Judges & Ruth
Peace be with you, listening
friends. We greet you in the name of God, the Lord of peace, who wants everyone
to understand and submit to the way of righteousness that He has established,
and have true peace with Him forever. We are happy to be able to return today
to present your program The Way of Righteousness.
Today, in the last half of our program, we plan to
look at a touching "love story" recorded in the
Holy Scriptures-so don't go away! In our last program we saw how Joshua the
servant of Moses led the Israelites into Canaan. We read how God went before
Joshua and the Israelites to expel their enemies and bring them into the
abundant land of Canaan, just as He had promised their ancestor Abraham long
beforehand. Today we plan to look at the two holy books which follow the book
of Joshua. They are the books of Judges and Ruth. These two books show
us what happened between the time of the prophet
Joshua and
the time of the prophet David.
Before we get into the book of Judges, we should read
the message Joshua entrusted to the Israelites before he died. In the last
chapter of the book of Joshua, Joshua met with all the leaders of the
Israelites to warn them and encourage them to love and obey the Lord their God
who had freed them from Egypt and given them the beautiful land in which they
were now living. In His last speech to them, Joshua said to them,
"If serving the
Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom
you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers served beyond the River, or
the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me
and my household, we will serve the Lord." Then the multitude of the
Israelites answered Joshua saying, "We too will serve the Lord, because He
is our God!" (Josh. 24:15,18)
Now let's look at what really happened. In Judges,
chapter two, the Scripture says:
(Judg. 2) 7The
people served the Lord throughout the lifetime of Joshua and of the
elders who outlived him and who had seen all the great things the Lord had done
for Israel. 8Joshua…the servant of the Lord, died at the age of
a hundred and ten. 9And they buried him…in the hill country of
Ephraim. 10After that whole generation had been gathered to
their fathers, another generation grew up, who knew neither the Lord nor what
he had done for Israel. 11Then the Israelites did evil in
the eyes of the Lord and served the Baals. 12They
forsook the Lord, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of Egypt.
They followed and worshiped various gods of the peoples around them. They
provoked the Lord to anger 13because they forsook him and
served Baal.
Thus, the Israelites forgot the Lord their God, turned
their back on Him, and began to follow the religions of the
nations around them.
However, those nations did not know the true God and did not have His Word.
They worshiped Baal. Baal was an idol which the people of Canaan claimed was
God. They made for themselves images which were representations of Baal and
worshiped them. The nations who gave praise to Baal thought
they were worshiping God. But in reality, they were worshiping their own
desires and Satan; however they did not know it because Satan had deceived
them. Satan also deceived many Israelites, which was why they turned from the
Lord God and began to worship Baal as the nations around them did.
Thus we see how most of the Israelites turned their
back on the way which God had established, which was the way of the Law of
Moses and the animal sacrifice on the altar to cover sin. Instead of following
God's way of righteousness, they followed a false way, that is, the way of the
religion of Baal. The first commandment of the Ten Commandments which God spoke
to Moses on Mount Sinai, says:
"You shall have no
other gods before me…for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the
children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those
who hate me, but showing love to a thousand [generations] of those who love me
and keep my commandments." (Exod. 20:3,5,6)
But most of the Israelites did not honor the Lord God,
which is why God punished them.
Continuing in chapter two of the book of Judges, the
Scripture says:
(Judg. 2) 11Then the
Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord and served the
Baals… 14In his anger against Israel the Lord handed
them over to raiders who plundered them. He sold them to their enemies
all around, whom they were no longer able to resist. 15Whenever
Israel went out to fight, the hand of the Lord was against them to defeat them,
just as he had sworn to them. They were in great distress.
Thus, the book of Judges recounts how the Israelites
hardened their hearts and turned from the Lord, again and again. That is why
God handed them over to their enemies time after time, to punish them, so that
they would acknowledge their sin and repent and be saved from destruction.
Every time the Israelites truly repented, God raised up for them leaders
(judges) to save them from their enemies. We would like to tell you about such
heroes as Gideon who defeated a huge, powerful army with just three hundred
men, or about Samson who singlehandedly overcame a thousand soldiers, but time
does not allow us to do so. Perhaps you will read their fascinating stories for
yourselves in the book of Judges.
In summary, the book of Judges shows us that each time
the Israelites strayed from God and His Word, the Lord would punish them so
that they would turn from their sin and return to Him. When they repented, God
would provide for them a leader to rescue them from their enemies. That is the
story of the book of Judges in brief.
Yes, the Israelites transgressed against God again and
again. But could their unfaithfulness hinder God's faithfulness? Never! Truly,
God punished every individual who sinned, but He preserved the nation of Israel
as a whole, because God could not forget what He had promised Abraham long
beforehand when He said to him, "All peoples on earth will
be blessed through your offspring." God planned to make of
Abraham's descendants a nation which would bring to the earth the
Savior of the world.
Nothing could hinder God's wonderful design: not the sin of the Israelites, not
Pharaoh, not the people of Egypt, not the people of Canaan, not a false
religion like that of Baal, not even Satan himself. Nothing
could hinder God's plan to send down the Savior of the world through the nation
of Israel!
Now, we must look at the short book that follows the
book of Judges: the book of Ruth. The story of this book
is a marvelous story. It is like a lovely flower growing in the midst of a
smelly garbage dump, because it tells the story of a
woman who loved God in the midst of a crooked and depraved generation.
We cannot read to you the whole book of Ruth today,
but we can summarize it for you. What you must first know is that Ruth was a widow and that she
did not belong to the nation of Israel. She belonged to the people of Moab and lived in the land of
Moab, which was situated south of the land of Israel. Also, you should know
that the people of Moab were idolaters and despised both the God of Israel and
the Israelites.
Ruth belonged to the nation of Moab, but this did not
cause her to despise the God of Israel. No, in fact, Ruth
believed in the God of Israel with all her heart. Ruth had heard how the
Lord God had performed awesome miracles in delivering the multitude of Israel
from the hands of the Egyptians. Also, Ruth had heard the reliable words which
the prophet Moses had written in the Torah concerning the way of salvation
which God had established. Ruth believed in the Lord with all her heart, and
accepted the message that He sent down to the Israelites.
So then, what we must observe concerning Ruth is this:
she lived in Moab among idolaters. Ruth's parents were idolaters. And Ruth was
born into their religion. But now Ruth no longer
believed the religion of her father. The God of Israel was the One in whom
Ruth believed. Thus we see that Ruth had a choice to make and it was not easy!
Should Ruth remain in her father's house, continue in her father's religion and
marry a man who did not know the God of Israel? Or should she turn her back on
her father's house and religion and move to Israel? That is the difficult
choice that Ruth had to make!
Before we find out which path Ruth chose, you should
also know that Ruth had a sister-in-law named Orpah. Like Ruth, Orpah also
knew about the God of Israel. Thus, Ruth's sister-in-law also had
to choose between
continuing in the religion of her father or following the Lord God of Abraham,
Isaac and Jacob.
Which path did Ruth and Orpah chose? Orpah chose the
easier path,
that is, to remain in her father's house and marry a man who shared her
father's religion. But Ruth chose the difficult
path,
that is, to leave her father's house and move to the land of Israel. Ruth knew
that no one can worship two gods. One could not mix worshiping the God of
Israel and worshiping the idols of Moab. That is why Ruth turned her back on
her father's religion. Ruth decided, it is better to
obey God than to obey man. Ruth was willing to be misunderstood by
her family and friends in order to follow the true and living God. As the
Wolofs say, "Whoever wants honey must brave the bees." Thus Ruth left
her father's house, and moved to the land of Israel, to a small town called Bethlehem.
Now a man lived in Bethlehem whose name was Boaz. Boaz was the
son of Rahab,
the woman who escaped from the disaster which fell on the city of Jericho (as
we saw in our last lesson). Boaz was a righteous man, and greatly treasured the
Word of God. Boaz also had riches and many fields of grain, but he did not yet
have a wife.
The Scriptures recount how Ruth, who now lived in the
city of Bethlehem, had the habit of leaving early in the morning every day to
go to the fields to gather (glean) the barley {Wolof: millet} which the harvesters
had dropped. Ruth was a poor peasant and according to the law which God gave
Moses for the Israelites, the poor were allowed to glean in this way, so that
they might not go hungry. Thus the Scriptures tell us how God led Ruth to go
and glean in the field of Boaz, the son of Rahab.
Boaz noticed Ruth gleaning in his field and spoke with
her. Boaz quickly recognized the beauty of Ruth's character. Boaz was a
righteous man and saw that Ruth was a virtuous woman. Can you guess what
happened? It isn't too hard to figure out! Yes, Boaz and Ruth fell
in love with
each other and eventually got married. Ruth put God and His Word first in her
life and God blessed her for it. Thus, the Scripture says: Boaz and Ruth had a
son named Obed. Obed became the father
of Jesse, and Jesse became the father of David who became the great
king of the nation of Israel, and the prophet who wrote many of the Psalms. And from David's
offspring the Redeemer arose, that is, the
Savior of the world, of whom all the prophets prophesied.
Thus we see today how God worked in the life of Ruth,
a woman who was not of the nation of Israel. While
the Israelites turned their backs on the Lord their God to follow the religions
of the surrounding nations, Ruth turned her back on the religion of her father
to follow the God of Israel! Thus, God led Ruth to
live in Bethlehem to marry Boaz, and to become the great-grandmother of David,
king of Israel. In all of this, we can see how God was moving forward with His
plan to bringthe Redeemer into the world, because
it was from the descendants of David and in
the town of Bethlehem that the Savior of the world was destined to be born.
This is where we must stop. Next time, God willing, we
will get into the book that recounts the life of the prophet David who was born
in Bethlehem and descended from Ruth and Boaz. Today we bid you farewell with a
question: Who are you most like? Are you more like Orpah,
Ruth's sister-in-law, who chose the easy path? Or are you like
courageous Ruth, who turned her back on her father's religion to follow the
One true God?
Thank you for listening.…God bless you as you remember
what the prophet Joshua told the Israelites before he died:
"Choose for
yourselves this day whom you will serve…As for me and my household, we will
serve the Lord!" (Josh. 24:15)
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