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by GLENN PEASE
04/24/18
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Based on Ruth 1:1-18

      What woman do you know who has had a thousand men propose to her from fisherman to millionaires; from the penniless on the bowry to the prince of a royal European family? And who was still getting regular proposals after she was 70 years old? There was such a woman, and her name was Evangeline Booth. She was the first woman to be the general of the Salvation Army. She was a very unique and extraordinary woman. At the age of 63 she swan across Lake George in 4 hours. At age 70 she broke a wild horse that the owner was afraid to ride. There is much literature on this woman, for she was not one in a million, but one in a billion.

     When gold was discovered in Alaska before the turn of the century, masses of men rushed to the Yukon. She knew the Salvation Army would be needed there, and so with a few trained nurses she was on her way. All the talk when she arrived was about "Soopy Smith" the killer of the Klondike. Soopy and his gang would ambush minors coming back from the gold fields, shoot them down, and take their gold. The U. S. government sent a posse after him, but he shot them all and escaped. It was not a nice place for a lady. Five men were killed the day Evangeline arrived.

     That night she held a meeting on the banks of the Yukon River. She preached to 25 thousand men, and got them all singing songs they had heard their mothers sing, such as, Jesus, Lover Of My Soul, and Nearer My God To Thee. They sang until one in the morning. When it was over, and they sat around the camp fire to keep warm, five men with guns approached her. One said, "I'm Soopy Smith, and I've come to tell you how much I enjoyed your singing." Evangeline talked with Soopy in the white light of the midnight sun for 3 hours. He admitted he use to attend the Salvation Army with his grandmother and sing these songs.

     Evangeline finally asked him to kneel with her, and the most notorious bandit that ever terrorized the North got down on his knees and prayed and wept, and vowed to stop killing, and give himself up. This kind of thing does not happen to just ordinary women. This is rare and unique, and way beyond the ordinary. Her life and gifts are the kind that keep Hollywood going, and which sell books and magazines, for her life is filled with thoughts and actions which are spectacular and amazing.

     There are only two books in the Bible named after women. One of them is Esther, and she was in this category of extraordinary. She was a dazzling beauty, and she played a role in history that was public and spectacular, and she saved the lives of thousands of people. Hers too was a movie type life. But the other book of the Bible named after a woman is Ruth, and what a radical difference. Ruth was as ordinary as they come. Apart from a few words of beautiful commitment to follow Naomi, and a part from being a hard worker in the fields, she never did anything, or said anything spectacular. She is not described as being beautiful or brilliant. There is no great event of which she was a part. There is no great influence she had on her day that is recorded. She had no outstanding gift that ministered to people.

     Ruth was just one of the vast majority of the human race of ordinary people. She lived in the time of the judges, but she was not Deborah leading the people of Israel to victory over her enemies. Boaz, the leading man in this story, was also no Gideon or Samson, doing wonders as a military genius or man of strength. Everybody in this book is ordinary. Obed, the baby who gives the book a happy ending, does not grow up to do anything of significance that we know of. There are no great battles, no miracles, and no profound theological statements in this book. Not one person in this book would have ever escaped from under the blanket of obscurity that covers over most of human history had this book not been written. Yet these ordinary people are the people we see in the genealogy of the Messiah. The judges, who were very gifted people, who made the headlines of their day, are not the people in the blood line to the Messiah. What is God trying to tell us by this? I think He is simply revealing-

I. THE IMPORTANCE OF THE ORDINARY.

     We have a tendency to think that history revolves around great events, and that to understand history we need to know the decisive battles of history. I think this way myself, and love to study the great battles and learn about the famous leaders in these events. We cannot dismiss them as insignificant, but we can recognize that they represent only a small part of history. It is the part that easiest to report and make interesting. The vast majority of history, however, is being made by ordinary people as they struggle with problems, and either give up, or press on in faith.

     Who cares about a couple of down and out widows in an obscure country trying to figure out how to survive, and find love and purpose in their lives. This is not material for the historians. They are looking at the generals and heroes, and the people who are making the decisive decisions of the day. This is what history is to men, but the book of Ruth tells us what history is to God. It is also the story of ordinary people, and He does care about this stuff that would not even make the back page of the newspaper. Maurice Samuel, the great Jewish author of our century, said of this book of Ruth, "It reminds us that life went on--the weaving of the creative side of life which lies in these daily domestic episodes, and not in the battles and in the ambitions of generals and princes. In the book of Ruth we have this reminder of the continuity of normal, good, loving people, even in the midst of very dreadful and destructive circumstances and events."

     When Samson is out bashing in the skulls of a thousand Philistines, we think that is where the action is, and that is what God considers to be the important event of the day, but in reality, the real decisive event may be a weeping widow resolving to start life anew. The evidence indicated that Naomi's decision and Ruth's commitment to follow her played a far greater role in God's plan than any of the great battles that were raging all around them in the days of the judges. It would seem that the very purpose for the book of Ruth is to teach us the importance of the ordinary.

     How sad it would be to think that only famous people matter to God. God gave the unique gifts to the judges of Israel, and so obviously these special people mattered, and they were a part of God's plan. But Ruth tells us, God does not forget the masses and focus only on the few to whom He gives spectacular gifts. The book of Ruth is about an ordinary family doing the common place things of life. They were seeking to survive and get some stability. They wanted to be loved and raise a family, and be a part of a community. Such a story is a part of God's Word, because God reveals in it his perspective on the importance of the ordinary.

     Why is this so important? Because the self-esteem of the majority of God's family depends on seeing this truth. One of the most interesting books I have read is by Gigi, the oldest daughter of Billy and Ruth Graham. Being the daughter of a very famous person, she always felt she could never measure up to what God expected her to be. She envied the godly women who seemed to be up there so far above her, and she went through a lot of depression, and even despair, because she was so ordinary. She writes, "Some people just seem to have an easy time living the Christian life. Not me! And, after leaving his calling card of discouragement on the doorstep of my heart, Satan also convinced me that sense I was not "perfect" I certainly had no right to minister to others. So I pulled a shell of low self-esteem about myself, cringing each time I was asked to share my faith. I felt like such a spiritual failure that it would have been hypocritical to share something I didn't believe I possessed. I remained in this state of spiritual insecurity for several years, always striving, yet continuing to fail."

     Then one day, as a shower of spectacular meteors filled the sky, and the president of the United States called on her--no, nothing like that at all. But rather, one day her two youngest children came running into her kitchen with their eyes bright with excitement. They had their hands hidden behind their back, and they were giggling with delight as they produced a large bunch of flowers they had gathered. She expressed her surprise and joy, and gave them each a hug, and ran to find a vase. As she tried to arrange a bouquet, they flowers kept tumbling out, and she then noticed the stems were all too short. The children had picked only the blossoms. She laughed at their simplicity, and suddenly realize how blessed she was with their gift of love, even though it was so ordinary. It dawned on her then that God must love us as we love our children. We don't have to be perfect to be loved. We don't have to do the amazing and spectacular for His approval. It changed her life to realize God can be pleased with His ordinary children doing ordinary things to express their love and faith. Gigi learned the importance of the ordinary, and has used her ordinariness for the glory of God.

     God does not need a lot of superstars to achieve His purpose in history. If He did, He would have given superpower to more than one person at a time, but God said, by His actions, one Gideon, one Deborah, one Samson at a time is enough. But he needs a vast army of ordinary people who will recognize the importance of the ordinary. Joseph Parker, in his famous People's Bible wrote, "The book of Ruth shows that the Bible is the Book of the people, a family Book, a record of human life in all its moods, circumstances, passions, and volition's. Many can follow Ruth who cannot understand Ezekiel..... If we were to ask what right has a story like Ruth's to be in the Bible, we might properly reply, by the right of human nature, by the right of kinship to the universal human heart..... We are surprised by the little things that are in the Bible. Wondering why they should come to fill up so much space in a book which we think ought to have been filled with nothing but stupendous events. This is not the way of God in the ordering and direction of human life. All things are little to God, and all things are equally great to Him. It is our ignorance that calls this little, and that great, this trivial, and that important. If not a sparrow falls to the ground without our Father, we may be sure that He regards all such little stories as that of Ruth and Esther as a great consequence to the completion of the whole tale of human history."

     We have not learned one of the most important lessons of life until we have learned the importance of the ordinary. Second we want to look at-

II. THE IMPACT OF THE ORDINARY.

     The ordinary might be important to God, but does it have any impact on history? Yes it does. Charles Fuller called Ruth the Cinderella of the Scriptures. Cinderella was an ordinary person who received special blessings, and arrived at a position far above what would be expected. Ruth was a Moabite-a Gentile. She was not a part of the chosen people. She was widow and so poor she had to glean in the fields for survival. Like Cinderella, she started below ordinary, but by the providence of God she met her prince, and she married, and was exalted to a place of honor in the history of God's people. The impact of this ordinary woman on history is hard to determine, but what we do know tells us a lot.

     Since the story is almost totally female oriented, in that it deals with the problems of Naomi and Ruth, and everyone else revolves around their problems, it has a great impact on our view of women in God's plan. Back in 1848 the language of the people who lived in the Sahara Desert was reduced to writing by women missionaries. The first book of the Bible they translated into this language was the book of Ruth. Who would ever dream that the first part of the Bible some people ever read was Ruth. They did this because they wanted to make a special contact with the women, for that was the most likely way to get the Gospel to them. Women are a key in many cultures, and so many women are being trained as evangelists.

     The book of Ruth is a prejudice shattering revelation. These ordinary women knock the idea to kingdom come that you have to be great to be used of God, or that you have to be male to be used of God, or that you have to be Jewish to be used of God. The impact of one ordinary female Gentile demolishes many of the prejudices that have hinder the cause of God. Ruth was no women's libber, and she was no fighter for Gentile rights. She was a very submissive person with no history of protest, but her story does more to exalt the rights and equality of the sexes and races than any war of which I am aware. Just by being what she was, and ordinary Gentile female, she has had an impact on all of history, and it will not cease to influence history until history is no more.

     This has a theological impact because this is God's Word, and if God gives this much of His Word to working through the ordinary, then we learn from this that God is not limited to the supernatural. We miss this when we say, God was really there and working, and we mean by this, there was clear manifestation of the power and presence of God. There were miracles and wonders, and so God was there. The book of Ruth has a more widespread message than that. It says there was nothing but the ordinary and the commonplace, yet God was there working out His will in history for the salvation of the human race. Nothing spectacular happened, and no great words were said, and nobody was raised up on the wings of ecstasy, but God was there, and His will was being done by ordinary people doing ordinary things to solve ordinary problems.

    The question is, which is most important, to know that God is in the wondrous and the marvelous, or to know God is in the commonplace and the ordinary? I think the last, because He said, low I am with you always, and if we only realize it when life is on a mountain top, then we miss the presence of God in most of life, which is ordinary and commonplace. I need to know God is with me, not just when I worship and praise, but when I am doing the routine duties of life, and wrestling for solutions to the everyday problems of life. The book of Ruth is so valuable just because it is so ordinary, and helps us recognize the impact of the ordinary. It is about one ordinary woman, not an amazon, not a queen, not a superstar of any kind, but just an ordinary Gentile woman whom God used to be a link to the Messiah.

     God's love is always wider than our conception of it, and so God has to be doing things constantly in history to remind us of the universality of His love. This story is first of all a story of the love of a Jewish woman and a Gentile woman. It is their love and unity that becomes the foundation that led to the romance of Boaz and Ruth, and which then lead to the marriage of Jew and Gentile. This book illustrates what God's will is for history, and that is that Jews and Gentiles become one as the people of God. The book does not say it in the profound theological writing of the apostle Paul, but by the providence of God in ordinary people's lives.

      Ruth does not argue for anything. It just describes the events in the life of one family, and yet it has a deep theological impact on all who will think about what it means for God to include this story in His Word. One book of the Old Testament named after a Gentile woman, and she is an obscure nobody of Moab. Why? Because God loves obscure nobodies of Moab, and everywhere else in the world, and in every age, and He wants to make them a part of the family of God. The impact of this ordinary Gentile woman becomes more and more impressive as we see what her presence in Israel meant. David was her great grandson. When David was trying to escape the wrath of King Saul, and was on the run, he felt an obligation to protect his parents. Where could he go to find a refuge for them? I Sam. 22:3-4 tells us: From there David went to Mizpah in Moab and said to the king of Moab, would you let my father and mother stay with you until I learn what God will do for me? So he left them with the king of Moab."

     David had a friendly relationship with the Moabites because he was part Moabite himself through his great grandmother Ruth. David had a great love for, and many relationships to, the Gentiles all around Israel. Many of his best soldiers and advisers were Gentiles. Even some of his personal body guards were Gentiles. When Absolom, David's son, stirred up a rebellion, and David had to flee, it was his Gentile friends that were loyal to him when the men of Israel turned on him. David said to Ittai the Gittite in II Sam. 15:19, "Why should you come along with us? Go back and stay with king Absolom. You are a foreigner.....Go back and take your countrymen."   But Ittai, in words that sound so much like the words of Ruth to Naomi, responded, as surely as the Lord lives, and as my Lord the king lives, wherever my Lord the king may be, whether it means life or death, there will your servant be. David could not turn back this loyal Gentile friend, and so all 600 Gittites marched into exile with David.

     Why is David the only king of Israel who has so many Gentile friends. There is no record of any king like David who inspired the loyalty of so many Gentiles.   Why is there so much in the Psalms of David about God being the God of the Gentiles, and the Lord of all nations? Would you believe it is because of ordinary great grandma Ruth? We do not have the time to trace the impact of this one ordinary woman and her influence on the whole history of Jew and Gentile relations, but let me share one more genealogical gem that reveals why David was a Gentile lover, and why the Messiah has a Gentile and Jewish blood line.

     In Matt. 1:5 we are let in on the startling revelation that the mother of Boaz was none other than Rahab the harlot, who was a Canaanites. This means Boaz was already half Gentile, and was very open to the possibility of marrying a Gentile like Ruth. Together they were more Gentile than Jewish, and this means that David's great grandparents were three quarters Gentile. This helps us see why David had a unique love for the Gentiles, and why he lead so many of them to be loyal, not only to him, but to the God of Israel. In the city of Bethlehem, where Ruth and Boaz had their
baby Obed, 1186 years later, Joseph and Mary had their baby Jesus. It was no coincidence that He became a king over a kingdom of both Jews and Gentiles, for this was God's plan all along, and those with eyes to see could have seen it all along in the ordinary life of Ruth the Moabitess. Third we see-

III. THE IMMORTALITY OF THE ORDINARY.

     The importance and the impact of the ordinary does not end with time. The book of Ruth does have very specific time limits. It starts in the first verse with the time of the judges, and it ends with king David. But the lessons of Ruth about the ordinary are timeless, and there significance will carry right over into eternity. In eternity the ordinary will gain equality with the prominent, as the redeemed come from East, West, North, and South, to set at the table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The chorus of praise to God will not be of the select singers of the world, but will be a chorus of the redeemed out of every tribe and tongue and nation. Ordinary people of both sexes, of all races and colors, as one great family of God. The one common bond, not being their fame, their status, their gifts, their accomplishments, but, their faith in the God of all people.

     From an earthly point of view this book of Ruth is lacking in events that are exciting. There is a hint of scandal as Ruth spends the night with Boaz, but without a great deal of blowing this out of proportion, there is little to recommend it for a TV mini-series. There are no bad guys, and no great conflicts with violence. The story just would not sell. Yet, it made it into the Bible, the Word of God. You can either conclude that the Word is boring, or that its excitement lies deeper. What can be more exciting than the revelation that God loves and uses ordinary people, and that His plan take into consideration the importance of the ordinary. This is exciting because the majority of the human race, and the majority of the people of God are like the characters in this book-they are ordinary.

     The implications of this truth are very paradoxical. If you believe in the importance of, and the impact of, and the immorality of, ordinary people, then you must conclude that there are no ordinary people. C.S. Lewis in his book The Weight Of Glory put it this way, "It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship.....There are no ordinary people. This is one of the messages of Ruth, and seeing this message should have a impact on how we see others, and our own self-esteem. All that we have and all that we are can be used for the glory of God, for God does wondrous things, not only through His gifted people, but also through the majority, who are ordinary people.

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