Ruth Chapter 4:1-16

Are you in the middle of this station and beyond so they can cross the bridge from death to life? Please visit crossthebridge.com today to give and get your copy of Living Life by the book. Now here's David McKee with part two of his teaching, Redeemed. The last few weeks we've been in the book of Ruth. There's four chapters in the book of Ruth, so from a space standpoint, that's a small book in the Hebrew Scriptures, but boy without it, we would have a lot missing from our New Testament in the concept of the Kinsman Redeemer and also with the genealogies, which we'll be looking at tonight.

So if you're joining us for the first week, just a quick summary on the first three chapters. Naomi went with her husband and her two sons to the land of Moab because there was a famine in the land. Went to Moab, they took wives for their sons, and in the land of Moab, Naomi's husband died and the husbands of Ruth and Orpah also died, and so they came back to the land of Israel. Now Ruth comes back into the land as somebody from Moab or a Moabite who they were not allowed to enter into any kind of service for the Lord in the temple, so there was a lot of stigma to be in a Moabite.

The Moabites came to be from the relations that Lot had with his daughter that we see in the book of Genesis, so there was that stigma, so there was a lot to overcome. And then when they come back, Ruth begins to go and glean in the field, which we talked about was God's system of not welfare but workfare, where she went through the harvest and was able to get some of the grain that was leftover. And God granted her favor with a man of stature and prominence named Boaz. And then we saw in the last chapter that Ruth asked Boaz to be her kinsman redeemer, her goel, which would allow Boaz to become her husband and also to redeem the land that had been lost as they entered poverty and left Israel.

Obviously the land that had been allocated or inherited by them was lost through that, and so there was the redemption of the land and there was the redemption of the marriage and the reclamation or the reclaiming of the inheritance. So that kind of brings us up to speed here, and then we ought to pick up with chapter 3 verse 18, just for context's sake, when Naomi is speaking to Ruth and talking about the plan of Boaz to mention to this relative that is closer to Ruth, therefore it's his first priority to redeem and he has to actually decline before Boaz comes up to bat, if you will, and here's her advice to Ruth. Verse 18, then she said, 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.

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, and he took ten men of the elders of the city and said, sit down here, so they sat down. Then he said to the close relative, Naomi, who has come back from the country of Moab, sold a piece of land which belonged to our brother Elimelet. And I thought to inform you, saying, buy it back in the presence of the inhabitants and 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, I will redeem it. Verse 5, then Boaz said, on the day you buy the field from the hand of Naomi, you must also buy it from Ruth of Moabitess, the wife of the dead, to perpetuate the name of the dead through his inheritance.

So now he includes Ruth in the package. 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. Now, this was the custom in former times in Israel concerning redeeming and exchanging to confirm anything. One man took off a sandal and gave it to the other and this was a confirmation in Israel.

Therefore, the close relative said to Boaz, buy it for yourself so he took off his sandal. Verse 9, and Boaz said to the elders and all the people, you are witnesses this day that I have bought all that was Elimelech and all that was Chilean and Melon from the hand of Naomi. Moreover, Ruth of Moabitess, the widow of Melon, I have acquired as my wife to perpetuate the name of the dead through his inheritance, that the name of the dead may not be cut off from among his brethren and from his position at the gate.

You are witnesses this day. That's interesting, this whole concept of meeting at the gate. The gate was kind of a place of governmental function, if you will, in the city. To this day, you can go to the gates in Jerusalem and these are the places that they used to have these things going on. It's kind of interesting that liberal theologians questioned this whole concept of a gate.

In the Hebrew Scriptures, they thought, well, it probably came along about the time of Jesus and they kept maintaining this position and then near Dan, they found a gate that was about at least 3,000 years old that was indeed the seat of government functions. This is interesting if you've been with us the past few weeks of the journey that's been undertaken and what's happened because here we've got poverty and famine and death leading to provision and blessing. Now, what happens so often in life, we tend to disregard faith in the equation. See, when faith enters in, everything becomes possible. You understand that? If you will, two plus two can be more than four because so often we look at our circumstances and we measure them by our abilities.

I can't do that or I can't do this or that person can't do that or that person can't do this. It's almost like we are disregarding faith and the impact that it can have on our lives and the lives of people around us. The life lesson here, God can change us, our circumstances, our surroundings, and our world. We need to understand that because see, so often people look around and they look at people's lives and they think, well, I don't know if God can do a work there. But again, God can change us, our circumstances, our surroundings, and our world.

Are you in the middle of something right now that's challenging, perhaps even painful? You understand God can change that just like that? God is able to do the impossible. Not only that, but he delights from doing the impossible. As a matter of fact, sometimes you almost have to get in that position before the Lord comes through. You ever find that out? And maybe you're sitting there going, well, theologically, I'm not sure I agree with that.

No, wait a minute. Let's go back to the children of Israel. Children of Israel have been set free from the land of Egypt, right? They get out in the desert and they've got mountains on one side.

They've got the Red Sea behind them and mountains on the other side. And in Pharaoh's army bearing down on them. I don't know if you remember the Ten Commandments and Yul Brynner, but he says, their God must be a poor military strategist because he had them trapped. Understand, God in his foreknowledge had them in a place they could not escape from.

He placed them there. And Moses turns around and he looks at the Red Sea and takes his staff and lifts it. And of course, in the Ten Commandments, that's just this heroic act of faith. Maybe. I think Moses is going, yeah, he's probably at that moment going, please, Lord, do something.

Please. He's just hoping something will happen. And sure enough, something did. The Red Sea parted and a way out, an impossible way out was made through the circumstances.

Faith opened up the circumstance. Now what if Moses had engaged in some argument or rational discussion with the Lord? Lord, I'm not going to raise this stick. Raising this stick won't do anything. That's not going to solve anything. God I'm not going to raise that rod.

But he didn't do that. He did, as the Lord instructed, and God met him where he was with his need. I think that's a good lesson for us when we find ourselves in that place where we don't see a way out. There's an interesting phrase in there. Moses says, stand still and see the salvation of the Lord.

Have you been around for very long? You might understand or you might be able to guess what that phrase is in the Hebrew. See, when you see that word salvation in your English Bible, almost every time it occurs, the Hebrew word there is Yeshua, Jesus. Moses says, stand still and see the Yeshua the Lord. Stand still and watch what Jesus will do. And some of us, we get in those situations and you know what we do? We start to rationalize. We start to figure out how we can get out of this situation and what we got to do and what's up to us.

And boy, you know, if anything's going to get solved, I better do something. But the word of the Lord at that point is, you know what? Sit still, trust me, and watch what I'll do. Watch what I'll do. So often we get in all kinds of trouble.

Why? Because we try to fix the situation when God's saying, just sit still and watch what I'm going to do. And certainly we see God coming through in the impossible here in the book of Ruth. You know, every one of us has been in that place by the Red Sea in one way or another. At no other time in your life, you found yourself, when you begin to understand God's holiness and your sinfulness, you found yourself at that place. That moment when you, the Holy Spirit's convicting you or convincing you of your sin, you understand you've messed up that according to the law, if you've broken it in one place, you've broken it in every place and you're sitting there and Pharaoh's army bearing down on you, mountains on two sides, the Red Sea behind you and you're, what do I do?

And the Red Sea parts and we're given an impossible way out. As the Lord says, you know what? You're out of fellowship with me.

You do not have a relationship with me, but I desire relationship with you. I've made the way out through the cross. And we come to that place.

And then joy of joys. You know what we get to do then? We get to look around for other people that find themselves in that same place. You can look around because you know, sometimes you can go out in the public and you can see people's faces, man. You can look into their eyes and you can tell they got Pharaoh's army bearing down on them and they're freaked out and they're scared and they're thinking there's no way out.

I don't have a way out. And you are given the opportunity to minister to them for them to stand still and see the Yeshua of the Lord. What an awesome thing. Look for that look. You'll recognize it because you've had that look before.

Look for that look you used to carry. If you're here tonight and you know Jesus, look for that look before you knew Jesus and other people, that look of hopelessness, that look that all is not well and tell them the good news. I love Psalm 30 verse five. It says, for his anger is but for a moment, his favor is for life and weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning. Many of us recognize that there were some hard times before we came to the Lord and not that those hard times all stopped when we came to the Lord, but there is an end to the hard times. Perhaps you will have a difficult life here, trials and tribulations and whatnot. This life doesn't last forever.

It's but a vapor. And Paul, who we know was a southerner, because he uses a phrase that only southerners use. He says, for I reckon, I've been a lot of different places.

This is the only part of the world people say I reckon. Paul says, for I reckon that the sufferings of this present day are not worthy to be compared to the coming glory. There's no comparison.

You understand what that means? We won't be sitting around heaven complaining about how hard life was here. It's not going to happen. All that's going to be gone. It's going to be over.

Why? Because weeping may endure for the night, but joy comes in the morning. Verse 11, and all the people who were at the gate and the elders said, we are witnesses. The Lord makes a woman who has come into your house like Rachel and Leah, the two who built the house of Israel and may you prosper in Ephrathah and be famous in Bethlehem. Ephrathah means fruitful, was a name used for Bethlehem. Bethlehem or Beit Lechang was house of bread. Certainly that little town of Bethlehem ended up to be famous.

Why? Because Jesus was born. Jesus who said, I am the bread of heaven came from the town called house of bread.

Every time we have communion, think about that. He came from the house of bread. There's a picture of the showbread in the tabernacle. In verse 12, may your house be like the house of Perez whom Tamar boarded Judah because of the offspring, which the Lord will give you from this young woman.

This is interesting. Boaz describes Ruth in verse five as Ruth the Moabitess. She's no longer Ruth the Moabitess. Now she's Ruth, the wife of Boaz. I think that's important for us. You know why?

Well, let me say that I disagree with a common thought or philosophy that some people have of, and you can fill in your own blank. Once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic. Once a drug addict, always a drug addict. Many of the 12-step programs, they encourage you never to say that you're an ex-alcoholic or that you used to be an alcoholic, that you still are. Certainly with harder drugs such as heroin, they say, well, you can never get divorced.

You can only get separated for a little while. I reject that. You know why? Because according to the word of God, you can be made new. So once you're made new, don't introduce yourself by your old name. You're not going to hear me stand up here and go, hi, I'm David. I'm an alcoholic.

I'm not going to do it. I don't struggle with alcohol anymore. I don't, you know, I don't go on my way to church in the morning, think about going by the market and picking up a case of beer. Praise God, huh? God has cleansed me to the point He's taken that desire away from me. And if you're not doing it, but the desire is still there, know God is going to, He's going to take that desire from you at some point. You just keep walking in faith because you know what? You're no longer a junkie or an adulterer or an alcoholic or a stripper or an idolater or a thief or any of those things. You're a blood-bought child of God.

Amen. Now, people might remember. They might remind you. It doesn't matter because God doesn't remember. And if God has forgotten, what does it matter if somebody else remembers?

Again, it's interesting. You know, we refer to the woman in John chapter 8. We now call her here in this place the forgiven woman. It's amazing to me that, you know, the subheading in most people's Bibles and whatnot refer to her as the adulterous woman. Isn't that a weird commentary on Christianity? Jesus looks at this woman and says, I don't condemn you. Go and sin no more. And we call her the adulterous woman for the next 2,000 years.

God must just look and shake his head. We call her the forgiven woman here. Verse 13, so Boaz took Ruth and she became his wife. And when he went into her, the Lord gave her conception and she bore a son.

So God blessed this union. Understand, children are a blessing from God. Now, that's not to worry that the world sees them. That's the way God sees them. The world takes exactly the opposite perspective on children. Children are a hassle. They are an anchor. They're whatever.

They're an inconvenience. I don't know if you've ever seen that cartoon. This guy says to the Lord, Lord, why didn't you ever give us the cures for cancer and for AIDS and for world hunger? And he says, you know, I gave you the children that had the cures and you aborted them. And I in no way want to be insensitive to those ladies and men who have led women into abortions.

There can be forgiveness. But also, you need to know that because some of the young girls here may be forced to that decision sometime. And they need to understand that biblically, whether it's your time or not, whether it's your season or not, if you find yourself pregnant, it is a blessing from God. Children are a blessing from the Lord. Psalm 127 verses three to five say, behold, children are heritage from the Lord. The fruit of the womb is a reward like arrows in the hand of a warrior. So are the children of one's youth.

Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them. They shall not be ashamed, but shall speak with their enemies in the gate. That concept there in verse five is that the children will go with the parent to meet the enemies in the gate of the city. And verse 14, then the women said to Naomi, blessed be the Lord who has not left you this day without a close relative and may his name be famous in Israel. And may he be to you a restorer of life and a nourisher of your old age for your daughter-in-law who loves you, who is better to you than seven sons has borne him. Then Naomi took the child and laid him on her bosom and became a nurse to him.

This is interesting. The daughter-in-law, speaking of Ruth, says that she is better than seven sons. Now understand agricultural society, obviously there was an emphasis on having male children so that they could work in these agricultural endeavors.

To be compared even to one son was favorable, but to say that was better than seven sons is an incredible thing. Notice what Naomi does. Naomi takes the child and begins to interact with it, have a relationship with it and to bless it.

She invested in a younger generation. There's a lot of pictures going on here. We've talked about how Boaz is a picture or a type of Jesus Christ in the book of Ruth.

Now there's certainly some exceptions to that, but overall it's a good picture for us to remember. That would mean that Naomi would be a picture of Israel. And look how Naomi is taken out of the land and she goes and brings back Ruth, who is a Gentile, a non-Jewish person and introduces Ruth to one of her descendants or her relatives who then in turn blesses her. We owe a debt to Israel.

Why? Because this is a Jewish book. It's a Jewish Messiah. There's only two books like we discussed. There are only two books in here that were written by a Gentile. The rest were written by Jewish authors. The disciples were Jewish men.

We owe a debt. I think when Paul talked about, you know, don't get proud and boastful and boast against the root, I don't think he had any idea how big of a problem that was going to be later on. And here the offspring of Ruth is blessed by Naomi, who again is a picture of Israel. There is such a huge blessing in digging into our Jewish roots and to exploring the Hebrew Scriptures and seeing the different pictures, seeing even just isolate the book of Ruth, the blessing that it's been to see the concept of the Goel, the kinsman redeemer. It helps you understand more about Jesus Christ. Friend, do you know for sure that your sins have been forgiven?

You can know right now. I want to lead you in a short, simple prayer, simply telling God you're sorry and asking him to help you to live for him. Now God wants you to pray this prayer so much that he died to give you the opportunity and the ability to ask him to forgive you.

Please pray this prayer with me out loud right now. Dear Jesus, I believe you died for me, that I could be forgiven. And I believe you were raised from the dead, that I could have a new life. I've done wrong things. I have sinned and I'm sorry. Please forgive me of all those things. Please give me the power to live for you all of my days. In Jesus' name.

Amen. Friend, if you prayed that prayer, according to the Bible, you've been forgiven. You've been born again. Jesus said he would not turn anybody away who comes to him. And he came for those people who knew they needed forgiveness, those who were sick, not the righteous. So congratulations, friend.

You just made the greatest decision that you will ever make. God bless you. If you prayed that prayer with David for the first time, we'd love to hear from you. You can call us toll free at 877-458-5508 to receive our First Steps package with helpful resources to help you begin your walk with Christ. Do you ever feel beaten down or even crushed by the difficulties of life? We all do sometimes, but Jesus offers a life of hope and we want to help you embrace it. Discover how Christ empowers you to rise above life circumstances with Pastor David's four-part teaching series, Living Life by the Book. This uplifting resource takes you through the Book of Ruth to reveal how the simplicity of living for Jesus can bring you joy, even in the darkest times. Living Life by the Book is our thanks for your generous gift today to help more people hear God's truth on this station and beyond so they can cross the bridge from death to life. Please visit CrossTheBridge.com today to give and get your copy of Living Life by the Book. You know each day comes with its share of stresses, so what better way to wake up than with an encouraging word from the Lord? Visit CrossTheBridge.com and sign up now for David McKee's email devotionals. Each devotion includes a scripture and a message from the heart of David McKee. It's easy and it's free. Sign up today at CrossTheBridge.com. Thanks again for listening. Join us next time as we continue in the Book of Ruth.