Word of Salvation – Vol.26 No.49 – September 1980

 

The Kinsman-Redeemer

 

Sermon by Rev. P. G. Van Dam on Ruth 4,9,10

Scripture Reading: Ruth 1.1-5, 19, 22; & chap.4

Psalter Hymnal: 48:1,3,5; 389; 272:1,4; 439

 

Scripture teaches us that the church is the work of the sovereign God.  In Jesus Christ it is He and He alone who builds and keeps His church.  We confess this to be true, with the words of Heidelberger Catechism Q/A 54: And He builds and keeps the church in His ways.

Indeed, in His ways, for He is the sovereign God.  And with the sovereignty of God we mean first of all that God is free.  He is free to will and to act according to His own good-pleasure.  He is not bound to anyone or to anything except to Himself.

It is by His free good pleasure only that He continues the church.  In their sinfulness His people had become unfaithful to Him.  Nevertheless, by His sovereign mercy He salvaged His church from its way of destruction.  But, indeed, let us understand this clearly always: He did this by His sovereign mercy only!

This is the message and teaching of the Word of God: that His people continue to be His people, to be His church, only on account of the sovereign purposes and mercy of their God.

True, Scripture gives us the history of God’s people.  But this does not mean that in Scripture His people are central.  They are not; their sovereign God is.  The main message and teaching of Scripture is Who God is, and what He has done in His sovereign ways and mercy.

Likewise, not man and not I are important; no matter how much the world wants to insist he is and I am.  We are not… only God is!

This sovereign purpose and these ways of our sovereign God are the message of the Book of Ruth also.  We will understand and see this more clearly if we remember that in Elimelech, his family and in Ruth we may see a picture of the Church, and in Boaz the picture of its Redeemer, Jesus Christ.

In the story of Elimelech, Naomi and their family, and later in Ruth herself, we see however briefly- the history of God’s people.  But central in the Book of Ruth is not Ruth herself (even if the Book is named after her).  Central is Boaz who salvages the name of the generation of Elimelech; Who redeems Elimelech’s generation – and as such is a picture of Christ Who salvaged the church from coming to its end in this world.

The church, and we as members of the church, live by the grace of our sovereign God only.

* * * *

The Book of Ruth begins by telling us that there was famine and hunger in the land of Israel.  It continues to explain that it is on account of this suffering that Elimelech takes his family and moves to Moab.

The question may come to our mind: well, is that decision and action of Elimelech not understandable?  Was Elimelech not justified in doing this?

The answer to these questions is, No!  In his decision Elimelech failed on two counts.  He failed his family.  But, and this was more serious yet, he also failed his Lord and failed the people of the Lord.  Let us look at both aspects, and remember that in Elimelech’s attitude we see, to some extent at least, the picture of many of our days who leave the service of the Lord because the world offers more attractions, or ‘the grass is greener on the other side of the fence’.

Yes, in his decision to escape the famine in Israel Elimelech fails his family.  Whatever his reason, the result of his move is that he takes his family away from the fellowship of the people of the Lord to whom they belong and to whose fellowship they are entitled.  He moves them away from the worship of the only true God and from the service of the Word to a land of the worship of idols.  Thus he leaves his sons no choice but to marry unbelieving Moabite women.  This is in direct conflict with the Word of the Lord Who had always forbidden such marriages.  But their disobedience really was Elimelech’s responsibility.

So it is the responsibility of those parents of the church who move, or live, too far from the church to have their children be part of the fellowship of the church.

Also, Elimelech’s attitude was an attitude of unbelief He should have remembered that Canaan was the land the Lord Himself had promised His people.  God had fulfilled that promise.  Elimelech should have understood that the Lord will always fulfil His promises to care for His people and to be their covenant God.  As a believer he should have understood the famine to be a test by God of the faithfulness of His people.  All hardships are meant to be understood as tests which the Lord uses, places on our way, to test our faith and trust in Him.  For is faith not essentially trust in our covenant God?

But, apparently, that faith and that test had been too much for Elimelech.  He believes he should take matters in his own hand.  He thinks that he is wiser.  He thinks he knows what to do.  Why should he suffer hardship if he can escape it, and make things so much easier for him and his family?  Perhaps there was in his mind the thought of saving his family from the death of starvation

However, instead of finding relief and life – or a good or better life – the end is the opposite: both he himself and his two sons die.  No, we must not ‘short-circuit’ things in our minds, and reason: well, that was God’s punishment upon Elimelech’s unfaithfulness.  What the end of Elimelech and of his two sons do show is this: that not Elimelech decides but God!

And there is that warning, rather appropriate in our days also: “Whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for Me will find it” (as Jesus speaks these words in Matt.16.25).

The end of Elimelech and of his two sons – meaning as much as the end of his generation, of his name – illustrates to us that there is no hope away from God, away from His Word and away from the fellowship of His people.  Indeed, the fellowship of the people of the Lord is necessary, too, for the lives and spiritual health of our families and children.  We are members of the body of Christ.  But once cut off, a member of the body cannot live.  No more so that any member of our physical body could live once it has been separated from the body!  (1Cor.12).  A condition which is not always understood, and met!  In the church we always find some who do not live by trust in the Lord.  We always find some for whom the hardships of the test of true membership is too much.  The test of the requirements to forgive and to sacrifice is too much, and they use a pretext for their convenience.

But even if they may seem correct or justified in their attitude and decision to move out – whatever their reason, it does not matter which – the result is that they cut themselves off from the fellowship of the Lord and from the proclamation of the living Word (which, indeed, has its power in its proclamation! 2Cor 2).  They withhold the fellowship of the people of the Lord and the service of the Word from their children.  And unless the Lord forbid, they and their children are cut off from the fellowship of the Lord as branches are cut off from the stem of a tree and wither and die.  Whatever reasons members may use for leaving the church and the service of the Word, they are never excused from the responsibility of the consequences!  They will not be excused because, deep down, they have failed the Lord.

Like Elimelech, instead of putting their trust in their covenant God Who has promised that He will never fail them, they desert Him.  Elimelech had walked out on his Lord!  And he had walked out on the people of the Lord.  Those who walk out on the Lord have failed the Lord Himself.  For He has commanded us that together we build His church (Eph.4:21,22; 1Pet 2:4,5); that we encourage one another to meet together (Heb.10:25).  It is in this way ‘of doing things together, as one body’ (John 17) that the Lord builds His church.

Too easily are we inclined to point the finger at the failures of others.  We do not realize that church membership is also very much a matter of being responsible for the well-being of the church, of being responsible for the well-being of others.  Being responsible for others works for the good of our children.

Indeed, we cannot escape the illustration of the end of Elimelech and his name.  His only two heirs also die.  It is true, though, that the name of those who leave the service and fellowship of the living God and of His people will also disappear.  The names of those who walk out on the Lord will not be preserved.

There is no life for branches who do not remain in the stem, and in that way draw from the food which the roots of the stem draw from the ground,

It always amazes me to observe how people who are not dumb do not see those very basic, very elementary, truths.  Or they believe that they can stick their heads in the sand and not face reality and somehow survive….. The Word of God is not magic; it is more real than anything else in all of life!

* * * *

Well, then, is this the end of the name of Elimelech, of his generations?  No, apparently it is not.  But why not?  How come?  Will God always make things all right for us in the end, anyway?  Is that the explanation?  No, it is not!  Nowhere do we find that reasoning, that false hope, of convenience in Scripture.  There is no hope for those who do not meet their responsibilities.  After all, God has given us a mind; in consequence He does hold us all responsible for what we do.

There can be the one explanation only to the fact that God salvages the name of Elimelech His sovereign grace: His undeserved mercy!  Elimelech’s name was salvaged after all.  No, obviously not because he had made the right decisions.  It was saved after he and his two sons had died and had left no heir!

Only Naomi was left, ruined by grief in a foreign land.  And Elimelech’s two Moabite daughters-in-law, who did not belong anywhere, really.  Because of their marriage to these ‘foreigners’ who were not so popular in Moab they had become estranged from their own people.  But neither had they come to belong to the people of their husbands.  There was no hope and no name left at all It seemed that even the piece of land which Elimelech had owned would have to be sold (4:3).

If there were to be any hope for Elimelech’s name, for Naomi and for his daughters-in-law, it could only be in the sovereign mercy and ways of the Lord.  Not that the Lord would owe any such hope to Elimelech or his family.  The sinner is never entitled to any rights with his God!  None of us is entitled to any right.  If there is to be any hope for us and for our children at all, it would have to be in God’s sovereign mercy.  We have ruined it all, by our unfaithfulness and our sinfulness when we deserted the Lord.  Indeed, any sin is an act of deserting God (whether we fail to do what He told us to do, or do what He has forbidden us to do; that makes no difference),

* * * *

Let us see now just how God did salvage Elimelech’s name and generations.  For in it the fullness of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and of our salvation in His sacrifice on the cross are revealed!

God salvaged the name of Elimelech through the provision He had made of the so-called levirate marriage.  We find the explanation of what a levirate marriage is, and how it would continue the name of a man and his family in the Word of God in Deuteronomy 25:5-10.

This provision made by God can be explained briefly as follows.  If the husband dies, his brother or else his nearest male kin should marry his widow.  The first son to be born out of this second marriage would then still be considered to be the son of the deceased husband and bear his name, “so that (we read) his name shall not be blotted out from Israel”.  We should remember that a childless marriage, or the dying out of the name of a generation, was considered to be a curse of the Lord upon that marriage or that family.  The Lord had promised that the Saviour would be born from His own people.  If a family would die out the Lord could not fulfil His promise through that family.  That would amount to the understanding that the Lord had rejected that family as no longer belonging to or as in fact not having belonged to the people whom He had promised to save.  And so we can see the significance of the provision the Lord had given in the levirate marriage.  In it we see His faithfulness to His people!  With the requirement to marry his deceased brother’s widow, was the condition that he also purchase his brother’s possessions.  In that way, then, the brother or else the next male of kin would redeem, salvage, the name and the estate of his deceased brother.  That is why, in ch.3:9 and in ch.4, he is called the kinsman-redeemer.

In chapter 4 we read how the next of kin to Elimelech’s son is willing to buy the property, but he is unwilling to marry Ruth.  He sees profit in the land, and that is his only interest.  He is not moved by love and concern for Ruth.  He is not willing to make a sacrifice for her.  He fails in his responsibilities towards Elimelech’s son, Mahlon, and his widow and to the family.

And it is true: to be a kinsman-redeemer required total unselfishness.  He would have to marry his brother’s widow but the first son who would be born out of that marriage would not bear his own name and would not be his own heir.  He would have to buy his brother’s possessions.  This is not for his own benefit or gain.  This is in order that the name and the generations of his deceased brother would continue.  There was no benefit for the kinsman-redeemer himself in this marriage to the widow of his brother.

After the next-of-kin refuses to marry Ruth, Boaz is the next in line as the nearest-of-kin to marry her.  To become the kinsman-redeemer of Elimelech’s name and family Boaz marries Ruth.  This shows the love and selflessness of Boaz.  But rather than think of Boaz’s own goodness we must think of God’s mercy for Elimelech’s family.  It is His God’s provision

In the account of the Book of Ruth we read how God, in His sovereign mercy, prevailed over Elimelech’s unfaithfulness.  No, Elimelech had not deserved this at all.  Neither may we draw the conclusion that God will automatically prevail over our failures ‘anyway’.  From each instance to the next this remains an act of His grace,

* * * *

There would have been no hope for the restoration of Elimelech’s name at all, if it had not been for the marriage of the kinsman-redeemer, Boaz, to the widow of his son.  But, as we have remembered already, Elimelech is a picture of each one of us and the church.  Haven’t we all been set in our own ways most of the times; haven’t we followed our own plans and decisions?  Haven’t we sinned against God, failed and deserted Him?  On that account, there could be no hope for the church, or for anyone of us.  (The Lord visits the iniquities of the fathers upon their children….. according to the words of the second commandment).  There would be no hope for us and for our families, if it had not been for the unselfish sacrifice of our Kinsman-Redeemer, Jesus Christ!  Indeed, in His unselfish sacrifice He bought us with His blood; He made us His bride, for that is what His church is called in Scripture.  He has safe-guarded our inheritance (Eph.1:13,14).

Yes, in his unselfish sacrifice the rich and prestigious Boaz married that poor Moabite girl.  No, this is not the happy-ending of a novel, of a romance.  For while God wants us to be happy, it is not man’s happiness which is the main teaching of Scripture, but as we saw before God’s sovereign mercy.  We must be careful not to read the Book of Ruth as a book with a main theme of romance (as is sometimes done).  It speaks to us of our Kinsman-Redeemer, Jesus Christ who is pictured here by Boaz.  In Him is our only hope.  He was not selfish.  Like Boaz, He was not concerned with His own prestige; He put that aside (Phil.2:7).  He became a friend of publicans (Matt.11:19); He ate with the hated tax-collectors and with sinners (Matt.9:10).  In the end His grave was with the wicked (Isa.53:9a).  He came for sinners.  This amazing, sovereign grace!”  “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ: that though He was rich, yet for our sake He became poor so that through His poverty we might become rich” (2Cor.8:9).

* * * *

In order to do justice to the teaching of the Word as we have it in the Book of Ruth we must close with two observations.  Both confirming that it is God and He alone and in His unsearchable ways Who builds and keeps the church.

The first observations is that behind Elimelech’s failure and falling away from the fellowship of the Lord we must – not withstanding Elimelech’s own responsibility for his failure – see the purposes of a sovereign God.

God promised to continue to be with His people throughout their generations (Genesis 7).  But that ‘rule’ (if we may call it that) is not automatic.  He shows us time and again that “not all who are descended from Israel are Israel” (Rom.9:6b).  Being a member of the church, being born in a Christian family, given the utmost care of parents, none of these are in any way a guarantee to salvation!  God is sovereign; the inheritance belongs to the children of promise (Rom.9:8).  “It does not depend on man’s desire or effort, but on God’s mercy” (9:16).

The Lord reminds us of this from time to time when one of the children of the church does not follow in His ways.  This may be very hard for the parents, yet beyond all things and all human relationships we must see the sovereign God We must not rebel when one of our children does not follow and obey Him, but – rather – rejoice that even though we all are like Elimelech the Lord in His sovereign mercy yet continues our generations, our homes, our church!  Thank Him for His love to continue His faithfulness to those of our children for whom, in spite of our failures like those of Elimelech, He has salvaged their inheritance!

* * * *

The second observation is that while it was part of God’s purposes that Elimelech fell away, God ‘brought in’ Ruth; into the covenant fellowship of His people.

As we know, not only did God continue Elimelech’s name and generations through her and her marriage with Boaz.  But Boaz and Ruth became the ancestors of our Lord Jesus Christ.

God used Elimelech’s failure to ‘bring in’ Ruth, so that in that way, through her- and not through Elimelech – the Saviour would be born!  He used Elimelech’s sin for that purpose.

This is our sovereign God!  No, we are never excused for our sins.  God will forgive us our sins if we truly repent, but the damage sin does is usually not repaired.  (A necessary distinction which some overlook; forgiveness of sin does not mean that the damage the sin did must or could now also be overlooked.)

But even though the damage of sin cannot be undone, usually, it is true that our sin cannot undo God’s purposes!  Our sins are, so to speak, worked by God into His plan.

Do you know those words of Acts 2:23 which are part of Peter’s sermon in the first official worship service of the church in the New Testament: “This man (Jesus) was handed over to you by God’s set purpose and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put Him to death by nailing Him to the cross”?  Did you hear these words “…by God’s purpose”?

In other words, God used our sins – our worst sins! – in killing the Lord, for the purpose of our salvation.

Indeed: how great Thou art, my Lord and my God.  What a comfort and hope it is for me a sinner, for my children and for the church.  Nothing can separate us from the love of God, in our Kinsman-Redeemer Jesus Christ.

He is our only hope; there is none in us.  We have ruined it all; as Elimelech sinned we sinned.  We did no better at all than he.  But in our failure – precisely in the way and on account of our failure – did God provide the Kinsman-Redeemer.

As it was with Elimelech, our hope, and the hope of our children, never is in making the right decisions (who says they are right, anyway?), or in doing the good things.  Thank God that He salvaged the church and our children by giving us and them the Kinsman-Redeemer to save us.

Amen.