A Midnight Proposal, Part 1

The men and women and children would work late into the night.

It was always a time of great celebration. The harvest is being brought in. And if you remember, this little book starts in verse one by telling us there's a famine in the land.

We learn from other passages of scripture that this famine lasted seven years. So this is a time of hard work, yes, but all these farmers, they are excited. They're bringing in a bumper crop. The celebration regarding the harvest is about to become much more joyful.

In addition to celebrating God's faithful provision, there's about to be a wedding. Here on Wisdom for the Heart, Stephen is working his way through the book of Ruth. The story of Ruth and Boaz is one of the greatest love stories ever written. It's not just because the plot, characters, and script are so wonderfully and divinely crafted.

What's so compelling is that the story as a whole gives us a real life image of God's love for mankind. Stephen is calling this message a midnight proposal. It was Thanksgiving Day 29 years ago when I proposed marriage to my college sweetheart. I had the ring in my pocket and the plan to propose over Thanksgiving break. I was going to go to Marsha's home over Thanksgiving break. We were both in college together where she lived there in Atlanta, Georgia to have Thanksgiving with her parents.

Now in order for you to understand my proposal, let me give you a little background. I grew up in a home, and most of you know, three brothers and I, and there was this unwritten rule for all four sons. We were not allowed to bring a girl home from college for any length of time, certainly not over a break, unless we were either engaged or planning to be engaged. That was just kind of the unwritten rule. Now for the three and a half years my wife and I dated, before she was my wife, while attending college in Tennessee, Marsha had never been to my home in Virginia, and she knew why.

It just wasn't allowed. My parents had met her. Of course, that was very important.

They knew she was wonderful, remarkable. So I had that base covered, but I still had not asked her father. So I planned while I was at her home for Thanksgiving to ask him for her hand in marriage.

That was part of my plan for Thanksgiving break. So I had the diamond engagement ring, everything I could save up in college. That diamond was so tiny, it needed a lot of sunlight to get any sparkle at all, but I hoped to show it to her in the daylight. I had it tucked away as we traveled home to her home in Atlanta. I surprised her father with a request for her hand when he went down in the basement area to work on the furnace.

This was the only time I could get him alone. And I asked him, now the fuller story is this, since I had dated his daughter and had broken up with her a couple of times in the past, he was actually planning to ask me over Thanksgiving break what my plans and intentions were with his daughter. I beat him to the punch, asked him the question and he said yes. Later on that day, Marsha and I were alone and I popped the question and I started out by saying, Marsha, I would like to take you home to my parents' home over Christmas break. Just paused and let that sink in. And her eyes let me know that she was picking up on it fairly quickly. And then I added, that is if I can introduce you to my family as my fiancé.

Another pause. Her eyes were wide open now. I said, that is if you will marry me. And she did a little hop on her steps and she wrung her hands and she said, I don't know.

That's not how it happens in the movies. That wasn't what I thought she'd say. Now, let me tell you, if she were up here telling this story, which she's not allowed to do, she would tell you the truth. Over the course of our dating, I often did something really significant only to break up soon after.

I had such terribly cold feet. And she was afraid that this meant, well here's something big, he's going to break up with me soon after if I say yes. So for the next two minutes, I gave her every reason I could think of why she should marry me and it probably didn't even take two minutes. I think I was done in 30 seconds and she finally said yes. I've been telling people for 27 years I talked her into marrying me.

Well, if you're as old as I am and you hear these stories of proposals, I will tell you this. I would love to be able to redo that moment again. I would love to do something just incredibly creative.

At that age, I didn't know what creative meant. Something really romantic. Most men struggle, you know, with this how to get the right wording, the right timing, the right context, the right setting, and hopefully you get the right answer. Perhaps you've seen that video clip of the guy who planned to propose to his girlfriend at the NBA basketball game during halftime. You watch that. Here he gets her out there on pretense. She's in the middle of the court. It's halftime. He has a microphone. All of a sudden, it goes up on the jumbo screen. This is on national television. He drops to one knee, has a microphone and proposes. Her hand goes to her mouth and there's this long pause. She looks down at him, says something, and hurries off the basketball court, declined on national television. Can you imagine?

That guy just kind of mopes off the floor and I thought, oh, poor, poor guy. Well, I Googled wedding proposals to see what kind of help there is out for guys, you know, how to do it right, how to do it wrong. I actually came across this site with a cover page entitled How to Propose Marriage.

The site started off with saying what not to do. Three things. First of all, don't propose to your girlfriend in front of her parents. How obvious is that? Don't propose. Look, I got two daughters and if a guy proposes to one of my daughters in front of me, take a hike, chief.

Get out of here. Come up with something more creative than that. That was the first thing. Secondly, the website informed don't put the ring in anything that is set in front of her to eat. The article goes on to say the last thing you want to do is have to propose to her while she's being wheeled into surgery. The third thing I thought was really insightful. Don't propose marriage two days after meeting her. I came across some marriage proposals that were examples of how to do it the wrong way.

And I thought these poor guys. One lawyer made a deal with several policemen to arrest his girlfriend on totally bogus charges. They worked out the plan, carried it out to the letter. They stopped her car when she was alone, made her get out of the car, read her her rights, took her down to the city jail. They said she could have one phone call. So she called her lawyer boyfriend, of course, who came down, was let into her cell where he told her the only way they would let her go was if she agreed to marry him. That's romantic.

That's brilliant. Another man was so shy. So this young man was so shy, didn't know what to say, got all tongue-tied after he pulled out the ring box.

He just froze. He tossed the box to his girlfriend and began to run away. When she caught the box, saw what was inside, she had to chase him down to say yes. Say no to that guy. Another guy pretended to have died and planned the entire funeral home visitation with him lying in the coffin.

I'm not making this up. With his girlfriend sobbing as she stood by his casket, he suddenly sat up and asked her to marry him. When she stopped screaming, she slapped him and then said yes.

That girl needs help. That's all I can say. Then I came across a couple of illustrations and this is, you know, these guys did it right. They really pulled out all the stops. This is unreal.

Let me read it. One guy, this guy lived in a different state from his girlfriend. So he mailed her plane tickets. When she arrived, a limo was waiting for her as planned. When she got in, the music in the limo was a compilation of their favorite songs. She was driven to a salon for a three-hour treatment, massage, pedicure, manicure, hair styling and makeup. Then she was driven to a name brand store where a rack of dresses and shoes were waiting for her, personally hand-picked by this guy in the store manager. She was able to choose her favorite and get dressed. She was then driven across town to the entrance of a resort where a horse and buggy were waiting for her.

She was driven around a small lake. More than 100 candles lit the path to a red carpet where violinists began to play as she arrived. They began to play a song he had written. While she walks up the red carpet, he appears at the top of the stairs and begins to sing the song he'd composed. When she got to the top, he knelt down on one knee and a lightboard behind him blazed the words, will you marry me?

He then stood and sang the finale to the song backed up by a 45-piece orchestra. And when she said yes, fireworks exploded in the sky. This guy makes me sick.

He's ruined it for everybody. In fact, I even hate to tell you this because some of you guys, you know, your wives are going to ask you later, what were you thinking? One more.

I like this guy's idea. This was my favorite. He and his girlfriend had bought an old repossessed home. And they understood that when they were married, they were going to move in.

They didn't have much money. It was a little tiny old beat-up home and they did all the work fixing it up themselves. Because they spent so much time working on this little house, they spent countless hours at Home Depot.

Sometimes when they were too tired to work, they just strolled the aisles and dreamed out loud of what they wanted to do in their little home. So when he was ready to propose marriage, he set it up with the Home Depot manager. He phoned his girlfriend and told her to meet him there that night. When she got there, the manager directed her to the home and garden section where he had one of those patio tables set up with candlelight and a takeout dinner. After he seated her, he got down on one knee and proposed with a potted plant they could use later on.

She said yes. Now that's my kind of guy right there. You can have a limo and an orchestra or Home Depot and a potted plant. Ladies, let's take a vote.

How many for Home Depot? Oh! Give those ladies a hand.

I mean, I'm shocked. I didn't think I'd get any hands on that one. Well, guys, you only get to do it one time.

I don't know about you, but I'd like to be able to do mine all over again. One of the most remarkable marriage proposals I have ever heard is actually in the Bible. Only in this one, the girl does the proposing, not the man. She chose the right setting, the right timing, what to wear.

In fact, it happened at midnight. So if you'll take your Bibles back to the book of Ruth and to chapter 2, let's get a running start with verse 23 and watch it unfold. Ruth, chapter 2, verse 23. So Ruth stayed close by the maids of Boaz in order to glean until the end of the barley harvest and the wheat harvest.

And she lived with her mother-in-law. Now stop for a moment. If you were with us in our last study, you have no difficulty believing that by now Ruth and Boaz are definitely in love. They probably had many more lunch dates out in the field.

Boaz's employees have definitely noticed that he is more interested in work than ever before. But now there's a problem. This text informs us that harvest time is wrapping up and Boaz and Ruth have now parted, perhaps wondering if they will ever see each other again. Ruth here, we're told, has settled back in with her mother-in-law, Naomi. Speaking of Naomi, now there is a woman who will not allow grass to grow under anybody's feet.

Look at chapter 3, verse 1. Then Naomi, her mother-in-law, said to her, my daughter, shall I not seek security for you that it may be well with you? That's a long biblical way of saying, Ruth, I need to find a husband for you. It was not unusual, by the way, in this culture, in this custom for wedding prospects and plans to be worked out between the mother and father. If you read the Old Testament, it seems like the patriarch is in charge, but actually, according to the culture and what we do know, a lot of it was done by the mother and the daughter in what was called the mother's chamber, behind closed doors, or in this case, closed curtains. Naomi had become like a mother to Ruth and she now takes on that matchmaking role.

And you can kind of imagine Naomi calling Ruth in and saying, Ruth, listen, let's look at the facts here. I'm not going to be around forever to help you or be with you. Your life in this strange new land that you have chosen is going to be very, very difficult. It's obvious to us that Boaz is interested in you. He's been dumping grain in your path for weeks. He even has his employees drawing water for you.

It's obvious he's got it bad. Then Naomi removes any doubt what she's after with that rhetorical question in verse two, is not Boaz our kinsman? According to Old Testament law, a widow could demand that the next closest relative who was willing and available marry her. According to God's plan, back in Deuteronomy chapter 25, the marriage was designed to provide for the young widow financial security and a future. And even more interestingly enough, the children born to them would be given the name of her first husband. That would secure his name and the clan for generations to come.

And his family farm, his family estate would stay in that particular part of the family. This wonderful provision allowed for a widow to be cared for. So according to law, you need to understand here that Ruth is actually the one to take the initiative. Her condition wouldn't be the same as that of an unmarried woman. In that case, the man would take the initiative. But as a widow, it was her right to let her intentions be known to the kinsman. So you need to think of it this way. It was Ruth's move.

And so Naomi is urging here, Ruth, look, harvest season is over. You may never have another chance like this again. You may not even see Boaz until next year. In fact, he may not be single next year. He can redeem you if he wants.

So you ought to let him know you want him to. Ruth is obviously a stranger to these customs. She's a Moabitess. She's not a Jewess. These laws are still foreign to her more than likely. And she probably says, and I imagine her saying to Naomi, well, what do I do?

How do I do that? Naomi in verse two says effectively, well, I've got that all thought through. Here's my plan. She says in verse two, the middle part, she says, behold, he winnows barley at the threshing floor tonight. Now, wait a second. How did she know that?

Oh, she's been working on this plan for quite some time. He winnows barley at the threshing floor tonight. I have no idea what it means. He winnows barley at the threshing floor tonight. So let's hit the pause button.

And in fact, by understanding this, it'll help us understand the setting of this interesting proposal. I was raised in the city. How many of you were raised in the city like I was?

Just about all of you. My father was raised on a farm. In fact, he can he can talk about planting and he can talk about bailing. He can talk about threshing. Had he not been led by God into the ministry right before being married, I would have grown up on a farm in Minnesota milking cows at 4 a.m. I praise God my dad was led into the ministry. I asked my dad a couple of months ago, I said, Dad, how did you and your brother and your sisters, how did you guys stand sub-zero weather in a barn in Minnesota in the winter milking cows at 4 a.m.?

It's funny. He said, well, your hands stayed warm as you milked. And then you sat real close to the cows. Well, growing up every summer we would travel back to Minnesota. I was born in Worthington, so we always took a trip over to Worthington where some of our kin were located. I had a great uncle who owned the one store, the little department store in Worthington, and across town, a little town called Butterfield. In Butterfield, every summer they had a threshing bee. And these farmers, most of them, in a town of about 2,000, they'd all show up.

They'd pull out this equipment and they'd have it polished and painted and they'd kind of show it off and they'd be threshing with old equipment out in the fields. They loved it. These were the most boring days of my life, personally. The threshing bee at Butterfield.

Just the sound of it gives me shivers. But not for these farmers. This was serious business. Those machines had changed everything in their family's lives. These were people of the soil. These crops meant everything. And they mean everything to us, but we take it for granted, don't we? Well, centuries earlier, we've got this farmer named Boaz, and this is his life.

And he loves it. He's threshing barley with the workers at the threshing floor. Now, threshing floors in Old Testament times were constructed out in the open field. It's nothing more than a big patch of ground they'd clear off and remove all the stubble. It was typically on a ridge or a hill where it could catch the evening breeze. They simply raked off a large, flat open area.

They swept the ground clean. They sprinkled water on it and tamped it down. They would encircle it with stones to keep the grain inside the threshing floor. Then the sheaves would be brought on, on the backs of workers. They would be carried in on the backs of donkeys and camels and carts and whatever the owner had at his disposal. And they'd be heaped in this large, circular area called the threshing floor. Then two or three animals would be harnessed shoulder to shoulder, and they'd literally be just, they'd just be driven around the threshing floor so that they could, with their hooves, separate the husks from the kernels.

And then winnowers would come in with pitchforks or shovels or by hand if they were poor, and they would throw that chaff, the husks, into the air and the wind would catch the empty husks and just carry it away and the heavier grain would fall back down into that large, circular area. The men and women and children would work late into the night. It was always a time of great celebration. It was always a festive time.

Why? The harvest is being brought in. And if you remember, this little book starts in verse one by telling us there's a famine in the land. We learn from other passages of scripture that this famine lasted seven years. It was devastating. This is how Naomi and her husband and their two sons left to go to Moab where they married these two Moab girls.

Ruth was one of them. We have every reason to believe that this is the first good crop because we're told that Naomi returns to the land hearing the famine's over. And now you've got this bumper crop.

We have every reason to believe this is the first one after seven long years of struggling. And so here you have them out at the threshing floor. They are celebrating the goodness of God. Good times have come back to Bethlehem. God is good again. Of course, the judges inform us that they have repented. God is now blessing them again. So this is a time of hard work, yes, but all these farmers, they are excited.

They're bringing in a bumper crop. That sets the mood then. And Naomi knew that if there was ever a time when Boaz would know he had money in the bank for a wife, he'd be in a wonderful mood. He'd be ready to start something new.

It would be here. Boaz, Naomi's little phrase informs us, is there on the scene. No doubt to help not only winnow perhaps but another thing would be in mind.

In these days, we learn from the book of Judges, the Midianites had made a habit of coming into the land and stealing the grain from the threshing floors. So Boaz is there on the scene with others to not only work but to protect what they winnow. And so with it all piled up somewhere on that threshing floor, Boaz and the rest are about to settle down. And so Naomi tells Ruth, and this is where it intersects with Ruth at this one critical intersection. This is Ruth's last chance. It's her best chance but it also represents her last chance before Boaz leaves the fields for several months maybe not to return and maybe not to return a single man.

If she's going to make her desires known to him, now's the time to do it. There are a few more details by the way in Naomi's well-thought-out plan. She tells Ruth in verse 3 to wash herself.

This Hebrew verb signifies the full treatment. This is the pedicure and the manicure and the Mary Kay lady came out and gave her her color chart and all that stuff, did it all for her, get ready. Next, Naomi says, anoint yourself, literally put on perfume. Did they have perfume back then? Listen, 1,500 years before Christ was born, the Queen of Egypt and the elite in society were sending search parties all around the known world to bring back the latest perfume samples for their collection. Ruth, evidently though she's poor and Naomi is poor, guess what she's kept? Some perfume. She has a little of it left from her former life. J. Vernon McGee used to say that her favorite perfume was probably called midnight in Moab. I love that.

Put some of that midnight in Moab on. Ruth, get ready to propose to Boaz. Naomi has even thought about the timing.

Look at verse 3, the latter part. Go down to the threshing floor and note this, do not make yourself known to the man until he has finished eating and drinking. She's wise. Wait until he's had his dinner before you try something major. It's great advice. Before you show him the dent in the car, feed him.

Junior's report card, ask him to paint the rest of the house a different color after he's already started or halfway through. I don't know why that comes to my mind. Feed him first. This verse couldn't be any clearer.

Here it is, ladies. Wait till he's had supper. It's biblical. Well, this story is going to unfold in a beautiful way, but unfortunately we're just about out of time for today. When we return for our next broadcast, we'll resume and conclude this lesson. You're listening to Stephen Davey, the Bible teacher here on Wisdom For the Heart.

Today's message is called A Midnight Proposal. You can learn more about us at our website wisdomonline.org. That site is filled with resources to equip and encourage you in your walk with Christ. One of the things you'll find there is the complete archive of Stephen's teaching.

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