about Ruth. She fell on her face and bowed herself to the ground and said unto him, "Why have I found grace in thine eyes?" Because he complimented her first, and she responds to that. She's there. She fell on her face. We have the picture of maybe what Joshua was doing when he found there was sin in the camp, is falling on his face. And now, we could say

the well, let's move on. Naomi becomes interested in what's going on out in the field because she knew these redeeming laws that they had in place for the widows. And what I understand from what I read of these persons and kin in relation, there were three things to qualify them to take over the property and everything that goes with it.

The first qualification is they had to be a close relative. The second qualification was they had to be willing, and another qualification was they were to be able. So to redeem doesn't mean they were just to marry a wife in this case. It was also to take all the responsibility that went with her, both financial and socially.

So Naomi is really into this, and so she takes charge of this, and she sends Ruth out to the threshing floor while he is in the evening. They did their winnowing, their threshing or whatever, and then apparently, he had a certain spot. He did that, and Naomi knew that. The other thing Naomi knew about this Boaz is that he did qualify in the first case to be their kinsman redeemer, to take on the widows and everything that went with them. His first qualification was he was a relative, and Naomi seemed to know that.

So she set this thing up for her daughter-in-law to go out there and to meet this man and to impress him and so on. And secretly, I think she was hoping that somehow something good would come out of this.

Remember, these widows are in a survival mode. I mean, they're not just out manhunting. They're also hunting for a protector. They're looking for someone that's going to take care of all their needs.

In fact, that comes out. There was a comment in chapter 3:1, just before the proposal that Naomi was organizing. She told her daughter-in-law, "Shall I not seek rest for thee, that it may be well with thee?" So she wasn't only looking for a man to marry out of just the attractiveness or the romance. It had to do, "It is well with you." So she told her now, I think Naomi had something a little different in mind here than God had in mind, obviously, but did she not tell her to put on her good clothing and put the stuff on or whatever, the lotions and so on, and she'd go out to the threshing floor? Now, wait till after he's in bed, and then you go down to the bottom of their bed, their area, and at his feet.

And did she say, "Lift the cover and nestle yourself right there at the feet of this man?" And then she told her, "Then he will take charge. He will then take over." Now, young brides, is that something? I mean, that sounds a little bit out of culture here, so the and things were we're going to cut Ruth a break. We're really going to cut her a break. So she goes to the threshing floor, and after he's sleeping, and she nestles herself by his feet, and whoa, at midnight, he woke up, and he's scared, and there's a woman at his feet. And then her first response is, "How does she say that?" He says, "She says," she tells him that, "I'm your handmaid."

She's proposing to him. And then she says, "Spread thy skirt over me." That's an interesting word. I did a little study on that word, "Spread your skirt." Now, firsthand, we could say, "Well, this is part of his garment he has on," or maybe some sensual, immoral things are going on here, but dismiss that part because that word skirt is the same Hebrew word that is used in the Old Testament to describe the wings of the cherubims.

You read it, you find it, it's the exact same word. So when we look at Exodus 37 and we see the cherubims spread out their wings over the mercy seat, same word, protection, blessing, care, reverence, honor. I don't know what comes to your mind, but all of those things. And what Ruth is asking of him, she's not asking a small task.

She's not just saying, "Oh, could I be your beloved, your sweetheart?" No, no, no, no, no. She's asking, she's saying, "I come with a baggage. In fact, my mother-in-law and I, we come and we have nothing, and we need help.

We need an overseer. We need a protector, and we need somebody to purchase our land. It's in foreclosure, and it's going to be taken by the inhabitants of the land. We need somebody to pass on the name of those deceased." That's what she's asking for, and Boaz knows that. He knows what's going on.

And you know

now, let's turn to Boaz and let's look at his heart. This part I want to call seeking a bride. Who was Boaz? We have very little information. Who was he? It says he was a relative, chapter 2:1. It says he was a mighty man of wealth, and that is an important part of this story. Let's hang on to that.

And his name was Boaz. That's about the three things that describe him there. Now, let's look at his character. He first notices her on the first day on the job in chapter 2:5, and the first thing he notices about her, the first thing he inquires about her, "Who is she?" Now, was he attracted to her on first sight? I don't know what's going on, but somehow there was an indicator that this is a new person, and there's something unique about her that drew his attention to her.

And then the second thing we notice about her right away on the job, in the fields, in the harvest, he shows favor to Ruth, and he tells the harvesters, he tells her first of all, he says, he tells her, "I want you to surround yourselves with my people. Every time you come back to the field, you make sure you to come to this field, my field. Don't go to all those other fields. Come to my field and then favor the whole way through." He's just pouring out his favor and kindness on her. Why? What's going on?

He's foregoing the gleaning laws. He's telling the harvesters, "Now, you have her up right next to you all," and he instructed them, the young man, "Don't touch her. Just protect her. Bless her. And just drop some barley on purpose.

Just drop it every now and then, and every now and then, just give a handful. Just, just, just load it on her." And then she tells her, "And when they have when you're thirsty and you're out there gleaning, the weather's hot, and you're thirsty, you don't have to worry about going and getting a drink. Just take some of the workers' drink. Help yourself."

And then it's mealtime, and they're sitting down and eating a meal, and he says, "Just come over here and sit and eat with them." See, that was just that was overriding the whole system. Why is Boaz doing this? I mean, she's a foreigner. She's a Moabite.

She's not one of us. And then another thing he instructed her, and she told this to Naomi when she came back home one day, "You know what else he told me? He told me, 'I am to stick with them all the way to the end of the harvest.'" Well, with all his blessings he had already given her, she took home, she took home crops or barley, wheat. They were going, I think, through wheat and barley harvest, and she had plenty. The ephod, how much is that, and how many of those did she take? I don't have that all straight, but what I understand, she had enough of food at home already to see them through a long time.

Freezers are packed. Cans are full. Pantry is overflowing. They already had it. "But he instructed me to stick with them to the end of the harvest." What was that all about?

And then

the night of the proposal, we're talking about Boaz now. So Ruth is there at his feet, tickling his feet or whatever, getting his attention, and he turns and wonders, "Hmm, what's going on?" After the proposal, you know, something stands out here. He says, "He knows, I think he knows exactly how tall this order or expectation is." When she asked him to marry her, it meant, as I said, not just sweetheart. It meant take the whole baggage.

And he says, "Hmm." He just couldn't resist, but whatever Ruth did through all that, she won his heart. That's pretty clear. He turns around, and he blessed her. He blessed her. And he made a commitment. Right after the proposal, he blessed her, then he made a commitment, and he said, "There's one thing and one problem here yet.

I will see that this happens, but there's one that is nearer of kin than me, and we're going to have to do this thing the legal way." He gets first chance, but there's a waiting period. It's not very long, but he reassures her, "Just take your rest. Finish the rest of the night and relax until morning. Then you can go home, and I'm going to see to this matter, but one thing I want you to know, we got you covered one way or the other. If it's not the other guy, it's going to be me."

Can you imagine the suspense, young brides? Can you imagine the suspense when he walked away and said, "We got you covered one way or the other. I don't know if it's going to be me or the other guy, but you're covered?"

And she went home to her mother-in-law and told her the story, and the mother-in-law, it seemed like she had to just hold her down, said, "You just sit still and wait on the Lord." Isn't that good Bible instruction for us all? When God gives his promises, and we don't know how, but God in so many ways has promised that he's got us covered. We don't know how, but we are to wait and to trust the Lord in his timing.

Well, you know, there were two things, three things that stand out to me in this story that just won him over. What are the modern terms we used when somebody, some young lady wins a guy's hearts? What are some of the terms?

What do we how do we say it? She won him over, or he was a catch, or I don't know. There's terms that flow out, but we see now he's persuaded. He's convinced. He's caught. Naomi knows it, and Ruth knows it.

But what is it about her that won him over? Three things really stand out to me, and actually, she asks him that question. She asks him, when he turns to her, "What have I done to gain this favor or this grace from you, this kindness?" And he sort of answers those questions in somewhere in this book, but the kindness really stood out to her. I think that's in chapter 2, maybe verse 11.

When she asks how she's gained this kindness from him, he says, "It was that kindness that I saw and observed in you to your mother-in-law. You treated her very kindly, and you were willing." The other thing that stands out and is attractive to him is that she was willing to leave all her gods, all her whatever, back in Moab and come over him. That was very appealing to him. This is a woman of character, and he even said that. He says, "You're leaving all of that to come here and to trust under the God of Israel." That impressed him. He was so impressed with that.

And you know, there's another thing that stands out that is very attractive to Boaz. Right after the proposal, he is like he didn't say it in these words. I'll put it in my words. "I am flattered that you would choose me over all these young men."

Now, I don't know how old Boaz was. I don't know how old Ruth was, but it does seem there's quite a difference in age because he kept calling her daughter. So maybe he's an old gray-haired man by now, and we know Naomi was old enough that she maybe couldn't bear children anymore.

So Ruth is young, attractive, apparently, and there's a lot of young, attractive men out there, but she chose him over them, and that impressed him. He just appreciated that. That is one thing that attracted to her. What is it about you? Was it the nice clothes that Naomi suggested, or the smells, or the lotions? It was the character. He was looking at character.

Well, he's won. He says, "I'm going to go, and I'm going to do the legal work now. Now we go to the courthouse. Now we meet the elders of the city, and we bring the other man into the picture, and we sit down, and we open the title deed, using my terms." I did a little research. What was going on here in this system?

So I understand if I read history that in their culture and the way they did their property deeds, they had a big old scroll document with the title or the property description on the one side of the scroll when it had a clear title.

That was basically the description. You know, today when we buy a property, the attorneys tell us that we are wise, or the banks even require it, "You are wise to go and do a title search. Pay an attorney and search the title to make sure there's no lien against it. There's no unknown debt behind this that is put against this property."

So they come to the courtroom, and this closer kin, well, the books were open, and this other relative, now remember, first of all, he qualifies because he's a relative. Secondly, he qualifies because he is willing. When it was brought out to him about the property, he said, "Oh, yeah, yeah. I'll purchase this property." So this is a foreclosure as we know it. This property is going to have to change hands because the men all died. The ladies can't keep it, and it's up for sale.

If nobody is here to purchase it, it's going to go back to the inhabitants of the land.

Second qualification passed. When it came to the third qualification, and they opened, they turned the scroll, or they turned the document, on the backside of the document, this property has a lien behind it.

You take the property, you take the debt, and in this case, the debt was the widows and their need. And he told this man this. His name is not mentioned. We don't know why. Close relative. The writer maybe was wise to disguise his name here because of embarrassment, because of we don't know.

But this Mr. So-and-so said, "No, thank you." So he was qualified number one, qualified number two. On the third qualification, he flunked. "I'm not able. The baggage is too big. The cost, the debt, the lien is too stiff. I can't." And he walks away. I don't know if I'm trying to put myself in Boaz's shoes at that point. Was he excited? Was he happy? Was he sad? What were his emotions like when this other kin walked away and said, "I can't. I'm not able"? Okay. He took it. Boaz was qualified, and he took it. And he took the title as it was. It was an unclear title. Now, this port that it says he was a rich man.