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Boaz Marries Ruth

Ruth

Mar 27, 2022


by: Jack Lash Series: Ruth | Category: Faith | Scripture: Ruth 4:1–22

I. Introduction
A. Well, we’ve come to our last sermon in the book of Ruth. And what a great book it is!
B. Review
1. Ruth, the Moabite woman, has accompanied Naomi in her return from Moab.
2. Ruth began to glean in the fields of a man named Boaz, who, it turns out, was a relative of Naomi’s late husband. Boaz became very impressed with Ruth, and offers her help.
3. This leads Ruth to carry out Naomi’s plan for Ruth to propose marriage to Boaz, since according to OT law, she had a right to ask her husband’s relative for marriage in order to provide an heir.
4. Boaz is very agreeable, but here is one relative even closer than he is, who is before him in line to be Ruth’s redeemer, and therefore has the right of first refusal.
5. So, Boaz assures Ruth that he will speak to this man and try to get him to relinquish his right so that Boaz can marry Ruth.
C. Ruth 4:1–22 Now Boaz had gone up to the gate and sat down there. And behold, the redeemer, of whom Boaz had spoken, came by. So Boaz said, “Turn aside, friend; sit down here.” And he turned aside and sat down. 2 And he took ten men of the elders of the city and said, “Sit down here.” So they sat down. 3 Then he said to the redeemer, “Naomi, who has come back from the country of Moab, is selling the parcel of land that belonged to our relative Elimelech. 4 So I thought I would tell you of it and say, ‘Buy it in the presence of those sitting here and in the presence of the elders of my people.’ If you will redeem it, redeem it. But if you will not, tell me, that I may know, for there is no one besides you to redeem it, and I come after you.” And he said, “I will redeem it.” 5 Then Boaz said, “The day you buy the field from the hand of Naomi, you also acquire Ruth the Moabite, the widow of the dead, in order to perpetuate the name of the dead in his inheritance.” 6 Then the redeemer said, “I cannot redeem it for myself, lest I impair my own inheritance. Take my right of redemption yourself, for I cannot redeem it.” 7 Now this was the custom in former times in Israel concerning redeeming and exchanging: to confirm a transaction, the one drew off his sandal and gave it to the other, and this was the manner of attesting in Israel. 8 So when the redeemer said to Boaz, “Buy it for yourself,” he drew off his sandal. 9 Then Boaz said to the elders and all the people, “You are witnesses this day that I have bought from the hand of Naomi all that belonged to Elimelech and all that belonged to Chilion and to Mahlon. 10 Also Ruth the Moabite, the widow of Mahlon, I have bought to be my wife, to perpetuate the name of the dead in his inheritance, that the name of the dead may not be cut off from among his brothers and from the gate of his native place. You are witnesses this day.” 11 Then all the people who were at the gate and the elders said, “We are witnesses. May the LORD make the woman, who is coming into your house, like Rachel and Leah, who together built up the house of Israel. May you act worthily in Ephrathah and be renowned in Bethlehem, 12 and may your house be like the house of Perez, whom Tamar bore to Judah, because of the offspring that the LORD will give you by this young woman.” 13 So Boaz took Ruth, and she became his wife. And he went in to her, and the LORD gave her conception, and she bore a son. 14 Then the women said to Naomi, “Blessed be the LORD, who has not left you this day without a redeemer, and may his name be renowned in Israel! 15 He shall be to you a restorer of life and a nourisher of your old age, for your daughter-in-law who loves you, who is more to you than seven sons, has given birth to him.” 16 Then Naomi took the child and laid him on her lap and became his nurse. 17 And the women of the neighborhood gave him a name, saying, “A son has been born to Naomi.” They named him Obed. He was the father of Jesse, the father of David. 18 Now these are the generations of Perez: Perez fathered Hezron, 19 Hezron fathered Ram, Ram fathered Amminadab, 20 Amminadab fathered Nahshon, Nahshon fathered Salmon, 21 Salmon fathered Boaz, Boaz fathered Obed, 22 Obed fathered Jesse, and Jesse fathered David.
II. Explanation
A. When the baby Obed was born, his mother Ruth gave him up to Naomi.
1. This was the deepest cause of her bitterness, though it may be hard for some of us to understand.
2. This was Naomi’s joy and her job: to provide an heir for her husband.
3. And she had provided two, but they both had died before they were able to continue the line.
4. Now Naomi was facing death with no heir.
5. But the levirate law provided a way for Naomi to have an heir after all.
6. When Boaz, her husband’s kinsman, married Ruth, the first son would become the heir of the dead man, and thus of Naomi.
7. So, Ruth gave Obed to Naomi, to be her heir, and her companion, and her helper, and her joy.
8. How do we know this? From verses 15-17.
a. 4:15 “May he also be to you a restorer of life and a sustainer of your old age.”
b. 4:16 “Then Naomi took the child & laid him in her breast, and became his NURSE.”
(1) This word means: foster-parent, guardian, a person who fills in for a baby’s mother.
(2) The same Hebrew word is used of the woman who took care of Jonathan’s five year old son Mephibosheth (2Sam.4:4), and of the guardians of Ahab’s children (who were in charge of their training and education - 2Kings 10:1,5), and of Mordecai in describing how he had raised Esther his niece (Esther 2:7).
c. 4:17 And the neighbor women gave him a name, saying, "A son has been born to Naomi!" So they named him Obed. Why would Naomi’s friends name him if he was not to be Naomi’s son?
(1) This is an important part of the story. It couldn’t have been easy for Ruth.
(2) This shows us the extent to which Ruth was willing to go to love Naomi.
(3) It reminds us of what a courageous act of love it often is for a woman to give up her child for adoption.
B. Now that we’ve made it through the book of Ruth, and since Ruth begins with a reference to Judges, let’s return to the contrast between the book of Judges and the book of Ruth.
1. — Three weeks ago we talked about how Judges is so brutal. Ruth is so tender.
2. — We talked about how Judges is written from a man’s perspective. Ruth from a woman’s.
3. — We talked about how Judges is about man’s inhumanity to man. Ruth is about human kindness and generosity.
4. — We talked about how Judges has to do with society and government. Ruth has to do with family and personal relationships. (Although one geopolitical reality in this story is the plight of refugees. And women have always been intricately involved in that geopolitical reality.)
5. — We talked about how Judges has many heroes: judges who delivered their people by means of the sword. Ruth has heroes as well, but they are heroes with the humbler weapons of love and service to others.
6. — We talked about how Judges portrays the nations outside of Israel as antagonistic and dangerous, Ruth shows that this isn’t always the case, but some in those nations are friendly and welcoming to God’s people, and even eager to become a part of God’s people.
7. Judges is about the sad cycle of unfaithfulness in Israel during those days: because of their sinfulness, God would send them an oppressor, and then finally they would cry out to the Lord & He would send them a deliverer. But it didn’t take long after they were free, before they would drift away from the Lord, following their own hearts, and God would send another oppressor.
a. But during this same time period, God shows us the power of His grace. He calls a Gentile woman named Ruth from the midst of Israel’s enemies, and not only allows her to become a part of Israel, but grafts her into the very family tree of the coming messiah.
8. Judges is about the chaos and calamity of the promised land while God’s people were doing their own thing. Ruth is about how God sets things in order when people choose to do His thing.
III. There are four final lessons from Ruth which I’d like to talk about this morning.
A. Ruth has a lot to teach us about how to invest wisely.
1. Unlike most immigrants, when she left her homeland Ruth was actually expecting life to be worse, not better, in Israel.
2. Think about what staying in Moab meant to Ruth.
a. It’s where she’s comfortable.
b. It’s where she is known.
c. It’s where she has family.
d. It’s where she has potential suitors, prospects for another husband.
e. It’s where she has familiarity.
f. It’s where she has safety.
3. But Ruth saw how valuable the Treasure was, and she willingly sold everything she had in order to obtain it (Matt.13:44) . And now she’s got a book of the Bible about the story of her faith.
4. Now think about all the benefits she received by going to Israel with Naomi.
a. She found a husband, and a rich one at that. She chooses to give up on the idea of getting remarried, and what happens? God gives her a wonderful husband to marry!
b. She took care of her mother-in-law Naomi.
c. She became part of the people of God.
d. She gave birth to the grandfather of King David, from whom the messiah himself descended.
e. But there’s one thing even greater than all these things. The greatest treasure Ruth received as a result of her choice was the greatest treasure any person CAN receive: God.
5. And look how God rewards Ruth! Does God not reward those who seek Him? (Heb.11:6)
6. Two weeks ago I read Luke 18:29-30, “There is no one who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God, who will not receive many times more in this time, and in the age to come eternal life.” as applying beautifully to Ruth.
a. Like Ruth, we are asked to give up a lot.
b. But He always compensates us with more (100x) that He asks us to give up.
c. In the end, the reward is far more than 100x. It’s not even worthy to be compared (Rom.8:18).
7. When faced with this, “thousands make a wretched choice” (T469), choosing safety and security and earthly comfort over God.
B. Ordinary people can have an extraordinary impact by faithfully doing ordinary things. .
1. Over three thousand years ago, a young woman made the decision to emigrate to another country.
2. And we’re still delightfully affected by the choice she made.
3. If you did a DNA test on Jesus, it would show that He had some of Ruth’s Moabite blood in Him.
4. How did Ruth change the world? She did it by loving her mother-in-law.
a. She didn’t have a grand scheme or lay out a plan to become a famous or influential woman.
b. She simply made choices for God at each step of the way. She chose God’s people to be her people; she chose God to her God; she chose to go out of her way to take care of her mother-in-law Naomi; she chose to work hard in the fields, she chose to follow Naomi’s guidance re: Boaz.
5. How are you going to change the world? Do you have to run for office or be the CEO of a large corporation? Not at all. There is world-changing power in the simple life lived for God.
a. There’s world-changing power in something as humble as being a blessing to your mother-in-law.
b. Ruth 4:15 The women: "your daughter-in-law, who loves you & is better to you than seven sons."
c. Better than seven sons: that’s amazing considering Ruth was a Moabitess, and that’s saying a lot in ancient Israel, where having sons was so important, especially when not having sons is the big issue of the story.
d. There is a friend who sticks closer than a brother. And there is a daughter-in-law who is better than seven sons.
e. We don’t usually think of being a good daughter-in-law as worthy of the name heroic, but in God’s economy, these modest forms of faithfulness shine brightly in His eyes.
C. How was Boaz prepared to marry an outsider? To accept a Moabite?
1. Moab was in the region of the Dead Sea, and the Moabites were the descendants of Moab, the son of Lot, born of an incestuous relationship with Lot’s daughter (Gen.19:37). Balak was the king of Moab during the time of the wilderness, as was Eglon in the book of Judges.
2. They were despised by the Israelites.
3. So, how was it that Boaz was able to get past this prejudice and embrace Ruth?
4. Well, we might have an answer in the genealogy of Jesus in Matt.1:5, where we are told that “Salmon was the father of Boaz by Rahab.
5. Now we’ve got to be careful with genealogies in the Bible: they sometimes skip generations. And we know this by comparing one genealogy with another. And it’s likely that a generation or two were skipped here because the timing doesn’t seem to add up very well.
6. Either way, Boaz was a close descendent of Rahab, apparently the same Rahab who was the prostitute in Jericho and sheltered the two Israelite spies and was thereby spared when Jericho was destroyed.
7. In some ways the story of Rahab is parallel to the story of Ruth.
a. It’s also the story of a courageous woman who made a shocking choice to abandon her own people in order to identify herself with God and His people.
b. You can bet that this is something Boaz had been often told about from childhood.
c. And so when he encountered Ruth, it’s as if he saw Rahab in her, and was immediately drawn to her. And thus, God prepared Boaz to receive Ruth, and Israel to receive Ruth, the Moabitess.
8. Why do you think this first-in-line redeemer relative refused Ruth?
a. Maybe he was already married and didn’t want to upset his wife.
b. But Boaz, in explaining the situation to him, in order to discourage him from accepting the offer, seems to emphasize that Ruth was a Moabitess.
c. And that probably it had something to do with him turning her down.
9. It might seem silly that Israelites would be prejudiced against Moabites. But this is common human behavior. And it’s in us as well.
10. It’s not just ignorance. There’s something in our sinful nature which despises “them.” We love ourselves without much problem. And we can have love for our people. But those we perceive as “them” we tend to look at with disdain or disregard.
11. Jesus wasn’t like this.
a. Blind man in John 9.
b. The adulterous woman
c. The Gerasene demoniac
d. The Roman centurion
e. The tax collector
f. The lepers
12. It seems at every turn, Jesus is receiving those who others want to reject. He was so alert to the plight of those around Him.
13. And the fact is, we are blinded and hardened to the plight of many around us.
14. And it’s important for Christians to work at mortifying those natural impulses to disdain “them,” and learn to welcome even those who are very different than us.
15. And to allow God to lead us in this through those He has prepared to be more open.
a. We have our dear sister Susan Campbell. Others ought to follow us in being able to fully embrace her without being put off by her CP.
b. We have Katie Wellington. We ought to lead others in being able to warmly embrace others like her.
c. And now Benjamin has a heart for prisoners far greater than the rest of us. And we need to let God lead us in that through him.
D. In the end, the story of Ruth is mainly a story about God.
1. It shows us what happens when people put their trust in Him, even in the darkest days of life.
2. Remember how dark and bitter Naomi’s life was?
a. She had a husband and two sons, a place among God’s people and a piece of the promised land.
b. But all this did her little good if there was no food to eat. So, when famine hit, they all moved to the land of Moab, where there was food.
c. But when they were in Moab, the very thing they were trying to escape from by fleeing Israel is the exact thing which happened to them. They died.
3. The very thing they were afraid of happened to them. Because of the famine, they went to Moab to avoid dying. But they died nonetheless.
4. Not only were they left without their husbands, but there was no life insurance, no welfare. They were left to fend for themselves – in a society where men were the providers and being a widow was synonymous with being poor.
5. Naomi came back so broken and humiliated that her old friends hardly recognized her.
6. And yet, and yet, her story was not over. She thought it was over; she thought she’d reaching the final chapter. But little did she know that things were not only about to improve, but they were about to improve so much that the happy ending would far surpass the intensity of her dark days.
7. If you to pick one verse to summarize Ruth, “Blessed be the LORD, who has not left you this day without a redeemer, and may his name be renowned in Israel!”
8. And when, from the end of the story, we look back at her tragedies and her bitterness, they look very different. We can see the powerful truth of the words of William Cowper:
9. “You fearful saints fresh courage take: The clouds you so much dread Are big with mercy and will break In blessings on your head.” – God Moves in a Mysterious Way
10. Naomi’s gloom was turned into glory! And so will ours be!
11. “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”
12. Just as God provided a redeemer for Ruth, so He has also provides a Redeemer for us!
13. And when the story was so bleak that even the sun hid its face, God raised Him from the dead.
14. And God is still the one who raises the dead – 2Cor.1:8-10 – and turns mourning into dancing.
15. But in order to have your mourning turned into dancing, you have to be willing to experience the mourning. The dancing doesn’t come without the mourning. And you have to wait for the dancing. This life isn’t all about dancing.
16. This is why believers do not grieve as others do who have no hope (1Thes.4:13). And how much more this is so now that Jesus died and rose again, showing us that the grief of dying is on the path to true life (1Thes.4:14).
17. In the story of Ruth, God calls us to put our faith in Him and not be side-lined by discouragement.
18. Her story reminds me of the story of the Syro-Phoenician woman, who comes to Jesus, the descendent of Ruth, in Matt. 15:21-28. Jesus is focused on ministry to the Jews, and He tells her so. But she won’t take no for an answer, and in so doing she demonstrates faith greater than her Jewish peers. The story ends with Jesus, who has been marveling all through the gospel story of people’s lack of faith and littleness of faith, marveling instead of the greatness of this woman’s faith. It’s as if He looked at her and saw His ancestor Ruth!