Is God Near? (Part 1)

Thanks for tuning in to No Compromise Radio, with pastor and author, Dr. Mike Abendroth.

Today on No Compromise Radio, we'll be hearing Pastor Mike open the Word of God in a recent message

he preached at Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston, Massachusetts.

Now let's join Pastor Mike in progress as he preaches through the scriptures, verse by verse,

with No Compromise.

Well I have a confession to make this morning.

If I were to tell you that I was going to put together a men's Bible study, a lot of men getting together,

learning the deep truths of God, kind of act like men, be men of

boldness and courage, and let's have a men's Bible study.

What would you think of me if I announced it, we're going to get together and study the book of Ruth together?

It shouldn't be weird, but for a long time it was weird to me.

Why would I get together and study Ruth?

Why Esther?

That's like having a bunch of teenagers getting together to study Song of Solomon or something.

I mean, it just doesn't go together.

But I think the very next Bible study I have with men, we're going to study the book of Ruth because this is such a great book

for men, for women, and for everyone else.

Why don't we turn our Bibles to this precious book called Ruth, found in your Old Testament.

It's going to ask us, and we'll answer this morning, is

God near?

Does God care?

How do you know that God is involved in your life?

I mean, he's got a lot of other things to run in the universe.

Doesn't he have more important people to govern than those in this room?

If I had some kind of machine, I don't have any machines here, but if this was a spiritual Geiger counter,

and I would just put it over you to hear if there was any clicking going on, is God sovereignly,

providentially working in your life?

I wonder if I would hear anything.

What's so good about the book of Ruth?

You think ordinary people, ordinary circumstances, and no signs,

no wonders, no healings, no miracles, no

raising from the dead.

How can God be involved in the lives of people unless he's doing something spectacularly?

When was the last time you saw someone be raised from the dead?

When was the last time God gave you some sign, the sun went blood red for you

after you prayed for guidance, or you put out a fleece?

What I love about the book of Ruth is that God guides his people,

then and now, that generation and ours, through quiet providence,

the quiet, providential working of God.

Some say God has to lead through signs and wonders and miracles.

Expect a miracle!

And others say God works providentially, quietly, faithfully

behind the scenes.

So I'm going to start coming up with my new slogan, Expect Providence.

Because with the 1960s Territon cigarette commercial,

I'd rather fight than switch.

I'd rather fight than switch!

Ruth is so spectacular because God is leading, God is guiding, God does care for his people,

and if God has given you the greatest gift, free grace found in Jesus' life,

death, burial, you got freely sovereign grace,

justification, redemption, reconciliation.

God made propitiation on your behalf.

You have forgiveness.

You also have the promise that when he starts a work, he's going to be faithful to complete it.

You also have the promise, he causes all things to work together for good.

And when you ask yourself the question, is God guiding me?

Is God providentially overruling my sin, my frailties?

God, where are you?

Bad things are happening.

The book of Ruth is a good cure for the soul.

The trust in the sovereign God, because it's so obvious that he's quietly,

yet providentially driving people from chapter one where there's a barren womb, a barren land,

everything in the graves are anything but barren, and at the end what happens?

David is born through Ruth and will eventually get the son of David, Jesus Christ.

God is always intervening whether you see his hand, see the fruit of it,

or not.

You don't need audible speaking.

You don't need signs and wonders.

You don't need spectacular events.

You need to see that God providentially works.

And as one man says, Leon Morris, Ruth is a quiet story of ordinary people going about their

quiet lives.

Sound familiar?

Sounds familiar.

Well, Ruth chapter one is almost the problem.

There's a problem.

There's no food, barren wombs.

What are these ladies, the widows, going to do?

And Ruth two, where we're going to be this morning, gives us the solution, the solution to the

problem of where are we going to find the man to take care of this widow?

Where are we going to find the one who's going to be the kinsman, excuse me, redeemer?

And as we read, as I told the seminary students yesterday, ask yourself this question.

What don't I see when I read the scripture?

And what I don't see is miracles.

I don't see an axe head thrown in the river and the thing splits.

I don't see the Red Sea divided.

I don't see someone raising a child from the dead.

Ordinary, providential guiding.

So, let's take a look at Ruth chapter two this morning, verses one through seven, as we see our

immutable God who guides us and leads us in the exact same

way.

And then we'll talk about a few practical things.

Let's take a look at chapter two, verse one, as Ruth is going to meet Boaz.

I have to tell you, just before we start, this is drama.

You're going to see drama here.

And the way it's written, this is greatly written, superbly written.

It just has...

Well, I'll just let it speak for itself, chapter two, verse one.

Now, Naomi had a relative, Ruth two, one, of her

husband's.

The narrator is giving us a heads up.

With many writings, not only in Old Testament narrative, but even in secular writings, the

characters talk and occasionally you'll hear something from the author, from the narrator, from the one

who's writing the story.

That's exactly what we have here.

We're hearing from the narrator.

And what the narrator is going to do is what you don't want to do if you play basketball and you're a point guard.

You don't want to telegraph the pass.

So if I want to pass to you, I might look over here and then pass that way, right?

But I don't want to look at you and pass it because someone will certainly intercept

it.

The author wants you to intercept this pass.

Naomi had a relative of her husband's, a

worthy man of the clan of Elimelech.

And now he's waiting to the very end.

Doesn't want to tell his name till the end, whose name was Boaz.

His name is withheld until the last second.

Now, this relative isn't the word for kinsman, redeemer that we'll

learn about later.

This just means relative or acquaintance.

We don't know how close because the story is building.

We're going to learn later who this person is.

If you look at chapter 2, verse 20, for instance, Ruth 2 .20, the very end of the verse, it says, again,

Naomi said to her, the man is our relative.

We've learned that from verse 1.

He is one of our closest relatives.

This man named Boaz, Boaz means strength.

He's a man, what does the text say, of valor, verse 1.

He's a man of integrity.

You could translate that worthy man.

You could translate that war hero.

Ever met a war hero?

He's a man who's capable of high social standing.

He owns things.

He has money.

If you look at chapter 3, verse 11 of Ruth, this exact word is used of Ruth.

I will do all that you ask for all my fellow townsmen know that you are a worthy

woman, a woman of valor, Ruth 3 .11.

He, Boaz, is a mighty warrior, a valiant warrior.

You could translate it that way.

If you were in medieval England, you would call him a what?

A knight.

That's why some people have said, Boaz is a knight in shining armor.

Wait a second, something's happening here.

Chapter 1, the males are weak and now dead.

What's going to happen, especially in this society, especially what's going on, and especially knowing that there needs to be the

line of David for it to continue.

We've got weak, dead males.

Oh, and now a different one comes onto the stage.

Maybe this is the helper of the widows.

That's what the reader's thinking.

This could be it.

Heads up, maybe this is the one.

He's a kinsman of Elimelech.

He's sturdy, he's strong, he's got power, he can protect.

Matter of fact, did you know this?

In the Temple of Solomon, 1 Kings 7 .21, there were two temples in the nave.

One was Jachin, and the other one, its name was, this is what you name a

temple pillar.

What do you name a temple pillar?

Boaz, sturdy, strong.

Verse 2, And Ruth, the Moabite,

said to Naomi, Let me go to the field and glean among the ears of grain after him, in whose

sight I shall find favor.

She said to her, Go, my daughter.

Don't forget, Ruth doesn't know about chapter 2, verse 1.

We know, she doesn't know.

And so, most likely, they arrive in Bethlehem, and now you need food.

And she says, I'm going to go after some food.

And if she lived today, here's what she would say.

Listen, she'd say this.

Naomi, for whatever reason, you can't go, you're too bitter, you've got arthritis, you're too sick, you don't want to

do it, you're too this, that, or the other.

But I'm going to go fend for us, and I'm going to collect aluminum cans, and cardboard,

and go get money for them.

That's what I'm going to go do.

Because that's exactly what happened.

Well, not exactly.

God had set it up in His mercy, and in His grace, and in His compassion, that if you had a field,

you did exactly what business owners don't want you to do today, if you work for them.

Cut corners.

Don't cut the corners, leave them for the poor.

Leave them for the needy.

Leave them for the widow.

So, don't cut all the corners.

Don't take the stalk with your left hand, and the sickle in the right hand, and

cut it off, and then gather it up.

Don't do that all the way to the corner.

And also, if you drop something, just let it be on the ground, for the poor people.

And so, Ruth knew this.

She'd obviously been taught this mosaic law from Naomi.

And why don't I go out into a field, so I can glean.

Let me go to the field.

It was one singular big field, and they would just have little markers, little stone markers to say,

this guy owns that portion, this guy owns that portion, this guy owns that portion.

It was a field split up.

And Ruth says, I'm going to go out, and I'm making this announcement.

I'm going to go take care of us.

Is that okay?

Everything you read about Ruth is not, she had long, pretty black hair.

She had wonderful brown eyes.

Dark skin.

Beautiful.

Everything you read about Ruth is her inner beauty, and she's now going to go work.

Listen to Leviticus 19, about how God provides for needy people.

Now, when you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap to the very corners of your field, nor shall you gather the

gleanings of your harvest.

You shall leave them for the needy, and for the stranger.

I am the Lord your God.

Leviticus goes on to say, when you reap the harvest of your land, moreover, you shall not reap to the very corners of

your field, nor gather the gleanings of your harvest.

You are to leave them for the needy, and the alien.

Now, not everybody did that.

Have you ever met a person who didn't obey all of God's Word?

I guess they exist, right?

So it's still risky.

She's got to go out there, and she's got to provide in this man's world.

And she's going to go get the leftovers.

And I just hope I can find the right portion of a field, where there's going to be a man who's

kind to me, and will let this happen.

Everybody should let it happen, but not everybody's going to treat a Moabite especially well.

And Naomi says at the end of verse 2, Go, my daughter.

Go take advantage of God's provision, His abundant blessing.

Go take care of it.

Side note, I won't belabor the point, but I will say it.

This is God's built -in welfare system, through work.

God takes care of people, in a welfare -type system, through their

work.

I won't make any other comment on that.

But it's true.

So, verse 3.

This is meant to be very dramatic.

I'm going to read it slowly, because it's back -loaded.

So, remember Ruth doesn't know chapter 2, verse 1.

She doesn't know Boaz exists.

She doesn't know the people.

She doesn't know the land.

She doesn't know the field.

So, she set out, went and gleaned in the

field, after the reapers.

And she happened, to come to the part of the field, belonging to

Boaz.

And didn't he just tell us earlier, the author in verse 1, who was of the clan of

Elimelech.

That is so important.

It's in verse 1, it's verse 2 as well, from the clan of Elimelech.

There's going to be this near kinsmen redeemer, we're going to learn about soon enough.

Now, if you know me well, here's what you know about me.

When we're talking behind the scenes, or over here, over there, and you say, boy, I just got a lucky break at work,

and got a promotion.

And I'll always say, pardon me?

I just got a lucky break at work, and I got a promotion.

Because you know my hearing is going, but you also quickly come to find out, oh yeah, I don't say luck around the guy, because

he's just going to jab me.

I mean, what does luck do?

Luck is like evolution, it robs God of blessing.

Evolution robs God of the praise of, He created everything well, with a word.

And what luck does, is it robs God of quietly, and providentially, and sovereignly ruling over everything.

But once in a while, if someone says something, I might say, boy, that sure was lucky.

And then you know what they do?

They do what I would do to a pastor who had been doing that to me.

Oh, you just said luck?

I say, wait a second.

I never do anything wrong.

It's my show here.

No, I say, I was saying it ironically, with satire, for a rhetorical effect.

For hyperbolic rhetoric.

My point is, when I say that, I'm trying to say instead, God is sovereign.

And I'm going to use language of something to really mean the opposite.

And that's exactly what Ruth does here.

The writer Samuel, most likely a human writer, literally says in Hebrew, look at verse 3,

tucked right in the middle, ESV says, she happened to come.

Hebrew is, her chance, chanced.

As luck would have it.

As luck would have it.

This is the writer with a bull horn, with a mega horn.

See God leading?

See God guiding?

It doesn't really look like it.

If you look and you walk by sight and not by faith, dead wombs, dead

sons.

But wait, God is sovereign.

I found a few different translations of this verse, I'll just read them so you get the point.

Now it happened that she ended up in the part of the field that belonged to Boaz.

It just so happened that the field belonged to Boaz.

Chance led her to a plot of land belonging to Boaz.

And as the Tanakh, the Jewish translation says, as luck would have it, it was the

piece of land belonging to Boaz.

Kind of a coinkydink, don't you think?

The lot is cast into the lap, but it's every decision is from the Lord.

We should know that, even reading chapter 1, 5, 6, 7 times, Yahweh,

Yahweh, Yahweh, the personal name of God, who is a covenant -keeping,

faithful, compassionate God, whose overall, rules overall, and doesn't just create, but

creates and sustains.

Chance?

Laughable.

Whose field is it?

Boaz's.

And he's of the clan of the right person.

Ray Pritchard said he has a friend who loves to say this slogan, I might have to steal it.

God is too sovereign to be lucky.

I like that.

God's sovereign to be lucky.

Now, before we go farther, if John Stott was here, he'd say, preaching is between two worlds.

The world of the Bible here in Ruth, in the days of judges, everybody was doing what was right in their own eyes,

no resolution until God's man comes on the stage, his name is Boaz, but the other world is

your world.

Bethlehem Bible Church's world.

This immutable God who doesn't change is the same God who

sovereignly worked out at the right time Christ's death and crucifixion, resurrection.

But is God just as sovereign over Ruth's life as He is your life?

That's the thing.

Just think about big events in your life.

Go back and go, okay, how do you...

I mean, when I was younger, I'd think, how could I ever meet my wife?

How did Dad and Mom meet?

What's going on?

Will I ever get married?

Would anybody ever love me?

Where do you go?

What do you do?

How do you find a wife?

As luck would have it,.

Kim showed up at my door, stalking me and stuff like that.

I'm not.

Kidding you.

I don't want to be the star of the sermon, that's not my point, but I'm just trying to give you an illustration of my life.

I move into this apartment, I see the vacuum cleaner there, I never vacuum, I'm a

single bachelor living in Los Angeles, I ask the landlord, the last people left the vacuum cleaner,

and he said, well, if they come back, just give it to them, otherwise you could have it.

Days go by, weeks go by, months go by, it wasn't years, but it probably could have been.

I get the knock on the door.

Hi, my name's Kim, and I just moved in across the street, and our mutual friend who lives

above you said you had a vacuum cleaner.

I'm like, I wasn't even a believer then, but I'm like, dear God, may this vacuum cleaner work.

Yeah, I think I do, as luck would have it.

It's 1996, I'd like to be a pastor someplace.

I think I was the last person in my graduating class at Master's Seminary to get a job in ministry.

And you're all like, well, we know why.

God can use a donkey.

And I get this list of churches who are looking for pastors.

Send them out, as luck would have it.

Bethlehem Bible Church responds.

Not just in big things, but in small things as well.

The point is, if you look with your eyes, they're going to fool you.

Read the book of Ruth and say, God is sovereign over everything in my life.

Of course they're responsible.

Ruth was responsible to go.

That's why if somebody says, well, I'm unemployed, what do I do?

Well, go out and work for Home Depot.

Go out and work for someplace, because you know God's sovereign, so get to work.

Ruth's like, okay, I've got to go out and work.

And look at what's happening.

The world of Ruth, God's sovereign, and your world, God is sovereign.

Verse 4.

I told the seminary students that I was teaching yesterday, don't be a comedian, don't tell jokes.

Maybe once a year, then you repent and move on.

So here's my once a year.

I'm going to use it early.

Cowboy applied for health insurance.

The agent said, do you regularly have accidents and have you had any in the previous year?

No, said the cowboy, but I was bitten by a rattlesnake and a horse kicked me in the ribs.

That laid me up for a while.

The agent said, weren't those accidents?

No, replied the cowboy, they did it on purpose.

All right.

Verse 4.

Here's another marker.

Here's another marker.

Stand up and take notice and behold

the point there is when behold is used any place, you should pay attention, but

especially in Ruth chapter 3, verse 8.

At midnight, the man was startled and turned over and behold, a woman laid his feet.

Ruth chapter 4, verse 1.

Now Boaz had gone up to the gate and sat down there and behold the Redeemer of whom

Boaz had spoken came by.

Behold means pay attention.

God's sovereign over all these issues.

Listen up.

Heads up.

You just heard my football coach.

Heads up.

Behold.

Pay attention.

Guess who's coming to dinner?

Boaz came from Bethlehem.

Now wait a second.

First of all, you've got this huge field.

She stumbles upon the part of the field that he owns.

She's been working all day, we're going to find out in a minute, and when she's basically leaving or resting, he shows up.

And Boaz said to the reapers, what do you say to your workers after you haven't seen them for a while?

What does Boaz say?

Maybe the taskmaster boss you have says something like, you know, how's output?

What's your quota?

What's your running?

What you doing?

Why you loafing?

Here's what Boaz says.

Yahweh, or the Lord, be with you.

What a nice way to greet your employees.

If you'd like to be greeted that way tomorrow morning when you show up at work, may Yahweh greet you.

No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston,

Massachusetts.

Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life transforming power of God's

Word through verse by verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please, come and join us.

Our service times are Sunday morning at 8 .30 and 11 a .m. and Sunday evenings at 6 p .m.

We're located on Route 110 in West Boylston, Massachusetts.

You can check us out online at bbcchurch .org or by phone at 508 835

-3400.

The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff

or management.