The Matchmaker

Good to see everybody. Sing some praise and worship to our Father this evening. Dear Heavenly Father, I just pray that as we come before you, Lord, that just to speak to you, and I just pray that all of the words that we're singing, Lord, would just be our prayer this evening to you, giving you the praise that you deserve. I just pray this in your name. Amen.

Y'all want to stand? You don't have to, but this evening. God, I just thank you for giving us voices to praise you. God, I just pray that as Ryan comes up, Lord, that that same spirit that is in us, that is you, God would work through him, that you would help us to understand the wisdom that you're trying to get us to understand, Lord, that our hearts would be softened, and that we wouldn't come in with any preconceived ideas, but we would keep an open mind that you're spirit can speak to us. I just pray this in your name. Amen.

If you would open up in your Bibles to the book of Ruth, chapter 3. Ruth, chapter 3. So, just to bring everybody back up to speed, there had, during the time of the judges, there was a family living in the area of Bethlehem, and that family had a husband named Elimelech. Elimelech was married to a woman named Naomi, and they had two sons, Malone and Chilion.

And they had two sons, Malone and Chilion. And they had gone down to Moab, because there was a famine in the land. And as they went down to Moab, while they were there, Elimelech died. And after Elimelech died, his two sons took wives for themselves. One of them, of course, was named Ruth, which is who the book is about. And then, in the course of time, the sons died.

And after quite a few years, Naomi heard that there was bread back in the land of Israel. And so, she went back to Bethlehem. And when she returned to Bethlehem, she found herself in a place called Bethlehem. She found herself in a place where she was bitter and broken over the things that had taken place in her life. And, of course, Ruth found herself in a place where she was a stranger and an alien,

and also somewhat broken over the events that had taken place in her life. But Ruth was committed, and she was committed to staying with her mother-in-law. And so, when they returned, Ruth began to go out and glean in the fields, which, of course, was God's, if you will, welfare program at that point in time, that if you didn't have money to be able to provide for yourself, and land to harvest for yourself, the landowners would leave the corners of their fields that could be gleaned in order to take care of the poor. And so, that's what she did.

And it just so happened that she ended up in the field of a man by the name of Boaz. And Boaz happened to be a kinsman redeemer. Now, remember, a kinsman redeemer could redeem three things. He could redeem property of those who had fallen into poverty in some way and had to sell their land. Because of their poverty, he could redeem persons who individually had fallen into poverty

and found themselves in a place where they had to sell themselves into indentured servant servitude so that they could pay off a debt. But then also, the kinsman redeemer could redeem widows who had never had any children. And so, Boaz is a kinsman redeemer or a close relative to Ruth. And so, she ends up in this field of Boaz. And Boaz takes very good care of her.

And he says, don't go glean anywhere else. You should stay in this field. Stay in my fields and I'll take really good care of you. And she went home and she told Naomi whose field she had been gleaning in. And Naomi said, ah, praise God who has not forgotten us. You should always glean in his fields because that man's going to take care of you. And that brings us to chapter three.

Now, as I said, I feel like each of these chapters, although we're going to do a bonus episode tonight, each of these chapters is kind of like an episode, right? Chapter one, the name of that episode was Call Me Mara because that was where Naomi found herself. Very bitter, right? That's what Mara means. Episode two, chapter two was a man named Boaz because it was really all about Boaz

and how God brought Ruth to the exact right field. Well, tonight, the name of the episode is The Matchmaker. And yes, I was absolutely thinking of the fiddler on the roof when I was thinking about this. And so, now you're welcome that for the rest of the night, those of you that have seen Fiddler on the Roof, we'll have Matchmaker, Matchmaker, Make Me a Match, Find Me a Fine, Catch Me a Cash.

That's going to go through your head all night long. So, when you go to sleep tonight and you're singing that song over and over again, you're welcome. So, that's the title of the message tonight. So, we start in chapter three, verse one, and this is what it says. Then Naomi, her mother-in-law, said to her, meaning Ruth, My daughter, shall I not seek security?

For you, that it may be well with you. Ah, the beginning of The Matchmaker, right? And so, you can imagine that we said that there were probably about six weeks worth of harvesting that were taking place. And so, in the middle of that six weeks, because it was not only the barley harvest, but also the wheat harvest. And so, while all of that harvesting was happening,

Naomi was kind of watching what was going on. And she knew, hey, this young lady named Ruth, she needs to be able to continue on with life and start a family. And so, she's kind of watching as things are developing. Perhaps every day, Ruth comes home and tells a new story about Boaz. Like, you'll never believe what Boaz did today, or however it went, right?

And so, as she's watching this unfold, as she's watching this develop, she looks at Ruth and she says, Is it not right for me to try to seek security for you, that it may be well with you? Now, there's a word in there I'd like for you to pay attention to, and that word is security. Because that word security literally means a resting place. Now, we talked about this in chapter one, because Naomi had said the same thing to both Ruth and Orpah, both of her daughters-in-law at that point in time.

She told them that she wanted them to go find a place of rest with a marriage back in their homeland. Well, of course, Ruth decided to stay with Naomi, but she still wants her to find a place of rest. And I want to make a couple of quick points about this. Because, as we have mentioned before, a good marriage is always a resting place. A good marriage is always a place

where we can truly be ourselves and find the kind of rest that really comes from a person that just accepts you for who you are and loves you for who you are. And so, again, I would say, if you are someone that's here tonight and you are not married, you're still looking for that person, look for the person that you can find rest with. Look for the person that you can be yourself with. And if you're here tonight and you're in a marriage and you're going, I don't sense very much rest in my marriage, you need to start to ask yourself, why?

Why is there no rest in your relationship? Because that means that there's an issue that God needs to work on in your relationship. There's an issue that God needs to work on in your marriage because your marriage should be your greatest place of rest. And so that's kind of the practical point, but then there's a spiritual point that I want to make as well because, remember, Boaz is always a representation of Jesus Christ, in this story that's given to us here in the Old Testament.

And for Ruth, on this side of eternity, her greatest place of rest would be in the arms of Boaz, a really good husband that would take care of her. But in a spiritual sense, our greatest place of rest is in none other than Jesus Christ himself. Because you will never be at rest anywhere else in life until you are at rest in Christ. Because he is our ultimate kinsman redeemer.

And so, Naomi has this plan. So I want you to notice what she says in verse 2. Now, is not Boaz our kinsman with whose maids you were? Behold, he winnows barley at the threshing floor tonight. Wash yourself, therefore, and anoint yourself, and put on your best clothes, and go down to the threshing floor. But do not make yourself known to the man until he has finished eating and drinking.

And it shall be when he lies down, that he will be known to the man, that you shall notice the place where he lies, and you shall go and uncover his feet and lie down, and then he will tell you what you shall do. And she said to her, All that you say, I will do. Now, this is the part that anybody that's read the book of Ruth always wants to get to because they're like, Somebody needs to explain this to me. Because from everything that we would indicate in our culture, we would go, This is the exact opposite advice of what we would give to any young woman.

Can you imagine? In today's culture, if we were like, if some young lady comes to you and says, I think I found the one. And you go, Go into his bedroom tonight and lay down at the foot of his bed. That'd be the dumbest advice in the world, right? So let's first of all understand exactly what's taking place. Well, let's first of all look at what all Naomi tells her to do.

The first thing that Naomi tells her to do is she says, You need to get yourself ready. Girl, you've been in the field for like six weeks now, and I'm not saying we can tell, but we can tell, right? You need to go take yourself a really good shower. Make sure that your nails are done. Make sure that your makeup is done. Put on some perfume, because right now you smell like the field.

Like, make yourself look nice. There's nothing wrong with that. Go make yourself look very, very presentable. And then tonight, what I want you to do is I want you to go to the threshing floor. And as you go to the threshing floor, this is what you're going to do. You're going to take note after dinner and everything is done, and he lays down, you're going to take note of where he is.

And then you are going to go and lay, at his feet, he'll take care of everything else. Now, let's understand a little bit of the cultural custom of the threshing floor, right? So the threshing floor was located there just outside of Bethlehem, and it would have sat up on a little bit of a plateau, a flat rock surface at somewhat of a higher ground, because what they would do when they would thresh is they would throw all of the grain up into the air. The wind would carry away the chaff, and the grain would fall back down.

Now, this threshing floor was not just owned by one individual. This threshing floor was a public place. Everybody brought their crops to the threshing floor. And ultimately, what it turned into is really a really big celebration. After everybody would work all day threshing their grain, all of the men would sit down in the evening, and the maids that were working there as well,

they would sit down in the evening and they would enjoy a meal. And then whoever had crops, whoever had grain that they had threshed, they would gather that grain into an area, and they would sleep next to where that grain was. Because remember, from our story of Gideon, this is the time of the judges, and the potential for foreign raiders to come in and take your crop was incredibly high. So you slept next to where your crop was, where your grain was, so that you could protect the fruit of your work till the next day.

So this was an incredibly public place, and for them to all sleep there was not an uncommon thing. It was actually the practice of the day. So let's understand that. She's not going into his bedroom. She's going to a very open public place where this is all going to take place. Now, the second thing that Naomi tells her to do to go and lay at his feet, again, we look at that as a really odd thing.

And we should look at that as a really odd thing because that's not our cultural custom. It was their cultural custom. There was nothing sexual about what took place. Her going to lay at his feet was actually a representation at that point in time of saying, I would like to be under your authority and under your protection because that is the way marriage was viewed.

Marriage was viewed as a woman coming underneath the protection of the man. And is that not just a beautiful scene? The way that God has truly intended it, not for men to lord authority, but for men to be protectors and for ladies to come and say, I want to be not only under your authority, but under your protection. And that's exactly what that stood for is her coming and saying, I want to be under your protection.

I want to be your wife and I want to be under the authority of you and under the protection of you. That was what that spoke of in the custom of that particular day. It was a sign of both surrender and submission. Now, while we don't have that same custom today, nor would I recommend that anyone give this advice to a young woman, there is something really important about the symbolism that's used here because in our culture today, so much is backwards.

So much is backwards. And it's because men have stopped being men and women have stopped being women. Women have decided that they want to be the ones in charge and men have decided that they want to play. Men don't take responsibility anymore. Men don't take authority anymore. Men don't lead anymore. Oftentimes men want to sit back and let somebody else lead.

And as that happens, women who naturally want to lead anyway because of the curse, because remember what God told Adam and Eve? God told Eve, your desire will always be for your husband. And that didn't mean that she would always be attracted to him. It meant that her desire would be to rule over him. And that power struggle that takes place between men and women all began in the garden

when Adam stood by and didn't lead as Eve took the fruit and ate. And it's beautiful that this is the way that this is set up. And wouldn't it be wonderful if in our culture today, men would start to be men again and ladies would start to be ladies again. And I will tell you the only way that that happens is if we all submit ourselves to the authority of Christ.

Because as we submit ourselves to the authority of Christ, men become godly men and ladies become godly women. And this is what takes place. But you know, there's a beautiful spiritual application that takes place here too with what she tells Ruth to do. Because remember, Ruth knows that she wants Boaz to be her kinsman redeemer. She knows he's a good man. She knows he's a solid guy.

And she knows he's the kinsman redeemer. But she has to make a decision for herself. Will I go and submit myself to his authority? Now, it's a beautiful thing to apply this to our relationship with Jesus Christ. Because you know, I think there's a couple of different ways that we can look at this. Number one, there's a lot of people living in the world that know a lot about God.

Would you agree with that? And they know what the Bible says. Matter of fact, they can even quote it to you. They know that there's a God. They believe that there's a God. But they've never actually come to Jesus. They've never actually come to the threshing floor to say, I want to give my life to Jesus. They can tell you all of the facts. They can tell you all of the things.

But they've never really come to Jesus. Some of those people aren't even in the world. Some of those people sit in a church. I'm always, I'm always interested to ask people when they came to know Jesus. And they say, well, I've always grown up Christian. And I'm always like, no, no, wait a second. You can grow up in the church and you can become a Christian,

but you can't grow up Christian because there has to come a point in time for everybody where you decide for yourself, I'm going to go to the threshing floor. I'm going to go to Jesus for myself. And I'm going to make this decision for myself and put my faith in Jesus Christ. Because listen, God doesn't have grandkids. He only has kids. And you can't just know about God.

You have to know God. You can't just know what the Bible has to say. You have to submit to what the Bible has to say. And there's a whole bunch of people. Sometimes they sit in this church who can tell me a lot of scripture, but they've never come to Jesus. And I'm here to tell you right now, you have to make a decision for yourself to come to Jesus. But you know, I think that there's a second group of people

that we can look at here. Because I think that there's a lot of people that walk through the doors. There's a lot of people that walk through the doors of a church that absolutely believe in Jesus Christ and have come to him to be their savior, but they've never truly surrendered to his authority in their life. They believe Jesus for the fire insurance. They maybe have put their faith in Jesus,

but you're still living an unsurrendered life. And it's time for you to sit at the feet of Jesus and say, I will surrender 100% to you. Because there's a difference, at least in my mind, based on what I see in scripture between being saved and being saved. And I think that's a big difference. I think that's a big difference. Between being saved and being surrendered.

And too many people are content to be saved, but they never live a life of surrender. And it's time for us to come to the feet of Jesus and say, I want to be under your authority. I want you to be the one who leads me. And I want my life to be surrendered 100% to you. And so she gives these instructions to Ruth. And I love Ruth, man. What a great lady. She looks at her and she says,

all that you say, I will do. And so now it's time for the incident or the event at the threshing floor. Verse six says, so she went down to the threshing floor and she did according to all that her mother-in-law had commanded her. And when Boaz had eaten and drunk and his heart was merry, he went to lie down at the end of the heap of grain. And she came secretly and uncovered his feet

and lay down. And it happened in the middle of the night. And it happened in the middle of the night that the man was startled and bent forward. And behold, a woman was lying at his feet. Okay, can we just all take a moment for the comedic effect of what just took place here, right? So she's hanging out at the threshing floor looking a little fresher than she usually does.

And she kind of takes note of where he lays down and like in the middle of the night, sneaks and she lays down at his feet. Now I'm a really heavy sleeper and I freak out really, really easily when people come and wake me up in the middle of the night. One of the scariest things in the world is my 12-year-old daughter who is so quiet in the way that she walks and she will walk into, she hadn't done this for a really long time. She's probably five or six the last time she did this.

Might've been eight, I don't know. But just walks into the room and just stands there. Like picture me laying right here and she'll just stand there. And you wake up and you're like, ah, right? Cause you're like, it's either my kid or a serial killer, right? It's hard to say which one. And that's kind of the situation that we have here is he lays down and she lays it

at his feet in the middle of the night. He's going, somebody's laying on my feet and he wakes up and he's, and he's startled. Now, if I was writing this as a comedy, a romantic comedy, if you will, he would sit straight up and he would just yell at the top of his lungs at her. Now that didn't happen because nobody else realized she was there. We're going to find that out in just a minute,

but he was incredibly startled. And so she lays at his feet. And so in verse nine, he says, who are you? And she answered, I am Ruth, your maid. Spread your covering over your maid for you. Are a close relative. And he said, may you be blessed by the Lord, my daughter. You have shown your last kindness to be better than the first by not going after the younger men,

whether poor or rich. Now, my daughter, do not fear. I will do for you whatever you ask for all my people in the city. Know that you are a woman of excellence. I love this. She, he looks and says, who is this? The room is dark, right? Not a lot of street lights and the threshing floor. And she says, who is this? She says, it's me. It's Ruth. It's your servant.

She says, would you spread the edge of your garment over me? Now, again, there's something incredibly symbolic about this. This is something I learned today. It's new on me. At the hem of the garment of men of great, of distinguished men at that point in time was really what made them distinguished. And that was the edge of their garment. It was specific to them.

And each of the little ornaments that was on the edge of his garment, this garment represented something about how distinguished this individual was. And so what she's saying is, I want all of your character, all of who you are to be what covers me. I want your covering over me. And he says, fear not. For I have heard all about you and everybody knows that you are a woman of excellence.

And I love this because he's like, I can't believe you didn't go after the younger guys. Because remember, Boaz is a little older. We're thinking Sean Connery, right? Like 007 Sean Connery, not like yesterday Sean Connery, but you know, that kind of older distinguished gentleman sort of a guy. And he's like, I can't believe that you would choose me. And I love that.

I can't believe that you would choose me over all of these younger guys. And he said, I'll do for you what you ask because I know that you are a woman of great excellence. Now, again, there's a word I'd like for you to pay attention to. And that word is the word excellence because it's the exact same word. It's the exact same word that's used in chapter two of Boaz,

same Hebrew word where it says he was a man of great wealth. And while it's translated wealth with Boaz and excellence with Ruth, it's the same Hebrew word. And it speaks of one who is of great valor and character. It speaks of one who is highly spoken of. And isn't it wonderful that this woman of great character has found this man of great character. I'm here to tell you right now,

when you got a couple of people that are really following God with all of their hearts and they come together, boy, great things happen. Amen. And so, and so he says, I will do for you everything that you ask. Now, verse 12, there's one problem. Now it's true. I am a close relative. However, there is a relative that is closer than I. Remain this night. And when morning comes, if he will redeem you, good.

Let him redeem you. But if he does not wish to redeem you, then I will redeem you. As the Lord lives. Lied down until morning. And so she laid his feet until morning and rose before one could recognize another and said, and he said, let it be no, let it not be known that the woman came to the threshing floor. Again, he said, give me the cloak that is on you and hold it.

So she held it and he measured six measures of barley and laid it on her. And she went into the city. He says, I would absolutely love to do this for you. There's one problem. While I'm a close kinsman, there is one who's a little bit closer than me, but I don't want you to worry. I'm going to figure this out. And if he wants to redeem you in this, in the Bible, it says good, let it be done.

But you know, he was like, fine. But if he doesn't want to redeem you, I'm in right. Put me in coach tag me in. And so he says, but lay here until night. And when you leave, don't let anyone know. That you are here. And I think that there's something really cool about this because he wants to protect her reputation. Because while we know nothing happened and while he knows nothing happened,

I find that people that spread rumors rarely rely on facts. You ever notice that? They usually don't let themselves get too disturbed by what's true. They just like to spread the rumor. And so when she gets up to go, he says, don't, don't go home empty handed. So he gives her six measures of barley, wraps it up in a bag. It sends her home with a gift as if he hadn't done enough already.

Sends her home with a gift to take back to Naomi. Well, now it's time. You can imagine Naomi didn't sleep that night thinking about how things were going to go, perhaps pacing around, singing the matchmaker song in her head. And then in verse 16, it says, and when she came to her mother-in-law, she said, how did it go? My daughter. And she told her all that the man had done for her.

She said, these six measures of barley. He gave me. For he said, do not go to your mother-in-law empty handed. And then she said, wait, my daughter, until you know how the matter turns out for the man will not rest until he has settled it today. So she goes back to Naomi and she, first of all, reports everything that had taken place. And we're given a brief synopsis of it here, but listen,

y'all know that wasn't a brief synopsis, right? You know that she sat down and she said it went really good. And Naomi went, give me details. And they sat down together and she told her everything that happened the entire night, including the fact that Boaz nearly scared her to death when he yelled when she was laying at his feet, right? She told him all of those.

She told her all those things. And then she told her about the problem. She said, I think it's going to go really good. There's just one problem. Well, sweetheart, what's the problem? Well, there is a closer kinsman. And if he wants to redeem me, then he has to let him. But he said he's going to deal with it. He said he's going to take care of it. And once you notice the advice that Naomi gives to Ruth,

and then she said, wait, my daughter, until you know how the matter turns out for the man will not rest until he has settled it today. There's one really, really, really important word in there. I bet you know what word I'm going to say. And that word is wait. You know, we're not good at that. Are we? We're not good at waiting. We're not good at waiting on things,

especially in these particular situations when, you know, your future is on the line, when how all of this is going to play out is on the line. And I'm here to tell you right now that when we're told to wait, the only thing we can do and the best thing that we can do is to wait. Now, Ruth could have done what a lot of people like to do in this particular situation. She could have taken matters into her own hands, right?

She, she perhaps could have figured out who the other kinsman redeemer was and gone to him herself and, and dealt with all of the things and, and really made her life crazy. But you see, Naomi, Naomi had started learning some things about God. And the biggest thing that she had learned is that when God says, wait, you need to wait. And so she looks at Ruth and she says, I want you to wait, wait until he has dealt with this matter.

Because the man will not rest until it has been taken care of. And I don't know who that's a word for today. I don't know who, who needs to hear that. But sometimes the best thing that we can hear is just, is just wait. And when God says to do it, you got to just do it. I was thinking about this today as I was studying. And when I went for my run at lunchtime to kind of meditate on all the things that I'd been studying,

I started thinking about all of the scriptures that say, that say to wait, you ever noticed that wait's one of God's favorite words. I was thinking about the scripture. They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength and shall mount up with wings like eagles and run and not be weary, that walk and not faint. And if you grew up in Calvary Chapel, you know that the rest of that song is teach me, Lord, teach me, Lord, to wait, right?

And so it's, it really is sometimes the best place that we can be because there are things that we learn in the waiting time that we can't learn any other way. There is faith that grows in the waiting time that can't grow any other way. And for those waiting for that special person to come along, I can tell you the best thing you can do is wait. I've shared this story lots of times and I'll share it every time I talk about this.

I love to share this with kids who are trying to figure out who they're going to spend their life with. But, but I'll never forget sitting down with a buddy of mine when I was in Bible college and he had just broken up with a girl and I had zero prospects, right? So, so we were a couple of lonely. College dudes, right? And so we're talking to each other and, and he said, little Ryan,

what if our wives aren't even saved yet? What if that's what we're waiting for? Well, lo and behold, mine wasn't. My wife didn't get saved until October of 2001. I moved back to Kansas in September of 2001. And one, see? It wasn't time yet. And I had to wait. And I'm here to tell you right now, I took some things in my own hands and I regretted it. And I looked back and thought, hmm, I probably should have waited.

And now I know. And now I tell everybody else, sometimes you just got to learn to wait. And so that's what she tells her to do. And that's exactly what Ruth does. But don't worry. Boaz is on the job. And so we come to chapter four, verse one, and this is what it says. Now, Boaz went up to the gate. And he sat down there. And behold, the close relative of whom Boaz spoke was passing by.

So he said, turn aside, friend. Sit down here. And he turned aside and he sat down. And he took ten men of the elders of the city and said, sit down here. And so they sat down. Now, a couple little things I'd like to point out to you about that. First of all, the city gate at that point in time was sort of like the gathering place where all the men would gather.

To not only make decisions, but talk about the news of the day. And so Boaz showed up. I'm going to go ahead and say at dawn. Right. As soon as Ruth went home, he was like, well, time to go wait in the city gate. Because I'm sure that this kinsman redeemer, who is unnamed, by the way, as you notice that, we never get a name for him. This guy is going to be showing up at the city gate.

And he waited and he waited. Probably the longest one, two, three, maybe four hours of his life. Right. Is that? Oh, that's not him. Gosh. Would he get up and get going already? Right. Just waiting for him to show up. And so he shows up and he says, hey, friend, let's have a conversation, you and I. As a matter of fact, me, you and 10 of my closest friends.

And he gathers 10 elders together. Now, this sets a precedent for the Jewish people, because for the Jewish people to settle a matter took 10 people. But also in order to have a Jewish synagogue required 10 males. And most believe that that is this is where that standard came from. It's from this section right here. And so he says, let's gather 10 of our closest elders, friends, and we'll all sit and we'll talk together.

Right. It'll be fun. And so in verse two or excuse me, verse three, he says, then he said to the closest relative, Naomi, who has come back from the land of Moab, has to sell the piece of land which belonged to our brother, a limelight. So I thought to inform you saying by it before those who are sitting here. And before the elders of my people, if you will redeem it, redeem it.

But if not, tell me that I may know, for there is no one but you to redeem it. And I am after you. And he said, I will redeem it. Now, do you notice who's not been brought up yet? Ruth has not been brought up yet. Have you noticed that? He's like, so there's this field. Right. Remember Naomi? A limelight. You remember her, right? Cousin a limelight. Well, she's come back.

I assume. You've noticed that she's the one who's like, call me Mara. Right. And so, so she's back and she's going to have to deal with the field. I think she's going to have to sell it because she can't afford to keep it. Now you're the closest relative. It's first to you to redeem it. If you want to redeem it. Great. If not, just let me know because I'm, I'm next in line, but it's on you.

It's whatever you want to do. Because yeah, yeah, I'll redeem it. And then Boa said, oh, BT dubs on the day you buy the field from the hand of Naomi, you must also acquire Ruth, the Moabitess, the widow of the deceased in order to raise up the name of the deceased on his inheritance. And the closest relative said, whoa, wait, I added that the closest relative said, I can't redeem it for myself because I would jeopardize my own inheritance.

Redeem it for yourself. You may have the right of redemption for I cannot redeem it. Now again, can we just take a moment and think about the drama of this moment for, for Boaz, right? Like his heart is just pounding out of his chest. It's like, how can I best present this to make him say no, right? Like I do not want him to want to do this. And really this kind of was a big deal for this guy not to do it.

As a matter of fact, you became known and we'll talk about it in just a minute as the man without a shoe and the lady was supposed to spit in your face, right? I mean, it's actually kind of a slam on you as a human being to not do this. So it's, his heart's really beating. What's he going to do? Like the honorable thing to do is to do this, but will he do the honorable thing?

And he says, yeah, I'll, I'll redeem the field. Yeah, I don't mind. Extra fields always going to come in kind of handy. I've got the money for it. No problem. He goes, but you're also going to have to redeem Ruth. You see, in order for Boaz to marry Ruth, he was going to have to purchase the field. And so he looks at this guy and says, that's what you're going to have to do.

And this guy goes, Oh, wait a second. That's going to mess with my inheritance. Now, of course, the question is, why? Why is he going to mess with his inheritance? Well, I think there's a couple of reasons why. Number one, because he'd be marrying a Moabitess. And we've talked about this, but the Moabites were cursed by God. Remember, no one from the Moabites was, was supposed to be able to be allowed into the

assembly of the Lord until the 10th generation. And so there's a little bit of this, Oh, is that going to be okay? It's kind of a taboo sort of a thing, but also he was probably married. He probably already had a wife of his own. And, you know, I, I've never done this before, but I can imagine how it would go if I came home one day and said, Hey, Aaron, by the way, I brought home another wife, right?

That's not going to go very well. That's going to go really, really bad. That's a bad day. And he knows that he's like, look, man, she's not going to handle that very well. I'm going to be in really big trouble. I can't do it. I can't, I can't redeem her. And you can imagine Boaz going, Oh man, no problem. No problem. Well, on the inside, he's like, right. And so the closest relative, excuse me, verse seven.

Now, this was the custom in former times in Israel concerning the redemption and the exchange of land to confirm any matter. A man removed his sandal and gave it to another. And this was the manner of attestation in Israel. That's the oddest custom I've ever heard of. But actually, if you went to, I think it's Deuteronomy 25. It talks about this, that if you will not follow the custom and marry the woman who was not able to produce offspring,

if you wouldn't do that, then she was to remove your sandal and spit in your face. And you were forever to be known as the man without a shoe. That was your nickname for the rest of your life. And no one wanted to be known as the man without a shoe. Right. And so that's exactly what happened. That was the custom. And so that was what took place. And so it says,

So the close relative said to Boaz, Buy it for yourself. And he removed his sandal. And Boaz said to the elders and all the people, You are witnesses today that I have bought from the hand of Naomi all that belonged to Elimelech and all that belonged to Chilion and to Malon. Moreover, I have acquired Ruth, the Moabitess, the widow of Malon, to be my wife in order to raise up the name of the deceased on his inheritance so that the name of the deceased will not will not be cut off from his brothers or from the court of his birthplace.

You are witnesses today. And all the people who were in the court and the elder said, We are witnesses. May the Lord make the woman who is coming into your home like Rachel. And Leah, both of whom built the house of Israel. And may you achieve wealth and Ephrathah and become famous in Bethlehem. What a beautiful moment, right? Can you imagine the excitement in Boaz?

Can you imagine the excitement when he went back and told her, right? I wonder how long it took him to leave the assembly of the elders right there and go to where Naomi lived to let her know exactly what took place. And so there's this beautiful picture. Here, right? Of of redemption. First of all, we see the great love that a man has for a woman and that he knew exactly what needed to be done.

Only fellas, I want you to take note of what Boaz did. And this is this is a rebuke for me, too. He didn't put it off. Did you notice that? I say that to us, all of us, myself included, because I have three, four, seven fingers pointing back at me when I say this, because we as men are ones who don't always like to take care of business. And it's a shame to who we are sometimes because we can be like,

ah, there'll be time for that later. Right? But, but what did Ruth or what did Naomi tell Ruth? Don't you worry about it. He'll take care of it today. The man will not rest until it's taken care of. And fellas, sometimes the best thing we can do to show our wives that we love them is just take care of business. Just take care of the business. That we need to take care of and be responsible for the things and not keep putting them off.

But he has such great love for her that he was willing to buy an entire field so that he could have Ruth. Now, Boaz was a man of great wealth, right? Because while it can be translated valor, I think he was a man of great valor. He clearly was a man of great wealth because he had all of these fields. He had servants. He had everything that he needed. He did not need another.

He didn't need another field. But he didn't buy a field because he wanted or needed another field. He bought the field because he loved Ruth. He bought the field because he loved her so much. And all he wanted to do was spend the rest of his life with her. And it's a beautiful picture of when a man loves a woman, right? But, but you know, there's a great spiritual application to this as well.

You see, Jesus, Jesus told a parable. It's called, the parable of the pearl of great price he said the kingdom of heaven is like a pearl or excuse me the kingdom of heaven is like a field and when a man was digging in it he found a pearl of great price and for the joy of the pearl he buried it and he went and he purchased the field so that he could have the pearl you see in that parable you and i we're the pearl of great price you see when man sinned it sold the world into slavery to satan it sold the world into the slavery of sin and you and i were strangers we were aliens we were helpless and we were hopeless and then jesus stepped in he could have created any world that he wanted to

but instead what he did is he bought the world so that he could have the treasure so you he bought the world so that he could have the bride and we are the bride of christ and he purchased the entire world just so that he could have us and it speaks so deeply of the love that god has for us and so the work of naomi worked because ultimately it was the work of god and the matchmaker made a match so we'll stop there for tonight and next week we'll cover the last handful of verses and then i want to bring out a whole bunch of lessons that we can learn about being boaz about being ruth and about spiritual lessons that we can apply to our lives and so father we come to you now and we thank you for the time that we've had in your

word and lord i thank you for this wonderful example of redemption in scripture lord this wonderful picture that you've given to us of the great love that you have for us and so lord i will once again pray just like paul did that we would be able to know that we are the ones that the height and the depth and the width and the length of your love to know the love of Christ that surpasses all knowledge and to be filled with all the fullness of you and so Lord do that work in our hearts and in our lives