Mercy, Blessings, and Character (Part 1 of 2)

The book of Ruth in the Bible tells the story of a widow whose dire circumstances influenced her choices and her actions. But God is sovereign over everything.

And if that's the case, then why did her decisions even matter? Alistair Begg explores the answer today on Truth for Life as we continue our Encore 2022 series with a frequently requested message titled Mercy, Blessings, and Character. Well, the book of Ruth is where we are. Ruth. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth.

How many of you have honestly read ahead, read more than the first chapter? Put up your hand. There's special credit for you.

You get to scan your card twice. Just kidding. Sorry. Yeah. Sorry.

I don't know how these things work. In the first verse, we're introduced to Boaz. We'll come back to him later. The storyteller introduces him so as to create in the mind of the reader the question mark, I wonder why we're introduced to this character.

I wonder if he's going to be significant in the future. Village life would have been a buzz. The harvesters would have been on their way. The air would have been filled with the smells and the sounds that were directly related to these things. Again, those of you who have grown up in farming communities know what a difference is represented in the harvest time of year.

I grew up in Glasgow, which is a big city, the second city of the British empire at that time, and took vacations way up in the north of Scotland. And sometimes on the September weekend, I was there right in time for what they called the tattyhauking, tattyhauking, which was potato picking. And I can still remember the scenes of the children who were discharged from school in order that they might ride on the backs of these low trailers, pooled in some cases by horses and in other cases by tractors. And the whole community life was consumed with this one question. It is time now for us to get the harvest in. And so Ruth, whether she conceived of it in her bed or whether it was the sounds of the day that stirred her to the thought, she said to Naomi, she said, I think I'm gonna have a go at into the fields, picking up leftover grain. Now of all the things she might've said in the morning, that may strike you as strange, but actually the Old Testament law provided for people like Ruth and Naomi. God gave clear instructions, and I'll leave you to consider this in your homework. You can read it in Leviticus 19 and Deuteronomy 24, but he gave clear instructions that the harvester was not to reap right into the corners of the fields. When the harvesters went through, they weren't to go through and take it out of all of the perimeter of the fields, nor were they to go through a second time and sweep up what was left over. The reason being that God had compassion for the poor and for the needy. And therefore he left open to the poor and the needy, the opportunity of following behind the harvesters and benefiting from the leftover grain. And so Ruth doesn't ask her mother-in-law, what do you have planned for me now that I've come here to live in your place?

Nor does she ask Naomi to join her, but instead she determines that Naomi, presumably because of her status in life, because of her age, should enjoy the respite of home while Ruth, the younger woman, goes out now to try and make provision for herself and for her mother-in-law. There's nothing glorious in this. In contemporary terms, it would be like saying to your mother, I think I'll go out today and spend the day collecting aluminum cans.

There's a translation for you, but I'm going to go and collect cans. And when I connect enough of these, then perhaps we'll have enough to get ourselves something to eat at night. So while there is a sense in which the picture looked back on from 3000 years may seem, oh, that sounds like a nice idea. Why don't we go out into the fields and just have a little afternoon in the sunshine picking up some bits and pieces of grain?

It's not like that at all. It is subsistence living. But she's concerned not to provide only for herself, but also for her mother-in-law. And so she puts herself in an environment that opens the possibilities for ostracism.

After all, she's a foreigner and by and large, people don't like foreigners. She puts herself in the place of physical harm in as much as she's going to be in the company of all of these men. And here they may be inclined to take advantage of her. But she does so because of her desire to be useful. A commentator in an earlier era from Scotland says young persons should be cheerfully willing to bear fatigues and troubles for the sake of their aging parents.

And let me just say that to you again. Young people should be cheerfully prepared to bear fatigues and troubles for the sake of their aging 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. That's a kind of quaint statement, but what it means is this. It is a tragic picture to see a woman walk through the mall in idleness, amassing more material possessions while neglecting her elderly parents or in male terms, the same. And one of the indications of a decaying culture is when a culture has more concern for its animals than it has for its elderly. When young people are more interested in the pursuit of their own agenda than they are in caring for those who have given them birth, who have nurtured them, who have provided for them, and who have sustained them on their journey.

It's not the main point, but it is an important point in passing and I hope you will remember it. And not least of all my kids who are listening to me speak. Please don't put me in one of those places. I'll try not to drool. Look after me.

They're saying, what do you mean you drool already? But anyway. Now Ruth is going out not on the basis of her rights. She has few rights to rely upon. She's going to go out and rely upon favor. Let me go to the fields and pick up leftover grain behind anyone in whose eyes I found favor. Remember, Noah found favor. Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.

She is teaching us by her attitude and by her actions that everything that God gives any of us and every opportunity of obtaining what we need is in itself an undeserved mercy from the giver of every good and perfect gift. Everything that we enjoy of his provision. The fact that there is enough synovial fluid in our joints to not render as parallel as paralyzed with arthritis. The fact that there is enough fluid in our eyes to allow us to awaken to a new day and to look out on one another and the beauties of the day. The fact that our digestive system works. The fact that we've been able to move ourselves here. That we are ambulatory.

Every good and perfect gift comes down from heaven. And she says, I'm going to go out into this day and I'm going to do my best. But I recognize that I'm not going to be able to walk into the community and say, hey, I'm Ruth. What do you have for me? I'm the Moabitesh.

Do you do anything for aliens around here? No, she says, I'm going to go out into the fields and I'm going to see if I can find favor in the eyes of someone. And so, Naomi, looking presumably upon her daughter-in-law with affection says to her, verse 2b, go ahead, my daughter. And she must have watched her up the street, committed her into the care of God, saw her hair bouncing on her shoulders as she went. I like Ruth, don't you?

I really like Ruth. She's right up at the top of my people to like at the moment. She's not sitting around waiting for a miraculous intervention, is she? She's out looking for a job. That doesn't sound very spiritual, does it? I mean, if she was really spiritual, presumably she'd just be sitting somewhere waiting for God to intervene, you know.

No, she's offered duff and she's down the road and she's going to find an opportunity to provide for herself and for her mother-in-law. She's hoping to find grace. She's hoping to find favor in somebody's eyes. In other words, and don't miss the ordinary things, she applies common sense. You ever heard of that? I mean, it's such a classic lack of common sense, not least of all in the Christian church. So she takes common sense and then she adds careful thought and then to careful thought, she adds sensible action. Try it sometime.

You'll be amazed what happens. Common sense, careful thought, followed by sensible action. She was ready to do what she could do and to leave in the care of God what she was unable to make happen. She would have been delighted to discover Philippians 2, wouldn't she? Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.

Sounds like something you're supposed to do. For it is God who is at work in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure. It is not that we simply sit and wait for the intervention of God. It is not that we run around leaving God behind, but it is that we get up and we do in the awareness that every benefit that we enjoy, that every mountain we climb, that every word of cheer we're able to offer is only by his grace.

She's prepared to seek the advice of those who are around her, to pay attention to those who are the encouragers of her. And the provision of God for her, as you see in this chapter, is undramatic. It is certainly not miraculous. In fact, from one perspective, it looks almost as if the whole thing happened by accident. Indeed, the terminology suggests that it was an accident, as you'll see in just a moment, because she goes out into a place that she doesn't know, into a jumbled patchwork of fields. And she just happens to go to the field that is owned by, guess who? The chap we were just introduced to in passing in verse one, a fellow by the name of Boaz.

Look at the little phrase there in the middle of verse three. As it turned out, she found herself working in a field belonging to Boaz. Why was she there?

It just happened. In fact, the King James Version says, her hap was to light on a part of the field belonging to Boaz. So what to Ruth was sheer coincidence? The result of an unplanned set of circumstances. We understand, looking now from the vantage point of history, we understand that it was actually part of God's gracious provision for her.

Someone has written and said, the misery or happiness of our lives is often derived from accidents that appear quite trivial. And it's not my place now to get involved in this whole discussion with you, but the question of how we view the events of our lives falling out and the way in which we understand them under the providential care of God is something that we need to be very, very careful in wrestling with. God, who has the whole world in his hands, is according to Ephesians 1-11, working all things out according to the purpose of his will, because for from him and to him and through him are all things. That God is not ultimately concerned about your comfort. He's not ultimately concerned about the comfort of Ruth and Naomi.

That was a byproduct. He is concerned that you would become all that he desires for you to be, and that ultimately you would be conformed to the image of the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's why even the bad times can be good.

That's why even the dark clouds are purposeful. That's why all of our days we need to be going through them as Ruth goes through them saying, okay, as the hymn writer puts it, 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. And in the common, everyday coming and goings of our lives, we discover that God is there.

Sid Kuyper, the Abraham Kuyper, that is, who was the prime minister of Holland in his inaugural lecture at the Free University of Amsterdam, which was founded in 1880. Kuyper in that occasion pointed out to the gathered throng, there is not an inch of the whole area of human existence of which Christ, the sovereign of all, does not cry, it is mine. Not an inch that he doesn't cry, it is mine. So the one thing that you want to get from these things in Ruth, if you get nothing else, is the fact that all of your existence, the good, the bad, the ugly, the mistakes, the disappointments, the hopes, the dreams, the schemes, they're all under the providential care of God. Your times are in his hands.

All the days of your life have been written in his book before one of them came to be. You're not bouncing around like a cork on the ocean. You're not being tossed around in the sea of chance. You're not held in the grip of a blind determinism.

You don't need to read your horoscope and find out how Sagittarius is doing this morning. You don't need to be concerned about all these things, because you are being trained in the school of God's providence. And this undergirds, you see, this amazing story. It is, as we've said, an outworking of Romans 8, 28. Charles Simeon, in the 18th century, 1759, declares, what is before us we know not, whether we shall live or die. But this we know, that all things are ordered and sure. See, providence is a big pillow on which to put your head at night.

It's a happy pillow on which to put your head at night. Everything he goes on is ordered with unerring wisdom and unbounded love by thee, our God, who art loved. Therefore, he prays, grant us in all things to see your hand through Jesus Christ our Lord. Some people misunderstand such a view of God's sovereign purpose as some form of blind determinism. And the Bible knows nothing of that. Determinism by which we would be viewed simply as pawns moved around on a divine chessboard or as puppets, whose achievements are controlled by a divine puppeteer. No, there's a paradox in this, leaves us wrestling with a juxtaposition of real choice and real responsibility, that God's providence doesn't override human decision and action. For example, look at the story.

Look at the events. Ruth's request is whose request? Ruth's. Naomi's encouragement is whose?

Naomi's. Ruth's arbitrary choice of a field in which to work, she goes, I did not work in this field, is Ruth's choice. Boaz's free determination to harvest at this time and in this location is Boaz's. Now, you need to understand this.

You need to think it out. You have the same thing in the story of Joseph. The animosity of Joseph's brothers towards Joseph came from where? From the animosity of their hearts. God is not the author of their evil. And yet by their own determined response to Joseph, they are setting forward the purpose of God by having Joseph end up in Egypt so that out of Egypt may come a deliverer, so that from that deliverer may come he who is the ultimate deliverer, even Jesus Christ. God's providential care in the story of Ruth as elsewhere is expressed through the outworking of our free human choices, our decisions, and our responsibilities.

And especially when life appears, as it must have done to Naomi, to be just a jumble of unconnected threats. They say, well, you've made enough of that. You can go on now. All right, fine. I think we got that point, you said. Fine.

I hope you do because it's very, very important. Is I find as I move around and even in my own congregation that people are buffeted from one side or the other. And they think that a view of the sovereign purpose of God is that somehow or another, you've got a divine puppeteer who's just moving people around, that we've got nothing to do with anything. We just sit around and wait for him to move and pull the levers.

It's not so. Others are running around as if their whole future depended upon them. If I don't do this and I don't do that, I'll never get this. And so they're just busting a gut, trying to take care of everything.

They're as crazy as the other group, just on a different side. What do you need? You need to read your Bible.

If you read your Bible, you'll be tremendously helped. So she goes out and she works in the field belonging to Boaz, and then the boss shows up, verse four. What happens when the boss comes? Depends what the boss is like. We've all worked for bosses, haven't we? I've had a number of bosses in my time. You'd be surprised at all the jobs I have.

I don't have enough time to tell you of all of them. For example, I was once a cheese cutter in a small supermarket in Yorkshire. Spent all day Saturday cutting up big blocks of cheese.

It was a wonderful job, demanded tremendous intelligence, as you would understand. And what you had to do was slice it up, and then you put it in the cling wrap, and then you put the label on it after you'd weighed it. I did this with a friend of mine. And then you'd put it on the hot pad to stick the label with the weight and the price on it, and then that sealed the back of the thing. And then when you'd fill the tray of it, you took it downstairs into the store and you put it in the thing.

And then you put it in the thing. And then you came back up and you did it again and again and again and again. And Monday morning, I came in. Monday afternoon, I should say, after I finished school, I came in and the boss was waiting for me. And so I went over and he took me to the place where I'd put all the cheese from the Saturday.

This was Monday afternoon when I finished school. And he began to turn them over. And as he turned them over, the cheese had already, in places, started to become toasted cheese because, obviously, we left it on a little burner, a little bit long. And so it started to burn the back of the cheese.

So the Wensley Dale, which should be white, was looking a little kind of yellow, tending towards orange, more sort of medium well, well done. And the thing was a disaster. There's no question. But at quarter past, half past four on a Monday afternoon, it just struck me as very funny. And so I just stood and looked at the cheese and laughed. And that was it. Goodbye. And thank you. He told me, get your coat, get your coat, lad, and get up the street.

I said, okay. So I left there and I knew I'm dead meat because if I go home now, I got fired and that's not good. So I went to Woolworth's.

And in Woolworth's, I got another job stacking Easter eggs. And I can tell you about a lot of other bosses, but Boas was a nice boss because he shows up and he says, good morning, everybody. The Lord be with you.

That's not a bad boss. And they replied, look at the group, and may the Lord bless you. Hey, it's a great day, isn't it? It's a wonderful day in the neighborhood.

You expect Mr. Rogers to come out here at any time winning a cardigan. And he said, the Lord be with you and the Lord bless you and you bless the Lord. And it's just a wonderful time. Notice that they're not taking the name of the Lord in vain. They're not profaning his name.

They're recognizing that God is in everything. I need to move quickly here, but you can tell a lot about a person by their hellos and their goodbyes. You can tell a lot about yourself about the way you say hello and goodbye. You want to be different?

Be different in your hellos and be different in your goodbyes. All of our days are ultimately under God's providential care, but we are still responsible for the choices we make. We're listening to Truth for Life with Alistair Begg. We learned today that God can use even our suffering to accomplish his purposes and to bless us. But if we don't understand the Bible, we're not going to have this comfort in the midst of our struggles. That's why it's our mission at Truth for Life to teach the scriptures with clarity and relevance every single day. We believe God's word is infallible and eternal. So the same God who cared for Ruth and Naomi cares for you and me.

We trust him to speak to us through his word and to convert unbelievers to establish believers and to strengthen local churches. I hope that's been your experience as you listen each day. When you donate to Truth for Life, this is the mission you're supporting. And one of the ways we thank you for your giving is by recommending books and inviting you to request them. You may have heard me mention our current book. It's titled Read This First.

If you've had the experience of opening the Bible only to be confused by the passage you were reading, the book Read This First is a book that can help make Bible reading clearer for you. Request your copy of the book Read This First when you give a donation today. Visit us online at truthforlife.org.

I'm Bob Lapine. Join us tomorrow for the conclusion of today's message. We'll find out how God is in the midst of our seemingly random choices to accomplish his purposes. The question is, how do we respond?

How do we respond? The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the Learning is for Living.