Bible Survey - Ruth

So we're studying the book of Ruth after studying Judges here. Ruth is rather an astounding book, just four chapters, but some amazing contrasts and changes through the course of the book. One of the things we have here, is this Ruth at a Glance kind of gives you a graphical outline of the book.

It starts off with a rather dismal description of what's going on, deaths in the family and with those deaths, no offspring, and things just seem to be going from bad to worse. And yet to have those turned around in the course of the account here. So, the way it works here, and this is looking at the Ruth at a Glance chart there, the division there, Ruth's decision to stay with Naomi.

Here's Naomi who because of famine. And as you go through the Bible you find famine being a frequent motivator to go somewhere else. So because of the famine, here is Naomi going over to Moab to try to get some relief from this famine. And there Naomi loses her husband, Daughters-in-law are both Moabites, and in the process, she loses her husband, her sons die, and so now you've got Naomi, and you've got two Moabite daughters-in-law, and Naomi is saying, you know, just stay here with your people.

I'm going to go back to Bethlehem where I'm from. Just stay here with your people. And so the one daughter, Orpah, says, OK, and says goodbye. But Ruth says, nope, I'm staying with you. Wherever you're going, I'm going. So that leads to a huge change. because they do go back to Bethlehem, and because of the Lord's hand in things, it turns a huge corner for Ruth and Naomi.

We'll go through that in a bit of detail. One of the things I also note, I show on the bottom part of page one, there's this chiasm, which is a pattern that I point out from time to time. It's a mirror image in writing, the whole book, is a mirror image in writing example. We have at the top, A, introduction, 10 years in Moab with death. And then we have A prime there at the bottom, epilogue, 10 generations of births.

And then Naomi is too old to conceive, and B, and then a son born to Naomi, and B prime. So anyway, that whole pattern. is carried throughout the book is rather astounding. Naomi blesses Ruth, Boaz blesses Ruth. Of course what happens we find is Boaz is the one who turns the situation around for Ruth and Naomi. Let's take a look at the top of page two.

So we have a map here that shows the book of Ruth that starts off in Bethlehem Bethlehem is where? What's Bethlehem? It's the city of David. Bethlehem is the place where David's family is from. Of course, David is actually later on in this story. He's one that's named at the very end, right? So there's Bethlehem. What else about Bethlehem? What else can you tell us about Bethlehem?

This is the place where Christ was born, and that was prophesied in Micah 5.2. So we have that pattern there as well.

Now, so you see the line on the map here starts at Bethlehem, ends up going over to Moab, and then they go back to Bethlehem. The red line there is the probable route, because it doesn't get described, but the likely route that they had going between the two places. So let's take a look here. We have a kind of a summary of the Book of Ruth by chapter by chapter. So let's take a look at that. The Book of Ruth is during the latter part of the period of the Judges. So we have here in chapter 1, in the time that is the latter part of the book of Judges, there was a famine in the land of Judah. Elimelech and his wife Naomi took their sons Melon and Chilion from their home in Bethlehem to Moab. It's just to deal with this famine that they were having.

Can you think of other times when famines impacted the people of Israel? Pardon? With Joseph, yeah, that was a time when there was a famine not only in the land of Judah and Israel, but there were seven good years and seven bad years in Egypt. And that had a huge impact, impacted where the Israelites spent the next several centuries, right? And the need to get them out of Egypt.

Other instances you can think of? There were a few other times in the book of Genesis prior to the incident with Joseph. So there would be famines and that could be pretty extreme. As a matter of fact, we even find it in the New Testament. Here's the Apostle Paul looking for funds to help the people in Israel because of the famine during the New Testament time. So periodic famines have had lots of biblical impact basically over a period of about 2,000 years. You know, having periodic famines in Israel had a big impact and this is one of those instances. So Elimelech died in Moab and their sons married Moabite women, Orpah, and Ruth. On the death of Naomi's sons, Malon and Chileon, Naomi urged her daughters-in-law to remain with their people in Moab as Naomi returned to Bethlehem in Judah. Oprah kissed Naomi goodbye, but Ruth clung to Naomi, saying, and these are well-quoted words.

It's not a marriage passage right here, but I sometimes will see this quoted in wedding ceremonies and whatnot. Ruth said, Do not urge me to leave you or turn back from following you, for where you go, I will go. and where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people should be my people, and your God my God. Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. Thus may the Lord do to me and worse, if anything but death parts you and me."

That's intense. So a real different response between Orpah, who stays with her Moabite people, and Ruth here, now who clings to Naomi no matter what, right? Okay, so top of page three. So Naomi and Ruth went to Bethlehem, like we see on the map there, at which Naomi expressed bitterness, and the Hebrew word there is marah, okay? Bitterness about the tragic deaths that had taken place among the men and their family, leaving her without a husband, her two sons, or any grandchildren.

How's it looking so far? Looking pretty bad, huh? Looking pretty bad. Interesting, the children of Israel came to Marah. Yes, bitterness. It's interesting, Naomi, when they said, Naomi, welcome home, she said, don't call me Naomi, call me Marah. Yeah, don't call me that, I'm just ruined. Yeah, she's just bitter. Just had everything taken away.

And this is a good book to look at. In terms of, if you ever get in a situation that seems like, boy, this is really dismal, you know, this is really dismal, just to see that the Lord can change things and turn it around. And of course, we're going to step our way through this and see that. But it's, I think, a key perspective. Yeah.

What was the plan if somebody has, if she's a widow, so is the law provided for widows? Yeah, here's the situation. You ask a really good question. The law makes some provision for widows and what would be the provision for widows? Ordinarily, being a widow is a tough thing, right? But what provision is there for widows?

Well, they said when you do their harvesting, whether it's grapes or olives or whether it's wheat or whatever. You're not to glean everything that's in the field. You're supposed to not... get everything out of the corners and things that drop on the ground. You're not supposed to make sure you pick it all up, leave for the widows and orphans. Yeah, the gleaning laws, the gleaning laws were, they were supposed to have a corner and they actually had the rabbis end up developing a definition. You're supposed to have a corner that you do not harvest. You just leave it unharvested. You plant it, you do everything, but you leave it unharvested. And so that you're to leave for the orphans and widows and those less fortunate. Pat?

But that would not have been the case in Moab. That's correct. In other words, in Moab, there would be no provision. One reason for going back to Bethlehem, and this was a time when the Jews were not really following the law very consistently. But here's, as we'll soon see, this guy Boaz, who does stand by what the Mosaic Law said. And so there was that in gleaning, they were not supposed to harvest the corners at all.

And then the next thing is to go out in the midst of the field where you harvested and you go through once. You don't go back a second time to pick up anything that you didn't get. And so the corners and the rest of the field, after going through once, that's all available for the widows and orphans, and they're free to come on the land and get those corners. And it's hard work, but nonetheless, they could go there and get that.

So there was that provision. What other provision was there for widows? Where was she supposed to sleep? Yeah, that's a tough one. There wasn't necessarily some guaranteed, here's how you're going to get a house and a place to live and all that. Well, in the New Testament, of course, one of the first things they talked about was taking care of the widows and the orphans. And I think that's because that's an extension of what they were saying in the Old Testament. That's right. Because you constantly see that you're supposed to take care of widows and orphans. Yeah, you see that.

To love your neighbor and to help those who are not as well off, you must open your hand to the poor and the needy. So that was something that was expressed in the law, that in addition to this gleaning part of the law, also to say you're going to be generous, you're going to open your hand if somebody needs to borrow money, you will lend to them with no interest. It's this kind of thing. So the Jews were to take care of one another, aside from just the gleaning laws.

Yes. And it kind of indicates that if it was a person's field, he had the right to allow them in or not allow them in, right? Didn't he have a little bit of control over that? Well. Did you think that somebody could go in there, some greedy person could just go in there and take that food and Yes, and so there was a matter of protecting those corners and what was there from those who would come and just take things. And even in this account with Boaz, it sounds like he's guarding the grain pile here later on in the account. So let's take a look here in chapter 2.

So Naomi had a relative, a kinsman, who was wealthy and his name was Boaz. So Ruth, with Naomi's blessing, went to the fields to glean the crops, and that brought her to the field that belonged to Boaz, relative of Naomi. Boaz encouraged Ruth to remain gleaning in his fields and told his servants not to bother her in any way, and even to provide for her from their water. And Boaz invited her to have a meal with his reapers, and he told his reapers to allow her in the harvest fields and even to have some grain that they had already harvested.

So see the difference with gleaning, you just let the people do what they're going to do and get the corners and get some of the leftovers and whatnot. But Boaz says, no, we're going to go beyond that. We're going to let her stick around with the workers, Boaz's workers, and hang around with them and eat with them and work with them. Now, why is that different from just the gleaning?

The way God's grace is superabundant compared with the rewards of following the law. Okay, alright. So under the law, all Boaz had to do was to let her in at the corners and whatnot. What were the hazards What were the hazards to those who were like, here's a single woman working out in the fields, what's the problem with that? What are the hazards? She'd be attacked.

Yes. It'd be like a migrant field. Yeah. You'd be out there with a bunch of poor people. Yeah. And a bunch of poor people and she could be attacked. What are the risks of the attack? It could be she's attacked, somebody takes her stuff. It could be a sexual attack. Yeah, she's vulnerable. There's nobody there to protect her, and you could have somebody come take advantage of her. Of course, she's off in a corner, right? Off in some distant corner and yell for help might not even be heard. So this is a hazardous place for her to be.

And so Boaz says, no, you stick around with my reapers, and I told my reapers, bother her at all, let her work alongside you. So she doesn't just get the corners, she gets the primary harvest field. And the corners might be picked over, but she gets the primary harvest field right along with the rest of the reapers and gets to eat with them. So he's treating her well.

So at the end of the day, Ruth beat out an ifa, which is about six gallons of barley grain. So Naomi noticed how much she had gotten from gleaning and inquired where and with whom Ruth had gleaned. Wow, where'd you get this? Six gallons? I mean, that'll do us for a day, right? With some left over. So she was rather amazed. Where did you go and with whom had you gleaned?

Ruth said it was in the fields of Boaz and told her of the favor with which he had treated her. Naomi told Ruth that Boaz was a close relative and encouraged Ruth to return to Boaz's fields and among Boaz's servants. If he lets you go with the servants, go there. He's going to treat you well. So then chapter 3. So Naomi encouraged Ruth to come to Boaz's feet as was the custom of seeking to come under the protection of his household. It's basically a marriage proposal on her part. This is how it was done in the culture. So Boaz responded favorably and said that he must settle matters with a closer relative first.

And so what happened is Boaz was, he fell asleep right there at the grain pile. And that was probably because there would be those who would come and steal grain, just come in and take the grain, so he's wanting to guard that. And so she comes and comes to his feet, and of course he's probably a little surprised, well wait a minute, who's at my feet here?

But he sent her home before daybreak with a quantity of grain in her cloak. So she had her cloak and he just said, let's fill it up. I got the grain pile right here. So she goes and fills that and takes that back. So Ruth reported to Naomi what had happened. Here's how it turned out. So chapter 4, so Boaz approached the male relative who had priority over himself, and it doesn't say who that relative was, but somebody in the system of priorities had priority. And that person said that Boaz was free to redeem Ruth. This redemption, kinsman redeemer process is one that's settled in Jewish law and tradition. So they settled the matter by conducting their dialogue among the elders and other witnesses at the gate. And this was a long-standing Middle Eastern tradition.

The elders of a city would meet at the gate of the city. That would be the standard way that things were done. It happened with Abraham. When Abraham went to buy up the cave of Machpelah, where he would bury Sarah, he met with the elders at the gate. So the city gates were the standard gathering place. And if you wanted to carry on a transaction, it was an official transaction, a negotiation purchase anything, you would go to the city gate and meet and speak right there in front of the city elders.

So this was a long-standing tradition. So they settled the matter by conducting a dialogue among the elders and other witnesses at the gate and by the other relative telling Boaz to redeem Naomi's household for herself and to take Ruth as his wife, handing him a sandal to signify the passing of rights to Boaz. So this was their way of conducting things. Meet with the elders at the gate.

Speak openly in front of everybody. And then the standard tradition for passing on this kinsman-redeemer rite was the guy who was passing it on would take a sandal and hand it over to the fellow he was passing it off to. That is redeeming for himself, isn't it? Yeah, for himself. That should be himself.

So here's Ruth 4, 13-15 here that's quoted, So Boaz took Ruth, and she became his wife, and he went into her, and the Lord enabled her to conceive, and she gave birth to a son. Then the women said to Naomi, Blessed is the Lord who has not left you without a Redeemer today, and may his name become famous in Israel. May he also be to you a restorer of life and a sustainer of your old age, for your daughter-in-law who loves you, and is better to you than seven sons has given birth to him."

And one of the questions that came up last week, I mentioned the ten generations, ten generations of once there's an illegitimate birth, there's a cloud over the inheritance, there's a cloud over the ability of that person to enter into the tabernacle or the temple, for ten generations. And while it's not stated, it may have been one of the reasons why David was not allowed to build the temple. But it was under Solomon after this ten generations time had passed. So you see there on the inset on the left, you see Pharaz, was the first one in the line, that's the first generation, then Hezron, Ram, Aminadab, Nashon, Salmon, and then Boaz is number seven in that lineage, and then Obed, and then Jesse, the father of David, and then David. So there's the ten there in the ten generation prohibition where there's a cloud over inheritance and a cloud over tabernacle and temple entry.

Yes? Was Boaz and Ruth's son? Yes. Yeah. Yeah, these are male lineage. Of course, it was Boaz that married Ruth, the Moabite woman there. What was the clown again? Two things. One is there were in the law a couple of things. One was inheritance was at times a problem if you had an illegitimate birth for ten generations. Where was the illegitimate birth? Illegitimate birth was FAR-S.

Let's take a look at this last page. a table there. Here's Jacob who had 12 sons. It's Deuteronomy 23.2 and related verses that put a cloud on the lineage, inheritance, and tabernacle temple access from Phares to David. And what you see is Jacob had 12 sons. One of those was Judah.

And then, so what you have is Judah having problems with the sons and those who are supposed to be having offspring through Tamar, and so what Tamar ends up doing is pretending to be a harlot, and Judah then is intimate with her, and yet that's her father-in-law, and you have the twin sons offspring, Phares and Zarah, and it's through Phares that you have the lineage of David, and therefore the lineage of Christ. And so you have from that illegitimate birth the lineage of David and the lineage, including Boaz, who we just read about, and the lineage of Christ goes through that line.

That bit about the land, for instance, you have often in your sermons talked about the fact that the promise to the Jews was of land. That inheritance of land was such a major issue that it was necessary to establish which family was entitled to which parcel of land. And if you had an illegitimate child, that person had no right to be called a member of the family, and therefore they didn't have a right to the inheritance of land, as opposed to worship in the tavern. We came across this last week in our study of Judges, because Jephthah was one who was, again, an illegitimate birth, and so you had that problem with Jephthah, and so that showed up there. Here it shows up again. It's kind of interesting because they were not supposed to take Canaanite wives. And here you got Judah, which is the line of Christ, and it says here, Shuah, or whatever it was, Canaanite.

So he was not following that practice. Yeah, in other words, what you see is, here's the law, and you see all kinds of irregularities with respect to people actually following it. Here you have Boaz, who's a very conscientious, law-abiding man, but he's also dealing with a population where things are degraded. He's the exceptional kind of guy who actually tries to abide by the law. A great many didn't, which is why Ruth would be at hazard. among others working out in the field, right? It was a very degraded culture.

Yes? You know, Lot's daughters came in and had relations with Ammon. Yes. And they both had children. One was named Moab. Ammon and Moab, yeah. And Ammon was the other. Yeah. And would that be a ten-generational thing with something like that? Okay, well Lot wouldn't be... it was Lot of Jew. Lot's not a Jew. So the Moabites, because remember Lot is Abraham's nephew, so Lot is a relative, but not under the Jewish fold. So there would be, as a matter of fact, the Ammonites and Moabites actually had some pretty nasty religions.

Yeah, that same section of Deuteronomy 23.2 goes on in the next verses to talk about Moabites and Ammonites.

They were never going to come in because of what they did to Him. Yeah, that's right. So they were a thorn in the side of the Israelites. They were not part of the promise at all. Right, yeah. Yeah, they weren't Jewish and they had no respect for the Jewish law. Yes? Even though Ruth was a Moabite, it was okay for Boaz... Yeah, and why was that?

Because she's a woman and not the man. Why is she a woman and not the man, and why else? Because she came out of the household of Boaz. Yeah, ultimately she came out of the household of Boaz, but it's because Naomi's sons had married these Moabite women. And Ruth being one. And so it was, she was brought in having been married to Naomi's son.

So if she hadn't been married to Naomi's son and Boaz had married her, it would have been different. It would have been a different deal. There was no kinsman, redeemer, law or custom. that would have applied, but because she was married to Naomi's son, then the law of the kinsman-redeemer could be applied. Notice that the closer relative didn't say, you're kidding me. He didn't just laugh it off or say, that's ridiculous, what are you asking for? Because of that marriage of Naomi's son to this Moabite woman, it was taken seriously.

Yeah. And I was going to say in reference to Pat's question, according to your chart here, Lot would have been before Moses and before the law, correct? Yes, yeah. Before Moses and before the law, Abraham's nephew. But even with Abraham, think about that. Did Abraham have a son that was not in the lineage of God's chosen lineage? Ishmael. Ishmael, right? Ishmael. Ishmael had 12 sons and had a whole, you know, a bunch of offspring, but they were all outside of the Jewish law. Yes?

Would Ruth be entitled to her husband's inheritance, since that was her husband? Yeah, and of course that was one of those situations where, you know, ideally you wouldn't have this Moabite woman in the mix. And yet, plus you've got an additional complication, and that's the They were over in Moab and Moab's not under the law. So you've got some real question marks there.

Just like we studied earlier with Rahab. Yes, yeah. Yeah, Rahab doesn't fit into the scheme either. Yeah, Rahab doesn't fit into the scheme, but she's in the lineage too. You know, so you get these things like, whoa, this isn't a clean deal, right? It's not a clean deal, but that's what God uses.

You use the term Kinsman Redeemer? Yes. Does that mean you only have a son? With the kinsman redeemer, in other words, there is a set of laws in terms of priority, and notice there was a relative who had higher priority, so closer relationship implies higher priority, and so that closer relative had to be addressed and he had to pass on, okay, I won't do this. The kinsmen redeemer laws also had to do with things like buying out inheritances and buying out estates and assets and things of that sort. And so this situation with Ruth was one aspect of the whole Kindlin Redeemer Law.

Yes? Part of it is what you have on your chart there, the law that if a man died before he had progeny, his brother was obligated to raise up children, to have male children, so that you could keep the family Yes, and that's also a part of the whole, you know, this is a, this is a how do I continue the lineage? How do I, you know, keep the family together? How do I deal with the what-ifs? And that's a part of the Kinsman Redeemer Law.

Yeah, and so here's, here's Judah. He messed up horribly. And this is how God takes this terrible mess up that Judah pulled off through, through Tamar. And God makes something good of it. This is really astounding. Yes. And looking at this, you go back to Genesis, one of the first things God said was, go out and multiply. So here's his law, which covers all these different aspects that you could possibly think of, and yet it's too procreate the Jews and the species, so to speak. So his law focuses on that, but it also shows that he's definitely a God of order.

I mean, gosh, you look at this and you say, wow, how long would have it taken man to come up with all these different rules and regulations to cover these things. He covered everybody, the poor, the fatherless, the son who didn't want to get married to this girl. Think about the law. The law, here we'll talk about it and say we're not under the law, we're under grace, all that, and we'll be clear about that.

And yet when you look at it, the law does, in spite of it in some ways being very severe, also shows great mercy and grace. Because you have, okay, you're going to provide for the orphans and widows and this kind of thing. And this happens, you're still going to have lineage for your brother. You're going to take this one into your household. and those kinds of things. This is dealing with all the difficult what-ifs in society. Yes? Just think how messed up that would be if man in his selfishness would try to cover all those things. There would be points of interest that, well that's my concern. They would never, ever, ever be able to come up with anything that interests them.

Think of all the different ways, starting, let's start back at Abraham. Think of all the different ways that God does things or did things differently than was the societal norm or that we would have chosen. And this is just, we talked about this before, but this is I think just underscores God does not do things and get things accomplished the way we would.

You know, here's a situation with Judah and Tamar, and you think, oh, how's that going to turn out good, right? And then you got, all right, now I've got, you know, here's Ruth, a mold-bite woman, and you know, Naomi's bitter, and you know, how's this going to turn out good? And it is amazing and astounding to see how God repeatedly does the thing that we would not do, the thing that society would reject.

Yes. One of the famous ones back in Joshua there, the daughters of Zelopheh. There were no male heirs. And the daughters came to Moses and said, we don't have an assignment of land because our father didn't produce any sons. Yes. We need to have an inheritance. And Moses inquired of the Lord. And the Lord said, their cause is righteous. Give them. man's laws, in quotes, the daughters would have no rights at all.

And later when David committed adultery with Bathsheba, Bathsheba wasn't a Jew. So you get into another one where David goes outside the law and Yeah, here he goes outside the law. Of course, he went outside the law when he had Uriah killed, right? He committed adultery. He went outside the law in terms of this woman getting Uriah killed. Boy, I mean, you would look at that and say, man, that is messed up. That is just messed up. How can this possibly turn into anything good, right?

So actually if you want to look at this in a modern day viewpoint, you could say that God's gleaming laws were God's food stamp program. Yeah, but rather than handing something to somebody and just say here it is, what we do is we say we make provision, they got to work. Right? They make provision, but they got to work. And so, this is the means of making provision. You're not going to get wealthy off of it, but it is a way to survive, right? But you got to work. Yeah.

You know, David, as ugly as it was, having somebody killed in adultery, he said later, when he had a census taken, that that was a much greater sin. And then when the plague came, 70,000 people died, that his lack of trust in God, that was far worse than the murder and the adultery. And he said it was worse. The consequences of most people dying. And along with that, I was just thinking, I mean, you look at Judah, and you look at some of the sons of Jacob, and I mean, they were pretty bad off. And here's Judah, first of all, he marries a Canaanite woman and all the other things that happened. And yet, God still uses him, ultimately, to be the generation of Christ. Christ is of the tribe of Judah. He is the Lion of the tribe of Judah. He is the one to whom the scepter belongs.

Would you have picked that? Would you and I have said, I'm going to take this scummy guy I'm going to take this scummy guy and give him a promise that he will have an ancestor that will be the one to rule over Judah and ultimately to be the one who would be the head of the Millennial Kingdom. That he would be the one who would die for the sins of the world. Here's Judah who's a scummy guy. and God's going to have the Savior of the whole world come from Him. It's almost like He's got a plan.

Yeah, but this is not at all the way you and I would design and plan things. Not at all. Yeah, I think we just look at it and we say, man, how can something possibly be made good from this? Even the first half of the book of Ruth is, this is looking really dismal, right? This is looking really dismal. Friday's here but Sunday's coming. Yeah, yeah.

And I think it's one thing for us to take great hope in. We see repeatedly where circumstances were really bad, and people really blew it big time, and God said, I'm going to make something great of this. This is God's mercy and God's grace, and God's providence and His sovereignty shown, and it is astounding. It is amazing to see what's been done here in God's plan and God's carrying everything out. It is repeatedly almost shocking. to see what God does with these things.

So as we look here at this book of Ruth, and especially as you start off with the book of Ruth, you say, oh man, this is terrible. The key people are dying, and famine started this thing off, and now we're going back to gleaning, and oh, this isn't good. This is really rough and you can imagine from the way the story starts out how, you know, welcome home Naomi and call me Mara, call me bitterness, right? Call me bitter. Because that's where I'm at. I've lost everything. I've got no hope, no future. This looks bad. And yet the Lord is going to turn this thing around and make something phenomenal of it. Just even think of David. Even in David's family, was he the eldest son? No. He was the youngest one. And by the way, where have we seen that the youngest son gets picked? Several times. And what are some of those instances? Jacob and Esau is the younger son gets picked. It's Jacob, right?

And by the way, we don't know of any descendants of Esau now. We've lost track of them. Do we know the descendants of Jacob? Yeah, it's the Jews. There's millions of them. So here's the last of any group of the descendants of Esau. were wiped out during the Roman invasion of Jerusalem in 70 AD. We don't have any real descendants of Esau around, but there are millions of Jews. Isn't that amazing? Even after the Holocaust of World War II era. Millions of Jews. Really rather astounding, miraculous even.

Another instance, besides Jacob and Esau. We saw last week remember Gideon He says I'm with a real small, you know Tribe and real small family and I'm the youngest one Yeah, hey, why do you pick me? You know pick somebody else? Oh, no and and then and then he has Gideon and You know, he's got 32,000 soldiers.

Well, that sounds pretty good. We've got to get rid of a bunch of them. So God tells them, the scared ones, they've got to leave. 22,000, they go home because they're scared. I've still got 10,000. That sounds pretty good. Well, there's still way too many.

So that's when he pulls up this little drinking test. Remember, I showed you the picture of the place where they had the drinking test. And you only pick those soldiers who scoop up the water while they're still looking around and then bring the water up to their mouth. If they lean down to get the water, no good.

They gotta go. So, 300. And none of them gets issued a sword. They get issued a torch, pitcher, and trumpet. That's it. Isn't that also a pitcher of the remnant? Because when you really look at the percentages, 300 of them, what was it, 30,000? 32,000 down to 300, right? Voluntarily send a whole bunch of soldiers home.

I mean, that's just wild. Yeah, and that's a really small number, which is what God always uses, and particularly in the remnant, that he always has out there. So, it's just kind of a picture. of how God works. I use my mind. And I think that's something for us to think about, that God's going to use things that are entirely opposite of what we would choose. Entirely opposite of what we would choose.

And He just simply does not work in the ways that we would think would be the way to do things. wasn't in the lineage of Christ, but there's another example of the youngest member being the one who eventually saves the family. Right. Yeah, that would be another interest. Here's Joseph, he's not the, you know, he's not the oldest son, he's not, he's one even all the brothers rejected, right? But, yeah, the one everybody rejected, that's the one God uses to save. So I think it's something for us to think about.

God repeatedly sets things up where it wouldn't be who society would pick, it wouldn't be who we would pick. Would you pick the twelve disciples? You can imagine Jesus sending the disciples out two by two. I would not be at all surprised if he sent out Matthew, the tax collector, and Simon the zealot together, right? The combinations and people and the backgrounds, you'd say, that's not who I would pick. But that's what he did pick. He even picked Judas, knowing that this guy is going to turn me in. This guy is going to turn his back on me. Pick him too. God just does not do things the way we would. But God can take phenomenal, difficult and disappointing circumstances and do good things with them.

I was just going to say, in this chiasm here, the book of Ruth, it says, the plan laid by Naomi and Ruth, actually, isn't that kind of a plan given to them by God? I mean, this isn't a just some plan that was made up. I mean, this is a divine, obviously a divine plan, since it's the chiasm of Ruth, that's where the things really change, right?

It goes from all the negative down to this plan. That's the turning point. And then it goes all the way positive, so obviously God had a lot to do with that plan. Yeah. And when you see this chiasm pattern, we saw the whole book of Jude, the whole book of Ruth, the whole book of Matthew are in this chiasm pattern. The flood account in the middle of Genesis is all one big chiasm.

And so that there shows forethought and things are laid out in order and presented in order. And so yeah, that's one reason for showing that. It's just, up to the time you get there, things aren't looking real great. And then all of a sudden, here's this turning point and everything just keeps getting better and better.

And just to realize that whatever circumstances we get in, Boys, the low point is that's where God takes things and turns them around and makes them turn into something that we just never imagined, but good things. Psychology today would say that's the bottom. How do they call that? When you reach bottom? Yep.

You reach bottom, but here it's spiritually turned around. We can get into all kinds of difficult circumstances. God can turn it around and make good of it. I think it's an important perspective for us to have, not just as we observe scripture, but taking it home to our own personal lives that God can turn some things around and make things that we never dreamed of out of circumstances that are very difficult. That's the way God does things, again and again and again. Anything else?

Yeah? Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Boaz is Jewish. He is number seven in the line with the cloud. Right? Number seven, in line with the cloud, but nonetheless a part of God's plan. Part of God's plan. Think of it, here's Solomon, who's the first one that's out from underneath the cloud. What other curious and odd and irregular things happen during the time from Phares to Solomon? Bathsheba, right? Who is, Bathsheba is not Jewish. Boaz. And who else? Out of Jericho? Rahab.

So we've got various ones that's like, wait a minute, how is this going to help? And seem to even further cloud the issue. But that's the ones God chose. And we see them in the lineage of David and of Christ, descended from David. Okay, let's pray. Lord, thank you for this amazing story, starting off so dismal and things going downhill and going from bad to worse. And yet to see your redemption, to see your care and your providence, your sovereignty over what certainly looked like a horrible situation.

We thank you for that. We thank you for the picture that it gives us and the demonstration of your mercy and of your grace. So we just thank you for this little four-chapter account of this Moabite woman named Ruth. And thank you for how you have played this out. This was a part of what you had take place so that our Savior and Lord would be born. And we just thank you in Jesus' name. Amen.