Boaz and Ruth (Part C)

When we first meet Naomi, life has raked sorrow over her. Again, a reminder, she lost more than Ruth lost. She lost her youth, her husband, and her two sons, and her daughter-in-law whom she loved. And she had nothing except Ruth.

And we should not lose sight of these things, because things are changing. Whatever bitterness Naomi had, and there was some there, the Lord has dealt with me, we talked about that, it is burning off like the fog. It has been fully reported to me all that you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband, and how you have left your father and your mother, and the land of your birth, and have come to a people whom you did not know before. He's going to go on. All that Boaz answered and said to her, it has been fully reported, I commented on that, the details were given to him.

Wouldn't you have loved to get a picture of him listening as the story is being told? Did you know Naomi's back? Yes. Did you know she brought her daughter-in-law, Ruth? I did not know that. Did you know she was a Moabitess?

No. Did you know Naomi's husband died? I knew that, but did you know Ruth's husband died too?

Man, this is not good. We've got two new widows in town. And then the story continues, and Ruth is this, and Ruth is that, and Naomi and Ruth, and he's just like, wow. And so he goes on about his business, he shows up to work, and who's this? This is Ruth.

She's with Naomi, all the lights turn on. And I think it was even a little bit emotional. I don't mean he broke down and started crying. He just could feel like, man, that's okay.

I put a face with the action now. Verse 12, he says, and he's continuing now, he says, Yahweh repay your work, and a full reward be given you by Yahweh, God of Israel, under whose wings you have come for refuge. So he now starts praying for her.

He's a man of prayer. Yahweh be with you. God bless you. Yahweh bless you. And now he's talking to her and he says, Yahweh repay your work. Can you imagine going to get a job and you're talking with the person he hires you, and he comes back to the warehouse or wherever you are, and as he's talking to you, you say, I know some things about you, and I just want God to bless you big.

How rare that is. Seeing her loyalty to Ruth and that she was a believer, as we read in chapter 1 and verse 16, your God will be my God. And here, you know, she's living that way. He says, a full reward be given to you by Yahweh, that God would fully bless her for her grace, that he would be gracious to the gracious. And then he says, under whose wings you have come, two metaphorical Old Testament pictures, one from the past of this present moment and one in the future, which is probably born out of this moment. Earlier, in Exodus 37 verse 9, we read about, I'll just read it, the cherubim, this is over the Ark of the Covenant, the mercy seat, you had the ark, which is the chest, you had the mercy seat, which was the lid, and then you had the cherubim on top with their wings out. And there we read, the cherubim spread out their wings above and covered the mercy seat with their wings.

They faced one another, the faces of the cherubim were toward the mercy seat. So the emphasis is not on the cherubim, but it is on God's mysterious creatures, sort of being amazed at the mercy of God on behalf of sinners. It's a word picture, and this was the Ark of the Covenant, and so when this phrase, whose wings you've come under, the mercy of God, he says, for refuge.

Well, you get refuge when someone gives mercy, or else there's no, you know, refugees are looking for someone to not treat them like foreigners, but to bring them in and keep them safe from what they're running from. And so here, there's that Old Testament metaphor, shown up in the days of Moses, and now here. Later, the psalmist will continue this. Psalm 91, he shall cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you shall take refuge. His truth shall be your shield and your buckler.

And so there the psalmist, Psalm 91, one of the greatest of them all, there the wings show up again. She will repeat these words to him, Ruth chapter 3 verse 9, and he said, Who are you? So she answered, I am Ruth your maidservant, take your maidservant under your wing, for you are a close relative. She's like Esther. Esther did everything she was told. When Mordecai, her guardian, her cousin Mordecai, or Hegai, the chief of eunuchs in the palace, when they told Esther to do something, she did it. And because she was submitted to the right people, she was unstoppable. She went all the way to the throne as the queen. Verse 13, and she said, Let me find favor in your sight, my lord, for you have comforted me and have spoken kindly to your maidservant, though I am not like one of your maidservants.

So you can see, it's coming back. You know, she's a mobitus, a stranger, not a maidservant. So this stigma of being a foreigner was not little. It was a big thing, at least in Ruth's mind.

And he is putting that to rest. She greatly appreciates it, and she welcomes this undeserved kindness. And so she says, Let me find favor in your sight, my lord Adonai, not Yahweh, the covenant name, that means like the master, for you have comforted me. She was worried about how am I going to provide? Is there going to be enough grain?

Am I going to run into people that will bully me? What's going to happen? She doesn't know. A kind voice spoken to her. On that trip from Moab, when she decided to stay with Ruth and Orpah decided to go back to her parents, Ruth had to be saying to herself, I wonder how they're going to treat me when I show up.

Because I'm sure in some part of her parochial learnings, she was exposed to the wars between the Jews and the Moabites. Now Boaz said to her at mealtime, Come here and eat of the bread and dip your piece of bread in the vinegar. So she sat beside the reapers and he passed parched grain to her and she ate and was satisfied and kept some back.

So Boaz said to her at mealtime, so they took a break, it's lunchtime, and he personally invites her, which is a high honor, a man in his position personally inviting her. The dipping of the vinegar, you know, there was just some other stuff in the vinegar too. I mean, it wasn't, it could have been, I guess, a palate thing. Anyway, not uncommon for them to have things to dip the bread in. Just be glad it wasn't a locust, right? It's a locust jelly.

John the Baptist will love this years later. Anyway, so it says, and he passed parched grain. Boaz himself serves her. It's a high honor reserved for an honored guest and she ate and was satisfied. She knew hunger and poverty, so she's enjoying the meal, but she remembers Naomi. She doesn't just satisfy herself and then, you know, I'll get some barley grain and we'll go back and make barley bread.

She takes some of the food and she stashes it. And how can anyone not love Ruth? I mean, you can't be sane and not love Ruth. There are people like this in life. There are people that, they're really just lovable. And unfortunately, many people are too dumb to notice it and they try to take advantage of them.

You know, they take kindness for weakness or kindness for stupidity or something else. Anyway, verse 15, and when she rose up to glean, Boaz commanded his young men saying, let her glean even among the sheaves and do not reproach her. Again, so he can't help himself. He's still giving instructions. She's off, you know, packed a little lunch away for Naomi. She's had her lunch. She's gleaning more, getting more grain.

And he sort of, like he adores her as a person and is going to do whatever he can do to help. Verse 16, and let grain, he continues, he's still going, and let grain from the bundles fall purposely for her. Leave it that she may glean and do not rebuke her.

Oops, did we drop that? And according to the law, they weren't supposed to pick it up. Once, if they dropped it like that, and he is telling them to do it on purpose, not, you know, just making more available for her, he knows that she's gleaning for two. And as Ruth went back to glean, Boaz, just to review, issued three orders to his servants. And one is, Ruth was allowed now to glean amongst the tied bundles. That was off limits to the reapers. Oh, not the reapers, the gleaners.

You had the reapers that worked for Boaz. You had the gleaners that came behind. They were the poor, and they would just pick up what was left on the, whatever was on the ground that was theirs. And the servants were not to touch her. Of course, it was to drink and rest whenever she wanted. And they weren't to yell at her. She had carte blanche, sort of, you know. She could do anything that she wanted, pretty much.

And of course, she wouldn't abuse that. Verse 17, so she gleaned in the field every evening and beat out what she had gleaned, and it was about an ephath of barley. So what she had, she had to get the husk off of it. It wasn't that she just collected it. She collected it, and then at the end of the day, she had to get the husk off. So she's just taken the grain home.

The exact size here of an ephath is unknown, but we know it's enough for her to have at least a couple of days bred, maybe more than days, enough for her to be able to carry home. You know, maybe she had to stop and rest a few times, who knows. But she's got enough. So we'll find that. Naomi will testify to this. Verse 18, 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. So she gets home. Naomi sees this, and then she brings the lunch that she, you know, the leftover, not leftover, the part she reserved for Naomi. She takes it out and she gives us to Naomi. She says, eat. This is good stuff here. And verse 19, her mother-in-law said to her, where have you gleaned today?

And where did you work? Blessed be the one who took notice of you. So she told her mother-in-law with whom she worked and said, the man's name with whom I work today is Boaz. Now again, you know, you'd love to see Naomi's face when Ruth says the word, the name Boaz.

It's the light she just, without hesitation, well there's only one Boaz, and he's family, and he's rich. And evidently, he noticed you. So is there anything more welcome than to be noticed by one who can help?

When you need something. Again, Luke, again with Zacchaeus, Luke 19-5, and when Jesus came to the place, he looked up and saw him and said, Zacchaeus, make haste, come down, for today I must stay with you. He noticed him.

Here's this tax collector hated by everybody. When they noticed him, it was in the negative. Jesus sees him and says, I want to eat with you. These are the kind of things that caused John the Baptist to say, is he the Messiah?

What's he eating with guys like him for? John's gospel, Nathanael said to him, to Jesus, and Jesus saw Nathanael come and he said, An Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile, an honest, a straight shooter, somebody that's not going to try to take advantage of you is not an opportunist. Nathanael's a decent Jewish man. That's what Jesus said about him. Nathanael, because he is decent, said, Nathanael said to him, how do you know me?

I mean, what gives you the right to say I'm a good guy? Jesus answered and said to him, before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you. He had to have been, for that to work, he had to have been in a secluded place. Or else it was just, well, you looked, you know, you looked through the lattice, you saw me there, it wasn't a big deal.

He must have been somewhere in a courtyard or something like that where nobody could see him because he was alone, having his devotional time. And the Lord saw him. That's what needed to happen to this Ruth and Naomi and their poor state.

Something had to happen. Naomi, amazed at the good fortune of her daughter-in-law, pronounced a blessing on Boaz. Not even knowing it was him, look back again at verse 19. Her mother-in-law said, where have you gleaned and where have you worked?

Blessed be the one who took notice of you. That's before she knows it's Boaz. She said, whoever has given you this lunch and this grain, I mean, gleaners don't bring home this much in a day.

Whoever he is, may God bless that man. And then she inquired, and she said, Boaz. Did you say Boaz? The mention of the name was enough to begin Naomi to start flying out of the fog. Because she had to be down. She's home all day. This is how life is going to be for us from here on in.

Hungry all the time, tired all the time, outcast really from society, though the people aren't kind enough. Is this it? And then this connection, verse 20. Then Naomi said to her daughter-in-law, blessed be Yahweh who has not forgotten his kindness to the living and the dead. And Naomi said to her, this man is a relation of ours, one of our close relatives. Naomi wastes no time. Ruth doesn't get it. Ruth is still munching on some grain or something. And Naomi is packing their bags.

I love this. She blesses him. Then Naomi said, blessed be he of Yahweh who has not forsaken his kindness to the living and the dead. She knew that Boaz knew the story. And she knew that Boaz was acting on that story. And she sees a lot more. You know, they say, a woman's intuition.

The man is a relation of ours, says she, here in verse 20. Now again, I can't leave this out. I think I said it last time we did Ruth. That, you know, because I didn't think she was as beautiful as some of the other women, she was no Babe Ruth. I had to say it.

No, I just couldn't go home. You know, I could have said that. Because we're not going to be in Ruth again until after the rapture or we are all in heaven and I'm teaching on it there. Anyway, imagine if pastors have to go through a corrective process of all the things they got wrong. I feel sorry for those guys with all the wrong commentaries and things. Anyway, this relative, that word relative, I don't know a different translation.

I'm using the New King James even though it's a little old. That's Goel, that's the near kinsman that I made a big fuss about earlier. In order to review, in ancient Israel, he was the family protector or deliverer. If you needed to be rescued, he was the guy that could do it. And these kind of men have to watch themselves, lest they be, you know, people always, you know, can you loan me, I want to buy a new car.

You know, it's not getting that. But it had to be big trouble. So he had a right to recover forfeited property, which enters into this story. And he had the right to buy back a relative from slavery. You know, a relative would indenture themselves.

I'll be your servant for X amount of years because I'm broke and I need the money and he would work. And the kinsman could come and buy him out of that. Some think that the kinsman could also be the avenger of blood. If you killed a relative of mine, the near kinsman would be the one responsible for getting that revenge if he could get to you before you got to the city of refuge. So it came with, oh, and then you would have to marry your brother's wife if he died without children and you were still single.

And if you weren't single in a polygamous environment, you would get first opportunity, which is going to be the case in this story. So again, he is the one who will rescue me. That is the goel, the redeemer. Job says, for I know my goel lives, my redeemer lives, and he shall stand at last on the earth.

Quite prophetic. And Ruth says to Naomi after she is told this is a relative, Ruth says, there's more. I'm not done telling you, Naomi, what happened today. Verse 21, Ruth the Moabite said, he also said to me, you shall stay close by my young men until they have finished all my harvest.

That would be the barley and then the wheat harvest comes next. So we're talking about three months time and you see again Naomi's eyes. He said, what?

Oh, man, this is just getting better. The wheels were not turning in Naomi's head. They were spinning.

The RPMs were radical. When we first meet Ruth, she's a widow, but her faith did not die with her husband. What a lesson. When we first meet Naomi, life has raked sorrow over her. Again, a reminder, she lost more than Ruth lost. Ruth, her husband and her two sons and her daughter-in-law whom she loved.

And she had nothing except Ruth. And we should not lose sight of these things because things are changing. And whatever bitterness Naomi had, and there was some there, the Lord has dealt with me. We talked about that. It is burning off like the fog. Verse 22, Naomi said to Ruth, her daughter-in-law, it is good my daughter that you go out with his young men and that the people do not meet you in any other field.

It is good what he said to you. And we can't convey the emphasis put on this. But Naomi doesn't have to remind her tomorrow morning. Ruth is going to go out and be in this field. Because Boaz has told her, Naomi has ratified it.

It is totally supported. And Naomi was sharp. She could see these things. She probably was whistling tunes all day after this. Naomi, I never heard you sing so many songs.

Boaz has not a chance because of Naomi. And nobody knows it but Naomi. She knew God's fingerprints were all over this. She just knows God is in this. God got you to the field.

Well, look at all these things. This is the Lord. God is in this and I'm not going to let you lose.

Blow it. Well, God does not disown Naomi for her past failures of bitterness. Instead, he begins to restore her. So now is an appropriate time to read Joel, chapter 2, verse 25. So I will restore to you the years that the swarming locusts have eaten, the crawling locusts, the consuming locusts, the chewing locusts, my great army which I sent among you. It's an army of troubles. Now, in their case, they brought upon them by unbelief. But life has its share of locusts. And they come in droves and sometimes for years. But God says, I'll deal with this, don't you? You just have that enduring faith.

That's what I want from you. Verse 23, so she stayed close by the young men of Boaz to glean until the end of barley harvest and wheat harvest and she dwelt with her mother-in-law. So Ruth sort of now, this story, it's going to set the bar for women that come after her. As I mentioned, Esther, she would many years later, hundreds of years later, hear this story, know it very well, and know what type of woman Naomi and Ruth were. She also would know what type of woman Orpah was. And Orpah, as decent as she was, she still left the Lord. Esther will not.

Esther will remain. And she has her troubles, you know, she gets to the point where, but what do you want me to do? And Mordecai says, well, you better come up with something quick, sister, because if it's not from you, somebody else is going to do, but for such a time as this. And of course she says, okay, well, if I perish, I perish.

He goes, yeah, yeah, yeah, fine, go get it done. And it can't help, the human side of the scripture is what keeps us stronger. It doesn't need us to make it fake. We take it like it is because it is, you know, the word of the Lord. It changes lives. You know, we asked God to help us to be faithful under pressure, to not waver in our faith.

I have wavered, not, not, well, I mean, not any grand event, but certainly just not too cheerful when I should have been cheerful, when I could have mustered more. Romans chapter 4, we're close with this. Romans 4 verse 20, he did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief, speaking of Abraham, but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God.

This is what this means. This means Paul the apostle, the king of New Testament beat downs. He had a man like Abraham, Abraham to keep him going. The reason why Paul remained true is because of the influence of others on his life from the scriptures and from life itself.

It's a good thing. Thanks for tuning in to Cross Reference Radio for this study in the book of Ruth. Cross Reference is the teaching ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville in Virginia. To learn more about this ministry, visit our website, crossreferenceradio.com. There you'll find additional teachings from Pastor Rick and we encourage you to subscribe to our podcast. When you subscribe, you'll be notified of each new edition of Cross Reference Radio. You can search for Cross Reference Radio on your favorite podcast app or just follow the links at crossreferenceradio.com. That's all the time we have for today, but we hope you'll join us next time as we continue to learn more from the book of Ruth right here on Cross Reference Radio.