[0:00]It's time to go to chapter 3. I'm not trying to get away from it. In fact, I love it. So let's go there. Chapter 3. I have one phrase I want you to keep in mind in this chapter and that is the phrase, Strategic Righteousness. It's my phrase, I'm not borrowing it from anybody, may not be the best. I'll explain what I mean. By righteousness, I mean something very simple of doing the the right thing, doing the God-honoring thing, doing the thing that looks uh wise and God-centered. In the moment, trusting in the Lord, just doing right. Strategic means that you you have put some thought into this. This is why I said I'm turning the tables on the non-plan emphasis from last night. Do do plan. Let your righteousness be thought about. Plan some righteous behavior at the university this fall. Plan some righteous activity. Plan how to grow in righteousness. Plan how to treat people righteously. So, what we have here, first in Naomi, then in Ruth, then in Boaz, second, just like that. We have Strategic Righteousness. So first Naomi in verses 1 to 5. And then Ruth in verses 6 to 9. And then Boaz in verses 10 to 15, we have three of them acting out strategic righteousness. So first, Naomi in verses 1 to 5. The the sheer fact that Naomi has a plan is very significant. Here's here's the significance. When you are hopeless as she was, apparently, for a season in chapter 1, you don't dream dreams. Hopeless people don't dream dreams. They don't make plans, they don't pour thousands and thousands of dollars or pounds into conceiving and printing 400,000 copies of Mark. You don't do that if you're hopeless. You dream dreams and you make plans when God is reminding you, helping you feel encouraged that there's going to be a tomorrow and there's going to be some significance in your life and then dreams begin to happen. So, the very fact that Naomi has this strange plan to send Ruth down there at night means she's begun to feel like there's a future, like there's hope. And her plan, of course, is I'm going to get a husband for you. Ruth, I'm going This Boaz that you have happened onto his field, Oh yes, Boaz is a is a Liman X kinsman. And so she thinks that through and she comes up with her plan, a very very strange plan. So, let's read it. verses 3 and 4. It says, do her daughter-in-law, Wash, therefore, and anoint yourself, and put on your cloak and go down to the threshing floor, but do not make yourself known to the man until he has finished eating and drinking. But when he lies down, observe the place where he lies and then go and uncover his feet and lie down, and he will tell you what to do.
[4:35]Go to the threshing floor, dressed and clean. And after he's gone to sleep, lift the blanket and lie down at his feet. Now, at that point, you're thinking, Ruth is thinking, everybody's thinking.
[4:56]What are you telling her to do?
[5:01]And instead of answering the question, which everybody's asking, everybody's asking, Instead of answering the question, she says, He'll tell you what to do. I'm not going to tell you, he'll tell you what to do. Very breathtaking what? That's not clear as to what's going to happen here. You start to think about the possibilities here. One possibility would be, he wakes up, he's a godly man. He's been presented as a godly man. And he drives her away and says, I thought you were worthy. That'd be one possibility. Get out of my life. Wouldn't be interested in any woman who would act like that. That's that's a risk that Naomi's taking. Or the possibility that most people would think of is he would look down there, being a man, she's obviously presenting herself and and he simply has sex with her. Now, both of those are bad ideas. That's not a good plan. Fornication was wrong in the Old Testament, and it's wrong today. It was wrong then, and it's wrong now. And Naomi knew it was wrong, and Ruth knew it was wrong, and Boaz knew it was wrong. And yet, he wants Naomi wants this to happen, and she wants this to work. So what in the world is she doing presenting this this idea to her daughter-in-law to go down there in such a sexually alluring and tempting way? Or or will he have enough integrity to say, So you are offering yourself to me as a a wife? Thank you. I will take care of it with the elders tomorrow, and we will move on this in a proper way. Well, if that's the plan, it's really risky and really really strange. So much for Naomi's strategic righteousness. That's the plan. She's she wants Boaz to marry Ruth, and she's sending Ruth down there in this inexplicable so far behavior, but it's a plan. And we will see a remarkably subtle, profound plan. So now we turn to Ruth and her participation in this strategic righteousness, verses 6 through 9. Let's read these.
[7:59]So in verse 5, she says to her mother-in-law, everything that you say, I will do. So she went down to the threshing floor and did just as her mother-in-law had commanded her. When Boaz had eaten and drunk, and his heart was merry, he went to lie down at the end of the heap of grain. Then she came softly and uncovered his feet and laid down.
[8:30]At midnight, the man was startled and turned over, and behold, a woman lay at his feet. And he said, Who are you? he asked. And she answered, Now what she says here, according to the text anyway, Naomi hadn't prompted her on this.
[8:57]Naomi hadn't put the words in her mouth, she said, Do that. He'll tell you what to do. So these words now are words, perhaps that they agreed on. It doesn't say that. These are Naomi's, I mean uh Ruth's words. She says to him, now, the translations here are going to go haywire in your versions, all right? So we got to decide what is going on here. In the ESV, it says, spread your wings over your servant. Now, your version, if you've got the NIV, says garment, the King James says skirt, the NASB says covering. Only the ESV does this wings thing. So let's just go with garment because if wings is proper, it's a double meaning and we may be on to something. But you're reading garment if you got the NIV or the NASB or the King James version or some other version, that's really the common ordinary one.
[10:08]We'll come back to that. So she says, spread your garment or whatever this wing thing is over me, over your servant, for you are a redeemer. In other words, I know, my mother-in-law knows, you're the relative who could marry me, give the name of my husband, may learn a future and perhaps more if we had children.
[10:43]It's really clear what she's saying. What is going on with this word, skirt, garment, covering that the ESV translates wings? So, it really helps to know your Hebrew here. So I, I got it out, got it out again last night, got it out 24 years ago. Did I looked at every one of them again last night, the word, uh, is used 34 times in the Old Testament. Maybe all but 4 is wings. Wings of angels in Ezekiel, wings of birds, wings, it's wings, it's just wings.
[11:32]A few times, because of the context, it seems to mean garment in some kind of metaphorical way. There's one other place outside of Ruth, where it's used in relationship to lovers. Let me read that one to you. It's Ezekiel 16, verse 8. Now Ezekiel 16 is one of the most beautiful and horrible chapters in the Bible about God's coming and marrying Israel. Finding her like a baby weltering in in its blood, utterly disgusting, thrown out to die. And God sees this horrible scene. And he and he takes the baby. And when she's grown, he marries her. So here's verse 8. When I passed by you again, in other words later when you'd grown, and looked upon you, behold, you were at the age for love. And I spread my garment, my skirt, and that's the same word. I spread my skirt, my garment, my covering, my wings over you and covered your nakedness.
[12:57]Yay, I plighted my troth to you and entered into a covenant with you, says the Lord. And you became mine. That's the closest analogy in the Old Testament to this text and the use of the word wings. So it would be, I think, very contrary to the author's intention and Ruth's intention if we jumped to the conclusion that what's going on here is a conniving mother-in-law and a risque loose woman, Ruth, to get a man. That's not the feel if you know the language. This is language of God covering Israel and making a covenant with her when she was very unworthy and had been so despicable in her weltering blood. So if there's an offer going on here, which there clearly is, it is a noble offer. It's an offer of a desire for a covenant relationship and for something like a a covering of God to happen from Boaz. I want you to cover me, Boaz with your wings. Now, I'm sure some of you are already ahead of me in where I'm going from last night. There is only one other place in this book where the word wings is used. Back in chapter 2, verse 12. Boaz had said, you've come to my field, seeking help from me, seeking protection from me and and seeking food in my field and seeking water at my well.
[15:13]And you're asking, why have you found this favor?
[15:19]And his answer comes back, you took refuge under the wings of God when you came here.
[15:31]It's Boaz who sowed the seed in Ruth's mind that there's a connection between Boaz and his care and his protection, and his provision, and his love, as a possible husband. And God as the one under whose wings she has lived now for about 10 years or so and where she finds her security. Boaz sowed the seed of that connection. And she goes home, evidently, and and talks this over with Naomi. He said this and he did this, and he did this. And they sit down either together or I don't know how, I'm just guessing. And they say, all right. We can't be really sure that's what he meant. That he was really suggesting that you're coming to him, finding his resources and his provision and his protection and his leadership, husband-like, has a relationship to your going to God, so that if you go to God, you go to him, if you go to him, you go to God. And he really would like to be that for you. He's an older man, he he's set, not married, but is he really saying that he's open to this? And I think what they hit upon is a symbolic activity that is just as subtle and profound as Boaz's words to Ruth were on the field. You're coming to me and my field, my protection, my food and seeking security, provision, rest. And I, I recognize in that that you are a godly woman, that you take refuge under God's wings. Implicit, that's the kind of woman I would like to take under my wing. So she goes. She lies down. She puts the cover over her and she waits. He awakens. Who are you?
[18:00]And at this moment everything hangs on what response he's going to give to this sentence. Cuz she's going to take words upon her lips that experiments with whether she's got it right. She's going to she's going to say, I'm Ruth, would you cover me with your wing?
[18:31]In other words, he'll understand what I'm saying, if I've got it right. He'll understand what I'm saying. And if I don't, I don't know what's going to happen. That's Ruth's strategic righteousness. She thought, she planned, very subtle. I mean, I, I, I hardly know what to say here in terms of what this implies concerning the delicacy, the subtlety, and the profundity of relations. I mean, Boaz. I try to imagine, and this is an awful thing to do, but let me do it. It's terrible. Suppose my wife died. Hope she doesn't before I do. I'm 62. Should I remarry? How old should the woman be that I remarry? 40, 50, 60, 70. What if there were a 45-year-old woman in my church? That I just wondered. I just wondered if it could work. That would be a hard thing to approach, wouldn't it? I mean, what if she said, you're 62.
[20:04]You you just feel so humiliated. You just I didn't mean it. I just. So, I just try to put myself in Boaz's shoes. What what he says to her is, you haven't gone after any of the younger men. You've come to me. He he's amazed. He wanted it, but he wasn't sure that he could. So what do you do and and and I think the answer is you do something very delicate, something very subtle, something very profound. I I wouldn't have that skill, I'm sure to be able to do it. But he said it, she got it, she returned the subtlety, and then you've got clarity. And now we turn to, what did he do? What does Boaz do here? So let's go to Boaz and finish with him. Verses 10 to 15. He said, May you be blessed by the Lord, my daughter, daughter.
[21:23]You have made this last kindness greater than the first in that you have not gone after young men, whether poor or rich. And now, my daughter, do not fear. The two things she could have feared, she's going to be raped, or she's going to be rejected as a slut. And he won't do either of those. My daughter, do not fear. I will do for you all that you ask. For all my fellow townsmen know, you are a worthy woman. Now, it's true that I am a redeemer.
[22:17]There's I'm a relative of Elimelech. You there, yet there is a redeemer nearer than I. There's another relative. But we haven't heard of him before. He just shows up and we all want to say, no. That's a bad turn of affairs. What? I thought the story was over. Oh no. There is a redeemer nearer than I.
[23:05]Remain tonight and in the morning, if he will redeem you, good. Oh, come on. Let him do it. But if he is not willing to redeem you, then as the Lord lives, I will redeem you. Lie down until the morning. Now, we're going to, we're going to pick it up there, but let me just close with with a comment about Boaz here. This is Strategic Righteousness. Big term, is it not? It's midnight. Stars are out. He's been drinking and feeling merry. The woman that he wonders if in his wildest dreams might be willing to take an older man has come, washed, and smelling beautiful.
[24:03]And lay down at his feet and put his blanket over her and said, cover me with your wing.
[24:17]Some of you guys have been in that situation? Some of you girls have been in that situation? He hears her offer. I'm here, and I would like you to be my husband. And you got two choices here. You can say, because of righteousness, we will wait. Or we will, we won't wait. We're just going to have sex now, and we'll get married tomorrow. And I just would like to close by by pleading with you, to be like Boaz and Ruth.
[25:05]They were good lovers. Oh, there was supercharged power going on under that blanket. Under those stars, these two people were ready to have sex. Can you believe they didn't? You lied here until the morning, then I'm going to go do what has to be done to make this righteous. I tell you, young people, many of you have already blown it. You're not virgins anymore. God can have mercy upon you, and he he will. If you turn to him, he can cleanse you, make a beautiful relationship in the future. I know that he can. If you still have not had sex, I just plead with you, stand with Boaz. Stand with Ruth. Embrace a strategic righteousness. And let me put it in a larger context for you. What's going on here is the making of the ancestor of Jesus. Ruth is about to be from Moab, folded purely and righteously into a line that will result in Jesus Christ. The purity of the moment and the purposes of eternity link right here. And that's true for you. If you will in the safety of your apartment, where she seems so willing. Say, we will wait. God will honor that. He will honor that more vastly than you can imagine. Because here he honored it with the last chapter and the coming of Jesus Christ as the result of this holy union. And so, I just plead with you to let the the beautiful strategic righteousness of Naomi's risky plan and Ruth's sensitive discerning of this older man's heart and this older man's massive willpower to say, you just lie there, and we will wait.
