Sometimes the circumstances we're facing can create a bleak outlook. leaving us tempted to just give up. Ruth in the Old Testament must have felt that way. She was poor and widowed, living in a foreign land with her widowed mother in law. They had no one to protect or provide for them.
Well, today on Truth for Life, Alistair Begg considers how Ruth met her trials with faith and action.
Well, can I invite you to turn again to the second chapter of Ruth? Naomi had a relative on her husband's side from the clan of Elimelech, a man of standing, whose name was Boaz. And Ruth the Morbitess said to Naomi, Let me go to the fields. What we've tried to remind one another of as we've been coming to these studies is the very humanity of what we have before us. That, as with the other sections of the Bible, we're dealing with real men and women in real places.
in the span of human history. Locations that are still present today, in this instance, in the town of Bethlehem, which some of you will have visited. And the events that unfold in the book of Ruth Are taking place in the very same fields in which King David, or the one who was to become King David, would in turn be out looking after the sheep that were under his care. The same fields in which the angels would appear to shepherds in their day, announcing the arrival of the Lord Jesus Himself. And so, having left Moab and come back to the Bethlehem area, what we have is the story of these two widow women.
one the mother-in-law of Ruth. And Ruth herself. And when the morning sunlight awakened her to this new day. She probably did what you and I do unless we have slept in. And that is take just a moment to remind ourselves where we are.
And she would have doubtless looked up at the ceiling. And said to herself, Oh yes, that's right. Uh we're now in Bethlehem. She would have reminded herself, as it is routine to do, I think, or maybe it's just me, but I find myself running through a catalogue of events that give me stability. As I think about who and where I am.
It would have been difficult for her in the infancy of these days to forget the fact that she was bereft of her husband, that she was now a widow. That her circumstances were that she was living with her mother-in-law, and her mother-in-law was also a widow. She doubtless would have said to herself, and I'm a long way from home. I know I made the decision to leave. I hope I've done the right thing.
Here I am. I'm an alien. I live now in a foreign land.
However, she would have said, I have made this great declaration to Naomi concerning her faith in God and my desire to trust Naomi's God. I now trust in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and of Jacob. And then she must have said to herself, Well, it looks as though my life here is probably going to be quite uneventful. It would seem, judging by what I've seen so far and what I can imagine, that my life is probably going to be fairly ordinary and relatively unexciting.
Now clearly this is conjecture on my part, but that would not be a surprising thing if we were to discover when we meet her in heaven that our mind had ruminated along these kind of avenues. And then she would have said, as any sensible person eventually has to say, well, there's no point in lying here thinking like this all morning. I need to get up and get on with the day. And indeed, if I can give you one word of advice, those of you for whom ruminating on trouble is a normal experience, especially in the early hours of the morning, I give you a piece of spiritual advice, and that is get out of your bed and wash your face. That is the best advice I can give you.
For you to stay lying there longer than is helpful and necessary is liable to put you in the pit of depression. And so she said, Well, I'd better get up. If she had been contemporary with us, she may have got up and had in her mind the words of a relatively familiar hymn, Forth in thy name, O Lord, I go, my daily labors to pursue. Thee, only thee, resolve to know. in all I think.
and speak. And do. That's a good stanza incidentally to begin any day with. I'm not sure we know that hymn, but it is a familiar hymn to some and it is an important hymn. Here I am, it's your day, Lord.
I'm about to go into it. I want to do your will today, and I am resolved to know only you in the doing of your will. And so Coming down to breakfast, she offers a suggestion to her mother-in-law. She says, I'm actually going to go out today. If it's okay with you, I'd like to go out into the fields and pick up the leftover grain.
She says she's going to be looking for somebody, anybody, in whose eyes she can find favor. When I began my studies of this chapter, I thought that we would deal with the whole chapter in one study. And then I determined that we'd probably deal with half of the chapter in one study. And in prospect of dealing with half of the chapter in one study, I had three headings under which I gathered my thoughts. Only one heading will be germane to our issue this evening.
But the first heading came out of verse 2 and it was this, Let me go and find favor.
Now she says, Let me go and gather grain and get behind anybody in whose eyes I find favor. But essentially what she's saying is, let me go out into the fields and see if I can't find myself in a favorable position. Let me go and find favor. And then we were going to go to verse 10 for our second point, which will be sometime in the future, where she asks the question: Why have I found such favor? And then we were going to go to verse 13, which would be our concluding point, which is sometime also in the future, where it reads, May I continue to find favor.
Okay. Let me go and find favor. Why have I found favor? Let me continue. to find favour.
Well, we only have time this evening for the first of these. I'm sure you'll be greatly relieved to understand that. It will be an encouragement to a number of you. and not least of all to members of my own family. Who constantly say, Why can't you listen to what your father told you?
And reduce the length of your sermons. Anyway, notice that in the first verse, in the first verse, we have this little introduction to Boaz. The narrator, the writer, introduces us to Boaz. Tells us that here Naomi has a relative. The relationship which exists was on the side of her husband Elimelech.
The family for the Israelite was the basic unit of social society. The kinship structure was very, very important. And members of the wider family had obligations to help and to protect and to support the family structure when things began to cave in. And so, for example, for someone such as Naomi to find herself a widow at this point in her life would mean that if there were people in the wider family structure who would be able to express care for her, then she might anticipate the same. And so the writer tells us right at the very beginning, he says that there is a relative around in the area, his name is Boaz, and the link that he has with Naomi is directly through her husband Elimelech, or her late husband Elimelech.
So he mentions the relationship that is there, and then he also mentions the resources of this individual Boaz. We're told in the NIV that he is a man of standing. This means a number of things. It could be translated that he was a wealthy man, it could be translated that he was a man of integrity, it could be translated that he was a strong man, that he was a powerful man, that he was a military man. The word is used in a whole variety of contexts.
Suffice it to say that Boaz was a man of moral. financial and social standing. He was a man of integrity, he was a man of influence. And he was a man of means.
Now that's all we're told in the first verse. The writer simply says, Now, I want you to understand that Naomi had a relative, it was on her husband's side, Elimelech, and the relative that she had is a chap called Boaz, and this guy, Boaz, is integrity, he's influence, and he is means. Thus, causing any of us in reading the story to say to ourselves, aha, I wonder why he mentions boas. I wonder if Boaz is going to play a part later on in the story. I wonder what particular significance he may have in the lives of these women.
If any. And that verse just sits there. And then we go back to the narrative. Verse two. And Ruth, the morbitess, reminding us that she is an alien, said to Naomi, I'm going to go out into the fields if that's okay with you.
If any of you have lived at all in village life in an agricultural community, you will know that a time of harvesting is a wonderful time. I used to make frequent trips in the north of Scotland, as I've told you before, into a very, very rural community that grew various staples, potatoes and turnips and a variety of things. And we would often arrive in September at the time of the Tatty Hauking. Which actually means the potato picking. And I still have a very, very vivid picture of tractor trailers coming down through the village streets with the very sunburned faces and legs of individuals dangling off the side of the trailer.
And the fact that this harvesting was taking place impacted the totality of the village structure. The children did not go to school because of the harvesting. They were allowed to remain from school so that they could help with the harvesting. It was impossible to be in the village and to be uninvolved in the events as they were taking place. And something akin to that would have been true here in Bethlehem also.
So whether Ruth had conceived of the plan to go into the fields while she was lying on her bed, or whether it was on account of the buzz that was going around the village, whether it was the stirrings of village life, the air being filled with the smell of fresh grain, Now the sounds of the harvesters leaving for their task Triggering in her mind the thought, well, if everybody's going, perhaps I could go. We're not told. But we do know that she requests of her mother-in-law that she might go to the fields and pick up the leftover grain.
Now we look at that and we say to ourselves, I wonder where that comes from. And we need a knowledge of the Old Testament law. You can read this for your homework in Leviticus 19, Leviticus 23, and Deuteronomy 24. When you get to those three chapters, you will discover that God made provision for the poor in the establishing of laws in relationship, even to the harvesting of crops. The individual who was the harvester Was told that he mustn't reap right into the corners of the fields.
Nor was the harvester allowed to go back through a second time and pick up what had been left in the initial pass through the fields. By means of this, God was expressing the fact that He was concerned for the poor and the needy. And he wanted those who had been given the privilege of being harvesters, who had been successful in their endeavors, of recognizing that they too then should bear the characteristics of a covenant-keeping God. And so that by their ability to leave behind that which was extraneous to them, then the poor and the needy may come and pick it up. In other words, God was concerned for people like Naomi and people like Ruth.
And so that is why she says, let me go to the fields and pick up a leftover grain. You'll notice that it involves endeavor. There wasn't a provision that God had made where He had people stand with buckets of grain for folks who just didn't want to work. This wasn't some social welfare program where, if you didn't want to work, you just hung around, and eventually somebody came by and gave you stuff. which other people were working very, very hard to get.
No, he made wonderful provision because it demanded the honest endeavors of the poor. But the honest endeavors of the poor were rewarded. This was the origination of the program, I Will Work for Food. And these individuals really meant what they said. And so they went to work for food.
Impudence And greediness on the part of the poor. Expose them. to a justifiable contempt neglect. Impudence and greediness. on the part of the poor, Expose them.
to a justifiable contempt and neglect. I've got every distinction in my mind. Between the individual to whom I am prepared to give money or buy a meal. And the individual whom I will gladly walk past and give nothing and buy no meal.
So for example, outside the Sears Tower not the Sears Tower, but the water tower in Chicago, when I come upon the guy with two sticks and four plastic buckets turned up on their bottoms, Sitting now in a half crouch position going I said, This is good. This is very good. I'm going to give this guy money. He's entertaining. He's at least doing something.
But the guy goes, Hey. Hey. Yeah. I go, Hey. Hey.
Hey. Don't be impudent. Don't be impudent. You think you stand there with a Labrador dog and induce guilt in me to give you my hard-earned cash? Do something, bang a drum, dance, do something.
So you see, when God provides for the poor, There's tremendous wisdom in it, isn't there? He doesn't want the poor to suffer. Jesus says, You will always have the poor with you.
So we do not neglect the poor. But we do not demean the poor by leaving them in a state of abject poverty induced by their own willful indolence.
Now, isn't it interesting too? At least I hope you find it interesting, that Ruth doesn't ask her mother-in-law, what have you got planned for me? That would have been possible. She woke up in the morning, she came down for breakfast. After all, she was an alien in a foreign land.
She was the one that had moved. She came down, she said to her mother-in-law: well, what are we going to do now? I suppose you've been thinking about it while you were lying on your bed. What have you got planned? How are you going to provide for me?
What am I supposed to do now?
Now she doesn't do that. Nor does she ask Naomi to join her. She doesn't say, Naomi, I think the two of us ought to get out in the fields and pick up some of that leftover grain. No, she says, Naomi, if it's okay with you, I would like to go out into the fields and pick up the leftover grain. Why?
Respect Respect. Naomi had lived longer. Naomi had endured more. Naone had earned, if you like, the sense of rest and of ease. that younger people have not earned.
And so she says, I will go there if it's all right with you. I will risk being ostracized as a foreigner. I will risk the potential physical abuse of the man in the company. In order that I might fulfill for you, Naomi, an obligation which I believe that God has laid on me. That when I said to you, Entreat me not to leave thee, nor to return from following after thee, for where thou goest I will go, and where thou dwellest, I will dwell.
Thy people will be my people, and thy God my God. I knew, Naomi, that that was going to mean something. And this morning, part of what it means is: I go to the fields, you get to stay. In an earlier generation, a Scottish commentator says young persons should be cheerfully willing to bear fatigues and troubles for the sake of their ageing parents. A young woman cheerfully laboring for her aged parents.
is far happier than a fashionable lady spending in idleness and dissipation. the fruits of the industry of her ancestors. Tremendous practical lessons.
So far from Bethlehem.
So many years have passed. And yet many of us have parents. who are in that phase of life now. I trust none of us are waking up in the morning and saying, No, what are you going to do for me today? You say, well, that was nice of her to go out there.
It's obviously quite a nice job. No, it's not. It's a lousy job. What she was going to go and do was akin to going around and picking up old aluminium cans. that you can recycle So that you can eke out an existence.
That's essentially the sort of level of subsistence living to which she commits herself. There's no prestige in this. She's not one of the routine harvesters. She's not the routine gleaner. She's not part of an employed group.
She comes along when everyone else is gone and she ferrets around and picks up the bits and pieces. She's like moving around a building site looking for aluminium cans so that she can take them into one of those big drums and get 10 cents or 5 cents for every one. And once she's amassed a huge big polythene bag of them, then she'll be able to go home and tell her mother-in-law, Naomi, that she's had a good day. But our attitude is wonderful, isn't it? She's not going out here on the basis of her rights.
Few as they were, She's going out here in the hope of finding favour. The word is actually the same word that would be used to describe grace. It's the same word that you have in Genesis 6:8, where it says that Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord, or Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord. I'm going to go out into the fields. I'll pick up the leftover grain and I'll do that behind anyone in whose eyes I manage to find favor.
She's teaching us, you see, by her attitude and by her actions. That everything that God gives any of us. and every opportunity of obtaining what we need. our undeserved mercies. from the giver of every good.
When a man or a woman, when a young person actually believes that, and has that written into the corner of their existence. then it will transform how we approach any task. And every day. Everything that God gives us. And every opportunity of obtaining what we need is an undeserved expression of His favor.
And in a society that is preoccupied with its rights. The Word of God calls us to focus. on privileges.
So Naomi, who doubtless might have wished for better circumstances for both herself and Ruth, responds kindly in just a little phrase she says go ahead my daughter I sat for a long time wondering, I wonder what her tone of voice was when she said that. I don't know what it was, I just wondered about it. If you want to wonder about it, I'll pause for just a moment and let you wonder. Naomi said to her, Go ahead, my daughter. I don't think so.
Go ahead, my daughter. I don't think so. I think probably she watched her shoulders going down the street and she said. Go ahead. My daughter.
In other words, I wish that it was very different from this, Ruth. I wish I could have brought you back to a really nice place. I wish we'd been able to come back at a different level. I wish that we'd been able to slot right back into wonderful circumstances. And here you are out picking up aluminium cans, you know, that are the equivalent of.
And you're doing it because you love me and Because you say you love God now. Yeah, go on, my daughter. And so off she went. and began to glean in the fields behind the harvesters. I hope you'll notice as well that Ruth is not actually sitting around waiting for some miraculous intervention in her life.
She doesn't arrive here in Bethlehem and begin to have these very lengthy prayer meetings which last all through the night and into the early hours of the morning and then through half of the day up until lunchtime. Oh, you say, well, that sounds like a bit of a heresy. You mean she didn't pray?
Well, there's no indication of her praying. I'm sure she prayed, but she didn't pray when she should be doing what she should be doing. which was getting up and getting out and looking for a job. She was, in many senses, the answer to her own prayer. She was hoping to find favor in someone's eyes, but she wasn't going to find favor in someone's eyes unless she put herself in front of someone's eyes.
And she wasn't going to be able to put herself in front of someone's eyes unless she got out of her bed. And Alicia got out of her bed and went to the place where she would meet the people in whose eyes she might find favor. Do you know how many Christians are sitting around waiting for some miraculous intervention before they proceed with the plan of God for their life, or worse still, with their plan which they're sending up to God for the future? Common sense is not in abundance in the Christian church, in my observation. Their great lack of common sense.
You're listening to Bible teacher Alistair Begg on Truth for Life, and we'll hear more about grace and favor on Monday. As you're listening to this series in the Book of Ruth, you may agree with Alistair that this story is one of the loveliest. in all of the Bible. If you'd like to dive deeper into Ruth's story, let me encourage you to request the resource we're recommending today. It's a brand new Bible study titled God of the Ordinary.
It's a six-week study that will take your study group verse by verse through this Old Testament narrative. What makes this unique is that each lesson comes with brand new video teaching from Alastair. And in this study you'll learn more about God's Providence. You'll be reminded that He is always at work in your life.
Now our offices are closed today. It is Independence Day here in the U. S. And although we can't take your call, you can still request the God of the Ordinary study when you give a donation using the Truth for Life mobile app or online at truthforlife. org slash donate.
And if you'd like to purchase additional copies of the study guide for others in your study group, you can purchase those at our cost of just $8 online at truthforlife.org/slash store.
Well, we are, as always, glad that you joined us to study the Bible this week. Have you ever considered how you can determine God's will? Monday, we'll see what we can learn from Ruth's example. And on behalf of Alistair and all of us at Truth for Life, we want to wish our listeners here in the U.S. a blessed and joyful 4th of July.
The Bible teaching of Alastair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life. Where the Learning is for Living.
