Better Than Seven Sons - Part 2
What if your deepest heartbreak was the very doorway to your greatest blessing? As we close our journey through Ruth, discover why Naomi’s losses became the backdrop for God’s astonishing grace. Explore how Ruth’s sacrificial love, Boaz’s redemption, and the birth of Obed all point to the ultimate Redeemer—Jesus Christ. This is more than a story of broken dreams restored; it’s a powerful reminder that God’s hesed love transforms ruin into redemption.
Checkout these other Family Fortress Ministries Podcasts:
TIME FOR THREE daily couples devotional: https://time-for-three.captivate.fm/listen
FORTIFYING YOUR FAMILY: https://fortifying-your-family.captivate.fm/listen
MINISTRY WEBSITE: https://familyfortress.org/
Donate: https://familyfortress.org/donate
Transcript
Welcome to the Fortifying youg Family podcast.
Speaker A:It can be daunting to navigate through an anti marriage and family culture.
Speaker A:Our teacher will expound biblical principles to help fortify our families and keep these sacred institutions strong.
Speaker A:And now, here's this week's teaching from Sam Wood.
Speaker B:But I want you to notice something.
Speaker B:In verse 14 through verse 16, we see that the focus of the story shifts from Ruth and Boaz.
Speaker B:It really shifts now to Naomi and the child.
Speaker B:Very interesting.
Speaker B:We see the focus now shifts to Naomi and the child.
Speaker B:Look at it in verse 14.
Speaker B:And the woman.
Speaker B:The women said unto Naomi, blessed be the Lord, which has not left thee this day without a kinsman Redeemer.
Speaker B:That word in the Hebrew there is goel.
Speaker B:As I said, it means kinsman Redeemer, that his name may be famous in Israel.
Speaker B:Verse 15.
Speaker B:And he shall be unto thee a restorer of thy life and a nourisher of thine old age.
Speaker B:For thy daughter in law which loveth thee, which is better to thee than seven sons hath borne him.
Speaker B:We might ask the question, why does now the attention shift off of Ruth and shift on to Naomi and the child here in these verses?
Speaker B:Well, I believe the story begins with Naomi's losses and the story ends with Naomi's gains.
Speaker B:I love that it ends with a picture of all the gains that Naomi has.
Speaker B:It ends with a picture of the beautiful grace of God, her life.
Speaker B:Look at the blessings mentioned that she has received.
Speaker B:The first one is a young lady by the name of Ruth to which the book is named after.
Speaker B:And notice in verse 15.
Speaker B:And I have this highlighted in my Bible.
Speaker B:I have it underlined.
Speaker B:It's a very significant statement.
Speaker B:It says, for thy daughter in law which loveth thee, which is here, it is better to thee than what church seven sons says is better to thee than seven sons hath borne him.
Speaker B:Seven is a number of completion in the Bible.
Speaker B:Seven is the number, we might say, that pictures perfection in the Bible.
Speaker B:So in that day, to have seven sons was a picture of a perfect family.
Speaker B:So when they say that Ruth is better than seven sons, they're saying, Ruth, you having Ruth is better than having a perfect family.
Speaker B:Wow.
Speaker B:They're saying to her that Ruth, who is a living example of the grace of God in her life, is more satisfying, is more fulfilling, is more transforming than having the perfect family that maybe you thought would be the answer to fulfilling your satisfaction and your heart's needs.
Speaker B:I believe God is reminding Naomi that it was not a perfect family that would truly satisfy her soul, but only the grace of God could satisfy her soul.
Speaker B:And friends, listen to me this morning.
Speaker B:God is reminding us today that our real need is not a perfect family.
Speaker B:There is no perfect family.
Speaker B:We won't find that.
Speaker B:God's reminding us today, reminding you singles, listen today.
Speaker B:It's not finding the perfect mate.
Speaker B:There is no perfect mate.
Speaker B:There's no perfect husband.
Speaker B:There is no perfect wife.
Speaker B:It's not having the perfect body.
Speaker B:Thank God for that.
Speaker B:It's not having the perfect career.
Speaker B:It's not having the perfect social calendar.
Speaker B:It's not having the right friends.
Speaker B:It's not having the biggest bank account.
Speaker B:It's not having perfect health.
Speaker B:Listen, if God is at the center of your life and he is all you have, then he is all that you need.
Speaker B:He satisfies your heart like nothing else in this world can satisfy your heart.
Speaker B:So they say, listen, Ruth, which is a picture of God's grace, that when you came back into Bethlehem, Judah, and you said, I went away full and I came back empty, Ruth was standing right there beside her.
Speaker B:Even though you didn't notice it, God's grace was right there with you.
Speaker B:And, folks, so often we don't notice it.
Speaker B:But I want to tell you, God's right there with you in the darkest of times, when the lights are gone out, when you can't see your way, God has not abandoned you.
Speaker B:He is still there.
Speaker B:But not only is Naomi blessed with Ruth, but notice also she is blessed with the child.
Speaker B:Look at verse 16.
Speaker B:And Naomi took the child and laid it in her bosom and became nurse unto it again.
Speaker B:Naomi's story starts with death, but the story ends with life or birth.
Speaker B:I like that, you know, Praise God.
Speaker B:If you're here today, your story starts with death.
Speaker B:That is having the sin nature and having no hope of a future in and of yourself because you are dead in your sins.
Speaker B:But your story can end in life, in Jesus Christ and resurrection through the Son of God.
Speaker B:Naomi, who had lost a husband and two sons, is now a very.
Speaker B:If you could see her, she's a proud grandmother.
Speaker B:How many grandmas we got here today?
Speaker B:You might not call yourself that.
Speaker B:Mamas or whatever, okay?
Speaker B:Does a smile come to your face when that little baby Brenda sits in your lap?
Speaker B:When Bingham sits in your lap, I can see the smiles already on her face.
Speaker B:Brenda's always smiling, though.
Speaker B:You know, isn't it fun how many grandparents we got here?
Speaker B:Wow.
Speaker B:Isn't it fun being a grandparent?
Speaker B:It says that gave her a baby in her old age.
Speaker B:Now I don't feel like I'm in my old age, but I thank God I've got six grandchildren and another one on the way.
Speaker B:Was I not supposed to say that?
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker B:And I want to tell you what, they bring a joy to your heart as you get older like nothing else does.
Speaker B:So I can picture this child, that setting in the lap of Naomi.
Speaker B:And maybe she's thinking back to all the death she's experienced, thinking back to losing her husband, thinking back to losing her two sons.
Speaker B:Now, folks, we can read that in Scripture, but that's not something easy to deal with.
Speaker B:But now she's sitting there with life, new life in her lap, and she's embracing that new life and that little child that God miraculously has given to her.
Speaker B:We see in the beginning of verse 17 that a son is born.
Speaker B:But whose son is he?
Speaker B:Just whose son is this child?
Speaker B:Look at the beginning of verse 17.
Speaker B:And the women, her neighbors gave it a name, saying, there is a son born to who?
Speaker B:Naomi.
Speaker B:Wow.
Speaker B:Now, obviously we would say, well, that seems odd because this child was really born to Ruth and Boaz, wasn't he?
Speaker B:Yes, he was.
Speaker B:But that's not what scripture is really pointing out here.
Speaker B:In verse 17, it says, There's a son born to Naomi.
Speaker B:I believe God is making it crystal clear to her, he's making it crystal clear to us that Naomi's situation in her life has completely reversed, completely changed.
Speaker B:She had said, as I said a while ago in chapter one, in verse 21, she said, I went away full and I came back empty.
Speaker B:But we see here, by the blessing of Ruth and by the blessing of this young child, she is far from being empty.
Speaker B:She's filled with God's blessings.
Speaker B:The unseen hand of God was working in what appeared to her to be the darkest hours of of her life.
Speaker B:One of the great messages, and I hope you don't miss it in the book of Ruth, is to remind us to look for the visual signposts that God puts in our life that points us to the grace of God in our life.
Speaker B:We see them all through the book of Ruth.
Speaker B:Remember when Naomi and Ruth arrived in Bethlehem, Judah, when did they arrive?
Speaker B:Right at the barley harvest, right the time they could get fed, remember?
Speaker B:Preached a message several weeks ago on Sunday night about how to have a happy hap.
Speaker B:And Ruth just happened into the fields of Boaz at just the right time.
Speaker B:Right field, right person.
Speaker B:Wow.
Speaker B:Or all those times that Ruth comes back home at night and she's dragging or carrying this 30, 40, 50 pound bag of barley, which is which it Would take two weeks to get.
Speaker B:And she carries it back home to feed her and her mother in law.
Speaker B:Pictures of God's grace.
Speaker B:Pictures that God has not abandoned her.
Speaker B:Pictures of the sovereignty of God.
Speaker B:But it also should remind us not only of the visual signposts that God allows us to see in our life and he gives us glimpses of.
Speaker B:But even when we feel nothing is happening, we feel like maybe there's little ants crawling under the ground and we don't feel like anything's happening.
Speaker B:We're in a little dark tunnel somewhere.
Speaker B:It should remind us that there's a much bigger plan going on that we see nothing of.
Speaker B:That God is orchestrating through his omniscience and omnipotence and through all the character of God.
Speaker B:He is orchestrating for his glory.
Speaker B:And he's orchestrating.
Speaker B:Listen, folks, for your good and my good, all of her good.
Speaker B:You know, last week I don't watch happen.
Speaker B:I don't watch a lot of these kind of TV shows or anything, but last week we were watching a show by the name of Superhuman.
Speaker B:Anybody have seen that?
Speaker B:Nobody.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker B:I just happened to come across it.
Speaker B:And it's about these people.
Speaker B:Really most of it is it's about these people who have super brain power and they can do all these superhuman things with their brain.
Speaker B:I mean, when we watched this show this week, they had one guy, he had a 20 by 20 maze and he was given a number.
Speaker B:I say it's 183.
Speaker B:And he had to put all the numbers 20 numbers horizontally, 20 numbers vertically.
Speaker B:He had to put them all so that every row equaled 183.
Speaker B:And also they equaled 183 diagonally.
Speaker B:And he did that in about two minutes.
Speaker B:I sat there and I was amazed.
Speaker B:And I watched several other amazing things.
Speaker B:But you know what?
Speaker B:After that show, I told Debbie, I said, listen, that's nothing.
Speaker B:That guy has a pea brain compared to God.
Speaker B:And God is overseeing and he sees everything like a grand mosaic of our life.
Speaker B:And he puts all the pieces together.
Speaker B:We could have no way to figure it out.
Speaker B:Cannot figure it out.
Speaker B:There's a lot of unseen things that God is doing.
Speaker B:But he has got a master plan for your good in his glory.
Speaker B:He is a great God.
Speaker B:He is amazing God.
Speaker B:As I close out this little book by the name of Ruth, we might describe it as a story of from ruin to romance.
Speaker B:A story of from ruin to redemption.
Speaker B:In this beautiful story we see the hesed love of God.
Speaker B:Many places in the book.
Speaker B:If you go back and look at the word for love or kindness.
Speaker B:You see, it's a Hebrew word, hesed, which I've mentioned many times, that pictures the everlasting covenant love of God and the faithful love of God toward his people.
Speaker B:And we see it many, many places, but we see it explicitly shown through three lens by three Redeemers.
Speaker B:See, the Book of Ruth, I don't believe, is the story of just one Redeemer.
Speaker B:It's a story really of three Redeemers.
Speaker B:So as I close out this book, I want to mention them briefly to you.
Speaker B:The first one, the obvious Redeemer, is a man by the name of what church?
Speaker B:Boaz.
Speaker B:Boaz is the goel.
Speaker B:Boaz is the kinsman Redeemer.
Speaker B:And he is the one who is a near relative to Naomi and Ruth, who come back in a very desperate condition needing someone to be a Redeemer to get them out of debt, someone to pass on their name to.
Speaker B:And Ruth, in chapter three, goes in the middle of the night, she prepares herself a picture of worship.
Speaker B:As I described it in one of the messages.
Speaker B:She prepares herself to go to the feet of Boaz.
Speaker B:She goes to him and she proposes to him.
Speaker B:And Boaz responds and says, I will do all that you ask me to do.
Speaker B:Let me stop here again today and say, if you're here today and you don't know the Lord Jesus Christ, he wants to be your Boaz.
Speaker B:If you'll come and you'll get on your knees, desperate before God and say, God, I'm a sinner without hope.
Speaker B:God, can I become your bride?
Speaker B:God, would you marry me?
Speaker B:God, could I be the bride of Jesus Christ?
Speaker B:God will say, I will do all that you ask me to do.
Speaker B:He will accept you.
Speaker B:Today we see the beautiful picture of Boaz.
Speaker B:And that's an obvious Redeemer.
Speaker B:But there's a second and maybe less obvious redeemer in this story.
Speaker B:The one of whom the book is named after that is Ruth.
Speaker B:Ruth is a young widow who chose to convert to God on the banks of the Jordan River.
Speaker B:She said, I'm going to go with you, Naomi.
Speaker B:And we see in chapter one, I think it's verse 16 and 17, the beautiful statements that are made in many marriages.
Speaker B:Where you lodge, I'll lodge.
Speaker B:Where you go, I'll go.
Speaker B:Your God will be my God.
Speaker B:We see this beautiful statement of her conversion where she converts to God being her only God.
Speaker B:And then she immigrates into a land that she knows is very hostile to her, a land by the name of Bethlehem.
Speaker B:Judah, knowing that Moab was a despised people that the Israelites, the Jewish people, did not like at all.
Speaker B:Most people who immigrate into another country do it so they can improve, we might say, and make their life better.
Speaker B:Would you agree with that?
Speaker B:But Ruth is one of the few immigrants, if not only the only immigrant I've read about, who says, I'm immigrating into a foreign land and I expect my life to be worse.
Speaker B:Wow.
Speaker B:I'm going there and I know I expect my expectations are not that my life is going to be better.
Speaker B:My expectations is that my life will be worse.
Speaker B:Ruth knows if Naomi, her depressed mother in law, is going to have a life and get her life back, then she has to throw hers away for her.
Speaker B:If Naomi is going to have a name and a land and a progeny, Ruth has to give up her own name, her own family, her own wealth.
Speaker B:She has to give up everything.
Speaker B:And she does.
Speaker B:Ruth impoverishes herself so Naomi could eventually become rich.
Speaker B:Ruth suffers outside the gate when Naomi does not even recognize her.
Speaker B:When she comes back into the city, Ruth becomes an alien and a stranger.
Speaker B:She leaves the familiar and goes out not knowing where she's going.
Speaker B:And as a result, in the story as we're reading here today, Naomi is redeemed.
Speaker B:Listen, folks, listen what I'm going to say.
Speaker B:Death.
Speaker B:Death is at the center of Ruth's love.
Speaker B:If you want to truly love someone the way Ruth is loved Naomi, it requires death.
Speaker B:It requires the sacrifice of yourself.
Speaker B:It requires death to self to love in this way.
Speaker B:No wonder that the women's Testimony in verse 15 to Naomi says, your daughter in law who loves you is better to you than seven sons.
Speaker B:Ruth's commitment to Naomi foreshadows, I believe Jesus call to forsake everything, including renouncing our family for the sake of the kingdom.
Speaker B:But there's a third Redeemer in the story.
Speaker B:And I'm going to close with this.
Speaker B:Look at the end of verse 17.
Speaker B:And they called his name Obed.
Speaker B:And I said a while ago, obed means the one who serves.
Speaker B:He is a father of Jesse, the father of David.
Speaker B:And we see at the end of verse 17 that through all of these circumstances, God has been preparing for the coming of the greatest king that Israel would ever have.
Speaker B:That is King David, who is the ancestor of the king of kings and the Lord of Lords, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Speaker B:Jesus asked the Pharisees in Matthew, chapter 22 and verse 42, what think ye of Christ?
Speaker B:Whose son is he?
Speaker B:They say unto him, the son of David.
Speaker B:He saith unto them.
Speaker B:How then doth David in spirit call him Lord?
Speaker B:Saying, the Lord said unto my Lord, sit thou on my right hand till I make thine enemies thy footstool.
Speaker B:Jesus said, if David, then call him Lord, how is he his son?
Speaker B:In verse 46 it says, and no man was able to answer him a word, neither durst any man from that day forth ask him any more questions.
Speaker B:Jesus is pointing out to these Pharisees that he is not only the Son of David, he is the Lord of David, he is the Messiah, he is the Prophesied One, he is the one who would come through the line of David.
Speaker B:You might ask, did these Jewish women understand this when they spoke these words in verse 17?
Speaker B:I really believe they did.
Speaker B:Look back at verse 14 and 15 and the women said unto Naomi, blessed be the Lord, which hath not left thee this day without a kinsman, that his name may be famous in Israel, and he shall be unto thee a restorer of thy life and a nourisher of thine old age.
Speaker B:The he being spoken of in the beginning of verse 15 and the kinsman or redeemer spoken of in verse 14 is not Boaz, but rather the baby whom the village women named Obed.
Speaker B:One who serves they're implying that the one who will be famous, the one who will be the real redeemer to come, is not even the child Obed, but the one who will come through the offspring Obed.
Speaker B:Ruth's redeeming set up Boaz's redeeming.
Speaker B:Ruth's redeeming of Naomi set up Boaz redeeming of Ruth, which in turn set up Obed's redeeming.
Speaker B:The child named Obed were redeemed by bringing forth the greatest redeemer that man has ever known, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Speaker B:Galatians 3:13 says, Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law being made a curse for us.
Speaker B:Titus 2:14 says, who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity.
Speaker B:Luke chapter one and verse 68 says, Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he hath visited and redeemed his people.
Speaker B:Obed the father of Jesse, the father of David, would be in the kingly line from which God's Son Jesus Christ would be the glorious climax thank you.
Speaker A:For joining the Fortifying youg Family podcast, and if you feel encouraged by today's teaching, give us a follow so we can invite you back and share us on your socials so more marriages and families can be strengthened and fortified through the truths of God's word.
Speaker A:Remember, fortifying your family starts with a strong belief in God's word.
Speaker B:Sam.
