Ruth Chapter 2 – Being Led by God

Ruth Chapter 2: Video Transcript

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Have you ever wondered if you've missed God's will for your life? Well, today in Ruth chapter 2, we're going to look at a divine meeting. I like to call it a divine lunch date. It's very, very important that Ruth meets Boaz.

In fact, if they do not meet, there are no angels in the heavens singing, "Glory, hallelujah, for unto us a savior is born. There are no shepherds around a manger in Bethlehem. praising baby Jesus because Jesus would not be born unless Ruth and Boaz meet. And it's very interesting in the King James we see that scripture uses this term hap. It was Ruth's hap to go to Boaz's field.

And this is the English word where we get happen stance, happening, perhaps and happiness. And it really means favor by divine. Well, it really means favor by luck. I wanted to put the word divine luck, but it actually doesn't have the word divine in it.

It's chance, favor, luck. Why would God use that word in scripture when talking about a most serious important meeting? We're going to talk about that. And I pray that you glean some truth as we go over the scriptures and apply it to your life because I I really believe that this teaching will bring you peace and joy when you are searching for what God wants you to do in life.

So, thanks for joining us. This is a sermon from our house church, Living Stones Fellowship, and I look forward to hearing from you in the comments. Feel free to ask questions. God bless you.

All right, we're looking at Ruth chapter 2. We talked about Ruth chapter 1 last week, some very interesting things. Anybody remember? Yeah.

Well, at the at the very beginning, just verse one where it says, "Then days when the judges ruled, there was a famine in the land and the certain man of Bethlehem of Judah went to Zion in the country of Moab. He, his wife, and his two sons." This person went to a foreign country because it was a family and they didn't trust the Lord. Let's uh rely on man instead of on God. So that's Elimelech.

So that's Naomi's husband. Elimelech. Elimelech, do you remember what that his name means? God is my king.

God is my king. And Naomi, his wife, her name means my delight. But he leaves Bethlehem, which is the house of bread, and Judah, which is the city of praise, and he goes to Moab. And God calls Moab my garbage can.

Why? Because we learned in Genesis that when Lot was delivered, you know, his wife looked back, she turns to Salt. Lot and his two daughters are up in the mountains. And what do the daughters do?

First, they don't believe that God is able to give them an offspring. So it's again a juxtaposition of Moab was created out of faithlessness because the two daughters said, "Well, there's no one left, so we're going to get our father drunk and have incest with him." And so the eldest did it first and she birthed Moab, which means of my father. We also learned that the Moabites were always against the Jews. There was a famous king named Balak who tried to influence a famous prophet for prophet Balaam.

So Balak was a king of Moab and he really wanted to entice Balaam to curse the Jews and Balaam tried but then God turned it into a blessing. Remember that? And then they were always trying to fight the Jews. Solomon married Moabitess women and they worshiped the god Chemosh and led Solomon astray.

So Moab is not a prosperous city in the eyes of God or in the eyes of the Jews. So Elimelech, my God is my king, leaves the house of bread and the city of praise for a garbage country. So we called this the prodigal family. And what begins to happen?

Well, their two sons marry Moabitess women. One was Orpah and the other was Ruth. And those are two sisters. So Orpah and Ruth are Moabitess.

And they marry the two brothers. What happens? Elimelech dies. Then the two sons die.

And so you have three widows. Naomi, the Jewish woman, Ruth, and Orpah. Naomi changes her name to what? Mara, which means bitter.

Bitter. So, she goes from my delight to bitter. This is crazy. And out of all of this, we we also are watching for, remember, we're watching for the correlation of people who believe in God and are blessed even if they're foreigners.

Uh, the correlation of Jesus through this book. Boaz is a type of Christ. Boaz is a type of Christ. And we're going to learn about Boaz this week.

But what we see is that out of all the people, it was the Moabitess Ruth who makes the famous statement, "Where you go, I will go. Where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people will be my people. Your God will be my God.

Where you die, I will die." That's the statement of faith from Ruth. She clings a hold of Naomi. Naomi is telling the sisters, "Go back to your old gods. find a husband. Go back to your gods.

Let me be alone. I'm going to travel back to Bethlehem. And Orpah cries tears. There was another person who shed some tears.

Judas shed tears after betraying Christ. And Judas gave a kiss. Orpah gave her mother-in-law a kiss. But then we looked at the day of the resurrection.

We had three people at the tomb. Peter, John, Mary, Magdalene, Peter and John end up slinking back home. Mary stays and she's crying and she gets to meet Christ and it says she clung to him. Amen.

And that's that same faith. Faith clings. And so Mary Magdalene, who was an outcast and she had seven demons cast out of her, she wasn't like the disciples. She sees Christ.

Ruth clings to the promise. Yeah. And who comes out of Ruth's lineage? Jesus.

Jesus does. Jesus. This is something we really need to understand. This is a beautiful thing.

And when we understand this, okay, two women receive the promise and get to have really closeness to Christ. And both of those women are outcast. Think of that. The people who were with Christ, the disciples, the people who were in the no, they weren't around.

And the woman Naomi, who was the child of promise of the Israelites, who should know her God, was the one saying, "God has cursed me." So, she has no faith. She's bitter and she's angry at God. So, you have the foreign woman of a foreign nation of foreign gods being faithful to the God, the Lord Almighty. What do you think of that thoughts?

Yes. It's like the shoes of the Israelites who crucified Christ. Paul said that because he rejected Christ after the Gentiles. Ruth is unstoppable in her faith.

She stands her ground. She clings to the promise. Death couldn't stop her. Sorrow could not stop her.

Rejection and being despised could not stop her. But money stopped Judas. Fear stopped Peter. Uncertainty stopped John.

What's stopping you? Nothing. Okay. David made a statement of faith right now.

This is what we're going to learn from Ruth. When you make a statement, when you make a commitment, because faith is a commitment, then follow through. Amen. Yeah.

Let's follow through. If you say nothing's stopping me, then determine in your heart nothing's stopping you. See, what we learn from an Old Testament foreigner is that she caught the mind of Christ. Because the mind of Christ is orchestrating everything.

The mind of Christ made everything. We read in Colossians that it was Christ who created all things seen and unseen. So you think Christ is determining his lineage when he decides to come into this world and through which lineage? So Christ is looking down upon his creation and saying, "Where should I go?

Whose lineage should I be? Oh, look at this. Look at this woman. Wow, I love it." And we also talked about Elisha, remember?

Because I also said Ruth is like Elisha. Now there was Elijah and Elisha. Elijah was first. Elisha is the protege and something's happening.

So Elijah is going to be called up to heaven. No one knows when. The school of the prophets are saying, "Hey, he's going to be called." Elijah, like Naomi, keeps telling Elisha, "Just sit back. Go back home.

Just take it easy. Don't follow me. I'm going to go on ahead. You stay back.

And Elisha kept saying, "No, as surely as God lives, I'm following after you." And it it goes on numerous times. And then Elijah says, "What do you want?" And Elisha says, "I want a double portion." And that's asking a lot. Elijah said, "But if you see me when I leave, you will have it." And sure enough, he saw it because he didn't he didn't get distracted. He didn't listen to the school of the prophets.

And he didn't even listen to the man of God. Can you believe it? Ruth didn't listen to her mother-in-law. Who made sense?

Look, let's just put oursel in this day and age. You're a single widow. Young. She's young.

They lived there 10 years. Okay. So, uh they married pretty young. So, I would say she's in her 20s.

Okay. And she's got her whole life ahead. But if she goes with her mother-in-law, she's going to go to a foreign nation and she's basically saying, "I'm entering into poverty and widowhood for the rest of my life." And Ruth was okay with that. Orpah wasn't.

And people couldn't understand this. What would drive this woman? Commitment, faith. That's what drove Ruth.

She probably saw the tremendous difference between how her family, her Jewish family was versus her country. And she probably was like, I don't want anything of that country anymore. Because she understood it was not good. Ruth began to know the living God, and that set her apart.

And so, she was going to pursue the living God over everything else. There's almost this correlation between Ruth's faith and being used by God. to to basically be the lineage of Jesus Christ where Mary is the one who actually, you know, was chosen by God to give birth. So to me, they're almost like a they're just women that were found with tremendous favor and yet the Catholics don't elevate Ruth, which you know what I'm trying to say? The Catholics elevate Mary, but not Ruth, but both had faith.

And Mary is different than Mary Magdalene, of course, but Mary, Mary Magdalene, Ruth, these are women of tremendous faith who did not go astray when distraction came, when persecution came. Think of Mary at the birth of Christ, and it's prophesied that her heart's going to be pierced with a sword, right? So, what she would go through. Amen.

So key, we said this. Refuse to slip back home whenever the idols beckon. Refuse to slip back home whenever the idols beckon. When you live by true conviction of faith without any false expectations, no circumstance in life will deter you.

Now, as we enter into chapter 2, I want to ask you a question. Have you ever wondered if you missed God's direction in life? Thinking, "Why doesn't God just tell me what to do?" Victoria still there? Yeah, I'm here.

I'm here. I'm just shouting you out, giving you a call out, cuz this is something I'm sure you're thinking of. Well, let me help you all. Be faithful where you are and let God handle the details.

So, I've titled Ruth chapter 2, a divine meeting. Now, the first thing we're going to see as a faithful man, point number one, a faithful man. Someone read verse one and two, please. And Naomi had a kingsman of her husbands, a mighty man of wealth of the family of Elimelech, and his name was Boaz.

And Ruth the Moabitess said unto Naomi, "Let me now go to the field and glean ears of corn after him, in whose sight I shall find grace." And she said unto her, "Go, my daughter." Kinsman means relative. So some translations will say, "And there was a relative of Naomi's husband." Look at this. A man of great wealth. So here's what we see about Boaz.

Boaz is a man of wealth. A mighty man of wealth. Is that wrong? No.

Is there anything negative about this connotation? this cuz there's a lot of progressive Christianity that's come in and said like, "Oh, you know, if you're Jesus was against the wealthy. Jesus was against the class of of people who are well off." No, he wasn't. The problem is is when people trust their wealth over God or ill got in game. Now look at this.

Boaz means fleetness. That means the quality of being swift, rapid or having great speed. And we're going to see that he it definitely can be said Boaz is not wasting time in making decisions. Okay.

Now the third thing is is Boaz is also known as the pillar of strength. Literally Boaz's great great great grandson was King Solomon. And in 2 Chronicles 3:15-17, I'm going to read this. This is talking about Solomon building the temple.

And Solomon made in front of the temple two pillars 35 cubits high. That's about 52 1/2 ft tall, pretty tall. And the capital that was on top of each of the pillars was 5 cubits. He made wreaths of chain work as in the inner sanctuary and put them on top of the pillars. and he made 100 pomegranates and put them on the wreath of the chain work.

Then he set up the pillars before the temple, one on the right hand and one on the left. He called the name on the one on the right Jachin, and the one on the left he named Boaz. Isn't that interesting? Boaz is literally a symbol of a pillar of strength.

And Solomon named one of the pillars in the temple after him. Very interesting. Now, what we also notice is that well, Ruth and Naomi are very poor. What are they doing?

They're cleaning after harvest. Yeah. Glean heads of grain in the harvest. So, that's the leftovers as people are harvesting the fields.

Ruth is going to glean the leftovers. Literally picking up the crumbs. And this shows the state of poverty that Ruth and obviously her mother-in-law Naomi are in. Now I want us to understand what is Ruth doing.

So they've come into Bethlehem. Ruth is a foreigner. Is Ruth going after her own life? Is she going to the tavern trying to see if there's any single men?

No. Is she trying to build her own business? No. Now she's taking care of her mother-in-law because she made the commitment.

Now God didn't say you have to do this, Ruth. She was free to stay. She was free to marry. But when she made that commitment, where you go, I will go.

Where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people will be my people. Your God, my God. Where you die, I will die.

Ruth meant it. So, she's dead to her future life. She's not thinking about that. What she's thinking about is working hard to take care of her mother-in-law first and foremost.

I just want us to appreciate that beautiful heart of hers. Can we agree? Yeah. Now, here's the law.

Leviticus 23:22 says this, "When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not wholly reap the corners of your field. When you reap, nor shall you gather any gleanings from your harvest. You shall leave them for the poor and for the stranger. I am the Lord your God." So that's the law.

I I love that. That's the law built into their system of economics to help the poor and the immigrant, the foreigner. Yep. And that's a whole another discussion and you can watch my YouTube videos on that.

One thing of note, God is very kind to the immigrants, but the immigrants were under the law of the land. They were required to obey the law of the land. Just going to put that out there. Okay.

The second thing we're going to notice is God is working behind the scenes. That's point number two. Now, someone I want to have someone read verse three only. Verse three.

Then she left and went and gleaned in the field after the reapers. And she happened to come to the part of the field belonging to Boaz who was the family of Elimc. Well, what do you think about verse three? Anything there or we want to move on?

Happened to come across a part of she didn't just happen. It was God's divine direction. Well, what's the scripture say? And she happened to stop at the part of the field belong to my King James friends.

What does it say? It says a very strange thing actually. The King James says, "And her hap was to lie on a part of the field belonging unto Boaz." Does that make you want to ask a question? That makes me want to ask what does it mean in modern day English?

Okay. So, thank you for that. Well, let's talk about it because the King James, I love that part because the King James says her half was on the field. Okay.

So first of all in the Hebrew it's miqreh which means an accident or fortune something to be fallen a chance event. The English root of happiness is this is old Elizabethan English. The root of happiness is hap. The root of perhaps happen stance haphazard and happen is hap.

Hap means chance luck or fortune. This is why I always say joy is different than happiness. Happiness means getting uh there's a happen stance which makes you excited. Joy is not based on any circumstance.

So what we read in the words of scripture is that by chance by accident something happened and Ruth happened to go to the field of Boaz. And we'll read, "Boaz happened to be returning from Bethlehem." Now, let's ask a question here. Did Ruth pray? No.

Did Ruth have a dream? Did Ruth have a vision? Did Ruth hear a voice from heaven saying, "Go right into this field?" Nope. But let's look at what's at stake.

If Ruth doesn't go into the right field and if Boaz isn't happen to be there, then you can kiss the uh wise men goodbye because we don't need the wise men coming into Bethlehem. The shepherds, we can tell them to go home. We don't need them. There's not going to be any angelic hosts because there's no baby Jesus.

So wait, let's just think about this. The greatest event to happen for humanity, the birth of the savior, is based off HAP. Now, let me clarify from our perspective, we're just doing our thing. Ruth was faithful.

She's not being distracted. She's doing what she set out to do. And what we see from scripture is God's doing what he's going to do. Sometimes we think too highly of oursel.

We think, "I think I could mess up the plans of God. If I don't hear correctly, if I don't do correctly, what if I sin? Maybe God's entire universe will fall apart." You know who's the center of the world, of the universe. And that thought you.

But you're not. And I'm not. God is. Thank goodness.

And I think it's time for some people to relax a little, to be encouraged that, you know, you might not know what to do. You might not hear from God. You might not have a vision, but you're just going to be faithful where you are. You're going to be faithful to God.

You're going to love your neighbor. You're going to read the word of God. Pray. What did we start this whole year off?

We started this year off talking about being led of God. Remember New Year's resolutions, people resoluting not to make resolutions. Well, what was one of the key scripture verses? Psalms Psalm 32:8-9.

God says, "I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go. I will guide you with my eye. Do not be like the horse or like the mule, which have no understanding, which must be harnessed with bit and bridal, else they will not come near you." And we really talked about that. So what we're looking at here is that if we're faithful to Christ, we don't have to know the answers.

We have to trust that there's times that God's working on your behalf and you don't even know it. We walk by faith and not by sight. Yeah. We walk by faith, not by sight.

And walking by faith means doing what you committed to do, obeying God and his word. I don't know, helping out someone in need. Go and witness. few months ago. Um, you know, it's about 10 o'clock at night and I'm feeling sort of hungry for a snack.

I live close by Safeway. Safeway is open. So, I happened to go to Safeway and happen to drive there and there happens to be a woman working the checkout line that I happened to talk to about Christ and happened to pray for and happened to give her one of our scripture verses of our church of encouragement. Or was that all happen stance or was that me going somewhere because I'm hungry and God using that and setting up and she wasn't there ever again at that time.

I haven't seen her since. So God setting that whole thing up where it was more than just a snack thoughts. Almost sounds like Calvinist. Okay.

Almost sounds like Calvinist. In what ways do you think? Cuz everything is ordained. Well, it's not Calvinist.

I mean, you know what I mean. what it sounds like, you know, it's like, yeah, you you prepare a lot, but you know, the steps are already ordained by the Lord. Yeah. Which is what Proverbs says, right? A man plans his way, but his steps are ordained by the Lord.

So, let's, you know, a little little bit of of Calvinism. One thing Calvinism believes is the sovereignty of God. Now, the Bible says God is sovereign. Now, where Calvinism gets wrong, and there's a lot of places, but to keep it brief, where Calvin gets wrong, and John Calvin did this, was he believed that God pre-ordained people to heaven or hell regardless of faith.

And that is something beyond scripture because we never see anywhere in scripture that says faith is predestined or he knew faith right before the foundation of the world. No, the Bible says faith comes by hearing and hearing the word of God. And Jesus said this is the work of God to believe on me. Ruth, she decided to make her declaration of faith.

So, she made the declaration of faith. She was faithful to work in the field and God led her divinely. But let's back up. If Ruth was faithless and went back to the idols, would Jesus be in the lineage of Ruth?

No. No. No. So Jesus would have had to find someone else.

So God is sovereign in the sense that God knows all things. He's all present. He's all powerful. But he's not all controlling.

And the amazing ability of God's sovereignty is that in our choices, whether good or bad, God still gets his plan eventually. A great example of this is with King Saul. Samuel was upset because the people said, "King Saul," and Samuel says, "You know what's going on here?" And God says, "Well, what's going on is they've rejected me as king. So give them Saul." So wait a second.

God had a plan and the people rejected that plan. So God went ahead and let the people do it. But God still got his kingdom through David because the Messiah was always going to come through David. So God still orchestrated his divine ordinance, his divine sovereignty, but he did so without taking away free will.

Yeah. So that's where Calvin gets got it wrong. Calvin got it wrong. And so there's various Calvinists like Jay Vern Mc McGee.

We're going to hear from him. He's a Calvinist, but there's degrees of Calvinist. And so he was preaching in the 60s. And he's going to say he actually doesn't believe as a Calvinist, he doesn't believe that people are pre-ordained to heaven or hell.

He says that's uh hypercalvinism. But in today's a lot of churches, a lot of reformed churches all are hypercalvinist. So it's sort of interesting. But what we have to do is we have to focus on scripture.

I don't look at John Calvin's writings. I don't look at Martin Luther's writings. I look at scripture and then we see how God works. So here we see that God worked behind the scenes but never took away Ruth's choices.

But the great thing that we can understand too is Ruth wasn't there trying to get a sign, trying to have a vision, have a dream. God, where do you want me to go? All she wanted to do was be faithful to Naomi. There's a lot of rest in this.

Yes. Was Ruth worried about a husband? No. No.

No. In her mind, she was her womb was dead. She's already determined to die of a widow foreigner. Sometimes it's best to get out of our own way and just be like, I'm going to follow God, follow his word, and he's going to do what he's going to do.

Okay, here's the key. God is able to make everything work out right for you. You just remain faithful to him. Proverbs 3:5-6, we know this.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct your paths. So, right there, we know we want God to direct our paths, but there's some things we need to do.

Trust. Don't lean on your own understanding. And I love verse six. Acknowledge him.

Acknowledge him. Don't be acknowledging yourself. He was looking for that scripture. says, "Nothing will forth the plans of God." That I can't. Well, here's what Job 42:2 says.

I know that you can do all things and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted. So, maybe that's what you were thinking. Job 42:2. Interestingly, interestingly enough, we're going over Job.

So, that's Tuesday. I like Isaiah 46:10 declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient of times things not yet done saying my counsel shall stand and I will accomplish all my purpose says God. So God declares the end from the beginning. Now the hypercarismatic movement has put that on us that we declare the end from the beginning.

No, it's God who does that. I've been in Daniel. So here's Daniel 4:35. All the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing.

And he does according to his will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth. And none can say to his hand or say to him, "What have you done?" Yet, we still have the freedom of choice and free will. But at the end of the day, nothing's going to thwart God. Now, let's look at Boaz, a figure of Christ.

So, let's look at verse 4 through 6. Now behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem and said to the and said to the reapers, "May the Lord be with you." And they said to him, "May the Lord bless you." Then Boaz said to his servant who was in charge of the reapers, "Whose young woman is this?" The servant in charge of the reapers replied, "She is the young Moabitess woman who returned with Naomi from the land of Moab Moab." Okay. And let's read verse seven, too. And she said, "Please let me glean and gather after the reapers among the sheeps." Because she came and has uh remained from the morning until now.

She has been sitting in the house for a little while. Boaz is a larger than life figure. So this mighty man of wealth, this pillar of strength is a hard worker who's returning from Bethlehem and he's booming out blessings in the name of the Lord to his workers. and his workers are responding blessings in the name of the Lord back to him. How would you like a work environment like that?

A good God-fearing boss, hard at work. His workers are hard at work. There's ministry in their work. There's joy in it.

When Boaz comes on scene, everybody notices. Everybody notices this booming, strong man. He's a man full of joy. He's a man full of prosperity.

He's a man full of love. He loves his work. He loves his workers. He loves his God, the Lord Almighty.

And we're going to see he's going to love a woman. Do you want to hear uh a short clip from J. Vernon McGee? He sees it.

And what happens? Well, our translation says, "Whose damsel is this?" May I say to you, friends, that's very stealthy Elizabethan English. That's really not what he said. Now, I've had one or two Hebrew professors that faint when I give this translation, but I want to say this is closer to it than the translation we got.

Here it is. Is what he said. My friend, that was a Hebrew wolf call if you want to call it that. You know what's happened?

Whose damsel is this? Oh, he says, "Who is she? Why haven't I met her before?" and he was I think the most acceptable bachelor in Bethlehem. All the mothers had given tea to invited him and he just hadn't taken the bait.

Now here is a girl that comes in his field, a moabitish girl. He doesn't know who she is. There she is. And this is love at first sight.

Now somebody's going to say to me, "Pastor McGee, do you believe in love at first sight?" I sure do. I proposed to my wife the second date that we ever had. I took her out to a little park by the Santa Fe track and the highway from Fort Worth to Cleburne, Texas. And I drove in there on my second date and I proposed to her and there was a lovely Texas moon that night.

I thought that was it. And friends, you know the reason I didn't propose to her the first night? I just didn't want her to think I was in too big a hurry. I waited.

You see, and that was the next night. And I believe in love at first sight, but don't get any wrong ideas. We waited a year before we got married for the very simple reason we wanted to make sure that it was real. And it was all right.

That's awesome. Awesome. I love it. You know, and he lived a life full of love with his wife and a life full of ministry.

No compromise. A man of God. And all of his messages through the Bible. a little clip on that through the Bible. Takes you five years to go through.

He goes through every verse in the Bible on on his radio shows and that has been translated in over a 100 languages around the world and they give out these uh media players, MPEG 3 players that are solar powered to these villages that have no um no anything. And there are hundreds of thousands of house churches that are house churches and they listen to a McGee sermon and then they fellowship and talk about it and they get into their word and I I present to you that's amazing. Mhm. Praise God.

Yeah. So I've learned a lot from him and I just want to give credit where it's due. So and what a beautiful beautiful account. I thought Victoria might like that with the Texas moon.

You know, sometimes we easily go through so many verses and we're reading and we're reading too fast. Yeah. I never noticed in verse 4 that he blesses his workers and they bless him. Yeah.

Now, let's read verse 8 through13 and let's pay attention to the dialogue here. Then Boaz said to Ruth, "Listen, my daughter, do not go to glean in other field or leave this one, but stay here close to my maidens. Watch which field they reap, and follow them. Have I not charged the young man not to molest you?

And when you are thirsty, go to the vessels and drink what the young men have drawn?" Then she fell on her face, bowing to the ground, and said to him, "Why have I found favor in your eyes that you should notice me when I am a foreigner?" And Boa said to her, "I have been made fully aware of all you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband, and how you have left your father and mother in the land of your birth, and have come to a people unknown to you before. The Lord recompense you for what you have done, and a full reward be given to you by the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge." And she said, "Let me find favor in your sight, my Lord, for you have comforted me and have spoken to to the heart of your maidservant, though I am not as one of your mates." Amen. What stands out to you in this dialogue between Boaz and Ruth? Boaz demonstrated incredible concern for her and her provision, her protection right down to get if she's thirsty, get you know that he was looking after her and protecting her and I just that was a great way of showing that.

Amen. Clearly he loved her already. You know, if I could leave there. I think you can.

Yeah. I think the reason why he was all saying this because he saw how she was committed to Naomi, how she took care of Naomi and Naomi and as he explained, you know, Naomi, she was an Israelite and and she was a Moabitess and even from as a foreigner took care of of a Jewish person. Yeah. So that how she took care of it. in verse 12 um the Lord repay your work and your full reward be given you by the Lord God of Israel under whose wings you have come for refuge stolen her face and uh down to the ground said to him uh why have I found favor in your your sight uh you should take notice of me she she was being thank thankful I would say you know yeah very humble thankful to work for him I guess it's almost like Mary again that you have found favor in the same parallel with Mary and the angel Gabriel.

Yeah. And I thought verse 11 was interesting because it shows cuz Boaz says, "It has been fully shown to me all that you have done to your mother-in-law." So, it seems right here that Boaz must have inquired, you know, like he knew something. It wasn't just that he saw her and was like, "Oh, she looks pretty." there's a lot more to it because he knew what a faithful and um upright and and caring and selfless person she was. So he might have been doing a little research.

Yeah. Hey, that's a great thing to do. You know, for the young people who will listen to this, look, you're interested in someone, look at their character. Very, very important.

So he knew her character before any of this. I think Tulis, you know, here Naomi comes back and it's comes back to her hometown and I'm sure everybody was talking about it and then she's got this Ruth with her and and now people are talking about that. What's this all about? You know, so yeah, I'm sure it caused quite a stir.

Yeah. And one thing J. Vernon McGee talked about the town gossip. Uhhuh.

But this is very interesting because the gossip coming out of this town Bethlehem was good. Yeah, it was good. They couldn't find something wrong with this woman. She's a foreign Moabitess and they're talking good about her.

Wow. I've looked at some key attributes of Boaz and compared him to Christ. So the first thing we see is Boaz provides Ruth with work and Christ provides us with the kingdom work. And we can see the parable in Matthew 21-16, right?

Where people are working all through various times of the day. But the reward, the same reward is given to each. We have work to do and Christ has prepared work for us. Isn't that beautiful?

Some of the worst feelings you can feel is when you feel purposeless, but Christ has given us kingdom work. Boaz provides Ruth a community of other young women. He says, "Be around the other young women." Well, Christ provides his body with church community. Colossians 3:16 says, "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching, admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness and your hearts to God." That's a community of fellowship.

That's important. Boaz provides Ruth with sustenance and a future, and Christ provides his church with all our needs. Philippians 4:19 says, "But my God shall supply all your needs according to his riches and glory by Christ Jesus." Boaz provides Ruth with protection from young men. Christ is our hiding place, preserving us from trouble, surrounding us with deliverance.

Psalm 32:7 says, "You are a hiding place for me. You preserve me from trouble. You surround me with shouts of deliverance." And Hebrews 13:6 says, "We can confidently say, the Lord is my helper. I will not fear.

What can man do to me?" And finally, Boaz provides Ruth with water when thirsty. And in John 7:37-38, we see that Jesus is the living water for us. Jesus stood and cried out, saying, "If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. He who believes in me, as the scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water." Isn't that interesting?

Now, here's another thing that stood out to me. Ruth is a figure of the church. The first thing we understand is Ruth understands Boaz's grace. Remember, a word for grace, charis in the Greek, is favor.

Well, we as the church of Christ understand what Romans 5:8-11 says. But God demonstrates his own love toward us and that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Much more than having now been justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. For if when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his son, much more having been reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.

And not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have received the reconciliation. The second thing is Ruth left her life, her parents, her land and community. Jesus says in Matthew 19:29, "Everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or fathers or mother or wife or children or lands for my name's sake shall receive a hundredfold and eternal life." So we like Ruth as a church, we give up all for Christ. The third thing is Ruth sought refuge under the wings of the Lord.

Boaz reminds us of that. Well, we are to seek shelter in Christ. Psalm 91:4 says, "He will cover you with his pinions, and under his wings you will find refuge, his faithfulness as a shield and a buckler." And finally, Ruth calls Boaz her Lord, her comfort, and her kindness, even though she's a foreigner. And check this out.

As the church, we're foreigners, and we cry out to Christ as our Lord, our comfort, and our kind king. Look at Ephesians 2:12. Remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. Isn't this cool?

Wow. And the Holy Spirit was giving this download to me last night. So Boaz is a type of Christ and Ruth is a type of the church. You can just see it.

Okay. The harvest is ripe and plentiful. Well, what's the harvest? The seed is the word of God.

The seed is what sprouts up the harvest of 30, 6000 of grain. Ruth is gathering grain. It's everywhere. Do you see the symbolism is everywhere?

Yeah. But how easy it is to just overlook. So when we have a harvest of God's word in our life, we're able to go out and minister. And we've talked about this.

Is it God's will that you just witness all the time? Absolutely not. It's God's will that you know his word and then witness because there's a whole bunch of people who witness. They're called Jehovah's Witnesses.

They go door to door. Mormons go doortodoor. They're spending their life witnessing. They go on mission trips witnessing and they're witnessing a false gospel to people.

So I'd rather you learn rightly the word of God and then share it. Okay. Someone read verse 14- 16. And Bo said unto her, "At meal time, come thou hither and eat of the bread, and dip thy morsel in the vinegar." And she sat beside the reapers.

And he reached her parched court, and she did eat, and was sufficed, and left. And when she was risen up to glean, Boaz commanded his young men, saying, "Let her glean even among the sheav, and reproach her not, and let her fall some of the handfuls of purpose for her, and leave them, that she may glean them, and rebuke her not." Amen. Things that stand out to you, being, not getting rebuked for it. Yep.

So Boaz said, "Don't rebuke her. Let her get more than enough." Right. Yeah. I see God's favor.

I don't know if she realized at that point that this was being gifted to her. You know, she probably she's working all day on hands and knees gleaning. Right. Well, you go in a line.

If you've ever seen harvesting in a field, like now they have the big machinery, but you're going in a straight line up and down the field. So, everybody's spread out, but they're all going straight. So who's in front of Ruth is dropping more than enough handfuls of purpose. She's So she her line, she's just getting a lot.

So So everybody's in their own line. And it's like, wow, this this reaper's not doing a good job reaping. Keeps dropping everything. It's it's a it's a game of blessing.

And you know that that uh Boaz's employees, they're filled with joy. I mean, we see it. The Lord bless you. The Lord bless you.

And Boaz is a man of mighty wealth. Well, his everybody working with him is well off. You're working for a mighty man of wealth who is a man of God. He's not stingy.

So, they're well taken off and they're they're having fun dropping things for Ruth. And that's the beautiful thing. Now, this is cool. We start out with their first lunch date.

Okay. Now, this isn't common for, you know, the a mighty man of wealth. First of all, you wouldn't see him working in the field with the laborers, but Boaz is. And not only that, come eat lunch with me, Ruth.

Look at this. Eat the bread. Dip your piece of bread in the vinegar. What does that remind you of?

The last supper. The last supper. Who's with Jesus laying in Jesus's bosom? John.

John. Jesus said, "Dip this here with me, John. I'm going to tell you who's going to deny me." Okay, Lord. John's dipping.

Our church, we eat together. Yeah, it's different. Eating together breaks down walls. Eating together forms fellowship of depth.

These were called the love feasts in the early church. Now, there was abuse with those. We've talked about because people started getting drunk. People started hoarding food.

People started being gluttonous. A disaster. disaster feast. And since then, churches don't do a lot of eating together. Now, there might be potlucks or lunches once a month, but we eat together before every service.

That's not common, but this is something that the early church did. It's again, Ruth and the church, I could have put that in there. The early church, they ate together. Ruth is invited to have lunch.

And not only that, it's fellowship with the mighty man. So, she's invited into fellowship right then and there. And to me, that really just popped up. But also notice verse 14.

She ate and was satisfied and kept some back. Okay, maybe underline that because what we're going to see is even though this amazing blessing, even though she's invited to lunch with Boaz, even though she's obviously seeing his mighty blessing, she's not thinking about herself. She's thinking of Naomi. So, right there, we see her character just keeps getting greater in my eyes because she's not saying, "Oh, maybe this could be my husband.

Oh, maybe I could just be No, she's still like, "Nope, I have I'm doing what I'm going to do. I'm going to take care of my mother-in-law. I'm going to work hard and take care of her." And so, she's not even She's holding part of that lunch back. Wow.

Even in Ruth's satisfaction, even in her blessing, Ruth is thinking of Naomi. She never once grabs life for herself. She never stops guarding Naomi. She's protecting Naomi and she's providing for Naomi.

When we labor for the Lord, we labor with the Lord. That's what ministry is. We are like Ruth and our Lord is like Boaz. And we're with the Lord in the field of harvest.

Jesus said, "The harvest is plentiful. The labors are few." Our Lord gets with us in the labor. Isn't that beautiful? I know that ministry can be hard.

I know it. But it gets hard when we think about oursel. But when we remind ourselves to look at our Lord and that we get to work with him, that's when it becomes exciting. All I want in my life, I'm going be real honest.

All I want in my life is to be near my Lord. And for me, I'm nearest to the Lord when I study the word. So the secret blessing, like we talked about, I want us to think for a second, is Christ stingy? No.

No. Now, in fact, the Bible says, "If while we were sinners, he died and he's given us all things, how much more can Christ bless your life with food, car, money, home, blessing?" Yes. Unfortunately, the prosperity gospel has really distorted it because the prosperity gospel took the blessing of God out from God. We know that the blessing of God is with Christ.

When we're with Christ, there's blessing. He will supply all your need according to his riches. And you know, I look at like uh megaurches, you know, there's more than megaurches just in the charismatic community. There's mega churches like John MacArthur's.

They're a reformed Calvinist verse by verse church. They've been on the radio for over 30 years. They have multi-million dollar um buildings and multi-million dollar expenses with radio and TV. Well, God bless them with that.

So even though they're against the prosperity gospel, they're still prospering. You have hund00 million a year ministry easy. But they're spending all of that on ministry and giving a lot away. Look at McGee.

McGee will talk about never once did he asked for money on the radio show. He gave people if they wanted to mail in, you know, checks or whatever, they were allowed that. But um with the radio show is they have a a host that introduces each episode and he works full-time and with others and the people who build the app and they edit, they don't take any money. But what's cool is every time you open a a a show for McGee, it's modern.

So his teaching was, you know, 40 years ago, but the introduction, they'll talk about what's going on in Syria. They'll give an update on the ministry. They'll talk about like the war in Ukraine and how this was really interesting. Um they said when the war started in Ukraine they had more downloads of through the Bible app in Kyiv, Ukraine than anywhere else in the world at that moment.

So everybody was downloading McGee and listening when the war started. I was like wow this is really good. And so they give updates but they also talk about finances in this sense. We've never asked for money.

People give when they want. And McGee was very clear on his death and everything else, what he wanted to happen with the ministry. And that was like go until the money runs out. If if God provides, then he'll provide.

If he doesn't, then let then close the stations down. Don't ask for money. He's like, just close the stations down. Well, they've never had to close the stations down cuz God is providing.

But that's I love that attitude. If it's God's will, then he will put on someone's heart to give and that it will happen. If not, then shut it down. Amen.

More churches need to be like that. Amen. Now, let's look at verse 17 and 18. So, she gleaned in the field until evening and beat out what she had gleaned.

And it was about an ephah of barley. Then she took it up and went into the city. and her mother-in-law saw what she had gleaned. So, she brought out and gave to her what she had kept back after she had been satisfied. Thoughts?

No, that just really shows what we had already talked that she just her mind is set on caring for Naomi. Now, does anybody know what an ephah is? It's a measure of weight, isn't it? And do you know how much?

The answer's right here. Can I read it? No. Oh, it's an outline.

Um, so I went online and because these these are things I want to know. So an ephah is nine imperial gallons. So I went on um I found some websites that do grain calculations cuz this is very important for transportation and understanding. So it's all calculated.

So if you go one imperial gallon of grain for barley, it's 2.73 kg or 6 lb. And she had 9 gallons. So she carried 54 lbs of barley on her back. And she did that through the city all the way back home.

And she did that after an entire full day of labor in the sun at least over eight hours, 12 hours on her knees, on her hands, in the dust along with the men. Would you say she's fit? Boy, she Yeah, she's fit because I think walking home after a hard day of labor and going all the way through the city, that would be hard just to walk home. Now you got 54 lbs on your back.

This is not light. Go to the gym, lift a 54lb dumbbell. Okay. And it's harvest time, so it's probably how incredibly hot.

Yep, it is incredibly hot and dusty and all that in your throat and everything else. She's strong. She's got strong character. She's physically strong.

And she's working out all day long. And she's carrying that bag. And just so you know, that's quite a bit of barley. It's not a handful.

It's a feed bag. A feed bag is between 40 and 50 lbs. So that's a big bag. Yep.

It's an overflowing feed bag at uh 52 lbs. Let's finish it out. 19-23. And her mother-in-law said unto her, "Where has thinned today? And where rotest thou?

Blessed be he that did they take knowledge of thee?" And she showed her mother-in-law with whom she had wrought, and said, "The man with whom I wrought today is Boaz." And Naomi said unto her daughter-in-law, "Blessed be he of the Lord, who hath not left off his kindness to the living and to the dead." And Naomi said unto her, "The man is near of kin unto us, one of our next kinsmen." And Ruth the Moabitess said, "He said unto me also, Thou shalt keep fast by my young men until they have ended all my harvest." And Naomi said unto Ruth her daughter-in-law, "It is good, my daughter, that that thou go out with his maidens, that meet not in any other field." So she kept fast by the maidens of Boaz to unto the end of the barley harvest, and of the wheat harvest, and dwelt with her mother-in-law. Well, here's what I recognize. Mara, bitter, the hand of the Lord is against me, has a tone difference, a note difference.

I see a change in Mara coming back to Naomi. Remember Naomi went and turned her name into Mara, saying, "The Lord is against me. He's been bitter." But now I see, "Blessed be the name of the Lord. The Lord hasn't forsaken his kindness to the living and the dead." Oh, her tune has changed.

Isn't that cool? It's almost as if when we think the end and the impossible and it's horrible and there can't be any good and God starts turning everything out for good. It's almost like, yeah, God is good. That's what she's beginning to realize.

Can we do that? Yeah. So, do you see how the women are starting to talk and get excited? Oh, oh, and he did this and he said that.

Oh, and he's close to a relative. Oh, the Lord's good. Get some excitement into this verse. This is what we see.

We see excitement going on. And the other thing I notice, and this is so good. Boaz charged Ruth, don't go to any other field. Ruth says it again.

He's told me not to go in any other field. And Naomi says, "Well, you better stay with him. Don't get distracted in any other field." Now, let me just put this out here. God starts blessing us.

We start seeing the Lord turn our life around for good. Starts answering prayer. What do you think about that? That's great.

We start feeling close to the Lord. And then comes distraction. What would have happened if Ruth would have been like, you know, what if this other field has more? Maybe I should check out this field.

Maybe I should check out that. Or what if Ruth began to hyper uh analyze what's going on and say, "Oh, what if his intentions aren't good?" Or what if Ruth would say, you know, what if I show up tomorrow and they make fun of me and they kick me out because I'm a foreigner? What if she would have allowed her doubt and her insecurities to start talking? See, Boaz trusted Ruth.

If Ruth would have been there and would have been distracted and you ever talk to someone and they never look at you, like they're always looking around like, you know, they don't look at you and you're like, "Hey, I'm trying to tell you something here." Well, if Ruth was like that with Boaz and she was looking at other fields, you know, the grass is greener over there, she wouldn't receive a blessing. Boaz wouldn't pursue her any longer. Boaz fleetness, he's a man of swift action. But a man of swift action needs to trust that a woman's going to respond and be there.

And so he's saying, is she going to be there through the whole harvest? Well, yeah, she is. Because Ruth is a woman of faith, commitment, and character. It's interesting.

I've read this and I've got lots of things underlined and stuff. Again, it's one of those you really see the personalities and the characters and God's hand through all of it. It's like, how do you miss it? If we look at the Bible as a harvest field and we start gleaning things, so we go through it, but then there's things we miss, so we go back through it and then we pick up the glean.

It It's sort of like if we look at the Bible the way Ruth looked at that field, we'll get more out of it. But you know what you have to do when you glean? The people who glean are going slower because the harvesters go by fast and they're going really fast. Just like the big machinery, the gleaners are like slowly, methodically picking things up, looking at things here and there.

Church as a whole tries to get an entire service in in about an hour worship offering prayer tithe sermon, and get everybody out by lunch. And that's how a lot of churches have been for years and years and years. And people say, "I went to church." that's all I need for the week and they're not even in their word. So, what's happened is is there's been a famine of the word of God and the land.

And when we actually spend time together in the word and then when we're not together, like Dave, you said, you've been studying Ruth this week. Wonderful. Yeah. When we come together and share what we've learned and talk through it, that's us processing.

If you're just, you know, for me, like I'm not going to receive a lot from the word of God when I first wake up. I'm going to pray and try and get into the word, but I also need to understand when am I going to be able to study? Well, it's later in the day. So, I'm going to study later in the day.

I can read in the morning, but I need to go back cuz I'm going to miss a lot cuz my mind's not there. And if you're in a place in life where you're just stressed and you're like, "Oh, I should read my Bible because I got to check it off." Now, what you need to do is you need to plan and give a bit of time to the Lord and just sit with the Lord, pray, read, pray, read, and not get distracted and then get on with your day. Whether that's 15 minutes or 20 minutes, and whether that's just a few sentences, but when we're like, well, I got to get through this chapter and got to get through this and read this. Well, now it's becoming works righteousness instead of the grace of God teaching us.

And what I've learned is if you're teachable and if you're hungry and if you spend time with him, then you'll get something. Yeah, that's that's very good. Oh, amen.