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BY GLENN PEASE
CONTENTS
1. A THEOLOGY OF PROBLEMS Based on Ruth 1:1‑4
2. ORDINARY PEOPLE Based on Ruth 1:1‑18
3. THE IMPACT OF INFLUENCE Based on Ruth 1:14‑22
4. DESIRABLE DETERMINATION Based on Ruth 1:14‑22
5. RUTH'S ROMANCE Based on Ruth
2:1f
6. RUTH THE RISK TAKER Based on
Ruth 3:1‑13
7. THE CLEVER COUPLE Based on
Ruth 3:1‑4, 4:1‑10
8. THE COMPLEXITIES OF LIFE
Based on Ruth 3:10‑13, 4:1‑6
9. GODLY GRANDPARENTS Based on
Ruth 4:13‑17
1. A THEOLOGY OF PROBLEMS
Based on Ruth 1:1‑4
A woman
who wanted her apartment painted while she was out of town was very fussy. She
insisted that the ceiling be painted the exact shade of her ash tray. The painters after trying to mix this exact
shade unsuccessfully finally hit upon a solution to their problem. They painted the ash tray with the same
shade they used to paint the ceiling.
When the woman returned she was delighted with the perfect match they
had made.
Problems
sometimes can be solved so easily, to the liking of everyone involved, but
unfortunately, paint does not cover them all.
Dr. Paul Tournier, the famous Christian psychiatrist, says people come
to him all the time for help in solving their problems, and he discovers they
are caught in unsolvable vicious circles.
They need faith to experience God's grace, but they need God's grace to
find faith. They need forgiveness in
order to love, but they need love in order to forgive and be forgiven. Self‑confidence is needed in order to
succeed, but success is need to give them self‑confidence. The list can go on and on to the point that
it leaves problem solvers wishing they had chosen math rather than people, for
all math problems do have answers, but how do you solve the problems of people?
Sometimes
it seems like you can't win. Like the
little boy who came home from school and told his mother he was in a fine
fix. The teachers says I have to learn to
write more legibly, and if I do she will find out that I can't spell. Even kids feel the vicious circle. The reason advice columns are so popular is
because everybody is looking for solutions to their problems. Marriage, family, sex, relationships of all
kinds, the world cries out, "Help me with my problems!" And an array of experts are striving
everyday to find answers to that cry.
The most thought word in the English language, if not the most uttered,
is help!
If you
give a little thought to the professions of life, you discover they almost all
revolve around problems. If there we no
medical or physical problems, the doctors, nurses, and hospitals, with all of
the surgeons and specialists would have no reason for their existence. They
exist to solve problems. If there were
no legal problems, the lawyers and judges would be out of a job. If there were no problems with crime and
fire, policemen and firemen could all be laid off. If there were no problems with the mental and emotional stress of
life, the psychologist, psychiatrist, and counselors could all close shop. If cars, trucks, and planes, never developed
a problem, the mechanics would all be useless.
If ignorance was not a problem, teachers and universities could call it
quits. We could go on and on making it
clear that just about everything that life is about is some form of problem
solving.
The
entire Bible is a problem solving book.
It tells us that God has a major problem.
How can He save fallen man who has disobeyed His
will? The whole revelation of God is
dealing with this problem. Jesus came
to be the great problem solver. He
healed people of their physical, mental, moral, and even social problems. He then died on the cross to solve, once and
for all, the problem of sin, and make it possible for all sin to be forgiven.
He then rose from the dead to solve the greatest problem in man's mind, how can
I live forever? The Gospel is God at
His best in problem solving, but even that does not end it all. Problems are what the rest of the New
Testament is all about. The problem of
weak Christians, baby Christians, backsliding Christians, rebellious
Christians, and unsanctified
Christians.
We could
go on and on listing the problems the New Testament deals with, but the
specifics are not our focus at this point.
This survey is to help us get the over all picture of the Bible and life
so we can see the book of Ruth in its full context. Ruth is a book about real life, the real life of real men and
women. The result is, it is a book
which is problem oriented from the very first verse. It is one continuous battle to find sense in a world that so
often seems senseless. The first
problem of the book is:
1. A FEDERAL
PROBLEM. The government of Israel in
those troubled times was very poor.
Every man did what was right in his own eyes. The judges were spectacular, but no one person can make a good
government, and so people were at the mercy of circumstances, and had little
control over their lives.
2. A FAMINE
PROBLEM. Nature became a foe rather
than a friend to man, and this is more than man can handle. Famine destroys plans and dreams. It forces people to make radical decisions,
and this book starts with a man named Elimelech who was forced by the famine to
take his wife and two sons, and move away from Bethlehem to the Gentile land of
Moab. The problems begin to multiply
like fruit flies on a rotten banana.
The whole external world is messed up, and that messes up a lot of lives,
and so you have the third problem‑
3. A FINANCIAL PROBLEM. Here is one of many families who cannot make it in Israel. They have to pull up roots, and become
refugees, hoping for a better life in a foreign land. But sometimes the solution to a problem leads to other problems,
and they might even be worse than the problem they are meant to solve.
Back in the
mid 1800's millions of blackbirds deviating from their normal migratory pattern
decided to land on the farm of Dr. Fredric Dorsey, in the state of
Maryland. He tried everything to get
them to fly away, but to no avail. Guns
and firecrackers were ineffective. So
he scattered wheat soaked in arsenic over his fields. The blackbirds, eager to wash the foreign substance from their
throats, rushed to the new by stream, and millions of them dropped dead in that
stream. By the next morning the
congestion of dead birds had dammed up the stream, and Dorsey's farm was
flooded and completely under water. His
solution was worse than the problem.
4. A FAMILY
PROBLEM. This problem runs through all
the other problems, for it is the family that suffers in a world of
stress. The family is pushed and pulled
and pummeled by the negative circumstances.
Bad government hurts the family; bad crops and bad economy hurts the
family; bad environment and rootlessness hurts the family. In verse 3 the ultimate in family problems
hits us, as Elimelech dies, and leaves his wife and two boys without a husband
and father. Put this on film, and
you've got a tear‑jerker, and we haven't reached the bottom of the pit
even yet. The next two verses describe
two of the shortest biographies of history.
Mahlon and Kilion, the two boys of Naomi were married and buried, and
thats it. It says they lived ten years
with their wives, but their were no children, and they both died suddenly.
We are
five verses into this story, and already every male has been removed from the
stage by death, and we are left with three widows. The subtitle of this book could be, Murphy's Law In History, which says, if anything can go wrong, it
will. You can count on it, Naomi
believed in this law. The book of Ruth
read superficially sounds like a story of trivialities, but when you see with
your heart, and enter into the setting, and feel the emotions involved, you see
it as a story of profound tragedy, and of how faith triumphs over tragedy. It
is a book about the real world. The
world of loss and grief and stress, and one problem after another. The whole book deals with problem after
problem.
How do widows survive?
How do mother‑in‑laws, and daughter‑in‑laws
relate?
How do you deal with suffering and depression?
How do you cope with failure?
How do you find a nice man?
How do you court again and remarry?
How do you win in the battle of love?
How do you respect the rights of others when they
conflict with yours?
These
are just some of the problems with book deals with. The good news is, this problem oriented book gives us a theology
of problems. That is, it reveals to us
how we are to look at the problems of life in order to see them as God sees
them. They are real but redeemable. Even when the problems make life a hell,
there is hope. The beauty of the book
of Ruth is that it gives us a realistic and balanced perspective that can make
us relevant in the world as it really is.
It forces us to recognize and acknowledge both the pessimistic and the
positive perspective on problems. Let's
consider first‑
I. THE
PESSIMISTIC PERSPECTIVE ON PROBLEMS.
By this
I mean the realistic recognition that problems are very real. They can make life miserable and hard to
bear, and there are no pat answers. In
other words, there are things to really cry about. In verse 9 the three widows wept aloud, and after Naomi described
the hopelessness of her ever providing her two daughters‑in‑law
with husbands, verse 14 says, "At this they wept again." This is real sorrow, and when Naomi got back
to Bethlehem she expresses her depth of sorrow and grief in verse 20 by saying,
"Call me mara because the Almighty has made my life very
bitter." The point is, her
problems are very real, and there is no easy solution. She lost her entire family. It is true it could have been worse. Ruth
might have gone back to her people and
left her completely alone. But the fact
is, she was no longer a wife or a mother, the two most important roles of a
Jewish woman. These problems were never
solved, for she never knew again the love of man, and she never again had a
child of her own.
The
story ends with her joy as a grandmother with her grandson Obed in her lap, but
the fact is, some of the major problems of her life were never solved. In some ways her story is harder than that
of Job. He still had his wife when his
battle was over, and she bore him more children, so that all of his problems
were finally resolved. Not so for
Naomi, for she suffered loses that were never restored, and we are forced to face
up to the reality of the pessimistic perspective on problems. This simply means there are problems which
have no solution. They just have to
endured. They are pot holes in the
road. They serve no good purpose, and
they are not the means to a better end.
They are just a pain and a nuisance, but they are part of the journey of
life, and you need to put up with them if you are going to go anywhere.
The
Christian does not escape the problems of life. Every disease and accident that happens, happens to
Christians. They do not escape the
ravages of war. When the blitz hit
London, 36 of the 51 churches designed by the famous Christopher Wren were
reduced to rubble. The stress of life
hits the Christian family just as it does all other families. Jay Kesler, one of the leading authorities
on the Christian family, and president of Youth For Christ, says in his book, I
Want A Home With No Problems, "I don't believe there is a solution to
every problem." That sounds to
pessimistic, but it is not, for it is just pessimistic enough to be a Christian
perspective. It is Christian to face up
to the full truth of reality. Jesus
did, and that is why He too had the pessimistic perspective on problems.
Was
Jesus ever a pessimist? Of course He
was. He faced up to the reality of
problems that would not be solved. He
wept over Jerusalem, for He knew they would not repent and so would be
destroyed. He taught over and over
again of how His generation would be worse off in judgment that the ancient
cities of Tyre, Sidon, and Sodom. He
told of the evil spirit who left, and then later came back to find a man empty,
and He took with him 7 other evil spirits, so that the final condition of the
man was worse than at first. And so it
will be of this generation Jesus said.
Jesus was
a realistic pessimist in most all of His parables. He made it clear that much seed would never produce fruit. Weed would grow with the wheat, and be
burned at the harvest. The bad fish
would be thrown away. The goats would
not be allowed to enter the kingdom with the sheep. Yes, Jesus was a pessimist, if you mean by this, He recognized
that all problems will be solved. Jesus
accepted the reality of evil, and clearly acknowledge that many would be loyal
to evil to the end, and not take advantage of the solution to evil provided in
the cross. Jesus had a pessimistic
perspective in His theology of problems.
That is why He wept, and that is why He said there are times when you
just have to shake the dust off your feet and move on, for some people will
never accept God's solution. He wept as
the rich young ruler walked away. A
Biblical theology of problems says, sometimes it is realistic to be
pessimistic. But of course, it is never
realistic to see only the pessimistic, for we need to see also‑
II. THE POSITIVE PERSPECTIVE ON PROBLEMS.
This
sounds like a contradiction, for the word problem is a negative word for a
negative experience. If something is
not negative it is usually not called a problem. But we need to see there is a positive and happy side to
problems. Problems call for problem
solving, and problem solving is the
catalyst for all progress. Regina
Wyieman says of problems, "They keep us from settling into stagnant
pools. They swirl us into the deepest
currents of real living and make us reach out for the life‑line of
life."
No one
is ever saved until they realize they have the problem of being lost. No one ever seeks forgiveness who does not
feel the problem of their sin. Prodigals
never return if they have no problems with their sinful lifestyle. Nobody changes their behavior until they see
their present behavior as a problem.
Problem awareness is the key to all progress. The people who do most to alleviate problems are those who are
most aware of the problems. Thank God
for problem solvers in the realm of science.
They devote their lives to the solving of problems that most people do
not even know exist. There are problems
in our lifestyle, and in what we eat and drink and breathe, and these problems
destroy lives by the millions. We would
never know why, and never come up with a solution without problem solvers. People who focus on problems become a
blessing to all of us, and give us hope
that new solutions will continue to be found.
This is the essence of science, the striving to prevent and solve
problems.
You
don't always solve all your problems, just as Naomi did not, but in spite of
her depression and near despair, she pressed on in her problem solving and made
a place for herself in God's plan. By
her wisdom and counsel she found a husband for her daughter‑in‑law
Ruth, and she became the grandmother of the boy who became the grandfather of
David, the King of Israel. She played
the major role in the Gentile Ruth becoming a child of God, and an ancestor of
the Messiah. She did not solve all her
problems, but by her positive persistence she aided in God's plan to solve the
problems of all the world.
The
positive perspective of problems says, I will strive to use problems in such a
way that they will benefit myself and others.
If my problem cannot be solved, I will not give up or crack up, press on
in hope that God will use my unsolvable problem to lead me in directions that
fulfill His purpose. This is the story
of Naomi. This positive perspective
does not minimize the heartaches of life, and try to pretend they are no big
deal. It recognizes they are as bad as
language is able to convey, but they never close the door to hope, for God can
and does work even in life's worse problems to produce possibilities that are
positive. It is superficial to deny the
reality of tragedy, but it is equally superficial to think that tragedy has the
last word. The story of Ruth is a story
of triumph in spite of tragedy, and it gives us the balance theology of
problems. The total pessimist and the
total optimist are both alike in that they are both unrealistic. If you want to really help and comfort
people, and motive them to press on, you must have the Biblical perspective
that takes both the pessimistic and positive seriously.
What are
the practical applications of this theology of problems? First of all, it puts the right name on
reality. It doesn't call evil
good. Evil is still evil, even if God
brings good out of it. The crucifixion
was unjust and evil even if God did use it for our salvation. If your child blows out an eye with
firecrackers, God may so lead that one eyed child to become a blessing beyond
our dreams, but losing an eye by such violence is still bad and negative. Call it by its right name, and do not cover
over the evil of life. A proper theology of problems enables us to be honest
about the negative as well as the positive.
The
Christian goal is not to cover up the evil, and figure out how it is good, but
to overcome the evil with good. That is
the message of the Bible in both Testaments.
God does not try to turn vice into virtue, but
rather, to develop virtues that eliminate the vices. Naomi did not turn grief into happiness, or depression into
delight, for it cannot be done. These
are real evils and cannot be made into good things. She went beyond them by her courage and faith, and persistence,
to develop new goals and new purpose, and God blessed her with joy. Her tragedy never became a good thing. It cannot be done, but a bad thing can be
overcome and motivate you to find new goals and dreams that are good.
To often
Christian demand that the positive cancel out the negative so that we are not
allowed to express our anger and bitterness about life's problems, as we see
them expressed in the Bible. We
suppress our problems, and fear it is not Christian to feel like Naomi, or Job,
or David, as they poor out their complaints.
We hold it in and suffer the consequences of resentment, and all sorts
of mental and emotional problems. The Bible would allow us to express our
complaints and prevent these negative consequences. Christians have a right to have problems, and to feel they really
are problems, and to say so. It is perfectly normal to have
problems. We can even go so far as to
say it is Christlike to have problems.
Problems are not sin, for Jesus had no sin, but He had plenty of
problems. He had all kinds of relational
problems with His disciples, Jewish leaders, and crowds of people. He also had personal problems. Even as a child He had the conflict between
obedience to His earthly parents, or being about His Father's business.
At the
close of His life He said, "Now is my soul troubled." Jesus had enormous stress, as He had to cope
with His disciples betraying Him and denying Him. The leaders of Israel would not listen to Him, and the crowds
would not believe in Him. He had to endure problems we cannot grasp, for He had
to take on Him the sin of the world.
The awful struggle of Gethsemane, and the cry of despair from the cross
is beyond our comprehension. A false
unbalanced theology of problems would sweep these things under the rug, and
play the game of cover up. These things
would be blotted from the record, and Jesus would have gone to the cross with a
smile on His face singing It Will Be Worth It All. He knew that to be true, but He also had to suffer real and
tragic evil.
The point
I am trying to make clear is that it is all right to have problems. It is not out of God's will to be frustrated
and aggravated by the problems of life.
It is sub‑Christian to settle down in that dark valley, but it is
not sub‑Christian to go through it. Jesus was there, and He shared it
with us in the Word so we could feel free to be honest about our own feelings
in the same situation. The problems of
life are not illusions, but real, and we have an obligation to be honest about
them.
We don't
always know how some of our problems will work out. Naomi never knew her grandson became the grandfather of one of
Israel's greatest kings, and a part of the blood line to the Messiah. Ruth may have lived to the time of David and
seen her great grandson, but it is not likely.
The point is, these women did the best they could, and sought to do the
will of God in their life time, and left the purpose of their life to God. They were not told they were to be a part of
the blood line to the Messiah. Only the
future would reveal the blessedness of their lives, and the purpose they played
in God's plan of history. They had to
live not knowing. They had to live and
overcome problems by faith that God would make the battle worth while, and God
blessed that faith.
It was a
pain to press on. It would have been so
easy for Naomi to give up, and just settle down in Moab, and die
forgotten. It would have been so easy
for Ruth to give the battle, and go back to Moab, and forsake her mother‑in‑law
and the God of Israel. It would have
been so easy for Boaz to say, it is too complicated a mess, I will just let my
relative take Ruth as his responsibility.
They all faced problems, and by faith they pressed on in spite of their
troubles to triumph. Problems are
opportunities to express your faith,
and your loyalty to God.
History
began with a problem. Problems are more
universal than sin, for Jesus had no sin but He had problems. Even before sin, Adam and Eve had a
problem. Their problem was, should I
obey God or not? Should I listen to the
tempter and eat, or reject this as bad advice?
Because they failed, we tend to think of problems as all negative, but not
so. Jesus faced the same problem in His
temptation, and that problem became His opportunity
to reveal His perfect loyalty and obedience to the
Father. Ruth and Naomi both had an
opportunity to fail, and say, my problems are too great, I quit. But they both chose to go beyond their
enormous problems to seek for God's best in a far from the best of all possible
worlds. Because of their loyalty they
are a part of God's Word to the whole world.
Among the many blessings their lives give to us is
the blessing of a balanced theology of problems.
2.
ORDINARY PEOPLE Based on Ruth
1:1‑18
What
woman do you know who has had a thousand men propose to her from fisherman to
millionaires; from the penniless on the bowry to the prince of a royal European
family? And who was still getting regular proposals after she was 70 years
old? There was such a woman, and her
name was Evangeline Booth. She was the
first woman to be the general of the Salvation Army. She was a very unique and extraordinary woman. At the age of 63 she swan across Lake George in 4 hours. At age 70 she broke a wild horse that the
owner was afraid to ride. There is much
literature on this woman, for she was not one in a million, but one in a
billion.
When
gold was discovered in Alaska before the turn of the century, masses of men
rushed to the Yukon. She knew the
Salvation Army would be needed there, and so with a few trained nurses she was
on her way. All the talk when she
arrived was about "Soopy Smith" the killer of the Klondike. Soopy and his gang would ambush minors
coming back from the gold fields, shoot them down, and take their gold. The U. S. government sent a posse after him,
but he shot them all and escaped. It
was not a nice place for a lady. Five
men were killed the day Evangeline arrived.
That
night she held a meeting on the banks of the Yukon River. She preached to 25 thousand men, and got
them all singing songs they had heard their mothers sing, such as,
Jesus, Lover Of My Soul, and Nearer My God To
Thee. They sang until one in the
morning. When it was over, and they sat
around the camp fire to keep warm, five men with guns approached her. One said, "I'm Soopy Smith, and I've
come to tell you how much I enjoyed your singing." Evangeline talked with Soopy in the white
light of the midnight sun for 3 hours.
He admitted he use to attend the Salvation Army with his grandmother and
sing these songs.
Evangeline finally asked him to kneel with her, and the most notorious
bandit that ever terrorized the North got down on his knees and prayed and
wept, and vowed to stop killing, and give himself up. This kind of thing does not happen to just ordinary women. This
is rare and unique, and way beyond the ordinary. Her life and gifts are the kind that keep Hollywood going, and
which sell books and magazines, for her life is filled with thoughts and
actions which are spectacular and amazing.
There
are only two books in the Bible named after women. One of them is Esther, and she was in this category of
extraordinary. She was a dazzling beauty,
and she played a role in history that was public and spectacular, and she saved
the lives of thousands of people.
Hers too was a movie type life. But the other book of the Bible named after
a woman is Ruth, and what a radical difference. Ruth was as ordinary as they come. Apart from a few words of beautiful commitment to follow Naomi,
and a part from being a hard worker in the fields, she never did anything, or
said anything spectacular. She is not
described as being beautiful or brilliant.
There is no great event of which she was a part. There is no great influence she had on her
day that is recorded. She had no
outstanding gift that ministered to people.
Ruth was
just one of the vast majority of the human race of ordinary people. She lived in the time of the judges, but she
was not Deborah leading the people of Israel to victory over her enemies. Boaz, the leading man in this story, was
also no Gideon or Samson, doing wonders as a military genius or man of
strength. Everybody in this book is
ordinary. Obed, the baby who gives the book a happy ending, does not grow up to
do anything of significance that we
know of. There are no great battles, no
miracles, and no profound theological statements in this book. Not one person in this book would have ever
escaped form under the blanket of obscurity that covers over most of human
history had this book not been written.
Yet these ordinary people are the people we see in the genealogy of the Messiah. The judges, who were very gifted people, who
made the headlines of their day, are not the people in the blood line to the
Messiah. What is God trying to tell us
by this? I think He is simply revealing‑
I. THE
IMPORTANCE OF THE ORDINARY.
We have a
tendency to think that history revolves around great events, and that to
understand history we need to know the decisive battles of history. I think this way myself, and love to study
the great battles and learn about the famous leaders in these events. We cannot dismiss them as insignificant, but
we can recognize that they represent only a small part of history. It is the part that easiest to report and
make interesting. The vast majority of
history, however, is being made by ordinary people as they struggle with
problems, and either give up, or press on in faith.
Who
cares about a couple of down and out widows in an obscure country trying to
figure out how to survive, and find love and purpose in their lives. This is not material for the historians. They are looking at the generals and heroes,
and the people who are making the decisive decisions of the day. This is what history is to men, but the book
of Ruth tells us what history is to God.
It is also the story of ordinary people, and He does care about this
stuff that would not even make the back page of the newspaper. Maurice Samuel, the great Jewish author of
our century, said of this book of Ruth, "It reminds us that life went on‑‑the
weaving of the creative side of life which lies in these daily domestic
episodes, and not in the battles and in the ambitions of generals and
princes. In the book of Ruth we have
this reminder of the continuity of normal, good, loving people, even in the
midst of very dreadful and destructive circumstances and events."
When
Samson is out bashing in the skulls of a thousand Philistines, we think that is
where the action is, and that is what God considers to be the important event
of the day,
but in reality, the real decisive event may be a
weeping widow resolving to start life anew. The evidence indicated that Naomi's
decision and Ruth's commitment to follow her played a far greater role in God's
plan than any of the great battles that were raging all around them in the days
of the judges. It would seem that the
very purpose for the book of Ruth is to teach us the importance of the
ordinary.
How sad
it would be to think that only famous people matter to God. God gave the unique gifts to the judges of
Israel, and so obviously these special people mattered, and they were a part of
God's plan. But Ruth tells us, God does
not forget the masses and focus only on the few to whom He gives spectacular
gifts. The book of Ruth is about an
ordinary family doing the common place things of life. They were seeking to survive and get some
stability. They wanted to be loved and
raise a family, and be a part of a community.
Such a story is a part of God's Word, because God reveals in it his
perspective on the importance of the ordinary.
Why is this so important? Because the self‑esteem of the
majority of God's family depends on seeing this truth. One of the most interesting books I have
read is by Gigi,
the oldest daughter of Billy and Ruth Graham. Being the daughter of a very famous person,
she always felt she could never measure up to what God expected her to be. She envied the godly women who seemed to be
up there so far above her, and she went through a lot of depression, and even
despair, because she was so ordinary.
She writes, "Some people just seem to have an easy time living the
Christian life. Not me! And, after leaving his calling card of
discouragement on the doorstep of my heart, Satan also convinced me that sense
I was not "perfect" I certainly had no right to minister to
others. So I pulled a shell of low self‑esteem
about myself, cringing each time I was asked to share my faith. I felt like
such a spiritual failure that it would have been hypocritical to share
something I didn't believe I possessed.
I remained in this state of spiritual insecurity for several years,
always striving, yet continuing to fail."
Then one
day, as a shower of spectacular meteors filled the sky, and the president of
the United States called on her‑‑no, nothing like that at all. But rather, one day her two youngest
children came running into her kitchen with their eyes bright with excitement.
They had their hands hidden behind their back, and they were giggling with
delight as they produced a large bunch of flowers they had gathered. She expressed her surprise and joy, and gave
them each a hug, and ran to find a vase.
As she tried to arrange a bouquet, they flowers kept tumbling out, and
she then noticed the stems were all too short.
The children had picked only the blossoms. She laughed at their simplicity, and suddenly realize how blessed
she was with their gift of love, even though it was so ordinary. It dawned on her then that God must love us
as we love our children. We don't have
to be perfect to be loved. We don't
have to do the amazing and spectacular for His approval. It changed her life to realize God can be
pleased with His ordinary children doing ordinary things to express their love
and faith. Gigi learned the importance
of the ordinary, and has used her ordinariness for the glory of God.
God does
not need a lot of superstars to achieve His purpose in history. If He did, He would have given superpower to
more than one person at a time, but God said, by His actions, one Gideon, one Deborah,
one Samson at a time is enough. But he
needs a vast army of ordinary people who will recognize the importance of the
ordinary. Joseph Parker, in his famous
People's Bible wrote, "The book of Ruth shows that the Bible is the Book
of the people, a family Book, a record
of human life in all its moods, circumstances, passions, and volition's. Many can follow Ruth who cannot understand
Ezekiel..... If we were to ask
what right has a story like Ruth's to be in the
Bible, we might properly reply, by the right of human nature, by the right of
kinship to the universal human heart.....
We are surprised by the little things that are in the Bible. Wondering why they should come to fill up so
much space in a book which we think ought to have been filled with nothing but
stupendous events. This is not the way
of God in the ordering and direction of human life. All things are little to God, and all things are equally great to
Him. It is our ignorance that calls
this little, and that great, this trivial, and that important. If not a sparrow falls to the ground without
our Father, we may be sure that He regards all such little stories as that of
Ruth and Esther as a great consequence to the completion of the whole tale of
human history."
We have
not learned one of the most important lessons of life until we have learned the
importance of the ordinary. Second we
want to look at‑
II. THE
IMPACT OF THE ORDINARY.
The
ordinary might be important to God, but does it have any impact on history? Yes it does. Charles Fuller called Ruth the Cinderella of the Scriptures. Cinderella was an ordinary person who
received special blessings, and arrived at a position far above what would be
expected. Ruth was a Moabite‑a
Gentile. She was not a part of the
chosen people. She was widow and so
poor she had to glean in the fields for survival. Like Cinderella, she started below ordinary, but by the
providence of God she met her prince,
and she married, and was exalted to a place of honor in the history of God's
people. The impact of this ordinary
woman on history is hard to determine, but what we do know tells us a lot.
Since
the story is almost totally female oriented, in that it deals with the problems
of Naomi and Ruth, and everyone else revolves around their problems, it has a
great impact on our view of women in God's plan. Back in 1848 the language of the people who lived in the Sahara
Desert was reduced to writing by women missionaries. The first book of the Bible they translated into this language
was the book of Ruth. Who would ever
dream that the first part of the Bible some people ever read was Ruth. They did this because they wanted to make a
special contact with the women, for that was the most likely way to get the
Gospel to them. Women are a key in many
cultures, and so many women are being trained as evangelists.
The book
of Ruth is a prejudice shattering revelation.
These ordinary women knock the idea to kingdom come that you have to be
great to be used of God, or that you have to be male to be used of God, or that
you have to be Jewish to be used of God.
The impact of one ordinary female Gentile demolishes many of the
prejudices that have hinder the cause of God.
Ruth was no women's libber, and she was no fighter for Gentile
rights. She was a very submissive
person with no history of protest, but her story does more to exalt the rights
and equality of the sexes and races than any war of which I am aware. Just by being what she was, and ordinary
Gentile female, she has had an impact on all of history, and it will not cease
to influence history until history is no more.
This has
a theological impact because this is God's Word, and if God gives this much of
His Word to working through the ordinary, then we learn from this that God is
not limited to the supernatural. We
miss this when we say, God was really there and working, and we mean by this,
there was clear manifestation of the power and presence of God. There were miracles and wonders, and so God
was there. The book of Ruth has a more
widespread message than that. It says
there was nothing but the ordinary and the commonplace, yet God was there
working out His will in history for the salvation of the human race. Nothing spectacular happened, and no great
words were said, and nobody was raised up on the wings of ecstasy, but God was
there, and His will was being done by ordinary people doing ordinary things to
solve ordinary problems.
The
question is, which is most important, to know that God is in the wondrous and
the marvelous, or to know God is in the commonplace and the ordinary? I think the last, because He said, low I am
with you always, and if we only realize it when life is on a mountain top, then
we miss the presence of God in most of life, which is ordinary and
commonplace. I need to know God is with
me, not just when I worship and praise, but when I am doing the routine duties
of life, and wrestling for solutions to the everyday problems of life. The book of Ruth is so valuable just because
it is so ordinary, and helps us recognize the impact of the ordinary. It is about one ordinary woman, not an
amazon, not a queen, not a superstar of any kind, but just an ordinary Gentile
woman whom God used to be a link to the Messiah.
God's
love is always wider than our conception of it, and so God has to be doing
things constantly in history to remind us of the universality of His love. This story is first of all a story of the
love of a Jewish woman and a Gentile woman.
It is their love and unity that becomes the foundation that led to the
romance of Boaz and Ruth, and which then lead to the marriage of Jew and
Gentile. This book illustrates what
God's will is for history, and that is that Jews and Gentiles become one as the
people of God. The book does not say it
in the profound theological writing of the apostle Paul, but by the providence
of God in ordinary people's lives.
Ruth
does not argue for anything. It just
describes the events in the life of one family, and yet it has a deep
theological impact on all who will think about what it means for God to include
this story in His Word. One book of the
Old Testament named after a Gentile woman, and she is an obscure nobody of Moab. Why?
Because God loves obscure nobodies of Moab, and everywhere else in the
world, and in every age, and He wants to make them a part of the family of God. The impact of this ordinary Gentile woman
becomes more and more impressive as we see what her presence in Israel
meant. David was her great
grandson. When David was trying to
escape the wrath of King Saul, and was on the run, he felt an obligation to
protect his parents. Where could he go
to find a refuge for them? I Sam. 22:3‑4
tells us: From there David went to
Mizpah in Moab and said to the king of Moab, would you let my father and mother
stay with you until I learn what God will do for me? So he left them with the king of Moab."
David
had a friendly relationship with the Moabites because he was part Moabite
himself through his great grandmother Ruth.
David had a great love for, and many relationships to, the Gentiles all
around Israel. Many of his best soldiers
and advisers were Gentiles. Even some
of his personal body guards were Gentiles.
When Absolom,
David's son, stirred up a rebellion, and David had
to flee, it was his Gentile friends that were loyal to him when the men of
Israel turned on him. David said to
Ittai the Gittite in
II Sam. 15:19, "Why should you come along with
us? Go back and stay with king
Absolom. You are a foreigner.....Go
back and take your countrymen."
But Ittai, in words that sound so much like the words of Ruth to Naomi,
responded, as surely as the Lord lives,
and as my Lord the king lives, wherever my Lord the king may be, whether
it means life or death, there will your servant be. David could not turn back this loyal Gentile friend, and so all
600 Gittites marched into exile with David.
Why is
David the only king of Israel who has so many Gentile friends. There is no record of any king like David
who inspired the loyalty of so many Gentiles.
Why is there so much in the Psalms of David about God being the God of
the Gentiles, and the Lord of all nations?
Would you believe it is because of ordinary great grandma Ruth? We do not have the time to trace the impact
of this one ordinary woman and her influence on the whole history of Jew and
Gentile relations, but let me share one more genealogical gem that reveals why
David was a Gentile lover, and why the Messiah has a Gentile and Jewish blood
line.
In Matt.
1:5 we are let in on the startling revelation that the mother of Boaz was none
other than Rahab the harlot, who was a Canaanites. This means Boaz was already half Gentile, and was very open to
the possibility of marrying a Gentile like Ruth. Together they were more Gentile than Jewish, and this means that
David's great grandparents were three quarters Gentile. This helps us see why David had a unique
love for the Gentiles, and why he lead so many of them to be loyal, not only to
him, but to the God of Israel.
In the city of Bethlehem, where Ruth and Boaz had
their baby Obed, 1186 years later, Joseph and Mary had their baby Jesus. It was no coincidence that He became a king
over a kingdom of both Jews and Gentiles, for this was God's plan all along,
and those with eyes to see could have seen it all along in the ordinary life of
Ruth the Moabitess. Third we see‑
III. THE
IMMORTALITY OF THE ORDINARY.
The
importance and the impact of the ordinary does not end with time. The book of Ruth does have very specific
time limits. It starts in the first
verse with the time of the judges, and it ends with king David. But the lessons of Ruth about the ordinary
are timeless, and there significance will carry right over into eternity. In eternity the ordinary will gain equality
with the prominent, as the redeemed come from East, West, North, and South,
to set at the table with Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob. The chorus of praise
to God will not be of the select singers of the world, but will be a chorus of
the redeemed out of every tribe and tongue and nation. Ordinary people of both sexes, of all races
and colors, as one great family of God.
The one common bond, not being their fame, their status, their gifts,
their accomplishments, but, their faith in the God of all people.
From an
earthly point of view this book of Ruth is lacking in events that are exciting.
There is a hint of scandal as Ruth spends the night with Boaz, but without a
great deal of blowing this out of proportion, there is little to recommend it
for a TV mini‑series. There are
no bad guys, and no great conflicts with violence. The story just would not sell.
Yet, it made it into the Bible, the Word of God. You can either conclude that the Word is
boring, or that its excitement lies deeper.
What can be more exciting than the revelation that God loves and uses
ordinary people, and that His plan take into consideration the importance of
the ordinary. This is exciting because
the majority of the human race, and the majority of the people of God are like
the characters in this book‑they are ordinary.
The
implications of this truth are very paradoxical. If you believe in the importance of, and the impact of, and the
immorality of, ordinary people, then you must conclude that there are no
ordinary people. C.S. Lewis in his book
The Weight Of Glory put it this way, "It is a serious thing to live in a
society of possible gods and goddesses to remember that the dullest and most
uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it
now, you would be strongly tempted to worship.....There are no ordinary people.
This is one of the messages of Ruth, and seeing this message should have a
impact on how we see others, and our own self‑esteem. All that we have and all that we are can be
used for the glory of God, for God does wondrous things, not only through His
gifted people, but also through the
majority, who are ordinary people.
3.
THE IMPACT OF INFLUENCE Based
on Ruth 1:14‑22
When
Cecil B. DeMille was a nine year old boy, and old preacher came to Echo Lake,
New Jersey to conduct a series of meetings.
Young DeMille attended every morning, but one cold rainy morning he was
the only one who showed up. He wondered
if that man would preach to one small boy.
DeMille describes that unusual scene‑
If he
preached under those circumstances I felt that he was a man of God. If he dismissed the service I felt that he
would be false. And he did preach, although it was a very short sermon. Then he came down to the alter railing of
the church and invited me to come up.
He said: "My audience no doubt noticed that I did not take the
collection at the usual time. I now
invite my audience to come up and put the offering the plate." I walked up proudly to that alter, put my
nickel in the plate and, as I did so, that old gray‑haired preacher put
his hand on my head and prayed a prayer in which he lifted my name to God. I shall never forget the feel of that old
preacher's hands on my head. I have en‑joyed
the greatest honors of life. Here in
Hollywood I have met the great of the earth.
But I have never had any thrill as great as the feel of that preacher's hands on my
head. It was a kind of ordination. That
had much to do with my interest in producing Biblical motion pictures.
Millions
have watched the Biblical movies of Cecil B. DeMille, but nobody even knows the
name of the old preacher who put his hand on him as a boy, and thus, became a
major influence in his life. Because of
the impact of influence, that hand that touched the little boy, touched a whole
world of people. The same story can be
told on the negative side of influence.
Vincent Teresa in his book My Life In The Mafia, tells of how his uncle
would ask him to shine his shoes, and then give him ten or fifteen bucks. This made a deep impression on him, and he
said to himself, I don't know what he does, but what ever it is I
want to do it.
That was the beginning of his desire to be a gangster.
Every
biography written is a story of influences, and their impact on lives. The story of Ruth is no exception. Ruth abounds in illustrations of the impact
of influence. Ruth would never have
become a part of God's plan, and never would have become a believer and a part
of Israel, a part from the influence of Naomi.
Naomi, of course, would never have been heard of without Ruth, and
neither would have been heard of without Boaz.
Everybody in this story has a major influence on everybody else in the
story. But there would be no story at
all without the influence of Naomi. She
is the key influence, but the influence was mutual.
Influence can be a two way street, as it was for Naomi and Ruth. Naomi influenced Ruth to come to God, and
Ruth influenced Naomi, and made her a famous personality for all time. Bach's, the Passion According To St. Matthew
is generally acclaimed as the greatest choral work ever written in German. Bach performed it once in his day, and it
was put away where it lay unperformed for 100 years. In 1829 Felix Mendelssohn obtained a copy of it and revived
it. He unleashed a title wave of
enthusiasm for Bach that has never ebbed to this day, and so Mendelssohn had
great influence on Bach's fame, but Bach even more on Mendelssohn, for the 20
year old composer was converted to faith in Christ by his exposure to
Bach. They lifted each other, just as
did Ruth and Naomi.
The word
influence has a fascinating origin. It
originally referred to an ethereal fluid thought to flow from the stars, which
affected the actions of men. It is of
interest that the only use of the word in the King James Version refers to this
connection. In Job 38:31 we read God's
question to Job‑"Canst thou bind the sweet influences of
Pleides." Pleides is a group of
stars. The idea behind a influence is
that it is a power which produces an effect without any apparent force or
direct authority.
If you
tell your child to get the garbage down to the road, that is not an influence,
for that is a direct order by which you are exerting the force of authority. Now is you habitually get up from the table
after each meal, and went to the garbage, and scraped off your plate, and one
day your child got up and did the same thing, without ever being told, that
would represent the power of influence.
Influence tends to be an unseen, and unconscious means by which actions
and attitudes are changed. It is a flow
of power from one person to another with no visible link.
Naomi
had this kind of influence on Ruth.
Ruth was a Gentile who worshipped the pagan gods of the Moabites. But something happened when she came under
the influence of Naomi. Ruth was ready
to renounce her family, her nation, her gods, and her life, in order to remain
with Naomi. We are compelled to read
between the lines here. Naomi cannot
counteract the impact of her influence on Ruth. She tried to get her to go back to her old life and culture, but
Ruth had been so deeply touched by Naomi's life, and her love for God, that her
present depression and negative spirit could not quench Ruth's desire to be
like her, and to be with her.
It is
wonderful that our positive influence can be so strong that we cannot reverse
it by our negative influence or authority.
That is what we see here in chapter 1.
Naomi said in her sorrow, and so blinded by grief, I have come back
empty. Someone may have pointed out
that Ruth was standing there, but Naomi, at this point, could not see the
potential of Ruth. She had done her
best to get rid of her, like a stray dog following her home. She did not realize that Ruth was her
greatest treasure. She did not see her
as a asset at all, but as a liability, and so she says, I came back empty.
Henry
Drummond said, "There is nothing exaggerated more than the power of our
words, and there is nothing we exaggerate less than the effect of our
influence." Here is Naomi feeling
empty and worthless, with no assets, but because we know the impact of her
influence on history, we know that she is rich in resources in Ruth. We want to learn from this wealthy woman
weeping over her poverty some precious truths about influence that can change
our perspective on life and history, and our role in it. The first thing we see is‑
I. INFLUENCE
IS INVISIBLE.
It is
like gravity which is everywhere having an effect on all that is, yet we are
not conscious of it. It is like salt in
food, making a difference but not seen.
Naomi was not even conscious of the fact that she was having an enormous
influence on Ruth. Horace Bushnell,
the great preacher of the 1800's, preached a sermon titled Unconscious
Influence, which has had a great influence on Christian thinking. He used the text where Peter and John are
running to the empty tomb of Christ, and John, being younger, out ran Peter,
and got there first, and stood there gazing in. But Peter in his unusual impetuous way did not stop and gaze in
reverent awe, but dashed past John right into the tomb, and the text in John
20:8 says, "Then went in that other disciple." Influenced by Peter John let down his
resistance and went in. Peter did not
shout, "Come in John," but Peter was just doing his own thing, and
unconsciously influenced John to follow.
The
point of Bushnell's sermon is that we all are unconsciously influencing others,
and so, paradoxically, we need to be more conscious of our unconscious
influence. We need to be aware of the
invisible flow of energy from us to others that motivates them to take action,
or develop attitudes. This invisible
flow of influence makes it possible for even the most gentle and obscure person
to have an impact on other people.
Andrew Robinson, one time chairman of the board of Westinghouse, tells
of the strange experiment he saw performed in their lab.
A great
steel bar eight feet long and weighing 1000 pounds was suspended by a slender
chain from the ceiling. Parallel to it
was a small cork suspended by a silk thread.
The cork was slung into the steel bar, and, of course, had no effect
whatever. But after about ten minutes
of constant swinging of that cork into the steel bar, a little quiver could be
seen,
and after two more minutes a visible vibration could
be detected. After 25 minutes the steel
bar began to swing like a huge pendulum.
The experiment proved that even the least likely force, with no visible
influence can by persistence have an
impact that is visible. This works with
people as well as matter. Obscure
people often become the primary influence in the lives of famous people. Ruth has a book of the Bible named after
her, but she never would have been known had it not been for the influence of
Naomi.
Wordsworth is a name we all have heard, but who is aware that this great
poet was deeply influenced by his younger sister Dorothy. Her tenderness and sweetness as a person
molded his nature, and opened his mind to the influence of poetry. He lifted the race by his poetry, but he was
lifted himself by the gentle nature of one the world does not know. He wrote of her‑
She gave me eyes, she gave
me ears,
And humble cares, and
delicate fears;
A heart, the fountain of
sweet tears,
And love, and thought, and joy.
Henry
Martyn began one of the great missionaries to the Indians, and his biography
has been read by masses of people. But
nobody ever heard of his special friend.
Martyn was a weakling with a delicate and nervous temperament. He never went out for sports, and the boys
took pleasure in teasing him. One older
boy took it upon himself to protect Martyn from his tormentors, and help him
with his lessons. He was a rather
backward student, and needed the help.
This friendship went right though college. Martyn was fitful, unstable, and temperamental, but his bigger
friend was steady, patient, and hard working. He kept pushing Martyn to work
hard, not for the praise of man, but for the glory of God. He kept him from
evil company, and got him through school.
Martyn
went on to become one of the heroes in the history of Christian missions. His friend passed into obscurity. His influence on Martyn, however, made him a
key person in Christian history, even though his name is not even known. It is known to God. He is another example of the invisibility of
much of the Christian influence in history.
The goal and meaning of life is not just to make a name for ourselves,
but to be part of the flow of invisible
influences that help all we come into contact with to be all they can be for
the glory of Christ. We will come back
to this as we look at the second truth‑
II.
INFLUENCE IS INEXHAUSTIBLE.
You
cannot just influence one person, and that is the end of it. Naomi influenced Ruth to commit her life to
God and His people, but it did not end there.
In fact, it did not end anywhere, for the impact of that influence is
going on right now as we study this book, and will keep on to the end of time,
and through all eternity. There is no
end to influence. It starts as a invisible
flow, and becomes a river cutting a path through history.
Because
Naomi influenced Ruth to become a godly woman, the name Ruth, though it had its
origin in the pagan land of the Moabites, has become one of the most popular of
Christian names. Ruth is the seventh
most popular name in America, with over one and one half million bearing that
name. Ruth gave this name a sense of
dignity for all the rest of history.
Her influence, by simply being a committed and loyal person, has become
inexhaustible. Jezebel did that same
thing on the negative side. Her
ungodliness made her name unusable for the rest of history.
The
study of influence reveals just how tremendous the trivial can be in its
impact. Dr. Albert Schweitzer and his wife were being moved from one prisoner
of war camp to another. They were so heavily
laden with baggage they could hardly move.
Just then a poor cripple came along and offered to help them. He had no baggage, for he possessed nothing. Schweitzer says in his autobiography that as
they walked along in the scorching sun, "I vowed to myself that in memory
of this cripple I would in the future keep a look out for heavily laden people,
and give them a hand.
Little
could that unknown cripple realize how his act of kindness would influence
history. Forty years after this incident Schweitzer was in Chicago changing
trains to go to Aspen, Colorado. As he
stood on the station platform being questioned by reporters, for he had become
a world famous personality, he saw a woman carrying a heavy suitcase. He immediately excused himself and asked the
woman if he could help her. He got her
to her train, and then returned to where the group, but they were all
gone. Each of the reporters, seen
Schweitzer helpfulness, were assisting others with heavy suitcases. Who knows how many acts of kindness have
been generated by that one act of a cripple many years ago. The potential of
any act of love is inexhaustible.
Canon
Moseley said, "It is astonishing how much good goodness makes. Nothing that is good is alone, nor anything
bad; it makes others good or others bad‑and then others,
and so on, like a stone thrown into a pond, which
makes circles that make other wider ones, and then others, till the last reaches
the shore.....Almost all the good that is in the world has, I suppose, thus
come down to us from remote times, and often unknown centers of
good." Every act of love we do can
start a chain reaction that will never end.
Gandhi,
in his autobiography, tells of how a Christian author greatly influenced his
life and thinking. He writes,
"Tolstoy's, The Kingdom Of God Is Within You, overwhelmed me. It left an abiding impression on
me." Tolstoy not only influenced
this man who changed the history of India, but he became one of the most
influential men of letters in Europe.
Solzhenitsyn says, one of the main reasons Christianity has survived
among Russian intellectuals is the novels of Tolstoy. The question is, who influenced Tolstoy to become a
Christian? The answer is another lesson
on the inexhaustibility of influence.
Leo
Tolstoy never knew his mother. She died
when he was an infant, and his father died when he was nine. He was an orphan boy thrown into a very wild
and turbulent world. He was taught there was no God, and that all religion was
merely man's invention. Every time he
sought to chose a pathway of goodness, he was laughed at and ridiculed. When he gave way to his lowest passions, and
chose evil, he was praised and encouraged.
He was fast on his way to becoming a totally godless and flesh centered
person. Then his aunt Tatiana stepped
into the picture. The book of Ruth is
about how relatives influence one another.
Relatives are the key people in most lives, and so it was with
Tolstoy. She became the mother he never
had. She loved him and gave his
guidance.
Tolstoy
wrote later in life, "Aunt Tatiana had the greatest influence on my
life. It was she who taught me, whilst
yet in my childhood, the moral joy of a pure affection, not by words, but by
her whole being, and imbued me with admiration for all good things. I saw how happy she was in loving and I
understood the joy of love. That was
the first lesson. And the second was
that a quiet and lonely life may never the less be an exquisitely beautiful
one." This unknown, unsung, never
to be acclaimed, aunt, changed the course of history by her influence on one
child, who, a part from her, would have been part of the world's problem
instead of part of the answer. The
impact of her influence flows on, and has an inexhaustible potential. Naomi only influenced one person, as far as
know, to surrender her life to God, and that was Ruth. But the impact of that one life will go on
having inexhaustible influence on lives all over the world.
Only a
small percentage of people ever become famous, and so it cannot be God's plan
that becoming famous is the goal of life.
There has to be a purpose and a plan that all people can get in on, and
that plan, it seems to me, is in the impact of influence. All people have influence for good or
evil. If they are a tool for the
kingdom of God, they will have an
influence for good that will have effects for all eternity. Every child of God is an influential person,
for however insignificant their influence seems, they pass on the positive
influence of the past, and add to the positive influence of the future, and so
they become a part of the over all plan of God.
Think of
that one lonely Samaritan traveling down a dangerous road nearly 2000 years
ago. He had to make a choice, either to
pass by or stop and help a beaten man.
Why he stopped we do not know.
Someone in his past influenced him to be caring and compassionate. For all we know, he had been helped by
someone who found him in the same condition some years before. Whatever the influence, his act of love for
a stranger has influenced all the rest of history. There are Good Samaritan Hospitals, Good Samaritan Nursing Homes,
and Good Samaritan Ministries of all kinds.
The
whole world has been lifted by one man's kindness. We do not even know his name, but he was an Atlas of influence,
for he lifted the whole world when he lifted that helpless victim. We have no record of what that victim did in
gratitude, but he could very well have become a social worker ministering to
people who were victims of crime. For
all we know, the world is full of people with compassion who have been influenced
by this one unknown man. Only the omniscient
mind of God could trace the impact of his influence, but we know it is
inexhaustible.
All we
know for sure about this man is that he suffered. Sometimes that is enough to
influence all of history. Dr. Touree grew up in the Upper Peninsula of
Michigan in an immigrant Finish family of ten children. His mother suffered so with Rheumatoid
Arthritis that he longed, as a little boy, to become a doctor. They were so poor, but he struggled for
years to get through school, and finally was in practice for himself. One of the first babies he delivered was
born an orphan, for the mother died and there were no relatives. He
had compassion on the child, and this suffering scene moved him to
specialize in Pediatrics. He started
the Flint Area Health Foundation, and it became the largest public foundation
in Michigan.
He gave
his life to the care of needy children, and helped thousands of them through
troubled times. There are hospital
wings, and schools, named for Dr. Turee all over Michigan. Had his mother not suffered, her son may
never have had the influence he needed to give his life to medicine. By her hurting, she sent a river of help through
history to heal the hurts of others.
This is how God can work in all things for good. It is by influence that even bad things can
influence others for good. At his
retirement party, Dr. Turee said, "Many people ask me why did I devote my
life to the poor and disadvantaged when I could be in private practice and be a
wealthy man? I tell them knowing from
whence I came, and the fact that the greatest healer of all time, Jesus Christ,
said when you do it unto the least of these you have done it to me‑it is
enough." Compassion for his mother
got him going, and the compassion of Christ for all kept him going, and the
result is inexhaustible influence flowing all through history.
The
thing we need to see is that the rivers of influence in history are just like
the rivers of nature. They are fed by
many small tributaries‑little streams that make it what it is.
All great and famous people are what they are
because of the influence of people that are never known. We all know of the Mississippi, Missouri,
Amazon, and Nile Rivers, but who knows the names of the millions of streams
that flow into them, making them mighty rivers? We do not have the slightest idea who it was in Naomi's past who
made her such a godly woman. Who could
have made her so strong that even in adversity and great loss she could so
express her faith that a pagan girl would want to be like her. Whoever it was is a part of the
inexhaustible influence of this book of Ruth.
And who influenced that person, and so on, and so on it goes. It is impossible to trace influence, but all
of us are having it. And our goal is
not just to be all that we can be, but to influence others to be all they can
be, for such influence, however invisible and unknown, will produce
inexhaustible fruit for the kingdom of God.
The third thing we want to see is‑
III. INFLUENCE IS INEVITABLE.
You
cannot avoid being an influence. Even
if you go away and hide as a hermit, that will
influence people. There is no
escape, for just being alive makes us an influence in history. Since it is inevitable,
we need to make the best of it.
Influence is like the weather.
It may be good, or it may be bad, or it may be just so so, but it always
is. We have never experienced non‑weather,
nor can we experience non‑influence.
It goes with the territory, because it is a part of life.
We are
all products of influence. The very
fact that we are here is because of influence. What we have for dinner is also
due to influence, and the list could go on and on. We are products of influence, and we are producing
influence. There is a never‑ceasing
flow of energy both to us and from us, that is making us and history what it
is, for good or evil. Sarah Bolton wrote,
The smallest bark on life's
tumultuous ocean
Will leave a track behind forever more;
The lightest wave of
influence, once in motion,
Extends and widens to the eternal shore.
We are
all making history, and influencing eternity, whether we want to or not. The purpose of the Biblical record is that
we might see how people of the past have influenced history, and imitate their
virtues, and avoid their mistakes. The
practical purpose of Ruth is that we might be influenced by it to see the
impact of influence that any of us can have, and, therefore, be committed to
make it an impact for the glory of God, and the fulfillment of His purpose in
history. May God give us the mind of
Christ, and the fullness of His Spirit that we might be more aware of the
impact of our influence.
4. DESIRABLE DETERMINATION
Based on Ruth 1:14‑22
Alexander Solzhenitsyn is one of the great modern examples of the power
of determination. He served time in the
Siberian waste land for making a disparaging remark about Stalin in a
letter. He endured six years of imprisonment,
when he suddenly discovered the joy of writing. He was suffering for his writing, but he felt an urge to write
things down. His mind was alive with
ideas he wanted to get into words on paper.
But, of course, it was impossible to do, for any scrap of paper he would
write on would be confiscated, and cause suspicion. No matter how innocent the lines, they could be construed to be a
code of some kind, and he would be in deeper trouble.
I am
sure we are all agreed, these are not the conditions conducive to producing a
mediocre writer, let alone, a world famous writer. Only the most determined mind would even bother to try and figure
out how to start a writing career in such a setting. Solzhenitsyn had just such a mind. He would write down 12 to 20 lines at a time, and then memorize
them and burn the paper. Daily he would
go over the lines in his head. He
noticed the Catholics with their rosaries, and he saw how this could be an aid
to his memory. He made his own rosary out
of a hundred pieces of hardened bread.
The Catholics were annoyed at his religious devotion, for their rosaries
only had 40 beads.
Everywhere he went, as he stood in line, and
marching to work, he was fingering his beads. Nobody could know that he was
memorizing what he had written. By the
end of his sentence he had 12 thousand lines in his head, and as a free man he
quickly put them on paper, and was on his way to becoming one of the most read
authors of the 20th century.
The old saying
that where there is a will there is a way is confirmed over and over
again. People with a spirit of
determination are doing the improbable all the time, and by the grace and
providence of God, sometimes even the impossible. Some people are just gifted with this spirit of
determination. Most of the great
scientist and inventors of history have had to have this spirit, for only those
who can endure and enormous load of failure, disappointment, ridicule, and resistance,
can ever survive long enough to produce anything new. Only the determined spirit is willing to risk doing what everyone
else considers foolish.
All of
Boston thought Frederick Tudor was mad when he conceived the idea of cutting
blocks of ice from his father's pond, and shipping it to the tropics. But he did it anyway.
He set sail with 130 tons of ice to the island of
Martinique. The blazing sun was
diminishing his frozen assets rapidly, just as everyone said it would. The ice cream he made in his hand freezer did
become an instant success, and he made $300.00 the first day. But he lost
$3,500.00 because his ice melted too fast.
That should have been an end of another hair‑brained idea, but he
was determined it could be done. He
developed better ways to cut, pack, and transport ice. To make a long story short, the Tudor Ice
Company made him a millionaire and the ice king. He was on of those people to whom you do not say, it can't be
done. Longfellow, the poet, visited
Tudor once, and he was taken to see his wheat field by the sea. Longfellow wrote, "Having heard that
wheat will not grow in such a place, he is determined to make it grow
there."
History
is loaded with such determined people, and so is the Bible, and so is the book
of Ruth in particular. The book only
exists because of Ruth's determination to stick with Naomi regardless of the
cost, and in spite of the opposition, and the unlikely prospects of a happy
future. Take away this determined
spirit of Ruth, and you are down to 65 books of the Bible, for Ruth would have
gone back to Moab, and God would have had to find someone else to fulfill His
purpose. Ruth is a powerful example of
the destiny determining power of a determined spirit. Like Christian in Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, she had many
obstacles in her path, and only a very determined spirit could have kept her
going. She had depressing
circumstances, for they were basically helpless widows with all the men in
their lives gone, and the future not looking very bright.
She had
disappointments. First Orpha deserted
the cause. She started as part of this
weeping trio, but it was soon a duet, for she turned back. She did not have the determined spirit of
Ruth. She did not see beyond the clouds
of the present the sunlight ahead, so she turned back to the known, rather than
walk with determination into the unknown.
She wept, for she truly loved Naomi and Ruth, but she could not face the
fearful future with faith, and so she went back. This kind of peer pressure would be an obstacle to Ruth's
determination, but she weathered that disappointment. Then she had the greater disappointment of being urged to go back
by Naomi herself. Many people give
their determination when the people they love most oppose them. It hurts, and feels like rejection, even if
you know they think they are doing what is best for you. Ruth met this greatest obstacle head on, and
confirmed Masefield's words, "There is no chance, no destiny, no fate, can
circumvent, or hinder, or control the firm resolve of a determined
soul."
The
beauty of Ruth's example is that she reveals the distinction between being a
determined person and a stubborn person.
The mule‑headed person does not win our admiration, for somehow this
seems to be taking the virtue of determination to an extreme, and making it a vice. Only one of the 102 Pilgrim's on the
Mayflower died on the voyage to America.
William Butten died due to stubbornness. He ignored the warning that his refusal to drink lemon juice
daily could lead to scurvy. He refused
to swallow the sour stuff. He was
determined to make it without the aid of this well‑known preventative
measure. His stubborn resistance was no
virtue, and he paid for it with his life.
A determined person is not one who is closed to the wisdom and guidance
of others. It is true, they have to
resist the negative thinking that is constantly trying to cloud their dream,
and rain on their parade, but they have to be open to any idea that can help
them achieve their goal.
Ruth
resisted all of Naomi's arguments for going back. She resisted the peer pressure of Orpha's decision to forsake
her. She was as determined as one can
get. Yet, as we read on, we see Ruth
was so open, flexible, and ready to follow the advise of Naomi. In chapter 3 Naomi tells her to do some
strange things, but verse 5 says Ruth responded,
"I will do whatever you say," and she
did. To be a determined person is not
the same as being non‑cooperative and stubborn at all. Ruth was not stubborn, but very pliable and
cooperative. By her two fold response
of determination and surrender to guidance, Ruth forces us to look more closely
at the subject of determination. The
first thing we see is that there is such a thing as‑
I. DEFECTIVE
DETERMINATION.
It is
not an absolute virtue, but can even become a vice that hinders us in being a
part of God's plan. Naomi was also
determined that both Orpha and Ruth would go back to Moab, and she did her best
to paint a negative future so they would.
Her pessimism got through to Orpha, but failed to penetrate the deeper
determination of Ruth. The point is,
she too was determined. In fact, there
are no non‑determined people in this book. Elimelech was determined to move out of Israel to Moab, and make
a better life for himself. Orpha was
determined to go back to Moab, and make a better life for herself. Naomi was
determined to go back to Bethlehem to make a better life for herself. Boaz
was determined to get Ruth as his wife and have a better life for
himself. There are no characters in
this book who are not determined.
When you
study the evil characters of the Bible, you discover such things as the
depraved determination of Herod to kill the babies of Bethlehem. You have the defiant
determination of Goliath, and others, to destroy the
people of Israel. You have the
detestable determination of Ahab and Jezebel to rob Naboth of his garden. You have the devious and devilish
determination of the Pharisees to trap Jesus by their trick questions. Satan
inspires one despicable determination after another in his own determination to
make evil superior to good.
Hitler was
the power for evil he was in history, because of his deadly determination to
destroy the Jews. Seldom does anyone
become successful in evil or good without the spirit of determination. So what we need to see is that the
determined spirit is not inherently good.
There is a defective side to it.
It is a tool, and like all tools it can be used for good or evil.
The knife can save a life or take a life. The virtue or vice, therefore, is not in the knife, but in the
one who possesses the tool. So it is
with the determined spirit.
Determination is only a virtue when it is energy devoted to taking you
in the right direction to ward a destination that is consistent with the will
of God.
For
example, there in nothing inconsistent with God's will to go to Florida. So if I am determined to go to Florida, that
could very well be a virtue. But what
if, in my determination, I hide in the back of a truck with a Florida license
plate, and do not realize it is going North to Canada. My determination has now become a liability,
for it has put me heading in the wrong direction. It has become a defective determination. Just being determined is not enough, unless
it is energy taking you in the right direction to achieve
a good goal.
Because determination can become your worst enemy, as well as your best
friend, you need to learn to use this tool wisely, or it can backfire.
Now the
conflict of Ruth's determination and that of Naomi's, gives us an insight into
how we can evaluate our determination to see if is desirable or defective. One of these two ladies had to back off, and
recognize their determination to have it their own way was defective, and not
right to pursue. Naomi, wisely seen
Ruth's determination to stick with her, back down, and practice what I see as
deferred determination. To defer means
to yield to the wishes of another.
Naomi was convinced it was best for Ruth to leave her. She would no longer
have to worry about anyone but herself, and no longer feel responsible for
another's happiness, and Ruth would escape the difficult adjustment of finding
acceptance as a foreigner in a new land.
Naomi was honestly convinced it was the wise and lovely way to go. But when she was confronted with Ruth's even
stronger determination to stay with her, she had to evaluate her own
determination. When two determined
people meet with views that are incompatible, which one should defer to the
other?
We know
Naomi was wise in deferring to Ruth's determination, for her whole destiny
depended on Ruth's coming with her. But
does it help us, and give us a clue as to how to resolve a conflict of
determination? Yes it does. It establishes a rule of thumb by which we
can examine our situation. The rule of
thumb is this: If your determination is
negative, and the other is positive, you should defer, and yield to the
positive. Like is to complex to call
this an absolute law, but it is a rule of thumb that even God follows.
The
reason this is the best way to go is because God practices this rule. God was angry at Israel for their sin and
folly, and He was determined to wipe them off the face of the earth in His
wrath. Moses was equally determined that
God should show mercy, and give them another chance. God deferred his negative determination, and honored Moses's
positive determination. What is good
enough for God should be good enough for us all. God also deferred to Abraham
when he was determined to lower the number of righteous people needed to spare
Sodom.
Paul and
Barnabus, you recall, came to a conflict of determinations. Paul was determined that Mark should not go
with them on their missionary journey, and Barnabus was determined that he
should. Neither one would defer to the
other. God used it for good, as they
went their separate ways, and covered more territory, but later Paul
acknowledged that Mark was a great servant of Christ, and we have the hint that
Paul would have been wise to have surrendered his negative position, and
deferred to the positive one of Barnabus.
The
problem with being determined from a negative view is that you become a block
and a hindrance to those who may have the destiny of the future in their
decision. Such was the case with Ruth
and Naomi. History reveals that those
who are determined to take risks and strive for something new, are the ones who
determine the future. It is not a
virtue to be stubborn, and hold to a conviction when there is enormous evidence
that it has no foundation.
Listen
to this voice of a very determined person.
"To me truth is precious.....I should rather be right and stand
alone than to run with the multitude and be wrong....The holding of the views
herein set forth has already won for me the scorn and contempt and ridicule of
some of my fellow men. I am looked upon
as being odd, strange, peculiar....But truth is truth and though all the world
reject it and turn against me, I will cling to truth still." This is from the mouth of Charles Silvester
de Ford, who in 1931 wrote his book defending his conviction that the earth is
flat. You can laugh at him, but he and
many other pseudo scientists have a large gathering of people who hold to this
conviction with stubborn determination.
The entire religious group called The Christian Apostolic Church in
Zion, holds and defend this view to this very day. These deeply devout people feel the rest of the Christian world
has been led astray by modern science, and they alone have preserved the
truth.
These
people have many other strange ideas.
They consider themselves Christian fundamentalists, who take every word
of the Bible as literally true, and they are determined to reject the findings
of modern science. They fail to realize
how many modern scientists they turn off to the Christian faith. Their determination is nothing but a
stubbornness which has made many intelligent people mock the faith they
represent. Frank Gunsaulas, a great
preacher from Chicago, was introduced once as being a man with a backbone, because
he had strong convictions. He responded
by saying, "I hope I have a backbone, but I also hope it has some joints
in it so that I may be able to bend. If
it hasn't, then it isn't a backbone but a crowbar." He went on to say, "A great many people
mistake their prejudices for convictions and take credit for being very strong‑minded
when in reality they are just stubborn."
Did you
hear about the news reporter who was covering a terrible flood? The reporter
rowed a boat down Main street and saw a woman sitting on her roof. Believing it
would be a great place from which to cover the disaster, he pulled his boat
over near the woman and dropped anchor. As they sat there, soon a chicken coop
filled with chickens floated by. Some time later a horse with a broken tether
floated by. Within moments the reporter noticed a baseball cap floating on the
water ‑ traveling 40 feet, making a U‑turn and returning to the
point of origin. After watching the cap make several rounds, the reporter asked
the woman if she noticed the floating, revolving cap. The woman said, "Oh
sure, my husband, George, said he was going to mow the lawn come hell or high
water!" Here is a case of pure
stubbornness, and it is no virtue.
Naomi
had her convictions too, but she was ready to back off, and not press them on
Ruth, when she saw that Ruth's convictions was also strong, and that she was
making a positive commitment, and all she was doing was fighting for a
negative. She had a backbone with
joints, and she bent for Ruth, and that joint in her backbone became the hinge
upon which the whole story of Ruth turned.
A stubborn Naomi could have stifled the plan of God before it even
began. The book of Ruth teaches us that
a determined spirit can be detrimental.
Therefore, it needs to be examined and evaluated. And if found to be a matter to stubbornness,
and resistance to more positive spirit, it should be deferred and surrendered
for the sake of giving the positive a chance to work.
This means
that the converse of this is also true.
If you are one with a positive determination, you should be persistent
in the face of many negatives, until they in wisdom yield. This is what Ruth did, and that is why her
life is a study, not in defective determination, but in‑
II.
DESIRABLE DETERMINATION.
From the
beginning to the end of the book Ruth's determination is devout,
delightful, and desirable. She is one of those rare Biblical characters
without any visible warts. She is not
sinless we know, but there are no sins in the record. She is one of the most Christlike personalities in the
Scripture. The other three women in the
genealogy of Christ all have dark blots on their record, but she has none.
It is
extremely difficult to be wise as a serpent, and harmless as a dove. It is hard to be a determined person, and
still be able to bend to the wisdom and guidance of others, so that you are not
guilty of being stubborn. Michangelo
was such a gifted artist, and he has done much to glorify God through the works
of man. But this determined man was
also very stubborn, and it was not an asset to his personality. When he was painting the famous
Sistine Chapel he was 65 years old. He fell and injured his leg. Typical of the stubborn male, he shut
himself up in his house alone, and suffered the pain and the depression, and
refused to see a doctor. Fortunately,
he had a doctor friend who loved art, and who visited him and discovered his injury. In spite of Michangelo's protest, he stayed
and nursed him back to health. Being
determined to do what is not wise is not a desirable determination. We need to
learn to yield to those who know what is wise.
We
should strive to bring good out of evil, and use life's lemons to make
lemonade, but when this is used to cover up the reality of evil and folly, it
is a vice and not virtue. The Jews have a delightful story to illustrate the
folly that can come from the determination to find value in all things. A fire broke out in the synagogue, and all
the citizens of Chelm rushed to the fiercely burning building to extinguish the
blaze. When the fire had been put out,
the Rabbi mounted a table and addressed the crowd. He wanted to be optimistic in the midst of the charred mess, and
so he said, "My friends, this fire was a miracle sent from
heaven." There were murmurs of
surprise all through the group. The
Rabbi went on, "Look at this way, if it were not for the bright flames,
how would we have been able to see to put the fire out on such a dark
night?"
There is
such a thing as superficial optimism, as we see illustrated in this limerick.
There was an old fellow from
Maine,
Whose legs were cut off by a
train.
When his friends said, how
sad!
He replied I am glad,
For I've now lost my
varicose vein.
Wiser is
the way of Ruth, for she did not call evil good, but wept at the loss of their
husbands. She wept at the lonely future
they faced. It was not good, but very
bad, yet she was determined to ride out the storm, and never turn back. You do not have to call everything good to
believe there is good out ahead for those who press on in faith. It is like Columbus facing an unknown world,
but with a conviction that the dream can be fulfilled, if we only press
on. Columbus was almost alone in his
dream. The rest of the world thought
him mad, and his own crew was about ready to mutiny, throw him overboard, and
turn back to Spain. He was determined
to sail on, and Edwin Markham describes his determination in poetry.
The long day and the longer
night,
And seas rushed by in eager flight.
Then frightened sailors
raised a cry:
"We feel the terror of
the sky.
Turn back, great
admiral," they moaned:
"We cannot dare the
dark unknown.
Soon we shall totter on the
brink;
Soon into utter darkness
sink!"
"No, no," the
daring chief replied:
"The earth is round,
the sea is wide;
Keep all the sails aloft,
and steer
Into the West: The shores are near!"
We know
his was a desirable determination, for had all the others had their negative
way, history would have been radically different. Columbus had a positive hope, and he refused to give it up, and
his dream came true, just as Ruth's did.
Ruth had to sail on and on in spite of the seemingly endless ocean of
grief. She had to sail on in spite of
Naomi's pressure to go back. She had to
sail on in spite of being a foreigner, and a poor person. She had to overcome
the barriers between Jews and Gentiles, she had a lot of hindrances to her
hopes, but she was determined to press on, and her dream came true as
well. The book of Ruth makes it clear
that life can be a battle to escape detrimental determination, and to embrace desirable determination.
The best
of Christians fight against the detrimental.
This is what the temptation of Christ is all about. To be so determined to achieve a goal that
you will even go the wrong direction to get there. D. L. Moody tells of being on a train where some young men
recognizing him began to mock him with hymn singing and mimicking his
preaching. He was disturbed and called
the conductor. They were quiet for a
while, but they knew they were getting to him, and they started up again. Moody could feel the anger rising in him,
and he came very close to striking one of them. He faced the conflict of a double determination. The negative was to express wrath, and the
positive to express long suffering patience.
Fortunately, his negative determination deferred to the positive, and he
controlled his temper.
Jesus
conquered temptation because He was governed by a desirable determination. He set his face steadfastly to go to the
cross, and He endured all the pain and rejection, because of His determination
to fulfill the Father's will. He had
His destination determined, and He knew there was only one direction to go to
get there. This kept Him from all
deviations into deficient determinations.
What you are determined to achieve determines your destiny. It was so with Ruth; it was so with our
Lord, and it is so with us all.
James
Cash was told by his father at age 12 he would have to buy his own clothes from
then on. He was so proud of his first
pair of shoes he paid for with his own money.
He fell in love with clothes, and got a job with a dry good store
selling clothes. As soon as he could he
become a store owner in Wyoming. He was
so determined that he succeeded in opening up a whole chain of James Cash Penny
stores. His determination, however,
drove him to a break down, and he ended up in a mental institution. While there he heard Christian music coming
from down the hall, and it struck a responsive cord in his life, and took him
back to his youth in Missiouri. He went
to that service, and then he got his life on a new track of determination, and
for the rest of his life, it was J. C. Penny the Christian. He wrote, lectured, and put a fortune into
the Layman's movement for a Christian World.
His
determination in going the right direction led him
to a destiny for God's glory, and the eternal good of masses of people. May God motivate us by the determined spirit
of others, and especially of Ruth, to be determined to achieve goals that are
pleasing to God, for this means our destiny will be determined by desirable
determination.
5.
RUTH'S ROMANCE Based on Ruth 2:1f
Nowhere
does history repeat itself more often than in the realm of romance. James Madison was the forth president of the
United States, and he was the chief framer of the Constitution. He was the greatest scholar among the
Founding Fathers. But when it came to
romance he was no big gun. In
fact, he was the smallest of all the
presidents. He was so thin and frail
that he weighed only a 100 lbs. at his heaviest. He was very slow and he was not magnetic.
He was
jilted twice. He was 43 and still
single when he met Dolly who was 24. At
that young age she was already a widow because her husband died in an epidemic.
She was taller and heavier than James,
and there was just so much about them that was different. They were a highly unlikely pair to ever
become a couple. But they did, and it
was one of the happiest, most celebrated, marriages in the history of the White
House. They were ideal for each other,
and Dolly Madison added a flare and dignity to the White House that it never
had before. James lived longer than any
other president who served two terms until Truman came along and topped him by
6 years. His romance made his a story
with a happy ending.
Thomas
Jefferson, the third president also married a widow who was considerably
younger than himself. History is filled
with this theme, for if love does not make the world go round, most agree it
does make the trip more enjoyable.
So it is
in the book of Ruth. Romance plays a
major role in God's plan. I don't what
God would have done had Adam not fallen for Eve, for the whole plan of God
revolves around romance. Ruth is a
story of romance, and there are so many parallels with her and Boaz, and
numerous couples in history. Boaz was
older, and he had status and security.
Ruth was a lonely young widow.
The potential for cupid is great if these two could only meet, but it
seems so unlikely. Boaz is a big shot,
and Ruth is not even on the social
register. She is not only a poor
nobody, she is not even a Jew.
People
have a way of meeting, however, and
sometimes it is by accident. In Oslo,
Norway a motorist struck a young woman at a busy intersection. He wasted no time in getting her to the
hospital, and he visited her everyday during her recovery. Eventually he asked her to marry him, and
she said yes. They went on their
honeymoon in the car that brought them together by accident. Verse 3 hints that it was by accident that
Ruth and Boaz met. The KJV says,
"And her hap was to light on a part of the field belonging to Boaz." The RSV says she happened to come there, and
the Living Bible says, as it happened.
The NIV says, as it turned out.
The point is, there was no plot or plan. Later on the plot thickens, and Naomi does deliberately plan for
Ruth to entice Boaz into a relationship.
But here at the start there is
no plan. It is just what
happened as Ruth went out to work to keep from starving.
The
Hebrew word here is MIQREH, which means a chance event, or an accident. It would be a fascinating diversion to study
the subject of chance here, but for now we will pursue romance, and just point
out that most people in our culture who meet and fall in love do so by chance,
as did Ruth and Boaz. No one but God
could have known of the series of events that brought them together.
I am
always impressed by the events that brought Lavonne and I together. Three of my friends and I were at a drive in
on the edge of Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
We were waiting for a girl to come and take our order for root beers. It was a hot summer night and the service
was very slow. We were restless and
decided to take off down the highway to the nearest little town to see what we
could find. Who would ever dream that
that decision would lead to three of us marrying three girls in the small town
of Dell Rapids. It was all because of
slow service at a root beer stand. We
just happened to be at the right place at the right time. So it was with Ruth and Boaz. One of God's most useful tools in history is
chance.
Chance
does not mean that God is not in it.
Margaret Hese, a writer for
Scripture Press tells of how her happily married sister of 30 years met her
mate. She was on a train when a
soldier on leave sat down beside her.
In the course of the conversation she noted that one of the buttons was
almost ready to fall off his coat. She
took out a needle and thread and sewed it on.
They kept in touch over half a continent apart for several years, while
dating others. He found that he could
not forget her. That sewing on of his
button strongly touched him. This act
of kindness changed their whole lives.
The door of love is huge, but it so often swings on such a small
hinge. Had he not by chance had that
loose button the opportunity for her act of love would not have existed, and
their first meeting may have been the last as well. Chance and romance are often partners. It put Ruth in the field
of Boaz, and the first thing Boaz asked his foreman was, "Whose young
woman is that? Romance almost always
starts with‑
I. THE EYES.
We can't
say this was a case of love at first sight, but it was a case of interest at
first sight. Sometimes the eyes do not
like what they see, and it takes other factors to develop a relationship. John Keats thought Fanny Browne was awful
looking, but after knowing her for awhile he thought she was the most beautiful
creature he knew. Everyone else still
thought she looked awful, but love is not blind, it just develops a vision of
beauty that non‑love never sees.
Alexander Dumas thought Sarah Bernhardt had the body of a broom stick, but
when he fell in love with her he said, "If nature had somewhat neglected
her body, it had richly endowed her mind." He saw the beauty of inner being, and he loved her. We do not know what attracted Boaz to Ruth
so rapidly, but he wasted no time in making her acquaintance. Christopher Morley said, "Fifty per
cent of the world are women, yet they always seem a novelty." Boaz thought so about this new young woman in
his field. We do not know what Boaz was
doing before this. Maybe his philosophy
was, the proper study of mankind is man, but all of the sudden he changed his
major to the study of woman, and especially the one out in his field.
The
Hebrew does not even have a word for bachelor, for seldom did one even exist in
Israel. But here is Boaz who is a
middle age man of means, and he is single.
We don't know why, but we know he rapidly reversed his no romance state
when he saw Ruth. Robert Louis
Stevenson said, "A wet rag goes safely by the fire; and if a man is blind,
he cannot expect to be much impressed by romantic scenery." For some reason Boaz spotted Ruth, and
immediately he saw something romantic he had not seen before. She may not have been his first love, but
more important, she was his last love, and that is true romance. The New York library has over 2,000 books on
love, but man knows more about the rocks on the moon than he does about what
makes certain people fall in love. Ruth
and Boaz were not unusual people. They
were just ordinary pleasant loving people, and they represent the majority of
the romances of history.
The
entire book of Ruth revolves around the romance of ordinary people. That is one of its purposes for being a part
of the Bible. It is God's stamp of
approval on the ordinary person as an instrument of His plan of history. It magnifies its significance of the
commonplace people. From the moment
Boaz meets Ruth the rest of the book is the story of how their romance
developed and led to marriage. This is
an everyday story, and has been from the day Adam saw Eve. Ruth is considered to be a beautiful woman,
and not because there is any description of her, but because the more you know
of her total character the more attractive she becomes. People become attractive to the degree that
you know them.
The
reason most foreigners do not seem attractive to us Americans is because we do
not know them. We see only the external
form and face, and it is different and unusual. If we could know them, and hear their experience, their feelings,
and their ideas, we would see more and more of their beauty. Romance is simply getting to know people
well enough so that the eyes can see their beauty. The Gospels are the revelation of the life and beauty of Jesus in
His attitudes and actions. It is by
what we see in those accounts that we come to love Jesus. If there is anything lovely, Paul said,
think on these things, for when you see loveliness of any kind you are in a
state of romance. Romance begins with
the eyes, but then it continues with the‑
II. THE EARS.
Few
things in life are more appealing to either males or females then hearing
pleasant things about themselves.
Listen to this lover's conversation.
Do you think I am beautiful? You bet.
Are my eyes the loveliest you have gazed into? Shucks yes.
Is my mouth like a rosebud? Sure is.
Is my figure divine? Uh‑huh.
Oh, Elmer, you say the nicest things!
Most
women would prefer less prompting and more spontaneity. This is what we see in
Boaz. His immediate response in
discovering who she was, was to go to her, and like a gentleman, make her feel
as welcome and secure as possible. She
was his guest, and not a lonely isolated stranger. She was to make herself at home and feel safe, for he had given
orders that she was to be treated with respect. He made it clear that the men were not to touch her. A woman alone was open game, and had no
protection unless she came under the care of a man with some power. Boaz gave Ruth that protection.
She is,
of course, overwhelmed by this sudden good fortune, and she asks why he has
shown her such favor. Boaz had done his
homework. He knew all the good things
about Ruth that were matters of public knowledge. The story of Ruth and her commitment to follow Naomi, and to
leave her family and homeland had spread all over Bethlehem. The news traveled fast, and Boaz, who had
never even seen Ruth, knew the whole account.
We need
to pause here, and point out that talking about people is not the same as gossip. Gossip is the spreading of information, or
disinformation, that in some way injurious to the people talked about. The talking and sharing of facts and
information about people, and the events that are shaping their lives is both
legitimate and good. Here we see that
the spread of the story of Ruth enabled him to have the ammunition he needed to
penetrate any defensiveness she might have.
He told her he knew just how wonderful a person she was, and he asked
the Lord to richly reward her for her faithfulness.
Ruth
responds to these pleasant words with pleasant words of her own. She expresses appreciation, and she
acknowledges that Boaz has been a great comfort to her, even though she is
nobody to him. Here are two people who
recognize the ears as keys to romance.
It is true we have to beware of the smooth talker who uses words to
entice rather than to build up. Some
guys really have a line, like the guy who said, "I'm sure I've seen you
somewhere before. I've been to all the
Miss America contest."
We need
constant reminders that the abuse of anything is never an adequate reason for
ceasing to use it properly. Smooth talk
can be a virtue, and pleasant complimentary words can be the greatest source of
encouragement we give to those we love.
Spurgeon said, "I have no doubt that much sorrow might be prevented
if words of encouragement were more frequently spoken...., and, therefore, to
withhold them is sin." James said
that when we know to do good and don't do it it is a sin. If you think you get through a day without
the sin of omission, forget it. Not a
day goes by but what we could have said something pleasant and complimentary
that we didn't say.
The ears
are a great source of romance. God gets
His will done in history by people who know this and use it to kindle romance,
or to keep and old fire burning. If
someone you love is not encouraged through the ear gate today, you have cast a
vote against romance. The eyes with
their seeing are basic to romance, and the ears with their hearing are also
basic, but there can be doubt that any successful romance will very soon
involve‑
III. THE MOUTH.
Boaz
had just met Ruth, and they had a brief friendly encounter. His next move was to invite her to join him
for lunch, and he provided the lunch.
This was their first date. We
say that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach, but it works for
women as well, especially if they are as poor and hungry as Ruth. She kept part of her lunch to take home to
Naomi. Ruth may be the first person on
a date to ask for a doggie bag. Boaz
was obviously interested in more than employer‑employee relations. He was really a fast mover.
He was
not as fast as the famous Dr. Wilfred Grenfell the medical missionary to
Labrador. In 1908 at the age of 43 he
was returning from a visit to England.
On the deck of the Mauretania he saw a lady that charmed him. A few hours later he proposed to her. She said, "But you don't even know my
name!" He responded, "It
doesn't matter. I know what its going
to be!" That was truly love at
first sight. Boaz took the more
traditional approach of at least having a meal together before the
wedding.
Food
and love are linked together from birth.
Being given food is the first expression of love that a child
understands. It is his introduction to
love, and all his life he will celebrate the love of family and special events
by eating together. It is perfectly
natural then that romantic love will quickly led to two people eating
together. Dating and eating, and
marriage and eating are inseparable.
This is not to say there is never any unpleasantness connected with
eating and romance.
Former
president Lyndon Johnson tells of the time he invited Billy and Ruth Graham to
the White House for dinner. He
describes the scene: "I asked
during the dinner if Billy would give me the name of a good vice‑presidential
candidate. Instead of answering my
question he shot out of his chair and yelled, "Ruth, why did you just kick
me under the table?" She winced in
embarrassment. Then she took a deep
breath and said quietly, "Bill, shouldn't you limit your address to
spiritual matters?" There could
have been conflict, but Billy recognized what she was saying was true. He reached across the table and squeezed her
hand. He did not always heed Ruth's
advice, and he came to regret some of his political involvement's.
The
mouth gets involved in romance, not just because of the pleasure of eating, but
the mouth is the key instrument by which people give guidance to those they
love. Boaz gave such guidance to Ruth,
and in chapter 3 the words of Ruth to Boaz, which she had received from the
mouth of Naomi, led to his determination to win Ruth as his wife. The mouth, or tongue, is a source of great
blessing or cursing. In romance and
marriage it plays a major role. Again
we use Billy Graham as an illustration.
He had constant temptations to go other directions than his
ministry. He was once offered great
financial support to run for president, and a Hollywood director offered him a
star role in an epic extravaganza. A
major TV network offered him a million dollar a year contract to host a talk
show. Ruth said to him on each occasion
of these tempting offers:
"You're bounded duty to the Lord is
elsewhere."
We are
to live by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God, and sometimes these
words come through the mouth of those who love us best. Romance and the plan of
God are not just linked in the book of Ruth.
It is a part of all of history. Romance and redemption are
inseparable. God makes the male‑female
relationship the symbol of His relationship to man. Christ is the groom, and the church is the bride. We are Ruth, and Christ is our Boaz. He is coming again to take us to the mansion
He has prepared for the everlasting honeymoon.
Heaven
will begin with a great wedding and the marriage supper of the Lamb. The eyes will see what none have ever seen before;
the ears will hear what has never yet been heard, and the mouth will be filled
with praise as never before, and we will enjoy eating like no gourmet as ever
known. Joni, who is paralyzed and
cannot use her legs, says she will dance with endless romance in heaven. And
that is what heaven will be, an endless romance. Ruth's romance was just one of
many that led to the coming of Jesus into the world to complete the romance of
redemption, and the greatest love story ever told. All of us can be a part of
the world of romance by a wise use of our eyes, ears, and mouth in relation to
those whom we love. These are all involved in the Gospel that leads to the
eternal romance, and to the romance we enjoy in time. We need to pay attention
to how we use them, and be more romantic in this world that always needs more
love.
6. RUTH THE RISK TAKER Based on Ruth 3:1‑13
Fort
Lee, which is now Charleston, West Virginia was under attack in 1791. Colonel George Clendenin assembled his men
to ask for a volunteer to ride to Lewisberg over 100 miles away to get
powder. They were almost out, and their
survival depended upon a renewed supply.
No one volunteered, for it was a suicide mission. Then a high pitched voice cried out, "I
will go!" It was the voice of Anne
Bailey. She was no ordinary lady. The Indians called her mad Anne because she
took so many risks. She fought the
British and the Indians, and would roam the countryside alone to learn the ways
of the Indians. She got so good at
being a scout that she was often able to outwit the Indians. This is she did it again. She got through and brought back the powder,
and Fort Lee was saved.
If you
go to Charleston, you will find a museum and a main thoroughfare named after
this brave woman who took risks that no man was willing to take. Women have been risk takers all through
history, and there are volumes filled with their exploits. Quite often their risks are related to their
romance. Isabella of Castille defied
her half brother King Henry IV of Spain.
He wanted to marry her off to an old reprobate for his advantage. She threatened to kill herself before she
would do it. She was only 18, but she
out witted the king. She smuggled 17
year old Ferdinand into Castille disguised as a mule driver. They were married Dec. 19, 1469. Henry did all he could to make them
miserable. He cut off all funds so they
had to live in poverty. But their
romance so captured the minds of the people that when Henry died the nobles
united in declaring Isabella the Queen. She went from poverty to riding a white
steed to receive her crown. The risk
she took for romance changed the course of history.
Pocahontas took the risk of being the first Indian to marry a white
man. Her husband John Rolfe took her
back to England. Their wedding brought
peace to the settlers and Indians in America, and she became the belle of
London, as people were fascinated with her uniqueness and charm. She contracted pneumonia, and she died, but
her risk for romance gave her a place in history. Women have been daring, brave, and courageous in all the battles
and conflicts of history. It was a
woman by the name of Emily Bronte who wrote the famous lines‑
No coward soul is mine;
No trembler in the world's
storm troubled sphere.
I see heaven's glories
shine,
And faith shines equal,
arming me from fear.
Females
who have had an impact on history usually have to take some sort of risk, and
such is the case with Ruth. She also
took a risk for romance. If you look at
the radical differences between Ruth and Boaz, you will be better able to see
the risks involved.
1. Boaz is a Jew, and Ruth is a Gentile. This is a radical form of intermarriage.
2. Boaz is an Israelite, and Ruth is a
Moabitess. These two nations were
bitter enemies.
3. Boaz is middle aged, and Ruth is quite young.
4. Boaz is rich, and Ruth is poor.
5. Boaz has deep roots, and Ruth is a stranger and
an outsider.
The
potential for problems is great. Any marriage
counselor today would look at these elements and rate this relationship as high
risk. What we need to see, however, is
that the encourager of this risky romance is a risk taker. Naomi risked leaving Bethlehem to go to Moab
with her husband, and it was a costly gamble.
She took the chance of letting her two sons marry Moabite girls. That too was a high risk, but it did pay off
as Ruth became a committed believer in the God of Israel. She took the risk of going back to her
hometown in emptiness and defeat. She
faced the risk of ridicule and rejection.
Naomi is one of the most courageous women of the Bible. Her courage and risk taking is what
motivated Ruth to be a risk taker. The
lives of these two women teach us some valuable truths about risk. First let's look at‑
I. THE REALITY OF RISK.
It is a
part of every life, and there is no escape from risk. If you think you can just do nothing, and, thereby, escape it,
that can be the greatest risk of all.
This epitaph illustrates the point‑
Here lies the body of Lester
Lee
Underground.
He couldn't decide which
side of the tree
To ski around.
Any decision can be risky, but no decision can be
the highest risk of all.
Naomi
could see the risks of indecision. The
harvest was over, and Ruth would no longer be going to the field daily to
glean. She would no longer be taking
her break with Boaz. Boaz could get so
involved in his work that the romance between him and Ruth could fade. There was always the risk of someone else
coming into the picture, and there was the risk of another relative deciding he
would take over, and Ruth then would miss the chance to be with the one she
really cared about.
There is
always the risk of procrastination, which is not only the thief of time, but of
all potential values from the trivial to the treasured. Richard Armour has put into poetry what we
have all experienced in some way.
One day a button's slightly
loose,
The next its somewhat more
so.
It loosens just a little bit
Each time I move my torso.
It hangs now by a single
thread;
Its perilous, let's face it.
This button is a special
kind;
I doubt I could replace it.
I ought to pull it off, I
guess.
My wife should sew it on.
I wear it slightly longer,
though‑
That is, until its gone.
Waiting
until it is too late is not wise, and so we are often forced to take risks to
make things happen, and that is where Naomi is coming from. This was the day of the Judges, and life was
a risk because you never knew when someone could come and invade the land and
enslave you. Even the everyday life of
ordinary people was surrounded by risks.
The reality of risk is especially evident in relationships. Love is always a high risk, for you invest a
lot of yourself in a relationship of love, and that investment can pay off with
great dividends, but it can also cost you a broken heart. It is just part of the reality of risk in
life.
Naomi
and Ruth both risked loving and getting married, and both lost their mates, and
had to go through the agony of grief.
Naomi had children, and saw both of her boys die fairly young.
It is risky to become parents, for it is costly, and children, like
everything else you love, can be lost.
Every time you choose to love, or to develop any relationship, you are
taking a risk. Chuck Swindoll said he
has a woman in his church who was married for 48 years. She was planning their golden wedding
anniversary already. She came home one
day and found a note telling her that her husband had gone off with another
woman. This may be rare at that age,
but it is the risk of the real world we live in.
There is
much we can do to minimize the risks of shattered relationships, but the fact
remains that you always stick your neck out to some degree when you open your
heart to anyone. That is the
vulnerability of love. Mental health
and stability can only be achieved by
recognizing the risks of reality, and being able to pay the cost. In Journey Out Of Nowhere, Nancy Covert
Smith describes how she, as a Christian and good church member, ended up in a
mental hospital. While there she came
to realize that the doors are locked, not primarily to keep the patients in,
but to keep the world out. She says
that 50 to 60 percent of the healing process, which takes place, was due to the
fact that the world was locked out. The
mentally ill need protection from the reality of a risky world. They need to feel safe and free from risks.
Only
when they are ready to face up to the reality of risk again are they ready for
the real world. Naomi and Ruth are
amazing examples of strong healthy women, for with all of their sorrow, grief,
and loss, they have not crawled into a cave to hibernate, and let the world
pass them by. They are in there
planning how to go out onto another limb, and risk getting hurt again. Healthy people recognize that the only way
you can be happy in the kind of world we live in is to keep on risking, and
sticking your neck out for the sake of love. The most realistic thing we can do in life is to face the fact
that risk is a part of reality, and so we must go on loving and developing
relationships. Ruth is no glutton for
punishment, but she does relish the thought of being loved again, and so she is
willing to face the reality of risk.
Next let's look at‑
II. THE RELATIVITY OF RISK.
Not even
all reasonable risks are equal. Ruth
took a risk going out to be a gleaner in the fields. She could have been rebuked, and run off as a stranger, or told
to go elsewhere, and this would be demeaning.
But the risk she took in boldly coming to Boaz requesting the role of
the wife in his life was a radical risk.
She could have been rejected, and had her heart broken. Boaz liked her, and he respected her, but he
had not approached her with an offer of marriage. Her assertive behavior could have the effect of turning him off,
and the whole thing could backfire, and leave her crushed.
Ruth had
a high capacity for risk. She risked
her whole future to stick with Naomi.
She risked her all to go into the unknown rather than take the low risk
of going back to Moab. Now we see her
ready to put all of her eggs in one basket again, and go out on a limb to win
the man she loved. I have seen Christian
women lose the man they love because they were not willing to take the risk of
being bold like Ruth, and letting him know how she felt.
What we
need to see is that risk is relative to the value that is to be gained. The higher the value the greater the risk we
should be willing to take to gain that value.
Love and marriage, and family were the highest values there were to
Naomi and Ruth. This means the risk was
one that was reasonable to them. A risk
is an exposure to loss or injury. Nobody
wants to suffer loss or injury, but if there is a reasonable chance the risk
will lead to gain, then it can be wise to take that risk.
This
means that the reasonableness of risk is relative to the values of the individual
taking the risk. Like the man who was
arrested for speeding. He was asked by
the judge if he had an excuse.
"Yes your honor," he said.
"My wife's church was having a rummage sale, and I was hurrying
home to save my other pair of pants."
That was a reasonable risk for him, and if we only had one other pair of
pants, we might consider it reasonable for us as well. Ruth considered her risk very reasonable for
her. She had faith in Naomi's mature
wisdom, and her insight into human nature, and her grasp of the situation.
This was
not a haphazard hair‑brained scheme of a couple of emotional women. Emotions were, no doubt, at a high pitch,
but the whole thing was well thought out.
The close she was to wear for this encounter, the perfume, the timing of
it, every detail was rehearsed to minimize the risk of blowing it, and to
maximize the chance for success. When
we look at this account with our Western eyes we see the risk as being somewhat
risqué, and hazardous from the point of view of being inappropriate. To slip under the covers of a man asleep in
the middle of the night all alone is not the kind of risk any mother, or mother‑in‑law,
would encourage a girl to do in our culture.
Preachers and Bible commentators spend a lot of time trying to justify
this whole female scheme. All we need
to recognize is that you cannot justify what is a custom in one culture by
trying to make it acceptable in another culture where it is not the practice. There is no point in trying to make this an
acceptable way for a young woman to approach a man in our day. In the first place, it is not a custom in
our culture for farmers to sleep out by their harvest, nor is it a part of our
culture that a relative has any obligation to marry a widow to produce seed in
order to keep the name of his deceased relative alive.
There is
no comparing of apples with oranges, and so all we need to do is recognize that
what was happening was perfectly consistent with the godly people
involved. Naomi would do nothing that
would risk Ruth's reputation, or bring disgrace on the family name. Boaz was shocked to be awakened in the
night, and to find a woman at his feet.
This was not a routine occurrence, but he was pleased with the gesture,
and the whole method of their approach.
It was
risky, for there was affection between them, and this approach could have led
to premature intimacy. That, of course,
is the risk in developing any relationship.
Naomi had confidence, however, that Boaz would treat Ruth with respect,
because he did love her. His very love
for her was the reason he would not lose the chance to be a gentleman, and be
worthy of her love. He was deeply impressed
by the need to get the legal questions settled so as to be free to have Ruth as
his own. He would not violate the laws
of the land. He had to respect the
right of his near relative to redeem Ruth if that was his will. Ruth did not have the freedom to be his
until he worked out an arrangement with the nearest relative.
Knowing Boaz as a gentleman, and a man in
love, and a man who would not break the law and injure his relatives, make this
far less risky than it appears to us.
Naomi knew what she was doing, and Ruth took the risk of faith in her
guidance. It was a reasonable
risk. Ruth was not going after a raise
or better working conditions. She was
going for a partnership in the whole estate by marriage.
When
she said to Boaz as he woke up, "Spread the corner of your garment over
me," she was using familiar language of that day. It was, in fact, the
same that God used to take Israel as his wife.
In Ezek. 16:8 we read God saying, "I spread the corner of my
garment over you.....and you become mine." At a Bedouin wedding, even
today, the groom will say, "From now on nobody but me will cover
you." To cover one with your
garment is to possess that person intimately.
It is the equivalent of a marriage proposal to ask one to cover you with
their garment. Ruth was asking Boaz,
"Will you marry me?" This was
bold action based on confidence that he loved her.
It was a
relatively safe risk, for she had
plenty of reason to believe that Boaz loved her, and would be happy to have her
for a wife. There were the
complications with the nearer relative, however, and because he had the first
chance to claim her, there was some risk involved. Ruth is putting all her cards on the table so Boaz can see and
know where she is coming from. This
gives him the motivation to fight for her with the assurance it is what she
wants. The greater risk would have been
to let him operate in the dark not knowing her true feelings. You are almost always on the right path when
you risk letting people know that you like them or love them. Next let's look at‑
III. THE RESPONSIBILITY OF RISK.
Since
risk is inevitable, and the greatest risk may be in trying to avoid all risk,
we have a responsibility to be risk takers.
That is, we are obligated to have values and goals worth taking risks
for, just as did Ruth and Naomi. Had they not been risk takers their story
would not exist, and God's plan would not have been what it was. God's plan, and their place in that plan
depended on their being risk takers.
They
were risk takers for what was right, wise, and reasonable, and they were richly
rewarded for their risks. Their very
success, however, can lead us to a very wrong conclusion about risks. We can jump to the false conclusion that
risks that are right will always pay off.
If we mean by this, we will always have a happy ending like Ruth if we
take risks, we can be very disappointed.
Risks are just that, they are risky.
If risks never led to loss, they would not be risks. Many times we can risk doing what is right
and lose by it. In the play Gloria II
by the Refreshment Committee we see her take a risk and refuse to compromise
her loyalty to Christ, and it all turned out to her advantage, and she had a
happy ending.
The fact
is, however, that there is a good chance that your loyalty may cost you a heavy
price. It is a risk many have taken
around the world that has led to persecution.
The more you apply the truth of God's Word to everyday life, the more you
risk the offence of the world. Jesus
did not avoid rejection and hostility by His uncompromising stand against the
legalism of the Pharisees. It cost Him
his life. Many have risked their life
to obey Jesus.
We are
responsible to take risks for God's Will in life, and not just when it is going
to pay off. We are not called to a risk
free life, but to a risk full life. We
are called to love, and love is loaded with risk. If it doesn't work, you are facing the risk of rejection, and
this can hurt. If it does work, you
face the risk of disappointment and loss of that love, and that hurts too. There is no escape of being hurt in this
life. If you don't care, you suffer the
hurt of not being loved. If you do
love, you suffer the hurt of loving, and the hurt of loss of love. You will
hurt one way or the other, but the Christian is called to take up the cross,
and this means to take on the responsibility of risking the hurts of love.
Ruth and
Naomi aided each other in being responsible for love. They took the risks necessary to see each other have fulfilled
lives. The story has a happy ending
because they took this responsibility of risks on themselves. In every story with a happy ending somebody
has to take risks. God honors the risk
taker. Look at Peter. He was the only disciple that denied Christ
outright. He was the disciple who sank
into the water, and needed to be rescued by Jesus. He was the only disciple who had to be rebuked by Jesus, and told
to put his sword. Peter made more
mistakes, and suffered more rebukes than any other disciple. Why in the world would Jesus make him the
leader?
The
answer is simple. Peter was the only
one who would risk his neck to follow Jesus into the place of His captivity,
and then have to face the risk of denial.
Peter was the only one who would take the risk of leaping out of the
boat to come to Jesus on the water.
Peter was the only one who would take the risk of drawing his sword to
fight for the protection of Jesus.
Peter was a risk taker, and though it is true that they reveal the
reality of Murphy's law, his mistakes, because he was willing to take risks,
make him the kind of person Jesus needed, and so it was with Ruth. She pushed open the door into the life of
Boaz, and by her assertive risk taking pushed herself into the blood line of
the Messiah. Ruth is only famous, and
was only used of God, because she was a risk taker.
7. THE CLEVER COUPLE Based on Ruth 3:1‑4, 4:1‑10
A young
couple who had just gotten married, and who had received many valuable wedding gifts,
established their home in the suburb.
One morning they received in the mail two tickets for a popular show in
the city. A note said, "Guess
who?" The couple were amused as
they tried to find the identity of the donor, but they could not find out who
sent them. They used the tickets, and
they had a delightful evening. On their
return home, late at night, still trying to figure out the mystery, they found
their house stripped of every article of value.
On the bare table in the dinning room was a piece of
paper on which was written‑ "Now you know!"
Crooks
have so many clever ways of robbing people that it has given the word clever a
bad name. Vincent Teresa in his book My
Life In The Mafia tells of numerous clever schemes he used to steal hundreds of
thousands of dollars from innocent people, and sometimes not so innocent
people. One that shows the thought and
planning of these people is one I want to share. There was a big horse race called the Constitution Handicap. They put a fortune on Flauntless Light to
win. Non‑clever people would give
their horse drugs to help him win, but the Mafia knows the winner will be
tested for drugs, and so they bribed the stable boys of the other five horses
in the race. They juiced those five
with a depressant. Their horse won by 7
links, and they made a hundred and sixty three grand. There was a big stink over the race, but the only horse that was
checked was their horse, and he was clean.
Clever schemes like this enabled them to rip off billions of dollars a
year.
Because
history is full of the clever schemes of con men, and because the fall of man
began with the clever, cunning, and crafty scheme of that old serpent the
devil, we have a tendency to put cleverness in the category of vice rather than
virtue. The Jews did not do so,
however, but recognized cleverness as a great virtue, and one of the most
powerful weapons in the cause of righteousness. Yes,
they said, evil is clever but it is the task of the
righteous to outwit the evil. The book
of Esther is about a very clever man named Haman, who out of personal pride
almost succeeded in getting the Jewish people exterminated. He was only foiled in his plot because
Mordecai and Esther were even more clever, and they were able to turn the
tables on him, and he was hung on his own gallows.
The
whole theme of wisdom in the Old Testament deals with the virtue of being
clever enough to outwit the clever appeals of evil. The fool falls for the wiles of the devil, but the clever stay
one jump ahead of him. After all, what
is the battle of life all about? It is
about outwitting all the clever ways of the evil one to keep us from fulfilling
the will of God. Cleverness is part of
the image of God in us. He is the most
clever of all Persons in the universe.
His wisdom is a marvel as we study His creation. His cleverness in figuring out how to outwit
Satan, and save a lost world, when Satan seems to have all the advantages of a
fallen free willed creature who tends toward evil.
Jesus
faced the clever tempter, but He was more clever than the first Adam, and He
outwitted the old serpent and all his agents.
No trap set for Him by the Pharisees could ensnare Him. Jesus said that we are to be wise as
serpents and harmless as doves, and He practiced what He preached. He lived His whole life outwitting the
devil, and He died a spotless Lamb of God for the sin of the world.
He was, without question, the most clever man
whoever lived. He was a perfect man,
and a perfect man by definition is clever.
There are few, if any, who become key links in the plan of God who are
not in some way clever, and this goes for both Ruth and Boaz. They were just ordinary people, but they
were clever people, and from their story we can learn why it is important for
us to strive at being clever. By their
cleverness they got themselves into the blood line of the Messiah. The first thing we want to see is that‑
I. COMPLEXITY DEMANDS CLEVERNESS.
Boaz and
Ruth had something of a romance going, but it was not what you would call a
whirlwind romance. He watched her labor
in the fields, and they ate lunch together.
They both found it pleasant, but this was not going anywhere. Ruth was dressed in her old work clothes,
and after a hot morning in the sun she probably did not have an attractive
aroma about her. The point is, Boaz had
never really seen Ruth at her feminine finest.
She was just one of the gang.
A woman
has to be clever in such a situation.
How can she ever convey her feminine charms while dressed like a farmer,
and smelling like the farm? This is
where the clever female mind has to be creative to overcome the obstacles to
true romance. When two women like Naomi
and Ruth put their heads together to figure out how to entice a man into a
relationship, you can count on it, he is as good as hooked. Fishing for men was a female practice long
before Jesus called His disciples to the task with a whole new slant.
You will
observe that carrying scrolls of Moses to the field was not one of their
ideas. In fact, there is nothing
spiritual about their plot at all. They
sound as secular as Hollywood hussies trying to entice their third
husband. It seems so worldly clever to
be getting Ruth all dolled up and perfumed to go and entice Boaz. The clear command of Paul was to not be
conformed to the world. But if the
world uses common sense and cleverness to attain evil goals, does this mean the
Christian is forbidden to use common sense and cleverness to reach godly
goals? Of course not. The Bible describes the temptress out to
entice men into sin, and she is bathed and perfumed, and dressed to kill.
Here we
see two godly women trying to make a big impression on a godly man, and they
are using the same strategy as the temptress.
The reason, of course, is that godly men are just as attracted to nice
clothes and pleasant perfume as are the ungodly. These two ladies are not trying to get Boaz to give them a loan
so they can set up a shop in Bethlehem to sell perfume and women's
clothing. They are out to make Ruth
look and smell so attractive that Boaz will say, "I must be out of my mind
risking the lose of this beautiful creature by not taking action." Their clever scheme of giving Boaz a vision
of Ruth in all her loveliness, in the middle of the night, so that she was like
a pleasant dream, worked like a charm.
The next day Boaz was up bright and early resolving the legal issue that
kept him from having Ruth with him as his wife every night. Now that was clever work even though it
added to the complexity of their lives.
How can
God bless this seemingly secular scheme?
Many Christians feel that all attractive dress is worldly, and some go
so far as to forbid their men to wear ties.
It is a sign of spiritually to be plain, drab, and the opposite of the
world where diamonds are a girls best friend, and mink is a close second. Some have learned to be clever in just the
opposite way from Ruth and Naomi. Amy
Charmichael was the first missionary to be appointed by the Keswick Convention.
For 55
consecutive years she served in India.
Before she went to India she went to Japan for training, and there she
learned a valuable lesson on clothing that changed her whole life. She went
with a fellow worker to visit an elderly lady who was ill. She listened to the
Gospel, and seemed ready to turn to the Savior. Then she noticed the fancy gloves Amy was wearing, and she was
distracted from the message. Amy went home saddened, and she removed her
English gloves, and put on a simple Japanese garment, and never again wore
anything but simple clothing lest they detract from the Gospel.
Her life
was blest of God, as was Ruth's, yet they were being clever in such opposite
ways. One wore clothing to be attractive, and the other used clothing so as not
to be attracting away from the Gospel. There is no contradiction in these two
beautiful lives. They were each doing what was clever in a complex world to
achieve goals God had called them to reach.
It is time to focus on definition. What is cleverness? It is the showing
of great practical intelligence. It is being resourceful in attaining goals in
spite of obstacles and difficulties. Ruth and Amy had different goals, and that
is why each was being clever even though they were doing just the opposite
thing.
Ruth's
goal was to marry and bare a child.
That was God's calling and purpose for her life. The use of all her femininity
was wisely used to achieve that goal.
Amy never married, and never had any reason to try to be attractive to
the opposite sex. Her calling was totally different, and she achieved it
fruitfully by giving up the need to show any feminine charm. Not all people are
called to the same goals in life. Many are called to remain single. Our goal is
to be as clever as possible in fulfilling our calling, and not to judge those
who have a different calling because they approach some things from an opposite
perspective. I have always been middle class, but I once heard the testimony of
a man who lived and worked among the upper class. He did things I would never
do because he had to in order to be a part of his circles, and be a witness
there for Christ. He wore clothing and ate in places I would never dream of
doing, because it was a part of his culture. It made sense, and so we need to
recognize people have to be clever in different ways to do the will of God in
their circumstances.
Mary Liu
was sold as a slave girl to a Chinese women, and after much abuse she was
thrown out on a trash heap to die.
Throw away people have always been a part of our tragic world. A missionary walking passed heard the
smothered sobs of this pathetic creature.
She reached in the pile and found this mutilated mass of misery. Both of her feet had been burned off. Her life was saved, however, and in the
mission hospital a pair of wooden feet were made for her. Her mangled fingers had to be amputated, but
one thumb was saved. The long story of
her recovery and redemption in Christ leads to her becoming the editor of two
Christian magazines for women. The two
were The Messenger, and The Star.
When the
Japanese took over her town she had to use her wits to preserve her precious stock
of paper. She took all her trash and
the junk she could afford to lose, and she stacked it all in carefully arranged
bundles in a conspicuous place. Her
valuable paper she threw in a dark corner, and made it look like worthless
stuff. It was made to look sloppy, and
with no care or order. When the
inspectors came they saw how she treated the trash with concern, and they
ordered it carted away immediately, and they left all her good stuff.
The World
Day Of Prayer Committee marveled that Mary Liu went on publishing her Christian
literature month after month, and year after year, when all others in China had
ceased for lack of paper. Her
cleverness kept her in business for the Lord.
It is not everyone's calling to be deceptively clever toward those who
would hinder your ministry, but it was Mary's calling, and who would want to
criticize her for outwitting her enemies, who would have shut down her
ministry? David faked madness when he
might have been killed, and his life was saved. She faked concern for junk, and indifference to valuables, and
her ministry was spared. It is a
complex world, and cleverness is sometimes essential to the achieving of good
goals.
The
world recognizes this. They have to
deal constantly with obstacles to good profit making goals. A major oil company built 5 pilot gas
stations near Los Angeles, and 3 near Philadelphia, which require no human
attendant. The motorist puts his credit
card into an outdoor computer terminal.
If the card is valid, the customer pumps his own gas. The computer issues a receipt, and later
tallies a monthly total. That is clever
enough, but the added touch is what makes it great. If the card is listed as stolen, or lost, the computer swallows
it, and gives the motorist no gas.
Even the
world is in constant battle with the evil forces that hinder good and honest
goals. If you are not clever, you are a
sucker for the clever schemers who will rob you blind. Cleverness is vital to godliness simply
because ungodliness is so clever. If
you are not clever you will not be very effective in overcoming evil with
good. It you are not victorious over
evil, you will be a victim of it, and so you have to be more clever then evil
is.
Let's
look at Boaz for awhile, and see his cleverness in a situation where there is
really no evil foe, but there is competition.
The competition here is not between good and evil, but between the good
and the best. It would be good for the
nearest of kin to redeem Ruth, but in the light of the fact that Boaz and Ruth
were in love, this good would be bad in comparison to Boaz having the right to
marry her. It is sort of like, it is
good to lose one eye compared to losing both of them, but that does not make it
the best alternative. The best is to
lose neither eye. The best in this
setting is for the good not to happen so the best can.
We know
that is just what did happen, but it could have been different had Boaz not
been clever. He had to so present the
whole issue in such a way as to be an un‑salesman. I don't know if there is such a word, but
that is what Boaz was doing. He was not
trying to sell his relative on a deal.
He was trying to unsell him.
This called for the clever use of psychology, just as selling does. I had to be an unseller myself with my
grandson. We were talking about good
guys and bad guys, and he said he wanted to grow up and be a bad guy. I could see he was testing my reaction. I calmly accepted his statement and
proceeded to look at whether this was a goal he really wanted to aim for. I pointed out that bad guys often have to
spend a lot of time in jail, and they often lose the love of the people they
care about, and they make God angry at them.
He agreed it was not the best way to go. I had to unsell him on the idea of being a bad guy.
Boaz had
to unsell his relative on the idea of being the kinsman‑redeemer of
Ruth. He does this by first being a
seller, and telling him the good news.
He tells him that he is first in line to buy the property of
Elimelech. Boaz suggests that he use
his option of nearest relative, and he talks as if it is a matter of
indifference to him. He is as cool as
cool can be. He says, "I'm next in line, but only if you
don't want to buy it, I will. Why don't
you go ahead?" It all seems like a
mere matter of business, and the nearest kin says, "It sound good to
me. I will redeem it."
Now Boaz
uses his shock strategy, and he throws in the bad news. His relative is thinking this is a good deal
for me. I will have more property,
expanding income, and greater status.
Boaz says, "I just thought you ought to know that on the day you
buy the land you also acquire the widow of the man who owned the land, in order
to maintain his name." J. Vernon
McGee says, "He was using some of the wisdom of the serpent
here." Right away the man felt the
pressure of this demand. He was
frightened to think how close he was to making a deal that would back him into
more complexity than he could handle.
When it
was only land it was all to his advantage, but if he has to take Ruth and raise
up a child for her deceased husband, then that child will eventually get the
land anyway, and not his own children.
So he backed out of the deal, and he gave Boaz the right to redeem. Boaz was really doing his relative a favor
by presenting the case in such a way as to unsell him on the idea. He was clever because he got what he wanted,
but he did it, not by deception, but by a shocking and overwhelming
presentation of the truth with all of its implications. It was too much for the man to absorb, and
the complexity made it look too risky, and so he backed out.
Cleverness is the ability to skillfully work your way through complex
circumstances to a goal that is your aim to reach. Godly cleverness is aiming for a goal that is pleasing to
God. Boaz was blessed with godly
cleverness. This is a virtue that has
changed the entire world in which we live.
The example of one man's life that is astounding in its cleverness is
that of Cameron Townsend, the founder of Wycliffe Bible Translators. He died in April of 1982 at the age of
85. His career in missions started in
1917 as a Bible salesman in Guatamala.
He discovered that 60% of the people could not read the Spanish Bibles
he was selling, and so he, with no linguistic training, just settled down in a
small Indian village, and translated the New Testament into the Indian
language. He spent 11 years doing
that. His philosophy was, "Do one
thing and do it well." As he
learned more about the fact of hundreds of languages with no Bible, he founded
a school called The Summer Institute Of Linguistics.
He
learned another lesson in Guatamala, and that is to cooperate with the local
authorities. He was dragged before the
mayor of a town for distributing Bibles without permission. He apologized and never forgot that
missionaries are guests, and the government is the host. We must get their approval. This became a distinguishing characteristic
of his organization. The first copy of
the New Testament he sent to the president of Guatamala. He spent hours waiting to see officials to
get them involved in his projects.
There is no other mission movement like Wycliffe. It reports to the government, and not the
national church. He gets contracts with
the government, and so he is serving them.
He got
into Mexico where other missions were being rejected, and he even got the
government to pay for part of the work.
His workers had special favors not granted to other missionaries. There visas were made permanent when all
others had to get theirs renewed every 6 months. This pattern continued all through South America and the
Philippines. While other missions were
fighting for survival, they saw pictures of Townsend in the paper with the
Presidents, generals, and leaders of the land.
Other missionaries became jealous of this special treatment, but it was
his clever strategy that enabled him to achieve his goals.
In 50
years he went from one employee to 4,255 people, and became the largest
Christian mission in history. At the beginning of the 20th century there were only
67 languages that had the Bible. Now, some portion of the Bible exists in over
2000 languages. All because of his cleverness in doing what others did not see
as the key to reaching goals. Cleverness got the Word of God into the language
of millions, and cleverness got Ruth and Boaz into the Word of God. Cleverness committed to God is one of the
most powerful tools in history. We need to ask ourselves about what we are
doing to love God with all of our minds. What are we doing to use our minds and
cleverness to achieve goals for the glory of God and the good of His people?
May God motivate us to learn from this clever couple to be clever ourselves for
the kingdom of God.
Not far
from the scene where Ruth proposed to Boaz in the middle of the night, Musa
Alami made a proposal of his own. This
Arab boy was educated at Cambridge, and he went back to Palestine where he
became very successful. But political
turmoil came and he lost everything. He
went out into the bleak desert between Moab and Israel, and proposed to turn
this desert into a rose. Where nothing
had ever grown before, he would make it into a farm by the use of underground
water. He got the same response that
Noah got in building the Ark. The
people laughed and ridiculed the idea as preposterous. The Bedouin sheiks all said it could not be
done. The government official agreed it
could not be done. The scientists
confirmed it that it could not be done.
To add
to these minor complexities he had to face the fact that he had no well
drilling equipment. Based on this
preliminary information most people would have given up before they
started. But people who know that life is
complicated do not turn back because of complexities. Musa used poverty stricken refugees to dig with shovels. They had nothing to lose, and the project
gave them some hope. Day after day, and
week after week, they dug and dug the bid hole in the desert. They became the laughing stock of the
area. For 6 months they dug deeper and
deeper into the dry sand. One day the
sand was wet, and so were the eyes of the diggers, for they wept when water was
found in the desert. The sheik laid
hands Musa and said, "Thank God.
Now Musa, you can die."
They meant, you have done what none other thought could be done. You have fulfilled your purpose in life, and
you can die happy.
Musa
went on to develop a ranch in the desert.
It was 3 miles long and 2 miles wide with 15 wells. He raised vegetables, bananas, figs, and
citrus fruit. He build a training
school to teach farmers and technicians.
Others followed Musa until 40 thousand acres were under cultivation
where once there was only sand. The
shortest distance between two points may be a straight line, but seldom is life
so simple that we can reach our goals by traveling a straight line. Usually any goal worth reaching calls for
traveling an up and down winding road of complexity with obstacles, road blocks,
and detours. Life is seldom a 100 yard
dash where you get ready, get set, and go, and a few seconds later the goal is
crossed. Life is more like a cross country marathon through
winding trails, over hills, through swamps, and you cross the goal line weary
and battered.
The
story of Ruth seems so simple on the surface.
Ruth meets Boaz; they fall in love; they get married, and they live
happily ever after. But as we read the
story carefully we see it is more complex then this. Boaz loves Ruth, and she loves him, but he is not free to respond
to her proposal of marriage. There are
technical legal matters that throw a monkey wrench into this otherwise simple
romance. There are rules that govern
the marriage of a widow, and so there are rights of other relatives that Boaz
is obligated to respect.
The
whole chapter is about the complexity of responsibility. Naomi is fine now, and in her own life she
is adjusted, but Ruth complicates her life.
She feels responsible to try and find a secure future for her. Love always complicates life. If you demand that life be simple, then
avoid love at all cost, for love is complicated, and it adds a load of
responsibility. The hermit has the truly simple life, but for all who develop
relationships there is the inevitability of complexity.
The
civilized people become the more complex they become as well. There are more and more laws that are needed
to regulate the relationships of people.
The law of levirate marriage is the issue here in Ruth. It was designed to keep the name of every
man alive in Israel, even if he did not have a child. This was cared for by the law that demanded the man's brother, or
if he had none, the closest relative, to marry his widow, and have a child that
would carry on the name of the deceased.
Elimelech and Mahlon were both dead end branches of their family tree,
and their only hope of survival in a genealogy of Israel was for Ruth to have a
child. This was a great law for
preserving the names of the dead, but it often became very complex for the
living. For example, the Jewish Rabbis
had some very confusing and contradictory issues arise out of this law.
It was
permissible for a man in Israel to marry his niece, that is his brother's
daughter. Now suppose this man died
childless. The law said that the
brother was to take the widow and marry her, but in this case the brother was
the father of the widow. This would be
incest which is clearly forbidden by the law.
So in this case the man is both commanded and forbidden to do the same
thing. The Jewish Rabbi's wisely said,
there has to be exceptions in complex cases.
In this case it could not be the nearest relative, but the next nearest
relative who was responsible.
Boaz was the next nearest relative in the
case with Ruth, but the exception did not apply here, and so he has to level
with Ruth. He makes it clear that he is
saying yes to her proposal. He excepts
the offer to redeem her and become her husband, but it is not that simple. He has to give the nearest relative his
legal right to take that option for himself.
So what we see here is‑
I. THE BURDEN OF COMPLEXITY.
I
cannot imagine that either one of them got any sleep that night. They had just agreed to become husband and
wife, and yet the whole outcome was up in the air, and depended upon a third
party who was not involved in their romance at all. What a burden that life cannot just be simple and easy. Why must there always be some obstacle, or
some crazy flaw in the thing that adds pain where there should be only pure
pleasure? Why must there always be a
but at the end of so many good sentences?
I adore your work, but. I agree
with you, but. I love you, but.
If only
it was true that only the ungodly had to face the complexity of life. They do, of course, and in fact, add
enormous complexity to the already normal complexity of life by their
ungodliness. I read of two thieves who
had the most simple robbery planned.
They jumped out of their hiding place to relieve the 20 year old
restaurant manager of his 17 thousand dollar night deposit. He was so frightened that when they told him
to put up his hands, he threw them up and the money sack went flying onto the
roof. It was now too risky to take the
time to get it, and they fled away empty handed. What a delight it would be if only robbery and things in that
category were complicated.
Unfortunately, every day life of ordinary people gets complicated too.
1. The worst toothache comes when your dentist is
out of town.
2. The vacant parking space is so often on the other
side of the street.
3. The lane you just got out of now speeds up, and
you are sitting still.
4. Grass seed always grows better in the driveway
cracks than on the lawn.
5. The worse damage comes after the warranty has run
out.
These
and a thousand other such complexities do not happen to publicans and sinners
only, but to the saints as well. We all
live in the same fallen world where life seldom stays simple. Sometimes the ungodly have an advantage, for
the simple thing is so often the sinful thing.
Just do as you please, and do what comes natural, and do what is self‑centered,
it is easy and simple. While the way of
righteousness may be very difficult and complex. You have to figure out how to control your old nature, and
suppress the tendency to sin. You have
to argue yourself in to obedience to the will of God. The sinner has such a simple decision, and you are struggling and
wrestling with emotions and convictions.
C. S.
Lewis expressed in a letter to a child the complexity of his task as a
teacher. He wrote, "I am so busy
marking examination papers that I can hardly breathe! The very good ones and the very bad ones are no trouble, but the
in‑between ones take ages."
This is so true to life. The
very good and the very bad are easy to distinguish, and they are simple
concepts to deal with. The complexity
is in that vast gray area that covers most of the controversial issues of
politics, ethics, and religion.
Christians tend to end up on all sides of an issue, because there is
always some truth and value being fought for in every perspective. This is the world where we really live. The ivory tower is attractive, and a fun
place to visit, but we can't live there.
Lavonne
and I have many times asked each other, as we drive together, "Is that a
male or a female thumbing a ride?"
It is a complex world where even a simple thing like determining the sex
of someone is so difficult that you are never sure. One man complaining in a store of this very thing said to the
customer next in line, "I don't understand youth today. Look at that youngster over there. Is it a boy or a girl?" "It's a girl," was the reply. "She is my daughter." "I beg your pardon," the man
apologized. "I wouldn't have said
that had I known you were her father."
"I'm not," was the comeback.
"I'm her mother." Such
is the complex world we live in.
Jesus had
a perfect life, but He never escaped the burden of complexity. How do I honor my mother and father, and
also be about my heavenly Father's business?
That was one of His burdens of complexity. How do I love my enemies, and yet let them know just how intolerable
their evil ways are? Jesus had to love
the Pharisees; even eat with them; call some of them as His disciples, and yet
denounce them as the hypocrites that they were. He had to live in obedience to the Word of God, and yet reject
false interpretations of it that would lead Him to abuse it for self‑centered
goals. This He could have done by
turning the stone to bread, or by jumping off the temple. It can get complex when someone is saying,
"Don't you trust the Lord? Don't
you stand on His promises? He said that
He will lift you up and not let you dash your foot against a stone. Prove your faith, and show that you believe
by jumping." It can seem so right
when it is all so wrong, and the complexity can lead to confusion. This has caused believers to take a leap of
faith, and end up crushed by their presumption.
Jesus
told His disciples to pick up all the leftovers after He fed the multitude, and
they had 12 baskets full. Jesus was not
wasteful, and yet He let Mary pour out valuable ointment on Him that could have
fed the poor. He had to face the
complexities of living a conservative life, and yet know when to enjoy the
luxury of extravagance. He faced the
complexity of looking on men who were doing history's most representative
sin. They were rejecting God's gift and
killing His Son. He, as the Lord of
justice, had to respond to this injustice with wrath. But as the Lord of love, who came to die for all sin, He had to
pray, "Father forgive them."
Jesus carried the burden of complexity all through His life.
Coming
back to Ruth, our Redeemer's ancient ancestor, we see that Jesus understands
the complexity of life, and we can recognize we do not face them alone. He will help carry the burden of life's
complexity. One of the burdens we see
in Ruth is the burden of secrecy. There
is no immoral behavior between Ruth and Boaz, and yet it is understandable that
he urged Ruth to slip away before sun up, and not let anyone know that a woman
had come to the threshing floor.
Secrets are legitimate just because life is complex. You can't explain everything to everybody so
that they understand or believe. You
are better off not having to explain.
People know they can't believe everything they hear, but they can repeat
it, and much gossip that is damaging to others is based on information that
should have been kept secret.
I read
of a very unusual accident where an elephant crushed in the side of a woman's
station wagon in Vancouver. The vehicle
was still able to move, and so after exchanging insurance information with the
elephant owner, she was on her way. But
then she got caught in a traffic jam caused by another accident. When the ambulance arrived she was next to
the scene of the wreck, and the ambulance driver ran to her car to assist her
because of seeing the side caved in.
"Oh no," she said, "I was not involved in this
accident. An elephant just sat on my
car." Hearing this the ambulance
crew and a policeman quickly pulled her from the car and got her to a hospital
for possible shock and head injuries.
The
woman would have been wise to keep her elephant event a secret. That was just not the place to try and
explain things. A mere statement that
this is an old accident could have prevented the whole silly scene and
inconvenience. Secrets are the only
sensible way at times, and certainty this was the case with Boaz and Ruth. The whole world is told in God's Word, for
it was innocent, but this was not the time to let the neighbors know. There are many things you have to keep
secret in life because explaining them is just to complicated.
Sometimes, however, the secret gets out, and then the burden becomes
even heavier and more complex. There is
a natural human tendency to judge the actions of others. Elimelech is harshly judged by many
Christians as under the judgement of God because he left Bethlehem during the
famine. Naomi is harshly judged for
letting her two boys marry Moabites.
She is also blasted for encouraging this seemingly naughty night on the
threshing floor. It is amazing how
critical and judgmental Christians can be toward those whom God has clearly
used to accomplish His purpose. God has
not given the slightest hint that He is displeased with their behavior.
It is no
wonder that Paul makes a big issue of the idea that servants stand or fall
before their master, and not before the other servants. If other servants are
the judges, there are few, if any, who could escape judgment. But thank God He
is the judge, and He honors Ruth and Boaz, and He rewards them richly for their
behavior. God could have kept this whole story secret, as he did the story of
others in the blood line to His Son, but this story He has made known just
because it is so unique and complex, and reveals all the more the wonder of His
grace. These two were doing their best
to find God's best, and He honored them for it. Now let's look at‑
II. THE BLESSING OF COMPLEXITY.
We need
to see that if life was simple, and all we had was straight lines, the story of
Ruth would not have a happy ending. The
whole beautiful outcome of this romance was due to life's complexity. The rival relative who had first choice
wanted to redeem the property of Elimelech, and so the whole romance of Boaz
and Ruth could be coming to a screeching halt if he is willing also to take
Ruth as his wife.
When
Boaz confronted him with the fact that he would have to take Ruth with the
deal, he immediately saw how this would complicate his life, and endanger his
own estate. It was too risky, and too
complicated for him, and so because life is not simple Boaz got the chance to
choose Ruth for himself. His greatest
blessings came to him because of complexity.
He was second in line, but that was good enough, for because of
complexities he ended up first in line, and was able to have love, marriage,
and family. Many of the kings and
queens of history were people who are far from being heirs to the throne, but
because life gets so complex the highly unlikely thing happened, and they were
able to become the next in line.
If life
was simple because God's nature was simple, we would not even exist. God would have destroyed the world long
ago. But God's nature is complex, and
His love restrains His wrath. It makes
Him longsuffering, not willing that any shall perish. All are saved because of the complexity of God's nature.
If life
was only simple, Boaz would have married a Jew, and all Jews would marry Jews,
and no Gentile would ever get into the blood line to the Messiah. But life is complex, and so the unusual
happens all the time, and this produces many of life's greatest blessings. Jews were not suppose to marry Moabites, but
because life is complex Ruth became an exception to the rule, and a symbol to
the whole world that God is not a legalist, but a God of grace. If life was simple Goliath would have fed
David to the birds, for he had superior strength and weapons. But life is complex, and victory does not
always go to the strongest. Complexity makes it possible for the weak to
triumph, and God uses the foolish to confound the wise. Complexity is what
makes the wonders of God's working in the world possible. Complexity is what
makes life possible for all men, and abundant life possible for sinners saved
by grace.
If God
granted your request for ultimate simplicity you would be an amoeba. This one celled creature has very few
problems in its simple life. But as
life becomes more and more complex, life takes on higher and higher qualities,
and has the potential of receiving greater blessings. Do not denounce complexity just because it can be a burden. The alternative is to lose the image of God
in which we are created. The more man
regresses from the image of God the more simple and primitive he becomes. He lives for the flesh only, and for simple
greed and self‑centered satisfaction.
The more man moves toward God the more complex he becomes, for he
develops the higher self; the inner man of the spirit. He becomes more creative and complex in all
of his values, and he reaches out beyond the self to love others. Jesus is the only perfect example of the ultimate
in complexity.
Because
life is complex Ruth and Boaz became mates, and because life is complex we have
the highest privilege of life of being a part of the bride of Christ. If life was simple Ruth would have listened
to Naomi and went back to her people, and she would have lost her chance to be
a part of God's people. Complexity is what enables people to see life from
different perspectives so that not all are made pessimistic by the burdens of
life. Complexity is the basis for the blessed differences that gives us balance
in life.
Gigi,
the oldest daughter of Billy Graham has 6 children of her own. One summer afternoon with 6 weeks left
before school she was running out of creative ways to keep these energetic
children entertained. So she hit on the
idea of fixing up the old sandbox.
After pulling the weeds, and getting it in shape, she called the local
sand company. When the truck arrived it
was so heavy that it made deep trenches in their yard, and it broke off several
branches from their trees. Then the
driver began to slide down the hill toward the lake, and he plowed a gaping
hole on the way. He sank up to his
axles, and he could not move. He had to
call in another truck. A large tow
truck came and made more deep trenches in the yard. In trying to pull the other truck out he dug into the yard and
broke the sprinkler pipes, and up rooted some small trees. He also got stuck. Another call to the company resulted in a 18 wheeler arriving.
By 8 o'clock
that night, after 5 and a half hours of destruction, they had five tons of sand
beside the sand box, and a yard that looked like a battlefield. It was a disastrous day, but as she tucked
in her 8 year old for bed he prayed, "And thank you Lord, for the exciting
day, and for all the entertainment we had." She had to laugh and recognize that God wants us to see life
through the eyes of children, and see the fun and humor even in the ridiculous
and difficult. Complexity makes us aware that there is more than one way to
look at things. We don't have to be
locked into the negative, but can see that life is complex, and so we always
have choices. The happy ending of the
story of Ruth, and the happy ending for millions of stories, are due to the
reality of the complexity of life.
9.
GODLY GRANDPARENTS Based on Ruth 4:13‑17
Among
the many things that makes man unique in creation is the presence of, and the
influence of, grandparents. F. W.
Boreham many years ago pointed out that in the vegetable world, "The
bursting buds of spring push off the last lingering leaves of the previous
season, and thus decline to have anything to do with the generation that
preceded them, to say nothing of the generation before that. Among animals and birds a certain filial
affection is sometimes found for fathers and mothers, but of the grandfather
and grandmother never a trace. But a
man is so much greater than either a tree or a beast that a special factor is
introduced into his training. He comes
under the influence not only of teachers and tutors, of fathers and mothers,
but grandfathers and grandmothers as well."
The
impact of grandpas and grandmas in history is beyond calculation. Most of the famous people of the Bible from
Adam and Eve on were grandparents.
Often the grandparents played a key role, if not the major role, in the
way history went. Hezekiah was one of
the best kings God's people ever had, but his father was Ahaz, and he was one
of the worst they ever had. But his
grandfather was Jotham, and he did that which was right in the eyes of the
Lord. Hezekiah took after his
grandfather rather than his father, and the result was victory for the kingdom
of God.
Because
of the powerful influence of grandparents there is always hope even if one
generation goes astray, because the next generation can be brought back, and in
that lies the glory of grandparents.
They often bridge the gap between parents and children, and they make
major differences in the course of history.
The relationship of grandparents and grandchildren is so unique because
it is so full of hope and expectation.
This explains the mystery of how a boy who is not good enough for your
daughter can father such marvelous children.
And it explains why the girl unworthy of your son can bear such
brilliant beings as your grandchildren.
It is a
strange question to ask, but the book of Ruth makes us ask it: Is a baby on the day of its birth more a
child or a grandchild? In other words,
who is to be more congratulated, the parents or the grandparents? For some reason the book of Ruth votes for
the grandparents, and it makes this passage one of the most powerful
exaltations of a grandmother you will find anywhere in human literature. It is almost as if the goal of this book was
to come to a happy ending with grandma Naomi holding grandson Obed in her lap,
and everybody singing her praises.
Note how
suddenly the story of Ruth and Boaz comes to an end. Their romance has dominated the stage for most of the book, but
their wedding and 9 months of pregnancy, and their whole life together is
wrapped up rapidly in verse 13. When
Ruth gave birth to that baby boy, she and Boaz left the stage, and the spotlight
focuses on grandma Naomi for the closing scenes of the story. There is not one
more scene about the parents, for the star now is grandma. All of the praise and rejoicing now revolve
around her. Naomi has a kinsman‑
redeemer. Naomi has a comfort for her
old age. Naomi has a grandson, and they
say she has a son.
This
radical removal of the parents, and this thrusting of grandma and grandchild
front and center is a powerful revelation of just how important a role
grandparents play in the life of a child, or should we say, can play, or should
play? Every person in the blood line
from Adam to Christ was a grandparent.
The genealogy that ends this book is a list of people all of whom became
grandparents. Obad, the baby of Ruth,
was the grandfather of King David. What
a delight it would be to know more about these grandparents, but the book ends
with a special emphasis on grandparents, and with such a deliberate focus on
Naomi that I do not know of anywhere in the Bible where you can find a better
text for grandparents day.
Someone
may point out that Naomi was not Ruth's mother, but her mother‑in‑law,
and so technically she was not the grandmother, but just the opposite is the
case. This first child of Ruth and Boaz
was to preserve the name and inheritance of Ruth's first husband and Naomi's
son Mahlon. It was equivalent to
Mahlon's son, and thus, technically it was her grandson. But who cares? Who cares about the grandparents of George Washington, or
Lincoln, or any other famous man or woman?
Apparently God cares, for the book or Ruth only exists because all of
these people were grandparents and great grandparents of David, the great king
of God's people. God is into
genealogies and roots. And so God is
into grandparents. God has so made life
that grandparents play a major role of what happens in history, and it is
because of their special love and influence on grandchildren.
So great
is this influence that even parents who fail their children can become such
successful grandparents that the family tree is healed, and restored as one
that bears fruit for the kingdom of God.
There are many ways in which the role of grandparents is superior to the
role of parents. We can't cover all
that is precious about the grandparent‑grandchild relationship, but we
can look at the two R's of this relationship suggested by our text. These can instruct and inspire us to make
the best of this great blessing God has given, not to animals, not to angels,
but to man. The first R is‑
I. ROOTS.
The book of Ruth exists to trace the roots of
David the king of Israel, and there is no way to do this apart from getting
into the lives of grandparents. This is
true for all of us. It was true for the
only man in all of history who had two letters written to him which became a
part of God's Word to the world. Those
two letters are I and II Timothy. One
of the things we know about Timothy is that his Christian faith had its roots
in his grandmother. Paul tells it
clearly in II Tim. 1:5, "I have been reminded of your sincere faith, which
first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice and I am
persuaded, now lives in you.
Paul
made a major point of the roots of his faith, for the fact is, what the
grandparents were makes a big difference in the majority of lives. There are millions of ungodly grandparents
who make their grandchildren like them, but Christian grandparents do the same,
and give the faith of their grandchildren deep roots, it is hard for me to
imagine that I would be the Christian I am without the influence of my
grandmother. My father ran away from
home at 18, and he became a cowboy. He
roamed all over the country with rodeos, and was far from being a godly man in
his youth. My parents did not go to
church when I was growing up, and I never remember any instruction in the
things of the Bible in my home.
It was
my grandmother who read her Bible, who prayed, and who gave me a comic book
Bible when I was a child. That book
changed my life, for it made me fall in love with the Bible stories at a early
age. It was my grandmother who would
argue and defend the Bible, and the Christian way of life, at family reunions
where her own skeptical sons, who were my uncles, would challenge her
faith. I can't begin to measure the
impact of that one woman in my life.
She never led me to the Lord, but she gave my Christian faith its
roots. When I became a part of the
family of God, I already had family in that family.
The
older I get the more I realize how important roots are, for had I not had the
roots I had, I do not know where I might be in my relationship to Christ. My mother's mother did not have the
spiritual impact on me as did my father's mother. But my German Lutheran grandmother still gave me roots. I belonged to a greater family of people
than just mom and dad, and that is important for establishing identity.
Margaret
Mead, the noted anthropologist, has said a lot of controversial things, but you
will find no authorities debating her statement in her article Grandparents and
Educators. In it she said,
"Somehow we have to get the older people, grandparents, widows and
widowers, spinsters and bachelors, back close to children if we are to restore
a sense of community, a knowledge of the past, and a sense of future to today's
children."
Rootless
people are the result, at least in part, of being ripped away from the
influence of their grandparents. Grandparents can be just that, parents who are
grand. They do not have to be the
disciplinarians of life, and so they are more free to be the teachers of
values. They have opportunities to talk
and share in ways that parents often do not have, or do not take advantage of,
because they do not see from the same perspective as do grandparents. Leo Tolstoy said, from birth to the 5th year
is an eternity, but from 5 to old age is a step. It is a gift to be there for the one to 5 period of their life in
order to be the place of refuge and an oasis in the hard land of growing
up.
Grandparents are often the key to a child's self‑esteem. Children are difficult and life is complex,
and often parents give most of their energy to discipline, and only a fraction
to love. This is where the grandparents
can add the ingredient that makes the family balanced. In troubled families they are even more
important. Dr. R. Loften Hudson of the
American Association For Marriage And Family Therapy tells of one of his
clients who was working through her emotional problems. He asked, "Who was the biggest
influence in your growing up? I don't
know who the significant others were in your life with your father gone most of
the time, and your mother running around and getting drunk. Who did you look up to?"
"That's easy," she replied.
"It was my grandfather and grandmother. I didn't spend much time with them because my mother hated
them. They were daddies parents. But the loved me and told me so." Dr. Hudson said, "How could they have
influenced you much when you seldom saw them?" She responded, "Oh, but they believed in me. They made me believe in myself. I remember once my grandfather talked to me
and said 'Ellie, I want to tell you something.
You don't have to let your parents problems ruin you. There is something great in you. There is not telling what you can
become. The world out there needs
you.' I shall never forget that speech. He made me believe in myself."
There is
a powerful influence of even a rare opportunity to build up your grandchildren's
self‑esteem. Don't sell yourself
short. You can be the key, with even a
few brief words, to the encouragement of your grandchildren. Grandparents
provide the opportunity for grandchildren to develop roots, and establish an
identity that is not limited to the present, which may be far from ideal.
Grandparents can help them have roots that reveal a larger picture in which
they are a part. The next R we want to
look at is‑
II. RENEWAL.
The
grandchild‑ grandparent relationship is a two way street. The child has as great an impact on the
adult as the adult on the child. In
verse 15 the women say of baby Obed, "He will renew your life and sustain
you in your old age." This little
guy was to be to Naomi all that Geritol is today, and more. There is something about a grandchild that
can change the whole psychology of life, and bring hope and joy to the
forefront. Pro. 17:6 records this
universal reality: "Children's children are a crown to the
aged." Your children may have kept
you poor, but their children will make you rich. They renew your spirit, and give you a whole new role in the
world of loving, lifting, and serving.
Until
this scene where Naomi becomes a grandmother her life has been one trial after
another. Life has been a burden, and
she has suffered sorrow and grief beyond the average. She has suffered the loss of her husband and two sons. She has had to endure the life of poverty
and despair. She has had to bear the
responsibility of caring for Ruth, and trying to get her established in a home
of her own. Naomi has had little joy in
this story until this closing scene where she is grandmother. Now it is almost a heavenly scene. All tears are wiped away, and there is a
spirit of praise and joy, for now her whole future looks bright, for she has a
grandson.
The
event of being a grandmother has changed the whole psychology of her mind, and
she is in a state of renewal. Dr. Lewis
A. Coffin in his book The Grandmother Conspiracy wrote, "As soon as a
person becomes a grandparent he or she undergoes a radical personality change‑stern
fathers become cooing grandfathers:
harpie‑type mothers melt and crawl on the floor, sing lullabies,
and cram cookies and cookies and cookies down their sweet little grandchildren's
throats, take them to the ice‑cream store, bake cakes and pies for them,
and stand back admiringly as the little ones swell, tweet their obese little
checks approvingly, and raise a terrible hue and cry if anyone tries to
interfere."
They
often become a problem to their children because they allow the grandchildren
to do what they forbid. My grandson
Jason is a jumper. He loved to climb up
on things and jump to me. Once I let
him stand on the roof of the car and jump off to me. It was pure pleasure for both of us, but my daughter almost flipped when she saw
it. A child was injured near her by climbing
on the car, and she was teaching Jason never to climb up on a car. And here I was having fun with him doing the
very thing he was not to do. I let our
grandchildren bounce on our bed, and play with my tape recorder, and who knows
how many others thing they are forbidden to do by their parents. The point is, there is a different
psychology between grandparents and grandchildren then between parents and
children.
Grandparents have changed from when they were parents. They now value relationship with a child
higher than things, and so they risk more for the sake of relationship. My parents would never let me drink
coffee. They said it would stunt my
growth. But grandma always let me have
coffee. Of course, it was one part
coffee for each one thousand parts of milk, but I always felt like it was a big
deal to get my glass of coffee with the big people.
The reason grandparents tend to spoil
grandchildren is because of this renewal in the minds of the grandparents. They are so grateful for the new joy and
pleasure of life that they say thanks by being over indulgent. This makes the grandparent‑grandchild
relationship one which is dominated by the positive, and it is one of fun. The fun is mutual, for most grandparents get
more laughs from their grandchildren than they do from comedians. I can't imagine being with my grandchildren
for an hour without some laughter at the cute or ridiculous things they say.
One
little girls said, "I am sorry grandma I scratched my arm on your
cat." Another little girl who was
taken to a theatre for the first time tickled her grandfather by whispering,
"Grandpa what channel is this?"
For renewing and refreshing fun I'll take grandchildren over the
comics. It is not all fun, of course. I had to watch my grandson fall out of the
swing, and almost fall from the monkey bars.
I watched him stumble and almost bash his head into the concrete. He missed catching a frisbee which hit his
lip and it swelled up for a while.
There is a price to pay for the laughs you get. Someone said, "Children are always a
handicap to grown ups who want to lead a dull life." The beauty of being a grandparent is that
the price is so minimal compared to that of parents who must endure
childishness 24 hours a day.
One of
the reasons grandparents are often more fun than parents is because they have
more time. Parents are so loaded down
with responsibility that they do not have the time for fun with their
children. A 9 year old girl has written
this description of a grandmother, and it has become a classic.
"A grandmother is a
lady who has no children of her own,
So she likes other people's
little girls. A grandfather is a
man grandmother. He goes for walks with the boys and
they talk about fishing and
tractors and like that.
Grandmas don't have to do anything except be there.
They're old, so they
shouldn't play hard or run. It is
enough if they drive us to
the market where the pretend
horse is and have lots of
dimes ready. Or if they take us
for walks, they should slow
down past things like pretty
leaves or caterpillars. They should never ever say 'hurry
up.'
Usually they are fat, but not too fat to tie kids shoes.
They wear glasses and funny
underwear. They can take
their teeth out and gums
off.
It is better if they don't typewrite or play cards except
with us. They don't have to be smart, only answer
questions
like why dogs hate cats and
how come God isn't married.
They don't talk baby talk
like visitors do, because it is hard
to understand. When they read to us they don't skip, or
mind if it is the same story
again.
Everybody should try to have one, especially if you don't
have television, because
grandmas are the only grown ups
who have got time.
Time is
one of the treasures of life that grandparents have learned to use more wisely. Dale Evans Rogers has written a lot about her 16 grandchildren, and her advise
is, if you want to establish a warm bond with your grandchildren, get rid of
the parents. That is, be alone with
your grandchildren. It will be a time
of learning, growth, and renewal for both generations. She wrote, "One of our grandchildren
was spending the weekend with Roy and me, and I was clowning around with her in
the kitchen. Suddenly she put her hands
on her hips, cocked her head to one side, and stared at me. I knew one of the those piercing statements
that children are prone to make was forthcoming. A child has not learned the art of tact, and frequently her
remarks unveil a trait or weakness in us adults that we'd rather not have
exposed. This time, however, her
comments were welcome. She said, 'Why,
grandma, you have fun. I thought
grandmas were too old to have fun!'
Lord, help us grandparents to be young at heart with the young."
But lets
not leave grandpas out, or older grandchildren either. One of their older granddaughters who
graduated from the Bible Institute of Los Angeles wanted Roy to take her
hunting as a graduation gift. It was
very unusual in that she had never had an interest in hunting, but Roy took
her, and a week later he got this letter from her.
Dear Grandpa Roy,
I want to thank you so much for the "bestest"
present I've
ever gotten. Beside the excitement of learning to shoot a
gun,
watching the dogs work and
later even cooking a pheasant, my
most favorite part was being
with you, just you without a crowd.
I guess I enjoy being
comfortable when you feel comfortable. I
wish I would have caught on
to the fact that you're a neat
grandpa about 20 years ago,
when I was hiding in closet from
you! I couldn't think of adequate words to thank
you so I
drew this picture for you,
because I want you to know there is
something about a grandpa
that no one else can copy. Spending
time together with you meant
more to me than any other present
you could buy. I really felt loved...and love is the most
precious
gift I can think of to give
to anyone.
I love you, Grandpa.
Time
alone together with grandchildren is one of the most fun, educational, and
influential experiences of life. Grandparents
can learn plenty too. One grandmother
wrote, "I've been an artist for 40 years. My grandson has taught me a new
way to paint. I always thought I had to
set aside a whole day, decide on my subject, study it, get equipment and paints
together, then spend the rest of my time‑uninterrupted‑until my
picture was completed.
My
grandson, age 4, comes bursting in, exclaims, 'Maw Maw, let's paint a
picture!' He works on the back ground,
but tells me what he wants me to paint as the main idea. At Christmas, it was Santa Claus. Sometimes its monsters. In 10 minutes we have completed an entire
picture‑colorful, exciting‑satisfying to both of us."
The
relationship of grandparents and grandchildren is like the period of courtship,
whereas that of parents and children is more like that of marriage. The first is more dominated by fun, and the
second by responsibility, and that is a major reason why there is a different
psychology at work. One little girl
said, "Grandparents are like this.
When you tell them you want to do something, they will say that is what
they want to do. They will even say it
when they don't exactly mean it. But
after they do it with you, they will have fun anyway. This can be a problem for parents. Judith Viorst tells of getting her children back from a fun
filled week with the grandparents. She
writes, "After 7 days of paradise my children returned to plain, ordinary,
grumpy, preoccupied me. The reentry
problem was shattering. The kids kept
asking what wonderful plans and pleasures I had arranged for them today. And I kept telling them I wasn't their
social director. It was only after
considerable scolding and weeping that we all finally got use to each other
again."
It is
one of the paradoxes of life that after great fun there is weeping and wailing
because it cannot last forever. It is a
price worth paying, however, for it deepens the roots, and opens channels of
renewal, and that is what the grandparent‑grandchild relationship is all
about. The evidence is enormous that
grandparents are key people in the lives of most children. Grandparents are one
of God's major weapons to keep His plan unfolding and progressing. We see it in David's heritage in Ruth, but
the stories are endless, and they are going on today in the lives of millions.
In China
a grandmother took her sick grandson to a mission hospital in Canton, and not
only was the child healed, but she became a Christian. She returned to her village and shared
Christ with another grandmother. She
prayed with her for her sick grandchild, who was also healed. That whole family became Christians, and one
son became a Baptist pastor. The baby
who was healed grew up to be a medical doctor, and his son grew up to become
the president of the Baptist World Alliance.
He was David Y. K. Wong. It was
all because of a grandma who cared.
Godly
grandparents have such a powerful impact on the lives of grandchildren that one
is not far from the mark to say that the church and the Sunday School, and all
other arms of the kingdom of God are supplements to the influence of
grandparents. They change the course of
history, and no matter how rotten a generation becomes, there is always hope
for renewal because the next generation can be turned toward righteousness by
the grandparents. Eight year old Ann
Johnson wrote this poem which expresses the influence of millions of
grandparents on their grandchildren.
My grandma likes to play
with God,
They have a kind of game.
She plants the garden full
of seeds,
He sends the sun and rain.
She likes to sit and talk
with God,
And knows He is right there.
She prays about the whole
wide world,
Then leaves us in His care.
&