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And now a very good evening to you. It's a great pleasure to be with you once more. As you have gathered, this is the last of three studies, three short and brief studies that we have been engaged in on the book, the Old Testament book of Ruth. Tonight, it will help somewhere three quarters of the way through our study, if you have in within your reach one of these sheets, which is a layout of the contents of Genesis chapter six. Now let it not frighten you, we shall not be, uh, discussing the whole of this part of Genesis, and the paper itself is not particularly dangerous, so it is quite safe to touch and look upon.
Never has anybody come to grievous harm by studying it. But if it's in within your reach later on in our session, we will find it useful in order to understand what is being said. Now with that, let us begin tonight by reading once more in the book of Ruth, and this time in chapter four. And we begin at verse nine. And Boaz said unto the elders and to all the people, You are witnesses this day that I have brought all that was Elimelech's and all that was Kilion's and Mahlon's on the hand of Naomi. Moreover, Ruth the Moabite, the wife of Mahlon, 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.
You 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 coming to thine house like Rachel and like Leah, which two did build the house of Israel. Do thou worthily in Ephrathah, and be famous in Bethlehem. And let thy house be like the house of Perez, whom Tamar bear unto Judah, of the seed which the Lord shall give thee of this young woman. So Boaz took Ruth, and she became his wife, and he went in unto her, and the Lord gave her conception, and she bare a son.
And the woman said unto Naomi, Blessed be the Lord, which has not left thee this day without a near kinsman. And let his name be famous in Israel, and he shall be unto thee a restorer of life and a nourisher of thine old age. For thy daughter-in-law, which loveth thee, which is better to thee than seven sons, has borne him. Naomi took the child and laid it in her bosom and became nurse unto it. And the women, her neighbors, 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 Perez. Perez begat Hezron, and Hezron begat Ram, and Ram begat Amminadab, and Amminadab begat Nahshon, and Nahshon begat Salmon, and Salmon begat Boaz, and Boaz begat Obed, and Obed begat Jesse, and Jesse begat David. And may God give us good understanding of his word. So now as we begin our last study, let's sum up a little bit of what we were considering yesterday. We started out yesterday by asking ourselves the simple question, what is the book of Ruth about?
And we discovered that the book of Ruth, strictly speaking, is not in the first place about Ruth, nor yet about Boaz. The book of Ruth is about Naomi. She it is that fills the scene in chapter one, um and when the book comes to its climax in chapter four, it is on Naomi that our eyes are glued. And the story is a very moving one because in chapter um one, as we saw yesterday, Naomi is left of her husband and of her two sons.
There had been a famine in their countryside in Bethlehem. She and her husband Elimelech had gone to the country of Moab, and there, uh, she, uh, her two sons had married two girls, two Moabite girls. So in the first chapter, Nanny and her husband have gone to Moab, their two sons have married two Moabite girls and are therefore in a foreign country. When Nanny's husband died and she was left a widow, then the two sons died, their wives were left widows and childless. Naomi left.
Naomi, if you like, ended. And this is what she refers to at the end of the chapter when she comes home to Bethlehem. And the women say, can this be Naomi? And she says, no, don't call me Naomi anymore, for Naomi means sister. Call me Mara for the Lord has given me much wisdom. I went out full, and the Lord has brought me back empty. The story begins with the emptying of Naomi. Left husbandless, left without children, just her widow and her two daughters-in-law with her.
And as she put it to them on her way back, she said, don't follow me. I have no hope of any son. I'm too old to have a husband. And even if I had a husband and more sons, you girls couldn't possibly wait for them to grow up so that they could marry you. Go back, my dear. The Lord has dealt very bitterly with me. The future for her was empty indeed. It was like placing a black, dark, empty cup. That's how the story begins. And therefore, the action of the story takes us on to its great climax in chapter four, where man is restored, and there is born to roost a great goer, a great kinsman redeemer.
That shall be for Naomi a restorer of her life, a nourisher of her old age. And can you see her, the woman that complained that the Lord had emptied her? Can you see her now, the woman who said she had no hope of any sons and therefore no hope of any future. And when her child is born, the women take a little baby and they place it in grandma's lap. Oh, she's not empty anymore, is she? This is God filling Naomi as she nurses the young child in her lap and did so for many days thereafter. This was her future.
Her future is no longer blank, desolate, come to an end without any hope, but a future glory. For in her setting that encountered with her child, a child born to Naomi, that God had filled her, God had restored her, and the future was full of hope. That is the story of the book of Ruth. That is what the book of Ruth is about. We saw then last night that the key to that, uh, situation, of course, was Ruth the Gentile.
It is true to say, of course, that the redemption, the restoration of Nami could not have been affected without Boaz and his wonderful resources, his willingness to act the part of the kinsmen and ransom their fields, and his willingness to act the part of a letter age husband to marry Ruth and produce a child that would maintain the name of the original family of the Limerick. Though Boaz was willing to do both those wonderful things, neither of them really could have come into operation and satisfied Naomi, had it not been for good.
Naomi would never have sold the field if that's all there was to it. Or if she had sold the field to Boaz, it would have been a grief of her heart, an admission of failure. Her husband's name would have died out on the inheritance. For Naomi to be filled and restored meant she must, at any cost, maintain the name of her husband on the inheritance. And the key to that was, of course, not just selling the thing to Boaz and him redeeming it. It meant that Boaz would marry Ruth, and so that Boaz's son might Ruth become as man's child.
And that's what has happened. So Ruth the Gentile was the key to the restoration of Naomi the Israelite. We noticed in our study how the chapters are so full of Ruth, and we will come back to that in a moment's time. Now, last night when we configured the mission, we applied that lesson, we were very careful to apply the lessons at various levels, historical and practical, and then the story as an illustration of the great salvation that there is in Christ, our kinsman redeemer.
And then we looked at the thing prophetically for a while, we moved on to consider it once more as a lesson, a practical lesson to us as Christians in this age. It is to that third level that I want to return this evening. To Naomi's story as a prototype of bigger things, as a prototype of the nation of Israel, their therefore. fall and their diminution. And the wonderful story is that when Israel fell, they were not destroyed.
They did not stumble so that they should not rise again. Now God assures us in the New Testament that though they have fallen, yet one day they shall be restored. I'm going to read you a verse in the New Testament that states it explicitly, that we might begin to take our bearings for our study this evening. This is Paul in his letter to the Romans in chapter eleven, and he's talking about the unhappy fact that Israel as a whole have rejected the gospel and their hearts have been hardened. They have stumbled over the stumbling block of Jesus as the Messiah.
And Paul says in Romans eleven and verse eleven, I say then, did they stumble that they might fall? God forbid. But by their fall, salvation has come unto the Gentiles, for to provoke them to jealousy. Now, if their fall is the riches of the world, and their loss the riches of the Gentiles, how much more their fullness. Lovely word, isn't it? The fall of Israel, their seeming defeat, their stumbling, their diminution, if you like.
That is not to be permanent, says Paul. One day will come their restoration and their fullness. So says the New Testament. And it tells our gent- us gentiles not to be high-minded, to imagine that now Christ has come to us Gentiles and saved us, it means that Israel is finished. We are not to be so conceited. Verse twenty five, Paul adds, I would not, brethren, have you ignorant of this mystery, lest you be wise in your own conceits, that a hardening in part has befallen Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in.
And so all Israel shall be saved, even as it is written, there shall come out of Zion the deliverer, he shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob. Once more, Paul is telling us that the hardening of Israel, their falling, is only temporary. We'll say it's temporary until the full complement of the Gentiles be come in. And when the full complement of the Gentiles has come in, then Israel as a whole shall be saved. And how will she be saved?
When they shall come forth out of Zion a deliverer, a real mighty man of wealth, the king, the redeemer that will redeem his people Israel and set them free from all their bondage. So says the New Testament. These are the plain assured facts. Tonight I want to illustrate that as we look once more to the history of Naomi, uh, going into the Gentile land with her husband and coming to distress and despair and almost disaster when it seemed hopeless that their line would continue.
And the marvelous story of how eventually that Israelite family was restored, and how that, in that process of restoration, the Gentile Ruth the Moabite was the key to it all. Israel then, as the story of Ruth and Noé, what I would call a prototype. I'd better stop and explain myself, hadn't I, what I mean by a prototype. You'll notice I didn't say that it, the story is a type. You'll see, ladies and gentlemen, I was aware I have a lot of theologians sitting around here, you'll see, so I have to use my language very carefully.
I didn't say it was a type. I said it was a prototype. You say, what on earth is a prototype? Well, in ordinary life, take airplanes in. I'm young enough to remember almost the first airplane, and when, uh, they were so new and novel, we used to run out of school if one came over once in about six months. We used to run out of school to see it, and very proud we were of this modern invention. They were funny looking things when you look back on them now. Biplanes they generally were, then puff, puff, puff, a few feet up above the ground, you'll see. Uh, and mostly, like uh, types are said to do, they broke down, you'll see.
Um, they were only the first efforts. Nowadays, if you look up in the sky when the big jumbo jet goes over, what a different thing that is from those first humble beginnings, you'll see. Yes, but there is a connection between the two. Those first aeroplanes were what we would call prototypes of the big things that now fly. While there were very great differences between them, yet there were certain basic similarities, namely this, that even in those humble first aeroplanes, there were certain principles of aeronautics expressed.
That's how the things could fly at all, you know. They embodied certain principles of aeronautics. Those same principles of aeronautics are the secret behind the flying of the jumbo jet. But of course, the hum- jumbo jet is far more sophisticated, far more detailed, and travels at a far higher level. And the great God of our redemption has arranged history that way. Why? So that we, our minds might be prepared for the coming of Christ, so that our minds might be sure that this Jesus is the Christ, and that his salvation does work his way.
How can I be sure of that? So says God before he comes. I'll give you one or two early examples, some prototypes at a humble level, and if you can see the principle of redemption involved there, you'll be ready to see it when it comes at its highest possible level in the person of Jesus Christ, our Lord. So does Naomi's story of her alienage, her fall, if you like, her diminution, her emptying among the Gentiles, and her eventual de- uh, uh, restoration, her fullness, become a prototype of bigger things.
And last night, to help us grasp this, we reminded ourselves of another very interesting thing in the Old Testament. The prophets constantly talk of Zion or Jerusalem or Israel as a woman. So Zion complains, you see, that she has been to rest of her children. Who is Zion? Well, not any particular woman. She is a personification of the nation of Israel and of the city of Jerusalem, just as we talk of, uh, the United Kingdom and might refer to it as Britannia, or ruling the world, as we usually, uh, make a lot, uh, of things.
So the Old Testament talks of Zvi or Jerusalem as a woman, and very often in the prophets as a woman who's been bereft of her children and widowed because it seems that God has cast her off. She bewails her emptiness, her sorrow, and her apparent hopelessness. And she is bidden to consider that one day there will come forth a redeemer, a veritable Joel, kingsman redeemer, and he will redeem Israel and bring her children back again and fill her full. And when he does it, it will seem like a veritable light from wisdom.
So then we begin with the story of Ruth, and that's it. You'll see, and if we want an immediate example of this in the Christian period. So we shall see that's the prototype, and then a clear example of what happened in the Christian century. Let me remind you now for a moment of the stories you read in the Acts of the Apostles. If you read your Acts very carefully, you will every now and again discover that Paul went to the synagogue in whatever town he was in. He came to Antioch in Pisidia, and he went, as his custom was, to the synagogue, you see, and there he preached.
Or he went to, uh, uh, uh, to, uh, uh, Thessalonica and preached in the Jewish synagogue. He did the same thing when he came to the city of Corinth. And the interesting thing was that when he came to these Jewish synagogues that had been established in Gentile towns. You say, how did they come to be among the Gentiles? Well, that's a long story. It goes back to the days of old Nebuchadnezzar and the Assyrians, when Nebuchadnezzar was allowed to take Israel and Judah into exile. And after that, Alexander the Great took the Jews off into all kinds of Gentile cities, and they learned to live there.
And as they lived there, they established their Jewish synagogues in what they called the diaspora. They were far away from home. They were living among the Gentiles, but they had their synagogues, and they preached the word in their synagogues. The interesting thing is that as these Jews in the Gentile cities preached the word of God, a lot of Gentiles heard about it. And the Gentiles would come to the Jewish synagogue. Isn't that marvelous, they walk? We sometimes forget that little bit of history and think that we Christians were the first missionaries to the world. We weren't, were we? No, no. The first missionaries to the Gentiles were the Jews, of course.
And ever since the exile, they functioned as missionaries to the Gentiles by preaching the word of God in their synagogues. And the Gentiles would come and would listen to the rabbis expounding their Old Testament and preaching the glories of the true God of heaven as against the miserable, nonsensical, uh, darkness of Gentile idolatry, you see. And the Gentiles used to come and listen to this, and crowds of them got converted. And they'll say, and they had a name for these Gentiles that got converted, who abandoned their idolatry, came to believe in the living and true God of Judaism, and attached themselves to the synagogue, and they called them God hearers or God worshippers.
You'll see. The famous Lydia was one like that. She went down to the Jewish prayer meeting by the river, you'll see. And there were others like it all around the Roman Empire. Men and women hadn't become completely Jews. They weren't part of the Jewish nation. The men hadn't accepted, uh, circumcision, but they used to attend synagogue. They were sort of halfway converts. They come to believe in the living God. That is what happened to Ruth, wasn't it? When Naomi and her husband left, left the end Judah, blame them or don't blame them, they left it anyway, and they went to Moab, and their sons married these Gentile girls who had been brought up in the crudest of idolatry.
It is evident from chapter one that at least one of those girls had been converted. Converted to what? Well, you say converted to faith in the God of Israel. That's what she'd been converted to. She says it quite clearly, doesn't she, in chapter 1, uh, you'll see, where I- wherever thou goest, I will go, and where thou lodgest, I will lodge. Thy people shall be my people, and thy God, my God. And Boaz repeats it. He has understood what has happened to Ruth. He says, verse twelve of chapter two, the Lord recompense thy work, and a full reward be given thee of the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings thou art come to take refuge.
Yes, she had come to put her faith in the living God. That's the beginning of conversion, isn't it? We all of us have to take that step even in our own generation if we would be saved, don't we know what? The Thessalonians, for instance, who, who were saved, this is the record of their conversion. They turn to God from idols who serve the living and true God. And a large number of co-converts in the early days of Christianity, you'll see hundreds of folks that got converted through Paul, an exceedingly high proportion of them were men and women who had already come to faith in the true and living God through the witness of the Jews.
And what did the, the Christian preachers tell them beyond that? Oh, well, let's have a look now to what we can find here. And last night I quoted to you the, uh, analysis that you'll find in your study Bible, your New New International Version study Bible, and there is a list of contents of the book of Ruth. Perhaps you find it difficult to see that, but it starts off with that nearly empty and comes down here to the conclusion of Naomi pilgrimage. But then, at the end of each of its major episodes, you have this repeated scene.
Ruth and Naomi return to Bethlehem, end of chapter one. Ruth returns to Naomi, end of chapter two. Ruth returns to Naomi, end of chapter three. And then, of course, Ruth is married, her child is born, and put into Naomi's lap in chapter uh four. Ruth, way down in Moab, had come to believe in Israel's God, the living and true God, and knew enough now to take her side with the people of God and to leave her heathen, uh, families and context.
But now, listen to the wonderful story. Naomi and Ruth come back. Naomi is still feeling absolutely empty, future blank. Name of her husband and sons lost forever, it seems, and the Lord is angry with her, and the Lord has testified against her. There's no hope for her and her family. But Luke, uh, but Ruth sticks to her, and so they get on. And then comes chapter two. It wasn't Naomi that said to Ruth, my dear, I have a relative and he's very rich and he's got a big farm. You go and glean with him.
It wasn't Naomi that told her that, was it? The historian tells us, now there was such a man around, by the way, so. But Naomi didn't advise Ruth to go and seek him. It was Ruth that discovered him. She said to Naomi one bright morning, uh, mum, she said, um, I'd like to go gleaning, you see. What do you think about that? I'd like to go gleaning in the field somewhere. I don't know where, but I'd like to go fee- uh, gleaning if I could find grace in the eyes of one of these local farmers and, uh, and get some corn to feed. We desperately need it, don't we? So she said, you go, my dear. And she went empty foiled in a field. You know, uh, whose field it was from Adam's, you see.
And when the farmer came along, his name was Boaz, he was a very rich man, you see. He was, to her surprise, kind to her. He first asked his foreman who's his girl, and the foreman said, well, this is that ne'er by this woman, you know, came back with Naomi. Oh, and she's been bleeding hard all day long. So he went to talk to the girl, and of course she was nervous, you see. He said, now, I want you, if you will, my dear, to stay in my field, he said. Uh, and uh, Ruth was so overwhelmed, she said to this great burly farmer, also rich type, uh, she fell on her face and bowed herself to the ground and said unto him, why have I found grace in thy sight, that thou shouldest take knowledge of me, seeing I am a stranger?
It wasn't everybody, not even in Bethlehem, that would have welcomed the girl. They should have done. It was barley harvest time, and at barley harvest time, the law said that the farmer was to leave the gleanings in the field for the widow and the foreigner. So that's what the law says, but businessmen don't always stick to the law. Goodness me, do they? What then, you see, if they can make an extra dollar, you see? And it wouldn't have been everybody, not even in Bethlehem, Judah, that would have welcomed this foreigner from Moab taking their corn. He says to the dear lady, now I've told my young men not to harm you.
You keep by in my field. It would have been a very dangerous thing for Ruth in those rough days to have gone some to other field amongst other rough men, a time of harvest. He said, my dear, you keep hard by my maid. And then, to her overwhelming sense of wonder, at lunchtime he bade her come down and join him and sit with him and the workmen and, uh, eat the bread. And then over, o- over the d- uh, the napkins placed on the ground, he handed her personally some food. She was absolutely flabbergasted. The grace of this farmer gentleman that would take such an attitude to a foreigner.
This, you see? And he said, yes, yes, yes, I, I know you're a stranger, and it's fully been shown me what your attitude to your mother-in-law has been since your husband's died, and it's been shown me that you've come to believe and to take refuge under the wing of the living God. But when she got home that night, huh? Oh, can you hear the buzz of conversation? You will notice that at the end of this section here, Ruth goes home to Naomi, and they have a real, a couple of women, uh, along the road in our house.
Goodness me, if anybody can find something to talk about, it's a conversation, you'll see. And here at the end, after searching, she returns to Naomi, and once more there's a tremendous skin wag at night as to the experiences. What have you found, my dear, today, you'll see. And here comes Ruth the first day with this amount of, uh, corn that she's, uh, gathered and thrashed, and of course it was unusually large because Master Boaz, he'd ordered the workmen to drop handfuls on purpose, so she dropped a lot more than she would have done, you know, had she been straight gleaning. They left great wallops of the stuff for her at Boaz's order. So at the end of the day, she, she got a whole ether of stuff, and she took it home to Mama, and along with it she says, here, here, Mum, she says, um, there is not only this that I gleaned, but you know, at lunchtime he personally handed me so much stuff, I, I yet can suffice and couldn't eat any more.
It was coming out of my eyes. And here it is, Ma, what I had over from lunch, and that was a great whack as well. The wealth and the grace of it. You can imagine the conversation, can't you, as the young woman was talking to her mother-in-law of her great discovery. She discovered this man of grace in Bethlehem, Judah. All the talk went on till late at night because it did. And I say it wasn't, uh, Naomi that had directed her. Naomi had directed her to the one true God, but Nowruz the Gentile had found something else within Israel. She had found this extraordinary man of grace, but knowing that she was a Gentile from despised Moab, Moab with its dark and immoral past had welcomed her.
When Naomi heard of that, you know it was like a little, a crocus, a little snowdrop deep in the earth under the cold of winter. Suddenly hearing the call of the remote beginning of spring and life beginning to stir. Such grace shown by her kinsman, he said, you know, Ruthy, one of our kinsmen, a goer, and in the very word there was all sorts of potential, and to think that the Gentile had discovered him first. And Ruth the Moabite said her to her mama, verse twenty one.
Do you notice that Ruth the Moabite, the historian is pointing to the fact she was still a stranger. Said, yes, and he said unto me, thou shalt keep fast by my young men until they have ended all my harvest. And Naomi said unto Ruth, her daughter-in-law, 'Tis good, my daughter, that thou go out with his maid.'" Ah, you see, it was only perhaps Boaz's young men that could be trusted, and it was only Boaz's maidens that might have woken her. I mean, to be practical, uh, ladies. If among these other maidens in the field, all doing their gleaning, there were a lot of unmarried girls, uh, and uh, there were some eligible young gentlemen, uh, the other girls might not have welcomed a bit more competition, might they?
Mm-hmm. They might have had a rough time with some of the girls coming in as a foreigner, if the number of eligible gentlemen was rather restricted. The kind of welcome among the workmen and the maidens, because they were workmen and maidens of Moab. And oh, how excited the Gentile was as he came home to a mother-in-law to tell this Jewess of what he had discovered in Israel, if you please. Oh, when Paul the Apostle came to these synagogues in Corinth, in Thessalonica, uh, in Berea, in Antioch, and these Gentiles that had come to believe in the living God heard of this mighty man of wealth that was born in a manger and came from the royal stock of Bethlehem, and they listened to his grace.
How it was the Gentiles, wasn't it, that heard and made the great discovery, and they discovered something, not only the true and living God, they discovered God's great king, Messiah. And oh, what a story they learned of this man of grace and wealth. Whereas Judaism tended to be very severe and keep the stranger at arms with it, they heard of a savior who was prepared to welcome them, Gentiles though they were, they could even be saved without being circumcised and becoming a member of the Gen- of the Jewish nation.
And there must have been many a conversation in those ancient cities, don't you suppose, in the early days of Christianity, as the Gentiles told those yet unconverted Jews what they had discovered in Israel, the great Messiah of God. Mm. Oh, that, that started now me thinking that. But Naomi is Israel, isn't it? Not all necessarily the wicked sinners, but the impers- part personification of Israel. Memory was stirred about God's ancient promises and the great redeemer that was to come.
She eventually told Ruth to go down to the session court we heard last night and, uh, make her request to go. And down the gentile went to Zimmer by this, and he approached this very approachable and gracious man and said, you are a kinsman, would you not with me? And he said, yes, I will. I'll do it tomorrow. Uh, I'll marry you, my dear. Um, there is a kinsman who has first rights, but I will test him out, and so long as he's not the wanting and passes on the rights to me, uh, tomorrow we'll, I will reveal and I'll marry you. That was very nice, wasn't it?
And we went home. Oh, what a conversation they had that night. Can you imagine it? Oh. Uh, how did you get on, my dear? Said Mary, breathless almost, as the girl came through the door. And here she came, staggering under a, I don't know how much wheat, six whole measures of wheat. Let's just think that was as much as the sturdiest of young girls could have carried in those days. For though I had said, now bring your old, um, shawl here, or was it a cloak, and let me put some, uh, some corn in it, my dear. Uh, you mustn't go home to your mother-in-law empty. Total.
What that said to Naomi when Ruth came in the door, what on earth have you got there, my dear? Well, this is six measures of corn that Boaz gave me. He said, you see, I wasn't to come back to you empty. Oh, how God makes us eat our words sometimes in life, doesn't it? It is the woman, when she came back to, uh, Bethlehem, said to her neighbor, I went out full, and the Lord has been hard against me, and he brought me home empty. There's no future for me. Here comes Ruth staggering under this.
Boaz said that I wasn't to come home, mum, to you. Empty. What a gospel message Ruth had to preach, the Gentile Ruth. What a testimony and a lesson and a gospel message to preach to that woman of Israel, Naomi. He said, he said, mum, that tomorrow he will redeem me. He will marry me. So that was news. We go back to the early Christians. Those God-ers. To the Jews, they had come to believe in the true and living God.
They had discovered then the Jesus of Bethlehem. Oh, that Jesus, my savior to Bethlehem came. Oh, what a story of grace, and how he would welcome even the Gentiles. And next they heard this almost incredible myth that this great redeemer Savior, he loved the church, formed not only of Jews, but of Gentiles. And he loved it as a man loves his wife. And when his redemption would be complete, there would come the marriage of the Lamb, if you please, and Gentiles would be part of that bride.
Do you know that was a new kind of talk when the first Christians told that to their Jewish friends, wasn't it? Jews knew about God as the husband of Israel. They'd never dreamed that the Messiah, when he came, would have a wife. This is what Ruth was saying, wasn't it? She found this Boaz, the great kinsman redeemer, not only able to feed her and satisfy her soul and fill her heart with the treasure of his grace, but a great redeemer that had proposals of ultimate marriage for the woman.
I wish, you know, if only you could do it, I could wish I had a magic carpet that would take me back into that house and listen to the conversation that night. I wonder if they went to bed, what do you think? Talking over what was going to happen tomorrow. How could you take it in? Naomi, with her great kinsman, was going to marry not her, of course, but the Gentile. And so he did. Do you make a habit of witnessing to Jews?
I suppose you do if you get the chance, don't you? Because you don't always get the chance. I had one dear friend who recently died. How difficult he found it to begin to think of Jesus as an Messiah. Seriously. He thought of Christians as people that had learned to persecute Jews. All the anti-Semitism that resulted in six million Jews being gassed and destroyed by Hitler. My friend would say to me, and you Christians are responsible for it. You told the world, you taught the children in Sunday school that was that the wicked Jews that crucified Jesus, and you stirred up hatred in their hearts against the Jews, and this is the result of it.
You've murdered six million of my people. How can Jesus be the Messiah? And I would say to him, but Otto, I know you don't think much of Jesus. I want to tell you something about him. He's the one who, beyond all others, that has led millions of Gentiles to believe in the God of Israel. I say, Otto, you know, I- I'm not an old pagan anymore. Uh, I- I am an old gentile, not pagan Jew like you. I- I'm not, I- I'm not an old pagan anymore, you know.
I don't believe in gen- just any old Timbuktu God. I- I believe in your God, uh, uh, uh, uh, Otto. I believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Otto. And if you want to know how I came to do that, it was, uh, because of Jesus. And Otto, I want to tell you that that was an evil thing beyond description that Hitler did. But what God, what Jesus Christ has taught me is to love you, Jews. Oh, what a marvelous testimony. What gospel meetings they were, as Ruth the Gentile talked to Naomi the Jewess.
Oh, but what a thing it shall be for Israel, shan't it? That day that's coming when the kinsman redeemer will acknowledge his bride, not merely before the gate of some little city, village city of Bethlehem in Judea, but before the resplendent gates of heaven and the whole universe will acknowledge and take to himself his bride. And the full complement of the Gentiles being brought in, what then? Well, then Israel shall come into her fullness.
So did Naomi, of course. For the result of it all was not only Naomi's restored and re-strengthened faith, that she now saw there was a future for her, that she sketched such as she had scarce dreamed of. And they took the baby. They laid it in Naomi's lap to be for Naomi the Israelite, a restorer of life, to nourish her old age, to be her redeemer.
So shall it be. When the full complement of the Gentiles has come in, then all Israel shall be saved. Their going aside, their fall, their diminution prove the riches of the Gentiles. As Nam is wandering into Moab, blame it or not, proved in the end to be Ruth's immeasurable riches. So the receiving of them again, what shall it be but veritable life from the dead? Now you should be warned, I have permission, official permission, by no less than the elders of this church, uh, do continue till a quarter past eight.
So if this is getting intolerable for you, do go to sleep. But tonight, uh, it's such a lovely thing to be able to talk to you. I'm going to be greedy and steal those extra ten minutes, you'll see, and we shall finish at a quarter past, or near enough. At the, uh, official wedding, you'll see, when Boaz claimed Ruth as his bride, all the well-wishers stood around and said some pleasant things. People do still at weddings, don't they? Sometimes they say a lot of cranky things. You never thought of like what they say at weddings. They wouldn't say it if they respected their intelligence on any other occasion, but they say funny things at weddings sometimes, don't they, Wapo?
But these weren't funny things, were they? Well, not really they were. They said in the first place, do you see, uh, the Lord make the woman that is come into thine house like Rachel and like Leah, which two did build the house of Israel, and do thou worthily in Ephrathah and be famous in Bethlehem. That was a very nice wish, wasn't it? They're comparing Ruth to Rachel and Leah, Josie. Wise thing, I suppose. For Rachel and Leah began life as Gentiles, didn't they? Yes, they did. And they were married to Jacob.
And these erstwhile Gentiles built up of Israel. All twelve of them. They did it with the help of their handmaids, I know. The Lord make this Gentile that's come into your house like Rachel and Leah, which two did build the house of Israel. Well, you can understand that much. Then they added a curious thing. And let thy house be like the house of Perez, whom Tamar bear unto Judah of the seed which the Lord shall give thee of this young woman. And what on earth did they mean? And if you've read the story recently, you'll wonder why anybody dared mention it at a wedding breakfast.
Surely such history ought to have a veil drawn over it. Certainly it's not a chapter that's normally read in public in Christian churches, is it? I can't remember when I heard it last read, if ever. And yet, and yet, like all God's word, it is profitable. And so to help you just find that place in the book of Genesis, I have handed out these sheets. That's what they're for. The story of Tamar, who, uh, bear unto Judah Perez is given us in the book of Genesis chapter thirty eight.
I've listed it for you there, you'll see it under section Roman two, Jacob dwelt in the land A, B, and C, you'll see, and the story is it to B. That's the story. Whatever has it got to do with, uh, Ruth and her situation? Well, of course, uh, two things are at once apparent, the obvious similarity. In both stories, we're dealing with somebody from Judah. Elimelech came from Judah and came from Bethlehem, indeed. Secondly, Judah had this son born, born to him, whose name was Perez.
If you want to know the significance of that, you can look at the genealogy at the end of Ruth chapter four. There Perez is mentioned. These are the generations of Perez, and his significance is this, that of all the sons of Judah, Perez was the one who led the royal line of Judah until it came to King David himself. And in that royal line was Boaz, who married Ruth. So Judah and Tamar produced Perez, and eventually in that same line came Boaz and Ruth, and it led to King David.
Now Tamar was a Gentile as well, so you will see the connection, won't you? More than that, you'll see, both stories talk about the institution of the levirate marriage, don't they? But the point I want to stress at this moment... was that just as in the book of Ruth, it was the Gentile that was the key to the maintenance of the line that led to the king. So then this far off story in Genesis thirty eight, it was the Gentile woman Tamar that was concerned to maintain the line of the king Judah.
When through Judah's folly and irresponsibility, the line of the king nearly petered out before he started. Mm. We all see, perhaps Judah didn't know it at the time. He was destined to be the fountain of that line that should lead not only to David, but to the lion of the tribe of Judah himself. Perhaps it was his ignorance, you say, that, uh, you know, he couldn't help it, he didn't know, that accounted for his funny behavior. But you see, um...
When the brothers rejected Joseph and sold him to the Gentiles, Judah went down from his brethren, says chapter thirty eight, and he went to the Gentiles as well. Oh, so Joseph was among the Gentiles, and Judah was among the Gentiles. Judah hasn't much notion of his duty, has he, to raise up the line of the, of the king. So off goes Judah to the Gentiles. He marries a Gentile girl, does he? He has by her two sons, and then a third. The two sons were married to a Gentile, uh, to a Gentile girl.
The first son first, he was married to the Gentile. He died without children. So Judah, following Judahite law, he married the second son to this Gentile girl. He died also without children. The third son was very much younger. So Judah said to the girl, well, you go back to your father's house and, uh, and, uh, wait till my son, my third son is grown up, you see. But when the boy was grown up, Judah made no attempt to give him to Tamar to be married, you see. I don't know why. Perhaps he was afraid to give another son, he might die as well or something. Or perhaps he just lost interest.
He didn't give her, gi- give the, the third son to this dear Gentile woman to maintain the line of Judah. At which time a very curious thing happened. The Gentile woman was found to be much more interested in maintaining the line of Judah than Judah was himself. And she went to very curious lengths. I won't describe it all in public. What was Judah thinking of at the time? We'll see him one fine day.
He'd been to the sheep shearers, and he got a lot of money, I dare say. And of course he was head of the tribe, wasn't he? He was somebody. He wasn't two-fifths of a man. He was the head of the tribe of Judah, I do say, so he had his star of office, head of the tribe. He was a somebody, uh, perhaps, you know, a little bit like an American who has like 5 million acres in Texas, with a hat to go with it, you see. And he had his star. And then he had his signet. You weren't anybody if you didn't have a s- uh, a signet thing to sign your name with your emblem on it. You were a pretty poor little chap if you didn't have one of them.
And he being the great head of the tribe, if you, of course, he had his staff of office, and he had his big elaborate signet with its seal on it, you see, and his emblem tied with a beautiful cord around his neck, and he was going down to town. His work was over, and uh, he got the money, so why shouldn't he? And being the head of the tribe meant that, uh, well, you had a good time. That's what life was for, wasn't it? So he used this woman. Promised to pay her. She said, you see, well, what, uh, what, uh, hedge will you give me?
Give me your staff and give me your signet ring. So he gave it. And when he sent his friend, because he wouldn't go himself to be seen in the era, he, when he sent his friend to to redeem the pledge, there was no woman there. So the old signet ring, the signet on the court and the staff of office went missing, you see. When it was announced that his daughter-in-law was going to have a child, Judah commanded that the woman be, be executed. Won't have that kind of thing going on in my family, says he. You hypocrite.
And just as they were going to execute the woman, he sent Judah the evidence of his staff and his signet. You judged the man they belong to, she said. He's the father of my child. You certainly, I I don't know, you disapprove, I suspect, of what Tamar did. This comes out of it. She was more concerned as a Gentile for maintaining the line of Judah than Judah was himself. There's a little prophecy there, isn't there?
Do you know, since the Christian era particularly, it's been Gentiles that have been more concerned about the line of Judah and the coming King Messiah than Jews are. There are some Orthodox Jews that still believe in the coming of Messiah, but the vast bulk of Jews, even of those that go to their synagogues, don't believe in the coming Messiah anymore. And the liberal Jews say it's all over and there's never going to come a Messiah. And the big interest in the coming of Messiah is to be found amongst Gentiles.
Interesting, isn't it? One last thing. Tamar and Ruth were used of God to maintain the royal line that eventually led to the coming of David. What does it mean to be, however, in the line of the king that shall lead to the coming of the great lion of the tribe of Judah. What does it mean? Well, see Master Judah, if you will. He has very dim notions of the future that lies beyond, but being head of the tribe of Judah, oh, what you suppose he thinks it's all about?
Well, being head of a tribe is to enjoy yourself, isn't it? Be the big man. That is the concept of kingship for many. It was with the Holy Apostles, if I may tell tales out of school. There was one occasion when our Lord was going up to Jerusalem to suffer at Calvary, just you imagine it, and here comes Mrs. Zebedee with a couple of her sons, and they say, we've got a request to make. Oh yes, what is that? Oh, please will you grant, when you come in your kingdom, that my son, one of them will sit on the left side and one on the right hand on thrones right next to you in your kingdom. And the Lord Jesus said that, uh, are you aware of the cost of such a thing?
Can you be baptized with the baptism I'm baptized with and drink the cup I drink? Oh yes, they said, we don't care what it costs. We, we want the chief jobs, you see. Said the Lord Jesus, this isn't mine to give anyway. That's decided by my Father. But I tell you what, have you any idea what it means to be king anyway? And what it means to have the chief jobs in the kingdom? What do you think it means? Oh, we think it means sitting on thrones and bossing people around. You know? Oh, fancy that, said Christ. It doesn't mean that, you know. I am the king myself. And the Son of Man came not to be served, not to, uh, not to be served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many.
That's what it means to be in the line of the king. And the story in Genesis, I've taken the trouble to give you the list so that when you get time, you may care to study it. From chapter forty two onwards, Roman three and verse B. Another story about Judah, but a very different Judah. Not a Judah now who thinks that being the head of the tribe of Judah is the re- the the excuse for just enjoying yourself irresponsibly. Caring little about the survival of the line of the king. This is a very different Judah. The story is how the brothers had come down the second time to Egypt to buy bread, for there was a famine.
The condition was that they should bring their little brother Benjamin with them. And Jacob at first wouldn't let Benjamin go. He said, I've lost Joseph, I've lost Simeon. Now, if you take Benjamin and some ill happens to him, it'll bring me down to the grave. You mustn't take Benjamin. But Judah said, but look here, dad, you know, the man said it, and if you don't let Benjamin go, we can't go back. It's no good going back. We shall not get corn unless we bring Benjamin. We'll have to let him go. Reuben volunteered to go shorty. Don't talk nonsense, said Jacob, you Reuben, I know all about you.
So Judah stepped forward and said, Dad, I'll go shortly for him. I'll see no harm comes to him. And under that, uh, Jacob let him go. And he went down to Egypt, and you know what happened? When they were on their way back, they were overtaken by Joseph's men who said, one of you has stolen my cup. My cup was found in Benjamin's sack. And they all went back to Egypt in tremendous distress. Uh, and Joseph says, it's all right. They didn't know who it was, of course. It's all right. All the rest of you can go back, but you agreed that the man in whose sack the cup was found, he'd have to stay behind.
So all you go back. And at that moment, Judah stepped forward. He said, Sam, I talk to you. My father is old. This is his, his last son. He dotes on him his whole life. He's bound up with this little lad. He didn't want him to come. He said, if he come, if he goes with you and is lost, it'll kill me. And I went guarantor for him. And now if I go back, I can't do it, he said. If I go back and Benjamin is not with me, it'll bring down my father to the grave, broken hearted.
I can't go back, he said, sir, and see my father wiped out. Please, please, he said, would you let me take the place of Benjamin and suffer his penalty for him? Ah, Joseph, in his wisdom, had taught Judah a lesson, hadn't he? What does it mean to be in the line of the king? Doesn't mean going down the street in your big hat with your staff and commanding everybody and indulging yourself, careless of the line of the king who shall come. Being in the line of the king means following him who came to give his life a ransom for many.
And we come back finally to Ruth. Marvelous woman. And the story of as a Gentile, who coming to faith in God and discovering the great kinsman redeemer, laid down her very life for the people of God. Didn't she? Decided to follow and came with Naomi, when humanly speaking, that was the end of all her hopes. She was prepared to give her life for that nation.
And says John the Apostle, he loved us, and he laid down his life for us. If that be so, we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. That is the story. And if we would be effective witnesses like Ruth was, Ruth the Gentile to Naomi the Israelite. If we would be used of God in the great processes that one day shall see Jesus Christ come in all his glory to complete redemption, then we must be prepared ourselves in maintaining the line of the king, to follow the king and lay down our lives for the brethren and for the people of God.
Shall we pray? Lord, we thank thee for thy word. We thank thee for these ancient and superficially simple stories, but as we read them, they become not only sophisticated, they begin to speak to our hearts, and they raise our hearts to the heights of joy and gladness at the contemplation of thy magnificent grace to us Gentiles. They speak to our hearts and ask us about our witness in the world, and question us about our willingness to follow in the paths of the king and lay down our lives for the present.
Help us, therefore, now, as we come to the end of our study, to rejoice in thy grace, to be full of hope for the future through the comfort of thy word, and to be encouraged to give ourselves the more resolutely to serve thee in the day when it is right that we suffer, that we might share the more in the glories that shall be. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
