Back to sermon search

Full transcript

This is now our second session, so let me say once more what I'm trying to do in our study of the book of Ruth today. And that is first to put emphasis on the way we can approach a narrative book in the Old Testament, so that we can come to the meaning of the book in its own setting, and then proceed to apply the lessons that God there taught to ourselves in our day and generation. Our assumption is that this is the inspired word of God, but belief in the inspiration of scripture will tie us into a belief in the progress of revelation. God has not said everything at once, but over the centuries in, as Hebrews puts it, in divers manners, in different proportions, he spoke to the fathers through the prophets. So our first task was to locate the book of Ruth and its story in its historical context. And then we turned to a consideration of some of the leading terms in the book. Leading in the sense that the story turns on these particular terms and their meaning and function. And we found in the book of Ruth that the leading terms are exceedingly significant, viewed in their historical context, in the time of the, uh, entry into Pal- Canaan and the distribution of the inheritance. They are important in the poetry that subsequently developed out of them, where the poetry uses these basic terms as metaphors. And then we saw how the New Testament takes up these leading ideas and expounds them at the spiritual level. Now we come to the book itself. We notice it contains four chapters. It is a story. There are a number of individual parts to the story. We have to ask, therefore, about this book as a whole book. Is it one whole story that hangs together? Does it cohere? Or is this a story such as might be written of a day in the life of Mr. Smith, and it happened to be a Saturday, and he, uh, stayed longer in bed than he usually does, and he got up, and, uh, it so happened, uh, that the, uh, wife said they had to go out to do the shopping, and they got down to the shopping. Um, and uh, well, the news came on and somebody had climbed Mount Everest, so that was very interesting. And uh, then down in the shopping p- place, there was an advertisement uh, for car racing in America. So then uh, they went off and had lunch, uh, do you see, and so forth. A lots of incidental things, not really to do with any, uh, each other, but they just happened to happen on that particular day, do you see? Is Ruth a collection of incidents like that, interesting in themselves, but not very well related? Or is it a coherent story? It's easy with a book like Ruth, which is only four chapters, but similar questions would have to be asked about, say, First and Second Samuel and First and Second Kings and First and Second Chronicles. Starting, therefore, by taking the book in its context, its historical context, chapter one verse one does the work for us. It puts it in its historical context. It came to pass in the days when the judges judged. Now, not only were- was there often general confusion in the time of the judges, but let's turn back to the book of Judges and notice, uh, one interesting feature. Judges eighteen verse one: In those days there was no king in Israel. And in those days the tribe of the Danites sought them an inheritance to dwell in. Chapter nineteen, verse one. It came to pass in those days when there was no king in Israel. The confusion that follows in eighteen and nineteen is remarkable indeed, you'll see. Let's come to the, uh, f- final verse of the Book of Judges. In those days there was no king in Israel. Every man did that which was right in his own eyes. So the Book of Ruth posits itself in this historical background. It came to pass in the days when the judges judged. We can therefore ask about the trajectory of the book of Ruth. If it starts in those conditions, where is it going to, and where does it end? The days of the judges, when there was no king in Israel, the book ends Ruth chapter four and verse twenty two, Obed begat Jesse, and Jesse begat David. David was the biggest king that ever reigned in Israel. Hmm. And therefore you ask, how do you get from verse one of chapter one and the situation there, uh, uh, uh, hinted at, and the mention of David, the greatest king? The trajectory of the book. Secondly, that is the action, what, what in a Greek tragedy you would call the action of the play, but that's beside the point. We're not here studying Greek tragedies. Secondly, how do the chapters fit together? The NIV Study Bible, in its introduction to the book of Ruth, has some very helpful suggestions, that is, if you use an NIV. It points out that in chapter one um you have the emptying of Naomi. And in chapter four you have the filling of Naomi. There is a very real sense in which the book is the story of Naomi, in spite of its title. Joel see. The story is told very briefly of how she and her husband left Bethlehem, Judah, went to live as immigrants into Moab, im- immigrants in Moab. The two boys married. Naomi's husband died. The two boys died. And Naomi decided to return because she heard how the Lord had visited his people in giving them bread. How she went out and the two girls followed her, now widows, all three of them. She exhorted the girls to go back. One of them, Orpah, did. Ruth made her decision not to go back, but to stay with her mother-in-law and be loyal to her. So Naomi returned. Look at verse nineteen. So they two went until they came to Bethlehem, and it came to pass when they were come to Bethlehem that all the city was moved about them, and the women said. In Hebrew, the verb indicates the figures were feminine. The women said, is this Naomi? And she said unto them, call me not Naomi, call me Mara. Naomi means pleasant, Mara means bitter. For the Almighty hath dealt very bitterly with me. I went out full, and the Lord has brought me home again empty. Why call you me Naomi, saying the Lord hath testified against me, and the Almighty hath afflicted me. Chapter one, therefore, coming to its climax at the end of the chapter. It's the emptying of Naomi. Went out full, returned empty, and she feels it to be the Lord's discipline of her, in her life. The emptying of Naomi. Now look at chapter four. uh Verse fourteen. And the women said. Do you pick up that fact? It's the comment of the women, just as in chapter one. And the women said unto Naomi, Blessed be the Lord, which hath not left thee this day without a near kinsman. And let his name be famous in Israel, and he shall be unto thee a restorer of life and a nourisher of thine old age, for thy daughter-in-law, which loveth thee, which is better to thee than seven sons, hath borne him. And Naomi took the child and laid it in her bosom and became nurse unto it. And the women, her neighbors, gave it a name, saying, there is a son born to... Notice they don't say to Ruth, but to Naomi. And they called his name Obed. He is the father of Jesse, the father of David. The women in chapter one, having to witness Naomi returned under the disciplines of God, empty. The women in chapter four, witnessing to God's filling, restoring of Naomi with a little child in her lap, restorer of her life, yeah. In this sense, therefore, the book of Ruth is the story of Naomi. That is the action of the book. The emptying and the filling of Naomi. Why then is the book called Ruth and not Naomi? Because, as we shall see from chapters two and three, Ruth plays the key role in Naomi's restoration. And we can see that up by a superficial skimming of the text. In chapter one, Naomi with her husband, who are Jews, leave Bethlehem, the city that was to become David's city, and go into Moab, out of the land. And, to take Naomi's view of it, eventually suffering the discipline of God. The story is how she comes back. Ruth, the Gentile, now widow, with a personal response of faith in the true God, gets converted and expresses that conversion in chapter 1, verse, uh, si- uh, when verse fifteen. Naomi says to Ruth, behold, thy sister-in-law is gone back unto her people, unto her God, or her gods. Return thou after thy sister-in-law, Ruth said, entreat me not to leave thee, and to return from following after thee. For whither thou goest, I will go, and where thou lodgest, I will lodge. Thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God. We are to take this seriously. Then Ruth had been converted, turned from her idols to serve the living and the true God. The Gentile being converted to faith in the God of Israel. Now, in chapter two and in chapter three, you will see another development that is, of course, the key to Naomi's restoration, and that is that it was Ruth who discovered the kinsman redeemer and had personal experience of the mercy and kindness of the, uh, re- of the kinsman redeemer. And as you see, she, uh, having gone out to glean in the field and, uh, met this kinsman redeemer who owned the land and how he was kind to her and did all sorts of things, then of course she comes home. Notice the way of the story, the way it's told, you see. Uh, she came home. Verse nineteen of chapter two, and her mother-in-law said unto her, where hast thou gleaned today, and where wroughtest thou? Blessed be he that did take knowledge of thee. And she showed her mother-in-law with whom she had wrought, and said, the man's name with whom I wrought today is Boaz. Oh, ah, can you see them? Uh, uh, Ruth has come round back home with rather a lot of, uh, of corn in her, in her, in her bag, you see, more than she could have expected. That was remarkable. And how did you get on, my dear? Oh, oh, I had a marvelous time. You did, yes? Well, I happened to go into a field, and they were very kind to me, and then the owner came along. Oh, yes. And he was very kind. He spoke to me, uh, and he, he said he knew all about you and me as well, uh, you see, and he knew I'd been kind to you. Oh, did he now? And what was he like? Well, he was handsome, you know, a bit middle-aged and a bit paunchy, but beautiful black hair, and yeah, uh, uh, he gave me all this. Oh, really, did he? Um, do you know him, she says? Mm-hmm. Yes, says Ruth. His name, I gather, was Boaz. Really, said Naomi. Oh. She hadn't told Ruth to go and glean in that field. What a lovely picture is this. A Gentile girl converted to faith in the God of Israel, and she's now introducing the, the, the kinsman redeemer to a Jewess, if you please. Wow. And telling this Jewess of all the kindness she has received at the hand of this Jewish kinsman redeemer. Cool. There's a gospel story, if you want one. Mm. She said, and Naomi said unto her daughter-in-law, blessed be he of the Lord who hath not left off his kindness to the living and to the dead. Notice the term kindness, uh, uh, keses in Hebrew is kindness, yes, but kindness that shows itself in loyalty, kindness and loyalty. Has not left off his kindness to the living and to the dead, you'll see. It's the Lord. Naomi begins to sen- sense that this is of the Lord, yes. And Naomi said unto her, the man is near of kin to me, to us, one of our near kinsmen. And Ruth the Moabite said, yea, he saith unto me, thou shalt keep fast by my young men until they have ended all my harvest. And Naomi said to Ruth, her daughter-in-law, it is good, my daughter, that thou go out with his maidens, and they meet thee not in any other field. So she kept fast by the maidens of Boaz to clean unto the, to glean unto the end of the barley harvest and of the wheat harvest, and she dwelt with her mother-in-law. Ruth goes to the field, discovers Boaz, comes home and tells Naomi all about it. You will notice that chapter three follows the same pattern. Because this time, at Naomi's suggestion, Ruth goes down at at night to the threshing floor, where Boaz is, he's had his meal there, is lying down there, partly, I suppose, in those days, to be a guard on the corn that has been thrashed out in case some thief comes along to take it away, and he goes there to sleep. And at, uh, Naomi's suggestion, Ruth goes and lies at his feet. Uh, she had all sorts of schemes in her head at this stage, has Naomi. And then she comes home. It's Naomi again. How did you get on, my dear? Yeah, uh, uh, what happened? Did he, did he, did he discover you there? Yes, and uh, and what did he say? Oh, yeah, here we come. It's Naomi talking to Ruth, and Ruth to Naomi. You'll never guess what he said, uh, Ma, she says. Uh, what was that then? Well, he said, uh, come tomorrow, and he was going to redeem me. Oh, really? He's going to publicly own me as his wife. Publicly. Cool. Talk about gospel. This is the Gentile girl talking to the Jewess about the kinsman redeemer, who tomorrow is going publicly to own Ruth, redeem and marry her. Not bad going, is it? Gentlemen, do you know anything, I think you do, about what is commonly called dispensationalism? For, well, forget the term. Do you know anything about history? Of the Jews wandering off from God. Their faith shaken in the kingship of God. Wandering off among the Gentiles. Of Gentiles getting converted, when it's Gentiles discovering the Jewish Messiah, and able to go and tell the Jews how wonderful the Jewish kinsman redeemer is. Is. In his kindness to a Gentiles, to the Gentiles, and that he has a place in his great salvation and redemption for Gentiles. And able to tell them in a far, on a far bigger canvas, so to speak, of what they have heard the kinsman redeemer say, come the morning, and I shall publicly own you before the universe and take you as my bride. Not bad going, that is it? And what I'm arguing here, excuse the sermonizing, gentlemen, is the cohesion of the book, from the time when there was no king to the time when the, the narrative ends with David, and then the codicil ends with David, the greatest of all the kings. And then the cohesion of the book, chapter one, Naomi's emptying, uh, going off to the Gentiles and into marriage with Gentiles. Chapter four, her return and restoration. The action is, the action of the book is Naomi's, of course. I mean action in the literary sense. What happens is, it's an end of story. The book is called Ruth, because Ruth was the key to it. A Gentile in her Gentile land being converted to faith in the God of Israel. And now, as her mother, uh, mother-in-law returns, Ruth the Gentile being the key to the Jewess's restoration. The two middle chapters, therefore, in the same pattern. Out goes Ruth. Chapter two, she has experience, therefore gleaning experience of Boaz, and comes back and tells her mother, that is the, uh, uh, uh, the, the temporary, the tentative climax, comes back to tell her mother-in-law. This is Naomi and Ruth talking at the end of chapter two, and Ruth is telling her about this marvelous man she has, uh, met and his kindness, and the Gentile and the Jewess realizing it is her kinsman and possible redeemer. And chapter three of the same pattern. This time at, uh, uh, at Naomi's suggestion, Ruth goes out, goes down to the threshing floor with Boaz, and the chapter ends with Ruth coming back and Naomi all agog to hear what the news is, and Ruth telling her mother-in-law. The two chapters, from a literary point of view, the same pattern. But what a message they do contain. A marvelous message. And, uh, it happened as a historical thing. But it's also a prototype, isn't it, of a very much bigger story. So then we come to, uh, look at the chapters in a bit more detail. Chapter one, uh It begins with a certain man of Bethlehem, Judah, went to sojourn in the country of Moab, he and his wife and his two sons. And the name of a man was Elimelech. Elimelech, my God is king, was not just a nice sounding name to go along with Trevor or something like that. You'll see. Uh, but stood for Israel's faith. Let's go back to the book of Judges for a moment. Uh, to see, and this is chapter eight of Judges. Uh, Jose. Chapter eight, Verse, uh, eighteen. Then he, that is Gideon, said to Zeba and Zalmanah, what manner of men were they whom ye slew at Tabor? Zeba and Zalmanah were kings, of course, of the enemy. And they answered, as thou art, so were they. Each one resembled the children of a king. That was a little bit of flattery, of course. And Gideon replied, they were my brothers, the sons of my mother. As the Lord liveth, if you had saved them alive, I would not slay you. So he had them executed. And end of verse twenty one, Gideon arose and slew Zebar and Zalmunna and took the crescents that were on their camels' necks. Then the men of Israel said unto Gideon, Rule thou over us, both thou and thy son and thy son's son also, for thou hast saved us out of the land, out of the hand of Midian. And Gideon said unto them, I will not rule over you, neither shall my son rule over you. The Lord shall rule over you. This were the days of the judges, when some of the leaders, at any rate, still adhere to the faith that Israel was a theocracy. They didn't have a king. God was their ruler. It was a direct theocracy. The tribes had their elders, of course, and the elders were the people that sat in the gate, and they expounded the law. They had an all-tribal assembly. I shan't bother you with details of that, but they did have one. Witness the first and the last chapters of, of Judges, that dealt with, uh, legal matters involving traveling throughout from one tribe to another tribe to another tribe, and therefore the laws of hospitality and security in that sense. But it wasn't chaired by a king. It was a, a, a fellowship, so to speak, of the tribes, an a arrangement. They still adhered to the thing that it was God who was their king. And Gideon believed it. So when he was invited to rule over them and start a dynasty, you, your sons, and your son's sons, which is a dynastic rule, he rebuked them and said nothing of the sort. The Lord is i- i- is you see. The Lord shall rule over you. This was their faith. It began to wobble, even in the days of Gideon. You'll see, uh, the people, uh, uh, uh, then, uh, uh, uh, uh, were asked, Gideon, verse twenty four, said unto them, I would desire a request of you that would give, you would give me every man the earrings of his spoil. Verse twenty five, and they answered, we will willingly give them, and they spread out a garment, do see, and did cast therein every man the earrings of his spoil. And the weight of the golden earrings that he requested was one thousand seven hundred shekels of gold. Beside the crescents and the pendants and the purple raiment that was on the kings of Midian, and beside the chains that were about their camels' necks. And Gideon made an ephod thereof and put it in his si- city, even in Ophrah. And all Israel went ahoring after it there, and it became a snare to Gideon and to his house. Yeah. The glitter of the gold of the Midianites, and you see the, uh, purple raiment that was on the kings of Midian and the chains that were about their camels' necks. Not only, uh, did the, that spoil become a superstitious object to the Israelites, leading them away into idolatry. Notice verse twenty nine onwards. And Jerubbaal the son of Joash went and dwelt in his own house. And Gideon had threescore and ten sons of his body begotten, for he had many wives. And his concubine that was in Shechem also, she bare him a son, and he called. Who did? He? Or was it his wife or his concubine? Called his name, my father is king? Gideon's son, Abimelech. What a pain he was in the neck of Israel, the subsequent chapters will tell you. Until he was in process of destroying a, a, a, a, a, a, a city in Israel, and there was a woman inside, a dear motherly good woman, and she was preparing the, the, the, the city's food or family's food, milling the old corn with a millstone, sitting by the wall. When she looked over, there was this Abimelech chap come to destroy a city in Judah. She got hold of the millstone, threw it over the wall, it hit the, hit his head and s- smashed it to pulp, and that was the end of his nonsense for the time being, you see. And here's the beginnings of the wavering, even with Gideon. Holding to the doctrine, uh, uh, the Lord is king, the Lord is ruler, but secretly longing after status of kingship. His illegitimate son, or his son by his concubine, called My Father is King. So, this good man's name in the book of Ruth is Elimelech. God, my God is King. Given him presumably deliberately by his parents choosing the name because it was their faith that their king was God. Ah, but, as the final chapters of Judges tell us three times over, in those days there was no king in Israel. But the thing had gone to confusion without a king, moral and spiritual confusion. Witness the end of the book of Judges. Because of the breakdown of the, of the judges, the breakdown of the Levites, the breakdown of the all-tribal assembly. The institutions of that age were crumbling, not because they were wrong in themselves, but because of the people's lack of faith and compromise with idolatry, that's why. The result was there was moral and spiritual confusion, and there were disciplines of God that came on them. Judges constantly tells you that the people did evil in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord delivered them into their enemies' hands. Until they cried to the Lord, and he raised up a deliverer. But every time the circle went round, it got worse and worse, says the book of Judges. There came a point, I suppose, when Elimelech felt it wasn't working anymore, these basic principles. And there was a famine in the land, you'll see. And he left. And went to Moab. But with a name like that, was he right to leave? Was it simply a matter of convenience, or what was it? What wa- wa- was it a lack of faith in the basic principles upon which Israel was meant to be governed in those days? They don't work anymore. And the irony is that he came from Bethlehem, Judah. Bethlehem means Beth house, lechem bread, the house of bread. But you see, uh, you see a famine in the land, and it seemed an empty phrase, the house of bread. He went off to Moab to make his living. It seems to me that it might well have been. Under the trials, he gave up his position and his basic faith and went to Moab. The question will arise, in doing that, did he sell his inheritance and take the cash and go off? Or did he just abandon it? Your answer to that question will affect what you think of Naomi's proposition when eventually she sells the land. What was she doing? Was she selling a land that already she, uh, her husband had sold to somebody else in Israel, and now she was selling the right to redeem it? You see, if she'd sold it to a fellow Israelite, fifty years later, at the day of Jubilee, she had the right to g- that it would return to her automatically. But now it was in the hand of the man who bought it, but the right of redemption was still belonging to her nearest of kin. So was she now wanting Boaz to redeem the right, to take over the right and redeem it from some, um, uh, person who'd bought it? Or was she saying, I can't manage this farm anymore, and I haven't got the cash to make a go of it, nor the strength. Couple of widows we are. Was she selling it outright on the market to get enough cash to survive? You'll have to decide that when you come to it, gentlemen. People take one view, and some people take another. Do you see? Um, whether he sold the land or not, they had gone to Moab. He, he, the boys married Moabitis girls. Elimelech died. The two husbands died. Now what? This would seem to end in disaster. As for the, uh, uh, the name on the inheritance, and preserving the name of Elimelech on his inheritance, Naomi was hopeless. So attention goes to the two girls, Ofra and Ruth. At first they follow Naomi, so the story goes, to go back to Israel because Naomi had heard that the Lord had intervened and given them bread. And so she decided to go back, for at least there was food there. The preacher in me niggles at this moment, gentlemen, full sore, beside the point by miles. You want to keep the folks in your assembly? You better start feeding them. And not with stale food either. It used to be said in my youth by older men, using rather homely language, you have to tether sheep by their teeth. You want to keep God's people, you must feed them with the sense that the Lord has given them. It won't do just to repeat hackneyed phrases. It has to be living bread. With the sense that the Lord is giving it. In our day and generation. That's beside the point. Uh, she had heard that the Lord had visited his people, giving them bread, so she came back, was going back. But she pointed out to Ofra that there was no hope for her. Turn again, my daughters. Verse 11. Why will you go with me? Have I yet sons in my womb that you may be, that may be your husbands? Turn again, my daughters, go your way, for I'm too old to have an husband. And if I should say I have hope, if I should have even have an husband tonight and should also bear sons, would you therefore tarry till they were grown? Would you therefore stay from having husbands? Nay, my daughters, for it grieveth me much for your sakes, for the hand of the Lord is gone forth against me. And they lifted up their voice and wept, and Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth clave unto her. So Orpah went back. And within the book, that is in the story, and in the Bible, you never hear of her again. Whether she got married or she didn't get married. Nothing is heard of her. The sacred record doesn't record anything more. I suppose she went back, hoped she married and had a good time, but that, that was that. That was all it was. Ruth claved to her mother-in-law. Ruth said, and as we read the verses, I needn't repeat them. And she went back because of she had come to believe in the God of Israel to start with. And she went back in loyalty to her mother-in-law and to her mother-in-law's God. Naomi herself told her there was no hope for a husband. Never mind, says she. This is what she would live for. Well, you know the story. And there's a subsequent love story. And how Ruth got married to this mighty man of wealth, yeah? Oh, but look what else. It isn't just a love story. How God took that love story, so to speak, and put it, made it a part of his centuries-long purpose. For let's come back, uh, come back to chapter four for a moment, verses eighteen to twenty two. Now these are the generations of Perez. Perez begat Hezron, and Hezron begat Ram, and Ram begat Amminadab, and Amminadab begat Nahshon, and Nahshon begat Salmon, and Salmon begat Boaz, and Boaz begat Obed, and Obed begat Jesse, and Jesse begat David. Scholars argue as to whether that, uh, genealogy given there from verses eighteen to twenty two was an original part of the story, or whether somebody added it on afterwards. We needn't have stopped to discuss it. It's a stroke of genius. For it takes this love story pulsating with life and human interest, yeah? And the ambitions of the two girls, and the one said, well, there's no hope this way, I go back to make the best of life as I can in Moab, and the other daring to trust God and to, uh, follow her mother-in-law loyalty to God and his, his people. Yeah. And when you come to the end, it on- not is not only that, uh, Ruth had a marvelous marriage, uh, Naomi was restored, but look at it, says the codicil, in the grander scope of history. And he takes us right back to Genesis, to the time of Judah, the original patriarch of the tribe of Judah. And the purposes of God for Judah, that the scepter shall not depart from Judah. And then it, uh, takes you far beyond Ruth, a decade or two and a generation or two, and it comes to the lion of the tribe of Judah, that is David, and shows you how God took that girl and her ambitions and her objectives and purposes and decisions and the love story and all the rest of it, and put it into his age-long purposes. If I mistake not, there's a practical lesson there. Most gentlemen, not to speak of the girls, how could I speak of them? Uh, most gentlemen in the second half of teenage and those early years, of course, they've got to live in this life, haven't you? Gentlemen, you have. There's no good being so heavenly minded you'll know earthly good. You've got to be realistic. You won't have your mum and your dad forever. You've got to make your own way, haven't you, in life? And uh, mm-hmm. Doesn't that mean getting married? Well, it will do for the majority, of course. Bachelors are the... the unusual. Uh, but each man has his gift, says Paul, his charisma. And being a bachelor myself, I'm charismatic. Because I have the charisma of being a bachelor. Don't try it, gentlemen, if God doesn't give you that gift. Yes, we have life to live, and we must be practical. But beyond life's ambitions, old gentleman, even the ordinary things, it's not a question of I will have my life, I work out the practicalities, and in addition I serve the Lord. The better idea is how does the whole thing, life, its relationships, its career, fit into the ongoing purposes of God. Ah, gentlemen, when we see that, it adds life a great sense of value, doesn't it, and importance and significance. To be part of the great purposes of God that's, uh, that began, if they began in an eternity past, and are looking forward and always were looking forward to the coming of the greater King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Notice how the girl's decision was also, uh, responsible for her being taken up into that scheme. For it is clear on the road they made their decisions, didn't they? And they made their decisions in the dark of what the future could hold. But Ruth made her decision, and on the terms that she confesses. And through that decision, of course, as well as by God's good providence, her very career from now on became part of God's great system for bringing in the King David. So shall it be, surely, with us, or ought it be to us. It's not merely in my spiritual moments I become a cog in the wheel to move towards the coming of the Kingdom of Christ. The whole of my career, my person, my personality, my relationships, and all that could become part of it. We must make the decision, gentlemen. Yeah. That then for the practical lesson. But there for the moment, uh, let's leave it, except to notice the emphasis that this book places on the providence of God, the old-fashioned word that the theologians have used for the way God interacts with our life's circumstances. God has given us free will. He's given us power to decide. He doesn't dictate by a word from heaven every step that we're to take. A mother who's got a newborn babe doesn't have to get down on her knees and ask the Lord, now Lord, I seek guidance today, shall I feed this baby or not? Not n- normally mothers don't do it anyway. Uh, the very fact that God has given her a babe brings with it general duties and general guidance. You see, God's given the woman a babe, with it comes the general responsibility and the general guidance is guidance for today anyway. She better start feeding the babe, yes? And the father has got a general duty to feed the child and get the food anyway. There is general guidance. There is particular guidance. In all those things, of course, God doesn't leave us altogether by ourselves, honors our free will, but God still rules, guides, and in his providence organizes things and situations and circumstances, and his dealings with us that guide the course of our life and its development. So here, looking back over what had happened, Naomi owns it and feels the Lord's hand in what has happened. If this is the way that God meant, is the only way God had of bringing them back. Well, bitter as it is, she'll acknowledge the Lord's hand in it. Ruth, being back home, or being back in, uh, she'd never been there before, but being back in Bethlehem, living with a, a mother-in-law, was a very practical-minded kid, you see. I had to eat. She didn't say, oh Lord, uh, uh, I'm now in faith, uh, send us um, uh, uh, some food today. Well, the Lord can do that. She said to herself, well, gr- uh, Ma is uh, old, she can't do much work. So I shall have to do some work. And she said, let me go and glean. It was her initiative. She took the initiative. Sensible woman. You've got to eat. So she went off to get the food and was prepared to work for it. Marvelous guidance. Only, as she went down looking for the fields, her hap was, as she, as it puts it in the text, do you see? Verse three of chapter two, She went and came and gleaned in the field after the reapers, and her hap was to light on the portion of the field belonging to Boaz. I don't know what attracted her to the field. Perhaps she thought that the corn looked better there, or there was more of it or whatnot, but it so happened that, uh... too, but what enormous things turned on that happening. The providence of God working alongside of our responsibilities. We can rely, gentlemen, on that providence still. When I was young, it's a long time ago, I was of course stupid, and I heard missionaries talk of guidance, and I got the impression that was marvelous. Just when the last farthing had disappeared out of the purse, when all hope was done, there came the postman, or some stranger, or something other happened, and the exact amount that was necessary to pay the bills came to hand. And I pondered that and thought, well, eh, marvelous. I expect you'll have to be a missionary for that to happen to start with. And anyway, you'd have to be pretty, pretty holy, you see, uh, to expect anything like that. I was looking on guidance as a something you have to deserve, a standard you have to achieve to. That is not so, is it? The very fact the shepherd has undertaken us, and we are his sheep, it is res- b- basic responsibility to do the guiding. He will use general guidance where it is sufficient. If there's need of particular guidance, he will grant particular guidance. I like the thought of an eastern shepherd, you see. He has led his flock to this particular place, you see, perhaps on the side of a mountain where there happens to be some grass, and he sits down while the flock goes around munching of grass. And if you didn't know better, you'd think that he had forgotten all about the sheep. Sheep goes here, sheep goes there, oh, better bit of grass there, it goes off there. Shepherd does nothing, leaves it to the sheep to decide which particular blade of grass it munches, you see. But if a sheep went somewhere where the shepherd didn't want it to go, he'd raise up a card or a stone. They were very good at throwing things, and they would throw it so it just skimmed by the ear of the sheep. Not damaging it, of course. I don't go down there. We mustn't suppose, because the Lord seems inactive, that he's not guiding. Where it is necessary, he will. Paul had a particular ni- uh, uh, uh, guidance when he first set out on his missionary program, gathered with the elders of the church at Antioch. The Holy Spirit said, separate me Paul and Barnabas for the work that I have to, uh, I have them to do. So they did that. Definite guidance to go here and there and everywhere, and eventually they came back. And they were a while in the church. When Paul said to Barnabas, Barnabas, oh boy, uh, I want we to go back to those churches and to those converts that we made and, uh, see how they do? He hadn't any voice from heaven saying, thou shalt do this. But like a mother with her child, she has a general duty to feed it, and these were the evangelists that had led these folks to the Lord, and there was a duty to feed them and shepherd them if they could. So they went off to do their general duty without any great message, as far as we know, of the Holy Spirit saying this or that. And of course, they had the duty to evangelize. So they tried to go here. Ah, but the Holy s- uh, the Spirit of God didn't suffer them to go there. How he didn't suffer them, I don't know. Perhaps it was another stone beside Paul's ear c- coming in, you see. And so they tried to go here. Well, uh, the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Jesus didn't suffer them to go there either, which incidentally shows that Paul had no g- p- s- specific guidance. He was not in the habit of going against the guidance of the Holy Spirit. But the fact he attempted to go here, and then the Holy Spirit had to stop him, shows he didn't have any particular guidance at that point. Was generally carrying on his general guidance, preach the gospel and feed the believers. And so again here. So off they went, still going on their general guidance. They had to preach the gospel and feed believers, arrived at Macedonia, and then they got the special guidance, of course, to go across into Macedonia. Guidance, therefore, is a mixture, isn't it? God's providences, his special guidance, his general guidance, and beyond it and above it all and above everything, God's providence in organizing circumstances. And very often it's only when we look back upon things that we see that there was very special. I don't think Ruth ever imagined what was happening when her hat was to light upon this particular field belonging to this particular fellow. Hadn't got a clue as to what was going to happen. But God had. And he'd had it in mind ever since Perez was born to Judah. He had it in mind long before then. He had it in mind that Ruth should become an ancestress of Christ. Let's leave it there, shall we?