Time- When Everyone Did What Was Right In His Own Eyes.
People – Elimelech, Naomi, Mahlon, Chillion.
Places – Bethlehem – Moab – Bethlehem.
Context – Famine and Future.
Elimelech and family from Bethlehem went and dwelt in Moab due to a famine in Bethlehem.
Elimelech died leaving behind a widow with two sons.
Sons – Mahlon and Chillion married local women named Orpah and Ruth .
Mahlon and Chillion died.
Three Widows, one elderly, two young.
WHAT AND WHERE IS THE FUTURE?
The news of the Lord’s visit of His people in Bethlehem giving them bread reached the ears of Naomi.
Naomi arose with the daughters – in law to return to Bethlehem.
Journey begins.
Naomi counsels the young widows to stay back in their home land and return to their own families and be remarried to make a new beginning.
Orpah kissed Naomi goodbye, never to be seen or heard again.
Ruth clung to Naomi and spoke out of the abundance of her heart:
Entreat me not to leave you,
Or to turn back from following after you;
For wherever you go, I will go;
And wherever you lodge, I will lodge;
Your people shall be my people,
And your God, my God.
Wherever you die, I will die,
And there will I be buried,
The Lord do so to me, and more also,
If anything but death parts you and me.
FAITH MADE IT’S ETERNAL CHOICE.
Naomi who went out full came home again empty.
A bitter experience.
A new start at the beginning of barley harvest.
Enter Boaz – a near relative of Elimelech, a man of great wealth, God fearing,
mighty, a caring master.
Ruth takes the humble step of gleaning what is left behind by the labourers in Boaz’s field.
Boaz becomes the divinely appointed protector and provider of Ruth and Naomi.
Turning point. God moves in a mysterious way. Ruth’s faithfulness begins to pay off.
NOW BOAZ MAKES AN ETERNAL CHOICE OF FAITH.
Divine heart makes in His word a provision for redemption.
Boaz in obedience to God’s word becomes the Redeemer –
Boaz said to the Elders and all the people –
You are witnesses this day that I have bought all that was Elimelech’s,
And all that was Chillion’s and Mahlon’s , from the hand of Naomi.
Moreover, Ruth the Moabitess , the widow of Mahlon,
I have acquired as wife, to perpetuate the name of the dead through his inheritance,
that the name of the dead may not be cut off from among his brethren and from his position at the gate . You are witnesses this day.
This is the Ruth and Boaz in the royal lineage of Lord Jesus Christ recorded in Mathew.
CHOOSE YOU THIS DAY THE LORD JESUS CHRIST AS YOUR REDEEMER.
YOU WILL BE HIS REDEEMED FOREVER and EVER.
THINK OF LIFE’S CHOICES OF ETERNAL CONSEQUENCES.
