Sermon Tone Analysis

*The Romance of Redemption and the Glory of Covenant Love *

/Preached by Pastor Phil Layton at Gold Country Baptist Church on February 14, 2010 /

www.goldcountrybaptist.org

 

Ruth chapter 4 is the 4th and final act in this drama of redemption, a love story that runs deeper than any man-made love story, a true story that many have called “the romance of redemption,” and what I’m sub-titling “the glory of covenant love.”

Romance is like the front door of a house, it’s important, but it can never serve as the foundation.

The concrete and true foundation of a marriage is covenant love, not only on an earthly level, but on an eternal level.

Ruth 4:1–10 (NASB95) /1 Now Boaz went up to the gate and sat down there, and behold, the close relative of whom Boaz spoke was passing by, so he said, “Turn aside, friend, sit down here.”

And he turned aside and sat down. 2 He took ten men of the elders of the city and said, “Sit down here.”

So they sat down.

3 Then he said to the closest relative, “Naomi, who has come back from the land of Moab, has to sell the piece of land which belonged to our brother Elimelech.

4 “So I thought to inform you, saying, ‘Buy it before those who are sitting here, and before the elders of my people.

If you will redeem it, redeem it; but if not, tell me that I may know; for there is no one but you to redeem it, and I am after you.’ ” And he said, “I will redeem it.”

5 Then Boaz said, “On the day you buy the field from the hand of Naomi, you must also acquire Ruth the Moabitess, the widow of the deceased, in order to raise up the name of the deceased on his inheritance.”/

At this point, the drama has taken a turn that would make original audiences wonder what’s going on and may make you wonder as well.

John Piper has written a poem that reminds us of the prior context.

It’s about an old man in Bethlehem over 3,000 years ago:

How he did love to tell the tale

Of how the God of Israel

Turned famine into wedding feast,

And formed the greatest from the least,

And wakened love when it had died,

And brought a Moabitess bride

Into his life, and made a field

Of Barley, barren once, to yield

Such seed as he had never dreamed.

He heard the boy awake, and beamed,

"Young man, my son [Obed] tells me that you

Are David [his grand] son." "That's true,

And you're my great grampa."

…

 

The poem goes on to speak of this old man of 100+ years of life, whose mind and sight weak and dimming.

He says to his grandson

“… put yourself back eighty years.

Your grampa [Obed] isn't born.

Great fears

Grip all of Judah.

Drought has left

The barley field unsown, bereft”

[My first wife died but first she cried]

“I had a priceless dream last night.

I dreamed that God would show his might,

And take your bitter providence,

And by this famine here dispense

For you a feast — a wedding feast —

And make the greatest of the least,

And waken love when it has died,

And bring an unfamiliar bride

Into your life, and make this field

Of barley, barren once, to yield

Such seed as you have never dreamed.

And that he will be born esteemed

In this our little town, so small

Among the clans, and God will call …”

… And ten years later, David, there,

Just over there beside the stand, as fair

As any in the world, stood Ruth.

She rested in the gleaners' booth …

/O barley field!

O barley field!

A paradise in truth/

/You kept for me a better yield /

/And brought to me my Ruth …/

"This is my favorite spot,"          the old

Man said, "And now you shall be told

About that touch, and where it led.

Here, seventy short years have sped

Away since that great night.

Because

The heat was great by day, I was

Down winnowing at dark.

And when

The work was done, I told the men

To fetch the food and wine so we

Could eat and rest.

I couldn't see

What God was just about to do.

When I was full and tired, I threw

This blanket over me and lay

Down underneath that tree.

Today

It must be twice as big.

I fell

Asleep and dreamed about my belle."

"You mean great-gramma Ruth?"          "I do.

And, David, then my dream came true.

At midnight something stirred beneath

My blanket at my feet …

My leg.

This is a human form [!].

A child, in search of being warm [?] …

I whispered, so as not to wake

The men, ‘Who are you?

Do not make

A sudden move” … I pulled the blanket gently back

And there, as still as night, the black

And piercing eyes of Ruth.

‘My name

Is Ruth,' she said.

‘Your servant came,

Because Naomi told me I

Should lie down at your feet and by