April 18, 2025 - Ruth 3:1 - "Pointing Needy Sinners to Christ"

Ruth 3:1

"Then Naomi her mother-in-law said unto her, My daughter, shall I not seek rest for thee, that it may be well with thee?"

This chapter presupposes both a knowledge of, and a relationship with, Boaz—at least as far as Naomi was concerned. Legally, Boaz was that near kinsman to Naomi and Elimelech; that relationship had already been established. However, you can imagine Ruth, being a foreigner from the condemned country of Moab, wondering what her lot would be. Yet Ruth had already made this confession: "Whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God" (Ruth 1:16). Still, as with any of us, we have wondered from time to time: How do we know that, in coming to Christ, He will receive us? How do we know whether God will be favorable and merciful to us, who are estranged sinners from Him?

That begs the question, also, how are we to speak to others without giving them false hope? Jeremiah 6:14 speaks of many false prophets going around Jerusalem and saying, "Peace, peace, when there was no peace." Our landscape is full of such false witnesses. People are hell bound in condemnation, believing the word of false preachers, basing their entire profession for eternity on what that preacher tells them. We don't want to give people false hope, and yet, we don't want to withhold hope from those in whom the Spirit of God is working and is indeed drawing to Christ. When people ask, we tell them where the only Rest for the soul is found. No message will comfort the heart of a needy, hungry, thirsty sinner than the Truth as it is in Christ as the only Hope and Surety for His people. Naomi said, "shall I not seek rest for thee that it may be well with thee?"

Boaz was a type of the Lord Jesus Christ. Where do we point needy sinners? To Christ. And in essence, Naomi is saying there's only One that can deliver you. There's only One in Whom true redemption is found. And yet Naomi, could not presume that the LORD would be merciful to Ruth, knowing that she was a Moabitess. She knew that, legally, she had no right to an inheritance in Israel. That had already been established in the law. Moab was a cursed nation. "An Ammonite or Moabite shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD; even to their tenth generation shall they not enter into the congregation of the LORD forever," (Deuteronomy 23:3).

The Spirit of the Lord directed Naomi with these words to include Ruth, even though she was not of the commonwealth of Israel, yet Naomi was directed of the Spirit to identify with her and say, "Is not Boaz of our kindred?" This is a prophecy of the type of people that the Lord has purposed to save, Jew and Gentile (such as Ruth), bond or free. And it's not based on any merit of our own.

Why did Naomi need to seek rest for Ruth and her? Because the matter had not yet been settled legally. When she was directed to Boaz's field, it was fine to be there with the other maidens, and enjoy the kindness of Boaz in providing cuttings from the field according to the law (Leviticus 23:22). But unless Boaz took her case, unless he satisfied the law for her, she could live under his kindness, as many do under the mercies of God, but such mercy is not grace. God's mercies are over all His creatures (Psalm 145:9), but His Grace is reserved for elected sinners in Christ alone (Ephesians 2:8). Anything this side of hell is a mercy, and many benefit from God's temporal mercies who die estranged from God, as would have Ruth, had she not been an object of God's Grace, one whom God purposed should be of the lineage of Christ through Boaz, and one for whom Christ would pay her sin debt (Matthew 1:5).

So this was the burden that Naomi had for Ruth. It's the same burden the Apostle Paul demonstrated concerning those who were his kinsmen in the flesh. "Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they might be saved" (Romans 10:1).  What an offense, in referring to his Jewish kinsman as being unsaved and praying for their salvation. He's not referring to pagan Israelites but those who counted themselves as children of God already based on their heritage. Try telling religious zealots today that, you are praying that God would save them, and they will answer you as they did the LORD Jesus in His day: "We be not born of fornication; we have one Father, even God" (John 8:41)

Without the Spirit of God, religious sinners would rather die in their self-righteous blindness than to renounce themselves as lost and in need of Christ. Were you to say of them as Paul did, "My heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they might be saved," their response would be, "Oh, so you don't think I'm saved?" Or "Do you think you're the only one that's saved?" Or, "So you think I'm lost?" When the Lord has taught us, and we see loved ones and acquaintances still following down this path of religion, even though they carry their Bibles, and may hold to the Word of God as inspired with a firm grip, like birds gripping the telephone wire, yet ignorant of the message passing through it. They believe that the Bible is God's Word and yet are clueless as to the God of the Bible, and the salvation that is entirely by Him through the Person and work of the LORD Jesus.

Whether it is a popular preacher that everybody loves, and the parking lot is packed or not, if it's not the message of Christ and Him crucified alone, they are perishing. Until or unless the Lord is pleased to deliver them from their spiritual darkness, they will never renounce their false way. But when the Lord is pleased to deliver out His elect, they'll be like Ruth, separated from all of their upbringing, background, and idolatry to follow after this One.

Some preachers are quick to call hearers fools, bearing down on them for being blind, and not seeing as clearly as they pretend to see. However, that is not how those taught of the LORD deal with others still in darkness. The tenderness with which even Naomi pointed Ruth to Boaz is expressive of how those taught of Christ will point others to Him. Consider how tenderly Paul expresses his heart's desire. My heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel, that religious generation, is that they might be saved. And yet he speaks the Truth in love: "For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, not according to knowledge. For they being ignorant of God's righteousness and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God" (Romans 10:2,3).