We have realized that the Old Testament is rich, and every time, you know, certainly in the book of Ruth,
in each chapter, each page, if it was a living person and you were to cut it open, it would bleed the Lord Jesus Christ.
It just pours out from page to page. It tells us something about our Savior and about our salvation.
So let's look at the text this morning, and we'll just read from verse 13 of chapter 4.
So Boaz took Ruth, and she became his wife.
And when he made love to her, the Lord enabled her to conceive, and she gave birth to a son.
The woman said to Naomi, Praise be to the Lord, who is this day has not left you without a guardian redeemer.
May he become famous throughout Israel, and he will renew your life and sustain you in your old age.
For your daughter-in-law, who loves you and who is better to you than seven sons, has given him birth.
Then Naomi took the child in her arms and cared for him.
And the woman living there said, Naomi has a son.
And they named him Obed.
And he was the father of Jesse, the father of David.
So this is the genealogy of David.
This then is the family line of Perez.
Perez was the father of Hezron.
Hezron the father of Ram.
Ram the father of Aminadab.
Aminadab the father of Nashon.
Nashon the father of Salmon.
Salmon the father of Boaz.
Boaz the father of Obed.
Obed the father of Jesse.
And Jesse the father of David.
So how did we get to that list of names at the end of chapter 4?
It started off, if we remember, with a list of names and promise which came into hopelessness.
Yet here we have a list of names after an event which is filled with hope.
In chapter 1 we had Naomi.
Sorry.
Done something to the PowerPoint.
In chapter 1 we have Naomi who became empty.
She was bitter.
She was old.
She had lost her husband and she had lost her two sons.
Everything looked pretty bleak.
She had two daughter-in-laws.
Orpah, if we remember, she went back to her family.
She went back to the Moamites.
But then we had Ruth.
Ruth loved Naomi.
Ruth loved the God of Israel.
And she chose to convert.
She chose to leave her family.
She chose to leave Moab.
And she chose to join Israel.
And she picked Israel and Israel's God and Naomi over her own flesh and blood, over her own family.
And what that tells us is that God's people are people of faith.
Not just of a national identity.
You see, those people who trust in God are truly Abraham's descendants.
It's those that by faith trust in Christ that are the Lord's.
Not those who have some sort of heritage or ethnic leadings.
And in chapter 2, we saw the providence of God in that Ruth happened to come across Boaz's field.
This potential kinsman redeemer or guardian redeemer, as it says in the NIV.
And we found out in that that he was able to provide Ruth with protection from harm while she was working.
He was able to fill up, if you like, the storehouses.
The cupboards were no longer bare.
There was food on the table.
And Naomi was just that little bit less empty.
And in chapter 3, we found that there was a proposal of marriage.
There was hope maybe for Ruth in the future that she would have something and someone to come home to.
Someone to look after her.
And so there was an appeal to Boaz that he would do what was right.
That he would be the guardian redeemer for Ruth and Naomi.
And Naomi, again, was just that little less empty.
And we found them in chapter 3 waiting.
Waiting.
Waiting to see if Boaz would go and do what he should do.
And in some ways, that's where we are this morning.
As a church in the story of salvation, we're waiting.
And what are we waiting for?
We're waiting for the return of Christ.
We're putting our faith and our trust in our redeemer.
And we moved on.
And last week, we had the legal drama.
We had Mr. So-and-so, the person who is of insignificance.
And he was there to tell us and to tell everyone else of the cost of redemption.
What it cost Boaz to redeem Naomi.
To take Ruth as his wife.
And we found the response and the blessing of the elders.
And that they said, Ruth's no longer the Moabite.
She's no longer the widow.
She's going to be the wife of Boaz.
And she's going to be great in Israel.
The blessing of the elders.
And so then, we find that Naomi is just almost to the brim.
She's almost there, but she's not quite completely full.
It's not quite what she had before.
But it's getting there.
And so we have a few questions.
And the questions we have is, who's in control of the world?
Who's in control of history?
And can God be trusted with history?
Is he trustworthy?
Can you?
Can I?
Can we trust God with our future?
I think that the book of Ruth says that yes, we can.
And we'll look at that.
I think if we had ended the book of Ruth here at verse 12,
I think we would have had a nice little heartwarming story
of how God helped a widow and how God helped a Moabite
to integrate into Jewish society, integrate into Israel,
and they had a nice life.
And that was really great for everybody.
And isn't God good?
But I think with these last few verses,
we actually see the expansive nature of how God is that intricately linked
with the lives of ordinary people.
See, it's not just that Ruth and Naomi had Boaz come and redeem them.
We witnessed the hand of God to bring about a blessing,
not just to them, but to you and to me this morning.
There is a blessing from the book of Ruth for us today
because of the plan of God's unfolding salvation,
God's unfolding plan in history,
which is unfolding as we speak, as we live, as we breathe.
We are waiting for the return of our guardian redeemer,
the Lord Jesus Christ.
And this little book, it is, if you like,
a chain in the link that links, if you like,
the first five books of the Bible and Joshua and Judges,
and it links it into the period of the kings.
It's kind of a beginning again story, if you like.
If you think of Eve, and Eve became the mother of all living,
and then you had Rachel and Leah,
and they became the mothers of what we now know as the nation of Israel.
Here you have Ruth, and if you like,
she becomes the mother of the kingdom of Israel,
of the descendants which go on then to David and eventually to Christ.
And so we see God is alive,
and he is working in the lives of ordinary people
to bring about a redemptive purpose.
And God is still at that work.
He's still at his work to use ordinary people
to bring about redemption in the lives of ordinary people.
If you're here this morning and you know the Lord Jesus Christ,
what ordinary people influenced your life
so that you might know the guardian, redeemer of all redeemers, Jesus?
And we might not know the significance of our lives.
We know the significance of Ruth's life
because it's recorded for us in Scripture,
but we don't know necessarily how our life played out,
how it fitted in to God's plan and purposes.
We may have an idea, we may not know.
But we can trust that God is involved,
and God does want to know.
He wants us to know eventually.
And so let's look at what we have here in the text.
This morning we have heavenly matrimony.
We have a marriage that had the design in heaven.
God has brought Boaz and Ruth together.
He has a plan for them,
and we know he has a plan for them,
and we know he has done this.
It says,
So Boaz took Ruth,
and she became his wife.
And when he made love to her,
the Lord enabled her to conceive,
and she gave birth to a son.
They had a little baby.
Little babies are great.
I had two.
They're not so great after their babies,
but when they're babies,
they're great.
The Lord enabled her to conceive.
We know that it was in the plan of God
for them to be together,
because this word here,
the Lord enabled her to conceive,
is actually the same words that said
when the Lord visited his people in chapter 1
and brought them food.
When the Lord was doing something good in Bethlehem,
he visited them.
And he's now doing something significant
in the life of Ruth,
and he has visited Ruth.
And he hasn't visited Ruth just for her own sake.
And he hasn't just visited Ruth for Naomi's sake.
He has visited Ruth for you and for me.
And in his unfolding plan,
he has visited Ruth because he wants to bless the world.
And how he's going to do that is through Ruth the Moabite.
We have to think about this for a little minute.
We don't know how long that Ruth was married
to one of Naomi's sons.
But it could have been as long as 10 years.
And if that's the case,
10 years of marriage and no children
suggests that, you know,
there's something wrong.
Was it wrong with, you know,
the male and the female or both?
We don't know.
But there was something wrong.
We also know that Boaz was a lot older than Ruth.
And again, we don't want to speculate about how old.
But there is not necessarily the likelihood
that they would conceive.
But here, straight away,
God gives them a child.
It reminds us that God gave lots of other people
important children.
Hannah, you know, gave birth to Samuel.
And obviously, Rachel,
she gave birth to some of the children of Israel.
People who were longing to have children.
And they saw children as a gift from God.
And I think that in that,
we need to stop and to pause and to think,
do we see children as a gift from God?
The Bible is quite clear
that all children are a blessing from God.
In today's culture,
that's not what we see.
Children are an inconvenience in today's culture.
Children are so much an inconvenience
that it's all right to even end a child's life
before it breathes H2O.
That is how much that we've come away
from a biblical moral view
of children as a gift.
I remember that nervous time,
you know, when I walked into,
I think it was a 14-week,
because we were on holidays
and, you know, people were off.
So we had a 14-week scan
rather than the 12-week scan
that everybody has.
And we were nervous, sort of,
parents, what on earth are we going to do?
And, you know, my wife Claire,
she gets up on the table
and they get out the jelly
and they get the machine
and they put it on.
And before us on the screen appeared,
because he was a little bit bigger,
his whole little form,
Elijah, my eldest,
appeared on the screen.
And there he was,
suspended in, like, space animation
on this little, sort of,
green-coloured monitor.
And he was twisting his hands.
Almost, we were saying,
look there, there's our son.
He's waving at us.
He's saying hello.
And it was almost like, you know,
when your mum or your dad
or, you know, someone who you know and love
opens the door and comes into the house,
you don't need to say who's there.
You know who's there.
Well, that day, I knew
that someone had just entered our room.
The thing that, you know,
the secret place is no longer secret
because of science.
And we can see inside the womb
very clearly what goes on.
And that day,
I met my son, if you like,
before he was born.
And that, to me,
is the greatest experience
that I will take with me
to, obviously,
to my grave.
And I will be able to say,
quite clearly,
there's no one will convince me
that Elijah was not there that day.
And that's something
that science cannot quantify.
the human spirit,
the life of an individual.
I say that in passing
because I think it's something
that we need to really embrace
and encourage people
that life is valuable
and it is from God,
it is a gift from God.
And Elijah does that to this day.
When he was born
and he was a little baby,
when he got excited,
he went with his hands.
He still does that.
He's not here,
so I can tell this morning.
But, yeah,
he's nearly 16,
but he still does that.
So there's nobody telling me
that life is not a blessing.
And life is from God.
And here we have a little baby.
A little baby that God has given
to Boaz and to Ruth.
And the Lord enabled her to conceive
and she gave birth to a son.
Wow.
What a tremendous story.
Ruth, the widowed Moabite,
childless baron,
has now a husband.
She now has a son.
But there's going to be
another baby born,
another son,
a son promised.
From Bethlehem.
Bethlehem becomes
a significant place.
And you don't have to turn to it.
I'll read it for you.
But there's a prophecy
in Micah.
And verses 1 to 4,
it says,
Marshal your troops now.
City of troops,
for a siege is laid against us.
And they will strike Israel's ruler
on the cheek with a rod.
But you, Bethlehem,
Epaphrath,
though you are small
among the clans of Judah,
out of you will come for me
one who will be ruler
over Israel,
whose origins are from of old,
from ancient times.
Therefore, Israel will be abandoned
until the time
when she who is in labor
bears a son.
And the rest of his brothers
return to join the Israelites.
And he will stand up
and shepherd his flock
in the strength of the Lord.
You see, the significance
of this little baby
is that one day
there's going to be
another little baby.
We're about to celebrate Christmas.
I think it's around the corner.
People may be trying to
get their Christmas presents in.
But the significance of Christmas
is not Santa Claus.
The significance of Christmas
is not in our presents
or the PlayStations that we want.
It's in the fact that
God came to earth
in human flesh
and that he became
our guardian redeemer.
Do you know
Christ this morning?
Do you know
that you need
a guardian redeemer?
Do you know
that one day
when Christ returns again
to judge the world
that you will need him
to be your guardian redeemer?
If you don't know
what that means,
if you're unsure,
it means that he needs to
buy you back
from slavery.
It means that you are
trapped in sin
and he has died
to save you.
He has died
to make a way
for your sins
to be forgiven.
And he has enabled
through his death
to bring you life.
So there is the promise
of another,
a greater one
that would come
from Bethlehem.
And so in that,
we see that human plans,
they weave in and through
the plan of God.
And we can see
that God has visited
his people,
not just with food,
but he's visited them
by visiting Ruth
in the birth
of this newborn son.
and that this newborn son
is completely
in God's plan.
But we also have
a reversal.
The story then
shifts quite quickly
away from Boaz
and away from Ruth
and it brings Naomi.
Because of the idea
of the guardian
redeemership,
the child is actually
Naomi's
in that he's going
to be Elimelech's heir.
And so we see
that in the text.
And we also see
the women of Bethlehem.
If you remember
in chapter 2,
the women of Bethlehem,
they were saying,
is that Naomi?
Is that her?
The gossip was going
around Bethlehem
and they were saying,
is that, is she back?
Doesn't really look like her.
She looks a bit more
haggard and a bit worn.
Is that Naomi?
But now look at
what they say.
And so the women
of Bethlehem,
they say,
the women said to Naomi,
praise be to the Lord
who this day
has not left you
without a guardian redeemer.
And you say,
hold on.
I thought that was Boaz.
And you say,
yes.
But now this little baby,
he has now the right
to be her guardian redeemer also.
There's redeemers everywhere.
And it says,
may he become famous
throughout Israel
and he will renew your life
and sustain you
in your old age
for your daughter-in-law
who loves you
and who is better to you
than seven sons.
has given him birth.
That's a change
from their questioning,
who's that girl?
She looks a bit,
hmm?
Is that really her?
She's been away a while.
Imagine her coming back
after leaving us
at a time of famine.
You know,
all of those sort of things
that they may have been thinking.
But here they are.
They're praising
for what they can see
God is doing
in the life of Naomi.
Naomi.
And in verse 15,
if you remember
in the first week
we looked at
the whole idea
of turning
and returning
and God is bringing
Naomi back.
And God,
he says,
God brought me back.
God returned me
to Israel.
Well,
here the women
of Bethlehem,
they're saying something
very significant
in verse 15.
It says,
he will renew your life.
And actually what it says,
he will return to you life.
This little baby,
this little guardian redeemer
is going to sustain you
in your old age.
And there's another little baby,
the Lord Jesus Christ,
and he's going to return
to us life.
He is our guardian redeemer.
He is the one
that we need to look to
this morning.
You see,
Naomi was not left
without a guardian redeemer.
This little bundle
that she's now caring for
in her arms
is going to be
the one who can sustain her
in her old age.
He's the one
who will be able
to look after her.
Because in that society
without a man,
without someone
to provide food for her,
she would be left destitute.
And God has not left
his children,
in this case,
destitute.
We need to praise God
for not forgetting Naomi.
And what will this mean?
We need to praise God
for what it means.
It means protection
of Elimelech's name,
his property,
his inheritance
within Israel,
his place within the community,
and her sustained existence.
You see,
Naomi now is completely full.
She is full.
He's going to return
to you new life.
If you want life this morning,
there is only one place
that you can find it.
And that is in
the Lord Jesus Christ.
In John 10, 10,
it says that the thief
comes
to kill,
steal, kill,
and destroy.
But I have come
that you might have life
and have it
to the full.
I am the good shepherd
and the good shepherd
lays down his life
for the sheep.
God didn't leave
Naomi without a Redeemer
and he hasn't left us
without one.
God is concerned
about the future
of Naomi and Ruth.
I would say to you
this morning
that God is concerned
about your future.
And God's always working,
always working
to fulfill his plan.
But we need to be careful here
that it's not about,
you know,
there's many preachers
out there who will tell you,
you know,
Jesus wants to give you
life to the full.
And you say,
yeah,
I can agree with that.
With that,
he then says that
you can have
anything you want.
Just ask God
and he'll give it to you.
And I say,
no,
hold on.
That's not
what the Bible says.
In fact,
Jesus says in
John 16,
verses 26,
and Jesus answered,
very truly,
I tell you,
you're looking for me
not because you saw
the signs I performed,
but because you ate loaves
and had your fill.
So this is after
the miracle of Jesus
feeding the 5,000.
Do not work for food
that spoils,
but for food that endures
to eternal life,
which the Son of Man
will give you.
For on him,
God the Father
has placed his seal of approval.
And what Jesus is saying is,
don't be working
to build a bigger house here.
Work for the kingdom of God
to build a reward there.
Our focus should not be
on our immediate comfort,
but on the fact
that Jesus is going
to bring comfort
once and for all.
When he returns,
he's going to end
all suffering.
Not now,
but then.
It says in Colossians 2,
it says,
and in Christ
you have been brought
to fullness,
and he is head
over every power
and authority.
See,
already,
we have the fullness
of Christ.
We have his blessing.
We have his redemption.
But then,
we will experience
that fullness
in his kingdom
when he comes.
And it's interesting,
the idea of love,
you would expect
that in the chapter 4,
it says,
and Ruth loved Boaz.
But it doesn't.
It says,
Naomi was loved by Ruth
and was better
than seven sons.
The whole book
is building towards
this climax
of a birth of a son.
And yet,
these ladies say
this remarkable thing
about a Moabite widow,
someone outside
of Israel,
someone who should be
not included in Israel.
And they say
that she should be better.
You know,
she's better
than seven sons.
I think in that,
it's that sons
do what sons do.
Sons grow up,
and if they
don't pass away
as they did
in this case,
they would marry.
And in the natural
scale of things,
that they would
have children.
It's just what
sons do.
But Ruth was not
her son.
Ruth actually
chose.
If you remember,
Ruth chose
to stay
with Naomi
and go back
to Israel.
She chose
the God of Israel.
She didn't have
to do any of this.
And because of
her love for Naomi,
she chose
to do this.
And as a result
of that,
and as a result
of her love,
she now has
this little bundle
of joy.
So in a sense,
sons don't try
to please their mother
with grandchildren,
but Ruth had to.
And the ladies
of Bethlehem,
they realize this,
and they mark that.
It's a remarkable
change from
Ruth,
the Moabite,
to one who's worth
more than seven sons.
I think that's
wonderful.
And so we have
the complete reversal,
the complete reversal
of chapter one
in chapter four.
But we don't end there.
You see,
we continually have
the unfolding
plan of God.
In verse 17,
it says,
the woman living there,
they said,
Naomi has a son,
and they named him
Obed,
and he was the
father of Jesse,
the father of David.
I suppose we could
read that quite quickly
and go,
oh, that's okay,
and we could all
go home.
Or,
I think we're having
lunch later,
we could just,
you know,
stop here.
But what does that
mean?
Baby Obed.
Names mean an awful
lot and have
quite big significance
in the book of Ruth.
we remember that
Naomi was sweet.
But then she said,
call me Mara
because I am bitter.
But now she's quite
happy for everybody
to call her Naomi again.
Naomi is sweet.
So baby Obed
is unusually named
by the ladies of the town
and they call him
Obed.
And this is quite
an odd name
when you think that
Boaz is a man
of standing
in the community.
He owns property.
He has people
working for him.
He's quite respected
in the elders.
But Obed means servant.
Baby Obed
is going to be a blessing.
He's going to serve
the people
of Bethlehem.
But I know
a better servant
who's going to be born
in Bethlehem.
Mark 10 says,
for even the Son of Man
did not come
to be served,
but to serve
and to give his life
as a ransom
for many.
See,
we have an even better
Obed,
an even better
servant.
And so we have
the baby servant
Obed,
but we have
the man Christ
Jesus who came
to seek
and to save us
and to serve us
by giving us
his life.
And then we have
the line
to David.
We have this little
small genealogy
that says
they named him Obed
and he was the
father of Jesse
and the significance
of that is then
he was the father
of David.
Now I want you
to work this out
maybe.
King David,
the greatest king
that Israel ever knew.
So if anybody
says to you,
you see that Bible,
it's made up.
No one would
make this up.
And just,
that's my word
to you this morning.
If you were going
to write a back story
for your hero,
if you're going
to write a back story
for the greatest king
of Israel,
you're not going
to make this
your back story.
you're not going
to make the back story
that you came from
a Moabite widow.
That's not how
you're going to,
if you like,
fabricate a genealogy.
And I think that
attests to its
historic accuracy
and its truth
that this is history.
This really happened.
This is David's
great-grandmother,
Ruth.
But we also know
that if you want
to flick over
in your Bible,
maybe you haven't
realized this,
but you can flick
over to Matthew.
I'm not sure
what page that is
in the church Bible.
Maybe someone
might find it
and shout it out
if that's helpful.
955.
So it's 965
if you're struggling
to find it.
My Bible doesn't
want to turn there
either,
so don't worry.
So Matthew
chapter 1,
verse 1.
We have a different
genealogy
than the one
that's recorded
in Ruth 18.
It says,
this is the genealogy
of Jesus Christ,
the Messiah,
the greater
son of David,
son of Abraham.
And it reads,
see Abraham
was the father
of Isaac,
Isaac the father
of Jacob,
Jacob the father
of Judah,
and his brothers
in Judah
the father of Perez
and Zerah
whose mother
was Tamar.
Perez the father
of Hezron,
Hezron the father
of Ram,
Ram the father
of Aminadab,
Aminadab the father
of Nashon,
Nashon the flower
of Salmon,
Salmon the father
of Boaz
whose mother
was Rahab,
and Boaz
the father
of Obed
whose mother
was Ruth.
And Obed
the father
of Jesse,
and Jesse
the father
of King David.
And if you read on down
and it gets to the end,
it then says,
And Jacob, the father of Joseph,
the husband of Mary,
and Mary was the mother of Jesus
who is called the Messiah.
You see, in this little story,
Ruth didn't know,
David didn't know,
that they were taking part
in a genealogy
that was going to be added to.
And that genealogy
was going to go right the way through
and to the Lord Jesus Christ himself.
And we see that unfolding plan.
And so we learn from that
and we ask the question,
is God in control?
In a time, as we reminded earlier,
when Israel had no king,
what was God doing?
God was about his work.
He was moving people around.
He was moving Ruth to Boaz.
Boaz to Obed.
Because he had a plan
to bring about a king in Israel.
And his plan was to bring about David,
Israel's greatest human king.
But we know that David
wasn't good enough.
We know that David,
as great a king he was,
as great as a man
after God's own heart,
as the Bible tells us,
as great as a musician he was
and all the songs that he wrote,
he just wasn't quite good enough.
In fact, he was a murderer.
In fact, he committed adultery.
He fell into sin.
His family was a little bit broken up.
In fact, he morally,
he just didn't quite meet the mark, did he?
And so we needed someone greater than David.
And we only find that
in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ.
So where are we heading to?
Well, we're heading to somewhere else.
And I would like to say,
I'm heading home.
You know, the Bible would say
that this world is not our home.
We're heading for a city
whose builder and maker
is God himself.
And so if we turn in Revelation,
if you want to turn there,
Revelation chapter 7,
I'm going to read some verses for you.
And so if you're a Christian this morning,
this is about you.
This is our future.
This is what we are waiting for.
And then verse 9 says,
And after this I looked,
and there before me was a great multitude
that no one could count.
You know,
from every nation, tribe, people, and language,
standing before the throne
and before the Lamb.
And they were wearing white robes
and they were holding palm branches
and in their hands
and they cried out in a loud voice
as we sang this morning,
Salvation belongs to our God
who sits on the throne
and to the Lamb.
And all the angels were standing
around the throne
and they,
with the elders
and the four living creatures,
and they fell down in their faces
before the throne
and they worshipped God
saying, Amen,
praise and glory and wisdom
and thanks and honor
and power and strength
be to our God
forever and ever.
Amen.
And it says just on down there
in verse 15,
Therefore they are before
the throne of God
and they serve Him
day and night in His temple.
And He who sits on the throne
will shelter them
in His presence.
And this is where we get
the fullness of Christ.
Never again will they hunger.
Never again will they thirst.
And the sun will not beat down on them
and nor any scorching heat.
For the Lamb at the center of the throne
will be their shepherd
and He will lead them
to springs of living water
and He will wipe away
every tear from their eyes.
Amen.
If you know and you love
the Lord Jesus Christ,
that is your future.
The future of Brexit
is in the hands
of the politicians.
You could say,
but my future
is in the hands
of my kinsman,
Redeemer.
The sad part of this
is that if you don't know
Christ on that day,
that will not be your future.
Your future will be
marred by
by the judgment
and payment
of your own sin.
And on that day,
you will need
a kinsman,
Redeemer.
You will need someone
who will legally stand,
if you like,
before God
and say,
know He's mine.
And if you don't
know Christ this morning
and you don't have that,
I would urge you to
to make Jesus
your guardian,
Redeemer.
But for us
who know
and know the Lord,
we're looking forward
to a day
when we'll never again
be hungry,
never again thirst,
never again
will we need
to put on
Factor 50 sun cream,
especially
for me.
I burn,
you know,
quite into the sun.
The rest of my family,
they all tan
in an instant.
There's a picture,
I think,
of me and my sister
and she looks like
she comes from,
you know,
Brazil.
And I'm standing there
as white
as a ghost
beside her.
But never again
am I going to have
to worry about
being scorched
by the heat of the sun.
Because when
Christ returns,
He's going to make
all things new.
Let us pray.
Heavenly Father,