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Now, here's more about an unforgettable journey with Skip and Lenya Heitzig. Hey, quick question: What if the Bible came to life right before your very eyes? Join us in Israel, April 5th through the 16th in 2027 for an unforgettable experience that will change the way you read your Bible. Together, we'll explore places. Like Jerusalem, the Sea of Galilee, the Garden Tomb, where some believe Jesus rose from the dead, and many of the places where Jesus taught and ministered.
Plus, you'll have the opportunity to attend the Epicenter Summit in Jerusalem and hear from Christian leaders like Joel Rosenberg, Greg Laurie, Anne Graham Lotz, and Skip. We'd love to experience Israel with you. You can learn more and reserve your place to. At connectwithskip. dot com slash Israel.
Now let's dive into today's teaching from Pastor Skip Heitzig. Turning your Bibles to the Book of Ruth. The Book of Ruth has only eighty five verses. Because of that great fact, we don't have to fly the airplane so high. We can go a little bit lower.
We can get a good view of. Most all, not all, but most all of the verses that are in these short four chapters, these eighty-five verses, called the Book of Ruth. The Book of Ruth is one of the only two books in the Bible named after a woman. What's the other one? Esther.
And I love it because, in a very patriarchal society that the Old Testament definitely was, we have two women whose names appear as the heads of these biblical books. Of course, in the New Testament, that has completely come to fruition. Because Paul the Apostle says that in Christ it doesn't matter if you are Jew or Greek or slave or free or male or female. Galatian says you are all one in Christ. But I love the fact that in the old covenant, in the Old Testament, we find this short, little but very poignant little book of Ruth, a book named after a woman.
Now the the name Ruth. Means friend or friendly, or better yet, friendship, friendship, and she lives up to her name. She becomes in this story a close friend, a loyal friend, a loyal advocate of her mother-in-law Naomi. It's a beautiful love story. Between these two women who love each other, it's very unusual that you have a mother-in-law and a daughter-in-law who love each other so well, so adamantly, so permanently.
But also, it's a love story between Ruth and her husband-to-be named Boaz.
So, one of the only two books in the Bible named after a woman. It is the only book in the Bible named after an ancestor of the Lord Jesus Christ. And that becomes really the highlight of the book. The author will highlight the genealogical record in the very beginning of the line of King David. We'll get that at the end of this short little book.
And Ruth, therefore, is the only book named after an ancestor of Christ. And it's very noteworthy that in the genealogical records in the New Testament. The name Ruth appears. That was very unusual to have as part of one's pedigree, especially royal pedigree. The name of a woman, but she appears.
She's an ancestor of Christ, and it's the only book in the Old Testament that is named after a non-Jewish woman, non-Jewish person. She is a Gentile. We'll find out that she is from the other side. Of Israel, the eastern side, the the area of Moab, the book of Ruth is a story of providence, and that's a word, that's a doctrine, it's a concept that you should be very familiar with. And I'm going to talk a little bit about it at a couple points in this study.
Providence is something that you and I experience. We experience God's providence.
Now, a lot of Christians I have noticed make a big deal about the miraculous, and God is a God of miracles; He can do everything He wants. But God most often works through providence rather than the miraculous. And I remember hearing a guy on television years ago saying, "Have you experienced your miracle today? You can have a daily miracle." And he didn't say miracle; he said miracle.
So I just thought that's kind of weird. But anyway. What you really can expect is God's daily providence in your life, and providence is the idea that God takes natural events, and He enacts supernatural results. Things happen in life, and God uses all those things to work out a supernatural outcome. That's providence.
Romans eight twenty eight. We know that all things work together. For the good of those who love God and are the called according to His purpose, so God can take anything that happens to you, it's not an impediment to Him. It's not never an oh no moment for God. God never says oh no, what am I going to do now?
He says this is perfect. I'm going to weave this for a supernatural outcome. These natural experiences and circumstances that we face.
So it's a story of. God's providence. The book of Ruth is also a story of conversion. Here is a Moabite woman, a Gentile outside of the covenant of God, outside of the covenant land of God, who comes to believe in Yahweh. The God of the Jews, the Covenant God of the people of Israel, and so the story shows how a a Gentile girl comes to believe in the Jewish God, the God of Israel.
So it's a story of providence, it's a story of conversion, it's also a story of redemption. We have in the Old Testament book of Ruth a preview of a very Cardinal salient New Testament doctrine, and that is the doctrine of redemption. The doctrine of redemption is where one person, one party, pays the price to buy the freedom for someone else. That's redemption. In the New Testament, the background is the slave markets of those times.
In the Old Testament, it's the idea of the land that could be forfeited, or it had to be sold if a person was poor, but it could be purchased back. It could be redeemed back. And the great story about Ruth—it's not just land; it's a person and land that gets redeemed, as you will see. It was Augustine that. Church theologian from North Africa, who made this statement: "The new is in the old contained.
The excuse me, yeah. The new is in the old contained. The old is in the new explained, or as I think he put it, the new is in the old concealed." And the old is in the new revealed. What does that statement mean? It means this: in the Old Testament, there are truths of the New Testament, seeds of the New Testament.
There are predictions that anticipate the New Covenant, anticipate what we experience in the New Testament. It's there in the old. It's predicted in the old. When we get to the Old Testament, we see all of those predictions, all of those anticipations blossomed and coming to fruition in the new.
So the new is in the old concealed; the old is in the new revealed. There's four chapters in this book, and you can outline the book based on these four chapters. Chapter one is love's resolve. There is a young Moabite woman named Ruth who makes a resolution to follow her mother-in-law to the land of. Her ancestors, the land of Canaan, the land of Judah, the area of Bethlehem, the land of Israel.
She makes a resolute promise that no matter what happens, she's going to follow Naomi. That's love's resolve in chapter one. In chapter two, we have love's response. Ruth goes out and gleans in the fields in Bethlehem during the barley harvest. She will encounter a man by the name of Boaz.
She will respond to Boaz. Boaz will respond to her, and a romance will start in that chapter. In chapter three, we have love's request. You'll see a very, very interesting twist of events in chapter three, where Ruth asks Boaz to marry her. It's sort of a very different kind of a setup from our culture and even that culture.
But what she does is she asks Boaz to redeem her. Ask Boaz to redeem her. She asks the question. It involves a marriage, but she asks Boaz to redeem her. Then in chapter four we have love's reward, and love's reward is where there is a wedding.
They both wed, are Ruth and Boaz, and a little bit of the family is then mentioned.
So the book of Ruth opens with a famine, and closes with a family. It opens with a funeral, and it closes with a wedding. Very great little story. We begin in chapter one, verse one. We won't read all the verses of the book, but there's enough to get the story.
It came to pass. Verse one.
Now it came to pass in the days when the judges ruled that there was a famine in the land, and a certain man of Bethlehem, Judah, went to dwell in the country of Moab. He and his wife and his two sons.
Now there's a lot in that verse, and since we have time, I want to unravel it. If you look at verse one, it's giving us the setting of the book of Ruth. First of all, it was a a time of rebellion. It says it was during when the judges ruled.
Now we've studied the book of Judges a few weeks back, and we saw how in that book of Judges Israel turned away from the Lord. God sent them these warriors who were like little messiahs who would temporarily deliver them from the hand of their enemy. It was dark days, days of apostasy, days of war.
So that is the setting. The setting is the book of Judges, and if you wanted to put a fine point on exactly when it takes place, most scholars believe that you could fit the book of Ruth in Judges chapter ten. That's the chronology where it fits. Judges chapter ten, one of the judges named Yair or Jair, as we like to mispronounce it in our language. That is the judge that probably was ruling during the time the book of Ruth takes place.
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Now, here's more from Pastor Skip. Also, notice something else. It was a time of relativism. I didn't say that in the verse, but how does the book of Judges end? It says there was no king in Israel, and every one did what was right in his own eyes.
So it was a time of humanism. It was a time of existentialism. It was a time of relativism. People just sort of didn't follow God's statutes. There was no rule over them.
They just sort of made up their own rule as it felt good to them. It was sort of like, dude, just do whatever's in your heart to do. That's like the worst advice ever. It is, yeah, it is, because the Bible says the heart is wicked, deceitfully wicked above all else. Who can know it?
Don't do what's in your heart. Do what the Word of God tells you to do. Have that as the standard above you. If you don't, and if you just do whatever is in your heart to do, you're in the book of Judges. There's no king, no authority, and everyone does what is right in his or her own eyes.
So it was a time of rebellion. It was a time of relativism, and it was a time of judgment. We know that because it says. That in the days, verse one, when the judges ruled, there was a famine in the land. God had predicted in the book of Deuteronomy, "If you obey me, I'm going to bless you.
I'm going to pour out rain from heaven. I'm going to give you abundant crops. I'm going to give your families and your and your cattle and all your flocks abundance." If you don't obey me, if you sin against me, I'm going to send famine to the land. There's a lot of different reasons, mechanically or naturally, why famine happened.
Sometimes it happened because lack of rainfall. That's the typical reason.
Sometimes it happened because invaders came into the land, destroyed crops, so they weren't as productive.
Sometimes it was high winds along with no rain from heaven.
Sometimes it was insects, like the Book of Joel. That would destroy the crops, but the real reason is the children of Israel are in the midst of a cycle that we talked about in the book of Judges. Do you remember it? Called the sin cycle, and there were four phases to the sin cycle. Rebellion was the first stage; they rebel against God.
Retribution. Was the second stage? God allowed Israel to be tormented by enemies. Repentance was the third stage, and restitution was the fourth stage. That's the sin cycle.
It happened over and over and over and over and over and over again in the book of Judges. By the time we get to the book of Ruth, which takes place during the time of Judges, the book opens up by telling us we are in stage number two. There is God's retribution because of their rebellion. There is a famine that has hit the land. The name of the man, verse two, was Elimalak.
Great name. His name was a testimony. Elimalak is a Hebrew name that comes from two words, Eli. And Melech Eli means my God. L is the generic term for God in the Hebrew language.
When you add an I to it, you personalize it. Eli is my God.
So his name was My God is King. Great name, right? His parents had high hopes for him. Here's a kid who's going to be named My God is the King.
Now, if you live up to that name, that's awesome. If you don't, it ain't so awesome. But he had an opportunity at every stage of his life to give a testimony. Imagine, Elimelech at work, and the PA says, "Elimelech, line six," and because you're saying in Hebrew, "My God is King," line six.
So he had an opportunity to tell coworkers how God was his king. Just keep that in mind that that is what his name means. The name of his wife was Naomi. Naomi is a word that means pleasantness. And the names of his two sons, Melon and Kilion.
Ephrathites of Bethlehem, Judah. And they went to the country of Moab and remained there.
Now, when when couples had kids in those days, they would name their child either either their hopes and their aspirations for that child to fulfill, or they would name that child. Based on something that happened during birth, circumstances around the birth.
So, for example, when Elimelech got his name, his parents were were naming him with high hopes that here's a kid who's going to live up to that testimony that he's going to carry around with him. My God is the King.
However, Sometimes things happened at birth, and the kids were named based upon that.
So, when Isaac and Rebecca had two children, the first one that came out of the womb was kind of all red, and he had hair all over his body.
So they called him Harry. Right, that's a good name. Look at how much hair he has, Harry. That's what Esau means. And then his brother, the twin, followed right after him, grabbing the foot, grabbing the heel of his brother Harry.
So as soon as little Jacob came out, Yaakov means heel catcher.
So he's grabbing. He goes, look at that. He's trying to trip his brother up. Let's call them heel catchers.
So they were named based on circumstances of their birth. When we come to these two boys that are named, it's very interesting. Melan means sick, or sickly, or weakling, and Kilian means pining, or wailing, weeping, crying.
So. When I when I read this, I can just think, you know, we're dealing with some very honest parents here. I I'm sure that you know every couple has a fear, a kind of a morbid fear that if they're I'm going to have a child that's going to be like really weird, weird looking, you know, or some some some deficiency. I don't know if I'll be able to handle that. That's a fear that that probably most every parent has.
Now, when these two kids were born, it probably they weren't that bad, but this is Dad's reaction. He sees the first one being born and goes, "Sick! That thing looks sick. Looks like he's just like a sick old man or something." So they named him Sickly. That's his name.
That's what his name means. That's a that's a tough tag to have to carry around with you your whole life.
So they named the first one. Sicko. They named the second one Crybaby.
So you got Sicko and Crybaby, an overreaction, but nonetheless, it's what they were called.
Now keep something in mind: Elimelech. Elimelech means "My God is King." Too bad he didn't live like it. Too bad he didn't trust the Lord and stay in the land of the covenant, the land of Israel. And the first hint of bad times, there's famine in the land, and he hightails it across the Dead Sea to the area of Moab, the hills of Moab. He didn't stay put like Abraham when there was a famine in the land.
He went down to Egypt. Didn't trust God. Was a mistake. Likewise, Elimelech goes to Moab. Moab, if you were to stand on Bethlehem, on the hill, you can.
If you go right to the eastern side of Bethlehem, you can stand and look on a clear day, and you can look down and see the the Dead Sea. And then on the other side of the Dead Sea, the hills rise up, and you see the plains, the plateau of Moab. Moab. The high hills are about 3,500 feet. The lowlands of Moab are about 2,500 feet.
the The soil is very porous, so it brings in a lot of the rain at that high plateau, as opposed to the low desert.
So it can be it can be lush. It can be great for farming. And obviously, Elimelech and his boys were farmers.
So they leave the place of famine and they go to find higher ground. But there's a problem. With Moab, if you remember your Bible, you remember back in Genesis 19 that the Moabites were the descendants of Lot, and they were false worshippers or idol worshippers. They worship a god called Chemosh, C H E M O S H. He is found written in the Bible in the Old Testament.
And Chemosh was a very fierce, angry god, whom they believed required blood sacrifice.
So he was worshipped by killing people, especially children, as part of their worship. That's where he's going. He's leaving Bethlehem, and he's going over to Moab. How many of us are like Elimael? There's pressure in our lives.
Finances aren't good. You know the the mortgage seems to creep higher and higher, and so we make a reaction instead of waiting on the Lord, being renewed like Isaiah said. Those who wait on the Lord will renew their strength. We we can quickly react. Verse three it says, "Then Elimelech, Naomi's husband, died.
So evidently he was sickly himself. The whole family must have been sort of." Had a tendency toward illness. Elimelech Naomi's husband died, and she was left and her two sons.
Now they took wives of the women of Moab. Out of the covenant, the name of the one was Orpah, and the name of the other Ruth. And they dwelt there about ten years. They're there a decade, out of the land. In this foreign land of Moab, then both Melan and Kilion also also died.
It was a matter of time. I'm I'm guessing you know, sicko and crybaby. They were sort of sort of destined to a short-lived life. I'm guessing.
So they died, and so the woman survived her two sons and. Her husband.
Now, there's a lot of heartache compressed in those three short verses. Thanks for joining us today on Connect with Skip Heitzig. Before we go, remember that your generosity helps more people discover the truth of God's word and grow in their relationship with Jesus. And this month, when you give fifty dollars or more, we'll thank you with two meaningful resources you can enjoy yourself or give this Christmas. The Daily God Journal will help you grow in Scripture and prayer throughout the coming year.
Plus, Christmas Under the Tree is a beautifully illustrated story that points hearts toward Jesus from the cradle to the cross. Give a gift with eternal value while helping others encounter God's Word at connectwithSkip dot com slash offer, or by calling eight hundred nine two two eighteen eighty eight. We'll see you next time on Connect with Skip Heitzig. Make a connection. Make a connection at the foot of the cross.
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