Ruth 3-4 - Part B

I have loved Boaz's reactions throughout this whole book.

Whether it's to Ruth or it's to the workers that work for him. He is so courteous. She is so courteous. She says please to him and please to her mother-in-law as we noted last week.

You will catch more flies with honey than you will with vinegar. Be a pleasant person. Be a thankful person.

Be a nice person. Today on Connect with Skip Heitig, Pastor Skip continues his teaching from the book of Ruth and encourages you to be kind, courteous, and grateful. But first we want to tell you about a resource package that brings you teaching from some of the most influential leaders Pastor Skip has invited to fill the pulpit at Calvary Albuquerque over the years.

As we approach the end of the year here's a special resource package we have developed to say thanks for your support. Over four decades of ministry Pastor Skip has been able to invite some excellent speakers to fill his pulpit. We want you to hear some of these memorable messages from teachers such as Josh McDowell. God said I want you to be able in the 21st century and open your scriptures and have a confidence thus saith the Lord it has not been lost. Also a part of this pulpit package Dr. David Jeremiah. Jesus Christ shines in the world today by his reflection in the lives of his followers.

Nobody's going to see Jesus if they don't see Jesus in us. If you can make an end of your donation of $100 or more to support this program you will receive this pulpit package of 10 excellent messages on CD or by download. You will want to hear what Joel Rosenberg said about remarkable conversions in the Middle East. That's the kind of door that when you pray Lord I'd love to go build a friendship in the name of Jesus with a king and with a Muslim president.

Apparently God says yes to some of these prayers. The pulpit package containing 10 different speakers giving full length messages. To request your copy go to connectwithskipp.com or by calling 1-800-922-1888.

That is connectwithskipp.com or call 1-800-922-1888. Okay let's get started. We're going to Ruth 3 as we join Skip today. So look at verse 3. Therefore, wash yourself, anoint yourself, put on your best garment, and go down to the threshing floor.

But do not make yourself known to the man till he has finished eating and drinking. Do you remember Fiddler on the Roof? Matchmaker, matchmaker, make me a match. Do you remember that? Some of you are looking at me like you've never seen the movie. You need to see that movie.

It's a good cultural exercise in your basic education. But that young girl is singing the song for the matchmaker to come and find her a match, catch her a catch, look through her little book, and find just the right guy for her. It seems that Naomi is taking on the role of a matchmaker. She's very practical here and I love that.

Hey sweetie, take a bath, put on perfume, dussy yourself up, look like a knockout. That's just practical stuff. You want to win a guy, paint the barn a little bit before you go out there. Paint the house, right?

Look like he wants to look twice. So she's very practical. She is spiritual.

Yes, she has come a long way from being bitter into trusting the Lord and last week we saw she's praise God, praise God God's in this. But she's also very involved. You know, somebody once said there's three kinds of people.

There's the person who makes things happen, then there's the person who watches things happen, then there's the person who has no idea what's happening. Naomi is in the first category. She's the kind to make things happen. She's very practical. She knows that Boaz is interested.

That's pretty obvious. Ruth has stated that he acts interested. He's done favors for me. He's given me favor with his people. He's given me this load of produce.

And so she goes, okay, so let's keep this thing going now. So be practical in life. Don't be afraid to make plans. And though you make plans and you are practical, also be flexible. Be practical, but be flexible. Because you don't know what God is doing behind the scenes. You don't understand the full scope of God's providence. So a mixture of you be practical and you be flexible, as I had a friend say, blessed are the flexible, for they shall not be broken.

Bend with it a little bit. You know, just put, cast your bread on the waters as the Bible says, but let's find out what the Lord has going on. So she gives her this little piece of advice. Then it shall be, verse 4, when he lies down, that you shall notice the place where he lies and you shall go in uncover his feet. Now this sounds all weird to us. Uncover his feet and lie down and he will tell you what you should do. And she said to her, all that you say to me I will do.

This is amazing to me. Most young ladies would go, what do you want me to do? Uncover his feet? Yuck. You've been working in the fields all day.

Those things smell. I'm not going to uncover his feet for nothing. But all that you say to me, I will do. So she went down to the threshing floor and did according to all that her mother-in-law instructed her. And after Boaz had eaten and drunk and his heart was cheerful, he went to lie down at the end of the heap of grain. And she came softly, uncovered his feet and lay down. Now what happened at midnight, the man was startled and turned to himself and there a woman was lying at his feet.

Now picture the scene. When they would winnow, they would have a feast in the evening celebrating all that they have collected. There was a huge pile or several huge piles and the workers would sleep around the pile of barley or wheat with their head at the center and their feet sticking out like spokes on a wheel.

Why? To guard what they have collected. There were thieves, there were marauders, there were other nations around them. They had to watch their stuff. So that's why they slept with it. If you would uncover somebody's feet, it was for a couple of reasons. Number one, in the middle of the night your feet get cold, right? You're asleep, blanket was on, somebody uncovers your feet. In the middle of the night you'll wake up as you go through your little cycles of sleep. You go, man my feet are cold. You'll find out why and there's a chick down there.

You'll wake up and she'll be able to talk to you. Number two, to lay at somebody's feet with somebody's feet was an act of submission. Now this is going somewhere where she is going to suggest that Boaz perform the role of the goel, of the kinsman redeemer. So there in the middle of the night he was startled. He turned and turned himself and there was a woman lying at his feet and he said, who are you? So she answered, I'm Ruth, your maidservant. Take your maidservant under your wing. And the idea is take your cloak or your robe or your blanket and place it over me.

Take me under your wing for you are a near kinsman. So what's going on here? What's going on here is she is proposing marriage to him.

You go, she's proposing to him? What is this a Sadie Hawkins thing? By the way, does anybody here even remember what that is? Did you have, if you know what Sadie Hawkins is, raise your hand. Okay, so it's my age group that is raising their hands. So in high school, in the 70s, is that about right for you people to raise your hands? Okay, so there was this thing called the Sadie Hawkins dance, am I right? Older people that raise their hands, is that right? Okay, so Sadie Hawkins dance is where the girl asked the guy to go to a dance and it was a long-standing tradition in America.

I'm just really sad that it has fallen out of tradition and just very few people have heard of it. But anyway, she is proposing not to go to a dance, but that he marry her. But notice she says take me under your wing. Now I'm going to read a passage of scripture to you from the prophet Ezekiel.

You don't have to turn there. This is Ezekiel chapter 16. The Lord is speaking to his nation, the people of Israel, the Jewish nation, and he said, when I passed by you and saw you struggling in your own blood, I said to you in your blood, live.

Yes, I said to you in your blood, live. I made you thrive like a plant in the field and you grew, matured, and became very beautiful. Down in verse 8, when I passed you by again and looked upon you, indeed your time was come, your time of love, so I spread my wing over you. Literally, I spread the corner of my garment over you. Translated here, I spread my wing over you. It's a means of offering future protection to take you under your wing, take somebody under your wing. It's a metaphor we still use today, to take somebody under their wing, to offer protection, to spread your garment over them. Same idea.

It was all a metaphor. She's proposing marriage to him. That's Sadie Hawkins' thing, but it is based upon a law.

If you're wondering, well, what kind of woman has the audacity to go manhunting like that to a threshing floor and uncover some dude's feet? It's all because of an ancient law called the law of levirate marriage. Have you ever heard of that, the law of levirate marriage? That's the biblical term or the theological term. Levirate is a word that comes from levir, L-E-V-I-R. It's a Latin word that means husband's brother. A levir in Latin is a husband's brother. So a levirate marriage is a law in Israel that if you had a husband and he died, if you're a woman, you had a husband that died, that the husband's brother would take you as wife so that you could bear a son in his honor to perpetuate the family name. Now I'm going to read that to you. This is in Deuteronomy chapter 25.

You can mark this down if you want or you can turn to it and you can read it yourself. Deuteronomy chapter 25 verse 5. If brothers dwell together and one of them dies and has no son, the widow of the dead man shall not be married to a stranger outside the family. Her husband's brother shall go into her and take her as his wife and perform the duty of a husband's brother to her. And it shall be that the firstborn son which she bears will succeed to the name of his dead brother.

In other words, you name the son the dead brother's first name. That his name may not be blotted out of Israel. This is wild to us. This is weird to us. In our western sensibilities, this makes absolutely no sense and it's nothing we'd ever want to do. So why was it done? For a few reasons.

Here's how they would see it as an advantage. Number one, it will tie the whole family together. Everyone is going to be interested in who you marry. Can you understand why? Okay, so brother comes up and says, I found a wife I'm going to marry her.

All the brothers are going to go, really? I'd like to see her. I'd like to meet her. We're all suddenly interested in who your wife is going to be because if dude, if you kick the bucket and I'm going to have to like step in, I want to be a part of this decision, right? So necessarily it's going to bring the whole family together on an issue. Number two, it was to protect the woman. She's married. Her husband owns land. He might own a farm enterprise. If he dies, she now has the responsibility of that farm and of that business.

She may be ill-prepared and typically would be ill-prepared for that. So this idea was to protect her. Third, it was to protect the land that the family owned. You know, every tribe had its own tribal allotment. Within the tribal allotment, each family had its own family parcel. Those family parcels could easily get lost and so that it would remain within the family and within the tribe, especially that tribal allotment, the law of leverage marriage was an ancient custom. It's not used anymore in Israel, although in recent times there was a woman who tried to take her brother-in-law to court and have him perform the duty of bringing up seed in her dead husband's name.

Didn't go through. She didn't win the case, but in cultures like that, it is not or has not been that uncommon. So the young girl may decide to marry a stranger. So the law prohibited that she would marry somebody within the family.

So that's the idea of this. Okay, back to our text, chapter 3, verse 10. Then he said, then Boaz said to her, this is all taking place at night after he's got cold feet, finds a chick down there at the bottom of his feet.

Now he's having a conversation with her and she goes, dude, I want to marry you. You're a kinsman. You're a Goel. I want you to redeem me and the land.

You're a near kinsman. So he said, now listen to Boaz, blessed are you of the Lord, my daughter. I have loved Boaz's reactions throughout this whole book, whether it's to Ruth or it's to the workers that work for him. He is so courteous. She is so courteous.

She says please to him and please to her mother-in-law, as we noted last week. You will catch more flies with honey than you will with vinegar. Be a pleasant person. Be a thankful person. Be a nice person. If you wonder, I don't know why I don't have any friends.

That's why. You want to catch flies? You go, not really.

Well, if you want to catch anything, be sweet instead of sour. So he says, blessed are you of the Lord, using the covenant name Yahweh, my daughter, for you have shown more kindness at the end than at the beginning, in that you did not go after young men, whether rich or poor. Now this would indicate that Boaz was an older gentleman.

Between most guests, 45 and 50 years of age, well, where she was quite a bit younger, and he is committing her, you know, you could have gone after a lot of young men, but you are so converted, you, a Moabite woman, are so converted to the God of Israel that you're obeying these customs and these laws. And he'll make note of that again. And now my daughter, do not fear, for I will do for you all that you request, for all the people of my town know that you are a virtuous woman. That's the word on the street.

You're a girl of virtue. Now it is true, I am your near kinsman. However, there is a kinsman nearer than I, stay this night, and in the morning, it shall be that if he will perform the duty of a near kinsman for you, good, let him do it. But if he does not want to perform the duty for you, then I will perform the duty for you, as the Lord lives, lie down until morning. We do not know who the other kinsman is, who the other relative is that Boaz is referring to. Perhaps it's a woman, but we're not told, perhaps a cousin. But somebody in the chain in the family tree is a closer relationship to Ruth, to Naomi, than he is.

So according to the law, he has to use deference and pass it on to him first to see if he wants to do it. Now in verse 13, he says, stay this night, for I will perform the duty of a near kinsman, for I will perform the duty of a near kinsman. Now in verse 13, he says, stay this night. And then at the end of verse 13, lie down until morning.

There was nothing immoral in that suggestion. It's just pass the night here. Don't get up now and disturb everybody in this circle watching the grain. So don't try to read into this that, you know, he's saying, come on, baby, snuggle closer. She's lying at his feet. That's where she spends the night, down there.

And so there's nothing. And besides that, there are families all around. They would spend the night, not just the men, but the families would often spend the night there at the threshing floor together.

So there's nothing immoral that is suggested. So verse 14, she lay at his feet until morning, and she arose before one could recognize her. So the sun's just barely coming out.

It's dawn. Then he said, do not let it be known. Then he said, do not let it be known that a woman came to the threshing floor.

So it's like time to get up and go home. Though nothing immoral was going on, Boaz understands a basic fact of human nature. And that is that assumption is the lowest form of communication. And people will naturally assume, not the best, but the worst.

There's a woman at the threshing floor at Boaz's feet. They must have done something. No, but he knew that tongues can wag and tweets will get out.

People will post it on their Instagram. So it's like, let's not give them an excuse to do this nonsense. It's time to get up and go. But also he said, verse 15, bring the shawl that is on you and hold it. When she held it, he measured six ephahs of barley and laid it on her quite heavy. Probably she carried it on her head as was the custom and still is in that part of the world. Then she went into the city. When she came to her mother-in-law, she said, is that you, my daughter? So it's early, even mom-in-law is still snoozing.

Is that you, my daughter? Then she told her all that the man had done for her. And she said, these six ephahs of barley he gave me, for he said, do not go away empty handed to your mother-in-law. Now this is going to make Naomi feel really gratified, happy that here's a kinsman who can redeem her.

The little scheme of dusting herself up and popping the question worked. The Lord's in this. And boy, this guy is awesome because he wants to take care of mother-in-law. But notice what he says. Verse 18 is a great verse. Sit still, my daughter, until you know how the matter will turn out, for the man will not rest until he has concluded the matter this day.

What is the matter? What is the business that he's going to attend to? Redemption. Sit still. The work of redemption is his alone to fulfill. That's what mother-in-law is saying.

You can't add to it. You've done your part. You've asked him in. Now he's going to do it. The work of redemption is his alone. It's a beautiful corollary to the work of Jesus Christ. In John 17, Jesus on the cross prayed to the Father as he knew that final transaction of redemption was about to take place. He said, I have finished the work which you have given me to do. And then he went to the cross. And on the cross, he used those words. It is finished.

In Greek, one word, tetelestai. It is finished. It is completed. The transaction is completed.

I have finished the work. So what did you do to get saved? Well, I gave my life to Jesus.

I really turned things over. And I love what Spurgeon said. Spurgeon said, it is not your it is not your grip on the Savior that saves you. It's the Savior that saves you. It's not your grasp on Christ that saves you. It's Christ that saves you. Jesus did it. You just said, Lord, save me. I believe in you. Saved by faith, by grace through faith, not of works, lest anyone should boast. So we sat still.

And we should still sit still. And know that the ultimate work of redemption, he will complete as well. That's Skip Heitig, with a message from his series, Expound.

Find the full message, as well as books, booklets, and full teaching series at connectwithskipp.com. Now, here's Skip with an invitation for you to join he and Lenya Heitig on a Holy Land tour next year. Hey, our 2024 Israel tour is coming up.

This is Pastor Skip, and we still have space on this trip that Lenya and I are hosting. We will be touring Israel from May 1 through May 12. I hope that you'll join us firsthand to see some incredible sites like the Sea of Galilee.

I'm sure you've always wanted to see that. The Temple Mount in Jerusalem and the Garden Tomb, the place many people believe is where Jesus rose from the dead. The final deadline for registration is December 31st. So there's still time to take action and join Lenya and I for the trip of a lifetime.

Find full Israel information at connectwithskipp.com. We'd love to partner with you to help share God's life-changing truth with more people around the world through Connect with Skip Heitzig. You can play a vital role in this life-changing work today with a generous gift to support this ministry. Pastor Skip wants to continue to expand the reach of the ministry into all major U.S. cities, and you can help make that happen. Visit connectwithskipp.com slash donate to give generously and share God's love with others. That's connectwithskipp.com slash donate or call 800-922-1888.

800-922-1888. Thank you for changing lives. We're glad you joined us today. Tune in tomorrow as Skip concludes his teaching on the book of Ruth and shows you how it paints a wonderful picture of what Christ did for us. Connect with Skip Heitzig is a presentation of Connection Communications, connecting you to God's never-changing truth in ever-changing times.