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12.11.22 Ruth 2 Pastor Danny Gardner · HBCWestminster

• 0:00
  Well, Ruth chapter 2, I've titled this morning's message, Prince Charming. Prince Charming, and it may feel at times like our Heavenly Father gives us way too much to carry. Does that ever feel like that? Like you've got a thousand balls in the air, and if you, even for a moment, take your eyes off of one, they will all come crashing down to the floor. And it may feel like you're doing too much, being asked too much, that God maybe has too high an expectation on us.
• 0:28
  About 25 years ago, when Hallie and I were newly married, we decided to take a group of high school students backpacking. About half a dozen guys, half a dozen girls, these high schoolers were all going to go backpacking with us. And we told them all, you know, it's going to be a very rigorous hike. This is going to be difficult. And so don't overpack your backpacks. Make sure that they're not too heavy. You don't want to bring anything that you're not going to use.
• 0:52
  The night before all of those kids are pre-packing their backpacks, we told them it's going to be a very early wake-up call the next day. Set your alarms early. We're meeting at the church early. And two of the boys that I was responsible for were both seniors. They were best friends, and they were cousins. Their dads were brothers.
• 1:06
  And so they decided, we're going to meet, we're going to stay at one another's houses. And so one of them decided to stay at the other one's house. They pre-packed their bags, they weighed them, determined they were light enough, set them next to the front door so they could wake up and just run out the door early the next morning before the sun came up. They packed their bags, they left them, they went to bed. Their dads, who were brothers, were also hanging out that evening after their boys had already gone to bed and decided, you know what we should do? We should play a prank on our boys, right?
• 1:33
  One of those dads was a machinist. He worked in metal. He had all kinds of stuff out in his garage. And he says, you know what I've got? I've got these big chunks of unused steel.
• 1:43
  What if we hide them in their backpacks? And the other one said, of course. So they go out to the garage, and you guys, they're grabbing these cubes of steel. And these things are heavy. And they're jamming them down in these secret compartments, hiding them in their boys' bags and whatever. And I easily, easily doubled the weight of these backpacks. They go to bed. Their boys wake up the next morning, pick up their backpacks, and thought, man, these are way heavier than I thought. But you know what? We already weighed them. I mean, they must be right.
• 2:09
  And so just presumptively came along. We met at the trailhead. We hiked up. It was like an eight-mile hike one way, but it was straight up. I mean, it was up. Every single step was uphill. And these boys were...
• 2:22
  They were dying, red-faced, sweat dripping off of them, but they couldn't say anything because we had two freshman girls who were doing great, you guys, and they were just flying up the hill. And so these two guys thought, man, we don't want to look weak next to these young girls and whatever. And so they're just huffing these things up the hill. We get to the very top. Finally, they get to set their backpacks down. They start going through them. They're going to put up their tent, and you hear one of them just loudly exclaim,
• 2:50
  What in the world? Pastor Danny. And one of them comes back. They're holding these big chunks of steel. I knew my dad was going to do something. What a jerk. I knew it. I knew it. We should have checked. And they're pushing each other like, man, I knew these things weren't the right way. We hiked these things all the way up. They said, Pastor Danny, we'll be right back. They go walking off into the woods. And we had stayed next to this bluff overlooking a small lake down below. And you can hear them. I couldn't see them, but you could hear them go.
• 3:20
  Ba-doom, right? Oh, you know, they're launching these things off. Boom, you know, like we're laughing. We're back at the campsite laughing the whole time. It was so funny. I congratulated their fathers on being great dads when we got back. The story goes that there was a little boy that was in a grocery store shopping with his dad. And as he and his father cruised the aisles, the dad would take things off of the shelves and place them in the little boy's basket for him to carry. A passerby showing concern said, isn't that basket getting a little too heavy for you?
• 3:50
  And the boy said, don't worry, my daddy knows exactly how much I can carry. We pick up this love story fairy tale of Ruth and Boaz, and what was intended initially to be a temporary sojourn into Moab. Do you remember the bread ran out in the bread basket? There was a famine in the land. What was intended to be temporary became a decade-long move for Elimelech, his wife Naomi, and their two sons, who we called Puny and Whiny. Ruth, the young Moabitess, who married one of those boys,
• 4:20
  was widowed along with Naomi, her mother-in-law. So they determined together to return to Bethlehem in Israel where Naomi was from. We studied last Sunday Ruth's incredible declaration and conversion when she said, your people will be my people and your God will be my God. We left off last week with Naomi and Ruth living in squalor in Bethlehem in desperate need of rescue. Their lives have been ruined.
• 4:47
  They had been dealt a bum hand and no doubt felt like the Lord had given them more than they could carry, but their heavenly father knew exactly how much they could carry. Their heavenly father knew that Ruth and Naomi were in desperate need of a prince charming. And we are finally introduced to him in verse 1 of chapter 2, where it says, Now Naomi had a relative of her husband's, a worthy man of the clan of Elimelech.
• 5:13
  whose name was Boaz. Here in one verse, we have a brief biography of Boaz, who we called the kinsman redeemer. And you'll notice first that Boaz was a relative of Naomi's husband. The text never says how they were related, but rabbinic tradition says that Boaz was Elimelech's nephew. And second, Boaz, it says, was a worthy man. Do you see that word worthy? That he was worthwhile or that he was worth a lot.
• 5:40
  Another translation could be a man of standing. That Hebrew phrase describes Boaz as mighty, capable, intelligent, influential, and well thought of. He was a highly respected man in his own family and community, and he was wealthy. Boaz, as we will see, owned the field where Naomi and Ruth were gleaning. Third, Boaz was eligible to redeem Elimelech's family and estate.
• 6:11
  Mosaic law, the Old Testament, instituted something called the goel or literally the buybacker, the one who could buy back or recover or restore through leveret marriage. This guardian redeemer or kinsman redeemer would become the advocate for a vulnerable or unfortunate clan member.
• 6:31
  in order to correct any disruption to clan wholeness, well-being, or peace. If there was one clan member or family member who was well-off, and another clan member, family member, who was hurting and in desperate need. The Old Testament law said that this one who was well-off should take care of, become the advocate, become the covering for that one who is hurting, in order to correct any disruption to the clan, to the clan's peace.
• 6:57
  If a man got married and then died shortly after without having any descendants, that man's single brother, if he had one, would marry the widow, his brother's widow, in order to protect her and to carry on the family name on behalf of her deceased brother, in order to keep her from being taken advantage of, in order to keep her land in the family. The single brother of the dead man would marry his brother's wife in order to keep the family name. If there were any debts owed, the brother would pay them.
• 7:26
  and then he would marry his brother's widow. There is a well-known event in the life of Christ, and I'm going to ask you to turn there, actually. It's about a 600-page right turn to Matthew, Matthew chapter 22. In Matthew chapter 22, a well-known story, you've probably remembered in the life of Christ when some Sadducees come and ask him a question, intending for the question to be about the resurrection. They really thought they had figured out a question that he could not answer, an unanswerable question. But it illustrates this idea of leverant marriage really well.
• 7:59
  Matthew chapter 22 and verse 23, it says, the same day some Sadducees came to Jesus who say there is no resurrection and they asked him a question saying, here is the unanswerable question. Teacher, Moses said, that is the Mosaic law, if a man dies having no children, his brother must marry the widow and raise up offspring for his brother. There it is, leveret marriage, kinsman redeemer. Now there were seven brothers among us. The first married and died.
• 8:25
  having no offspring, left his wife to his brother. So to the second and the third, down to the seventh. And then after them all, the woman died. So here is the scenario. There were seven brothers. A woman marries the oldest one, but the brother dies. The husband dies. So the second one marries her and he dies. And then the third one marries her and he dies. And the fourth one and the fifth one and the sixth one, so on down to the seventh. And you may be thinking one of two things about this woman. Number one, either she is the unluckiest woman on the planet,
• 8:55
  Or number two, she is the murder suspect, right? She's got to be. She has to at least be questioned. I mean, that is suspicious to say the least. They continue in verse 28. In the resurrection, therefore, of the seven, whose wife will she be? For they all had her. And so they thought they had stumped Jesus. In the resurrection, she was the wife of seven men. Whose wife is she going to be in heaven? And he just says, you're wrong. You know neither the scriptures nor the power of God.
• 9:21
  In the resurrection, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. In heaven, he says, there is no marriage. The purpose of marriage on earth, according to Malachi, is to produce godly offspring. There will be no need for the production of godly offspring in heaven, and because there is no need for godly offspring, there is no need for marriage, and so there will be no marriage in heaven. You misunderstand this thing entirely, is what he's saying.
• 9:48
  But the point about the Leveret marriage is an interesting one. There's a good example of what that Old Testament provision said. If the dead husband had a surviving single brother, that brother was to take his dead brother's wife into his home and continue the family name and protect the family estate. Boaz, we see if you return to Ruth chapter 2, Boaz was from the clan of Elimelech. He was single. He was wealthy.
• 10:17
  He could easily pay any debts Naomi and Ruth had. He could redeem their family through marriage. Chapter 2 is written in three scenes. It's just like a movie. The first scene is found in verses 1 to 3. It's written in what is called chiastic structure. Now, for your youth groupers, for you youth groupers, I preached about a month ago in the youth group. I talked about chiastic structure. Do you guys remember that?
• 10:40
  You're like, no, man, that was a month ago, right? I don't remember anything you said, and that's okay. Chiasm structure. I talked to you guys about chiasms in Scripture. A chiasm, a chiastic structure is a literary device in which two or more clauses are balanced against each other by the reversal of their structures in order to produce an artistic effect or to bring emphasis to one or more sections, and no doubt that definition clears it up entirely. You're like, okay, that makes perfect sense.
• 11:10
  If you want an easy way to understand it, it's a story told as a mirror reflection of itself. It's a story that ends where it began. We have all seen chiastic structures, even if you didn't realize that that's what they were called. In fact, I will bet you that you have a picture of a chiastic structure somewhere in a photo album in your house. If you've been married or have ever been to a wedding, you have seen a chiastic structure.
• 11:40
  Right? You've got a picture, no doubt in your house, if you're married, of you and your spouse standing next to each other on that blessed day. And then next to you are your best man and your maid of honor. And then next to them are groomsmen and bridesmaids cascading all the way down to this little dude on this side holding a pillow. Right? And this little girl on this side holding what? A basket of flowers. You can see as you look at that structure, right, that every...
• 12:07
  This side has a correspondence on the other side. The little boy and the little girl go together, right? All of these ascending, usually in age and height order, groomsmen, right, are going up. You got the youngest brother of the groom over here. On that side, the youngest sister of the bride. And then right here, the next brother. And then right here, one of his friends. And then right here is who? Best man, followed by the groom, followed by the bride. On this side of the bride.
• 12:34
  The maid of honor, right? His reflection going down her little sister's all the way down to the flower girl. This is a chiastic structure, okay? And it's designed to focus all the attention in the room on who? The bride and the groom, that couple. It is their day. It's not about the little flower girl, even though they all think her curls are pretty.
• 12:56
  Right? It's not about the little boy on the end, even though he tries to make it about himself at some point during the service, right? Happens every single time. It's all designed to focus attention on the bride and the groom. Now, verses 1 to 3 are a chiasm, a chiastic structure. Right? And I'm going to read them. Allow me to read them. And as I read, see if you can find that chiastic structure. See if you can find the chiasm in there, as well as what the focus of those three verses should be.
• 13:26
  Verse 1 says, Now Naomi had a relative of her husband's, a man worthy and of the clan of Elimelech, whose name was Boaz. Ruth the Moabite said to Naomi, Let me go to the field and glean among the ears of grain after him in whose sight I shall find favor. And she said to her, Go, my daughter. So she set out and went and gleaned in the field after the reapers. And she happened to come to the part of the field belonging to Boaz, who was of the clan of Elimelech. You guys all see it? Down here, verse 1.
• 13:55
  The clan of Elimelech. Verse three on this side, the clan of Elimelech, right? And then one step up over here. By the way, there was a guy named Boaz who owned a field. Verse three on this side says, hey, watch out for this guy, Boaz, who owns a field. Later in the verse, Naomi says to Ruth, why don't you go and glean in that field, right? One step up. A little bit later in the story, yeah, it's a good idea. I'll go and glean in the field. There's only one phrase in those verses that is not repeated, that has no reflection.
• 14:25
  And that phrase becomes the focus of that scene. You guys all see it? Look for it in there. It's in verse two. Maybe as I'm gleaning in the field, the field of Boaz, who is from the tribe of Elimelech, maybe there will be a man in whose sight I shall find favor. Do you see that? That is the bride and groom of scene one and what really becomes the focus of the entire chapter.
• 14:56
  Naomi is looking for help by sending Ruth into the fields to glean in the hopes that Ruth will catch the eye of the town's most eligible bachelor. And verse 4 finally names him. It catches our eyes with its declaration of Boaz's entrance. What are the first two words of verse 4? And behold. Do you see that? I mean, it is just like a movie. Here comes Boaz, right? You can imagine him even riding a white horse.
• 15:24
  And behold, now here is attention on Prince Charming. Behold, Prince Charming in scene two is about to meet the damsel in distress. Behold, verse four says, Boaz came from Bethlehem. He said to the reapers, the Lord be with you. And they answered, the Lord bless you. Then Boaz said to his young man who was in charge of the reapers, whose young woman is this?
• 15:49
  This is an interesting scene. Perhaps it's even a little bit difficult to fully discern apart from reading between the lines a little bit. Boaz is clearly a good boss. He seems to genuinely care for his workers and they respect him. He must have noticed Ruth right away since the first thing he did after greeting his workers was to ask the foreman, who is this young lady that I don't recognize? And the foreman's response is an interesting one. Look at verse 6. The servant who was in charge of the reapers answered,
• 16:18
  She's the young Moabite woman who came back with Naomi from the country of Moab. She said, or she asked me, please let me glean and gather among the sheaves after the reapers. So she came. She has continued from early morning until now, except for a short rest. One might be tempted, I think, to see in his words a compliment, like he's admiring her hard work. She is a hard worker, Boaz. She has worked all morning. She's only taken one short break.
• 16:46
  Maybe he is admiring her work ethic, but I don't think that's the case at all. I think veiled in his words, and based on Boaz's response, veiled in the foreman's words are a complaint. She has been working all morning. She has only taken a short break. She has taken more than she should have. She has worn out her welcome. Send her away, I think was his desire.
• 17:13
  And we see in verses 8 and 9 that Boaz saw right through this ruse. He even picked up on something I think his foreman had hoped he hadn't. Boaz makes six short statements directed at Ruth. And keep in mind, this is their first encounter. These are now the first words. This is their meeting. This is the story they would have told if their kids had ever asked how they met. Like, Daddy, tell us how you met Mommy again. This is it. This is their first encounter. Six statements. Boaz said to Ruth,
• 17:43
  Now listen, my daughter. Do not go to glean in another field. Boaz's opinion was nothing like that of his foreman. Ruth hadn't gleaned too much. In fact, according to Boaz, she was welcome to much more. You have not worn out your welcome. Statement number two, verse eight. Do not leave this field, he says.
• 18:05
  And not only was Ruth not to glean in another field, Boaz wanted her to be careful to stay on his side of the fence. Stay within eyesight. Don't accidentally wander into another person's field. You stay here where I can see you, he says. You keep going in verse 8. Keep close. Literally stick close to. Stick close to my young women. Let your eyes be on the field that they are reaping and go after them.
• 18:33
  As the leader of their clan, there was a group of young ladies, probably single girls, maybe cousins, nieces, daughters of family members who Boaz was responsible for. He was the head of the clan, and so their safety was his concern. He had been entrusted with their care and safety. And now Boaz was to include Ruth in that group. He said, you're going to see a bunch of girls related to me.
• 18:57
  I make sure they are secure and you always stick. Wherever they are, you can assume that that area is safe. And you may say, well, why? Is this guy paranoid or what? We're going to see why he was so careful about that in this next statement. In verse 9, he says, have I not charged the young men not to touch you? This statement could also mean I have ordered the workers not to hoot at you or to holler at you. It definitely carried with it sexual overtones.
• 19:28
  It was normal then, unfortunately, the same way that it is normal today for women to be gawked at, and even more so for young women who were from a foreign place, who therefore had no relatives, had no leadership, had no covering, had no security. They were not familiar with the language and culture they found themselves in. One man has said, given human nature, it would be naive to think Ruth would not have been harassed and in danger.
• 19:57
  especially considering that this story took place in the days of, remember last week, in the days of what? In the days of the judges. Remember I described the days of the judges as the 200-year cycle of rebellion, one generation after the next, rebelling against God. It may be the darkest 200 years in Israel's Old Testament history. This was the worst of the worst that Israel got.
• 20:24
  In the days of the judges. And that's when Ruth was living. That's when all of this happened. It would make sense then that there would just be scumbags hanging around, waiting to take advantage of a young lady who had no protection. Another man wrote this. What we have here is that while Ruth may have been invisible to the women in that dominant culture, right? The women don't even seem to take notice of her. Ruth was conspicuously and dangerously visible to some of the men within that dominant culture.
• 20:53
  some of whom gave her good reason for wishing she was not. And so he says here in verse 9, I have commanded the young men not to touch you, not to make comments, not to whistle, not to try to get your attention, none of that. And then he says, and when you are thirsty, go to the vessels and drink what the young men have drawn. It can probably be deduced that her needing water may have provided the opportunity for that inappropriate action. Maybe she needed a drink.
• 21:22
  came and asked for a drink, and this provided opportunity for those young men to say something, to do something, to grab her, to do something, right? I mean, she would have, in today's terms, Ruth experienced sexual harassment, which made her eager to leave. She was just gonna pick up her stuff and depart, but Boaz came to her rescue. Here comes the knight in shining armor. He warded off her attackers, her offenders. He offered her his protection and his provision.
• 21:53
  overwhelmed by his abundant generosity and kindness, Ruth falls to the ground, in essence, bowing before him. Look at verse 10. She fell on her face, I mean, literally, just prostrate, on the ground, bowing to the ground, and said to him, why have I found favor in your eyes that you should take notice of me since I am a what? What's the word she uses? Foreigner, in the Hebrew, nokria, foreigner, a foreign.
• 22:18
  Woman, the term foreign woman, that word nokria had negative connotations dating all the way back to the warnings of Proverbs. You guys have read Proverbs before? Over and over, Solomon is warning his sons against foreign women, right? Forbidden women, over and over. Be careful, my boys, be careful. And if anybody knew about the pitfalls of these foreign women and their gods that they brought, it was Solomon, right, who had a thousand of them. So he says, watch out.
• 22:47
  There is no good down that road. Proverbs chapter 2 and verse 16. So you will be delivered from the forbidden woman. That's the word. No, Korea, from the adulteress with her smooth words. Proverbs chapter 6 and verse 23. For the commandment is a lamp. The teaching is a light. The reproofs of discipline are the way of life to preserve you from the evil woman. That's that word, foreign woman. From a smooth tongue of the adulteress. Proverbs 23 and verse 27. For a prostitute is a deep pit.
• 23:16
  An adulteress, that's the same word, foreign woman, is a narrow well. She lies in wait like a robber and increases the traitors among mankind. Ruth, in her humility in verse 10, esteems herself the lowest of the low by calling herself this foreign woman. Why would you take notice of me since your own scriptures have warned you about women like me? Do you see what she's saying? What a humble woman, but that is not at all how Boaz saw her.
• 23:46
  Look at verse 11. But Boaz answered her, all that you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband has been fully told to me. How you left your father and mother in your native land and came to a people that you did not know before. The Lord repay, literally, may the Lord give you peace is what he's saying. May the Lord make you whole. May the Lord restore you. The Lord repay you for what you have done and a full reward be given you by the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge.
• 24:17
  Boaz had heard all about this young lady, although he had never met her and she had never met him. In fact, this whole time she has no idea who he even is. He had heard about Ruth's commitment. Where you go, I will go. Your people, my people. Your God, my God. He had heard about her kindness to his relative Naomi. And the way he describes her conversion is interesting. He says, I've heard about how you have abandoned, in the Hebrew, hazav or azab.
• 24:45
  how you abandoned your family and your hometown, your native land, your homeland, moledet in the Hebrew, came to live among a people you didn't know. I've heard all about you. And to Ruth's untrained ears, that statement, how you abandoned your family and your homeland and came to live among a people you did not know, to her untrained Moabite ears, that statement meant very little. She had no idea of the significance. But to the Hebrew speakers standing around, that statement was huge.
• 25:14
  He was using here the very same words that God used in Genesis chapter 12 and verse 1. You guys remember Genesis 12? Of all the Old Testament chapters, there were a few that stand out as most pivotal. Genesis 12 is going to be counted among them every time, in every list. What happened in Genesis 12? I mean, Genesis 1 was big, right? What happened in Genesis 1? Creation, okay? So we're 11 chapters later. What happens in Genesis 12? Remember it says the Lord commanded...
• 25:46
  Abram, go, abandon your father and mother and your homeland, and go to a land that you do not know, a land that I will show you. What Boaz is doing is actually quoting some of those very same words. He is indirectly putting on Ruth the same faith as who? Abraham, the father of the Jewish people.
• 26:11
  Not only should this woman not be shunned, she has the faith of our father Abraham and so should be praised instead. Do you see how he takes her from being a foreign woman and elevates her? This is a model citizen in our country and should be esteemed. Verse 13, she said, I have found favor in your eyes, my Lord, for you have comforted me and spoken kindly to your... Now what word does she use?
• 26:40
  Servant, shefa. She's no longer the nokria. Now she's the shefa, servant. Still low, right? But low and accepted, even though she says, I'm not one of your servants. You've made me a servant, even though I'm not one of your servants. Later that evening, the reapers and all the gleaners were eating together. And again, another indication of Boaz's generosity. He buys all of his workers lunch late in the day. And it was during this meal that Boaz and Ruth had another encounter. Look at verse 14.
• 27:08
  It says, and at mealtime, Boaz said to her, come here, eat some bread, dip your morsel in the wine. So she sat beside the reapers. She's not even among the gleaners. The gleaners are the poor. The reapers are the employees. She sits among the employees. He passed her roasted grain. She ate until she was satisfied. She had some left over. So Boaz even sends her with a doggy bag, right? When she rose to glean, Boaz instructed his young men saying, let her glean even among the sheaves and do not reproach her.
• 27:38
  And also pull out some from the bundles for her and leave it out for her to glean and do not rebuke her. Ruth is getting here exceptional privileges, unheard of favor. She ate her full at lunch. She goes home with leftovers. When she returned to work, she was allowed to glean what normally would have been off limits. And the Old Testament law had provisions for the poor, both Deuteronomy and Leviticus.
• 28:06
  Moses said, when you go to harvest your fields, harvest any part of the field you can, but don't make all of those funny little three-point turns in order to harvest the very corners of your field. Just keep on going straight and leave the corners for who? For the poor, for the foreigner, for the sojourner in the land. They can come and harvest the corners. Don't go back. Don't be greedy and take the corners. He even said, if you...
• 28:31
  gather together your harvest, your crops, and you tie them all together, you bale them, and you put them up on your cart, and when your donkey or your ox is pulling away, that sheaf falls off, don't stop the whole production and turn around and go pick it back up. If it falls off the cart, leave it. For who? For the poor. And the idea was, if you can afford to drop it, you can afford to leave it. If you needed it that bad, you'd have made sure it wasn't going to fall off.
• 28:57
  Right? Does that make sense what he says? So you just leave it there. So now look what Boaz does. Boaz sends her back out into the field, and he says, as you're gathering up the sheaves, as you're bundling them, purposefully do what? Drop them. Purposefully drop them. And when she comes to pick them all up, don't...
• 29:17
  rebuke her. And so Ruth, after lunch, where she shouldn't have been invited to begin with, walks out into the field, finds herself alone with all of this stuff that's already been harvested, already pre-packaged. It's just there. And she thinks, I must be the luckiest girl in town. And Boaz, whoever that guy is, is pretty careless with his crop, right? She grabs all of this stuff. She's going to take it home with her, right? It turns out that what would have been off limits, she was
• 29:47
  given. And what a day this was for Ruth. She began as lower than a servant. She began as that foreign woman. She ended a very highly favored servant of Boaz, who it turns out was single, and if you'll allow me to word it this way, ready to mingle. All right? The final scene of chapter 2, and with this we conclude, Ruth goes back and reports to her mother-in-law the day's events. Look at verse 17. So she gleaned in the field until evening. She beat out what she had gleaned, and it was about an ephah of barley. That's quite a bit.
• 30:18
  She took it up, went into the city. Her mother-in-law saw what she had gleaned. She also brought out and gave her what food she had left over after being satisfied. She gave Naomi all of the leftovers. Her mother-in-law said to her, where did you glean today? Where have you worked? Blessed be the man who took notice of you. So Naomi sees whoever that guy was, was definitely putting out the vibe, okay? So she told her mother-in-law with whom she had worked and said, the man's name with whom I work today is Boaz.
• 30:46
  And Naomi said to her daughter-in-law, may he be blessed by the Lord whose kindness has not forsaken the living of the dead. Naomi also said to her, the man is a close relative of ours and one of our redeemers. Imagine our conversation going this way. How was your day, Ruth? I don't, I mean, strange. It's hard at first. It was this creepy dude who kept making inappropriate comments to me. Really made me uncomfortable. I just decided I'm just going to pack up and leave. I'll go find another field. But then this other guy came. I think he might have been the owner of the field because everybody kept.
• 31:17
  Doing whatever he said, he totally stuck up for me, told that guy off, told me I could join them for lunch, gave me so much food that I brought some home for you. When I went back into the field that afternoon, there was tons of wheat already packed and packaged, just laying there. No one else was around, so I grabbed it and came home. And Naomi said, well, what was the owner's name? And Ruth said, I don't know, it was kind of a weird name, Boaz, I think. I'm pretty sure that's right, Boaz? And Naomi says, wait.
• 31:48
  Ruth, do you have any idea who that man is? It was Boaz? That's the guy I've been telling you about. That's the guy. It was Boaz. Are you sure it was Boaz? I'm pretty sure. I'm not sure if you've ever seen the early 90s movie. When it came out, it kind of took my world by storm. I've seen it so many times and watched it so many times with my boys that we can quote it verbatim at this point. But in the early 90s, there was a baseball movie called The Sandlot.
• 32:15
  that came out. It's kind of a coming-of-age movie, a bunch of young boys who play baseball every day on the sandlot behind their homes. In that movie, there was one character, one of the main characters, whose name was Smalls. He used his stepdad's baseball, which was signed by Babe Ruth, as a game ball and a pickup game he and his friends were playing. Throughout the movie, Smalls had been trying to figure out the game that all of his friends loved so much. Smalls had never thrown a ball before. He had never hit, he'd never caught, he'd never run the bases.
• 32:42
  He had never even heard the legendary names of the Major League Baseball players that his buddies all pretended to be when it was Small's turn to hit. He belted his very first home run, but then his heart sunk when he realized he did it using his stepdad's baseball. That ball was gone, the very ball that had been signed by Babe Ruth. When they came and asked him why he was feeling sick to his stomach, he said, well, that wasn't my ball, it was my stepdad's. And they said, well, who gave it to him? And he said, I don't know, some lady gave it to him.
• 33:12
  Lady named Baby Ruth. She even signed it, you know. They all say, Babe Ruth, the Sultan of Swat, the Colossus of Clout, the great Bambino. And then suddenly Smalls realizes, wait, they're the same guy? That guy you've been talking about this whole time, that is Babe Ruth. He had no idea who it was they'd been talking about that whole time. And you can imagine Ruth's response to Naomi when she heard about Boaz.
• 33:43
  Like, wait, they're the same guy? She's been told about Boaz from the time they were in Moab. We will go back to my hometown. Perhaps there will be a redeemer. Perhaps one of our kinsmen will take a shine to you. Maybe you'll find favor in his sight. Maybe he will marry you and redeem you and restore you, and by extension, restore me.
• 34:05
  Maybe we can get our plot back and our land back and our name back, right? And all of a sudden there's this understanding between these two women like he is one of the redeemers. In verse 21, Ruth the Moabite said, besides, he said to me, you shall keep close by my young men until they have finished all my harvest. So he invited me back for the entire season. Should I go? Naomi said to Ruth, her daughter-in-law, it is good, my daughter, that you go out with these young women lest in another field you be assaulted. Yeah, go, she says.
• 34:35
  So she slept close to the young woman of Boaz, gleaning until the end of the barley and wheat harvest. And she lived with her mother-in-law. And church, maybe you feel at times, like Ruth and Naomi, like the Lord has given you more than you can carry. When they were crossing over from Moab into Israel, they were destitute. They had no prospects. There was nothing. They were living in desolation and in squalor. They were barely hanging on. They definitely didn't know if they could keep all of those balls.
• 35:04
  in the air and maybe you like ruth and naomi maybe you need a prince charming maybe you need a great bambino and i would just say don't worry church look at the example of ruth and naomi who were so carefully provided for by their heavenly father and like them your heavenly father knows exactly how much you can carry and lord i pray that we would be blessed in the hearing and preaching of your word lord i pray that we would trust in you
• 35:36
  because you were a promise-keeping God. Lord, your scriptures say that you will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast because he trusts in you. Lord, your scriptures say trust in the Lord with all of our hearts and lean not on our own understandings. And Lord, for Ruth and Naomi, that would have been difficult, no doubt, but how blessed they were as they put their frail lives into your strong hands. And Lord, may we do the same. Lord, we already know how the story will end, but God, what a beautiful reflection that is.
• 36:06
  of our own lives, that we were destitute and living in squalor, but that we had a kinsman redeemer who would marry us, become our groom, we become his bride, in order to restore us. And it's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.