Okay, last week we looked at
the meaning of the names. If you remember, Elimelech means
my God is king, or simply God is king. The fact that his name
means God is king opens the book, the story of redemption, how?
How does it open? With God's sovereign work to
redeem his people. Do you see that? My God is king
or God is king, therefore he is sovereign and everything that
happened in the life of Elimelech, his two sons who died, their
marriage to these two women in Moab and to Naomi and then Ruth,
all of it was according to God's sovereign will. He ordained it
and he brought it to pass. And so we see that in the name
of Elimelech. And next, we saw that the names
of these two sons of Elimelech, Melon and Kilion, Melon meaning
sickness and weakness, Kilion meaning wasting, wasting. It says in scripture that we
perish, we waste away. because of our sin, because of
the consequences of our sin. So in these two boys, we see
our own condition that we were brought into by our sin, our
sin in Adam and our own sin. We have corrupted ourselves and
in ourselves, there's no good thing. That's what these two
sons of Elimelech are meant to teach us, our fall into sin. the hopelessness of our condition,
our helplessness in it, and the death that sin leads to. And
if it were not for God's grace, the story in this book would
end right there. But God's grace is expressed
in Scripture with the words, nevertheless, or but God, or
yet. These things turn what is an
empty, buried, dark, forsaken death into life by the redeeming
work of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so Naomi's name means pleasant
or sweet and pleasant. And she was, in the prophecy
of that name, going to receive these things in blessing from
God, but her first experience was bitterness. Bitterness, because
the Lord treated, brought affliction in her life and brought her into
this bitter condition. Through the loss of her husband,
the death of her husband and her two sons, she was left without
a family. Her husband had taken them from
Bethlehem, Judah, the house of bread, the place of praise and
celebration for the bread that God would give through the Lord
Jesus Christ and his people rejoice over that, Bethlehem meaning
the house of bread, Judah meaning that place of celebration and
praise to God. brought them, Elimelech brought
this family from there down to Moab. Moab was that country of
people who descended from Lot through his incestuous relationship
with his daughter. And that people were commanded
by God not to be able to come into the congregation of the
Lord until the 10th generation, even forever. And so we see out
of this land of Moab, they were brought into this land of these
Moabites. The Moabites were known for their pride. They were known
because God had not afflicted them as he had Israel. And they
were known for their ease. They lived a life of ease and
therefore they were content. This pictures the world. They
were brought down, these people left Bethlehem, Judah in famine,
brought into the world and there God took away from Naomi her
husband and her two sons, and she was left alone with her two
daughters-in-law. And were it not for God's grace,
she would have been left alone there in Moab, but she heard
that there was bread back in Bethlehem. And she heard this,
and so she rose up to leave Moab with her two daughters-in-law,
and they started to leave with her too, and she told them, now
you return to your own houses. Return to the houses of your
husbands. Return to your mother's house.
Return to your people. And without saying it, she was
saying, return to your gods. And at first, Orpah and Ruth
both said, or Orpah said, no, we don't want to leave you. She
wept, Orpah wept, and Ruth wept. But then Naomi said it again,
go back to your family. Go back to your people. And so
Orpah did. She went back. And this shows
that some people come into contact in the course of their life with
the gospel. They hear the good news. And
they're acquainted with those who are God's people. And they find great benefit in
being associated with them, and they even become close friends
with them. But eventually, in their heart,
they turn back to the world and to the gods of this world, which
are the gods of our own makings, the works of our own hands. They're
content to live and to feed upon a religion that blesses men for
what they do rather than the truth, which is we receive blessing
only for what Christ has done. And so Orpah left Naomi, but
Ruth stuck to her. She claved to her. She clung
to her, and she was determined not to leave her. And we saw
that in this that the believer is seen here cleaving to and
clinging to the Lord Jesus Christ. Naomi was the one who taught
her daughter-in-laws about the gospel. She had no doubt told
them about the promises that God made to Abraham, how he would
justify the heathen through faith. This was the central truth of
the gospel, the justification of God's people because of the
Lord Jesus Christ and his righteousness and his blood shed. And so hearing
this, Ruth clung to her, and she would not leave her. And
we see that this resolve on Ruth's part is the work of God in the
believer, to cling to Christ, to follow him, to trust him. As Ramel mentioned earlier, Jesus
promised, come unto me all you who labor and are heavy laden,
and I will give you rest. And this is the will of him that
sent me that everyone that he has given me would come to me
and him that cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out. The Lord
Jesus Christ is the bread from heaven. And so every believer
like Ruth speaks this way in verse 15 and 16 of chapter one. Let's read this. She said, Ruth
said, behold, I mean, Naomi said to Ruth, behold, thy sister-in-law
is gone back to her people and to her gods. Return thou after
thy sister-in-law. And Ruth said, entreat me not
to leave thee, or 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. Where thou diest
will I die, and there will I be buried. The Lord do so to me,
and more also, if ought but death, part thee and me. We could go
over this particular scripture week after week and never wear
it out, couldn't we? What is Ruth saying here? Well,
she's saying she's speaking by the Spirit of God. There's no
question about that, but she's speaking by the Spirit of God
of what the believer does in their heart by the work of God.
How could she come up with these things? How could she of herself
speak this way? Well, she couldn't because as
it says in Philippians 2 verse 12 and 13, it is God which is
at work in you both to will and to do His good pleasure. So Ruth spoke out of God's work
in her. And so what we see here in this
is that following Christ is the fruit that He Himself produces
as the gift of his operation in the hearts of his people.
You see, and that fruit is faith in coming to Christ. We come
to him. And then what do we do? We abide.
We walk by faith in the son of God. We walk by the faith of
the son of God, as it says in Galatians 2.20. So she said here,
if you just note this in verse 16, she says, where you go, I will
go. Now, what's she saying there?
Well, she's saying that normally we live our lives making choices
and going places as we would want to. The course of our life
is directed by us. But Ruth is saying, no, I'm going
to forfeit. I'm going to relinquish control. I'm going to give up my choice
for another. Someone else can direct me now.
And she she bound herself to Naomi in love, and she was willing
and happy to be directed over the course of her life in whatever
way God led her through Naomi. And so you see that here. Where
you go, I will go. Not only that, That's what we
do, right? When the Lord Jesus Christ arrests
us, and He discovers our sin to us, and we know we have no
hope, but what we have in Him, all of our life we want to have
this one desire to be with Him, don't we? To go where He goes.
And this is what she expresses here. We relinquish our will
to the will of Christ. We commit the course of our life
to the course Christ has determined. Isn't that what we want? We give
up control of our way to walk in Christ's way. That's what
it means where she says, Whither thou goest? And how can we do
this? Well, God has to work this in
us. It doesn't come from us. And if we lack this, or if we
desire this, what should we do? Go to the giver of all good gifts
and ask him to give us, to persuade us, to incline our hearts, to
open them, and to keep us in the way. As it says in 1 Peter
1.5, we're kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation,
ready to be revealed in the last time. So she says this, wherever
you go, that's where I want to go. And then she says, where
you lodge, where you stay, where you dwell, I want to abide with
you. And this is what the believer
says also, doesn't he? Now, coming to Christ is not
a one time act. It's an ongoing following, coming
and staying with, believing and walking in this faith. It says
in Psalm 27, One thing have I desired of the Lord, and that will I
seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all
the days of my life. Isn't that what she's saying
here? Where you lodge, where you dwell, where you live, that's
where I want to be. We want to be with Christ, don't
we? I want to be there. If we're with Him, if we're with
the Lord Jesus Christ and He is with us, it doesn't matter
where you live, does it? You can live in the farthest
reaches of this world, whether it's cold or hot or you're destitute. If Christ is there, then all
is well. But if you live in the palaces
of this world and Christ is not there, what do you have? You
have nothing. but something that's fading and
perishing. And so she says this, where you
go, I will go. Where you stay, that's where
I want to live. And she says, thy people shall
be my people. Now, this is what the Lord says
to his people. Following Christ is joining his
family as our family. We leave father and mother and
brothers and sisters. Not that we leave our relatives.
We don't walk away from our relatives. But what we do is we leave their
gods. We leave the idols and the religion
of this world for Christ. And when our brothers and sisters
or our mother and father happen to be unbelievers, Are we going
to attend the place of their false religion? Or are we going
to separate and go to that place where Christ is preached? Just
as a matter of fact, we're gonna go where Christ is preached because
the Lord's people now are our family, okay? And this is important. Jesus said, if any man come to
me and hate not his father and mother and wife and children
and brethren and sisters, yea, his own life also, he cannot
be my disciple. And to our beloved families in
this world, when they see us so committed to Christ, let's
say for example, Can you get together with us this Sunday?
Well, no, I was going to go to church this Sunday. You know
I always go there to meet with God's people, to hear the gospel.
Wow, you mean you're going to go there instead of meeting with
us? Boy, what kind of a son or daughter
are you? Well, I'm committed to Christ.
But they don't understand that. And so they say, they must hate
us. This whole religion that they
have now, they now hate us. And so they view it that way.
In comparison to our love for Christ, we have to separate ourselves
from those who forsake him. It says also, Jesus was asked
who, he said to them, someone said to them, to Jesus, that
his mother was blessed And he said, no, whosoever shall do
the will of my Father in heaven the same as my brother, my sister,
and my mother. It's not a physical relationship
that is the binding union between us and God's people. What is
it? It's the Spirit of God. It's
the gospel. It's faith in Christ. These things that God has given
to us. And all who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ are the
brother, sister, and mother of the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus
said that doing the will of God, in one place, he said, there
are my brother, sister, and mother, those that do the will of my
Father in heaven. And we know from John 6, verse 40, that God's
work for us is to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. That's
the will of him that sent me, Jesus said, to see the Son and
to believe on him, and you may have everlasting life. So you
can see this in Ruth. She is committed to adopt the
family of Naomi and also that Naomi's God would be her God. She had heard of him and now
she's not going to leave him. And this is the God of the Bible,
the God of Scripture, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ. When we come to Christ, we are delighted to know that
the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ is our God and our
Father, don't we? And this is what God has promised
His people. He would be a God to us and we
would be His people. And so she's really acknowledging
in her resolve and the firm commitment she's making to Naomi, the work
and operation of God's Spirit in her upon hearing of what Naomi
told her about God's word, of his blessing on Israel to justify
a people to the Lord Jesus Christ and all that comes with it, their
inheritance, and so she's committed to that. And notice in verse
17, Where you die, I will die. This is a lifelong commitment,
isn't it? It's not just a one shot where we get an emotional
response and we go sell everything we have and then a month or two
later we go, oh shoot, what did I do that for? No, this is a
lifelong commitment. This is following Christ to the
very end. We have no other hope. And so
his words are our life. Peter said that. You have the
words of eternal life. And this is God's work in us.
What a blessed work it is. This is the operation of God
in his redeemed, to bring them to Christ. And it's expressed
in the exercise of faith when she speaks this way. She's not
working this up. It's not a hard thing for her
to do. She wants this. The working of God to will and
do His good pleasure makes us willing in the day of His power,
doesn't it? That's what Psalm 110 says, my people shall be
willing in the day of His power. And so we see this here and it's
throughout scripture. All right, verse 18. So when
Naomi saw that she was steadfast, when Ruth was steadfastly minded
to go with her, then she left speaking to her. So the trial
of her faith now was over in that sense. So they went, the
two, 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 they said, is this Naomi?
And she said to them, call me not Naomi, call me Mara, for
the Almighty hath dealt very bitterly with me." So here we
see Naomi expressing the way that God in his providence had
brought trouble in her life. And this trouble was a bitter
affliction. It wasn't easy. It was hard.
It was a heavy hand of affliction in her life. But Naomi is returning
now to go to Bethlehem. She heard that there's bread
in Bethlehem. She's lost everything in Moab. She returns to the house
of bread, to the people of God. And she's old now. Ruth had been
married for 10 years to her son, Malon. So Naomi's sons were obviously
grown men, had been for 10 years. So Naomi is old enough now that
she can't have any more children. And so she's bitter. I mean,
the Lord had dealt with her bitterly. And so what we see here in the
prophecy of Scripture is that God's people in the Old Testament
cannot produce the fruit that God determined to produce through
the union of the Redeemer with His people called the Church
of God in the New Testament. In other words, The fruit to
God that would come out of the gospel when Christ would come
would not come until the Redeemer came, until his people were called
and brought into that relationship with Christ, which is pictured
by Ruth being joined to Boaz. And Naomi then, in this sense,
is as the Old Testament saints who speak by the Spirit of God
of a Redeemer, but they themselves experience great bitterness because
of our fall into sin and the affliction that comes out of
that, and there's no hope outside of the Redeemer. But she speaks
now on this way of the bitterness that God had brought into her
life in order to set up the redemption here. So that's the way we experience
it too in our own life, this bitter affliction, as Ramel even
read about in Matthew 11, 28, come unto me all you who labor,
and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." The rest of the
Redeemer. Going on, it says in verse 21,
Naomi describes the bitterness. She says, I went out full, and
the Lord has brought me home again empty. Why then call ye
me Naomi? Which means pleasant. Seeing
the Lord has testified against me, and the Almighty has afflicted
me. So Naomi returned, and Ruth the Moabitess, her daughter-in-law
with her, which returned out of the country of Moab, and they
came to Bethlehem in the beginning of barley harvest." Now, Ruth
is a young woman. Naomi is an older woman. But
Ruth, notice, when you read this book of Scripture, notice the
disposition that Ruth has. She's so humble. She's so committed
to Naomi in love. that she's willing to give up
her own life for the sake of her mother-in-law. That's a commitment,
isn't it? And it's a lifelong commitment,
she's determined to do this. And we're gonna see that as we
go through chapter two now, we're gonna see that Boaz makes mention
of that, this operation of God in Ruth that caused her to commit
herself to Naomi for life, even to the laying down of her own
course of life and the labors of her life for Naomi because
of her love for Naomi and ultimately for Naomi's God and her people. And so, this happens now. They come back to Bethlehem.
When? When did they come back? It says, in the beginning of
barley harvest. Now, look with me at Leviticus
chapter 23, and we'll see a timing here that helps to set up the
prophecy in its fulfillment that's very instructive and comforting
to us, so that we see that all of the Old Testament law and
the prophets spoke of the Lord Jesus Christ. It says in Leviticus
chapter 23, the Lord spoke to Moses saying, speak to the children
of Israel and say to them concerning the feast of the Lord, which
you shall proclaim to be holy convocations, even these are
my feasts. And he goes to the first one,
six days shall work be done, but the seventh is a Sabbath
of rest, a holy convocation, you shall do no work therein,
it is the Sabbath of the Lord in all your dwellings. What does
Matthew 11, 28 say? Coming to me all you who labor
and are heavy laden and I will give you what? Rest. The Lord Jesus Christ is our
rest. Those who believe in him, as it says in Hebrews chapter
four, have ceased from their own works as God did from his.
He is our Sabbath. So the Lord Jesus Christ is our
rest. Verse four. These are the feasts of the Lord,
even the holy convocations, which you shall proclaim in their seasons.
Notice the first one. In the 14th day of the first
month, at even is the Lord's Passover. What was Passover? Well, they were in Egypt. The
children of Israel were in Egypt. God brought them out of Egypt,
out of bondage. And they would have died there
had the Lord not brought them out. But in bringing them out,
He was going to destroy their enemies. But rather than destroying
the people of Israel with their enemies, He gave them the blood
of the Lamb to sprinkle on the doorposts of their house. And
when God saw the blood, then He did not destroy them, but
passed over their houses. And this was called the Passover.
In 1 Corinthians 5, 7 in the New Testament, Christ is our
Passover. He was sacrificed for us. No
question that this is speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ in prophecy. God said, when I see the blood,
I will pass over you. And in the gospel, when God sees
the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, not our worthiness, not our works,
nothing in us, but his blood alone, he passes by us. He doesn't visit us for our iniquities. He doesn't bring condemnation
upon us. He washes us from our sins in his blood. And this is
the work of God. This is the Lord's Passover.
It speaks of Christ. The first feast then on the 14th
day of the month at even was speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ. Do you know, just before the
Lord Jesus went to the cross, the very night of Passover, when
they were going to take the lamb and then kill it, that very night
Christ was taken by the soldiers who took Him to the high priest,
who condemned Him to death, and turned Him over to Pilate and
Herod, and they put Him to death Friday morning. And so this is
speaking about how Christ fulfilled the Passover. And he then instituted
the Lord's Supper. He said to his disciples, that
very night, when they ate the last Passover, he said, now,
you take this bread, which is my broken body, and eat it. And
you take this wine, which is the New Testament in my blood,
and you drink it. Because this is the new covenant
now. And so we see it fulfilled in
Christ. So, in verse 6 of Leviticus 23, it says, So this is the day
after the Passover. In the first day you shall have
a holy convocation, you shall do no servile work therein, you
shall offer an offering made by fire to the Lord seven days,
and the seventh day is a holy convocation, you shall do no
servile work therein. And the Lord spake to Moses saying,
speak to the children of Israel and say to them, when you come
into the land which I give you and you shall reap the harvest
thereof, then shall you bring a sheaf of the first fruits of
your harvest unto the priest. And he shall wave the sheaf before
the Lord to be accepted for you on the morrow after the Sabbath
shall the priest wave it. And you shall offer that day
when you wave the sheaf a helam without blemish the first year
for burnt offering to the Lord and so on. So what was this?
This was called the first fruits, the harvest of the first fruits.
And when did it occur? It occurred on the Sunday after
Passover. They would begin to offer, they
would begin to bring in the first sheaf from the field. The harvest
would begin then, and they would wave it, the priest would wave
it, and they would be accepted because the first fruit was lifted
up by the high priest or the priest, and they would be accepted
because of that. So what is this? What happened
after the Passover in time, in history, at the cross? The Lord
Jesus Christ was crucified. He was put in the tomb. And on
the first day of the week, what happened? He rose from the dead. And it says in 1 Corinthians
chapter 15, let me read this to you in verse 20. He says,
but now is Christ risen from the dead and become the firstfruits
of them that slept. You see that? So he is the firstfruits
in verse 23. Every man in his own order, Christ,
the firstfruits after they that are Christ at his coming. The
resurrection of Christ is the fulfillment of this text of scripture
in Leviticus 23, the firstfruits. He's the high priest. He was
accepted. We're justified. It says in Romans
4.25, He was delivered for our offenses. He was raised again
for our justification. The first fruits. And so this
took place in the beginning of harvest. in the beginning of
harvest. And then in verse 15 of Leviticus
23, you shall count to you from the morrow after the Sabbath,
from the day that you brought the sheaf of the wave offering,
seven Sabbaths, seven weeks, shall be complete, even unto
the morrow after the seventh Sabbath, which would be a Sunday,
shall you number 50 days, 50, and you shall offer a new meat
offering unto the Lord, and so on. And then he goes in verse
17, you shall bring out of your habitations two loaves of two-tenth
deals. They shall be a fine flour. They
shall be bacon with leaven. They are the first fruits unto
the Lord. Now, look at Acts chapter 2. In Acts chapter 2, notice what happens there. It
says in Acts chapter 2 verse 1, and when the day of what?
Pentecost. That's the 50th. The day of Pentecost,
the 50th day from the Sunday after the Passover. So that would have been the 50th
day from that first fruit waving. And what happened at Pentecost?
The Holy Spirit of God was poured out. Why? Why was the Holy Spirit
of God given? Because the Lord Jesus Christ
had been glorified. He had finished the work of our
redemption. He had taken his seat at the
right hand of God. He had been given all power in
heaven and earth, and he sent his Spirit into the world given
to his disciples, the apostles, to preach the gospel so that
what would happen is the harvest of souls would be gathered through
that work. So Pentecost marks the time in
history when the fulfillment of the prophecy of Leviticus
23, 15 happened, which was the Spirit of God poured out because
Christ rules. He reigns on. Look at John chapter
7. John chapter 7. Jesus told His disciples this
in a few places, many times in Scripture. He told them, unless
I go away, the Spirit of God can't come. Remember in John
14, 15, and 16? Look at this in John chapter
7. And verse 37, in the last day, that great day of the feast,
Jesus stood and cried, saying, if any man thirst, let him come
unto me and drink. He that believeth on me, as the
scripture has said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living
water. But, verse 39, John 7, 39, this
spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him
should receive, for the Holy Ghost was not yet given, because
that Jesus was not yet glorified. Why was he glorified? Because
he obtained our eternal redemption. Look at Hebrews chapter nine. Hebrews chapter nine, he says
this in verse 12, In verse 11, he says, Christ
being come, and high priest of good things, to come by a greater
and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is
to say, not of this building, Hebrews 9, 12, neither by the
blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in
once into the holy place, that would be heaven itself, in the
presence of God, having obtained Eternal redemption for us. You see that? Christ, who did
he offer himself to? To God. What did he offer? Himself
in blood, his life given. What did he accomplish in that?
He accomplished a redemption and he obtained it. Eternal redemption. He says in verse 13 of Hebrews
9, for if the blood of bulls and of goats and the ashes of
a heifer sprinkling the unclean sanctify it to the purifying
of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through
the eternal spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your
conscience from dead works to serve the living God. Isn't that
what redemption results in? Our freedom to live to God. He says, I died to the law, Galatians
2.19, for I through the law am dead to the law that I might
live to God. But how can I do that? Because
I'm crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live, yet not
I, but Christ liveth in me. All right? The life I now live,
I live by the faith of the Son of God. But in verse 15, Hebrews
9, 15, for this cause, He, Christ, is the mediator of the New Testament,
for by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions
that were under the First Testament. What did He redeem us from? Our
transgressions. And what were those transgressions?
What did we transgress? We transgressed the law of God,
the first covenant. But Christ, by shedding His blood
for us, notice now. Christ, by Himself, by shedding
His blood for us, has redeemed us from our sins, our transgressions. He says the same thing in Titus
2.14, He has redeemed us from all iniquity. He redeemed us
from the curse of the law, Galatians 3.13, and the bondage to it,
the bondage to Satan, the fear of death in Hebrews 2.14. We're
redeemed from all these things and all of it by the blood of
the Lord Jesus Christ, shed for us when he offered himself as
a ransom to God. A ransom price was paid. Now,
back to Ruth chapter one, so now Naomi returned and Ruth the
Moabitess, her daughter-in-law with her, which returned out
of the country of Moab and notice the time, and they came to Bethlehem
in the beginning of barley harvest. In the New Testament now, what
does that correspond to? The resurrection of the first
fruits, the Lord Jesus Christ. She came to the land of Bethlehem,
the house of bread, because bread was there, because Christ would
die and give His life for us. And we would eat that bread,
His broken body, and drink that blood. We would believe on Him
that His life shed for our atonement to God would be all of our salvation. And we would live upon Him by
faith. And so they hear this. This is the gospel declaration.
It's the beginning of bodily harvest, Christ would accomplish
the work, He would be enthroned, and because of that His Spirit
would be sent, and there would be blessing, harvest, and the
riches of our Savior would be given out, and the one who would
be redeemed would receive the benefit of His redeeming work. Now verse, chapter 2, verse 1.
Naomi had a kinsman. of her husband's, a mighty man
of wealth, of the family of Elimelech, and his name was Boaz. Boaz means strength, the strength. And it says he was a mighty man
of wealth. Remember when we first started
in the book of Ruth, we were in First Peter. Let me read that
to you so you get the connection here. First Peter chapter one,
listen to these words. For as much as you know that
you were not redeemed with corruptible things as silver and gold, whoever
has silver and gold in this world is a wealthy person. If you have
a lot of silver and gold, you're a wealthy person. But you weren't
redeemed with the wealth of this world, right? Nope, those things
are corruptible. You were redeemed from your vain
conversation but that you received from your fathers, but you were
redeemed with what? Something that's worth, that's
priceless. Something which if you, if it
could be paid, would indicate the wealth of the one who paid
it. In Ruth 2, in verse 1, it says
that Boaz was a mighty man of wealth. In 1 Peter 1, it says
in verse 19, you were redeemed with the precious blood of Christ. You see? The Lord Jesus Christ
is the wealthy man. He paid a price. Everything that
he had. the wealthiest of all, he paid
himself, he gave his precious blood, and he was as a lamb without
blemish and without spot. Do you know what's required for
a man to be a redeemer? Because the word here, Naomi
had a kinsman, it's really the word redeemer. It's used throughout
scripture as Redeemer. It means one who can redeem.
Do you know what's required for someone to be a Redeemer? How
can this be? How could God take the debt of
one poor sinner and place it as the debt of another? How can
this happen? Well, we know that it can only
happen if the one who is designated as the Redeemer has no debt to
pay of his own. In 1 Peter 1, we just saw as
the precious blood of a lamb without spot. He had no debt. He came into this world not as
a debtor. He had no sin. Second Corinthians
521, he who knew no sin became sin for us. You see, a debt was
paid, laid on him that was not his by anything he did. The Lord has laid our transgressions
on him. He bore our iniquities, but they
weren't his by committing them. They were his because he had
no debt of his own. Therefore, he could bear them.
So he must first have no debt. Second, he must be a near relative. In Hebrews chapter 2, we see
that the Lord Jesus Christ, because we were partakers of flesh and
blood, he also himself took part of the same. He became our near
relative in the pledge he made with God for his people in eternity. And when he came into the world,
he took our nature, that he might die and redeem us from death. So he must be a near relative,
he must be qualified as his relation to us, and he must be able to
pay the debt of his indebted relative. Mustn't he? If he isn't
able, it says in Psalm 49 that no man can redeem his brother
for their life is precious. But the Lord Jesus Christ was
able to pay. And fourthly, he must be willing
to pay. He might have all the wealth,
as we're going to see in Ruth chapter 4, but be unwilling to
pay. Or not be able to, but he had
to be willing. And the law of God must allow
the payment. God's law had to be kept. The
Redeemer had to redeem in accordance with God's law. So he had to
be no debt of his own, a near relative, able to pay, willing
to pay, and do so according to God's law, which the Lord Jesus
Christ did. Because he came into the world,
he was made under the law. He fulfilled the law, and he
redeemed us from the curse of the law. And secondly, I mean,
not secondly, but next, the Redeemer must act according to and in
fulfillment of God's everlasting covenant. And this is what the
Lord Jesus Christ did. God must accept the Redeemer
and God must accept the ransom the Redeemer gives. And that's
the only way we can have redemption. Now, that's what we're going
to see here in the man Boaz. Naomi had this near relative,
a kinsman, a redeemer of her husband's, Elimelech. And this
man, Boaz, was a mighty man of wealth, as the Lord Jesus Christ
was able to spend the greatest price possible required to pay
for our redemption, the ransom price. And he was of the family
of Elimelech, and his name was Boaz. And so I want to stop there,
and we'll get to the rest of this next time. In chapter two
is where we're going to be. And we'll see amazing things
here about how God redeems his people, their redemption in Christ,
and how this comes to them, and all that's with that. It's delightful.
Let's pray. Lord, thank you for the great
Redeemer, our Lord Jesus Christ. He took on our cause, He took
our nature, He took our debt, and He, as a mighty man of wealth,
was able to pay the price of our redemption, a price that
even God in all of His holiness accepted and set free those who
were bound by the debt and by the prison that they had brought
themselves into by their sin and the ruin they were in, the
hopelessness and helplessness they were in. God, in His grace,
has intervened to redeem us by the blood of His precious Son.
What a gospel, what a Savior. Help us, Lord, to rest in Him,
to come to Him. To come to Him, Lord, according
to Your grace in us. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.