RUTH # 18 
THE HAPPY ENDING

I. Introduction
A. All the world loves a story with a happy
ending.

1. Perhaps this is the reason for the charm of the book.
2. For us too, the story of grace has a happy ending.

a. There may be testing and tears, many repentances and renewals at the Cross of Jesus, but I want to tell you that the grace of God has a happy ending.
b. Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.

B. Look at the case of Job, terrible testing and physical difficulties but how happy was the ending.

1. We can say like Paul Harvey - Now you know the rest of the story.
2. We can expect a happy ending because our God is the God of the happy ending.

a. If not here, it is always so in heaven.
b. Let’s encourage our heart then, dear tested one, with Jesus there is always a happy ending.

 II. No More a Stranger (4:10) (4:11) 

A. Notice in verse ten - he acquired Ruth the Moabites. 

1. It cost him in order for her to become his wife and become a part of the nation of Israel.
2. In the same fashion it cost Jesus to acquire us and make us a part of His church.

a. Acts 20:28 - The church of God which He purchased with His own Blood.
b. We are bought with a price, therefore we are to glorify God with our bodies and spirits which are Gods.

B. Notice verse eleven - the Lord made the woman that is come into thy house.

1. What a beautiful way to describe this gentile from the land of Moab - God’s wash pot.
2. After their union, she is never referred to as a Moabite again. Her past is erased.

a. All that was Moab about her had died - She was now joined to a new head and a new people. 
b. Prior to this, she is referred to as Ruth the Moabites, five times.
c. Twice more in this c book she is mentioned as a Moabite woman. Seven times in four chapters her relationship to Moab is mentioned.
d. After her marriage to Boaz she is referred to as either Ruth or the woman or young woman.

3. The old life in Moab is dead and gone. She is alive to Boaz and Israel.

a. So it is with us. When we are joined to Christ our sins are blotted out, never to be remembered against us.
b. There is never any remembrance of our past in so far as God is concerned. We may refer to it in our testimony but only as evidence of God’s mercy and grace in accepting sinners.
c. Earlier in the book, Ruth referred to herself as a stranger or foreigner.
d. Not so anymore (Eph. 2:12-19) neither for Ruth or for us.

4. In Christ we are all one and members of each other

III. NOT SECOND BEST

A. The people went on to say; Let the house of Boaz be like the house of Pharez, whom Tamar bare unto Judah. (4:12)

1. I suggest they might have said this because some might think because it was Ruth’s second marriage it was sort of second best.
2. The Spiritual application is this.

B. Because some have come to the Lord out of a history of great failure and have done so at a late hour, they may be inclined to think that they are getting God’s second best.

1. Some who have been divorced feel that way; some who felt called to full time Christian work can feel this way.
2. But don’t you believe one single word of such a suggestion.

a. Second best! Second in the point of time maybe, but not in quality.
b. Let’s agree you messed up God’s first plan, but he is not defeated, He has produced a new plan and who are you to say it is less than first.
c. Note the phrase, second BEST - its still His best for you.

3. Marvelous things have been made out of the lives of those who had nothing to offer
Him but brokenness and strife. Our past or our present need be no barrier to the grace of God. He can make something beautiful of my life.

IV. A POSSIBLE REASON FOR BOAZ GRACIOUSNESS (Matt 1:5)

A. Salmon begat Boaz of Rahab

I. This was Rahab the prostitute who hid Joshua's spies.
2. Boaz mother was not only a gentile but a prostitute.

B. Why does God include these sinners - woman of shady background in His Holy Word?

1. To show that sinners have always had a share in Christ.
2. If there were sinners among His ancestors there is a place for sinners among His descendants - I’m one of them.

 Further Word About Boaz

A. Possibly one reason for His willingness to redeem Ruth was His own background. 

1. God uses our background for His own glory and the good of others
2. He was willing to take Ruth because He had no fear of losing His reputation.
3. Are you illegitimate, adopted because your parents were miserable sinners-well don’t fret-God will use it to benefit others
4. Without that background you would be haughty self-righteous and unusable.

B. Because of the skeletons in your closet you are sensitive to the needs and hurts of others.

V. A RESTORER OF LIFE (4:15)

A. I’m glad God has not left us without a kinsman who can be the restorer of our life.

1. Things go wrong, I do sin and spiritual life ebbs but there is always at hand Jesus to restore what we have lost.
2. He is ready to do it whenever you go to Him humbly and broken at His Cross.
3. The reason He can cleanse you every time you come is because, the blood will never lose its power.

B. Wherever there is revival or blessing among God’s people there you find a people calling sin - sin.

1. Jesus is indeed our nearest kinsman and He is the daily constant Restorer of my life.
2. So we close the pages of the Book of Ruth.
3. Ruth and Boaz pass from our view but the Lord Jesus our nearest Kinsman remains to fill our vision.