Ruth: Hope in the Dark

JD Greer Jesus has the right he's got the resources and the resolve to be our kinsman redeemer. He's got the right is our relative born of a woman just like we were.

He had the resources he was without sin with power over sickness and death. He had the resolve. He said all undergo even the curse of death itself survived and back in route we see the entire gospel display before I like everything the part diagnosis or the death of a loved one. Maybe her business went under. Were you lost your home in a natural disaster today on Senate life pastor Jeannie Greer is walking us through the story of a woman who left everything home or family or financial security that we are finding hope to carry us through. Even in the darkest of seasons. It's a well-known passage as part of her teaching series called the whole story that's walking us through the entire Bible. One story at a time to grab your Bible and join us expecting to hear from God right now is castigating you have the Bible invite you to take it out now get open it to the book of Ruth. Ruth is a hopeful glimpse of the in the midst of a depressingly dark chapter in Israel's history. This book declares to Israel you and here's how you're gonna win. Incidentally, the book of Ruth is the first time that the word hope is used in the Bible.

Now, I try to teach you this before on the word hope in English usually implies something that we want to happen that were not sure is actually going to happen on biblical hope, by contrast, is not something that you are unsure about biblical hope is something you are very sure about that simply has not happened yet and something that you look forward to with expectation and something that reshapes your entire outlook on life will biblical hope is the book of Ruth is about that kind of hope. The setting is a mention is an incredibly dark time. The end of the book of Joshua.

Joshua told people that they were never to be able stay faithful to God and sure enough, just like Joshua said they don't. So the book of Judges, which is what right after Joshua traces this continual cycle of idolatry and disobedience is followed by time of oppression and judgment which is followed by time of repentance where God raises up a deliverer to deliver them or the judges, which then leads to complacency which leads back to idolatry and disobedience which leads back to oppression and ends the cycle just gradually goes downward until things are totally out of control. The bookends in total moral chaos with Israel as bad if not worse than the Canaanites that they driven out the story of Ruth takes place in the last of those dark cycles. It's right after the story of Samson who was the last identified judge in Israel things seem as bad as they can possibly be. This is at the very end. If you want to know were Ruth goes it's right after Sampson story in the book of Judges chapter 1 verse one ready in the days of the judges ruled there was no famine in the land in Amanda Bethlehem. It's kind of a famous city in Israel and Judah went to sojourn in the country of Moab. He and his wife and his two sons out to catch that the promise land. The land that God had promised to bless Israel in the land from which God had said he would make them a blessing to all the nations around them. That land is under such severe famine because of the people sin, but the people of God are literally sleeve it.

You see how far they fall. This is the land that was supposed to flow with milk and honey. Now I don't even have enough grain to feed people burst through the name of the man was a limb alike in the name of his wife was Naomi and the names of his two sons were made on and Chile on in Hebrew, sickly, and spent most likely better nicknames was still a tough way to grow up. Verse three but a limo like the sun husband Naomi died and she was left was sickly and spent these took Moabite wives in the name of the one was or posse was out of the mall. The talkshow host Eminem and the other was Ruth but would you Also Another Married Foreign Pagan Women Who Worship Other Gods.

This Was Directly Forbidden by God. While These Two Guys Lived about 10 Years and Then Sickly and Spent Died.

No Real Surprise There.

Then She Arose. Naomi Arose with Her Daughters-In-Law to Return from the Country of Moab. She Heard the Lord Visited His People Back in Israel. Give Them Food but Naomi Said Were to Daughters-In-Law Go Return Each of You Back to Her Mother's House. May the Lord Deal Kindly with You As You Have Dealt with the Dead. My Two Sons and with Me. I Have Nothing for You Girls Want You to Go Back Home. Verse 14 Orb. I Kissed Her Mother-In-Law. Another Was to Leave and Go Home.

Ruth Clung to Her, but Naomi Said See Your Sister-In-Law's Gone Back to Her People and Were God's Punches Go with Her.

I Got Nothing for You but Ruth Said Do Not Urge Me to Leave You or Return from Following You Wherever You Go I Will Go Where You Lodge, I Will Lodge Your People Shall Be My People and Your God Shall Become My God. Verse 18 When Naomi Saw That She Was Determined to Go Whether She Said No More. Verse 19 so the Two of Them Went on until They Came Back to Bethlehem and When It Came to Bethlehem Oldtown Was Stirred up Because of Them and the Women of the Town Citizen Is Naomi. The She Said to Them, Do Not Call Me Naomi, Which in Hebrew Sounds like Sweet. Call Me Madurai.

Instead, Which Means in Hebrew. Better for the Almighty Has Dealt Very Bitterly with Me. I Went Away Full and the Lord Has Brought Me Back MC Read Chapter 2 Their Widows. They Got No Food. They Had New Jobs That Protect Her Phone off the Ruth Does What Poor People Did in Those Days. She Set out and She Went and Gleaned the Field after the Reverse. She Got It Commanded in the Book of Leviticus That Reaper Should Only Pass to the Field That They Were Harvesting One Time Picking up the Great Anything That They Dropped Anything That Couldn't Carry out on Their First Time through. They Were Not to Go Back and Clean up. They Were to Leave That for Poor People Who Come behind Them Was a Very Simple Way of Caring for the Poor.

God Has Always Had a Way of Caring for the Poor and Is Always through the Simple Generosity of His People Will Ruth Is One of Those Gleaners Is Coming Back yet to Pick up What's Been Left behind and She Just so Happened Verse Three to Come to the Part of the Field Belonging the Ball As It Was of the Clan of a Limb Elect Who Was of Course If You Remember Naomi's Deceased Husband, Now Two Things That You Should See Their First Saying That Boaz Is a Relative of Bears Is a Really Good Thing for Them Because That Means There Might Be Somebody around Is Going to Help Them.

Plus Furthermore, It's a Signal to a Jewish Audience That a Romance Is Afoot. Now I Realize That in Today's Culture. When You Say so and so Is Your Cousin That Is Not Immediately Set up a Romance for You, but in Jewish Literature. It Always Signals a Romance Second That Phrase. It Just so Happened Is Going to Be Repeated a Couple of Different Times in the Book with Intended Irony. She Just so Happened to Stumble into This Particular Field. That's the Kind of Coincidence That Is Way Too Random to Just Happen You Know Guys, like When Future Wife Turn to Pick out a Movie and so You're Watching a Chick Flick, and There's Some Major Plot Turn That Hinges on Some Totally Random Lucky Coincidence and You're Sitting There Watching It, and in Your Mind You Think I Got Kind of Stuff Never Happens in Real Life, Who Writes This Garbage.

This Is so Absurd, and You Turn to Your Wife and You Are about to Point out Said Absurdity. When You Notice She Smith Limits Wiping a Tear from Her Eye, and in One of the Few Brief Shining Moments in Your Relationship You Think You Know Maybe Now Is Not the Best Time for Me to Point out This Absurdity and Instead Used on Figureheads.

I While Baby in God Good in God Jehovah Genre Jehovah Gyro.

See That's What's Happening Here at Totally Random Coincidence, but It's All Been Woven Together by a Sovereign God.

There Is Not One Dramatic Miracle, Not a Single One. Throughout the Book of Ruth All There Is. This Sovereignly Controlled Circumstances Because Both Miracles and Sovereign Control Are Both Ways That God Works Supernaturally in the World and in Your Life. Maybe You Have Heard It Said before That Coincidence Is Often Just God's Way of Remaining Anonymous. That Certainly What's Happening in Your Life. Things Existing Random or Be Directed by a Sovereign God to Get Things Where He Wants Them to Go Verse Four and Behold, Boaz Now Really Dramatically. That's the Way That's Written in Hebrew Boaz and Hebrew Literally Means Straight Boaz Is a Man's Man. He Comes in Rotten on a Horse with His Cake Flapping in the Latest Ruling in His Hair Out Of His Face.

He's a Dude, He's Rich. I Mean, He Owns All These Fields Right and Everybody Loves Him. Everybody Knows Boaz Here so I Know That Look at the Next Verse He Says to the Reapers. The Lord Be with You and I All Answer in Unison Know the Lord Bless You Not Coming to View Your Boss Walks in and Says the Lord Be with You and You Will Pop up Out Of Your Cubicles like Moses, I Know the Lord Be with You Is Not Ours on Boston but Pops up When He Walks in the This Would Good Boy Available at This Guys Great. Everybody's a Fan.

I Am Verse Five. Then Boaz Said to Be Young Man Who Was in Charge of the Reapers, the Nerd with the Clipboard Lucky When the College Whose Young Woman Is This Now. If You Underline Stuff in Your Bible Underline That Question Because That Is the Question That Is the Fundamental Questionable Book Is This. Who Is She Fundamentally Is She Mainly a Moabite to Be Despised.

Is She a Stranger to Be Shined If She Damaged Goods Which Is How the Culture Would've Seen Her in That Day You See to a Jewish Audience. Ruth Had Three Strikes against Her Strike Number One. She Was a Moabite Which the Jews Regarded As a Cursed People Moabite for the Offspring of an Incestuous Relationship between Watt and His Two Daughters so Israel Regarded Them As First They Despise the Moabite Second. She Was a Widow, Which Meant That They Would've Regarded Her As Used Goods. Third, She Was Poor, Which They Saw As a Sign of God's Judgment Furthermore Got Away. There Is No Way That Ruth Even Looks That Good in This Chapter, I Mean She's Rummaging through the Weeds Looking for Food or Phases Old Oily and Grimy, Her One Dress That She Owns All Dirty and Torn. That's Not How a Girl Wants to Meet a Guy Right. Most Girls of Another to Be Needing a Significant God Disappear Upstairs in the Bathroom like Four Hours in the Spray Painting and Sandblasting and Things Are Totally Unknown to the Male Gender There Going on up There Girls When You Meet Mr. Perfect You Want to Be All Slimy and Grimy in Dumpster Diving for Food Right in Other Words, She's Not a Picture of Attractiveness and Beauty, but Boaz Represents a Different Kind of Man in Israel Is to Give Us a Picture of God's Love, so Boaz Tells Her.

Do Not Glean in Another Field, or Even Leave This One. I Think It's Kind of like an Old Testament Pickup Line Hey Baby Holly Some Extra Grain out for You. Seems Kind of Strange to Me but Work Better Than Any Pickup Line I've Ever Used First-In That She Fell on Her Face, Bowing to the Ground, Guys. You Might Want to Try It out.

Coming in My Day We Had Some Great Christian Pickup Lines like Girl I Heard Jesus Called You. He Wants Me to Do the Same. You Okay with That. You Know, Our Lives Good.

They Were Good but They Never Got Me That Reaction Right There so You Might Want to Try This Goes on Verse Nine Have I Not Charge Young Men Not to Touch You. He Was like a Fella's New Girl down There When It's All, You Know Slimy Right Do Not Touch or Going to Think about It, and Then He Says Are When You're Thirsty Go the Vessels and Drink Will Be Young Men of Wrong. She Is a Moabite Woman If She Were Tolerated at All in Israel, She Would Have Been Expected to Serve Any Jewish Man Present like She Was a Slave to Get Them Water, but Boaz Says You'll Have To Be Our Servant. We Will Treat You like Family Will Serve You in Fact, Verse 14 and Mealtime. Boaz Said to Her, Come Here and Eat Some Bread and Dip Your Morsel in the Wind, Assist, Make an Old Testament Version of Going out for Appetizers at Applebee's, Nothing Serious, Just a Casual Day Coffee with a Friend. She Ate until She Was Satisfied She Had Some Left over When She Rose to Glean, Boaz Instructed His Young Men Same Letter Glean Even among the Sheaves. Or Criticize a Letter Come in the Barn and Take Stuff Out Of the Pile That We Have Also Pulls Them off in a Bundle Spurring Leaving on the Ground Are Going to Stone on the Ground for so She Glean in the Eat Is Going in the Fields All Evening and She Beat out What She Had Glean It Was about an E-File of Barley and She Took It up When the City Not Require Detail Just Because It's Interesting to Me Scholar Say an E-File Would've Been a Big Old Fictile Wheat and Really Having an Roosters Hoisted up on Her Shoulder and Carries It in the Town. Evidently Ruth Is Pretty Jacked My Mother-In-Law Her Mother-In-Law When She Gets Home Sees What She's Going She Says to Work Towards Growing the Name or Where He Worked. Naomi Is so Excited She Stumbling over Her Words Cc Asked the Exact Same Thing Twice What You Blessed Be the Man Who Took Notice of You. So She Told Her Mother-In-Law with Whom She Worked in Here Again, the Drama, Because Ruth Doesn't Know the Connection of Boaz to a Relative. Naomi Does the Man's Name with Whom I Work Today Is in Hebrew, and He with Any Boaz Is Left of the Very Last Word in the Sentence and the Audience.

Anticipation Is Building Because You, the Reader, You Know This Guy's a Relative You Know These Wealthy, You Know That He's a Good Romantic Match Answer Your Watching Naomi's Eyes As Ruth Builds up to the Last Word in the Senate That You Said His Name Is Boaz to the Soaring Classical Music in the Flock of Dogs That Takes off in the Background. Verse 20 and Then He Said to Her Daughter-In-Law.

May You Be Blessed by the Lord's Kindness Is Not Forsaken the Living or the Dead.

My Raw Bitter Just Got Naomi Sweet Again Because She Realized That God Had Not Forgotten Her. After All, and Naomi Also Said to Her. This Man Is a Close Relative of Ours Is One of Our Redeemer's Mouth. Let's Talk for Just a Minute about That Word Redeemer in Those Days If You Were in Debt. You Could Sell Your Property, Your Family Inheritance. You Get Deeded out to Somebody Else in Order to Pay off Those Debts, but Here Was the Deal You Have the Right at Any Point to Buyback That Property Back in Your Family. You Just Had to Have the Money to Pay off the Debt If You Couldn't Do That in a Family Member Could Do It for You That Family Member Was Called a Kinsman Redeemer Kinsman Is Just a Fancy Word That Means Relative, Redeemer Kinsman Redeemer Had to Have Three Things. First, They Had to Have the Right, the Right Meant That They Were the Closest Living Relative Who Was Willing to Do This Second They Had to Have the Resources They Had to Be Willing to Pay off the Debt. Third, They Had to Have the Resolve They Had to Want to Do It Well.

Boaz Is a Relative, and Boaz Is Wealthy. So He's Got the Right and He's Got the Resources Does He Have the Results. Let's See Chapter 3 Chapter 3 Verse Three Watch Therefore Naomi Says to Ruth and Annoy Yourself Put on a Little Perfume and Put on Your Cloak and Go down to the Threshing Floor but Do Not Make Yourself Known to the Man until You Finish, Even Drinking, but When He Lies down Observed the Place Where He Lives, Then Go and Uncover His Feet and Lie down, and He Will Tell You What to Do. Verse Seven and When Boaz Had Eaten and Drunk, and His Art Was Mary. He Went to Lie down at the End of the Heap of Great Then She Came Softly and Uncovered His Feet and Lay down at Midnight. The Man Was Startled and He Turned over and Bowl a Woman Lay at His Feet. All I Can Say to This Is What the Girls Let Me Just Say to You.

The Bible Has A Lot of Great Examples in It for You to Follow. I Would Not Suggest You Imitate What Ruth Did Here Dies I Will Tell You If You Do This with the Girls Usually Can or Apartment and Lay at the Foot of Her Bed. You Will Go to Prison. Okay so You Have Heard from Me.

I Promise. But This Was Interpreted in Boaz's Day As an Official Request for Marriage and It Worked. Boaz Wants to Marry Her and He Can Reclaim the Family Inheritance. But There's One Small Complication.

They Discover That There Is a Closer Relative and Close Relative of Course Has First Dibs. So Boaz Chapter 4 Finds out Who This Guy Is and He Goes to the City Gate to Wait for Him.

And Behold, the Redeemer, of Whom Boaz Had Spoken Came by This Poor Guy Was Never Given a Name by the Way, Because His Lack of Generosity Is Going to Make Him Be Totally Forgotten on the Pages of History. But When Boaz Sees This Guy Goes up to Explain the Situation to It Verse Four and the Guy Said I Will Redeem It. This Guy's Thinking Hey I Get Some Land I Can Add It in the My Sandwich – This Is Great. They Make It No More Land in Israel. But Then Boaz Very Deftly Says Verse Five Will. Here's the Deal Man. If You Take the Land. You Also Gotta Take This Moabite Woman and Her Mother-In-Law She's Gone Ornery.

I Mean, She Named Herself That Her Son like Saying You Want to Buy This House. It's a Great Deal, but There's This Cranky Old Woman Who Lived on the Second Floor and She Goes with the House. Plus, This Guy Thinks She's a Moabite When She Got Some Crazy Moabite Cousin and They All Want to Start Moving Here and Then I Gotta Take Care Of It and so She Sees Says Now You Know I Just I Just Prayed about It and I Got a Check in My Spirit. So Now I Don't like Him to Be Able to Do This so Boaz Marries Ruth and They All Live Happily Ever after, but That's Not Even the Climax of the Story like That's All There Just to Set up the Last Four Versus the Most Important Part of the Book of the Last Four Versus so Boaz Verse 13 Took Ruth and She Became His Wife.

When He Went into Her and the Lord Gave Her Conception, She Bore a Son and Naomi Took the Child and Laid Him on Her Lap and Became His Nurse and the Women of the Neighborhood Gave Him a Name Saying the Sun Is Been Born to Naomi to Suite May Name the Sino Bed We Get This Really Sweet Picture of Naomi's Become Sweet Again. Holy No Bed and Saying God Is Alive Is Let Me Hold My Grandson God Has Redeemed Me and My Family.

He's Given Us Back Our Inheritance Is Turn My Bitterness. He's Turned It Back into Sweetness. But That's Not Even a Really Good Bar Really Part of Verse 17. Again He Oved Was the Father of Jesse Who Was the Father of David Oved Grew up and He Had a Son Named Jesse.

Jesse Had a Whole Bunch of Sons and One Day God Speaks to the Prophet Samuel in Another Part of the Country's Annual I'm about to Begin a Brand-New Era in Israel. This New Era Is Going to Have Ramifications for Thousands of Years and It's Going to Totally Rewrite History. This Is Going to Impact People in Raleigh-Durham.

It's Good to Be Massive Single Says That Sounds Great.

Got the First Image or News Will Find Me a King for to Begin This New Mayor Executive Order I Find a King and God Says Go to the House of Jesse, the Son Oh Bed. The Grandson of Naomi the Mother-In-Law of Ruth the Moabite Because I Chose One of His Sons Became Numb and When Somebody Shows up Your House and Says Your Subtle Beginning. You Don't Even Care Which One to Bring out His Sons, One by One, or Just Ran up One by One, Each One James I'm Not Going down When Not Telling, Not down Goes All Seven Sons Family Same As I Got in One Any of These You Got Any More Sons. This Is a Welded Memorial Right Kid Is on the Field.

I Can Promise You That He's Not Getting Same Is That We Will Not Sit down to You Bring That Kid in and They Bring That Kid in and onto the Pages of History Walks.

David Years Go by.

David Becomes King and Another Prophet, This Time They Nathan Comes to That King David and Says Second Single 760 David Your House and Your Kingdom Are Going to Endure Forever. Your Throne Is to Be Established Forever. And so the Israelites Waited Because They Knew That the Messiah King Will Going to Come Is Going to Come from David. So David Has a Son Who Has a Son Who Is a Son in about 25 Pregnancies Later Use the Biblical Term When He Thought He Got Later We Have Jesus.

Jesus the Son of David, the Son of Ruth Who Was Born in Bethlehem, the City of Naomi and Jesus Has the Right He's Got the Resources and the Resolve to Be Our Kinsman Redeemer. He's Got the Right Humans Are Relative Born of a Woman Just like We Were. He Had the Resources He Was without Sin with Power over Sickness and Death. He Had the Resolve. He Said All Undergo Even the Curse of Death Itself to Buy Them Back in Ruth We See the Entire Gospel Display before Our Eyes. But When You Seal Beautifully. All This Is Written Together. People Say What You Believe the Bible Is the Word of God Is This Was Written 1300 Years before Jesus Day and You Could Not Tell the Story Any Better in Bethlehem.This Is What You Look like Right Here and I Wouldn't Describe It for You before He Ever Shows up. There Is Number One in the Gospel, God Is about the Business of Redemption.

The Word Redemption Is Used 23 Times in Ruth for Short Chapters in Ruth We See the Unloved or Loved Again We See the Poor Restored the Inheritance That Is Been Lost Because of Sin Is Reclaimed the Generosity of Another Who Is Related to Us.

Bitterness Becomes Sweet. The Book of Ruth Starts Her Death Naomi Losing Her Husband and Her Sons, but Ends in a Genealogy Recounting a List of Births That's Going Backwards Right for the World. Life Starts with Birth and Incidental but for the Christian You Turn That Story around As We Know That Life Begins Were Born in Dev God Rewrites Her Story and Why Naomi Goes from Barrenness. The Blessedness She Starts the Book Is a Forsaken Son Was Husband Was Beggar and She Ends the Blog Is the Grandmother of the Son of God. That's the Name of the Book of Ruth Is the Name of the Bible Is the Heart of the Gospel, and It Is God's Message. The Last Humor Just As We Were and Rescued Us in Our Time of Need. Thank You for Joining Us for Help Still Message from Pastor Jeannie Greer on Senate Life to Listen Again to Visit Us online@jeanniegreer.com. Today's messages from our teaching series called the whole story from Genesis to read so far. It will be continuing to go all the way to the book of Revelation as we go we noticing that overarching theme of the Bible. The whole book is really just one story, the story of Jesus in Scripture.

Jesus promises you have not because you ask and whatever you ask in my name, I will get it working his way to Jeremiah he said call to me I will answer you and tell you great and incomprehensible things that you do not know if an invitation to a conversation with the God of the universe is very clear. He says just in his newest book titled just ask Pastor JD shows how prayer wasn't nonnegotiable daily staple in Jesus's life was more essential to him eating or sleeping, and therefore why we need to pray as well. So start small.

Don't get overwhelmed by stories of great sanctifying Martin Luther praying for four hours before breakfast.

Just spend five minutes with really think God is more excited about meeting you for this first thing you get 10 minutes like an appetite.

The more you feed it grows we'd like to get you a copy of this new resource to our way of saying thanks when you donate to support this ministry is designed to help prayer life.

The power of the Holy Spirit to prayer request your copy and just when you donate today and suggested level of $25 or more, 868-3550 220-663-3524. Give online@clear.com I'm only writing you to join us again Wednesday through the really picture learning can restore any situation are good boring backward encouraging message about Wednesday on Senate life Jeannie Greer ministry