Sunday School: The Reception of Ruth (Ruth 2:1-23)

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You are listening to the teaching ministry of Gabriel Hughes. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday on this podcast we feature 20 minutes of Bible study through a

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New Testament book. On Thursday is a study in the Old Testament and then we answer questions from the listeners on Friday.

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Each Sunday we are pleased to share our sermon series. Here's Pastor Gabe. Ruth 2, we're going to be looking at the whole chapter this morning.

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I'm not going to read through the whole thing at the very beginning here. I'm just going to go through Boaz's declaration to Ruth, which is up through verse 12.

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So let's read together Ruth chapter 2 verses 1 through 12 and then we'll take a moment to pray.

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Now, Naomi had a relative of her husband's, a worthy man of the clan of Elimelech, whose name was

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Boaz. 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

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I shall find favor. And she said to her, go my daughter. So she set out and went and gleaned in the field after the reapers.

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And she happened to come to the part of the field belonging to Boaz, who was of the clan of Elimelech.

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And behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem and he said to the reapers, the Lord be with you. And they answered, the

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Lord bless you. Then Boaz said to his young man who was in charge of the reapers, whose young woman is this?

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And the servant who was in charge of the reapers answered, she is the young Moabite woman who came back with Naomi from the country of Moab.

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She said, please let me glean and gather among the sheaves after the reapers. So she came and she has continued from early morning until now, except for a short rest.

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Then Boaz said to Ruth, now listen, my daughter, do not go to glean in another field or leave this one, but keep close to my young women.

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Let your eyes be on the field that they are reaping and go after them. Have I not charged the young men not to touch you?

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And when you are thirsty, go to the vessels and drink what the young men have drawn. And then she fell on her face, bowing to the ground and said to him, why have

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I found favor in your eyes that you should take notice of me since I am a foreigner?

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But Boaz answered her, all that you have done for your mother -in -law since the death of your husband has been fully told to me.

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And how you left your father and mother and your native land and came to a people that you did not know before.

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The Lord repay you for what you have done and a full reward be given you by the

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Lord, the God of Israel under whose wings you have come to take refuge.

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Let us pray. Heavenly father, as we look into these scriptures this morning, may we see

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God as Yahweh has directed these things to work out for your glory and even for our good.

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We see the providential hand of God moving these pieces into place. As we know the end of the book of Ruth, it would be from Boaz and Ruth that there would be

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David who would sit on the throne and then a descendant of David would be Christ. That by faith in Jesus Christ, we have salvation.

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God moving Ruth even to this field that she would end up in Boaz's company.

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So I pray as we see these things in the scriptures this morning, we take note of this word and give you praise and glory in all things.

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It's in Jesus name that we pray, amen. So we come to the very beginning here in chapter 2 verse 1, where it says, now

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Naomi had a relative of her husband's, a worthy man of the clan of Elimelech, whose name was

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Boaz. Now Boaz gets mentioned there, but where do we go from there?

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We go to a conversation between Ruth and Naomi. Boaz is introduced, but we don't get to know anything about Boaz yet, except just this overview that he was a worthy man of the clan of Elimelech, whose name was

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Boaz. Now as we had started in our study of the book of Ruth, I had mentioned to you that Ruth is a masterfully written book.

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And it is so well written that historians, even from other faiths or from secular humanism, would look at the book of Ruth and say, what a brilliant story.

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It's just so well written. The storytelling is just so well done.

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Like from the very beginning of the book, right at the beginning, we had this kind of like this overview of things and we're steadily zooming in on the picture.

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It's almost like the person who was writing Ruth was storyboarding out a movie. Here's how the camera angle is going to work.

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We're going to zoom in on the thing and then we're going to get to know the characters. So remember at the very start, it was in the days of the judges.

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There was a famine in the land and a man of Bethlehem and Judah went to sojourn in the country of Moab, he and his wife and his two sons.

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We know that. It's kind of the overview of the story. We don't know who the characters are yet. But then in verse two, the name of the man was

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Elimelech and the name of his wife, Naomi, and the names of his two sons, Mallon and Killian.

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And so now we're starting to zoom in on the picture a little bit more. And we get about 10 years of history in a very short, brief time.

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This is just a brilliant way to tell a story. So brilliant, in fact, that we do it even still today in the novels that are written or even in the movies or the

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TV shows that get made. So right here at the start of chapter two, you've seen this done in a TV show, any television program that you've watched, where we got a new character that's being introduced to the story.

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And all you do is you just kind of see that guy, right? He shows up on the screen, you see him, but then we go back to the characters that we're used to.

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Okay, we've been introduced to this guy. He's relevant to the story somehow, but how?

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It's interesting that the storyteller would show us this person, that we don't get to hear him.

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He doesn't dialogue with anybody in the story yet. So this is a setup. It's kind of a foreshadowing of, hey, we got this character

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Boaz now that's coming into the story, and he's going to have some relevance to Ruth and Naomi, especially because it's said that he is of the clan of Elimelech, which of course we know that Naomi was from that same clan.

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So somehow these characters' paths are going to intersect, and the author is setting us up for that.

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Now there's another word here to describe Boaz that I don't want to move past too quickly because it's quite relevant to his character and even some other elements of the story.

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So it says, now Naomi had a relative of her husband's, a what kind of man?

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What's the word that's used there? Man of great wealth. What other words do we have there?

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Man of substance? What translation is that? Oh really?

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Okay. A Messianic Jewish Bible. In all the study that I did, I had not seen that word before.

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So that's interesting. Yeah. A mighty man of great wealth. A mighty man of great wealth, yep.

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I heard another one over here. Worthy. Worthy is the word that we've got in the English Standard Version.

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That's the one I'm going to stick with. Now I looked through several different translations because there's really a number of different ways that this word gets translated.

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And when you look at it in the parallel Hebrew, which I don't read, but trusting other people that study this

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Hebrew, there are multiple different ways that this could be translated. And in fact, when you do like a parallel where you have the

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English on one side and you have the Hebrew on another, there's no direct correlation with whatever word is used there to the word that we have translated.

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So it's kind of at the translator's discretion. We know what's being said, even though there may not be an exact correlation of the words.

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What's being described of us here about Boaz is that he is a man of wealth.

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But the way that this is put is describing something more than his possessions.

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So again, Naomi had a relative of her husband's, a worthy man of the clan of Elimelech, whose name was

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Boaz. He was worthy. And not just worthy in the sense that he was worth a lot. But this is also saying something about his character.

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Now, when we think of wealth and we think of character, those are two completely different categories.

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For us who are Western world thinkers, we don't think of wealth and a man of good character as being the same.

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There are probably not a lot of wealthy people, famous wealthy people out there that you would look at and go, boy, what a good man, right?

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Or what a good woman. We don't think of their wealth as automatically saying something about their character.

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A person can be a jerk and accomplish great wealth, or a person could be the kindest person on earth and acquire great wealth.

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Their character really doesn't have to do with whether or not they've amassed this wealth for themselves. So we put these in different categories.

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But to a Hebrew, we have to think of this like a Hebrew in the time that this particular book was written. To a

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Hebrew, a person who had great wealth, it was immediately to them a sign of God's blessing to them.

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And God blesses them with great wealth because they must be of great moral upstanding character.

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Now when we read through the Bible stories, we probably don't make that correlation right away. You know, well, that person has a lot of wealth, but I wouldn't necessarily say they're a great person.

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But then we do read about people that have great wealth that also had good character. Abraham, reading about David, of course, now he committed adultery, he had that woman's husband killed.

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Yes, we see that episode. But even in 1 Kings, it says that David walked in the fear of God and he did right all of his days except for the matter of Uriah the

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Hittite. So otherwise, David's character was very well regarded among all

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Hebrews. Job is another one. Though he had all of this calamity that had happened to him, yet he was a very rich and powerful man and he was even well regarded by the people who sat in the gates.

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Though he doesn't get described himself as one who is judged, those who judge a city, they would look to the wisdom of Job because of just how wealthy and how wise they considered him to be.

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So we see that throughout the heritage of the history of the Hebrews. If somebody was wealthy, then they must have some great character.

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Think of the story of the rich young ruler in Mark chapter 10. This comes up in three gospels, but I'm thinking specifically of the story in Mark 10.

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So the rich young ruler comes up to Jesus and he says, good teacher, what must

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I do to have eternal life? And Jesus responds to him and says, why do you call me good?

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For no one is good except God alone. Now it's not Jesus saying that he's not

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God, but just that he knows this man's heart and this man doesn't actually think of him as God. If he doesn't know that Jesus is the one who has been sent from God, then how can he call him good?

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So right away he's challenging his heart. And he says to him, you know the commandments, honor your father and your mother, do not murder, do not steal, do not commit adultery, or do not bear false witness.

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And the rich young ruler says, yeah, I've kept all these commands, all these I have done since my youth.

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And Jesus says, but I hold this against you. Go and sell all that you have and give it to the poor, and then you will have treasure in heaven.

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And then come and follow me. And it says there that the rich young ruler walked away sad for he had many great possessions.

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The one commandment as Jesus went through that list that Jesus didn't mention was do not covet.

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And he knew this man's heart that he valued the world's goods even over God himself. And so when

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Jesus challenged him over that point, the rich young ruler just walked away.

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He would not give up what he had in order to follow Jesus. So then

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Jesus turns to his disciples and what does he say following that exchange with the rich young ruler?

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Exactly right. Yeah, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.

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Now that gets picked apart all kinds of different ways. There's people that will say the camel is like a big rope or the eye of a needle is like a door in the city gate.

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But the thing about those two analogies is you can still make that work. You just thread the rope and you can get it through the needle.

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Or even though it's a problem for the camel to get through the smaller door in the gate, you can still get the camel through the door.

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Jesus was literally taking the largest living creature in Jerusalem at that time and comparing it with the smallest opening and saying you can't get a camel through the eye of a needle and expect it to survive the trip.

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And the disciples, it says, were exceedingly astonished that Jesus had said this.

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And they said, well, if that's the case, then who can get into heaven? Because if this rich guy who has kept all these commandments doesn't have the blessing of God, then who does?

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Because that was the way that Hebrews equated a man of great wealth. He has great wealth because he's a man of great character.

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And you even heard him testify to his character here. When Jesus said you have to keep all the commandments, he says, yeah,

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I've done that. I've kept all the commandments. You can hear him on the inside already leaping for joy going, I've made it,

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I've made it, I've got eternal life. But Jesus said that he loved the things of this world too much and his heart was really not for God.

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And when challenging him on that point, the rich young ruler walked away from Christ back to the things that he possessed in this world.

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And the disciples came to realize that great wealth and power and great moral character are not enough to enter the kingdom of God.

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That we must believe on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and we are saved by faith in Christ, not by our works, not by our accomplishments, but it's by faith in Jesus that we have eternal life.

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I share that story though, just to point out that in the mind of a Hebrew, great wealth was equated with good character.

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If a man had great wealth and great possessions, he already had the blessing of God.

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But clearly the blessing of God was not on this rich young ruler because he wasn't truly seeking God with all of his heart, soul, mind, and strength.

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Now in this story, as we're reading here in Ruth 2, where it describes Boaz as a worthy man, the storyteller here, with fear of God, does not call

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Boaz a worthy man just because he's wealthy. So in a Hebrew's mind, you hear worthy, ah yes, he's got great wealth, so therefore he must be worthy.

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Later on in Ruth, guess who else gets called worthy? Same word used to describe Boaz describes somebody else in the book of Ruth.

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Can you take a guess who it is? It's Ruth. She gets called worthy.

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Same word. Does she have a lot of wealth? No. This is a poor woman gleaning in the field, a widow who has nothing, no husband who is working and providing for her or her widowed mother -in -law.

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She's got nothing. She is among the poor as she's out in the field that we see here in Ruth chapter 2.

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And yet this book also describes her as worthy. And so that word has to apply to something more than regarding a person's material wealth.

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She is indeed wealthy, but not with earthly wealth. She is wealthy with God's blessing.

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And Boaz even acknowledges that of her here in this exchange. We build in this story all the way up to verses 11 and 12.

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In this particular chapter, we're building all the way up till we get to 11 and 12. And it's there in 12 where Boaz says, the

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Lord repay you for what you have done and the full reward be given you by the

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Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge. At the beginning of our study of Ruth, I mentioned that the book follows a chiastic structure.

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That means it kind of like, it builds to a certain point and everything is kind of focused on that central point.

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And we begin and end the story the same way. So you'll have a series of events lead to that point. And then you'll kind of go through that same series of events backwards.

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Or if you were to kind of outline this out, the outline would look like A, B, C, B, A. So chapter two is one big chiastic thing here.

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As we look at chapter two, I only took you as far as kind of the main point, but then we didn't work through those events backwards again.

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So we start with an exchange between Naomi and Ruth.

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How do we conclude chapter two? If you kind of want to sneak your eyes down there and see at the conclusion of two.

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How do we end? Right? There's another exchange between Naomi and Ruth. So we start with Naomi and Ruth talking with one another and we end with them talking with one another.

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We even have Ruth working in the field. We have this conversation between Boaz and Ruth, and then we have them working in the field again.

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So, you know, we kind of work backwards through those events. That's a storytelling device. The storyteller that is giving us this story knows exactly what he's doing.

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He knows, he's got in his mind exactly how he's going to write this story and lays it out brilliantly.

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But it's that central point there in verse 12 that's going to become our focus. And I'm going to come back to that again when we get to the end.

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Hearing Boaz say to Ruth, the Lord repay you for what you have done. All praise and glory belongs to Yahweh throughout even this particular chapter.

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So we've only gotten as far as verse one here, but the rest of this chapter will go a little more quickly than that.

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So Naomi's relative Boaz, we're introduced to him in verse one.

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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

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I shall find favor. And Naomi said to her, go my daughter. Now what has been

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Naomi's attitude up in the story, in the story up to this point? What have we kind of seen from Naomi?

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Bitterness. Oh yeah. Right. That was just where we came from at the end of chapter one. No longer call me

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Naomi, which means pleasant. Call me Mara, which means bitter. So what is, what's

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Naomi's position here at the beginning of chapter two? She's still kind of despondent, right? She doesn't give any instruction to Ruth.

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Ruth knows they got to eat. Somebody's got to work, but Naomi is still having a pity party.

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Now Ruth doesn't say that. She's very, very respectful of her mother -in -law.

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But as we're kind of looking at the story here, we get no wisdom, no direction from Naomi to Ruth at all.

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That will happen at the end of the chapter. There's a little bit of an attitude change there, but we got to set that up here before we get to that.

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So she's still kind of in a place where she's just morose and in mourning, doesn't give any advice to Ruth, may even still be in her mind thinking to herself, why did this woman follow me from Moab to here?

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I don't have anything for this woman. Now in the instructions that we have in the Old Testament regarding how the poor are to be cared for, it said to us that the widows will go out to the field and they will gather.

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And there's a certain portion of the field that's supposed to be left for those who are poor and those who are widowed.

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So Naomi is perfectly capable of going out to the field to glean herself.

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I mean, she just made a journey from Moab to Bethlehem. So she is at least of enough strength that she could be going out and gleaning in the field and eating, but she doesn't.

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She's not the one that goes to the field. It's Ruth that goes. It's not that Naomi's helpless, but in her attitude and her bitterness, it's almost like she just wants to sit there and waste away.

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She doesn't even make any effort to go and feed herself. So the very fact that Ruth says to Naomi, let me go to the field and glean among the ears of grain after him in whose sight

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I shall find favor. I mean, this is love and affection for her mother -in -law. This is to see my mother -in -law is not going to go get any food.

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I'm going to need to, I'm going to need to do this. I need to get food for us. I need to get food for her.

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And so she says that what she, that's what she's going to do. But Naomi doesn't even tell her about Boaz, right?

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There's no advice there on like, Oh, Hey, if you're going to go out and get food, here's where I recommend that you go. We've got some relatives in that area.

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Maybe you'll run into one of them. We don't get anything like that. Just go my daughter. That's what we got. Now, we at least see some amount of affection from Naomi to Ruth.

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And we did in chapter one as well, them kissing one another and weeping together and things like that. But even this statement here is a statement of affection.

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Even though Ruth is, is kind of in this morning sort of a place, or I'm sorry, Naomi is kind of in this morning sort of a place.

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She's, she's not just totally dismissive of Ruth, still has a love and affection for simply by the statement of the phrase, go my daughter.

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I mean, the fact that she would call her my daughter and have that kind of affection. Remember back in chapter one, she said, go back to the home of your mother.

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And that was Naomi saying, I'm not your mother. I don't have anything to give you. I'm not even your mother -in -law anymore because my son's dead.

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You're a widow and I'm a widow. So go back to your mother that you may find a husband and still be able to live along in a prosperous life.

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And so at one point, Naomi was kind of trying to dismiss her and Orpah and saying, I'm not your mother anymore. But though Ruth has bound herself to Naomi and has come with her to Bethlehem.

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Naomi acknowledges this love and gives her own in response as well saying, go my daughter.

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So no wisdom from Naomi, no direction here at all, but still very affectionate of Ruth as her daughter -in -law.

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So she set out and went and gleaned in the field after the Reapers. And she happened to come to the part of the part of the field belonging to Boaz, who was of the clan of Elimelech.

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Now notice that she happened to come upon that, right? Like she did. That was not the field that she started in.

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She didn't even know any of these people. Boaz says that later. You come to a land and you don't even know anybody. And so she's just gleaning in a field.

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Now, what is gleaning? By the way, gleaning is not harvesting. This isn't she's with the harvesters like, hey, somebody give me some work.

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Okay, here's a sickle. Go out there and reap some grain. And this is the barley harvest, by the way, that we're that we're in the middle of.

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That was what was stated at the end of chapter one. So she's not harvesting. She's gleaning.

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What's the difference? What's the difference between the harvest and the glean? That's right. Yeah, she's bringing up the rear.

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So she's hanging out behind everybody else. And she's just picking up what falls to the harvest floor.

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Essentially, what she's picking up, she doesn't give to anybody else. She gets to keep that.

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And this was said in in the law, how they were to care for the poor in Deuteronomy chapter 15 verses 7 to 11.

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We have the following. I'm going to begin reading in verse 7. Deuteronomy 15, beginning in verse 7. If among you, one of your brothers should become poor in any of your towns within your land that the

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Lord your God is giving you, you shall not harden your heart or shut your hand against your poor brother, but you shall open your hand to him and lend him sufficient for his need.

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Whatever it may be, take care, lest there be an unworthy thought in your heart. And you say the seventh year, the year of release is near and your eye look grudgingly on your poor brother and you give him nothing.

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And he cried to the Lord against you and you be guilty of sin. You shall give to him freely and your heart shall not be grudging when you give to him.

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Because for this, the Lord your God will bless you in all your work that you undertake.

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For there will never cease to be poor in the land. Therefore, I command you, you shall open wide your hand to your brother, to the needy and to the poor that is in your land.

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That was the instruction that God gave on caring for the poor there in Israel. And there were even more specific instructions than that.

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When it came to harvesting in a field, there were portions of the field that they were not to harvest so that somebody else may come and be able to take some of the grain that is there and they might share in the bounty, especially those that are poor.

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So the law says in Deuteronomy 24, 19, when you reap your harvest in your field and you forget a sheaf in the field, you shall not go back to get it.

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It shall be for the sojourner, the fatherless and the widow that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands.

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In the book of Leviticus, it specifies that you won't harvest right up to the edge of the field.

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So as you're harvesting the field, you're supposed to leave the edges so that the poor, the fatherless and the widow, they might come and have the edge of the field.

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Now, Naomi is coming into the field and we'll see here as we go through this narrative that she's asking permission to be there and they let her be there, but she's bringing up the rear of everybody else.

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So she's kind of just like what's said there in Deuteronomy 24, she's hoping for a sheaf to fall to the ground that somebody is just going to leave behind and they're not going to gather up that she might gather up and be able to take it home.

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But in the meantime, as she's gleaning, she's just kind of picking up, you know, the heads of grain and things like that that might fall on the floor.

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Barley specifically being that harvest, which is a very light grain. I don't know if any of you are farmers or familiar with like the difference between corn and wheat and barley and things like that.

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Anybody familiar with honey smacks, the cereal honey smacks? Now, I asked this in our

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Sunday school teacher's class on Wednesday night and Mark Mills was like, honey smacks,

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I don't know what that is. And I said sugar smacks and he goes, oh yeah, I know sugar smacks.

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So there was at one point where that cereal was called sugar smacks, but that word started to generate a negative connotation.

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I'm not going to buy my kids sugar smacks, give them sugar, hype them up in the morning. So they changed it to honey smacks and that ended up becoming like a better marketing gimmick.

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Their sales actually went up. But anyway, that cereal, how light that is and how kind of fluffy it is.

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That's kind of like what barley would have been like. What's that? It's like styrofoam. Yeah, it is.

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It's honey coated styrofoam. It's really a lot like what it does. I don't get the cereal and eat it personally.

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Anyway, so barley was kind of like that. It looked a little bit like that cereal, though not without or it didn't have the honey coating on it.

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But this was what she's picking up off the harvest floor. She's kind of coming behind everybody else. So don't get the picture of her necessarily harvesting with everyone.

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She's not coming looking for work. She's gone to look for food for herself and for Naomi. So she's gleaning in.

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She's gleaning in the field. She just happens to come upon the part of the field belonging to Boaz. So you think about all those fields kind of being connected and it's during harvest time.

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So you're seeing harvesters everywhere. She's behind these harvesters and she's picking up grain. And then as she kind of wanders into another field where she sees some other harvesters, she happens into the field of Boaz.

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Now, that might sound like we're saying she coincidentally ended up in Boaz's field.

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But of course, we know God providentially is moving these pieces into place, bringing Ruth right into that place where she's going to come into the company of Boaz, who, as we already know from the beginning of the story that has set this up, is a worthy man.

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Right? Amen. So we continue on. And behold, Boaz, this is verse four.

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Boaz came down from Bethlehem and he said to the reapers, The Lord be with you. And they answered,

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The Lord bless you. Now, right away, this is the first dialogue we've seen of Boaz in this story.

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And right away, we have that the people who work for Boaz love this man. That's what we see.

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That's exactly that exchange. And the way you have Lord there in your Bible, it's capital L -O -R -D.

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This is the name of Yahweh. So Boaz is saying, Yahweh be with you. And they respond to him,

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Yahweh bless you. Not even just be with you, as he said, but Yahweh bless you.

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Because as Boaz gets blessed, we all get blessed. That's the generosity of this man to the people that would work for him.

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And of course, we see that even more so as we continue on in the story. So his whole thing that we see with him and Ruth, as this is going to come up, this is not just an older man flirting with a good -looking younger woman.

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And we're seeing a genuineness in this man's heart that he cares for those who are in need.

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He is not expecting anything from Ruth in return. He's not looking for a wife.

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Well, I could marry this gal. That's not what he's thinking. He's just a good, kind man who helps those not only in his care, but even those who are in need.

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So verse 5, Then Boaz said to his young man who was in charge of the reapers, Whose woman is this?

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And the servant who was in charge said, Well, she's the young Moabite woman who came back with Naomi from the country of Moab.

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She said, now again, as I mentioned earlier, Ruth would ask, she would ask permission. Can I come and glean in this field?

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So she said, please let me glean and gather among the sheaves after the reapers.

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So she came and she's continued from early morning until now, except for a short rest. This is the carer of that field, kind of the overseer who's under Boaz.

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He's telling Boaz, she's a hard worker. She has been working in this field since she got here and only took a short rest for a little while, but she just continues on.

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Then Boaz said to Ruth, so now he goes and addresses her and says, Now, listen, my daughter, do not go to glean in another field or leave this one, but keep close to my young women.

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Let your eyes be on the field that they are reaping and go after them. Have I not charged the young men not to touch you?

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And when you were thirsty, go to the vessels and drink what the young men have drawn. Now this statement that he says to her here, have

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I not commanded the young men not to touch you? This is Boaz saying to Ruth, you're safe here.

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You are safe in this field. I wouldn't be able to kind of oversee anything else that happens to you if you go in another field.

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But as long as you are in this field, you are safe. Keep that in mind, because that's going to come up again here in the exchange we'll see between Ruth and Naomi at the conclusion.

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So in verse 10, she fell on her face, is very humbled, extremely grateful, filled with gratitude for this man.

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She bows herself to the ground and she says to him, Why have I found favor in your eyes that you should take notice of me since I am a foreigner?

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You know, one of the things that I thought about here when I was reading that, I was reading Ruth's response to Boaz falling on the ground, falling on her face and speaking to him in this way.

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I don't know if you remember back to last year when we were in the Beatitudes, but Pastor Tom, when we were on that first Beatitude, blessed are the poor in spirit for they shall inherit the kingdom of God.

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When we were on that Beatitude, he had talked about the understanding that the Jews would have had during that time of what it meant to be poor.

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Being a poor beggar, you would beg on the side of the road as one who had nothing dependent upon others to be able to care for you.

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And you were so ashamed of your poverty that a person would hide their eyes.

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They would just hide their eyes and they'd hold out their hand looking for alms, looking for some sort of a generosity.

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So we come with that kind of humility to the Lord. God, I'm not even worthy to look at you, but please give to me, please provide because I have nothing without you.

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And we see that kind of response from Ruth, right? A poor in spirit woman who bows herself before the ground and acknowledges,

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I would not have anything in this field. I wouldn't even be able to set foot in this field, except that you would bless me to be able to.

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And yet you're giving me so much more opportunity than that. You're even providing for my safety here and saying to him, why have

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I found favor in your eyes that you would take notice of me, not just because I'm poor, but even that I'm a foreigner. I'm not of your clan.

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I'm not of your tribe. I'm not of your people. And yet you show kindness to me in this way. And Boaz answered her in verse 11, all that you've done for your mother -in -law since the death of your husband has been fully told to me.

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And how you left your father and your mother and your native land and have come to a people that you did not know before.

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All of this to care for Naomi, all of this that Ruth gave up to care for her mother -in -law.

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The Lord repay you for what you have done. Yahweh repay you and a full reward be given you by the

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Lord, the God of Israel under whose wings you have come to take refuge.

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The lesson I want to draw from this here, and it's really what I believe the central proposition of the text is going to be.

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I'm going to focus on this and then we'll go on and finish out chapter two. But we understand here that when we humble ourselves before God, he does provide.

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We have the promise of Christ even in Matthew chapter six. If you seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, all the things you need will be given to you as well.

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Those basic needs that you have. Jesus said, your heavenly father knows that you need them.

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He provides for the birds. How much more are you? Oh, you of little faith. And so God does provide for us even in our basic needs, our basic necessities, but most especially when it comes to knowing that we have nothing apart from God.

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We have no salvation. We have no hope for our future. We have no eternity, no life after death, no forgiveness of sins, no hope or confidence in this present day, except that we trust in the

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Lord Jesus Christ. And he gives us all that we need. We come as poor beggars before the

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Lord and the promise given to Ruth is the same promise that we can understand from God for us even now.

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Yahweh repay you for what you have done and a full reward given you by Yahweh, the

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God of Israel under whose wings we have come to take refuge. Now that statement, even for a

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Hebrew has a little different significance than simply, you know, like a hen gathering her chicks under her wing.

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That was an expression that Jesus used when he was talking about Jerusalem. But coming under the wings of God to take refuge, this was even a reference to the

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Ark of the Covenant. What was right there on the top of the Ark of the Covenant? The angels, right?

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The angels that their wings were pointed inwards and their prostrate there, that's kind of their posture there, the shape of the angels there on the top of the

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Ark of the Covenant. And God's presence was where? On the mercy seat, right there in the center, right above the surface of the top of that Ark, right in between the two angels.

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That was where the presence of God was. And so the angels are prostrate before God who's right there in the middle.

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And those wings as they're kind of pointed inward, that expression to a Hebrew coming under the wings of God, we see it throughout the

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Psalms, throughout the wisdom books that expression is used. That meant to draw near to the Lord. That's what that meant.

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Just as Moses would draw near to God when he would speak to God, whose voice was coming from the Ark of the Covenant there.

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It meant to draw near to the Lord. Boaz is saying to Ruth, you have chosen to draw near to God.

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You left your land, everything that you had to be near to God. And so isn't the same expectation of us that we leave behind everything to follow

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Jesus. Amen. Let's finish this up quickly. So going on from here, verse 13, then she said,

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I have found favor in your eyes, my Lord, for you have comforted me and have spoken kindly to your servant, though I am not one of your servants.

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And at mealtime, Boaz said to her, come and take some of the bread and dip your morsel in the wine. So she even gets to come and eat where everybody else is eating.

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And she sat beside the reapers and he passed her a roasted grain and she ate until she was satisfied.

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And she had some left over, which she's going to take back to Naomi here in a moment. When she rose to glean,

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Boaz instructed his young men saying, let her glean even among the sheaves and do not reproach her.

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And also pull out some of the bundles for her and leave it for her to glean and do not rebuke her.

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Now, what did we see back in Deuteronomy chapter seven? What did it say about those sheaves?

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If you leave a sheaf there, don't go back and get it, right? Boaz is saying, hey, drop some down there.

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Just leave a sheaf behind so that she can go get it. Like he's going above and beyond here. This isn't just, oh,

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I forgot my sheaf. He's deliberately lay a sheaf down there so that she can gather it up and be able to take it home.

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He is doing even more than the law requires. And this a man of such generosity and good heart.

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And he's giving of what he has. You know, that's money out of Boaz's pocket. But he's doing it to make sure that this woman and even others who are poor are provided for.

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Naomi, especially, since he knows about, he knows the whole story. So verse 16, also pull out from the bundles.

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Yeah, leave for her to glean. Okay, up to verse 17 now. So she gleaned in the field until evening. Then she beat out what she had gleaned.

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So she's kind of separating the gleaning from the chaff. And it was about an epa of barley. This is about 30 pounds of food that she's taking home.

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And she took it up and went into the city. Her mother -in -law saw what she had gleaned.

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She also brought out and gave her what food she had left over after being satisfied. And her mother -in -law said to her, where did you glean today?

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And where have you worked? Blessed be the man who took notice of you. So already she's going, oh my goodness, what a take home.

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30 pounds of food from one day of gleaning was quite a take home. And so suddenly we're starting to see

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Naomi's eyes lighten up a bit, right? Blessed be the person who took notice of you and let you work there.

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So she told her mother -in -law with whom she had worked and said the man's name with whom I work today is

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Boaz. And Naomi said to her daughter -in -law, may he be blessed by Yahweh, whose kindness has not forsaken the living or the dead.

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Oh my, what was Naomi's words about Yahweh in chapter one?

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I went away full and Yahweh has brought me back empty. Call me

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Mara for the almighty has dealt bitterly with me. Right? Nothing but negative things to say about God.

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What's her attitude toward the Lord like now? She says, may he be blessed by Yahweh, whose kindness has not forsaken the living or the dead.

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Even talking about her own deceased husband. He has considered us even in this time.

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Naomi said to her, the man is a close relative of ours, one of our redeemers. And Ruth the

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Moabite said, excuse me, besides, he said to me, you shall keep close by my young men until they have finished all my harvest.

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And Naomi said to Ruth, her daughter -in -law, it is good my daughter that you go with his young women lest in another field, you be assaulted.

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So remember I was saying earlier that Boaz was essentially saying to her, as long as you stay here in this field, you'll be safe.

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Naomi is saying, stay there with him in that field. If you go to another field, you'll be assaulted. Remember, once again, this is during the time of the judges.

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This is not a good time in Judah. There's been a famine in the land. That famine has been a result of judgment that God has brought upon these people because they're worshiping the gods of the pagans around them instead of worshiping the

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Lord God. So that's been the famine that would eventually, you know, it would drive

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Elimelech and Naomi and their sons to Moab to look for food before they come back, before Naomi eventually comes back into the land of Bethlehem.

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But this time during the judges, I mean, as we've read about in Judges 17 and 21, everybody did what was right in their own eyes.

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There was no king during that time and everybody did just whatever pleased them. That's not good. We read about a lot of horrible things that were going on in the land at that particular time, especially in chapter 17 to 21.

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There was the woman who was a concubine who was assaulted by the

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Benjamites and she was killed. We read about that story toward the end of the book of Judges. So just kind of give you an idea.

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The Benjamites were right there next to Judah, just to give you an idea of what the, kind of the climate of the people in the land were at that time.

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So this was not a safe place. And Boaz, incidentally, is an anomaly here. This is not the kind of typical man that you find in Judah at that time.

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Boaz is a generous, God -fearing man who wants to keep the law of God even in the way that he cares for one another.

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And we'll see later on when we see this romance sort of develop between him and Ruth, he even wants to care for Ruth and love her according to what

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God's word says. He's not following his heart or chasing after feelings here. He wants to fear and honor the

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Lord. Boaz, totally different than everybody else in Judah at that particular time.

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So Boaz says, as long as you stay here, I'll keep you safe. And even Naomi saying, remain in his field.

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If you go anywhere else, you could be assaulted. But overall, we know that it was God that was keeping her safe and even brought her into Boaz's company to the praise of his great name.

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Let's finish up here. Verse 23, so she kept close to the young women of Boaz, gleaning until the end of barley harvest and wheat harvest.

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That would have been a period of about three to five months. And she lived with her mother -in -law.

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And that's the conclusion of chapter two. We'll look at chapter three next week. So remembering once again that our drawing near to the

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Lord is our safety. He is our refuge. Under his wings, we take refuge and he provides for us.

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And most especially what we gain from drawing near to God is eternal life in Jesus Christ, our

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Lord. Amen. Well, as we got people coming out already starting to carry on up here on the balcony, let's close with prayer and we'll be dismissed.

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Heavenly Father, we thank you for the kindness that you show to us. Just like Ruth falling prostrate before Boaz, why would you show such kindness to me, though I am a foreigner?

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May that be our attitude about our salvation. Who are we that you would be so mindful of us?

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And yet you have given us not just the forgiveness of sins. You've not just included us into the family of God.

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You don't just provide for our daily needs, but we even have this promise as eternal fellow heirs of the kingdom of Christ forever in glory.

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What incredible riches are bestowed for us in Christ Jesus. So for the time that we are here on this earth, may we continue as faithful servants unto the

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Lord, looking toward that day when we may join you in your heavenly kingdom. Thank you for working us to a place where we might hear the gospel and be able to believe and receive it.

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And may you continue to work in our lives every day. It's in Jesus' name that we pray and all