Episode 7 of Rescue & Rest

Welcome to Episode 7 of our Women's Bible Study that we call Rescue and Rest. This week in my normal through the Bible reading, I hit a psalm that I thought really depicted was a great summary for this study. So I wanted to open with this psalm, it's Psalm 113, verses 4 to 9, and I'll put it on the screen for you so you can see the words as I read it. This is my condensed version of it. Who is like the Lord our God, who is seated on high? He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap to make them sit with princes, with the princes of his people. He gives the barren woman a home, making her the joyous mother of children. Praise the Lord. Now, can I draw your attention to a few phrases by underlining them? This is why it caught my attention. He raises the poor from the dust and he lifts the needy from the ash heap. And of course, it caught my attention because of that. He gives the barren woman a home, making her the joyous mother of children. That is our text today. That is how this story resolves. And so as we are considering through the study of the book of Ruth, Jesus as our rescuer, Jesus as our source of rest, I thought that this psalm really made a lovely declaration of the work that God does in our lives. It's another way of saying what we said a few weeks ago, beauty from ashes. And the point is at one time or another, every single one of us has felt poor. Every single one of us has felt needy. Every single one of us has felt barren or empty in some way. We have all of these emotions that make us feel this way. And then the reality is sometimes it's true as well. We have been truly in need or poor. And so I love that as we go through this and consider our rescue and our rest, we need rescue and rest in our eternal lives for salvation. But we need rescue and rest all the way along as we are poor and needy and empty. And so that is why we've often gone to Matthew 11, 29, Jesus says, come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. So in this week's message, I want to highlight a couple of elements of how we study our Bible. When we study our Bible, it's important for us to look at scripture details that are technical. And it's also important for us to look at the personal application, which is inspirational. We do both of those two things. Let me give you a little story to help you have a picture in your mind for that. A couple of years ago, we had a spring storm that came through. And you know, here in Eastern Oregon, our storms in general in the spring come from west to east. And if there's a rainbow, it's going to be in the east. And the spring storm came through. I was in the house sitting in my chair, and I happened to look out at my living room window, which has a nice window frame on it. And I could see this very artistic, brilliant rainbow. And of course, it was backed by some of my foliage, some trees, and it was just like a picture that you would like want to purchase or something and put on a wall. And I grabbed my phone, and I snapped it, and I thought, I want to show my husband. At the same time, he's in the front yard outside, and he sees the rainbow encompassing the entire house from end to end. You know, that happens sometimes. Like our home is tucked under this rainbow. And he snaps a picture thinking, I want to show my wife. And so we got together and compared our pictures, and it was amazing that we had two pictures of the exact same moment from really, really different perspectives. His was the big picture, seeing the whole thing at one time. Mine was very close up, very intimate, if you will, very artistic. That is how we want to approach scripture. That is what we have done with the book of Ruth. As we started this, we started with the big picture. We talked about the setting of this story in scripture. And then we spent lots and lots of time week after week going through the details, looking at the artistry of the intimate details, applying them onto our lives and saying, what does this mean to me? And so we spent lots of time in that little image. I want to go back to the big picture for just a moment, review what we've learned, and add another technical detail that I hope means something to you. So the big picture, we learned that this is set in the time of the judges, right? We in our English Bibles, we go through Joshua, Judges, then there's Ruth, Samuel, Kings. And we know that the setting was right there. When we studied the book of Judges, geographically, we were all over. Remember that map that we had? We were all over Israel, the promised land, until the end, it began to narrow and narrow. And the narratives said a lot of a certain man from the hill country of Ephraim, or Bethlehem in Judah. And we had those two stories at the end that I raced us through, because they were very difficult to read that were centered in and around that area and in Bethlehem. And we said that there seems to be Bethlehem trilogies right at the end of that time. Those two that were depressing and depraved. And then we added the story of Boaz, which was a great delight for us to read. So that was kind of scripture details. I want to add one more thing for this. And that is where the book of Ruth is placed in the Hebrew scriptures. Because the Hebrew Bible, the Jewish Bible is a little bit different than ours. And I'm talking about the Bible, of course, they didn't have printed Bibles, but at the time of Jesus, the ordering of the scrolls, that's what I'm talking about here. And so in the Hebrew Bible, I'll show you the three divisions. We have the law, sometimes called the books of Moses, we have the prophets, and we have the scriptures, sometimes called the writings, sometimes it's called the Psalms. And even as Jesus was raised and he was talking to his disciples on the Emmaus road, it details these three. Look at this from Luke 24, beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures, the things concerning himself. Now, listen, hang with me, because this is a big picture part, okay? We'll get back to the artistic window in a minute. But I think that this is a compelling detail that I want to share with you. The law, first five books of the Bible, it basically tells what God's plan, God's covenant relationship for Israel, the children of Abraham, their place in his redemptive plan. What is their place? What is their purpose? That's kind of what the law is all about. Then we come to the prophets, and the prophets give the history of how Israel did in their purpose. So we have this narrative, we have Joshua and Judges and Samuel and Kings, and then all the major prophets and the minor prophets are in this second division, and it shows us that Israel failed in their covenant agreement. And then we have the third division of the Jewish Bible, the Hebrew scriptures, and there's names to these. And this division, you might think, so this is all the other miscellaneous books that they didn't have room for. No, no, no, no. This third division, which has Psalms, Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, it has Daniel, it has the Ezra, the post-exile books. This division is filled with messianic anticipation, a hope for those who are looking for the consummation of God's kingdom. Okay? Now, here's the gold nugget that we're after. The book of Ruth is the preface to that third division. The book of Ruth opens up that third division for those who are hoping in the consummation of God's kingdom. Isn't that sweet? It is like a compelling preface, a compelling story at the beginning to grab the reader's attention and point them in the direction of what they are about to read. I love that. What it tells me, and I don't think the ordering of the Bible is necessarily inspired. Our English Bibles are ordered a little bit differently, and that's okay. We think differently. We've talked about this many times that a Western reader is into chronology. That's how we tell stories. It's all okay. But this tells us what the ancients thought about the book of Ruth. They thought it was something special. They thought it was intended to be a preface for those who are still hoping in the Messiah to come. For us, it has been something special. It has shaped our imaginations along the line of God's. a redemptive plan and it has planted the idea in our minds of all these types and shadows and symbols. I like to say if you think about railroad tracks, these two parallel rails, we have theology in words over here and we have theology in picture over here and they run parallel, they complement one another, they don't diverge and this has been theology in a story, theology in a picture. So I just wanted to share that with you. I thought it was a very interesting detail but now let's get back into our looking at the element this week. I want to review where we're exactly at in this story. Ruth 4 verse 9, then Boaz said to the elders and to all the people, your witnesses this day that I have bought from the hand of Naomi all that belong to Elimelech, all that belong to Kilion and to Malon. Also Ruth the Moabite, the widow of Malon, I have bought to be my wife to perpetuate the name of the dead in his inheritance that the name of the dead may not be cut off from among his brothers and from the gate of this native place. You are witnesses today and now we go into today's text verse 11. Then all the people who were at the gate and the elders said we are witnesses and they began to pronounce blessings over them. First they say may the Lord make the woman who's coming into your house like Rachel and Leah who together built up the house of Israel. Great blessing, makes perfect sense. They say may you act worthily in Ephrathah and be renowned in Bethlehem and we say that makes great sense. It's like saying you go Boaz and then they say may your house be like the house of Perez whom Tamar bore to Judah because of the offspring that the Lord will give you by this young woman and then we have to stop a little bit because that is a strange blessing because Perez whom Tamar bore to Judah is an unsavory story. Why would you draw into that part of history to be blessing someone at a wedding? So I want to talk about it okay. If you are with us for Divine Design the book of Genesis we went through this story. Judah one of the sons of Jacob later named Israel. Judah married a Canaanite woman and together they had three sons Er, Onan, and Shalah. He sought a wife for Er who was Tamar. Er was wicked and the Lord he died without children so here's Tamar a widow without children and so Judah gave his next son Onan to be her husband in order to perpetuate the name of the dead in his inheritance. This was a Leverite marriage and Onan as well left. He did not allow conception to happen and he died without children. Well Judah is looking at this thinking I have one son left and he was reluctant to give his last son Shalah to be married to this woman. In all fairness to Judah Shalah may have been under age we don't know but basically he left Tamar at a dead end. Remember the laws of compassion were to try to eliminate dead ends in life but Tamar is left at a dead end in life no children no husband and so Tamar when she realized Shalah was not going to be given to her in a Leverite marriage in order to perpetuate the name of the dead she set her attention on the next nearer kinsman who had the right to do that and the obligation to do that who was Judah himself. While Judah's wife had died he was a widower which left him sexually vulnerable shall we say which is no excuse for making use of a prostitute it is what it is and so Tamar posed as a prostitute in his lane he made use of her services and accidentally but providentially entered into a Leverite marriage with his daughter-in-law in order to perpetuate the name of the dead he did not intend to of course when he finds out that she's pregnant he wants her stoned until she's able to say yeah you're the father and he turns very quickly he softened his heart and realized all at once it was his responsibility to give his son to this woman he did not do it he actually did perpetuate the name of the dead and he softened he never had relations with her again but God had his way through the back door in that situation strange thing to think about but that's kind of what happened he should have been the redeemer in that situation well so that that is what the women are drawing everybody's attention to may you be may you flourish like like Tamar and Judah weird but it was probably the most prominent Leverite marriage in Israel especially in the tribe of Judah what can what can we learn from reviewing that story okay here's what I learned God sees desperate situations God sees when women are headed to dead ends it does not escape his attention we learn that God's plan in life doesn't always come through the front door God uses backdoor things in his plan of redemption and we see here everything is part of the story now in most societies that's just weird and you just like let's just sweep that under the rug especially and you know you watch British movies or something and there's always these secrets you know a child that was rushed off to the country or something like that it's like let's just not talk about this but everything is part of the story and you know what we can take from this everything is part of your story everything is part of your story by the way how are you doing on your personal story of redemption this is our last week I hope you're doing well I hope you have an opportunity to share your three-minute story of redemption in your group if you can't share it with a Christian you're probably going to struggle sharing it with someone else who needs to hear it so I want you to practice but undoubtedly we have some backdoor parts of our story everything is part of our story but not everything needs to be told in detail okay we learned that as we prepared our story not everything needs to be detailed but everything is part of the story all right so verse 13 so Boaz took Ruth she became his wife and just like that they are married $20,000 cheaper than we get married today that is the way to do it for sure and we might think right there that everything was perfect marital bliss because we just love these two we're so happy that they're married now and we imagine that they have a perfect relationship and we might think that the moral of the story of the book is be loyal to your family be diligent in the field get yourself a husband your life will be great but that is not what we learn from this but we do learn something right here what we do learn is something about marriage and I've said many times marriage is a symbol of the union of the church and Christ if you've never heard me say that again I'll do it again marriage is a symbol of the union of the church and Christ so I want to take a couple minutes to address that elephant in the room which is marriage for some women marriage has been the best thing ever and when I say it's a symbol of the union of the church in Christ you're like yes look it's just the same it's great and for some women marriage has not been the best thing ever marriage has been a trial and when I say marriage is a symbol of the union of the church in Christ you just sort of want to go and do something else at that moment you don't want to think about it because personal experience has shown you that that that that even the word marriage agitates you so it's very difficult to consider that's a symbol of me and Jesus but when we study scripture we need to do a couple things we need to push aside our experiences we need to push aside our culture because even in our culture marriage has become criticized and twisted and optional so we need to push that aside we need to tell our emotions to settle down and we need to allow the scriptures to pave the way for proper thinking pave the way for proper theology okay so let's go look at Ephesians Ephesians 5 31 this is how the apostle Paul explained it to us

A longer sentence that tells us marriage is a symbol of the union of the church and Christ. Now, in a perfect world, we would be able to readily accept that. That wouldn't be a problem at all. But we don't live in a perfect world, and that's why we have to push away our emotions, push away our culture, and say, Lord, help the theology of the scriptures pave the way for proper thinking. And proper thinking shows us here that Ruth is a symbol of a lost sinner who asked to be covered, to be married, and to become the wife. She is a symbol of the collective church. Ruth is a symbol of every one of us. And we realize that Boaz is a symbol here of the Messiah, the Redeemer, who has the ability to cover her, the ability to marry her, and extends his boundaries over and becomes her leader, becomes her head. And so I think that's another compelling reason why the book of Ruth became the preface to the scriptures, the preface to the writings, the third division of the Bible. Those who are waiting for the consummation of God's kingdom. So Boaz and Ruth, just like every human marriage, were demonstrating a drama by their marriage. They became a symbol of Christ and his bride. But the story doesn't end there. Second half of verse 13, And he went into her, and the Lord gave her conception, and she bore a son. The natural expected outcome of a union between a man and a woman in a day when there was no birth control, the natural expected outcome would be a child, right? This is the next step. This is what you would expect. That's exactly what happened. She bore a son. The Bible calls that the fruit of the womb. Fruit of the womb. Jesus talked about bearing fruit. John 15 5. Take a look at it.

So the natural expected outcome of the union of me and Jesus would be what? Fruit. It would be fruit. Look at that. He says, how do we get fruit? That two-word phrase, whoever abides, that is how fruit is formed in our life. Now, marriage creates the initial union, right? But with a husband and wife, marriage creates the union. But it takes daily love and devotion to enter into communion. You can be married. In fact, I looked up a dictionary definition. Union is the action or fact of joining or belonging. That's the union. It's a factual thing. Communion is intimate fellowship. A close relationship with someone. You know, over this pandemic, Paul and I have communicated with lots of people around the world. Many people, husband and wife, were stranded apart from each other in the early days of the pandemic. Depending on what country they lived in. And whether the borders were open or closed. Or what was going on. Whether there were flight attendants or whatever. And some were apart for months. Three months. Six months. We know of one husband and wife who are still separated in different countries. They still have a union. They're still married. How much communion can you have when you're living in a different continent from one another? You can FaceTime. You can talk. But that intimacy of being together, touching, feeling. That is not there. There's not true communion during that time. So I'm trying to set the difference between a union. And you know the same thing holds true with me and Jesus. I know I'm saved. I have a union with Jesus. Can I go through times where communion is... Yes. Can you? Have you ever? Absolutely. So for me, this week in this lesson, it's like I need communion with the Lord. I need to run quickly when those things get between us for some reason. When we're caught on different continents. And oh yeah, I'm talking. I'm going through the motions of prayer. But there's something there that is... The communion isn't what it should be. And I know it. So we ask ourselves the questions in considering this. Have I formed a union? Yeah, I have. Probably you have. Am I in communion? Hmm. That's a good question. Are you in communion with your husband right now? Your heavenly husband. Are you in communion? Because that's how you bear fruit. Am I bearing fruit? What is the quality of my fruit? You know, I got to thinking too. And I'll step aside from like teaching right now. Because I'm just talking and thinking. Okay. Last week we talked about... Do you have barley in your garment? We talked about the gifts that the Holy Spirit gives us. So we have the gifts of the Spirit. But then we have the fruit of the Spirit. And I spent a couple days to think about. What are the similarities and differences between the gifts of the Holy Spirit and bearing fruit? Just some of my thoughts. I thought, you know, the Bible tells me that the gifts and calling of God are irrevocable. God gives a spiritual gift and it's there. And I know for a fact that a person can continue to use a spiritual gift while being in a sin relationship. We've seen this happen, haven't we? With prominent Christian personalities. We find out later that they were in sin. But we look back on what they did and we're like, it's so confusing. Because look at that. Look how you used your gift. And so I do think that spiritual gifts, God just gives them to us. But fruit that lasts. I wonder, does that... Jesus said, you can do nothing apart from me. You must be connected to the vine to bear fruit that lasts. And fruit is for other people. The branch doesn't eat its own fruit. It is for others to bear fruit that goes out and means something to others. Anyway, just something to think about. Not every woman is destined to be married in this world. Not every woman is destined to bear children. But every believer who is united with Christ is expected to bear fruit. All right, let's see how the fruit of this union was a benefit to Naomi. Verse 14. Then the women said to Naomi, Blessed be the Lord who has not left you this day without a Redeemer. And may his name be renowned in Israel. Now this child, this was actually Malan's son. To perpetuate the name of the dead. Naomi's grandson. He shall be to you a restorer of life and a nourisher of your old age. For your daughter-in-law who loves you is more to you than seven sons has given birth to him. So in the natural story, the women here had a wish for this child to be a restorer of life for Naomi. And he was. He was a restorer of life. I think about restoring what was lost in Naomi's life. Well, her sons, for one thing. Her husband and sons were lost. And this child restored that. Her emotions. You remember the early weeks of going through this. Her emotions were a wreck, right? They had run wild with loss of hope, fear of the future. And this child could restore those things for her. As the scriptures say, restoring that which the locusts had eaten. And so the psalm that we opened with. He gives the barren woman a home, making her the joyous mother of children. He raises the poor from the dust and he lifts the needy from the ash heap. I don't know how people can. It's only people who have a glaze through the Old Testament that can say, God is just so angry in the Old Testament. He's so mean in the Old Testament. You cannot study the Old Testament and come up with that. You study the Old Testament and what do we find? We find that God raises the needy from the ash heap. God is attentive to those who have needs. We see the character of God and it blows us away. We're like, don't you have so many things to do? And yet you look at me and you help me in my life. You help these women in their lives. I'm getting ahead of myself. Verse 16, Naomi took the child and laid him on her lap and became his nurse. And the women of the neighborhood gave him a name saying, a son has been born to Naomi. And they named him Obed, which means servant. He was the father of Jesse, the father of David. Now in that moment. In that holy moment, when they were pronouncing a blessing, did those women look at that child and say, Oh, he's going to be the father of Jesse, who's going to be the father of David, who's going to be a great king of Israel and teach us more about the Messiah to come? No, they didn't know that. When I think about the holy moments in our life, what is happening today in your life? And you can't say, Oh, today I did this, which is going to turn into this, which is going to... No, we don't know those future things. But does that not stir up in you to consider each day, each activity a little bit more valuable because we don't know what God is going to use. We don't know what the future is. It gives me hope. Let's finish this genealogy, verse 18. Now, these are the generations of Perez. Look how we start with Perez. Perez fathered Hezron, Hezron fathered Ram, Ram fathered Aminadab, Aminadab fathered Nation, Nation fathered Salmon, Salmon fathered Boaz, Boaz fathered Obed, Obed fathered Jesse, and Jesse fathered David. And that is the bookend, the other side of the rainbow, if you will, in our big picture. This side of the rainbow was the setting of Ruth. Where do we find this in the scriptures and what kind of a culture was going on? And then we end with this genealogy that is going to push us into the future. But I want to look at the genealogy just a little bit for what we can learn from it. It begins with Jacob, Israel, if you will, through his son Judah. It begins with Judah's son Perez through Tamar. Hold on to that. It starts with Perez who was born by Tamar. And then it runs us into the entry of the promised land and we have Salmon's son Boaz through Rahab. You looked this up in your study guide. You went to Matthew's genealogy and so you know this. And then we end it with Israel's great king David who then, you know, we know fathered Solomon through Bathsheba. So in this genealogy we have images of those women who we learned about in Matthew's genealogy. Those three women along with Ruth, what did they share in common? Well for one thing, they're all in the line of Messiah. They all contributed to the birth of Jesus Christ, Jesus the Messiah. But another thing that they all share in common is they all had very complicated lives. Very complicated love lives, I would say. Every one of them hit a place, hit a dead end in life where they were poor, they were needy or they were barren. Every one of them needed to be lifted from the dust, raised from the ash heap. And what I love about looking at those lives is that to each one of them it seemed practically impossible for them to even continue to survive, much less flourish, bear children in the line of the Messiah. But God does what is impossible and he loves to point it out to us. He loves to point out to us, look what I did, that's kind of cool. It should mean something to you, should mean something to me. So God provided a rescue and I just want to end with thinking about those four women. At some point in their life God provided a rescue and God also provided rest for them. And that's what God does for us too. If you are feeling needy, if you are feeling poor, if you are feeling barren, how odd of a thing to just look at a genealogy. But that's where we find some encouragement. I love to say, God, if you did it for her, I know you can do it for me too. And I think God likes it when we say that. Father, thank you for all the things that we see here and for the reminder that nothing is impossible with you. You truly are the one who lifts the needy from the dust and you lift the poor from the ash heap. And Lord, if we ever get to feeling that way, even if it's only an emotional response, even if it is not the reality of what's going on, Lord, I pray that our minds would go back to what we have learned from the scripture, that you relieve us from dead ends in life, Lord. You are our rescue all the time and you are our rest. And we praise you for that. As that psalm finished, praise the Lord. In Jesus' name, amen.