Ruth Has a Baby

the following message by Alistair beg is made available by truth for life for more information visit us online at truth for now can I invite you to turn to the Old Testament with me and we're going to look briefly at Ruth this evening before we come around the Lord's table Ruth and chapter 4 and verse 13 if you would like to use one of the church Bibles you can find Ruth Genesis Exodus Leviticus numbers Deuteronomy Joshua judges and then Ruth and the reading is on page 190 kg 194 and verse 13 so boaz took ruth and she became his wife then he went to her and the Lord enabled her to conceive and she gave birth to a son the women said to Naomi praise be to the Lord who this day has not left you without a kinsman redeemer may he become famous throughout Israel he will renew your life and sustain you in your old age for your daughter-in-law who loves you and who is better to you than seven sons has given him birth then Naomi took her child laid him in our lap and cared for him the woman living there said Naomi has a son and they named him Abed he was the father of Jesse the father of David and this then is the family line of Paris Peres was the father of hezron hezron the father of RAM ran the father of Minard a band a minute AB the father of nation nation the father of Solomon Salman the father of Boaz Boaz the father of Obed Obed the father of Jesse and Jesse the father of David amen now let's just pray briefly Lord Jesus Christ we ask that you will speak to us through the Bible as we look at it now we need so much to be helped in speaking and in listening and we believe that you desire to accomplish that in our lives and so we look to you in these moments praying in your name Amen well those of you who have been with us in these intermittent studies and Ruth may recall that we ended up last time with a quite wonderful quote from Dietrich Bonhoeffer it went along these lines this is not the full quote but it is part of it he was reminding his readers marriage is more than your love for each other you're placed at a post of responsibility towards the world and mankind your love is your own private possession but marriage is something more than personal it is a status and office that joins you together in the sight of God and in the sight of man now the reason that we had quoted from Bonhoeffer was because we had come to the point where Bowa stands up in the community of his day and annoyances announces the fact that he is the kinsman redeemer that is assuming all of the proffered property that accrues to Naomi and along with that he is assuming the hand of her daughter-in-law Ruth in marriage and he calls upon the elders of the town to be witnesses to this event and in verse 11 then the elders and all those at the gate said we are witnesses now the reason we pause was because we recognized that to address the issue of marriage in the contemporary environment is to recognize that a biblical definition of marriage is vastly different from so many of the notions that are part and parcel of the everyday chat amongst our friends and neighbors and we need to affirm for the well-being of those who are as yet unmarried as well as for the continuing instruction of those of us who are married that there are according to the Bible three elements in the Covenant of marriage first of all we recognize that there is a promise of committed love which is between the husband and the wife obviously there is love between the man and the woman and this love is then promised in the marriage ceremony itself I take you to be my lawful wedded wife to have and to hold from this day forward for better for worse for richer for poorer in sickness and in health and so on that is simply the public expression of this personal committed life second element is simply the fact that this covenant making in marriage takes place in a public forum and a new family unit is created for society to see that is why traditionally there has been an elaborate send-off granted to the bride and groom often in our experience accompanied by great hilarity and sometimes the most distressing accoutrements attached to people's cars as they get ready to drive off into their married life together and you see these poor souls halfway down the freeway pulled in at a rest stop trying to disengage all of the claptrap and nonsense that has been attached to their cars is this simply custom well it is custom but the reason for it is because that public recognition of the fact that here in this covenant of marriage a whole new family unit has been established so there is a rightness to it not I'm suggesting all the nonsense but there is a rightness to the fact that when a marriage takes place it doesn't take place in some eloped context away behind a building it doesn't take place in the secrecy of some tiny little chapel in Las Vegas but it takes place in a public communal forum so that the society can say there is a single man and there is a single woman that single man has fallen in love with that single woman she is committed in love to that single man and they have come together in the public forum to declare their commitment of love to one another and we know now that they've gone off on their honeymoon and on their honeymoon the third element of the marriage covenant will come into place and in biblical terms not until their honeymoon will the third element of marriage come into place namely the development of the personal communion between the husband and wife which sexual union symbolizes and deepens which sexual Union symbolizes and deepens you do not in biblical terms have marriage without each of these constituent elements in place healing myself say that calls me to a digression which I shall resist yes I will I was coming on me again but I am resisting that right now as you as you observed me each of these three elements our president president in bow as his life his committed love for Ruth the public witness of the same on the part of the elders of the community and then in verse 13 their sexual union so boaz took ruth she became his wife and he went into her King James Version it is a euphemism for sexual intercourse now notice the process incidentally and in passing again as I hear myself speak I'm reminded of the fact that I often say to young men in the ministry if you will simply expound the scriptures systematically and consecutively you will eventually come to every issue that your congregation will face you won't need to deal with everything topically you may if you choose but I say to them you know I can guarantee you that eventually it will all come up and confront you and here we are tonight studying in the Book of Ruth and here in the course of a legitimate approach in exposition we're confronted by the issue of marriage and therefore I pause not to conduct a marriage ceremony to point out to you these things which are true notice how discreetly the writer covers the account of the consummation of their marriage there in verse 13 he went into her and the Lord enabled her to conceive and she gave birth to a son it's surely a lesson to us living as we do in a society that knows little if anything of discretion and decorum when it comes to matters of human sexuality their kind of approach to the physical dimensions of of love between man and woman is so abused so confused so denigrated so disregarded so splashed everywhere the average young person almost has to go through some kind of unique process to be decontaminated from all of the filth and innuendo which has been part of their growing teenage years and through their college existence to try as best they can unaffected by all of this to come to the privileges and responsibilities of marriage in a way that is marked by purity and by discretion and by decorum there is definitely as the Bible says our time to speak and there is a time to be silent and there are things about which we may with legitimacy speak and there are other things which I don't believe are legitimate within the public forum and indeed many of the things that I've attended his marriage serum seminars have left me more than a little distressed in relationship to the kind of discourse that has taken from the front I'm not sure just where you do it but I'm not sure it's in front of a company you know of 27,000 people who are all running hastily for the exit as a result of the titillation that has taken place under the disguise of some helpful biblical instruction on the matter of sex your sensible people you can decide whether I'm just becoming an old man and slightly cranky or whether you say slightly cranky don't do yourself a favor you are full-blown cranky and have been for some time you must decide whether it is that or whether there is any relevance to what I'm saying do you really feel comfortable sitting with your daughters and listening to all this garbage do you feel company get comfortable in the company of your sons as they grow being confronted by people who talk so much about all these things we have been so warmed up gradually you know we've reached a point where we have taken on board so much that an earlier generation would never ever have regarded as anything other than distasteful you don't need a course on everything dear ones you really don't and God has put all of the mechanisms together trust me now what is only briefly addressed here in a simple sentence is actually developed throughout the Bible what is that well simply that this process is not irrelevant that first there was the expression of desire on the part of the two then there was the public witness to the fact of their willingness to be committed in marriage and then physical union which took place within the context of a committed loving publicly known relationship now what we discover here in passing I say to you again as you search the Bible you'll discover in the old and the new testament is made perfectly clear and that is why to try and isolate the physical dimension of love from the emotional psychological spiritual intellectual dimensions of a relationship between a man and a woman to seek to isolate the physical from that context is actually to make a mockery and a monstrosity of God's design and much of what passes for filial affection in our generation is that upon which the Bible pronounces the most profound and serious judgement and one of the great challenges for us at this point in our society is whether we as Christian men and women are going to live distinctive lives and whether we are going to be able to frame our children's lives restoring them reclaiming them proclaiming for them guiding them guarding them keeping them securing them along the lines which the Bible makes so clear one of my friends in England a poet wrote probably the most graphic poem that I wouldn't go into but I've never forgotten it since I memorized it and I wish perhaps I hadn't but the opening there makes my point here the idea of isolating sexual intercourse from every other part of what's supposed to take place in a marriage he wrote these lines the act of love lie somewhere between the belly and the mind and I lost the love some time ago now I've only the act to grind that's it you see as soon as you divorce the physicality from all of that dimension which makes marriage marriage whatever it may be to an individual it is not what God designed it is not what God intended it is a pale horrible reflection of all the beauty and all the benefit that he is made possible within a framework which is marked by continuity and by reliability and by permanence by committed love faithfulness in a monogamous heterosexual union and so you will see that it is in that context that this conception takes place because we're told there that the Lord enabled her to conceive and she gave birth to a son once again we see the hand of God's guiding Providence the same hand that had guided her in particular ways as she made rational decisions for herself now having led her to marriage also steps in and enables her to conceive every conception is a gift from God on another occasion I will deal with a matter of contraception but not this evening tonight just conception at what point does conception take place at the point that human life begins at what point does human life begin at the point that conception takes place the Bible is unequivocal on that at conception all the human genes are present and the physicians have pointed out to us that although it takes a little bit of time for the development of the cerebral cortex or the cerebral cortex without which the normal processes of human response are impossible although it takes time for that to be there nonetheless in a newly conceived fetus we find ourselves in the presence of at the very least a human person in the process of becoming when I dealing here with wound tissue we're not dealing here with extraneous materials we're dealing here with a gift from God and the Lord enabled her and she conceived now when conception is viewed in biblical terms as a gift from God then the whole abortion debate changes the abortion debate for the last years has has largely wrapped itself around the question of conflicting rights or of beneficial consequences but when we understand the conception is a gift from God then it takes on a far deeper dimension and here my friends listen carefully there is a vast difference between a worldview which believes that the origin of life itself is as a result of time plus matter plus chance and a biblical worldview which views life in terms of in the beginning God and which views conception in terms of Psalm 139 that we were intricately wrought in our mother's womb that all the days of our lifes were ordained before one of them came to be and do you see it is at that level of interchange and it is at that level of debate that the whole abortion fiasco falters and where you end up with people simply shouting at one another don't misunderstand or where I stand on these issues I think it should be clear when I tell you this that I fully understand why my pagan neighbors and friends believe in abortion they're logical in relationship to their worldview they are our individuals are born without reason they fight for their place in humanity they are simply turbocharged apes they go through life and it's a haphazard existence and eventually they die without any reason and they go into oblivion well if that is life you see and somebody says well what does it matter if it begins and if it doesn't begin what matters if you ended in the first few weeks or if you ended in after the first few years what if you ended prematurely because somebody has a dreadful disease at least they're logical in relationship to the worldview and that's why you see Christianity has to be very very clear in dealing with Genesis 1 to 11 because if we give up the doctrine of creation then we have given up the very basis upon which we can argue the legitimacy of our case for a view of human life some people say well it doesn't really matter Genesis 1 to 11 you know we can set that aside let's just get on to the good stuff about Jesus yes I understand the good stuff about Jesus but if the Bible is a book about Jesus and if Jesus believed the Bible and if Jesus whatever Jesus believed about the Bible we should believe about the Bible though do you think right so if he believed in nor so do we if he believed in Adam and Eve so do we if he believed in the fall of man so do we right so therefore we have no other place to go you see you're getting off the point well no I just wanted to stop there for a moment on conception to help you think these issues through what a wonderful change is taking place in this girl's life she'd shown up as a stranger back in Bethlehem with her mother-in-law she walks into town friendless penniless childless she's a stranger and she's become the center of an admiring community look at other people say about her in verse 50 this is some daughter-in-law I would suggest to you don't you agree for your daughter-in-law who loves you and who is better to you than seven sons has given birth you think Naomi likes Ruth Janine these people think she's good better than seven sons is that hyperbole I think it is but it's an expression of the dramatic change that has taken place what happened well back in chapter one remember she made that great declaration in seventeen when Naomi was suggesting that she should go back to Moore and to our own people and there she had professed her devotion to Naomi and to know noemi's God don't urge me to leave you or to turn back from you wherever you go I'll go where you stay out stay your people may I ride people your God my God where you do I die I will die and there I will be buried and so on an amazing statement for a young girl turning her back on every opportunity that is represented in the familiarity of her homeland essentially recognizing that to make a commitment to her mother-in-law was to make a commitment to who knows what and to go who knows where and often to some strange environment that she didn't know but our commitment is to the God of Israel somewhere along the line she's discovered that this God may be trusted though so she commits herself to him and she commits herself to her mother-in-law back in chapter 2 and in verse 10 why have I found such favor in your eyes that you notice me she says a foreigner speaking to Boaz who's to become her husband and he says I've been told about what you've done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband and I heard how you left your father and your mother and your homeland and came to live with our people you did not know before isn't that interesting I never thought about it till right now did you ever think about Ruth stone mum and dad actually never thought about them till right this minute she left her own mother and father in a commitment to her mother-in-law as a widower devoted to the God of Israel devoted to the servant of Israel chapter 3 and verse 10 the same thing the Lord bless you my daughter Boaz says this kindness that you've done is greater than that which you showed me earlier you haven't run after the younger men with a rich or poor and now my daughter don't be afraid I'll do for you all you ask in other words you'll notice that Ruth in her sacrifice is rewarded by God well I think some of you when I prayed for our young friend this evening probably said yourself you moved a little in your seat when I prayed and god I want you to reward her for her sacrifice somebody said who I'm not sure about that I know I don't know if we can ask God to do that somehow or another we do this and he does that where does he get that from know from the Bible of course where did you think you think I made it up Malachi 3:10 test me and this says the Lord talking about giving the giving of our resources the giving of our money the tithing of our lives says test me and this says the Lord Almighty and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it in other words he says you make the sacrifice and then see if I don't reward you we're so afraid of the health wealth and Happiness stuff that we're trying to see anything about it at all but God rewards faithfulness on the part of his children jesus said it we saw it in Luke I tell you the truth Jesus says no one who has left father and mother brother or sister houses and land for my sake and for the kingdom will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age and more in the resurrection I was very struck by this I found myself pausing and saying God is there one single thing in my life that speaks of the kind of sacrifice that would be matched by your reward do I have any expectation on the basis of my desire to follow you to - to live for you that would find me on the receiving end of such an overflow from heaven that I wouldn't even be able to continue and I was forced to conclude that there is precious little in my life that even holds an inkling of the possibility and what of us as a church she turned her back on it all and she walked off into who knows where with her mother-in-law and look at her now oh what a lovely conclusion the rest of this story isn't there if I was making a movie and I say that all the time I never made a movie in my life and my home movies are absolutely horrible I suppose there's some strange thing in the back of my mind someone fulfilled dream I'll die without it ever happening but anyway if I were making a movie of this I would shoot the early part of it in black and white I determined that some time ago all the tones of famine all of the pictures of barrenness all of the sadness and the grays in the faces of both Naomi and Ruth in all of the emptiness and the funeral scenes had showed them all in black and white but at some point in the movie would change they changed a brilliant glorious Technicolor and suddenly it would dawn on people there would be a visual image that would come from it and if it didn't come before it would come right here the woman said to Noemi praise the Lord who this day hasn't left you without a kinsman and your daughter-in-law look at this and interestingly Ruth fades from view she gives birth to a son and she's gone no more Ruth it goes to verse 22 no more Ruth the women are back the women remember in verse 19 of chapter 1 when Naomi and Ruth showed up in Bethlehem it was the women who exclaimed can this be Naomi look at her she didn't look like that when she left and the women are back around her now first of all they had welcomed Naomi back now they're welcoming Naomi and the baby because name has got the baby in our arms this little boy called Obed who apparently was brought up by Naomi as if he where even her own child will say more about that in our final study oh you say there's another one oh dear well I don't want to rush I hate I love this book I I don't want to finish it Ruth had borne a son who was to be the grandfather of Israel's greatest King David and wonder of wonders miracle of miracles once in royal David's City in a lowly cattle shed where a mother later baby in a manger for a bed and Mary was the mother mild in Jesus Christ her little child the life of Jesus in terms of his physical descent was tied to the story of a girl from MOA gleaning in a barley field miles from her home can you imagine if she gone to the wrong field I just said that to give you something to talk about over coffee it's a theological question and Naomi who wanted to be called Mara bitter is happy now it will be known as Neal and if she'd gone through our chorus book she'd have been happy to say you know I'd like to conclude the service this evening with a song that we don't often see in fact she may have been happy to sing it as a solo he gave me beauty for Ashes the oil of joy for mourning the garments of praise for a spirit of happiness for a spirit of heaviness but that's enough for now I don't want to spoil the climax of this story by rushing instead I'll just take a couple of minutes and I'll do as I promised to give you the story the whole story of Ruth from my children's book that someone sent to me as a gift I apologize to whoever sent it that I haven't written a thank-you note but I don't know who you were so I'm sure you'll come and tell me now so close your Bibles sit back and here's the story of Ruth if this doesn't create sales in the bookstore nothing will and I'm not sure it's even in the bookstore it's called I love Ruthie the story of Ruth and our one true love I think Gary probably would shoot me for doing this but that's okay he's not here because Leigh they say can be true I can't go on Oh everything we had is gone Naomi wept poor Ruthie cried and the Omi's precious sons had died and all one precious priceless son Naomi's son that very one was Ruthie's husband's Lord above her one and only one true love now sometimes when it rains it pours in this time it would pour for sure for evil people ruled the land as evil people sometimes can and sometimes will and sometimes do when you and I allow them to from here to there from there to here the food began to disappear it filled of people full of fear yes full of fear from years to year or per Ruth Naomi cry the time has come we must decide we have to leave we cannot stay we cannot stay not now no way from north to south from west to east the men are gone extinct deceased without a man Naomi said we're all about as good as death now ladies things were different then so don't get too upset amen just look at me I'm old and wrinkled sagged and bagged in Kruchten crinkled crumpled puckered Newton crannied Rip Van Winkle grade and granny oh there is just no hope in sight to find another mr. ray there even just a Daffy Duck an Elmer Fudd or mr. yuk the time has come the time is now the time has come right now and how you must return you must I say return back home right now today they only prayed that they would bite and orphan you that she was right she packed her bags without a fight and left for home that very night but all not Ruth not her no way she had a thing or two to say I can't return I want to stay I will not go right now today for where you are is where I'll be and when you stay you'll stay with me and when you die I'll die with you and that is what I'm going to do your God will be my god and he will surely care for you and me oh what a thing for Ruth to say that kind of thing can make your day and make your shout have her parade they hugged and kissed then packed up tight and left for Bethlehem that night Naomi is it really true what happened girl just look at you your hair your clothes your shoes your toes your eyes your ears your mouth your nose you're looking pale you're looking thin in fact if we may say again you're really looking more akin to something that the cat dragged in well things look bad the way things can but listen now God had a plan Oh Naomi please don't cry oh please don't cry I'll tell you why I'll find a farm I'll be real nice I'll ask them once or maybe twice to take our jugs and jars and sacks and fill them full of treats and snacks yes crumbs and morsels flakes and flecks leftover kernels crumbs and specks a black banana bagels lox some cheese stuck to a pizza box I'll beg and plead our sob and bleat a lesson for a tasty treat and itsy-bitsy teeny-weeny tiny scrap for us to eat so off she went she did her thing she did it never noticing that someone had been fastening his bulging eyes on everything who is that girl out in my field and what's she doing boys squeals look at that hair look at those eyes excuse me just one minute guys I've got to go and socialize he shaved his toes he licked his lips he checked his teeth for cracks and chips he combed the bugs out of his hair yes Don Juan doubled debonair with savoir faire extraordinaire now don't be too quick to judge a man well don't think what you're thinking then for boys was a gentleman please stay with us take what you need take what you needed more indeed he loaded up all ruthie sex and jugs and jars with treats and snacks yes it was true love at first sight a double thumping heart delight she headed home or what she'd found her world was turning upside down she ran the whole way back to town about ten feet above the ground I'm telling you tonight's the night Naomi grinned and if I'm right there's only one thing left to do to get that man to say I do so do they did or did they do they fluffed and puff they crimped and curled a powdered sweet perfumed and pearl they thanked the Lord they sang his praise they marveled at his wondrous ways and off she went into the night to have and hold her mr. right her mister shining armored night her straight from heaven sent the light now as I'm sure that you supposed Boaz said yes when Ruth proposed yes Ruth proposed that's what I said just look it up go right ahead they tied the knot and lived to be quite happy ever after Lee and soon god blessed them with a Sunnah breccia s-- little baby one but wait the story's far from done because their son he was the one who had a son who had a kid known as King David yes he did and David was the great great great great great times three times one plus eight great granddad of a man whose wife you've probably heard of all your life a man whose son to be precise was Jesus no yes Jesus Christ just take a second think it through well what God will go and do for God is love and love is kind the kindest that you'll ever find the kindest that you'll ever see that's something else don't you agree father we want to thank you that we don't study a Bible that was put together by a committee who came up with a bright idea for a religion but we dip into a book that is immense that you took the lifes of real individuals ordinary people making their own decisions facing their own hardships tackling their own challenges and in the immensity of your Providence you were ordering the very details in order that out of Israel should come forth one who was the leader of your people Israel we don't read this little children's book for a fact although it is effective but we lead it read it because it encapsulated it's the whole story in such a way that fills us with all that finds us saying what an amazing God you are and some of us doubt your care some of us wonder if you know some of us came in here tonight thinking that somehow or another we were just a long number in in a computer bank somewhere and suddenly it dawns on us that you've fashioned us purposefully that you gave us our DNA that you care when sparrows fall to the ground and you love us in your son the Lord Jesus forgive us for doubting you forgive us for minimizing the depth of your life forgive us for trying to tell others about the good news in such a way that sounds like some kind of philosophy rather than sounds like this amends story of redeeming love receive our life so God tonight we bring our offerings to you we pray that as we crown the worship of the day around your table that you will meet with us for the glory of your son's sake we ask it this message was brought to you from truth for life where the learning is for living learn more about truth for life with alistair beg visit us online at truthfortheworld.org

Channel: Alistair Begg

Views: 4,449

Rating: 4.9039998 out of 5

Keywords: Truth For Life, Book of Ruth, Biblical Figures, Preaching Christ from the Old Testament

Id: OQM0dhjRxhQ

Length: 39min 20sec (2360 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 26 2020