Introduction: Ruth tells the story of the Moabitess who married Boaz and thereby became the great grandmother of King David, as well as one of only four women, three of whom, including Ruth, were Gentiles, mentioned in Matthew’s genealogy of Christ. It has been said that what Venus is to statuary and the Mona Lisa is to paintings, Ruth is to Scripture. The book itself has been called “the most beautiful short story ever written” and “the romance of redemption.”
Ruth 1:1-7 — Many a family has faithlessly fast-tracked themselves into funerals by fearfully fleeing from famines.
It is a mistake not to stay put, wherever God has placed you, but to flee elsewhere, whenever there’s a problem.
Ruth 1:8-15 — While misery may love company, true love never wants its loved ones to company with its misery.
True love always wants something better for its beloved than the bitterness it has borne.
Ruth 1:16-17 — This popular passage, often recited in wedding ceremonies, might be less requested at the nuptial altar if all brides realized that it is really an expression of a daughter-in-law's devotion to her mother-in-law.
Just as Naomi inspired her daughter-in-law Ruth to forsake her former paganism and to join the people of God in professing faith in Jehovah, so should every Christian inspire sinners to forsake their former paganism and to join the saints of God in professing faith in Jesus.
Ruth 1:18-22 — Although the happy “Naomi” went out from God’s people in fear of want and outwardly full, with a husband and two sons, she came back a widowed, childless, and humbled “Mara,” inwardly empty and accompanied by a widowed daughter-in-law alone.
Notice, Naomi, unlike today’s feminists, was fulfilled by family life, by being a faithful helpmate to her late husband and by faithfully caring for her deceased children.
Ruth 2:1-7 — The designs of Divine Providence can be worked through the most mundane things. For instance, God used Ruth’s gleaning in Boaz’s field to eventually put the crown on King David's head and Christ on the cross of Calvary.
God is in the details. Sometimes His most stupendous designs are in the smallest and most mundane details.
Ruth 2:8-23 — God’s providential care of ordinary people in their ordinary lives may prove to be of extraordinary importance in bringing to pass His extraordinary plans and purposes.
There are no small things in God’s big plans and purposes!
Ruth 2:10-12 — God’s redemptive plan extends to all people. Whosoever will, regardless of race or ethnicity, can run for refuge under God’s trustworthy wings.
The people of God are inclusive, not exclusive, to become a member is a matter of election, not extraction.
Ruth 3:1-6 — True love is never satisfied nor true security ever secured by gifts, but only by the giver. Ruth needed more than blessings, she needed Boaz!
It’s one thing to be blessed by God, as all men are, but quite another to be bought back by God, so that you belong with God, as few men do.
Ruth 3:7-13 — To be redeemed, we must offer ourselves to our Redeemer, Jesus, by laying ourselves at His feet, just as Ruth offered herself to her kinsmen redeemer, Boaz, by laying herself at his feet.
Redemption requires our ready and willing resignation to our only Redeemer!
Ruth 3:14 — Ruth lay at Boaz’s feet, not at his side, and Boaz, in order to safeguard her good name, as well as to guard against any appearance of evil, forbid anyone from speaking of their innocent rendezvous.
We should be careful to safeguard our own integrity, as well as the integrity of the innocent.
Ruth 3:15-18 — All who lay themselves down at their Redeemer’s feet will not end up empty handed, but will come away confident of the resolution of their redemption!
Like Ruth, whom Naomi asked, “Who art thou,” all the redeemed should be ever-ready to say so! (Psalm 107:2)
Ruth 4:1-12 — The romance of redemption awaits your claiming of Christ as your Redeemer. As Boaz, Ruth’s kinsmen redeemer, did not redeem Ruth until she asked him for redemption, the realization of your redemption awaits you asking Christ, your Redeemer, for redemption.
Our redemption, like Ruth’s, should be confirmed by public witnesses, attested to by a public ordinance (baptism), and in the end prove prolific, by us proliferating the people of God.
Redeemed, how I love to proclaim it!
Redeemed by the blood of the Lamb;
Redeemed through His infinite mercy,
His child and forever I am. (Fanny Crosby)
Ruth 4:7-8 — God promised His people to give them every place where they set their foot. However, a man who refuses redemption essentially removes his shoe and relinquishes all of God’s promises. (Joshua 1:3)
To refuse redemption over your fear it will ruin your worldly inheritance is to forever shortchange yourself.
Ruth 4:11 — Bethlehem, the famous birthplace of Israel’s greatest King, David, and of the King of kings, Jesus Christ, who shall reign on David’s throne forever, would have remained a small obscure hole in the road, were it not for Ruth's redemption and marriage to Boaz.
“The hinge of history is on the door of a Bethlehem stable.” (Ralph Washington Sockman)
O little town of Bethlehem,
How still we see thee lie,
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep the silent stars go by.
Yet in thy dark streets shineth
The everlasting light.
The hopes and dreams of all the years
Are met in thee tonight. (Phiilps Brooks)
Ruth 4:13-17 — The book of Ruth begins with funerals and a bitter Naomi, over her afflictions, but ends with a marriage and a blessed Naomi, over her redemption.
God’s purposes today may prove imperceptible until His plans unfold tomorrow.
Ruth 4:18-22 — In the final words of Ruth—“…and Boaz begat Obed, and Obed begat Jesse, and Jesse begat David”—we see how the invisible hand of God perfectly orchestrates His preordained plans and purposes.
The finger prints of Divine Providence are all over the pages of human history.
“I have lived, Sir, a long time and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth — that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without [H]is notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without [H]is aid?” (Benjamin Franklin)
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