Real rest

Ruth 1:9 says, “The LORD grant you that ye may find rest, each of you in the house of her husband. Then she kissed them; and they lifted up their voice, and wept.”

Jordan says, “That’s been one of those jokes--Naomi obviously thought for a woman to find rest was to get married. The idea that a married woman is gonna rest is kind of interesting.

“There’s a lot of things especially in the Old Testament about when people got married, what they were to do.

“A guy when he got married was supposed to take a year off from work so he could please his wife. If he had a business venture, he wasn’t to go. He couldn’t be drafted into military service for a year afterward. You say, ‘What kind of a deal is that?’ It’s the bonding of the marriage together. It isn’t just the pleasing of the wife by buying her a big house and mink coats and diamonds.

“The rest here is not that kind of a thing; it’s the shelter. It’s the provision that God provides for a wife in a marriage relationship and Israel under the law, and in the governmental system they had it was a tremendous position.

"A woman who was unmarried had to more or less fend for herself, but being married she had a covering and a provider.

“Naomi is look for rest for Ruth. If Ruth gets rest then so does Naomi and that’s the real quest. Ruth’s been a Bible-believer and she’s been one who has found shelter under the wings of the Lord God of Israel.

“One of the things the Kinsman Redeemer had an obligation to do was to redeem the lost inheritance; the property of a family. Keep it in the tribe. Another was to raise up a prosperity to a fallen brother.

“In Scripture, a threshing floor represents judgment, so what Ruth’s literally going to do is go down to the place of judgment, the threshing floor, during the time of winnowing. The harvest is over and now it’s time to separate the chafe from the wheat. That’s what the tribulation is about for Israel, by the way.

Ruth is at the threshing floor but she doesn’t find judgment. She finds love; she finds her redeemer. Hosea 2: 14-16: “Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably unto her.[15] And I will give her her vineyards from thence, and the valley of Achor for a door of hope: and she shall sing there, as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt.
[16] And it shall be at that day, saith the LORD, that thou shalt call me Ishi; and shalt call me no more Baali.”

“Where you are in the Book of Ruth picturewise is doctrinally in that day when the Lord is ready at the threshing floor to bring salvation to his people and you’re going to see it with Ruth.

“She’s going to go and find out whether Boaz really has the intention of fulfilling his potential.

“This is not an untoward kind of thing here. What Naomi has sent Ruth to do is lay a claim on Boaz as her near kinsman. The claim is two-fold: redeem the inheritance of the land and be her husband. He would redeem her and do the obligation of a husband.

Ezekiel 16:8. What Naomi told her to is go get ready to be a bride. She came to Boaz and she said, ‘’I’m not trying to make a scene here; this is just betwixt you and me, spread your skirt over me, enter into a covenant of marriage with me.’ Why? ‘Because you’re my kinsman.’

“Now that was an act of bravery but mostly an act of faith. She’s asking him just to claim her and it’s a legal claim.

“You see what Boaz had been looking for was a Bible believer too. When you read verse 10 can you just see how he’s kind of happy about what’s going on? He’s rejoicing and what he’s rejoicing in is that she wasn’t just looking for a young husband or a bunch of money.

"Now one of the obstacles between the two was Boaz was evidently much older than she was. But she wasn’t looking for a good time and a sugar-daddy. She was looking for a Bible-believer and he was too.

Zeph. 3:16. Here’s a passage we could spend rest of evening looking at. How the lord rejoices over the believing remnant in Israel in the last day.
God’s going to be thrilled and rejoicing as he sees his plan and purpose fulfilled with Israel. You remember the guy on the A-Team: I love it when a plan comes together. That’s god’s attitude.

Isa 62:5. That’s what Boaz is doing right there. He’s rejoicing over a bride.

Ruth 3:11. Notice he’s going to do all that she needs to be done. And he’s going to do it all by himself. She lay at his feet until the morning. She rested all that night at the feet of Boaz, resting in the fact he would do what needed to be done and promised to do. Now that’s where real rest is. I don’t how many nights of sleep she’d had like that before but I imagine this was a good night of sleep for her as she rested in her kinsman’s promise.