Gooding, David: 1 - The Structure of the Book of Ruth

Thank you for the stimulation of suggesting to me that on this occasion I join you in a study of the book of Ruth. I'm persuaded, of course, as I begin, that you have not asked me to study the book of Ruth with you because you do not know the book of Ruth. It is rather the reverse. You are, I am persuaded, as Paul said to the Romans, all of you absolute experts on the book of Ruth, knowing it from end to end and loving every syllable of it, you'll say. And what you wish me to do, I'm sure, is to, um, provoke you by calling to mind the things that you have known in the past and enjoyed. The book of Ruth, I suspect, is the one of the best known and best loved books in the whole of the Old Testament, and that for various reasons. It is, in the first place, a love story, a delightful love story, and all the more delightful because of its purity. It contrasts vividly with the sorry state of immoral affairs about which we read in the concluding chapters of the Book of Judges. And since the story of Ruth is set historically in the context of the Book of Judges, the love story that Ruth presents stands in vivid contrast to the dark and lurid scenes at the end of the book of Judges, and makes the story of Ruth and Boaz a delightful, if not romantic, uh, story of human healthy love and family life. If, in the course of my contributions to these talks, I don't stress the romantic side of that story, however, too much. Then I'm sure you will both understand and not be disappointed. Had you wished, uh, a speaker to stress the romantic side of it, well, then you would invite- have invited another speaker, obviously. Uh, you would have been wise, certainly, to do so. Actually, of course, the story of Ruth, Ruth's marriage to Boaz, in the end, doesn't turn out to be quite romantic in our modern sense of the term, as we shall see. And then in the second place, the book is not about Ruth. And what it is about, we shall now see as we read from the beginning and then from the end of the book. Ruth and with her Boaz are certainly the key figures in the action of the book. All turns on them. But while they are the key figures in the action of the book, the book is not about Ruth and Boaz. The subject matter of the book we now see as we begin to read the book of Ruth and chapter uh one. um The book of Ruth, chapter one verse one: And it came to pass in the days when the judges judged that there was a famine in the land, and a certain man of Bethlehem, Judah, went to Sojourn in the country of Moab, he and his wife and his two sons. And the name of the man was Elimelech, and the name of his wife, Naomi, and the name of his two sons, Mahlon and Kilion, Ephrathites of Bethlehem, Judah. And they came into the country of Moab and continued there. And Elimelech, Naomi's husband, died, and she was left, and her two sons. Notice the phrase. And they took them wives of the women of Moab. The name of the one was Orpah and the name of the other Ruth, and they dwelled there about ten years. And Mahlon and Kilian died, both of them. And now once. And the woman was left of her two children and of her husband. Then she arose with her daughters-in-law that she might return from the country of Moab. Verse eleven: And Naomi said, turn again, my daughters, why will you go with me? Have I yet sons in my womb that they may be your husbands? Turn again, my daughters, go your way, for I am too old to have an husband. If I should say I have hope, if I should even have an husband tonight and should also bear sons, would you therefore tarry till they were grown? Would you therefore stay from having husbands? Nay, my daughters, for it grieveth me much for your sakes, for the hand of the Lord is gone forth against me. And they lifted up their voice and wept again. And Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth clave unto her. And she said, Behold, thy sister-in-law is gone back unto her people and unto her God. Return thou after thy sister-in-law. And Ruth said, entreat me not to leave thee. Verse nineteen. So they two went until they came to Bethlehem. And it came to pass, when they were come to Bethlehem, that all the city was moved about them. And the woman said, is this Naomi? And she said unto them, Call me not Naomi, call me Mara, for the Almighty hath dealt very bitterly with me. I went out full, and the Lord hath brought me home again empty. Why call you me Naomi, seeing the Lord hath testified against me, and the Almighty hath afflicted me. So Naomi returned, and Ruth the Moabite, as her daughter-in-law, with her, which returned out of the country of Moab, and they came to Bethlehem in the beginning of barley harvest. Now chapter four. We've read from the beginning of the story, the beginning of the action of the plot of this wonderful story. Now let's read its conclusion. The end to which all the action is designed and directed. Ruth four thirteen: So eh, 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 women said unto Naomi, Blessed be the Lord, which hath 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. And Naomi took the child and laid it in her bosom and became a nurse unto it. And the women, her neighbors, gave it a name, saying, there is a son born to Naomi. You'll notice that, won't you? Not to Ruth. There is a son born to Naomi. And they called his name Obed. He is the father of Jesse, the father of David. And so it is that the book of Ruth is, strictly speaking, not about Ruth. I say again, Ruth and Boaz together are the key persons in the action of this story. But the story is about not Ruth or even Boaz, it is about Naomi. You see that, don't you, from the very beginning, how the story is introduced. There was this man, Elimelech. He had a wife and two sons, and when there came a famine in the land, he went down to s- uh, sojourn in the land of Moab, and he died, says the narrative, moving very swiftly without filling in any more details and concentrating on what is the chief element at this stage in the story. He died, and Naomi, his wife, was left. Naomi was left of her husband. Meanwhile, the boys had married two Moabite girls, and they died, apparently both of them childless. So now, says the historian, the woman was left of her sons and her husband. That is the point that the story writer wants to get. A woman, now in middle life and perhaps beyond, having had to uproot home and go with her husband and her sons down to Moab because of the famine that had come upon her village, trying to make a new life for herself in that foreign country. The first disaster comes on her, the death of her husband, and she's left a widow. And then, to her horror, her who- two sons successively die without children, and she is completely desolate, left only with her daughter. What to do? She hears, uh, news that the Lord has visited his people, and back in Bethlehem they have bread, and she decides to uproot her stakes once more and go back to Bethlehem. And at the beginning, her daughter-in-laws follow her, her daughters-in-law follow her. But then, in all realism, she turns to dissuade them. Listen to the woman talking to her daughters-in-law. The conversation is told at great length. We're meant to listen to it, so that we shall now begin to plumb and empathize with the extraordinary desolation that now filled the heart of this middle-aged woman. Go back, my dear, she says. I am ever so sorry for you that this has come upon you, but the Lord has acted very bitterly against me. It's now no good you're following me. We must be realists, my dear. I'm old, you know. I've no more sons. She's thinking as a Hebrew woman, if only she had had more sons, three or four, then when the first two died and left their widows, the second two could have been called upon to marry the widows and continue the family line. But I've no more sons, she says. So there's no hope for you, young women that you are at the, uh, threshold of adult life, with all your hopes and expert expectations before you, now cruelly dashed to the ground. And I can't help you, my dear, says she. And it's no good if you're saying you'll wait, because I'm too old to have a husband anyway. And even if I could have a husband and had children, you wouldn't wait the next eighteen years, would you? For the boys to grow up. It's no good, my dears. So thinking of your future and all the longings of your heart. For every human heart has its longings. Go back, and the Lord grants you to find rest, says she. The Lord grants you to find rest, each one of you, in the house of her husband. The word rest, that phrase find rest, is an interesting term, isn't it? It is the rest of desire and longing and ambition achieved. Nature herself has filled our hearts with longings, hasn't she? And if those longings are forever frustrated or disappointed, the soul tends, except for the grace of God, to be in ferment and turmoil. There is a certain to- torture in longings unfulfilled. God grant you to find rest, says she, each one of you in the house of her husband. Orpah eventually went back. Ruth, as we see, determined to cleave to her mother-in-law and followed her back to Bethlehem. And now once more, as the two women come into this village, the women of the village, notice that, the women of the village see them and exclaim in astonishment, this can't be Naomi, can it? For Naomi had gone out, as she is about to explain, had gone out full. Her very name means pleasantness. This can't be Naomi, they said. For she had obviously come back much changed, gaunt, haunted, sorrowful in her widow's weeds. This can't be Naomi. And she says, call me not Naomi, call me Mara, for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me. I went out full, and the Lord has brought me home again empty. A woman in middle life. And all her potential, so to speak, now come to nothing. And no more prospect. Nothing but sorrow and bereavement and gloom. Don't call me Naomi, the very name mocks me, she said. Call me Mara. And underneath it all, and fueling the fires, the sense not only of bereavement and desolation and hopelessness, but, says she, the Lord has testified against me. Oh, it's all right saying that sorrow doesn't come upon us because of our sins all the time, at any rate. But the godlier a person is, the more they will be inclined in their conscience to feel when sorrow and frustration like this come upon them. Why has the Lord done it? Why has the Lord allowed it? And why does the Lord grant other believers, their wives and families, such success? And young men grown up to serve him and be valiant in Israel, and I, their proud mother, seeing it all and finding all my motherly care fulfilled in seeing my sons growing up valiantly for God, and others have it, and mine are cut off. I have nothing further to live for. The Lord seems to have testified against me. So the action begins with this middle-aged woman, desolate, bereaved, broken-hearted, hopeless. Can I have sons, says she? And the action takes place in all its lovely detail, with its unexpected surprises, if you've not read the story before, and comes to its climax, and that climax is read. It's Naomi's story. That is the capstone and topstone of the book. Naomi, beyond all expectation, restored. Yes, she had begun to get a little hint of it, if you will look at chapter two, verse twenty, when Ruth came back from her first day's gleaning on Boaz's farm, Naomi said unto her daughter-in-law, blessed be he of the Lord, the Lord who hath not left off, notice that verb, the Lord has not left off his kindness to the living and to the dead. We're not one hundred percent bereft, that terrible engulfing feeling that the Lord has abandoned her. The tide now of that feeling begins to recede. The Lord has not left off his faithfulness, he says, as faith begins to revive again. That's halfway through the book, at the end of the book, faith is in full flower. For a child is born to Ruth. And the women said, and you'll notice now that Ruth has virtually disappeared out of the story. Nothing was told of the honeymoon anyway. All those, uh, interesting things and what kind of a house she lived in and this, that, and other. Simply this, that they married and a child was born, and the women said to 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 this time they're not talking about Boaz, because it goes on to say, 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, has borne the near kinsman who shall be a restorer of your old age and a, a, a restorer of thy life and a nourisher of thine old age. From Naomi's desolation to Naomi's restoration. And they took the child, and the women, her neighbors, gave it a name, saying, there is a son born to Naomi. And they called his name Obed. And Naomi took the child, laid it in her bosom, and became a nurse to it. The story of God's restoration of Naomi. Whatever practical lessons we draw from this lovely little story, we shall not need to wander too far from what is evidently the main story of the book. The desolation, uh, then finally the restoration of Naomi. Now again, the book isn't about Ruth, we said, it's about Naomi. But the book is rightly entitled Ruth, isn't it? Because now when we look at it, Ruth is the main figure in the action, and Ruth is actually the key to Naomi's restoration. Now, of course, the figure of Boaz is exceedingly prominent and likewise a key to Naomi's restoration. But in the end, it will be Ruth that is the key to the action. Let's consider Boaz first, therefore. The book isn't called Boaz, though, of course, the redemption, the restoration, in one sense, depended on him. In this, there were two things. First of all, Boaz acted as the kinsman redeemer, the near of kin, who, when Naomi sold her land, forced thereto by near bankruptcy, bought the land from Naomi, and thus kept it in the family. And whereas Naomi had not been able to make a go of the farm, Boaz, taking it over with all his resources and wealth, doubtless made a tremendous go of the farm. But you see, if that had been all that Boaz did, it would have scarcely satisfied Naomi, would it, nor restored her. To admit that she couldn't cope with the inheritance that was her father's and her son's, and have to sell it, that would be a bitter thing. To know that some kinsman had bought it, and therefore it remained in the family, would alleviate the suffering a little bit, but it would do nothing to secure that other thing that was so near to her heart, the keeping alive of the name of the dead upon his inheritance. If she simply sold the land, then it would no longer be Elimelech's farm. It would no longer be Marlon's farm. It would be somebody else's farm, and would advertise to the world the failure of Elimelech and his sons. So it was not enough for Boaz to be the kinsman who bought the land. He could have done that without Ruth. It wouldn't have satisfied Naomi. For not only did she want to maintain the inheritance, she wanted to maintain the name of the dead upon the inheritance. And for that, Boaz was required to fulfill another institution, we'll talk of it presently, and that is he had to act in what we call a levirate marriage, a marriage of brother-in-law. To marry the widow of the deceased man, such that their first child, their first male child, would be counted the heir of the dead man and would carry on the name of his father's family, the dead father, the the his his mother's, his his the the man that had died, not his actual father, but the first husband of his mother. For that, uh, again, Boaz was not enough, was he? For you say, well, why didn't he marry, um, Naomi then? And have a child by her? Well, because she was too old anyway. And then she didn't come into the provision of the law, did she? Because her husband had died, but her husband hadn't died childless. He'd had two boys. It was those boys that had died childless and now were in danger of blotting out the family name completely. It would have been unsuitable, but then impossible for Naomi to marry Boaz. And now we see that the key to the whole situation is not Naomi, nor in that sense Boaz. The key to the situation is Ruth. So let's look at that as the structure of the book brings it home to us, you'll see. Uh, let's look afield here. And you will see from the sheer contents of the book what the action is and who looms largest in the action. The, uh, Ruth, the Gentile, the key to the restoration of Naomi the Israelite. Mark that, because that will have all kinds of implications for us when we consider the interpretation of the book. Ruth the Gentile becomes key to the restoration of Naomi the Israelite. It wasn't simply, in other words, that this unfortunate far-off Gentile girl was, by God's grace, brought into the family of God's people and thus blessed. It was that, of course. It was far more significant than that. She was not only brought in for her own benefit, she becomes the very key to the restoration of Naomi, the Israelite, the Jewess. Notice how the proportions of the story, therefore, concentrate on this Ruth and how she came to be that key. In chapter one, her conversion to faith in Naomi's God and people, a Gentile converted to faith in the true and the living God. The her profession of faith and determination to cast her lot in with the people of God is the highlight of chapter one. And the highlight of chapter two, and the greater part of it, is Ruth's initiative to go gleaning to support Naomi. And as she meets Boaz in the field on the first day, Boaz commends her. He commends her in this fashion. He says, uh, Boaz answered, it is fully been showed me all that thou hast done unto thy mother-in-law since the death of thine husband, and how thou hast left thy father and thy mother and the land of thy nativity, and art come unto the people which, a people which thou knewest not heretofore. The Lord recompense thy work, and a full reward be given thee of the Lord God of Israel, under whose wings thou art come to take refuge. Commendation number one from Boaz coming there in chapter two, Praising Naomi's loyalty to Naomi and her family, and now her initiative in going leaning to work hard to support Naomi. The key is Ruth, isn't it? The tension is all on her. And what about it? Now here is where the romance goes out of the window a little. We need to be careful that we don't read it, uh, in terms of our modern romantic novels or something. This is an ancient story. Ruth does what, uh, uh, Naomi suggests she should do. And when Boaz discovers her and she asks him to marry her, notice where the proposal comes from. I'm told it often does, but in this case, you see, uh, uh, Boaz compliments her. Now notice what he says. This is chapter three and verse ten. And he said, blessed be thou of the Lord, my daughter, for thou hast showed more kindness in the latter end than at the beginning, inasmuch as thou followest not young men, whether poor or rich. That's where the romance has gone out of the window. Ruth was a young woman. They would have married very young in those days, and she'd married a young man. And now she'd come back to Israel with all her Moabitish charm. She might have had other young men, or at least tried her best to get one of them. What struck Boaz was this. You be blessed of the Lord, he says, that your loyalty, your kindness, not ki- uh, your loyalty, the word means, your kind, loving kindness, your loyalty, your faithfulness. You sound more faithfulness at the end than at the beginning. It was marvelous that when you came back here home, following your mother-in-law, instead of going and getting a husband way back home, you followed your mother-in-law without any prospect of getting a husband, and when you came, you devoted yourself to working hard for her to maintain her by gleaning in my field. It's even more s- marvelous that you not only have worked to maintain her, but you've been prepared to do as she suggests and seek out an old man, middle-aged man, I suspect, instead of going after the young men. Hmm. If Ruth hadn't have been willing to marry such a middle-aged gentleman, then Naomi would never have been restored. We must be careful just now, lest we jump too precipitously into typology and say, isn't our Christ lovely, and who wouldn't love him? Well, yes, of course, he is our great kinsman redeemer. But starting at the bottom ground floor of this story, the fact is drawn to our attention that she was prepared to do as Naomi said and go and ask this middle-aged man to marry her. What for? For the sake of keeping on the name of Elimelech and Mahlon, rather than going her own way and marrying a young man and having sons of her own. Ruth, then, is the key to the whole story. And when it comes down to practical application of what this story is saying, of course, we shall have to give a great deal of attention, shall we not, to Ruth. In the Study Bible of the NIV, whoever was the translator or editor has suggested that kind of scheme for the contents of the Book of Ruth. And it's a very sensible scheme, isn't it? The author has seen that the introduction is Naomi emptied, and the great climax of the conclusion of the book is Naomi filled. He then has noticed how carefully the thing is written, end of this great movement here, Ruth and Naomi return to Bethlehem. End of the second movement, after Ruth has gleaned in the fields, Ruth returns to Naomi. End of the third movement, Ruth returns to Naomi after her night on the, on the, uh, threshing floor. And here finally it's Ruth's child that, uh, is to perform Naomi's restoration. Ruth is the key figure in the action of the book. So far, then, we deal- we ha- we've been dealing with skeletons, if you like, skeleton of structure, where any interpretation of a book has got to start. Let's think for a moment now of the, uh, institutions, if you like to call them, the key institutions upon which the action of the story is going to depend. First of all, the idea, the concept of inheritance. Inheritance. To raise up the name of the dead upon his inheritance. The man Elimelech once had a farm, in other words. He had his inheritance. There came a famine, he couldn't raise enough food from it, so for the time being he abandoned his farm and went down to Moab. It's when Ruth and Naomi came back, they presumably came back to the land, it was already harvest time, maybe somebody else had taken the land over, or it had just gone to rack and ruin. There was nothing on it upon which they could live, and how would they as women set about the, uh, plowing of the land anyway, the sowing of it and reaping any harvest? It is the inheritance, then, that Naomi in the end decides to sell, with an idea that she can maintain her husband's name on the inheritance. And this is the important thing, this idea of inheritance. Maintaining the inheritance. Or should the inheritance become insolvent and bankrupt? The restoration of the inheritance. So let's ponder that. Now, first of all, with Israel, the idea of inheritance, and where did it start? Well, it started, of course, when they were redeemed out of Egypt and had crossed the wilderness, and God gave them their portion of the land in Canaan as their inheritance. Yes, they had to go along with Joshua and fight for it, did the original Israelites. But then, when the land had been won, Joshua and company solemnly before the Lord cast lots for the tribes, or the seven tribes at any rate, and where the lot fell, there they were given their inheritance. And each man got his few acres, three acres and a cow perhaps, where he built his house and his wine vat and his olive press, and there he lived, there he, uh, reared his family. This was his inheritance from the Lord. And we notice as the history goes by that this attitude to life was very sacred. There is a story in the time of Ahab, is there not? How that at one stage Ahab, like kings will, having nothing else to do, they'll take up this, and they'll take up that, and they'll take up something else just to pass the time. And Ahab at one stage, he took up gardening, you'll see. And he was going to have a beautiful garden and pleasure park, only it so happened that there was a bit of land belonging to a certain Naboth, just in the way of where the king wanted to extend his palace garden, do you see? So he went along to Naboth and he said, Naboth, uh, uh, my man, he said, um, uh, look, I- I'm wanting to extend the palace grounds, do you see? And your little bit of a farm, your titchy little bit of a farm, is- is standing in the way. Now, I tell you what you'll do, uh, Naboth. You'll sell me your ground, you see? I'll give you a good price for it, uh, and you can buy another piece somewhere else, do you see? And uh, then I can take over your bit of inheritance and join it to my, my palace gardens. So that's what I'd like you to do. And to his astonishment and grief, Naboth said, I'm sorry, sir, but no thank you. You know, what do you mean, no thank you? Well, no thank you. I, I, I don't want to sell my ground. Oh, but I'll give you a good price for it. Oh, he said, sir, but you couldn't, you couldn't buy it. You couldn't put a price on it that I would take for it. Oh, don't be so stupid, man. I'd give you a far better piece of ground elsewhere. No ground could be better, your majesty, he says. You stupid man, he said, and went off and sulked until Jezebel, who ruled the roost, uh, taught him how to get rid of Naboth and, uh, take over the land, you see. But that story is very interesting apropos of this matter of inheritance, isn't it? Why wouldn't Naboth sell Ahab his bit of ground? Why? Because Naboth believed that that particular bit of ground, in every square inch of dirt and every stone on it, was his inheritance from the Lord. It wasn't that he'd been such a successful warrior and gained it, it wasn't that. It was God had given it to him. God had given it to his fathers in the centuries past, and each generation had maintained it as a God-given inheritance. And Naboth wasn't giving it up. Money wouldn't buy it. It was God's inheritance given to him. Do you know that made the farm itself seem a sacred gift from God to Naboth? It would change our attitude to life, wouldn't it? Enormously. If we could get round to believing the same thing. My circumstances in life, my home, my job, my abilities, a sacred inheritance given of God. There was a program on the BBC some years ago, and the program was this, some people were brought before the interviewer, and he would ask them, now, if you weren't you, who would you like to be? And it was interesting to hear who people would like to be, you see. Um, that sent me thinking at one stage, well, if I weren't me, who would I like to be? And I thought, you know, all the famous names I knew, Charles Spurgeon or David Livingstone and people like this. And then in the end I decided, no, none of them. If I weren't me, who would I like to be if I weren't me? I'd like to be myself. Why is that? Well, it is by God's grace. I am what I am. That may be much. Oh, my dear fellow believer, you have a far bigger inheritance than I. But as Paul would put it, changing the metaphor, each member God has placed in the body as it pleased him. Oh, my sister, money couldn't buy that, could it? Now, what you are is an inheritance given you by God. But I- I, I anticipate there was the inheritance then, yes? And of course, with it, do you see, was a tremendous responsibility. The inheritance passed down from generation to generation and kept up and passed on. To be the generation that ruined it and lost it. That was a desperate disaster and shame. Don't ask me how I know about the lords and ladies of this country, particularly the lords. Many of them live in as worried men because they've inherited vast estates from their ancestors going back, I don't know, many hundred years, and some of the, uh, of the lords have added to it, some have lost a bit. But to be the lord who in the end couldn't keep it up and had to sell it out of the family, this was, is felt to be an enormous shame. They'll do anything they can to stop that happening. So it was in Israel. And allied with that, of course, was the matter of the name. The name of the family, the name of the individual on his estate, Elimelech's farm. For Elimelech to die and then his widow to have to sell up and sell to somebody else, so it wasn't called Elimelech's farm anymore. It's called somebody else's farm. In the small villages of those times, that was a confession of utter failure and And shame. shame. You see. Therefore, do you see the, uh, uh, the, uh, matter of the inheritance and the name. Now we begin to see the importance of the twin institutions upon which the story turns. First, the institution of the kinsmen redeem. In Israel, if a man couldn't any longer keep up his farm and couldn't make a go of it, he could sell it. But so that the land shouldn't be sold outside the larger family group, it had to be offered to the nearest of kin, and he would buy it if he could as a duty to keep the land within the larger family. And then after so many years it would revert to the former family's ownership. That is what Boaz did for Naomi. As the near kinsman, he bought the inheritance so that it shouldn't be lost outside the family, and of course, eventually, sometime on at the year of Jubilee, it would revert. The second thing was this custom, this institution, that if a man married a girl and then he died without, uh, having produced a son, then his brother could be called upon as nearest of kin to marry the widow, and the child born of that marriage would be counted as the child of the first. The levirate marriage, it's called, levir being Latin for brother-in-law. That is the other thing upon which this turns. How would we apply that to us in the dying moments of our first session? Let's think of that as it applies to us. What lessons could we learn from that for ourselves? Well, first of all, the Jews had their inheritance, didn't they, given them when they entered Canaan. Have we Gentiles, as Gentiles, any inheritance? Or are we lot of, a lot of stray dogs without, uh, without any inheritance whatsoever? Well, in the book of Deuteronomy, it says that when the Lord gave the nations their inheritance, then he divided the nations. When the Most High God gave the nations their inheritance, when he separated the children of men, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel. For the Lord's portion is his people, Jacob is the lot of his inheritance. So then, yes, Gentiles as such have been given their inheritance. Believe that? That just like, uh, God gave, uh, Palestine to the Israelites, so he gave Northern Ireland to... Well, now I'm not quite sure. I'm not quite sure. He gave the nations their inheritance, did he? Let's leave the nations a bit and come back to the point we were making earlier. Your circumstances, your piece of ground, your bungalow, your wife, your family. How did you get it? It's just an accident. You managed to carve it out of the jungle. No, surely. It's an inheritance that the Lord has given you. Yes? Ah, but wait a minute. Just like Elimelech would have inherited the family ground from his great, great, great grandfathers, going right back to the time of Joshua. So we have an inheritance in that sense as well, don't we? If you're, uh, uh, one born with a silver spoon in your mouth, of course, who knows, you might have Crandy Boy Estate or something, and lots of silver. But whether you have that external stuff or not, you've got another inheritance, haven't you? What is called in medical terms heredity. You are your mother and father, aren't you? And from long generations, a long hereditary that governs your physical shape, the color of your eyes, shape of your nose, hair, whether you go bald or don't go bald, your good looks or otherwise, a- and all kinds of things. Your hereditary. What do you believe about your hereditary? A complete accident, a la Darwin's evolution? It isn't always an easy question to answer, is it? Because along with some of the lovely things that we have inherited from our parents, and we say we believe we got it by the gift of God, have come other things, dark things, weaknesses, physical, emotional, mental disabilities. Oh, why am I not somebody else? Why did I have to start off with my heredity? And that brings us up straight, doesn't it, to the whole question, the meaning of life and the matter of inheritance. Is it one ghastly accident a la a Darwinism, or behind it all stands God? Who saw me and my mother's womb and compassed me about, has in his providence sheltered and guided all my steps, which is true. Let's go another step. In the Psalms, if you follow Israelite poetry, you'll find that the psalmist, at least the godly ones among them, uh, have extended the notion of inheritance not simply to the land around them, but of course, uh, to all other kinds of benefits. Let's listen to the psalmist in Psalm one hundred and sixteen. Here's what he's saying. I'm sorry, Psalm sixteen. This is what the psalmist says. The Lord is the portion of mine inheritance and of my cup. Thou maintainest my lot. The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places. Yea, I have a goodly heritage. And you see how the man now has spiritualized the idea of inheritance and is no longer thinking of what God has given him by way of cows and grass and honey and milk and a bungalow and a wife and some happy children. He's looked behind the material to him who is the giver of all the gifts and says to himself, ah, I see it. My inheritance, you couldn't, you couldn't, you couldn't measure my inheritance. I have the giver himself. The Lord is the portion of mine inheritance. And surveying his inheritance that he has in God, he says, do you see? The lines have fallen unto me in present places. He's thinking of the, uh, land surveyors under Joshua who came along with their tape measures, and they laid the lines out, and they measured the bit of land that was to be given to each man for his inheritance. And you can imagine the Israelites standing there. I think I would, wouldn't you? Waiting, whose turn is it now? Now there's my bit of land. Oh, I see. Well, Joe in front of me there, I wonder what he'd get. Oh, thank the Lord, he's got that bit with those rock in the middle. Glad it didn't come out there for me. Ah, ha. Oh, mine is going to be on this nice, luscious bit of grass here, Josie. Sympathize with poor old Joe, but strictly speaking, glad I'm not him. I got this nice bit of grass here of the lines that have fallen unto me in pleasant places. And Joe, perhaps, who had a bit that was full of hard breaking rock and was disappointed in his earthly lot, was the more ready to see that behind the land was God the giver. The Levites had nothing. They had no land given to them. God is their portion and their lot. And I have set the Lord before me, and I shall not be moved, says the psalmist. I would not leave my soul in hell, for as long as God exists, he is my portion, and because he is eternal, my portion is eternal, and I shall enjoy it forever. One final thing was said of Israel. Not only was God their portion, but they were God's portion, and that was in a very special sense. God gave the inheritance to the Gentiles, but then he gave a special part to his people Israel, and beyond that it was said that Israel was God's special portion. And now in the story, we're going to hear how one Israelite, with his inheritance from God, found he couldn't keep it up and abandoned it. It left his widow virtually bereft and hopeless, with all the shame of it, and how she was redeemed in the name of the dead kept up upon the inheritance. We have to read of a Gentile who had her inheritance too, and it included a young Hebrew lad as her husband, but he died and they had no children. She was a Gentile. She wasn't of those nations that were God's portion. She was a stranger to it. And the lovely story is how that she was brought in and made a part of God's inheritance. Indeed, was used of God to bring about the restoration of Israel, the Israelites' inheritance. And the whole key to it would be this function of the kinsman redeemer. Thus far, then, some of the structure and basic ideas. In the second half, we shall have to get round, can't we, to thinking of how we apply it. Just pray, and then we shall have our food. Lord, we thank thee for this story. We bless thee for its charm. We thank thee for its human interest. As we read of these ancient folks and their feelings and experiences and emotions, their sorrows and their joys, we feel in our hearts an empathy and fellow feeling for them. But we bless thee, Lord, that we find stirring in our hearts again a leaping of joy that the one who was for them their kinsman redeemer, restorer of the inheritance, maintainer of the name, has been eclipsed by this greater than Boaz, who has become both for Jew and Gentile the great kinsman redeemer. And in a renewed and ever deepening sense, we bless thy name, that thou, Lord, hast become our inheritance that shall never again be alienated. We thank thee for thy word. Bless now our time of fellowship, we ask, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.