God's Grace is Abundant and Sufficient

Ruth:

First I'd like to exhort all of your to study the meanings of the names within the book of Ruth. Each name is significant and when put together they tell the story of the Christian life. When a Christian leaves the place of God's blessing, the church, he or she becomes sick and cannot live long.

This is such a powerful book, we could probably spend a whole month studying it, and not begin to dig into the riches of it. I would like to point out the overall theme of God's grace and sufficiency for the child of God. In addition, I intend to go at least Chapter by Chapter into some rich content so say a prayer, grab on tight, and let's dig in.

Chapter 1:

Elimelech (Means My God is King!) leaves Bethlehem-Judah (House of Bread) to sojourn in the land of Moab during the time of famine. Now the famine was sent as punishment from God and the Israelites were not really starving to death, they were just hungry all the time, but Elimelech chooses to reject God's chastisement and go to Moab, a place where Idolatry was abundant and everything about their life was contrary to God's commandments. He takes his wife Naomi and his two sons Mahlon and Chillon and travels to a place in Moab to sojourn. A sojourn is meant only to be for a short time, yet they stayed there 10 yrs. After Elimelech's death, leadership of the family would pass from the father to the oldest son, and yet they still chose to stay in Moab and it cost all three of them their lives. When we come to Naomi, she has nothing left and decides to return, but she is seething with bitterness. Bitterness kills if not dealt with. Bitterness will always harm us more than those we are bitter against.

Naomi decides to return, and her two daughters-in-law decide to return with her. Orpah however finally gives in and returns to her pagan family and culture. Ruth (friendship) on the other hand chooses to accept Naomi's God (she gets saved) and returns with her Mother-in-law (which was the right thing for her to do.) Notice in verse 21 Naomi says she went out full. Apparently the need to sojourn wasn't as great as Elimelech thought!

God's grace was sufficient to bring Naomi home in a time of trouble and that with a daughter-in-law to help her.

Chapter 2:

We learn that Naomi had a near kinsman who could redeem Ruth and Naomi, as well as the land that belonged to them. Ruth goes to glean in the field of Boaz, and Boaz immediately takes notice of her. Ruth receives great kindness at the hand of Boaz. He instructs his reapers to leave some “handfuls of purpose” for her and her mother-in-law. He instructs his men to take care of her every need. A good principle to live by, is if we do our best to help the poor, the Lord will be pleased and bless accordingly (not in line with the name it and claim it crowd, but He does give us specific instructions concerning the poor. And too many times we say things like, “Well they could find a job if they really wanted one,” in erroneous, harsh and unloving judgment; the exact kind of hypocritical judgment Christ warned against.) Ruth continues through the whole harvest gleaning in Boaz's field. Ruth could have gleaned more than enough to last through the year in this time, and yet Boaz did not say, “You've gleaned enough.” Instead he entreated her to continue the whole harvest with his maidens. God's grace is more than sufficient. He never does anything haphazardly or nonchalantly. He always meets the need in abundance

Chapter 3:

The time of Harvest comes and Naomi gives Ruth instructions to present herself to Boaz for redemption. Many would look at this and think Naomi was sending Ruth to do something bad, but the truth is she was giving her instruction to offer herself for redemption. Boaz remains pure and true to form and does right. He had an opportunity to do wrong and defraud the nearer kinsman. He did however deal wisely with him, but that's next chapter. Boaz honors Ruth with the statement, “for all the city of my people doth know that thou art a virtuous woman.” Good Godly character always shines through. Again when Boaz sends her away, he sends her away not empty handed but with a promise of redemption. Just as Boaz gave a promise of redemption, we were given a promise of redemption by the Lord Jesus Christ, that of the Holy Spirit. He (the Spirit) is the earnest of our inheritance. The thing about the earnest (gift of the promise) is that if the promise is not fulfilled you get to keep the earnest. If we could ever lose our salvation, then we would get to keep the Holy Spirit (God) which indwells us at the time of salvation. So if God does not fulfill His promise to redeem us, we still get to keep Him. (in another words, there is no way we could ever ever ever lose our salvation.) God's grace is given above measure. He has not left us empty-handed.

Chapter 4:

Boaz rises early to go to the gate or the public place of business. He wisely knows that the kinsman will pass and he waits for him. When the nearer Kinsman comes Boaz tells him of his right to redeem, and the kinsman says, “I will redeem it” and then Boaz tells him of his responsibilities to Naomi and Ruth. After this, the nearer Kinsman says he cannot redeem it, and publicly gives Boaz the right to redeem. Boaz does redeem it, and takes Ruth to be his wife and raises up a child, Obed, the father of Jesse, the father of David, the lineage of Christ. It is amazing that Naomi comes back and God blesses her with a special blessing to be in the lineage of Christ, this was the dream of every Israelite woman to be the mother of the messiah, and although Naomi was not the mother of the messiah, she was in the lineage, and God's grace was overflowing beyond measure. To imagine that God would allow a harlot (Rahab) and a pagan Idolatress (Ruth) to be in the lineage of the Messiah. God's grace is sufficient, abundant, overflowing and just down right good.