“THE foolishness of God is wiser than men.”
A Wise man finds in the record of God’s dealings with His people nothing but a medley of unlikely fables, half-forgotten legends, and half-remembered history, where the only guiding principle is the scissors and paste of unknown editors. A simple faith finds the most touching revelation of God Himself in the midst of moral darkness and ruin, and the guiding principle of God’s wonderful purpose in Christ running through all, and appearing in the most striking and unexpected ways as a witness to the mind of God giving unity to the whole record — a unity not to be apprehended by learned Germans, and surely never produced by scissors and paste.
Christ is the key. From Genesis to Revelation God had nothing else before Him, in His ways and actings, in His prophetic communications, and His own blessed record of the whole story of man’s history here, but Christ.
The course of Scripture presents two clear lines. The line of God’s grace always connected with Christ, and the line of man’s behavior under that grace. These two lines sometimes run on together, and sometimes the first seems to disappear for a time, like some hidden stream making its way beneath the surface of the earth, only to break out again in some barren spot, bringing life and refreshing in its train. The little book of Ruth is a beautiful example of this.
In the fifth verse of the 1St of Matthew we find mentioned side by side two alien women, Rahab a harlot, and Ruth a Moabitess. They form two wonderful links in that chain of God’s ways of grace leading up to the coming of God Himself in grace as Immanuel, God with us, Jesus.
Between Rahab and Ruth comes the course of the whole history of the books of Joshua and Judges. To sum it up briefly, it begins with one man doing what was right in his own eyes (Josh. 7:11But the children of Israel committed a trespass in the accursed thing: for Achan, the son of Carmi, the son of Zabdi, the son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, took of the accursed thing: and the anger of the Lord was kindled against the children of Israel. (Joshua 7:1)), and ends with every man doing what was right in his own eyes (Judg. 21:2525In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes. (Judges 21:25)). We need only read the closing chapters of Judges to see whether to be able to do exactly as we like is such unmixed happiness as poor foolish man thinks it to be.
But while God allows it all to go on, His own purpose, hidden indeed, but unchanging, goes on too, and in this little book He breaks in upon the dreary desolate scene of man’s actings with the bright light of His own grace and His purpose in Christ, for the two are always found together. The plan of the book is, briefly, first of all a divine picture in a very few words of the whole course of man in self-will, and the sad end of that course seen in the light of God’s own thoughts about it all. Then the vessel of God’s grace taken up, brought into contact with the Man of His purpose, and blessed in a way worthy of God Himself, whose heart can only rest in blessing us according to His own thoughts.
The Spirit of God in the book brings four distinct places or scenes of action before us. These we purpose looking into a little, with the Lord’s help, to gather something of that wonderful grace of God, passing all praises, which He has bestowed upon us in Christ, dealing with us as He dealt with this poor outcast woman of Moab.
The great thing is to see that it is the bringing in of Christ into the wretched scene of man’s misery that at once lights it up with God’s workings of grace, and lets us see with delight that although man may do his will, and bring untold woe upon himself; God will nevertheless do His will, and bless man in spite of himself, with a blessing only measured by Christ. To see this as it is unfolded by the Spirit of God in these lovely pictures of olden times establishes our hearts in that grace, and fills us with praise. If we contrast the last word of Judges — no king, man doing his own will — with the last word of Ruth — David, “a man after My own heart, who shall fulfill all My will” (Acts 13:2222And when he had removed him, he raised up unto them David to be their king; to whom also he gave testimony, and said, I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after mine own heart, which shall fulfil all my will. (Acts 13:22)), we shall see at once the object of the Spirit of God in giving us this record just at this particular point of Israel’s history. We understand, too, a little more fully, the meaning of those two names brought side by side in Matthew 1:55And Salmon begat Booz of Rachab; and Booz begat Obed of Ruth; and Obed begat Jesse; (Matthew 1:5). They show where the stream disappears, and where it The four scenes in the Book of Ruth are:
1. The Fields of Moab.
2. The Field of Boaz.
3. The Threshing-floor of Boaz.
4. The Gate of the City.
With the Lord’s help we will look a little next time at the outline of the sorrowful but instructive picture presented to us in “the fields of Moab.”
S. H. H.