John Piper, “Ruth: Sweet and Bitter Providence,” Lesson 1

The Word of God, Hope, and the Importance of Ruth

Let me begin with seven reasons why I think looking at Ruth is very, very important. What you may expect when you read this ancient book. Number one, this is the Word of God. This is part of the book that Jesus read and of which he said the scripture cannot be broken.

And of which the Apostle Paul said, everything written beforehand was written for your instruction that by the endurance and encouragement of the scriptures, you may have hope. So you're going to find here truth, the scripture cannot be broken, and you're going to find.

Hope here.

And we live in a day where truth is not prized and hope does not abound, and therefore, Ruth becomes very important. Number two, this is a love story and therefore it's interesting. It has some heart stopping moments in it, in fact, in its tenderness.

And that tells me in and of itself that great and glorious God exalting truth is found in flesh and blood forms. You don't leave behind romance. You don't leave behind flesh and blood falling in love and having babies in order to deal with God.

Those are the same. If you don't meet him there, if he's not supreme there, if he's not transforming there, he's a mirage in your life. Number three, this is a portrait of a beautiful and noble manhood and womanhood.

There are not a lot of helps on television and in the movies, in the media today to understand what womanhood is supposed to look like and what manhood is supposed to look like. The book of Ruth is tremendously helpful in getting a picture of a beautiful and noble vision of womanhood and manhood in Ruth and Boaz in particular and Naomi.

Number four, the great issue of racial and ethnic diversity is drawn in to our lives through this book because Ruth is a Moabite. She's unclean. She's a pagan until evidently something gets a hold of her and she is drawn not only into faith.

She would be an Arab. She would wear a burka in London and she's drawn into faith and she is drawn in to be an ancestor of the Lord Jesus. There are four women mentioned in the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew 1 and she is one of them.

In fact, all of them are of questionable reputation, all four of them. That's not an accident and that she's a Moabite, an Arab, is also not an accident. Number five, I just noticed something I wrote in the margin here.

This issue of ethnic and racial diversity is huge. Viewed from outside, England is a vanishing culture. I don't know if it is from inside. And in America, I just had David go online and get the exact date this morning.

The most recent date is 2042 when America will cease to be primarily white. So I will be a minority before my children are off the scene. My family will be the minority. The whole mindset of the church in the West today is changing.

I don't know if you read books by Philip Jenkins over here on this side of the Atlantic. The great new reality of the last generation is the rise of the global South and East where the center of gravity in the Christian church has moved away from Italy, away from Western Europe, away from America and into the South.

That is South America, Africa, Asia, and the powerful movements, the dominant influences, the majority effects of the church will be away from us unless the unforeseen happens. And that always is possible.

I personally, when I talk to the fading Europe, the fading America, I talk with great hope that at least as far as Bethlehem Baptist Church goes, I don't intend to be left out. And I hope when you think about your campuses, you don't think about, oh, once upon a time there was the Cambridge Seven or once upon a time there was the St. Andrew's Seven.

I don't know if you are familiar with that book, the St. Andrew's Seven. That's worth a read. And once upon a time we had a great British influence in the world. And I hope you don't think only that way.

I hope you say that God moves in strange, unexpected ways and all the trajectories could change. Or in the backwaters of the Christian church in the next hundred years, unbelievable impulses for good could arise because of you.

Number five.

Providence in the Darkest of Times

And this is most prominent in the book of Ruth. This book is mainly about the reality of the providence of God in the midst of calamity and sorrow. It's about the work of God in the darkest of times. It's about telling stories to a people so that they will not lose hope when everything seems to go wrong.

That's the main thrust of this book. And therefore I hope that those of you who have come here and find yourself at a moment like that in your life where every morning you seem to get another piece of news that is not good.

Not good in your health, not good in your family, your mom, your dad, your brother, your sister, your Christian union, your church. Every piece of news in the last six months seems to have been bad.

That's Ruth.

And the point of this book is to you and what God is doing in your life right now in that time. That's the main thrust of the book of Ruth. Now, finally, number. Oh, no, there are two more.

I said there were seven.

So the sixth one is that this effect of finding God at work in the darkest of times is that it frees you for radical obedience. And I hope the effect will be that when you watch God at work in the darkest of times in the book of Ruth and the effect it had on Ruth, the effect it had on Boaz, the outcomes that it had in the last chapter, that it would free you to do some amazing things.

And then finally, the ultimate, don't call it the most prominent, because I said that was number six. This issue of the reality of God's providence in the midst of sorrow and calamity, that's the most prominent.

But the most ultimate purpose of this book is found in the last chapter, and it has to do with David. King David and with his son, Jesus Christ. So this book really is about God's ultimate purpose in sending his son into the world to glorify his son, to magnify his grace in the death of his son, and I hope that he will get the glory in our exposition together.

Let me pray with you one more time as we get into chapter one. Father, I ask for help now. Lucas prayed for me and for us once. I just want to express my own heart to you and say I need your help to be faithful to this word.

It is a great word. There are so many layers of implication for our lives in Ruth that I pray wherever these students are. One of those layers, two, three, four, five, six, seven of those layers would come home with life changing power.

Please free me from self-consciousness. Grant that we would not be distracted, that we would focus with Holy Spirit given attention upon the truth of this book. Come be our teacher now, I pray in Jesus name.

Amen.

Thank you.

Ruth in the Time of the Judges

Verse one says that this happened during the time of the judges. That's why in your English Bibles it's located right after the book of Judges and just a word about the time of the judges. And you know this happened evidently very close to the front end of the time of Judges because Boaz is Rahab's son.

You learn that from Matthew chapter one verse five. The father of Boaz married Rahab, presumably the one Rahab that we know about. So this happened early on in the time of the book of Judges. The book of Judges is the time of failure in the people of Israel again and again and again.

They sinned.

God in his justice gives them over to some enemy band. They cry out for mercy. God in his mercy raises up a judge. Deliverance is given. A season of peace happens and they sin again. And that's the pattern over and over and over.

It is not a hopeful time. It's a terrible time. That's when this happens. So the point of the book of Ruth is to give us an opening, a glimpse into what is God doing in the darkest of times? That's the point of the book of Ruth.

What is God doing in the darkest of times? So this is a little window into one family that has global implications. So that's the point we're supposed to see mainly. Here's a story taken out of the darkest of times in which we are allowed to see Providence, God's work leading to Jesus Christ.

That's the point of the book. Let me show you that by taking you to the last chapter. Let's go to chapter 4 and verse 21 and 22. You need to know where the book ends so that you will read it with the proper expectation and understanding.

It's verse 18 following. Now these are the generations of Perez. Perez fathered Hezron. Hezron fathered Ram. Ram fathered Ammonadab. Ammonadab fathered Nashon. Nashon fathered Salmon. Salmon fathered Boaz.

Salmon had married Rahab.

Fathered Boaz.

And Boaz fathered Obad. Ruth was the mother there. And Obad fathered Jesse. And Jesse fathered David. And that's where the book ends intentionally because David was the greatest king of Israel. And Israel experienced her times of greatest triumphs and greatest godliness during David as the paramount godly king pointing towards his son Jesus Christ.

So ending on David is supposed to say here in the darkest of times, in the judges, there's this little family and when it looks like everything has gone wrong for Naomi, she is granted to have a relative, Boaz, who marries her daughter-in-law, Ruth, who gives rise to King David, who is the father of Jesus Christ.

Now the reason I just jumped straight to Jesus Christ is because Jesus did. Remember this story from Matthew 22? It's the end of all the questions that the Pharisees asked Jesus. They're done asking their questions and he asked them a question.

Remember what it was? What do you think of the Christ, the Messiah? Whose son is he? And the Pharisees answer, David's son. So there's the jump straight from Ruth 422 to Jesus. The Messiah is the son, not of all the generations in between.

Just skip right straight from David to Jesus, David to Messiah as far as they're concerned. So Jesus hears that answer and probably he nods. And then he says, David's son. If he's David's son, what about Psalm 110, verse 1, where David, speaking in the Holy Spirit, meaning inspired by God, says, the Lord, all caps, Yahweh, says to my Lord, Messiah, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool.

Jesus steps back and says, if David calls the Messiah, Lord, how is he his son? End of conversation.

That's it. It's over.

They don't ask him any more questions. They have nothing that they can say. Now, what do you think that means? What do you think Jesus was doing by accepting the answer, whose son is the Messiah?

They say, David's son.

Well, then why does David in Psalm 110, verse 1, call him Lord? The Lord says to my Lord. Yahweh says to my master, my king, why does he do that? And he doesn't answer. And surely the least we could say is this.

Jesus wanted them and us to understand that, yes, Ruth 4 .22, David, is about the son of David, the Messiah that would come and bring hope to the world. But, oh, how much more than you ever dreamed is this son of David.

He is not merely a man in the fleshly genealogy that traces down to another man like David. He is more than a mere man in the genealogy with David. So, I think we are within the realm of good exegesis to say that the way this book ends in 4 .22, sheds light back on what God is doing in Ruth and Naomi's and Boaz's and the judge's time.

He is preparing the world for his ultimate purpose to glorify his son, Jesus Christ. If you were to ask me, what do you think the ultimate reason for the existence of the universe is? The ultimate reason for the existence of history is?

Or your existence is? Or your university's existence? Or my being here? What's the ultimate reason of all things? I would say it is that Jesus Christ might be magnified as infinitely glorious. This universe is about Jesus Christ.

Colossians 1 .17, all things were made through him and for him. Everything exists for Jesus Christ. In my sermon last Sunday, everything exists according to Philippians 2. I quoted this chapter in my sermon.

Jesus is obedient unto death, even death on the cross. Remember that in chapter 2, verse 8 of Philippians. And then verse 9 says, therefore, for that reason, because he was obedient unto death for us, God has highly exalted him and given him a name, which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow.

In heaven, all the angels. On earth, all the Republicans and Democrats in America these heady days. And in England and everywhere in the world, every knee is going to bow to him. And every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord.

In other words, God sent Jesus into the world to die and to be obedient and to rise again for one reason. So that every tongue everywhere in the universe in all time will make him supreme. There's zero doubt as to why this world exists.

It exists so that every single demonic tongue, angelic tongue and human tongue will say Jesus is supreme. So that's got to be what the book of Ruth is about. And when you read chapter 4, verse 22, there's no doubt that's what it's about.

And if you wonder, you know, I have some people say I read. There's a book by a fellow. Oh, I shouldn't name anything. No names, no names. There's a book in America today called 90 Minutes in Heaven about a man who died and went to heaven and came back.

And I don't like books like that. They're very untrustworthy because they're presented and they're read as though this person is telling truth about heaven on a par with Scripture. That's the way they're read.

That's why they sell by the millions. Fresh, new, intimate, firsthand word. Well, Paul went to heaven and he came back and said, you can't talk about that. However, this this book says I heard no songs there about anything painful.

And when I heard that I read, I just went ballistic. I just got so angry. Because we know one song, we know one song from Scripture that's going to be sung in heaven. Right. Revelation, chapter five, verse nine.

And they sang, worthy art thou for thou was slaughtered.

That's the word.

Spaghetti is slaughtered.

That was slaughtered.

And by thy blood did ransom men for God from every tribe and tongue and nation and has made them a kingdom and priest to our God.

And they shall reign on earth.

And so I say we wrote the guy, David, my assistant down here. We wrote the author and said, you missed the song. And I'll have to let you tell the story later. But we did communicate. And he admits he shouldn't have said what he said.

He's written and it's down in every airport. The reason I point that out is when I say that the ultimate purpose of the universe is to glorify Jesus Christ, I mean glorify him precisely for the cross.

When he died, when the son of God died, the grace of God was manifested in its supreme form. And according to Ephesians, chapter one, verse six, that's why he did everything. We were predestined through Jesus Christ unto adoption, unto the praise of the glory of his grace.

And that happened supremely at the cross. And therefore, everything was planned in creation. He was crucified before the foundation of the world in the mind of God. Everything was planned before creation, leading towards the magnification of Jesus Christ in his death.

So all of that to say, when we're with Ruth and Naomi and Boaz in the time of judges, the worst of all times when it looks like nothing is going right, this book is to tell us God is at work preparing for the most important event in the universe.

It really is written for that purpose.

So is the story of Joseph. So is the book of Esther. So is the story of the exile.

Wouldn't it be good to develop a whole Old Testament paradigm of theology here to show how all these books in the Old Testament have this same point. It looks as though everything is over for Joseph. It looks as though in the book of Esther, everything is over for the Jews.

It looks as though everything is over in the exile. And the Bible is written to say, Go with me into these dark times and watch the massive providence of God work his sovereign will. And so my deep prayer for you is that you will see a providence, a strong, invisible hand, as R .C. Sproul calls it, the invisible hand of God in the darkest of your times, planning things for you that you could never dream.

He who did not spare his own son but gave him up for you all, will he not with him freely give you all things? If Christ has died for you and this is the main purpose of the universe, will anything restrain the invisible hand of God from working in the calamities of your life right now?

OK.

Naomi’s Misery, Famine, and Bitter Providence

The book of Ruth is about the work of God in the darkest of times to prepare for the glory of Jesus Christ. Verses 1 to 5 describe the misery of Naomi. Now, I don't know why this book is called Ruth. I have no idea why this book is called Ruth.

It should be called Naomi. And by the time we're done, it begins with Naomi, it ends with Naomi. Ruth just happens to be the one who has the baby. This book is about Naomi, about her calamity, about her loss of faith almost, and her recovery of faith.

It ends... When you look at the last chapter, you say, why does it shift so back onto Naomi the way it does in the last chapter? As you'll see, it's because this book should have been called Naomi. We wouldn't be even laughing at all.

We would just say the book of Naomi. And everybody would think, well, of course it's the book of Naomi because Naomi is the main character in this book after God. Now, the first five verses are about the misery of Naomi.

There was a famine in Judah. She and her husband, Elimelech, Mahlon, Chilion, or however you pronounce it, Chilion, Mahlon, I don't know how to pronounce these things. Naomi knows good and well who causes famines.

God causes famines. She read it in her Old Testament. If you walk in my statutes and observe my commandments and do them, I will give you rains in their season and the land will yield its increase. Remember Psalm 105, that was Leviticus chapter 26, verse 3.

Psalm 105. When God summoned a famine on the land and broke all the supply of bread, he has sent a man ahead of them, Joseph. So that's the story of Joseph. You know, Joseph's dark times had to do with the famine in Egypt.

Where did the famine come from? Well, it was all over the world. Where did it come from? It came from God. God sent a famine and God sent Joseph to rescue from the famine. You've got to be able to handle things like that.

You've got to have a God who manages calamity and a God who manages rescue from calamity. He does both. He doesn't just do, oh, the devil does calamity and God does rescue. That's a dualism that will not carry the day.

It won't work in a world like ours. It doesn't work in the Bible. It's not working in Ruth. Naomi knows good and well, and you'll see her theology in just a moment. It is a massive theology. So famine has come at God's hand.

She's going to say that in a moment. And they leave and go to Moab. That's playing with fire. So she and Elimelech leave and they go to Moab because God said stay separate for religious reasons. As we'll see, not ethnic reasons, not racial purity reasons, but religious reasons.

Mixed with the pagans, you get pagan. That's what they were saying. And there her husband dies and her sons marry these pagan women. One marries Orpah and one marries Ruth. And then they die. Mahlon dies.

Kilion dies. So her husband has died. There's famine in the land. She's moved to a foreign country. They've married women they shouldn't marry. They've died, perhaps because of it. It doesn't say whether it's God's judgment.

I think any ordinary Jew reading this would say, well, of course they died. They shouldn't have married these women. That's going to be significant. If that's true, it makes the book all the more significant.

It doesn't say, but maybe. Now, that's a pretty bad situation. The point of those first five verses is to say, this is awful. Put yourself in Naomi's picture. Famine. Foreign country. Husband dies. Sons marry the wrong women.

No children for ten years. Maybe another part of the curse. And after ten years, the boys die. If you're Naomi, you say, I'm cursed.

I'm cursed.

It's as bad as it can get.

Well, it isn't as bad as it can get. Verse 6. The Lord, she hears, the Lord has visited his people and given them food. A little tiny ray of hope. The famine is over back in Bethlehem of Judah. So she evidently starts out to go home with her daughter's in law.

Both of them. But for whatever reason, partway there, she tries to persuade them to go back. So that's what verses 8 through 13 are about. Trying to persuade them to go home. Don't go with me. Now, my question is, when you read narrative that covers, this narrative probably covers about 12 years.

So it says ten years that they were married and then they died. So a little bit of time before. Long enough to have a marriage and then a baby afterwards. So, you know, 12 or 13 years. So if you got 12 or 13 years and you wanted to write everything that happened in those years, it would fill up thousands of pages.

And here you have four pages. So when you write a story, you're obviously being massively selective. So you should always be asking, why is this here? And so I'm asking why this attention in verses 8 to 13, why this attention to tell the women to go home?

Don't go with me. And I think there are three reasons for these verses.

Ruth’s Loyal Faith and Fearless Womanhood

Number one.

It emphasizes Naomi's misery. He's not done with that yet. Verse 11. Naomi said, turn back my daughters. Why will you go with me? Have I yet sons in my womb that they may become your husbands? Turn back my daughters.

Go your way, for I am too old to have a husband. So I have nothing to offer you. So go home. This is drawing attention again. Naomi is bereft. Her husband's gone. Her sons are gone. The dreams she had for the life that she thought she was going to live are gone.

And she's just going home to die. Know my daughters. Verse 13. It is exceedingly bitter to me for your sake that the hand of the Lord has gone forth against me. Sounds just like Job, doesn't it? Almost identical.

The hand of the Lord has gone forth against me. Is that a true sentence?

Be careful.

The hand of the Lord has gone forth against me. Is that a true statement? It depends on what against means. It's true. If you mean God brought the famine, God took her husband, God took her sons, God orchestrated the marriages.

All that's true. In that sense, it feels like he's against me. But is he against me? Was he against Job? And the ultimate answer is going to be he is not ultimately against Naomi. He's not ultimately against you right now.

It feels like he might be against you. There are half a dozen reasons that you could bring to mind right now. You might say God feels like he's against me, like he's mad at me. So those verses are first to set up the fact or to confirm the fact that things are going very poorly for Naomi.

She feels like God has gone forth against her. Number two, these verses draw out a custom that's foreign to us, but essential to this story. Namely, in Jewish culture of that time, according to Naomi and the Old Testament books, the law, if a man died, then his brothers or some close relative should marry the widow to preserve the name.

A strange custom. The name of this man be preserved so that the offspring brought now to the brother would be in his name. And that's why Naomi says, I have no sons. I mean, if we read this as martyrs, we say, who cares if you have sons?

I'm not going to marry your sons anyway. I just want to find a good man. I don't have to be your son. I'm happy to find just a good Jewish man back there in Bethlehem and I can remarry. My husband's dead and what's his son business?

So it is an odd, to us it would feel odd, just to me anyway. Why are you pointing out, Naomi, that you don't have sons? And if you got married and had sons, they'd have to wait 30 years, 20 years to get married.

That's weird.

We don't have to wait to marry somebody. And this was so central to what's going on in this story that here it's brought out for us to get ready for why Boaz is going to be so significant in the story.

So that's the second function of these verses. There are little windows of hope appearing on the horizon that the famine has been taken away and Ruth and Orpah are willing at first to go back with her, but she's decided that everything is against her.

Maybe I should pause here and just draw out one more practical psychological implication for you. When you're depressed because it feels like everything's going against you, you're almost always unable to see signs of hope.

When the last six months, six weeks have been negative and God has ordained that there come into your life hard times and your emotions are sinking lower and lower, your vision is becoming very impaired.

Naomi could not see signs of hope. The famine is being lifted. Ruth is going to say yes and go with her. There is a Boaz back there. She's forgotten totally about Boaz when she says, I don't have anybody for you women.

And that's what happens to you, which is one reason, by the way, why you need each other. Why being together in ministry is so crucial.

You try to go off by yourself and do ministry.

You're going to crash.

Emotionally, you're going to crash. If you don't have somebody to come into your darkness and just gently, not in a cavalier way, like praise God anyhow, but in a deep, strong, earnest, biblical way, take you by the neck and say, I know you can't see hope right now, but I can and I'm with you and you will see it soon.

That's what has to happen. Naomi didn't see clearly, but she could have seen more if she had eyes to see. We can see here what she couldn't. Third reason for these verses eight to 13 is to show us Ruth's amazing faithfulness.

This is probably why the book is called Ruth right here, because of this amazing woman's remarkable response. Let's read verses 16 and 17. These are the most famous verses in the book. Urge me not or entreat me not to leave you, she says to Naomi.

Don't tell me to go back, Naomi, or return from following you. For where you go, I will go. And where you lodge, I will lodge. And your people will be my people and your God will be my God. And where you die, I will die.

And there will I be buried. And may the Lord do so to me and more also if even death parts me from you. Those are amazing words. Number one, she would have to leave her own family. Familiar language, familiar culture.

Number two, she was embracing a life of widowhood forever. Because she's not arguing with Naomi when Naomi says, I have nobody for you. The implication being, if you marry another man outside our family, you're losing...

I don't know which of these two men she married. It doesn't say if you just take the order, she probably married Killian. You're losing Killian's name and you're dishonoring his heritage. So she's embracing widowhood and childlessness for the rest of her life.

She's going to an unknown people and new language. She says something amazing here where she says, I will be buried there. Meaning, where you die, I will die. Well, the assumption would be that a daughter-in-law dies years after a mother-in-law.

I'm going for keeps.

It's not like I'm going to help you and when you're dead, I'm coming home. I'm going to be buried there. If I live 20 years longer than you, I'm living without you 20 years. In your people. That's just an amazing commitment here to the people of God.

And you can see probably the ground of it all in verse 11. Your God will be my God.

10.

Your God will be my God. I don't know how she got there. There were 10 years between the arrival of Naomi and her sons and the marriages and the death of her husband and this incident. So 10 years of living with Naomi as mother-in-law and her Jewish husband.

And during those years, she came to love God. She came to trust God seemingly more than Naomi trusted God. So in spite of the prediction by Naomi that everything would be bitter, Ruth says, I'm going.

I'm going to be with that people. Now, here's where we see a glimpse of what I said is a picture of the beautiful and noble womanhood. See manhood later. But here, I think, is intentionally in the Bible a picture of what ideal womanhood looks like.

Here's a few of its characteristics. Faith in God that sees beyond present bitter setbacks. When I read Proverbs 31 about the great woman, Proverbs 31, I have a favorite verse. I think I married one of these.

And I love this verse in particular in the relationship to my wife. According to Proverbs 31, 25, the woman is like this, the ideal woman, the God woman. Strength and dignity are her clothing, and she laughs at the time to come.

What does that mean? She laughs at the time to come. Or just to underline it before I say what it means. If you go to the woman who's described by Peter in verses 1 to 6 of 1 Peter 3, where he's describing how a woman might be able to win her unbelieving husband to the Lord, and he describes this beautiful character.

The one that underlines and agrees with Proverbs 31, 25 goes like this. You are Sarah's children if you do good and do not fear anything that is frightening. So the woman in Proverbs 31 laughs at the time to come.

The woman in 1 Peter 3 doesn't fear anything that is frightening. And Ruth looks into the future with Naomi and sees nothing but bleakness, and takes Naomi's hand and says, I'm coming with you. That's the kind of woman I want to marry.

And did.

You know, when they asked me, what about your student days?

And Brian, or was it Brian?

What?

Lauren, who was giving the... No, no, no, no. The guy.

Brian.

He said that there are some cozy moments in your Christian union, right? Finding a wife is not a bad thing. Well, it is not a bad thing. Or finding a husband. And I found Noel, and my wife laughs at the things to come.

You offer her some crazy challenge and missions, she signs at the top of the list. And she travels around the world way more than I do and takes more risks than I do. And so I don't think it's an accident that Ruth is presented here as a great and ideal, fearless woman of faith.

Now, they go back together and the townspeople meet her. They see Naomi coming. She's been gone for at least 10 years. It says in verse 19,. The whole town was stirred and said, Is this Naomi? Do not call me Naomi.

That is pleasant, meaning pleasant. Call me Mara. Which means bitter. I went away full and the Lord has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi when the Lord has afflicted me? Testified against me. And almighty, almighty has brought calamity upon me.

Now, let's draw this to a close by asking, How do you feel about her theology? I love her theology. She's not reading her circumstances accurately. But when it comes to her understanding of God, She's got it right.

Number one, he exists. She never questions him. Number two, he is absolutely sovereign. If bad things come into my life, God hasn't ceased to be God. They're coming ultimately from the hand of God. She talks exactly like Job and all the other inspired writers in the Old Testament.

And number three, therefore, it is true. God has afflicted her. I preached on Ruth 24 years ago.