And then please be seated. This morning it is a blessing, a privilege to not only have opportunity to preach, but to conclude the book of Ruth with you this morning. I invite you to turn with me in your scriptures and your copies of God's Word to the book of Ruth. I'd also like to make a point that if you would also like to make a note, maybe place a page of your bulletin in Matthew chapter 1, we will also be looking to Matthew chapter 1 this morning.
But here we find in the conclusion of the book of Ruth all that has taken place, the directing and guiding of God's invisible hand has led to great provision, to great blessing, to God's showing himself to be faithful because we come and we worship a faithful God even this day. And so we find ourselves again in Ruth chapter 4 verses 13 through 22 before we've got to word together. Let us pray. Let us pray.
Let us pray that you would open our eyes that we may see wondrous things from your law, that we might delight in the revelation of Jesus Christ, the living Word, that we might listen, that we might seek Him and that we might know Him and that we might delight in Him this day. Give us hearts to love, give us ears to hear, give us eyes to see, give us minds to comprehend and give us a will to seek you. And Lord, we pray that you would bless us now. In Christ's name we pray.
Amen. Again, God's Word beginning in verse 13 of Ruth chapter 4. So Boaz took Ruth and she became his wife. And he went into her and the Lord gave her conception.
And she bore a son. 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. He shall be to you a restore of life and a nourisher of your old age.
And your daughter-in-law who loves you who is more to you than seven sons has given birth to him. Then Naomi took a 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. They named him Obeth.
He was the father of Jesse, the father of David. Now these are the generations of Perez. Perez, father of Hasron, and Hasron, father of Ron, and Ron, father of Minnadab, and Minnadab father of Neshon, and Neshon father of Salman, and Salman father of Boaz, Boaz, father of Obeth. Obeth, father of Jesse, and Jesse, father of David.
The grass-witters in the flower falls. The word of our God stands forever and ever. Thanks be God. What if you've ever seen one of those infomercials on TV?
You know the ones that have the kind of grainy production quality and they're trying to convince you of a problem that you may or may not have, that they have a solution for you if you would just buy the right products. Right after not only showing you the problem and showing you the solution, there's usually a phrase that I guess is a sales tactic that gets you to really buy in right now when it's the phrase that goes something like this, but wait, there's more. And here in our text this morning, this is the end conclusion of this book we find, but wait, there's more. If you were to remove even verses 18 through 22, we would find that the glorious display of God's gracious care and kindness for his people.
Right the Lord even bringing those that are far off near in Ruth who is a Moabite. If you'd see the Lord's great provision in his law, we would see the Lord's kindness in grace and mercy and we would delight in it. But we come to the end of the book of Ruth and we do see this morning, but wait, there's more. What is there more of exactly?
Well, that's what we'll see this morning. We'll see that there is more of the Lord's faithfulness. There is more of the Lord's faithfulness. And so first, what I want us to see this morning is the Lord's faithfulness today.
This is a happily ever after moments. And we think back to where this book began and we see how far the Lord's faithfulness has brought Ruth and Naomi and Boaz, how his invisible hand has been at work and guiding and orchestrating even our everyday lives for our good and for his glory, executing his sovereign plan for his glory. And there's something refreshing and encouraging about this whole book especially as we come to the end of it this morning. And it's the cast of characters are average, ordinary people.
There isn't anything noticeably or expressly special about Ruth or Naomi or Boaz specifically considering the state in which Naomi found herself widowed and sojourned in a foreign land. And seemingly this book serves as a window into the Lord's work in normal everyday and average life. In church, this is particularly good news for you and for me that the Lord is at work in guiding and directing you even today. The Lord is faithful today.
And it's really hindsight. Most often it's 20, 20 for Christians, isn't it? When we're toiling under God's providence or experiencing the effects of sin in this world and just all around struggling, oftentimes it's hard for us to consider the faithfulness of God. I don't know if you've ever seen this, but maybe you've seen an artist who likes to paint upside down.
You give them a canvas and you throw paint with brushes and you make lines and you blend their colors and once they're done what they do, but look at right side up and they behold the painting of all of its glory. And sometimes the Christian life is like that. And whether it's from the perspective of time, looking back or whether it's perspective from glory as we have been called home, we will all see that the Lord's kind and directing hand is always leading us in our lives. The God who was faithful yesterday is the God who was faithful today.
We see it for Naomi, a widow without an heir just sued Moabite daughters in law who returned with nothing. And you recall that she returns to Bethlehem empty and bitter. And what does the Lord do? But he fills her with joy and blesses her with everything.
He shows himself to be faithful even through using Ruth and Boaz and he teaches her to trust him and to wait on his timing. He provides for her and here there is such a fitting conclusion for Naomi. For Naomi took a child and laid him on her lap and became his nurse. This idea of the Lord providing his way book ends in this book.
Empty, full, bitter, joyful, judgment, blessing. You see the problem posed in the beginning of the book is it solved. And Naomi who lacked any future hope for she had no husband, had no sons, had no grandsons, has found great blessing and provision in this little boy born to Ruth and Boaz. Similarly we see the progressive faithfulness and subsequent blessing for Ruth as well.
She is not only redeemed, but the author gives the sense that these two, Ruth and Boaz, love each other and they were married. The Lord has given them each other. Yet you can imagine Ruth and Naomi and Boaz on these joyous occasions. Looking back and seeing that they're blessing of the Lord, we're but a collection of days after days of the Lord's plain and persistent care and watch.
And as we even pray, give us this day our daily bread. You know what we mean. Give us enough to live today. Give us enough to satisfy us today to provide for us that we might meet another day to praise and to give them glory.
I'm 37 years old. The Lord has given me my daily bread for 37 years. That's some 13,678 days. You ever take leap years?
And the Lord has provided for me every second of every minute of every hour of every day of every week of every month of every year of every decade. How much more for some of you? And yeah, I think if we're honest with our own lives and with our own spiritual experience, we may read a story like this and maybe find some dissonance or some disconnect with the situation. And perhaps your life hasn't known this grand display of earthly blessing as it's outlined here.
I think this is an opportunity moment for us to reflect on what this blessing means for you and for me, how we read, how the Lord has blessed us in the pages of Ruth. You might be tempted to follow the trappings of thinking something like, right, do good things, get good things. And while certainly hard work and faithfulness and trusting in the Lord should be evident in the Christian life, and oftentimes the means to which blessing and reward is granted, it's never guaranteed, is it? And we can ask it maybe another way.
We still call Naomi blessed if she remained without her grandson. What about Ruth? Would she still be blessed without Boaz? Like what the surgeon has to say about her earthly blessings.
He says, the most pleasant pleasures of the world are the first to expire as men advance, especially as they grow old. That which once contented them becomes a vanity of vanities in their accounts. But no man outgrowse is God. No man outgrowse is God.
And what things of this world may be fleeting and may be the vanity of vanities. We have our portion and it is the Lord. And Spurgeon's point is that the Lord is our blessing. He is our portion.
And there are days when it is hard to be content in that truth. When it's difficult to express this, and yet Ruth is blessed and so is Naomi not because, first and foremost, because this child is born, but because the Lord is their God. You see this? Their blessing is in the fact that the Lord is their God.
This morning you were here in faith. If you come confessing Christ as your Lord, indeed, you are blessed beyond measure. Enter the earth give way in the mountains we move to the heart of the sea, and its waters roar and foam in the mountains tremble at its swelling. The Lord is still our refuge and strength.
He is still our portion in this life. The next. Or perhaps you like those Israelites who wept as they return from exile who remembered the old temple and wept at the side of the new. Maybe you find new blessings from the Lord, but it doesn't quite feel the void of what you've lost.
I'm like how Sinclair Ferguson draws us back to earth in the midst of these final verses. He says, but while Naomi experiences the fullness, we should not be so oblivious to the dark night to be which she has come. The blessing of the child is real and glorious, but it is not meant to be substituted for what she has lost. We need to be as realistic as the author of Ruth.
Whatever interim blessing and fullness we experience as the community of God's people, there will always be in this world a sense of incompleteness, of not yetness. We lose the most precious possessions in our lives, and in this world nothing can ever take their place. Is there final resolution? Yes, there is.
But it lies far beyond the life and time of Naomi. The friends even are blessings that we have today. Even Naomi's blessings that she knows and roots blessings that she knows and though as his blessings he knows, hail in comparison of the day that is to come when Christ comes again and makes all things new and the fulfillment of these blessings come to pass. Let's lead this to our second point of the spring.
The Lord is not just faithful today, but the Lord is faithful tomorrow. We see here the Lord's faithfulness tomorrow. In the balm for a weary soul or the one who has known the full brunt of all this world has to offer is to lift up their heads and to cast their hearts and to look forward to that coming day. For those under the old puments, it was waiting for the promised one, the Messiah, the offspring of the woman who would crush the head of the serpent, the greater prophet, the priest after the order of Melchizedek, a king, even great David's greater son.
It would long for the coming one. Even for you and I, under the new covenant, we wait the long for Christ to come again. But the Lord who is faithful yesterday and today will be faithful tomorrow. This is how he operates and because of his immutable perfection, the fact that he never changes, we are called to find assured hope in tomorrow as well.
It's interesting that there is little indication given at the beginning of this book that such blessings would fill its final verses. And apart from any variation of a motif that runs through the scriptures, in the sense Naomi is barren and in need of an air and it could be that such a plot with all the attention of the original audience hearing this for the first time. So imagine the original audience hearing the punchline of this book for the first time. In the women of the neighborhood gave him a name saying, a son has been born to Naomi.
They named him Obed. He was the father of Jesse, the father of David. And in some sense this book is about Ruth and Boass, and in some sense it's about Naomi, and in an even greater sense it's about the real intention of the book. Here is Chronicle, the genealogy of David.
And there are lots of questions we can ask of this, in collusion at the end, right should we read the rest of the book in light of this final revelation? What should we understand about the author's intent to be, chronically David's ancestors in this way? Could this be intended to serve as a means of legitimizing David's reign, perhaps in the face of detractors or whatever it may be? I'm sure we can know really the answer to all those things.
However, in the most basic sense, we see how the Lord providentially provided a king for Israel. That's what we find in the book with. How the Lord providentially provides a king for Israel, even in the days to come. You recall the setting of this book all the way back in chapter one.
In the days when the judges ruled, do you remember the spiritual state of the Hebrews, in the days in which the judges ruled? God did what was right in their own eyes, and there was no king. And even when the people clamor to be like the other nations and first Samuel and they demand a king despite Samuel's prophetic warning, God had already been orchestrating by his invisible hand, these events that we find here in the book of Ruth to establish a man after his own heart, to set his man on the throne. It seems the book of judges was partly to show Israel's need of a righteous king.
And so the book of Ruth provides a bridge, so to speak, between the two eras. But I don't want you to miss the beautiful and glorious point of this. Ruth gives us a glimpse of God's great and glorious plan that would unfold even over two generations to show himself to be faithful. Church the Lord is faithful tomorrow.
I wonder if you know the name Edward Kimball. Edward Kimball was a Sunday school teacher who by all accounts led to white Moody to Christ, a name relatively known in evangelical circles, maybe you've listened to Moody Bible, Moody radio before, or you've heard of Moody Bible Institute. But you do not know that D.L. Moody preached the gospel at a revival meeting, and J.
Wilber Chapman was converted to the state. Probably lesser known than D.L. Moody, Billy Sunday was converted out in Evangelistic meeting led by Chapman, and then Worticai Ham converted by meeting led by Billy Sunday, who credits his conversion to the preaching of the gospel, hearing of the gospel preached by Billy Sunday's Billy Graham. If you pull the thread, we see that the Lord has been faithful, the Lord was faithful across time and space to even use the ministry of Edward Kimball to bring about such an Evangelistic zeal in the United States at just the right time, in just the right place.
We would see even the gospel going to the Father's region, not just the United States, but the world. If you're in Charlotte and encourage you to go see the Billy Graham Library, it's a fascinating testimony to the Lord's faithfulness. But I'm not asking the same question of you. Who is that led you to Christ?
Who is that that has made an impact in you, who has discipled you, and who has ministered to you, and who has blessed you by opening the scriptures and applying God's Word in your life? Can we not trace our own spiritual heritage to see that the Lord is faithful just today but also tomorrow? And the partial remedy to our being dismayed by today is to know that the Lord uses even our own lives today to bring about His voice tomorrow. Have you heard the phrase, you use the sowing seed?
That's a popular saying, harkening back to the parable of the sower, who sows various seed, and you remember the one which grows, right? While some fell on rocky ground, others along the path and were eaten by birds, and yet some strangled out by thorns, others, seeds fell on good soil and produced grain, some under folds, some 16, some 30. And this is one of the most interesting parables because Jesus goes on in one of these parables to explain it for the disciples, who are hard-headed and perhaps a little hard-hearted, as oftentimes I can be at least. And as Jesus said, for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it.
He indeed bears fruit and yields, in one case a hundred fold, another 60, and another 30. And, friends, I don't think it's a coincidence that Jesus uses the metaphor of growing crops here in this passage because you know that any plant usually takes time to grow. I have what you call a black thumb. I can kill the plant overnight, but you know that it takes a while for plants to root and to grow and to bear fruit.
It doesn't take an experienced farmer or porticulturalist to know that seeds don't grow overnight. We don't plant today and harvest the next. It takes time. I can't help but think that there's a connection to the Lord's long-term and sovereign care.
Naomi may not know it yet, but it will be generations before we see the ultimate fruit of God's present faithfulness. It will be years of unfolding his plant. But here's a thing. Naomi may not know it yet and what will come to pass for Obed's grandson, but she does know the Lord.
She might not know what will come to pass in the coming days and weeks and years, but she does know the Lord and friends, you may not know what will come to pass in the coming days and weeks and years, but you can know the Lord. Some of you here this morning who are waiting who may identify more with Naomi and Moab then Naomi as she is pictured here at the end of the book in Bethlehem, hearts and arms full and restored and yet the author does well to reveal to us the fact that many faithful days often stand between Moab and Bethlehem. Think to all the days between Perez and David, especially David, the North King of Israel in the not unified kingdom. Think of all the times that the fathers call sons and daughters of the things of the Lord, of the days of presumably repenting before the Lord in offering right sacrifices, of the days of pursuing the law of God.
Each moment of each day the Lord used to bring about the glorious reign of David and foreshadow the coming King in Christ. The Church we do not know how our own suffering, even how our own sin as we sin before the Lord and others sin against us, how the Lord will bring about such good because of it and despite it. You know, in ministry, I think the elders would attest to this here. It's not uncommon to hear about very hard and difficult childhoods.
It's amazing how often the testimonies I hear begin with something like, my father was an alcoholic or my mother died when I was young or my parents cared nothing for the Church. I knew of you sore my spouse left or my boss fired me or I was living a life pursuing my own heart and my own desires. It's amazing how the Lord could use even the darkest days of our childhood, even the greatest offenses against us, those times of greatest uncertainty and fear and worry and even our own sin to tell our hearts and make that soil soft and fertile that he would bring forth fruit, that he would show himself to be a good God and to shine brightly against the dark backdrop of our sufferings. The Church may not get better, it may not get easier, but the Lord may not seemingly make things right in an earthly sense, but we should not fear because our hope today and tomorrow are spoken of by Jesus, which he fulfilled upon the cross and the grave and being raised again.
He says, my sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me. I give them eternal life and they will never perish and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My father who has given them to me is greater than them all and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand. There's no greater testimony to the coming generations.
There's no greater business of the Church and proclaiming that gospel. There's no greater calling than glorifying the name of Jesus who is the very substance and the very revelation of God's faithfulness today and tomorrow and in fact we'll see forever. That's what we find here at our last point. That God is faithful today, God is faithful tomorrow, but he isn't faithful forever.
In fact, this is the ultimate good news of Ruth. Even this third Sunday of Advent as we look past David and behold David's greater son, Saint Augustine is recorded as saying in the Old Testament, the new is concealed. And in the New Testament the Old is revealed. And it is a good practice for us this morning to see just how the New Testament is concealed here in the Book of Ruth and how it's ultimately revealed in the New.
Because the perspective of this book in reference to the New Testament isn't momentary, it's not even merely generational, but it's eternal. There is this revelation at the end of the book that while the Lord's faithfulness to Ruth and Naomi is quite remarkable and glorious. The Lord is with us in ordinary things. It pales in comparison to the Lord's faithfulness to Israel in providing the great King David.
But when we look at the New Testament we see here that the Lord is providing an even greater King and it gets better. Wait, there's more. You can open the book of Matthew, as I'm going to do with you right now. We see as the good Jewish writer Matthew is, we see a genealogy.
And these were important to Jewish cultures. Even we see the genealogy of David preserved here in the Book of Ruth. What I want to do this morning, and you may think of crazy, I promise you this point, I want to read for us this morning, I want us to read together the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew chapter 1. I'm not sure you, I'm not a glutton for punishment to have to stumble through all these names.
I do think we find a point here in Matthew chapter 1. If you would turn with me, we'll look here at Matthew chapter 1 verse 1. The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah and the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who was called Christ.
And so all the generations from Abraham to David were 14 generations, and from David to the deportation to Babylon 14 generations, and from the deportation to Babylon to the Christ 14 generations. Friends, the Lord showed his faithfulness over not just a few generations, but here over 40 recorded generations. You see, we might think that David was the point of the Book of Ruth, but we read that in the New Testament that Jesus is the point of Ruth. In fact, the Lord can orchestrate all of these generations to bring about his glory and praise, and to bring about our redemption.
How much more will he be our portion, and be our blessing, and be our provision for eternity? Think of all that had taken place between Abraham and Jesus, God making a covenant and establishing Israel being enslaved by Egypt and then being freed, wandering in the desert and the exodus account, and the law being given on Sinai. The promised land was surveyed and conquered and divided right the judges ruled. The kingdom was unified by David.
The temple was constructed by Solomon. Israel was rent into the divided kingdom. It was the threat of Assyria, the threat of Babylon, and in Persia, and Israel was in exile. They returned to Israel.
There was that period of silence, and they were being overtaken by Rome all to lead to the faithful day where Christ was brought well, born of the Spirit, humble himself. You see, Church, we can't read the right testimony of the genealogy such as this, and not marvel at the Lord who directs our steps. The trust of the Lord, he knows what he is doing, and he does call all things to come to pass in his own time. And as Gloria says to this, to see God's overarching plans spanning history of redemption and Israel, we need to see that the aim of all creation, the aim of all histories is shed light on Jesus.
Because in him, we find the revolution, the revelation of eternal faithfulness of God. It's in Christ, we find the faithfulness of God on great and glorious display, which has no beginning, and it has no end. That we might see the eternal plan of our trying God unfolding in the birth and ministry of Jesus, that God becoming man and dwelling among his people. And surely we live today knowing that the Lord is directing all things that faithful day when the Lord will return in all glory, in all honor, in all power, with all holiness and in righteous judgment.
We see in Ruth that current of salvation, like a great river, that is moving all the more to that day when every knee shall bow, and every tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord. Church, let us see the New Testament concealed here in the old, and the old revealed in the New Testament. Let us rejoice that we have been given such an assurance this day that our God is in the heavens, and he does all the bepleases. And it pleased him to reveal his glory as of the only Son of God, full of grace and truth in the God-man who is Jesus.
We have every reason to trust the Lord will provide for us today, and in that day of judgment when Christ comes again as he provides for us in Christ. We have every reason to know that the Lord has blessed us today with every material and spiritual provision, and he will bless us on that day in Christ. We have every reason to meet each day with confidence, knowing that the Lord guides our steps as he has guided all of history to bring about his Son, that our hope may spring eternal. To think of that wandering widow and her mother-in-law would be such a blessing to you in our today, that a faithful man of Boaz and a love story would bring about the salvation of the world.
Only our God can do that. Is there any better news this week that your God directs even the course of history to bring about your redemption, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus? But that same hand that would nail nails in the hands of Jesus is the one who directs you and who leads you and who guides you. Church, let us know about trusting in the Lord today.
Let us go out praising him for his faithfulness and for his goodness. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for your blessing us, but for reminding us of the totality of all of history. For the Son of all history is your glory and praise.
And when I pray that you would grip our hearts, that you would cast our minds upon the things of your word, and that you would even lead us to faithfully seek you every day, or that we might bow before you, that we might bend thee. That you are a king who is sovereign, who is good, and who is right. That you do provide for us. But we thank you for this window into your faithfulness.
But we thank you for your Son, who is the great revelation of your faithfulness. We pray that you would even have us respond with song and sing joyously to you now. I pray now these things in Jesus' name. Let's stand together and sing our killer praise of the Father's love we got.