Presenting messages on the Book of Ruth has been such an encouraging exercise, and such a short one, it has been hard to leave it behind.
So, I’ve decided not to, at least just yet. We’ve covered the text of Ruth in four messages, and this morning we will take a fifth to review this subject of Finding God’s Blessings.
If I were to pick an overall lesson from the Book of Ruth it would be this: Choose God’s gracious ways for your life, because it is a choice for life. It’s a choice for life for both you and those you care about.
And under this I want to develop five major themes for us to consider from this great little book.
First, be hopeful. God’s grace is available to any and all who turn to Him. Doesn’t matter how young you are, or how old, how long you have been away from Him or how short, how great your sins are or how few. Or where you come from, or who you are. God is willing to be gracious to you, He even longs to be gracious to you, and He will be gracious to you the moment you truly turn to Him.
Now this wonderful little story is found right smack dab in the middle of the Old Testament. And when we think of the Old Testament, we think of the Law and judgment. The New Testament even encourages some of these thoughts, as John 1:17 tells us “The Law came through Moses, but grace and truth come through Jesus Christ.”
And yet God has always been a gracious God, even in the Old Testament, willing and eager to forgive and to give. And the story of the Book of Ruth is a proof of that. It’s the story, at least at the outset, of two women who had experienced great tragedy in this world of sin. One had wandered away from the Lord and His ways. Her name was Naomi. She had wandered away by following her husband and sons to Moab, a land of idolatry and immorality, for more than 10 years. And the other was Ruth, a Moabites, brought up in a land of idolatry and immorality, among a people who had been so committed to idolatry that they had successfully tempted the nation of Israel into both of them in the Book of Numbers. And the judgment against them is found in Deuteronomy 23:3 that no Moabite to the tenth generation was to enter the assembly of the Lord. Yet, this Moabite found mercy, and ultimately entered the holy of holies in another way—she became an ancestor of the Messiah through turning to the Lord.
To be sure, their turn to the Lord was a dramatic turn. It’s summed up in a favorite Bible word called repentance. It was a change of mind. A change of min that resulted in a change of action. They no longer followed what they thought best. They decided to do what the Lord said was best in His Word. They returned from a land of idolatry and immorality to seek God’s mercy in this Land of blessing, among His people, according to His Word and His Will. For Ruth, it required leaving behind her mother and her family and the country and culture of her birth. But her decision was total and final. Your people shall be my people and your God my God, and where you are buried I will be buried, she says to Naomi, and God upon hearing that, immediately sought to bless both Ruth and Naomi. Immediately. The day after they arrived in Bethlehem, it appears, Ruth just happens to find herself gleaning in the field of the one godly man who would be able and willing to redeem her, to marry and provide for her and Naomi, as the Law required. “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.” James 4:8 encourages. And it appears in Ruth and Naomi’s case, God didn’t just gradually draw near. It’s much like the story of the Prodigal Son. The Prodigal’s Father sees his long lost son approaching from a great distance away, and He jumps from his chair and runs to His repentant Son and covers Him with kisses and blessings, overwhelming His son, who did not expect such a welcome after he had been so callous and thankless in his departure.
The Old Testament tells us this is the kind of God we worship. As God reveals Himself to Moses as Moses is in the cleft of the rock, this is what He says there, in the midst of the Law: ““The LORD, the LORD God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and [d]truth; 7 who keeps lovingkindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression and sin.” This is the gracious side of God that Ruth and Naomi experienced, gracious and compassionate, abounding in lovingkindness and truth, because God is willing to forgive all kinds of iniquity, transgression and sin. And all of that is available to all of us, and anyone we know, at any time we are willing to turn or return to Him. After all, isn’t that why Christ came, to die for our sins, to show how eager He is to be compassionate and forgiving to us.
So be hopeful. A gracious and compassionate God is there for us whenever we are willing to turn to Him.
The other side of that, though, is that life is serious business. Be serious. Life requires us to make serious decisions of enormous consequence. Life is not a game to be played casually, but life is serious. The rest of Exodus 34:6-8 goes on to say, “yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity of fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations.”
The Book of Ruth features the individual lives and fortunes of at least eight different people. It tells us precisely the outcome of the lives of a half a dozen of them. Some were blessed and some were not. Quite honestly, some lives were greatly blessed, and some lives were terribly cursed. And it was all determined by their response to God and His Word. If they obeyed, they were blessed. If they did not obey, they, at the very least, missed great blessing, and at worst, experienced death.
At this point I invite you to remove from your bulletin the little chart entitled “Finding God’s Blessings—God’s Way or our Way?” Here is an outline of the decisions and outcomes of each of the characters in the book of Ruth. It begins with Elimelech, husband of Naomi and father of Mahlon and Chilion. His Difficulty, his dilemma, was how to provide for his family in the midst of a famine in Israel. How would He respond. The alternatives were to remain in the Land of Israel and draw close to God, or to move to a land where there was no famine, even if it were pagan in every way. He had various Scriptures to guide him, listed under his name—the Scriptures that applied to His decision. Deuteronomy 11:13-17 encouraged Jews to obey the Lord and promised that they would prosper. Deuteronomy 23:3-6 encouraged the avoidance of Moabites. And Deuteronomy 30:15-20 put it very bluntly. Two choices stood before Israelites generally. To obey God would result in life. To disobey God and sin would result in death. Elimelech’s decision was to disobey God. He took His family to Moab. And surprise, surprise, the result was exactly what God had predicted—death as a consequence for disobedience.
Mahlon and Chilion followed in his footsteps but complicated the matter by marrying pagans in this pagan land. They could have moved back to Israel and found godly women to marry. But they did what was natural and convenient. And after 10 years of childless marriage the promise of Deuteronomy 30:15ff tragically came true in their lives. They also died.
Of course, the story turns around as Naomi turns around. As it comes upon her to make a choice to seek the Lord’s blessing or remain in Moab, she’s the first to choose the Lord’s ways. Ruth follows. Orpah doesn’t. Same Scriptures apply. Their problem was the lack of a male provider which almost always guaranteed poverty in ancient times. Ruth and Naomi returned to Israel, and God provided a provider immediately. Orpah, Ruth’s sister-in-law returns to Moab. We know nothing beyond that from Scripture, but it can be assumed she died a pagan in a pagan land.
Of course, the chart continues this analysis through the lives of Boaz and the nearer-kinsman redeemer. The nearer kinsman redeemer has the same option as Boaz, and the same Scripture requiring that he redeem Ruth, but he refuses. He misses the great blessing that comes upon Ruth and Boaz, the son, and a place in the ancestral line of the Messiah. Boaz and Ruth and Obed their son become famous in Israel and leave a legacy of blessing to generations and to the world because of their obedient and righteous choices.
Life is as serious as a heartbeat. Our life choices are as serious as a heartbeat. The choices we make result in life and death, spiritually and physically at times. Surely, they result in life and death with respect to our eternal destiny. And our choices have a profound impact on those we love, for good or for ill.
Ruth is a wonderful book, but it also has sobering lessons for the person who would blow off God’s Word and God’s will and look to his own wisdom rather than Gods. The warning is also found in the New Testament. As Romans 11:22 puts it: “Behold then the kindness and severity of God; to those who fell, severity, but to you, God’s kindness, if you continue in His kindness.”
And Galatians 6:7-8 warns, “7 Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap. 8 For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.”
Be serious about God and His Word. Don’t be casual! Your life and the lives of those whom you love, depend on it.
And that brings us to a third lesson which is certainly worth our attention this morning. The impact of a Father’s spiritual choices on his family. Be mindful. A father’s choices have an enormous impact on his family.
Of course, Exodus 34:6-7 lays down that principle for us; “The sins of the Fathers are visited upon the children to the third and fourth generations.” Not that the children suffer judgment for the father’s sins. The Book of Ezekiel makes it clear that that is not the case at all. The problem is that children learn their father’s ways, so that they, as a result of following their father’s ways, experience the same consequences and judgments that came upon their Fathers. Unless they make a strong turn away from what they have learned from their fathers. And that is the exception rather than the rule.
The pattern is profoundly demonstrated in Ruth. Elimelech leads his family astray by moving them to Moab. His sons follow in his footsteps. Hey, if Moab was good enough for Dad, it’s good enough for me. They seem completely oblivious to the possibility that their Father’s disobedience to the Word of God resulted in His demise. They complicate the matter by marrying Moabite women, as anyone would expect, when they come of age. And they’re given a a period of time to reconsider their decisions. Childless marriage should have been a clue. Psalm 127 says children are a blessing from the Lord. But even the Lord’s failure to open the wombs of their wives fails to persuade them that something is wrong with their father’s choices, and something is wrong with their own choices. Married unrepentantly to their sin of seeking what is best for them apart from God, as part of the covenant people of God, they experience the consequences of failing to obey that covenant and die as well.
One man’s sin led to the sin of his family, the death of his two sons, and now a bereaved wife and mother, not to mention two widowed daughters-in-law. What a huge tragedy. The sin of the Father had surely been visited upon the children to the second generation. Naomi and Ruth would short-circuit sins rampage through this family, by turning to God. But how often is this tragic set of circumstances repeated today by fathers who lives as though they are an island to themselves, who are casual or totally absent in their spiritual leadership of their family with tragic consequences for their children. It is tough enough to raise godly children in this terribly ungodly culture, but just how impossible it is when the father is a friend of the world rather than a friend of God. As I mentioned last week, I’ve seen godly committed spiritual fathers raise generations of godly children—the believing great grandchildren of John Hornok numbering 27 out of 27 possibilities. But I’ve also seen irresponsible, unrepentant spiritually and relationally absent fathers be a spiritual stumbling block to their own precious children!
I know many of us here are granddads. But whatever influence you can have on your children and grandchildren late in life can still be huge. Make the most of it. Be creative.
Finally, be compassionate. Be compassionate and merciful, because that’s exactly the way God behaves in the Book of Ruth. It is exactly what way that the hero of Ruth behaves, Boaz. He’s the great kinsman-redeemer. He redeems Naomi and Ruth from their sin and their tragedies. He is a type of Christ in redeeming us from our sin and the tragedies it produces.
Be compassionate, because God still uses tragedies and crises to call people to Himself.
What did it take to get Naomi and Ruth back in God’s good graces? What it so often takes for many of us—crisis and tragedy. If Mahlon and Chilion had not been taken, we can be relatively assured that all of them would have died as pagans in a pagan land. The book of Ruth would never have been written. Boaz would never have had opportunity to redeem Naomi and Ruth.
What happened to Naomi and Ruth is what I like to call a “severe mercy.” God was merciful to them through the tragedies that came upon them. Yes, sin has consequences, those consequences are ultimately spiritual death. But sometimes when things aren’t going our way we are open to the possibility that we need to make a change, and a change in relationship to God. That’s clearly what happened here. Things hadn’t gone so well in Moab. Elimelech’s decision did not pay off. Neither did Mahlon’s or Chilion’s. Their ungodly choices resulted in great tragedy. Naomi decided it was time for a change in relationship to God and God’s people. Ruth agreed. They returned to Israel and to Israel’s God. There was repentance. And it all came about because there was a crisis. There was tragedy. And somebody finally decided to try living life God’s way—according to God’s direction book, the Word.
Since we’ve been in the Book of Ruth, I’ve had a couple different occasions in the lives of three different people who are in the midst of a crisis in their lives to use the lessons from the Book of Ruth as an encouragement to them. An encouragement for them to try something different. To try living life God’s way. Their way obviously has not worked. God’s way worked for Ruth and Naomi. If they want something other than the tragedies they were experiencing, maybe turning to God might be an idea they would want to consider. Just a week ago I wrote a long letter to a member of Jeanie’s family and retold the story of Ruth to her in the hope that as she’s come to an undesired end in her life, that she will yet turn to the Lord.
You can do the same. Life has been tough for most everyone these last couple years. Theres’ the pandemic that seemingly will never end. Social unrest. International tragedies and economic hardship. Fires and climate change. What’s next?
People are experiencing great distress. They need the Lord. They’re looking for something better.
I heard a great story from Kelly Moore about a month ago. Many of Kelly’s relatives have been threatened by the great fires that have ravaged the Sierras and Northern California. Some of his relatives have had to evacuate their homes and feared losing them. IN the midst of this, he talked to one who was under great distress, discovered she was open to the Gospel. He called a pastor in the community who then went to see her and led her to the Lord! How about that.
Yes, be compassionate. Know that God uses tragedies & crises to call people to Himself.
And remember for yourself. Continue to choose God’s gracious ways because it a choice for life, both for yourself, and often for those whom you love.
Let’s pray.
