God's Providence

Well, I'm thrilled to be with you tonight. Real joy to be back. This place is so special to me all the way back to when I was an eight-year-old boy and received Jesus as my Savior and a vacation Bible school and a little white building across the road to the time that I followed the stirring of God in my heart to yield my life to preach His word when I was 17 years old. I hear at Johnston Chapel and then through my Bible college education in the first 17 years of my pastoral ministry in North Carolina, Florida, and Indiana, I always came back here to get guidance from my mentor, preacher Jimmy, Jimmy Jones. And then how gracious God was to allow me to come home in 1990 and become the senior pastor here at Johnston Chapel for 26 and a half years of ministry here. You were so gracious and kind to me. This will always be a special place to me. It will always be the most special place. I'm thankful that in these four years of retirement so far the Lord has opened up a lot of opportunities to preach in other places to continue to serve Him. I'm in an interim pastor at the first Baptist church in Lewisburg right now. I have been since the first of May. Up there on Sundays and Mondays is the only downside. I'm grateful I still get to preach. I want to preach until I die for the Lord will allow me to. But I'm able to do that now without all the other administrative and pastoral shepherding functions, which allows me to focus on what I love most at a pace which is a little bit better for my life and age. So I'm grateful for that. But the downside is I'm not able to be here because I still love this place and I love you so much. So it's a joy, real joy to be here. When Dan called me the other night and asked if I would be willing to do this, I was so eager to do it. I love him as my pastor. I love the way he nourishes my heart every time he teaches and preaches the word. And so I was eager to be a service to him as well. I want to open our Bible tonight to the book of Ruth. We're not going to continue the study on the names of God. Dan's doing a much better job at that than I would. So I want to leave that for him to finish up. So we're going to look at a book that I think is one of the most neglected books in the Bible. In fact, it's so neglected. It can be a little hard to find. You're probably already there. I have to remind myself sometimes, okay, it's Joshua Judges. Ruth, there it is, right after Judges and right before 1 Samuel. So if you can locate that in your Bible, if you know anything about the book of Ruth, you probably know one of one or maybe all of these three things. These are the three things that most people who have not really studied the book at least have heard about. One is the Kinsman Redeemer concept, which we'll develop a little bit later in, as we look at the book, and that is often applied. And I think rightly so to the Lord Jesus Christ, who became one of us, who became a human being so that he might give his life to die on the cross for our sins and redeem us from our shame and sin. So the Kinsman Redeemer is one thing. The second thing a lot of people know, most people know, about the book of Ruth, is it's a beautiful love story between Ruth and Boaz. And it really is. The third thing most people would recognize about the book of Ruth is that it has in its pages in chapter 1, part of the vow of the bride in the traditional wedding ceremony. And if I can remember from the old time ceremonies that I used to use way back, the Elizabethan English wording goes something like this. Whether thou goest, I will go where thou lodgest, I will lodge. Thy people shall be my people, and thy God shall be my God. Now that's in the wedding ceremony, but it has nothing to do in the Bible with a wedding. Those words were not spoken to Ruth's husband, they were spoken to her mother-in-law. So it has nothing to do with a wedding. But I learned a long time ago as a pastor, a wedding ceremony is not the time to do an in-depth exegesis of Ruth chapter 1. That's just not the time in the place. And so just let it go, just forget it, it's out of context, it's a misuse of the text, understand that, but just let it go. There's enough that families fight about at weddings anyway, the pastor certainly doesn't need anything else. And so I just always felt this let it go and use that terminology. I was grateful when about 20 years ago I decided to start coming up with some new wedding ceremonies, a little bit more contemporary and current, and they did not use that particular wording. So it was grateful for that. But I'm here to light to say, if that's all you know about the book of Ruth, those three basic things, you have missed a rare jewel in the Bible. Ruth is a sparkling gem of a book. It really is. And what we're going to do tonight is just kind of walk through the whole book. I don't get up in the leave. We're just going to kind of walk through the whole book, summary fashion. And I want to point out what I believe to be the main theme of the book. Those other things are true. It is true about the Kinsman Redeemer and the beautiful love story and even the wedding ceremony part is in there at a context. But those things are true, but they're not the main purpose for the book. Sometimes God drops interpretive clues into his word. And the careful Bible student will sometimes recognize those clues, pick up on them, and see that God is really telling us what a book or passage is all about. That certainly is true in the book of Ruth. He drops two clues as to its true meaning. One is in the beginning of the book, way the book begins, the other is in the way the book ends. So clue number one as to the real purpose of this book and the real meaning of this book is right at the beginning of the book. It starts this way in the days when the judges ruled. Now that's a very important contextual clue because this writer is going to tell a story that took place in the time of the judges. Now the time of the judges, if you read the book of judges, is an absolutely horrible time for the nation. There's one of the darkest times in their national history. They had not fully conquered the land and obedience to God. So there were lots of pockets of resistance still around in the land. And those tribal city states would attack the people of Israel and put them into bondage and the people of Israel would cry out to God and God would raise up a judge to deliver them. And then they'd go right back to the same rebellion and disobedience. That's a cycle that occurs over and over again through the book of judges. And the book is rightly summarized in the last verse of judges. You can see it right across the page from Ruth. In those days Israel had no king. Everyone did as they saw fit. Sounds just like our culture today. No absolutes, no right, no wrong, no truth. Just do whatever you want to do. That was the way the book of judges was. Well, in Ruth God is going to take us away from that national and moral calamity and focus on an ordinary common family in Bethlehem. There's no judge in the book. There's no prophet in the book. There's no priest in the book. There's no king in the book. He's just going to show us what was going on in that chaotic time with one ordinary family. That's a key interpretive clue in the book. The second interpretive clue is at the end of the book because the book ends with a genealogy of all things. And when you look at that you think, what a odd way to end a book. I mean, this is a story. Is this the conclusion of the story? I mean, you get to this wonderful story and it seems like it's coming to an end and then you read this. This then is the family line of Perez. Perez was the father of Ezra and the father of Ramda. And you go through this genealogy and you think, that's an odd way to end the book. But actually, if you look carefully at the names, you'll find that one of Ruth and Boaz's son is part of that genealogy. Their son, back in verse 17 of chapter 4, is named Obed. Then look at the last verse. Well, actually the second to last verse in the book, verse 21. Salmon the father of Boaz. Boaz, the father of Obed, Obed the father of Jesse and Jesse, the father of David. Now, what's God telling us here by ending the book with that powerful statement, that genealogy? What God is really saying, that's the purpose of the book. What I'm doing with the book of Ruth is I'm showing you that in the most chaotic time in the nation of Israel, the darkest moral and spiritual time in their history, I was still working. And I was working in a common ordinary family in Bethlehem to preserve the line of the Messiah through King David. This is how the line through David to the Messiah got preserved through that dark time in Israel's history. So what the book is really all about, putting those two bookend statements and clues together at the beginning and the end of the book, the book is all about God's providence, even in the darkest time of Israel's history. And his providence in the life of an ordinary family that really did not know the part they would play in God's great scheme of redemption. But God all the time was at work. Now, we use theological words sometimes that I think we let go over our heads. God's sovereignty, the word sovereignty simply means that God is in control of all things. He's on his throne, everything in this world, everything in the flow of human history, everything in the universe is operating according to his plan and purpose. And will fulfill ultimately his purpose, that's God's sovereignty. Now God's providence is the way he works out his sovereign plan in time and space in the ordinary lives of his people and even people who don't know him. Now the book of Ruth is an amazing story of God's providence. And so that's what we're going to focus on tonight. God's providence, ultimately working toward his purpose, not only for the nation of Israel, but for all of mankind through the coming Messiah Jesus. But what I want us to see is that the way he works in this ordinary family's life through his providential dealings with them is also the way he works with us because each chapter of the book of Ruth focuses on a different aspect of God's providential working in this family's life. So let's just look at those four ways that God in his providence is working on his plan and purpose in all of our lives if we know him. First of all, chapter one, God is providentially working through our disappointments, through our disappointments. Now just to kind of summarize the story, in this time when the judges were ruling this chaotic dark time, there's a family and this family is led by Elimilec. That's his name, his wife is Naomi and there's a famine in the land of Israel. So they get out of they get out of Dodge and they head toward Moab because they feel like they can provide better provide for their family there. Well, they are there for a while and Naomi's world caves in everything collapses around her. Look at verse three. Now Elimilec Naomi's husband died and she was left with her two sons. They married more white women. One was Orpah and the other Ruth. After they had lived there about 10 years, both Malon and Kileon, those are her two sons, also died and Naomi was left without her two sons and her husband. So these crushing circumstances where both her husband and her two sons, which means she is basically let completely empty without any possibility in that time and in that culture of being able to make a living for herself. At her age and with that kind of situation, she is completely devastated. Now we all face disappointments. We all face difficulties, disasters even, maybe not to that magnitude, but we all face disappointments in our lives, lay off on a job, car accident, a serious surgery, a financial collapse, the death of a loved one. We all face disappointment in life and we have a tendency in those times to ask, where is God in all of this? Well, that's exactly what Naomi did. Naomi couldn't understand what was happening, couldn't understand why God would allow it. In fact, she became bitter toward God and blamed God. If you'll skip down to verse 19, we're going to skip some of the story but come back to it. She comes back to Bethlehem, middle of verse 19, when they arrived in Bethlehem, the whole town was stirred because of them and the women exclaimed, can this be Naomi? Notice her response in verse 20, don't call me Naomi. She told them, call me Mara because the Almighty has made my life very bitter. Mara was the Hebrew word for bitter. The Almighty has made my life very bitter. I went away full, but the Lord has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi? The Lord has afflicted me. The Almighty has brought misfortune upon me. Four times, in that one verse, she blames God. God has made me bitter. God has taken everything away from me. God has afflicted me. He's brought misfortune on me. I think if we're all honest, we probably all would say we've been there. We've been there. We have cried out the God, not understanding what's happening to us, why it's happened, why he would allow it, where was he? Why didn't he stop it? Maybe even blamed God for our situation. And if we have done that, then we probably have ended up being just like Naomi. Better, bitter. But you know what? God is still at work. I'm so thankful that when we get all out of sorts with God, He doesn't say, well forget you, if you're going to act that way toward me. And evidence of God's infinite grace is that He just keeps working. There's so many times in our lives where God could have said, I'm done with you. If you're going to feel that way about me, if you're going to act that way toward me, if you're going to blame before everything, then I'll just let you go. So, but God in His infinite grace just keeps working. You know, He can take all the accusations. Not right of us to do that, but He can take it and He just keeps on working. I am so thankful that we have a God like that, because in this chapter, in her disappointments, He was working to accomplish three purposes. They're very clear in the book in chapter one. Quickly, the first purpose was to bring Naomi and Ruth together in a loving commitment. Now, as the story goes in chapter one, Naomi had heard after her husband and two sons were gone. She heard, you know, the famine has lifted. Things are going better. And is real. She decides to go back home. And her two daughters-in-law want to go with her, but look at verse 11. Naomi said, return home, my daughters. Why would you come with me? Am I going to have any more sons who could become your husbands? Return home, my daughters. I'm too old to have another husband. Even if I thought there was still hope for me, even if I had a husband tonight and then gave birth to sons, would you wait until they grow up? Would you remain unmarried for them? No, my daughters. It's more bitter for me than for you because the Lord's hand has turned against me. At this, they wept aloud again, then, orpah, kissed her mother-in-law goodbye, but Ruth clung to her. Now, I'm sure there was some degree of commitment on the part of Ruth toward her mother-in-law before this, but here you really see it. She will not let Naomi go. She clings to her. And God uses this extreme time of disaster and disappointment in Naomi's life to bring a loving commitment between Ruth and Naomi. It's a very key part of the story throughout the rest of the book. Second purpose, God is working through this time of disappointment is he brings Ruth into a commitment to himself as the true God. Look at verse 15, look, Sid Naomi, your sister-in-law is going back to her people and her gods. Go back with her, but Ruth replied, don't urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Here's the wedding veil. Where you go, I will go, and where you stay, I will stay. Now notice this confession of faith. Your people will be my people and your God, my God. Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me. You see the name for God that she uses there in verse 17? You see all the capital letters? That's your way. That's your way. That's the name that Dan has been talking to us about, teaching us about on when's the evenings. So she has come to a personal faith in Yahweh, the personal name for God, and she has committed herself to the God of Israel, the God of Naomi, rather than her own gods. Now how much she understood and had made that commitment before this, we don't know, but we know that this is certainly a public commitment and confession to Naomi of that commitment in her heart. Jehovah is my God. I will worship him. So that's the second purpose God was working through this disappointment. The third was to bring them back to Israel. In verses 19 through 22, there are five times that it is mentioned they return back to Israel or to Bethlehem, said in different ways, but five times. So that's obviously the thrust. The author is getting our attention with that. I want to show you the reason for all of this was to get them back to Israel, to get them back to Bethlehem. They don't know it yet, but they're going to be in the ancestry of King David. And that's got to happen in Bethlehem. That's where David needs to be born because God already has it all planned out. They're going to be prophecies that say that Jesus is born in the city of David in Bethlehem. So he's got to get these people back to Bethlehem. And the emphasis of the end of chapter one is that's exactly what he's doing. He's getting them back to Israel and to Bethlehem. And I love the way it is summarized in verse 22. So Naomi returned from Moab accompanied by Ruth the Moabite her daughter-in-law arriving in Bethlehem as the barley harvest was beginning. In other words, God not only brought them back to Bethlehem, but at the perfect time for them to be provided for when they were born. And God is provided for when the harvest is coming in. God always takes care of the details. He always sees to it that we are cared for. So God isn't working, providentially working in all the details of life even in our disappointments. Naomi doesn't know it yet. She doesn't see it yet. She's still accusing God of taking everything away from her and making her bitter, but God is just patiently, graciously, quietly at work in his providence in her circumstances. Number two tells us that God's providence is also operative in our daily affairs, not just in the big disasters of life, but also just in the humdrum of daily affairs of living. There are a whole series in this book in chapter two of what we sometimes refer to as chance events. And the author drops a couple of clues that that's what he's wanting us to think. These things just kind of happened, but we see that it is God's hand that is at work in the daily affairs of our life. There are a number of lessons about his providence in this book and this chapter rather in the daily events of life. I'm going to quickly just mention six of them. This one is God's providence includes our initiative. I love the way that the chapter begins. Verse one, Naomi had a relative on her husband's side, a man of standing from the clan of a limoleck whose name was Boaz. That's a teaser. That's God saying, I'm not talking about Boaz yet, but I want you to know, I'm going to introduce an important character in this book. By the way, he's related to Naomi. That's going to be a key part of the story. But the real thrust of the first three verses is the fact that Ruth, when they get back says to her mother and law, Naomi, we got to do something to provide for ourselves. So I'm going to go out and start cleaning in the fields. You see, they weren't just waiting for God to drop his provision in their laps. Ruth said, I'm going to go to work. And so I'm going to go clean in the fields. Now, the way cleaning was done in that day was there were harvesters. They were men. They would harvest the wheat behind them. They would cut the wheat with sickles. Then the behind them would be women who would bundle up the grain into bundles. And behind the women would be the cleaners. The cleaners were the poor and unfortunate people that did not have their own property could not grow their own food. The only way they had to eat was to pick up the leftovers out of the fields. And so even in the mosaic law, the Jews were instructed to not pick up everything in the field and leave the corners with some grain in it. Those are for the cleaners. That's how they're provided for. Ruth said, I'm going to go clean in the field. I'm going to go get some some grain for us so that we can have something. She takes the initiative. God's Providence does not operate by just sitting and doing nothing and waiting for God to drop his provision in our laps. He wants us to take the initiative and he uses that in his Providence. Those are the means he uses. Second lesson about God's Providence in our daily affairs. God's Providence extends to our contacts. I love the way this is said. Look at verse three. So she went out, entered the field and began to glean behind the harvesters. As it turned out, and we might say, it just so happened, the author is dropping a little clue again to something that's happening here. As it turned out, she was working in a field belonging to Boas, who was from the clan of Olimolec. We've already been introduced to him. We know he's a relative. That's a seed thought to the author's planning in our mind. Then look at verse four. Just then again, it just so happened at that particular time. Boas arrived from Bethlehem and greeted the harvesters. The Lord be with you. The Lord bless you. They answered. Well, Boas notices this new lady who's come to glean and he asks about her, finds out about her history. It's obvious that he's very interested in her. But God is working to provide those contacts. Do you believe it was just a coincidence that she starts going? She goes the first field. She finds and it just happens to be Boas's field. You believe that's a coincidence? Of course not. God is working in that providing those contacts. Do you believe it's a coincidence that that just when she got there and started working? Oh, as shows up. No, it's no coincidence. God is arranging for those contacts. You know, one of the most enjoyable things and amazing things about living under the good hand of God's providence is to look for the contacts. He brings into our lives through seemingly mundane events. I probably have had this happen a half a dozen times since we've been in the apartment. I'll have some mail sitting there ready to go out or Jeannie has some mail sitting ready to go out and I'll just think, you know, I'll get that mail out of the box and I go out to the box. Now, there's no office in that apartment complex, you know, for people to drop by and say, do you have any apartments for rent? And I know at least a half a dozen times when I've gone out to the mailbox, somebody's been driving by looking at the apartments and they'll stop. And there I am out of the mailbox and they'll say, do you know anything about these apartments? Do you know if there are any of them open and I have an opportunity to talk with them? And a couple of times I've had the opportunity to share the gospel with people, but at least have an opportunity to give them the phone number of the lady they can contact and try to serve them in that way. And every time that's happened, I've come back thinking, God, did you prompt me to go out to the mailbox just at that time? That certainly couldn't have been a circumstance. That people looking for an office just stop the guy who's the closest around and say, do you know anything about these apartments? You know, when you live to anticipate the hand of God's providence, you'll see all kinds of contacts like that that he brings across your path in the grocery store and other places that he wants you to have impact on those people. He wants you to have that contact for that moment. So God's sovereign, he is providence extends to our contacts. Third lesson, God's providence extends to our protection. In verses 8 and 9, Boaz recognizes that she is very vulnerable. First of all, she's a woman. Secondly, she's a foreigner. She's very vulnerable. And he has obviously taken an interest in her already. And so he tells her, you stay in my field. Don't go in any other fields. The way you can tell that you're in my fields, just follow the ladies that are doing the picking up of the bundles. Those women are working for me. You follow them. You'll be in my fields all the time. And by the way, I have instructed the men not to lay a hand on you, not to touch you. He's already taking care for her and protecting her. You know, it's amazing how God protects us. Sometimes we only think about the lack of protection when something difficult happens to us or bad happens to us. And we live in a fallen world. That's going to happen. We're not promised that we'll never have any difficulty. But you know, there are probably a hundred things that could have happened to you today that were dangerous and didn't. God protects us in more ways than we can even imagine. His providence extends to our protection. Fourthly, his providence includes our faithfulness. In verse 10, Ruth says, why are you showing me this kindness? Look at Boaz's response in verse 11. Boaz replied, I've been told all about what you've done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband, how you left your father and mother and your homeland, and came to live with the people you did not know before. May the Lord repay you for what you've done. May you richly be rewarded by the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you've come to take refuge. My point is this, Ruth had just been faithful in what was right before her, and God used that faithfulness to open blessing and to open doors for her. Again, sometimes we think God's providence, I just pray for things and expect God to just drop them in my lap. And what God often does, most often I believe does, is as we are faithful in what's right in front of us, what am I supposed to do today? What is the next step he wants me to take? As we're faithful in those things, and for Ruth, that was taking care of her mother-in-law, then God uses that to bring blessing and open doors in our lives. In ways we could have never imagined. God's providence includes our faithfulness. Fifthly, it extends to our provision. She tells, or Boaz, rather tells Ruth, now when it comes lunchtime, you're going to eat with the reapers. That was a special invitation, a special blessing. The gleaners typically did not get included in that, and he says, I want you here at the table, and he gives her some food. And he gives her so much that she can't even eat at all. And then he tells the reapers, leave a little extra for her out in the field. And don't rebuke her if she picks it up. I'm telling you to leave that for her. So God provided for her, through Boaz, in some amazing ways, at the meal, he just gave her stuff, and at the in the field, she had to work for it still. She had to bend over, pick it up, and still glean it, but it was still God's provision. God's providence extends to our provision. And then the sixth lesson about his providence in our daily lives is God's providence brings renewed hope and trust. When she gets home after that hard day's work, and she has 30 pounds of grain, more than you would ever expect to get in one day of gleaning. Naomi looks at her and says, basically, and this is the King John translation, it's not, you know, it's nothing. But anyway, he said, she says to Ruth, where did you work today? And she says, well, I've worked in the field of a man named Boaz. Boom, a light goes on in Naomi's mind and heart. She knows that name. She knows who he is. And in the first glimmer of hope she's had in years. Look what she says in verse 20. And in the last verse, she says, Lord bless him. Naomi said to her daughter in law, he has not stopped showing his kindness to the living and the dead. She added that man is our close relative. He is one of our guardian redeemers, Kinsman redeemers. There's a little glimmer of hope here that maybe God is working. And so fast in her mind, she's not sure how to keep up with all this, but she sees that God may be at work now. Chapter two, God's Providence in our daily affairs quickly. Chapter three, God's Providence in our desires. Now Ruth and Naomi already recognized there's the potential of a Kinsman Redeemer. Now Kinsman Redeemer was a near relative who was offered the opportunity under the mosaic law when someone lost their husband to purchase the land that that man owned to keep it in the family. Now there were good reasons for doing that primarily to prevent the nation of Israel from sliding into a kind of feudal system that would happen later in Europe where wealthy people gobbled up all the land and became the powerful and everybody else was a slave to them. God didn't want that for these people. He had some other means of dealing with that too, the year of Jubilee and every seventh year of the Sabbath rest and so forth. But this was one of the ways he dealt with that was these land laws. And so the near Kinsman could, if he was able to, buy the land and as a part of that arrangement, he also could marry the widow so that that was kind of a double assurance that the land would stay in the family. So that's what the Kinsman Redeemer, Kinsman near relative Redeemer, he buys the land. So that's what the Kinsman Redeemer law was all about. Well, they already know that Bowas is a potential Kinsman Redeemer. By the way, if a guy couldn't do that, then it would fall to the next nearest Kinsman and then the next nearest Kinsman. Eventually somebody would be able to fulfill that requirement. So Ruth and Naomi already realized the potential and in the first four verses of chapter three, Naomi shows her desire for Ruth to be married. And we're not going to take the time to read that, but it doesn't sound like your courtship. I mean, you know, she says, Bowas is going to be after winnowing after all the work today. He's going to be winnowing wheat on the threshing floor. You'll spend the night there to guard the crop. You go with your best clothes and your perfume and everything and you uncover his feet and lay down at his feet. Now, that's probably not the way you courted, you know, the person you married and it can sound like Naomi is the scheming mother in law and Ruth is being really forward and throwing. It's just the custom of the day. You see, the family in need always needed to make known the fact that there was a need for a Kinsman Redeemer. And this was the way of doing it. There was nothing unethical here, nothing immoral taking place. So Naomi has a desire for Ruth to be taken care of. Ruth has the desire to carry out Naomi's plan. She has a desire to marry Bowas and when she does get there and does exactly what what Naomi told her to do, it has the desired effect. Verse eight in the middle of the night, something startled the man. Literally, he trembled. Basically, the uncovering of the feet was to take the outer garment that he was wearing. He was using that as a blanket. So take the blanket off once he's sound asleep and he'll wake up in the night and then you can tell him what the need is and that's exactly what happened. He woke up, turned, saw a woman lying at his feet. Who are you? He asked in verse nine, I am your servant Ruth. She said, spread the corner of your garment over me since you are a gardening Redeemer of our family. The spreading of the garment over you was simply a way of saying, include me in your family. It didn't mean literally spread the garment over her. In fact, the passage made clear she slept at his feet that night. There was nothing immoral going on here. This was just the customary way of initiating this Kinsman Redeemer process. So this is Naomi's desire. It's Ruth's desire. The key question is, is it Bowas' desire? Well, as the story goes, Bowas is thrilled. And he says, the only reason I haven't done this, two reasons is, first of all, my age. And he commends her for not running after all the younger men. He's pleased that she would want him to be the Kinsman Redeemer. And the second issue that he mentions is there is a nearer Kinsman. I haven't initiated anything because there's a nearer relative. He has first dibs on the land, not me. And so we got to do this right. We got to do it legally. So in chapter three, God is working through their desires. Now, this is something that I wish we could learn better. Maybe most of all, we often hear if you desire something, then it's got to be wrong. You know, if you want something, it's got to be wrong. And we pastors and missionaries sometimes have been guilty of causing people to think that, you know, we tell stories like, there's the last thing I wanted to do. And that's what I'm doing. God wanted me to do this. This is the last place on earth I wanted to go. And that's where God sent me. Sometimes I think those kind of stories and testimonies are more for the glorification of the preacher or the missionary than exalting God. But I think they have a tremendous damaging effect on young people. Because what we're telling young people is that God doesn't want you to be fulfilled and happy. God basically is saying to you, if you want something, I'm going to smash it. And I'm going to make you miserable in life. That's what we're telling young people. I wonder sometimes if young people don't turn away from wanting to serve the Lord because that's kind of the impression they've gotten. I'm going to have to do something and go somewhere. I hate. That's not the way I see the Bible. In fact, Psalm 37 verse 4 says, delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart. If you delight in the Lord, if you focus on walking close to Him and delighting in Him, then He will give you the desires of your heart. That means two things. It means He will place in your heart His desires and then He will fulfill those desires. He will give them to you in both those ways. He will plant them in your heart, then He will fulfill them. And so you see what we need to be really teaching is that if we walk with God, then what we end up desiring is what He wants for us. He planted that desire there and He's going to fulfill that desire. When Paul talks about the qualifications for a pastor, he begins it in 1 Timothy 3 by saying, if any man desires the office of a pastor, he desires a good work. He doesn't say if you're called to this, if God's dragging you screaming and kicking to this, he says, if any man desires this. Now, it's not a passing fancy of whim. This is a strong, passionate, compelling, and growing desire to do God's will and to serve Him with your life and give your life to, if a man desires that, that's in his heart. Okay, that's God's call. Now, let's see if you're qualified and He gives the qualifications. I think we pass off desire too quickly. God was working through the desires of these people to accomplish this purpose. Now, quickly we need to get to chapter 4 and I'm just going to summarize it in the last couple of minutes. God's providence is not only seen in our disappointments, in our daily affairs, and in our desires. God's providence is also seen in the decisions of others. Now, here's the deal in chapter 4. The decision to marry Ruth is out of Boaz's hands. It's the other Kinsman Redeemer's first choice if that's what he wants to do. And the thing that amazes me is the integrity of Boaz. There's no trying to sway the decision his way. There's no, you know, back room deal to get this his way. There's no quite lie to kind of shade things in his favor. He calls a legal assembly of elders at the city gates. And he lays out the facts just as they are, even though at one point it looks like he's going to lose Ruth. Look at verse 3. Then he said to the guardian Redeemer, Naomi, who's come back from Moab, is selling the piece of land that belonged to our relative Alimalek. I thought I should bring the matter to your attention and suggest that you buy it in the presence of these seated here and in the presence of the elders of my people. If you will redeem it, do so. But if you will not, tell me so I will know. For no one has the right to do it except you and I am next in line. And the guy speaks up real quickly says, I will redeem it. Uh oh. This sounds like an oil fly in the ointment here in God's plan and purpose. But Boaz wasn't done yet. The guy was so eager to get the land he interrupted. So Boaz goes on verse 5. On the day you buy the land from Naomi, you also require Ruth the Moabite. The dead man's widow in order to maintain the name of the dead with his property. That was the mosaic law. That was the provision whoever could buy the land also would marry the widow. And this guy says, I'm not doing that. And the reason he gave was because I'm afraid that will mess up my inheritance. You know, blended families are no different today than they were then. One of the one of the biggest difficulties blended family space is what about the inheritance? What about the house? What about the banking house? Who are they going to go to? Is this other family going to get the inherit well, that's exactly what this guy was troubled about. And so Boaz ends up getting the land and being able to marry Ruth. Here's the point. Can we trust God to do his work even through the decisions of others when it's out of our hands? Or do we have to kind of finaggle and pull strings and work angles and try to shade things to make it look more favorable for us? You know, are we trying to do that? Or are we just saying here the facts? Here's the situation. Now Lord, you work in the heart of that other person. I trust you and your providence even in their decisions. Well, that's the big picture of the book. God's providence. Amazing ways that it's seen in our disappointments and our daily affairs, our desires and the decisions of others even. But let me just for a moment zoom in on Naomi. Leave the big picture for a moment and zoom in on Naomi because God takes her on a journey in this book. In chapter one, she's bitter. She's angry at God. She accuses him four times and basically one verse of being the cause of all her problems. She's bitter. God's just continuing to work by chapter two. There's a glimmer of hope as she begins to see the hand of God at work and bringing Ruth to Boaz's field. In chapter three, we didn't read it, but she moves from hope to a settled piece. When Ruth comes home and says, this is what happened. You know, at the threshing floor, Boaz is ready to be the cancer reviewer, but there's somebody who's a closer relative. She says Naomi says in verse 18, wait, my daughter until you find out what happens for the man will not rest until the matter is settled today. So she's moved now to a place of peace, settle peace. That's waiting that God take care of this. And then where she is at the end of chapter four, read the whole chapter, especially the last eight or nine verses before you get to the genealogy. You know what she's doing? She's holding her grandson and the ladies around her are saying, God has blessed you. Is there any greater picture of joy than that? Think about the journey she's gone on. It's the journey God wants for every one of us in this room tonight. No matter what you're going through, no matter what the state of your heart is, maybe you're bitter, maybe you're angry, maybe you're frustrated with God, maybe you're frustrated with life, maybe you're frustrated with whatever. God wants to move you from that bitterness to some hope as you begin to see his hand at work. And as you continue to look for that, he will bring a settled peace into your heart. And eventually, if you continue to let him work, you'll come to a place of absolute joy. That's the journey God wants in his providence for all of us, but it requires that we look for and submit to his providence in our lives. Let's pray together. Father, you are a great God. Only you could arrange all of these circumstances in a way that just blows our minds. And we can see it in Naomi's family and we often miss it in our own lives and in our own families. Life takes place at such a slow pace that you are in no hurry to accomplish your purpose. So Father, help us to look for the signs of your hand at work in our lives every day, even in our disappointments. Help us to especially be sensitive in our daily humdrum life. Help us to understand even our desires if we're walking with you or a sign of your providence. And help us to have the faith to leave even the decisions of others that may affect us in your hands. Bring us to that place of joy we ask in Jesus' name. Amen. God bless you.