Destiny in Arms Lesson 10

Destiny in Arms

Lesson 10

Ruth 4:13-22

Links that joined a chain of gold

Designed by the Master craftsman

With skillful hands

Holding three strands,

He braided Naomi, Ruth and Boaz.

A small part is all she played

But cast in a prominent role of greatness one line that would

Join the lifeline of promise

When such a time would be marked

And the moment love triumphed

Death would lose.

Before time began

History was recorded

The seed of woman

Would bring its fulfillment.

The deception of Eve

Passed through ages

Until the day

One lovely maidservant would say

“Let it be to me

according to your word.”

In faith we, too,

Recognize the grace of God

Who chose us as part of His plan

To carry the baton

To the next generation.

Links that join

The chain of purpose

To usher in the kingdom.

God’s Story

 God’s Story is different than our story. He is bringing the whole plan for all of humanity. He is bringing a legacy to Naomi. We wonder if we will have enough money for the light bill. We are not sure if or how we could ever have a legacy or if it is that important. God’s story is on a bigger and higher plane than the light bill.

While we wait, God is working.  As a people we do not know how to wait. The longer the wait, the greater the blessing. A day to God is a thousand years. When God acts he will act in the moment. He left them 10 years in Moab but when they returned to Bethlehem, they were ready to be completed. God acted in the time of harvest. When the harvest had come to completion 7X7+49 plus 1 – The one is the day it took to bring it to pass.

Today, He says is the day of salvation. This day, Today will work for the completion of harvest. We can afford to wait.  

Boaz’s Story (Kinsman Redeemer)

As a picture of Christ, he gave up everything to marry Ruth. He knew he had to appeal to the flesh of the close relative. Boaz married for love. Christ died recognized us as his bride.

The Devil came to Jesus and tried to appeal to his flesh, to his hunger, his pride of life and his eyes. Luke 4. Jesus did not act in the flesh but in the spirit and came to redeem His bride who was lost from before the beginning of time. Now Boaz is counting on the flesh of the man to refuse his offer. A paradox and yet the perfect story for all mankind.

Naomi’s Story

She felt responsible for bringing Ruth to her country. She felt it was her obligation to do something.  Was it her obligation?

Ruth’s Story

Ruth knew this country was better than hers. She had lived in luxury and the brutality of man and the god of Chemosh who had no feelings. She understood that Naomi’s God did not change and his laws were for the people’s protection and benefit.  

Principles and Relationships:

1. Every day we are closer to the end of our story. Are we beginning to see the whole story around our lives?

2. Are we willing to wait for the right answer?

3.     Do we understand due process? Every day counts to get us to our day.

4.     God chose the right man to do the job. Do we believe that God chose the right man for our husband?

5.     Can we trust God for whatever decision our husbands make? Even if it seems wrong to us?

The Cameo – The Story.

“Peloni almoni,” Boaz said as he approached the gate.  Boaz had been talking about the closer relative. He knew he was helter-skelter and he was counting on Peloni almoni to make the decision according to his own benefit.

The closer relative had always been caught up in the pleasure of the season and the current market for opportunity.

The more Boaz had talked to Ruth that very night, the more his heart yearned to marry Ruth. Love had captured his heart. He knew he would be giving up his name sake and his land to another man’s memory and name, but he didn’t care.

Just to have and hold Ruth would warm his bed at night. Boaz lost his wife many years before and the night Ruth lay at his feet, he was jolted into remembering how it felt to have the touch of a helpmate, a wife who cared for him.

Boaz continued to think of how he would redeem Ruth and Naomi. He needed to appeal to the relative’s flesh: the pride of life, the lust of the eyes. He would present the land first for buying and he knew he would accept that offer. But then he would bring up the Moabite’s name. He agonized in the garden of his own soul for the outcome. 

Five hundred years before, Lot, Ruth’s forefather, chose the green and beautiful plains of the Jordan, leaving the rest to Abraham.  Lot had chosen the well water lands of the Jordan, now he was counting on the relative to deny Ruth for the same choice.  The lust of the eyes and the pride of life would be bigger than he was.

If the close relative gave away his name and seeds and land, he would not have anything to show for all he had worked for.

The relative would lose everything to Naomi’s name. He was also married. Boaz couldn’t wait until he reached the gate where the leaders of Jerusalem ruled the city.

Ten in count awaited for the two men. Ten being the number of completion, two being the difference of a man of spirit and a man of flesh.

If he was to marry Ruth and if they had a child, Ruth’s child would inherit everything leaving his own children out of the picture.

So it happened, Boaz and Ruth married and a child was born for Naomi.

Chapter Ten – Workbook

Destiny in Arms

1.     According to Isaiah 43: and John 10:1-3, how are we called?

2.     Read John 20:10-18. At what point did Mary finally recognize Jesus after His resurrection?

3.     We all have a name and history. When Jesus vowed to redeem us, bless us, do er really believe He would take all of us?

4.     Boaz married Ruth out of a selfless act. Boaz realized that the first child born to Ruth and Boaz would own Elimilech’s family property and keep him and his sons alive in association with it.

Does Jesus redeem everything we have gone through and brings to our own name honor?  How does our flesh profit in all of this?

5.     Ruth’s marriage to Mahlon represents a fleshly marriage. Yet by Boaz marrying Ruth, he brought honor to Mahlon. How does that work in our lives?

6. Look at Tamar’s story in Gen 38. What did it say about Perez and his unique birth 38:8:27-30? How does it line up with Ruth’s story?

7. Look at Rachel and Leah in Gen 29:14-20:24. Ruth was playing a part in the society and legacy of Rachel and Leah.

1.     Look at Judah in Tamar’s story. Judah was the father of the tribe of Judah from which both Elimilech and Boaz descended. Judah had a son named Perez by a woman named Tamar, who played an important part in the line of Judah.

2.     The pay-off –Ruth ascended from a Moabite, to a stranger and foreigner to Boaz’s wife and an Israelite. Have we also come from who knows who to becoming the wife of Christ, the Son of God?

3.      A gentile is one who has turned to a pagan god and is turned away from God. When did Ruth became an Israelite?

4.      Now the off spring of Ruth carries the Seed of David to sit on the throne. Now as united to Jesus, we produce in our witness the off-spring of many for the glory of Jesus.

12. Our legacy? Proverbs 17:6 says that grandchildren are the crown of grandparents that parents are the glory of their children. What do we live for? It will tell in our hearts.  

Head and Heart - Lesson 9

Head and Heart

Lesson 9

Ruth 4:1-10

Rules of right and wrong

Etched in stone

Ten elders stood as judge.

Two kinsmen of choice

One of head

One of heart

The first counted loss

The second gain

The first could not give

The second must give.

Shortsighted and temporal,

He held his eyes

The second,

Eternity held his heart.

Different motives

Divided their fate

Head of stone, heart of flesh

The higher law is love.

God’s Story

Boaz calls into judgment the next kinsman. God, as the shepherd of this earth, brings to remembrance John 10:11 – “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep. But a hireling, he who is not the shepherd, one who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees; and the wolf catches the sheep and scatters them. The hireling flees because he is a hireling and does not care about the sheep.

Before the foundation of the world, the lamb was slain. God bought back the earth before the fall. He answered before anyone called. God’s story covers the universe. “The heavens are not pure,” Job says.

God’s story encompasses everything above the earth, under the earth and on the earth. God’s answer comes through His people Israel and the seed of Abraham.

The near kinsman is the fallen man, the one who was given the land, by default lost it to the evil one. The fallen man still operates in the nature of the evil one, who he gave over all in the garden.

The fallen man is the one who robs us today. He is the hireling. He wants all that appeases his flesh who has come under the domain of Satan.

The near kinsman, our flesh, must be subdued by love. It is God’s love which has bought us back.

Jesus lays down his flesh, but takes back to heaven in resurrection power, the title of The Son of Man, who sits on the throne of the universe and will reign and co-reign with redeemed man. Flesh and blood can not enter into heaven, but the Son of Man entered and took the title to the throne of God.

Boaz’s Story

Boaz, as the kinsman redeemer, had to put his own flesh down for the betterment of the Seed for Elimelech. He understood the law of Israel, He was a very wealthy man, a man of authority and power but willing to mediate for Ruth and Naomi and use his wealth for them.

Ruth’s Story

Ruth, as the church, as the resurrected church comes into place out of her faith and obedience. She enters into God’s story by the way of her faith in Naomi’s God and people.

In the Gate

The Law sat inside the gate. They were the ten men of the elders of the city.

They became witnesses to the decision between Boaz and the near kinsman.

Who becomes the witnesses and the influence in the gate of the Christian?

Nearest Kinsman

In the day you purchase the land from the hand of Naomi, you will also acquire Ruth, the Moabitess, the wife of the dead, etc.

“I can not”. The Targum seems to give the proper sense of this passage: ‘I cannot redeem it, because I have a wife already; and it is not fit for me to bring another into my house; lest brawling and contention arises in it; and lest I hurt my own inheritance.

The near kinsman was not a brother, but a relative, a kinsman; and the shoe was not pulled off by Ruth, but by the kinsman himself. The Targumist, instead of his shoe, renders his right hand glove, it probably being the custom, in his time, to give that instead of a shoe. De 25:7-10

The witnesses Gen 23:16-18, Je 32:10-12, Is 8:2,8 Mal 2:14, He 13:4

Principles of Relationships

In any relationship there is more than meets the eye. There will always be influence for the people around that relationship.

1.     Do we understand the power of a relationship?

2.     Do we understand any relationship is bigger than the two involved?

3.     How does two people stay in closer relationship?

4.     What happens when we disobey what the Word says?

5.     Is the nearest kinsman always talking to us?

6.     What is he saying?

7.     How can we trust Jesus’ words?

The golden chain: the gate: De. 16:18; 17:5; 21:19; 25:7, Job 29:7, 31:21; Amos 5:10-12, 15. The kinsman 3:12 Is 55:1, Zec 2:6. The elders Ex 18:21,22; 21:8. De 29:10:31, 1King 21:8. Pr. 31:23. La 5:14. Ac 6:12

The Story – The Cameo

Ruth wept. She had not expected such kindness. As Ruth turned her head, her chin quivered as Boaz moved his hand cupping her face in his hands. Holding her, he leaned down and kissed her. A kiss that drained all the resistance from her, leaving her weak and helpless.

“Boaz,” Ruth whispered.

Boaz held her close for a long time, and then he took his garment, laying it over Ruth, he told her to lay down until sunlight. “Will you marry me, my love.”

“Yes, I will.”

   

As Boaz and Ruth talked, Boaz was more determined to do whatever it took to redeem Ruth and Naomi. He understood the ramifications, but his heart led.

Boaz was determined not to lose this opportunity. “There is someone standing between you and me, it is Naomi’s closest relative. I must go to the gate of the city tomorrow and before witnesses I will approach your near kinsman. I will not rest until I have found an answer for us.”

“No matter what he asks for, are you willing to pay it?”

“Whatever he ask I will pay,” Boaz reassured Ruth.

Boaz drove a hard bargain. By the end, the kinsman reclined to his life, his wife, children and land with a handsome price. He gloated in the bargain. He gladly took the money before the witnesses and took off his shoe to seal the agreement.

“And all the people who were at the gate, and the elders, said, make the woman who is coming to your house like Rachel and Leah, the two who built the house of Israel; and may you prosper in Ephrathah and be famous in Bethlehem. May your house be like the house of Perez whom Tamar bore to Judah, because of the offspring which the Lord will give you from this young woman.”

Boaz hurried as he entered the field. “Ruth, come quickly.” Boaz pulled Ruth aside outside of the ears of the reapers. “Let’s go to Naomi. I have word for her.”

“Boaz, what did they say? What is our outcome?”

“When we see Naomi, then I will make it known what has been determined. It is Naomi’s field which I had to purchase from the other man.”

Entering the little house, Naomi was on her knees praying. “Naomi, Boaz has word for us.”

Boaz took Ruth into his arms and said, “I would like to marry Ruth. We will give you an heir for Elimelech.” The three of them wept.

Workbook Lesson 9

Head and Heart

1.     Why was it important for this relationship to happen?

2.     Do you understand how important your marriage is also? You are not carrying the Christ Child, but you are carrying Christ.

3.     What can we learn from this?