Ruth chapter four, and we'll
read from verse one. Then went Boaz up to the gate,
and sat him down there. And behold, the kinsman of whom
Boaz spake came by, and to whom he said, ho, such a one, turn
aside, sit down here. And he turned aside and sat down. And he took ten men of the elders
of the city, and said, Sit ye down here. And they sat down. And he said unto the kinsman,
Naomi, that is come again out of the country of Moab, selleth
a parcel of land, which was our brother Elimelech's. And I thought
to advertise these, saying, Buy it before the inhabitants, and
before the elders of my people. If thou wilt redeem it, redeem
it, but if thou wilt not redeem it, then tell me that I may know,
for there is none to redeem it beside thee, and I am after thee. And he said, I will redeem it. Then said Boaz, What day thou
buy'st the field of the hand of Naomi, thou must buy it also
of Ruth the Moabites, the wife of the dead, to raise up the
name of the dead upon his inheritance. And the kinsman said, I cannot
redeem it for myself, lest I mar my own inheritance. Redeem thou
my right to thyself, for I cannot redeem it. Now this was the manner
in former time in Israel concerning redeeming and concerning changing.
For to confirm all things, a man plucked off his shoe and gave
it to his neighbour. And this was a testimony in Israel. Therefore the kinsman said unto
Boaz, Buy it for thee. So he drew off his shoe. And
Boaz said unto the elders and unto all the people, ye are witnesses
this day that I have bought all that was Elimelech's and all
that was Chilean's and Malon's of the hand of Naomi. Moreover,
Ruth the Moabites, the wife of Malon, have I purchased to be
my wife, to raise up the name of the dead upon his inheritance,
that the name of the dead be not cut off from among his brethren,
and from the gate of his place. Ye are witnesses this day. And
all the people that were in the gate and the elders said, We
are witnesses. The Lord make the woman that
is come into thine house like Rachel and like Leah, which too
did build the house of Israel. And do thou worthily in Ephrathah,
and be famous in Bethlehem. and let thy house be like the
house of Phares, whom Temar bare unto Judah, of the seat which
the Lord shall give thee of this young woman. So Boaz took Ruth,
and she was his wife, and when he went in unto her, the Lord
gave her conception, and she bare a son. And the women said
unto Naomi, Blessed be the Lord, which hath not left thee this
day without a kinsman, that his name may be famous in Israel. And he shall be unto thee a restorer
of thy life and a nourisher of thine old age, for thy daughter-in-law,
which loveth thee, which is better to thee than seven sons, hath
borne him. And Naomi took the child and
laid it in her bosom, and became nurse unto it. And the women,
her neighbours, gave it a name, saying, There is a son born to
Naomi. And they called his name Obed. He is the father of Jesse, the
father of David. Now these are the generations
of Fares. Fares begat Hezron, and Hezron
begat Ram, and Ram begat Aminadab, and Aminadab begat Nashon, and
Nashon begat Salmon, and Salmon begat Boaz, and Boaz begat Obed,
and Obed begat Jesse, and Jesse begat David. Amen. May the Lord bless to us this
reading from his word. Hi Ian, good to see you. We've
got, once again, the opportunity of thinking about this couple,
Boaz and Ruth. And Boaz, perhaps you'll remember
from last week, Boaz had promised Ruth that he would resolve the
matter of her marriage rights by the end of the day. And so at once he put in motion
the business with the next of kin. This man that he needed
to see to discuss this matter of the parcel of land and the
relationship that Ruth would have with that land was a closer
relation to Elimelech. that is Naomi's dead husband
and her two dead sons. So this man, and it's not clear
just exactly what that relationship might be, it's not specified,
but it is possible that this man, we don't know his name,
this closer kinsmen, closer than Boaz, it is possible that this
man and Elimelech and Boaz were all brothers and that they do
speak about a brother. but that could equally have just
been a mark of respect in that they were all local people and
had a degree of reverence one for another. However, be that
as it may, if this man was the older of the brethren between
him and Boaz, then he would have rights to Elimelech's property. And that was the reason why there
was this closer kinsman as far as the matter of Ruth was concerned. So Boaz went to the gate of the
city and there he waited for the relative to pass. And we're
told that there's a little behold in here, in the opening verse. And that kind of suggests that
there was a little bit of divine intervention in this matter. It's as if to say, behold, the
Lord brought this man to speak to Boaz. And when Boaz saw him,
he invited him to sit with him in the gate beside the entrance
to the town or the city, just a small city. And Boaz also called
10 witnesses to listen to their conversation and to witness,
attest the outcome of their discussion. And at first, Boaz doesn't mention
anything to do with Ruth. He spoke of Naomi's land and
he spoke of her desire to sell her rights to that land. And the relative, who I say is
not named, he is eager to buy this land. And perhaps he thought
that he might get a good deal if Naomi was impoverished, if she was in dire
straits, if she needed to sell quickly, maybe he would get a
good deal and make himself and his family a little bit more
prosperous. So he claimed the right of the
near kinsman and he agreed that he would buy Naomi's parcel of
land. But then Boaz spoke again, and
he said this, What day thou buyest the field of the hand of Naomi,
thou must buy it also of Ruth the Moabites. the wife of the
dead, to raise up the name of the dead upon his inheritance. Here was a condition to the purchase
of this land. This condition was attached to
the sale of the property. To redeem the land, you must
buy it from Ruth as well. and you must marry and raise
up a son to her to keep alive the memory of Marlon's name,
her dead husband. This was different now. This
was a condition that the near kinsman or the nearer kinsman
was not able to comply with. The man wanted the land but he
did not want a wife. He did not want to mar his own
inheritance and perhaps disrupt his own family. And probably
he didn't want to be left to care for both Ruth and Naomi. The kinsman said, I don't want
to do that. And he looked at Boaz and he
said, you buy the land yourself. And so Boaz did. Before all the
witnesses, Boaz announced that he would redeem the land and
with it, take Ruth to be his wife, with all the obligations
that that brought. And it was a popular marriage. And all the locals wished Boaz
and Ruth well for their future and that they might have a large
family. And that blessing was soon realised
because we are told that the Lord gave Ruth a son. That's worth remembering that
it was the Lord that gave her this son. People just think that
they go ahead and they have children or they don't have children but
even children are a blessing from the Lord and the Lord blessed
Ruth with this son. Boaz was happy, Ruth was happy
and Naomi was happy. Naomi became nurse to the child
and that was to the delight of all her friends and neighbours.
They called the child Obed. You remember we spoke about names
having meaning in the Bible. Well, Obed means service. And it seems to have been given
because the friends of Naomi realised that here was a child
born, a young man given to this family who would be a support
and a help and of service to the family and perhaps specifically
to Naomi in years to come. and she who had lost everything
now was blessed by this young child that was placed into her
arms. And the chapter ends with a genealogy,
the genealogy or the history of the family of a man called
Phares. Phares, son of Judah, son of
Jacob. And it goes all the way to David,
the king of Israel, by which we see that Ruth, the Moabites,
was in the direct line of King David. Now, here's a couple of
lessons that I want us to draw from this happy end of this beautiful
history of Ruth. The first thing is this. that
the Lord takes care of his people. This is something that I want
us just to remember. It's very simple, it's very easy,
it's not a great big sophisticated or complicated idea. The Lord
takes care of his people. Ruth was a foreigner in a strange
land. She was young, she was poor,
and she had already known hardship and loss and regret and no doubt
confusion in her short life. And let us not forget that these
people knew sadness, knew the emotions of life just like us. But Ruth also had faith in God. And no doubt she learned about
God from Naomi. But I want us to step back even
further than Naomi. Naomi was the person that God
used to bring this Moabitess girl into his family. Ruth had married into the family
of Elimelech, but she was adopted into the family of God by grace,
and God looked after her. When Ruth was hurt and grieving,
God was with her. When her life changed radically,
God was with her. When she went gleaning barley
in this strange country, God was with her, though she knew
it not. God was working out His plan
in her life. Trusting the Lord is trusting
Him when we don't know what's happening. If you see everything,
if you understand everything, if you know everything, if everything's
obvious and given to you on a plate, then you don't have any need
to trust the Lord. But it's when we're down, it's
when we are hurting, it's when we have doubts, it's when we
are challenged, it's when we have problems, that trusting
in the Lord comes to the fore. Trusting in Him when we don't
know what's happening. Leaning on Him when things are
hard. Relying on Him when life gets
confusing. It is trusting the Lord that
knows what He is doing. Trusting in the Lord that cares
for us, that He will bring us good out of every situation. Ruth could not imagine how her
life would turn out but she trusted and she honoured the Lord and
the Lord honoured and blessed her. So whatever is happening
in your life right now, I want you to remember Ruth. The Lord
loves you and he will prove his faithfulness to you as you trust
in him. Another thing that I want us
just to note in this little account is this aspect of the kinsman
redeemer. This is what Boaz was for Ruth. He was to her a kinsman redeemer. The event that we have before
us today in this chapter where Boaz bought the piece of ground
from Naomi and Ruth and with it redeemed Ruth and married
her is a beautiful spiritual picture of our redemption by
the Lord Jesus Christ. Now the circumstances of Boaz's
redemption and marriage to Ruth followed the pattern of the customs
of the time. But what that points to, remember
we talk about the type is the picture and the anti-type is
the fulfilment of the reality. What that type points to, what
the anti-type is, is seen in Christ redeeming and marrying
his bride, the church. The Lord Jesus Christ took all
the sin that we inherited from Adam and he made it his own. The Lord Jesus Christ lifted
us from poverty and helplessness. He adopted us into his family. For the love that the Lord Jesus
Christ felt toward us, he made himself poor that we might be
made rich. The redemption price of our salvation
was the precious blood of our kinsman, Redeemer. Zacharias, the father of John
the Baptist, he said this when John the Baptist was born and
when he was anticipating also the Lord Jesus Christ. He says
this in Luke chapter one, verse 68. Blessed be the Lord God of
Israel. for he hath visited and redeemed
his people. So that the Boaz Ruth story is
a picture of what the Lord Jesus Christ has done for his people. He has redeemed us by his blood
on the cross. That's what the Lord Jesus Christ
did. The Lord Jesus Christ came into this world to save sinners. This is a real salvation by a
real redeemer from real punishment to real glory. And the picture
of Boaz and Ruth points to what the Lord has done and the real
work. of Christ on the cross is far
greater than the picture that we've been thinking about together.
The Lord Jesus Christ took our flesh. He made himself our near
kinsman by taking our flesh, by coming in our bodies into
this world, into this time. The eternal God coming as a man
in order to make himself one with us. and make himself that
near kinsman so that he could redeem us from our sins, so that
he could set us free from the bondage of our sin. Boaz was
Ruth's near kinsman, redeemer. I hope that the Lord Jesus Christ
is yours. And just quickly, a third and
final point here. We end this chapter with a short
history of the whole family, the genealogy of the family. But really, this is speaking
to us about the genealogy of the Lord Jesus Christ. And here's
what I mean by that. This is the end of the story
of Ruth. maybe seems to sort of end in
a kind of odd way. It gives the genealogy of King
David. I don't know about you, but I
remember when I was a lot younger, a lot younger, and we would come
to these genealogies in the Bible if we were reading them someplace,
and all these complicated names, and it would seem so boring,
all these strange names. But actually, this might have
been the whole reason that the Book of Ruth was written. Because
it shows King David's ancestry all the way back to Judah. Judah was the tribe of which
David was a part. So it shows David's ancestry
all the way back to Judah. And Judah, as you'll remember,
was the son of Jacob, who was the son of Isaac, who was the
son of Abraham. So this is taking us all the
way back to the very beginning of the history of the children
of Israel. And that's probably why this
account is written and inserted into the scriptures, that we
might see this continuity in the life of David's ancestry. A kind of pedigree, if you like.
And there's a remarkable aspect to this, because a number of
the people that are included in this genealogy, a lady called
Temar, who deceived Judah, a lady called Rahab, who was a harlot,
an innkeeper in Jericho, and Ruth herself, a Moabitess, They
feature in this list, although they were all Gentiles and they
all had a history of idolatry or morality or whatever it might
be, which showed that they were sinners. But most important in
this is what is discovered later in the scriptures. But this isn't
just the genealogy of David. It is the genealogy which is
the line of the Lord Jesus Christ. And here we see The big lesson,
the main point, here we see God's will being worked out in securing
the line of the promised Messiah. Right down through the ages,
from the very beginning of Israel to the Lord Jesus Christ himself
and it's notable that Rahab and Ruth being Gentiles are recorded
in the Saviour's ancestry and Jesus was rightly called the
son of David to emphasise his own royal pedigree. Hebrews tells
us that God the Father prepared a body for the Lord Jesus Christ
to show that he really was a man and to show that he really was
an eligible kinsman to redeem us from our sins. And that preparation,
the preparing of the body of the Lord Jesus Christ, it took
place when the Holy Spirit visited Mary. But it also took place
in the book of God's purposes and decrees. It took place in
the council and in the covenant of grace. And the great purpose
of God is unfolding and seemed to unfold in the histories of
men and women and boys and girls throughout the whole of scripture. with the great end being the
redemption of sinners and the salvation of the church by the
Lord Jesus Christ. The history of Ruth is a beautiful
story of a young woman who found grace in the sight of God and
who despite a troubled start to life was brought into the
family of God and the line of Christ's ancestry. it's more
than that. It points us to the redeeming
work of our Saviour on the cross by which the sins of God's elect
are forever taken away and cancelled. As God gave grace to Ruth to
believe in him, May he give us grace as well to trust in Christ
and the power of his great redemptive sacrifice for sin. Amen.