Sermon Tone Analysis

Have you never been in a near vehicle accident?

A close call that almost wrecked you, but you just narrowly escaped?

I remember one time driving home late on a Wednesday night from church.

Do this day I don’t know entirely what happened, but I’m driving on the interstate and I see the car in front me suddenly veer to the left.

I hear screeching tires, I see sparks fly.

I quickly turned the steering wheel to rapidly change lanes and go half way into the shoulder.

My mirror and side of my car scrape along the side of the other vehicle, but I make it through without any additional damage.

I pulled over and looked behind me and there were multiple vehicles involved in an accident that I narrowly escaped with the most minor of cosmetic damage imaginable.

Or another time.

This was another Wednesday night, except this time I was excessively tired.

I fell asleep driving.

I drifted into the rumble strip in the shoulder and it woke me up.

When I opened my eyes and realized what was going on, I saw tail lights immediately in front of me, headlights immediately behind me in my rear view mirror, and with a quick glance to my left I discovered another vehicle immediately to my left.

If I had drifted any other direction, I would have been in an accident.

I pulled off at the next exit and got myself a large Dr Pepper to help keep me alive for the rest of the drive home.

Have you had experiences like that?

Do you thank God for His protection in the moment?

I hope you do!

But why? Have you ever stopped to think about what you are thanking God for?

The tiniest muscle movements saved me in the first scenario.

The rumble strip and happening to drift to the right saved me in the second.

I’m thanking God for his overall provision such that he orchestrated all the events of those days to preserve my life.

Providence.

His care for his children.

Providence has been defined by one theologian this way: It is God’s purposeful and intentional sovereignty over the details of your life such that He accomplishes His good purposes through them.

This is what we see playing out in the Life of Naomi, Ruth, and Boaz in the book of Ruth.

God’s purposes being accomplished through his providence over their lives.

If you haven’t turned to Ruth, I invite you to turn there now.

If I may remind us where we’ve been prior to this.

During the time of the Judges, there was a famine in the land that drove the family of Elimelech and Naomi into the land of Moab in search of food.

Not only did they find food, but they found wives for their two sons.

However, in the providence of God, all the men of the family die, leaving Naomi, Orpah, and Ruth all widows.

After some time Naomi hears a report that God has blessed Israel with good crops once again, and she determines that it is time to return home.

She bids her daughters-in-law to remain in Moab and seek out spouses among their people.

Orpah, through tears, agrees and returns.

Ruth, however, refuses.

She confesses Yahweh as the one true God and commits to remaining with her mother-in-law for the rest of her days.

And so the two of them return to the land of Israel together.

When they arrive there are many who are amazed to see her. “Is this Naomi?” the people inquire.

Hearing this, Naomi says don’t call me that.

Naomi means pleasant.

My life has been anything but.

Call me Mara, for the Lord has death bitterly with me.

I went away full and I returned empty.

We noted how Ruth sees God’s providence in these events…but she views it as being against her.

She doesn’t have a vision for what God is going to do, and she seems to fail to see the good that Ruth is to her.

Though she can’t see it yet, she will eventually begin to see how God’s providence works for the good of His children.

Last week time we talked about the concept of God’s providence being at work even though pain.

Today, let us consider how God’s providence is at work through the mundane.

Our story continue to develop.

Our chapter opens up with a statement about Boaz, indicating for us that this section is to highlight him and his character.

He is called a worthy man in the ESV.

That word is an interesting word.

In most places that it is used to speaks of a mighty man, often of a great warrior.

Some translations translate it with the idea of wealth.

A mighty man of wealth is what the KJV, NKJV, and NASB all translate this as a way to communicate that he had great wealth.

The CSB and NIV seem to take the idea as communicating that he had influence in the community and say he was a prominent man, or a man of standing.

However we understand this word, the idea that is being communicated is that this was not just an ordinary man.

There was some level of substance to him.

He is mighty in deed, mighty in wealth, and, as we shall see, he is mighty in character.

With that editorial comment, the narrator resumes telling the story, and verse two explains that Ruth intends to go out into the fields to glean grain so that Naomi and Ruth would have food to eat.

So what’s going on with that?

Ruth and Naomi are both widows.

They don’t have husbands, and are thus considered among the most vulnerable of society.

God created men to provide and protect, and these women are left without both of those things.

A common way that those who were destitute would get the food they needed to survive was to glean in the fields.

When the harvesters would go into the field to collect the fruit of their labors, it was common that some of the grain, would fall by the wayside, simply because it happens.

100% efficiency simply isn’t possible.

When you cut the stalks of wheat and pick it up to bring it into the storehouse, some would fall by the wayside by accident.

Those who had no other means of supporting themselves would then go out into the harvested fields and collect the bits that had fallen.

When I was in electrical work I would see this in a different way.

The electricians would do the best they could to pick up the larger pieces of scrap wire, but some would always be left behind.

It was not uncommon that scrappers would come in behind us and pick up all the smaller pieces that they could get their hands on to in order recycle it for cash.

That’s kind of the idea.

Such as is common to human nature, there would be some farmers who would seek to pick up all the gleanings themselves in order to get closer to 100% efficiency.

However, there were provisions in the Law of Moses that forbade farmers from picking up the gleaning themselves, but rather leave them for the poor.

It was an intentional way that the people could farm and provide for their own families, but also look out for their destitute brothers and sisters.

Not as a handout!

but rather to give them an opportunity to work for their food.

Thus no one was expected to go without, and no was expected to be lazy.

Nevertheless, if you are a gleaner, this reflects on your situation.

Gleaners are poor.

Gleaners don’t have a lot going for them.

Ruth and Naomi were in a situation where the only means of supporting themselves was through gleaning.

But it’s a start!

So Ruth is sent out to glean.

God’s providence is immediately seen a she sets out to be a faithful and dutiful daughter-in-law to Naomi.

Look at verse 3:

Literally in the Hebrew the phrase is “she happened to happen”

Now, we all know that there really are no such thing as coincidences.

Ruth didn’t just happen to arrive at Boaz’s field, out of all the fields of Israel, this is the one she just by dumb blind luck happened to enter.

This was a divine orchestration and it seems the narrator is using this phrase with a wink and nod “she just happened to happen upon this field”

We all often use phrases to speak of what seem to be chance events.

“Look I found a dollar bill on the ground, how lucky!” “I am fortunate enough to have the family I have” etc.

I have a friend who always calls me on that kind of language.

He’ll say things like “oh, I didn’t realize that you believed in fortune you pagan” “oh, I didn’t know we were being godless today”.

So then I’ll rephrase it “how providential was it that I found this dollar”

Because the biblical reality is that God’s providence is over all and even the dice rolls are overseen by his providential eye.

Ruth didn’t merely happen across this field.

She was providentially directed there by almighty God who would use these events to bring about not just the the godly King Israel needed historically, but the Messiah who will one day rule over all.