Love Prevails (Part A)

This is a picture for us of Christ, who bought us out of the world. And he was willing to pay the price, the price of his bride, the price of the church that is so trashed unfortunately by believers. Just, you know, we have high standards in Christianity that is not a license to stop thinking. And sometimes in an effort to maintain high standards, we don't look for solutions.

Sometimes there are no solutions, but many times there are. This is Cross-Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the Book of Ruth.

Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross-Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. But for now, let's join Pastor Rick in Ruth chapter 4 as he begins his message, Love Prevails. The Book of Ruth chapter 4 verse 1, Now Boaz went up to the gate and sat down there, and behold, the close relative of whom Boaz had spoken came by. So Boaz said, Come aside friend, sit down here.

So he came aside and sat down. Now this of course follows up on the story where Boaz had assured Ruth that he would try to redeem her. The land and take her as wife, there were laws and customs in the way that they had to honor, and he said he'd do everything he could do to make this happen, but there was a relative that was in the first position of refusal, and if that relative wanted the land that belonged to Naomi and Ruth that they inherited from the husband of Naomi, Elimelech, if he wanted it then it all fell to him, and Boaz was very prepared to submit to that.

But I think Boaz, being that mighty, wealthy man that he was, he knew where this was going to go. This reference here in verse 1, the gate, that is the entrance of any city in the ancient world, in that part of the world. Deuteronomy 21 speaks about that, and that's where the civil laws and the war councils would be put together. I mean, it was where the center of government was at the gate of the city, and it was the complex of civil authority. Legal judgments were rendered there. Boaz was unable to function as the kinsman-redeemer who would take care of Ruth without going through this legal proceeding at the gate of the city. So today, a courthouse, a courthouse, there's nothing friendly about a courthouse, and it's a combative building where people combat each other for rights and for whatever it is, and the gate in the city is somewhat the similar process going on here. And behold, the close relative, that word here in verse 1, close relative in the Hebrew is the goel, or the goel, a little slight difference in pronunciation, meaning the one that redeems or rescues concerning family members and family issues.

We covered that earlier on in our study. Well, this one is in first position over Boaz. He has the right of first refusal. So Boaz said, come aside friend, sit down here. So he came aside and sat down. Friend in the Hebrew is actually as the idiom, the closest we can get is so and so. So so and so came, and what is happening is the historian is purposely leaving him anonymous, sparing him any shame that might be connected with the story or any unnecessary praise. He's not the star in the story, and he is not named. But Boaz knew him, and Boaz called him by name.

Boaz didn't say, hey, so and so, come over here. He knew what his name was, verse 2. So he took 10 men of the elders of the city and said, sit down here.

So they sat down. He called a city council. He really, according to the law, only needs two or three witnesses, but this is a little bit more complex than that. There are twists and turns here, because you have Naomi and her husband and his land, and then the two sons, Malon and Kilian, and their property, and then you have Ruth, the Moabitess' wife. And so he calls in this larger council for this complex civil matter. A quorum is now what he has, verse 3. And he said to the close relative, Naomi, who has come back from the country of Moab, sold the piece of land which belonged to our brother Elimelech.

Now, I'm going to try not to get caught up in all of the culture and law, because not all of it is clear to us. Some of it is just unwritten, but they understood what was going on. Then he said to his close relative, again, that's the goel, which incidentally, that phrase shows up 24 times in Leviticus, 24 times in Isaiah. In Isaiah, it mostly has to do with the Redeemer, and that is important as we look at the book of Ruth, and we see the types and the parallels between Boaz as a man working through the laws in his land to redeem Ruth, and we look of course at the Lord Jesus Christ on earth redeeming lost souls.

We see these parallels, and they are on purpose. God, the Holy Spirit, making sure that the author put them into the record. Ruth mentions this word ten times, and percentage-wise, it is the dominant word of the book, and in this little book, it takes the lead concerning this Jewish image that is fulfilled in Christ outside of just Israel, which is the significance of Ruth, one of the significant points of Ruth not being Jewish, but being from Moab. Naomi, it says here in verse three, who has come back from the country. So he said to his close relative, Naomi, she's come back from a country. Initially, he does not mention Ruth because he knows what he's doing. He mentions Naomi, the other kinsmen. He knows who Naomi is. He knows where the land is.

He's got this. Boaz is focusing on the land. The Redeemer is responsible for keeping the property in the family. So when Elimelech decided to leave during the famine and take his wife Naomi with him to Moab, the land of Moab, he mortgaged the land. He sold it to someone else with the right to buy it back when he returned to the Promised Land. Well, he died outside of the Promised Land, and his widow comes back, but she doesn't have the money to buy the land.

She doesn't have the money to do anything. They're living off of what we would say today is sort of a welfare system. They are taken care of by the law of the land, which was their right to glean in back of the harvesters. And this is what it's all about. Well, we need to get this land back. You're the Redeemer.

You buy it back. But he's not yet saying, Ruth comes with the land. And it's pretty, so he says here, Naomi, who has come back from the country of Moab, sold a piece of land which belonged to our brother Elimelech. Now, Elimelech is, he may have been their fraternal brother, same parents or one of the same parents. He could have been a cousin or an uncle, a close relationship. Just because the word brother is used there is not insisting that he is, they have the same parent, same mother or father. And one of the reasons to support this is because Boaz is going to marry Ruth, not Naomi. And if it was the brother, then Naomi would have been in position. So, a little twist and turns there.

That's why he called ten guys to figure this out, to make sure they weren't taking advantage of anyone. Verse 4, and I thought to inform you, saying, buy it back in the presence of the inhabitants of the elders of my people. If you will redeem it, redeem it, but if you will not redeem it, then tell me that I may know, for there is no one but you to redeem it, and I am next after you. And he said, so and so, answering Boaz now, I will redeem it. Now Boaz, if Ruth was there, she would have just fainted. That means she just lost the case. But Boaz, of course, he's shrewd, not shrewd in a bad way, he's a smart guy.

And not off to a good start to the, you know, untrained eye. But Boaz is prepared, verse 5, then Boaz said, on the day that you buy the field from the hand of Naomi you must also buy it from Ruth the Moabitess, the wife of the dead, to perpetuate the name of the dead throughout his inheritance. Change of expression on so and so's face. That's a deal breaker for him, because it means so much more. I mean, this is not a mean guy, it doesn't mean he's a terrible figure because he's my, I don't want Ruth.

Not that way, not going there at all. Two laws are considered here. One is found in Leviticus 25, the land redemption. The other, the sister-in-law assumption to assume her as wife is Deuteronomy 25, and that's what they're trying to work through together. The wife of the deceased went with the property, not as though she was chattel, not as though she were property, but you weren't going to separate them. That would not have been good for her. Again, you know, just going to fast forward a little bit, you think of Hannah with, you know, her wife and Laura, Penina, yeah, that's it. You say, how terrible of Elkanah to have two wives.

You don't know the story. He may have rescued one from a terrible life. In those days, things weren't as they were today, and so we need to be very careful that we do not apply all of our standards on them.

Some of them do apply, like murder, for instance, stealing and lying, those things, those moral behaviors, they're constant, but there are other laws that were actually very beneficial to the people, even indentured slavery. You know, I can't live, I can't survive, I can't make a living on my own. If I sell myself to someone for so many years, maybe I get back on my feet, and so you look at it from that perspective, you say, okay, actually there's mercy in that. Then men come along and abuse these things, of course, which they did in Israel, and the prophets called them out on it, especially the minor prophets. Well, back to this, Ruth came with the land. Both women were too poor to redeem the land on their own. You could not disconnect the two, and these were the Levirite, the Levirite law of the land dictated this to look out for everyone as best as they could in difficult times. Evidently, when this is published, likely during the reign of David, the people had changed some of the laws and weren't as familiar, and so we'll keep reading. Verse 6, and the close relative said, I cannot redeem it for myself, lest I ruin my own inheritance.

You redeem my right of redemption for yourself, for I cannot redeem it. The family wealth split between, if he bought the land, the family wealth split between his existing family, his wife and children, and then taking on Ruth and going, ultimately having children with Ruth also, and then having to split the wealth, he's just doing the math, and he's saying, this is not good for my portfolio, it's not a good deal for me. He doesn't love Ruth. He doesn't hate her or anything, I mean, he may or may not, we don't have that information, it's not wise to speculate in the negative here, but he cannot go forward with this in his own calculations. If he loved Ruth, as Boaz now does, he would have made a way to get that land.

In fact, it may not be good for Boaz. The deal is probably, you know, it's kind of a bad deal for me too, but his motivation is not his portfolio. So, he simply could not afford a second family and the land. If Ruth wasn't involved, he was just buying the land back from Naomi, it wouldn't be a good deal. He'd take the land, he could sell it, he could lease it out, he could give it to his children, he could do a lot of things with it. But not if Ruth was there, because she'd say, no, this is my land.

You can't do that. So, he says, you redeem my right of redemption for yourself, for I cannot redeem it. Love prevails. Boaz said, I saw it coming yesterday before I even got here, I knew it was going to go this way, because I know you so and so. He just, he knew, it worked out. In this situation, Boaz was willing to pay the price no matter what because of love.

And this is the story, he's next in position and he does. This is a picture for us of Christ, who bought us out of the world. And he was willing to pay the price, the price of his bride, the price of the church that is so trashed unfortunately by believers. Just, you know, we have high standards in Christianity that is not a license to stop thinking. And sometimes, in an effort to maintain high standards, we don't look for solutions.

Sometimes there are no solutions, but many times there are. But they're missed because in an effort to maintain high standards without thinking, we miss them. Boaz has thought it all through, as did Christ. And the closer relative, so and so in the story, I was going to give him a name, but why? So and so works good, it's not derogatory. He typifies the law.

He is in first position, but he's pretty, he's inflexible. The Ten Witnesses, the Ten Commandments, they confirm the inability of the law to redeem, to do something about this situation because there's no love. It's just strict rules. And that is what Paul was trying to tell the ancient world in his letter to the Romans especially and the Galatians and the Hebrews. The law, while it is good for us, it does not love us. The Redeemer is one within the law who loves us and overcomes the laws that would otherwise work against us. And that is a picture of Christ. So I have a note here summarized what I just said.

But why? I did such a good job laying it out that anyway, I think you get it. And if I go back over it again, I might confuse you because it's very hard, I say in humility, to perfect perfection. Verse seven, if you don't have it, just suffice it to say, Boaz gets the girl. If you must have all of these Jewish laws buttoned down, you're going to spend so much time on it, you're going to miss the bigger prizes unless you've got a lot of time and you can really read very quickly.

I would again point you to Alfred Endersheim's materials. He was Jewish. He was a believer. He knew many of the laws of the Jews, even of the rabbis.

And they're two different things, don't forget that. The rabbis just poured more rules into the law and it became custom with the Jews and it really has nothing to do with Moses and God. It just had something to do with religion. And so to learn how to sort through that, you know, the story about the Seder meal when they look for Elijah, that's not ours. That's not biblical. The rabbis injected that into the story.

And to go to one of these meals, you're just celebrating culture. You're not really getting scripture. You're getting names of Bible characters injected into what somebody else thought up. I'm just saying. I make enemies saying that, even among some of my pastors' friends who invite these folks over to their churches to have these things and I say, well, you know it has nothing to do with the Bible.

I'm just saying. Verse 7, and thank you for some of you not getting up and rushing out over something like that. Now this was the custom in former times in Israel concerning redeeming and exchanging to confirm anything. One man took off his sandal and gave it to the other and it was a confirmation in Israel. So again, whereas verse 7 we're in, now this was the custom in former times. That's what I mentioned earlier. That by the time this book of Ruth was published in David's day, some of these customs had fallen away and were probably replaced by other laws of the elders and tribal leaders, not to say it was bad or good, but he makes that comment and that suggests that the book of Ruth was an oral tradition before it went in print.

That doesn't mean it was jeopardized or somehow lost its punch. Those who preserved the oral traditions, they were fierce, word for word. They just did not depart from the story as it was told them. They memorized it. It's like you teaching your child the Lord's Prayer. You've memorized it and when they get it, they've got the printed version from an oral, from a recital.

You're kneeling down with them perhaps. My mom would kneel down with me and we would say the Lord's Prayer, our Father who art in heaven, as a little boy and that's how I learned it before I could read. And by the time I made to my 30s when I learned to read, I already had it. So that's that statement there.

It's a valuable statement. It really helps keep the Bible real to us, something a lot of folks I think lose sight of. It's very easy to lose sight of it, but the actions here with the sandals are a little different from those described in Deuteronomy 25 where the widow removes the sandal of the brother-in-law who is supposed to marry her. All right, so you have two brothers. One of them marries.

Let's keep it that way, simple that way. And the married brother, he dies and his wife is now a widow. Well, his brother is supposed to marry the wife.

It is his duty as a goel, the redeemer, because in that society for women to survive without a man is very difficult. Well, if he said, you know what, I never liked her anyway and I'd rather suffer the shame of the community than be stuck with her. Well, if that's how it was going to happen, she publicly at the gate of the city would remove his sandal, spit in his face.

That's what the law required. Well, this is a little different. This is between the two men and there's an exchange of a sandal and there's no spitting in the face.

Why all this drama? Well, it goes back to the days of Abraham. Put your hand under my thigh because once you do that, you're never going to forget you did it. It's a distinct gesture that creates a mental picture that's not easy to forget.

And so we have these sayings, I'll never forget it. He walked in the room wearing, you know, just these things that stand out. Well, this was that in front of everybody, so if two years later, nobody has, you know, keeping court records like we do, someone says, I bought that land from you.

No, you didn't. I remember that you took your sandal off and you got these witnesses. Yeah, I remember that because we don't see that every day.

And that is part of the strength behind it. Verse 8, therefore, the close relative said to Boaz, buy it for yourself. So he took off his sandal. And this is what Boaz was praying that he would hear and have happen and now he hears it and he knows that he is going to marry Ruth. Verse 9, and Boaz said to the elders and all the people, you are witnesses this day that I have bought all that was Alamelek's and all that was Killian's and Malian's from the hand of Naomi.

So Boaz, knowing that he was going to win this case, again, he calls the ten witnesses. This is the man Ruth is marrying and he is the star of this fourth chapter in Ruth. He is the hero. What he is to Ruth as a redeemer, of course, Christ on an infinitely larger scale is to us, the hero, the star of the story, the one that knows how this is going to go, the one that is willing to pay the price. Ruth doesn't have to pay anything, nor does Naomi.

Boaz is paying at all and again, in that he is a type of Christ and all the types, you know, they are not meant to be apples to apple. They are just enough to get us there in a strong, just to get us there. That would be good enough just to get me there. I don't care how ugly the car is, as long as it is safe and I arrive at my destination, that is the most important.

Well, that is not exactly true. There are some other trucks I have seen on the road that I would rather walk, but you are witnesses this day that I have bought all. You see from New Testament eyes that I have bought all. It stands out.

It should. That is redemption, the cost of redeeming something. 1 Corinthians chapter 6 verse 20, for you were bought at a price, Paul says. Therefore, glorify your father.

You were bought, blood bought. Hebrews 9 verse 12, not with the blood of goats and calves, that is religion, but with his own blood he entered the most holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption, the redeeming, buying us back. Titus 2 14, who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for himself his own special people, zealous for good works. Christians are supposed to want to do good deeds and I am going to read two more because my point is the emphasis the New Testament places on our redemption is found in illustration in the story of Ruth and with Naomi and Boaz and all the characters and it is not just a beautiful story.

It is educational for us. Ephesians 1 7, in him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace. That is Boaz. According to the riches and the grace of Boaz. Boaz said I have the money, I have the position and I still don't want to do it. But he did not because he fell in love.

The difference where types break down of course is that they only go so far. The difference is that Christ did not wait for something about us to love. He would be waiting a long time and if he did, just say when they get to this place where I can love them, then I will love them and die for them. Well then what would happen when you do something that would make him unlove you? You see his love is so much bigger than what we call love. Christ can look at the person that comes to church and is struggling with sin and he loves, just loves on them. They do not get it so often. They turn on him. They think he is mean and harsh or they want to try to say he is something other than what he says he is. It is not like that.

He is not going to budge or he is not going to move off of his law and it is going to take a lot to suffer the consequences. But as Romans 5 says, while we were still sinners, Christ demonstrated his love. 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 will find additional teachings from Pastor Rick and we encourage you to subscribe to our podcast. When you subscribe, you will 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 is all the time we have for today but we hope you will join us next time as we continue to learn more from the book of Ruth right here on Cross Reference Radio.