today from which the message will be taken from is from the book of Ruth in the Old Testament and the book of Matthew in the New Testament. This is Ruth I, verse 1. In the days when the judges ruled there was a famine in the land and a man of Bethlehem in Judah went to sojourn in the country of Moab, he and his wife and his two sons. The book ends with these verses from chapter 4, verses 18 to 22. Now these are the generations of Perez, Perez, fathered Hezran, hezran, fathered Ram, Ram, fathered a Mimadad, a Mimadad fathered Nehosh, Nehosh, fathered Solomon, fathered Boaz, Boaz, fathered Obed, Obed, fathered Jesse and Jesse, fathered David. In the New Testament we have from Matthew's gospel, chapter 1, something of the genealogy. In the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. Abraham was the father of Isaac and Isaac, the father of Jacob and Jacob, the father of Judah and his brothers. And Judah, the father of Perez and Zara by Tamar. And Perez, the father of Hezran and Hezran, the father of Ram and Ram, the father of Bimadad and Abimadad, the father of Nehosh, Nehosh, on the father of Salman, Salman, the father of Boaz by Rahab and Boaz, the father of Obed by Ruth and Obed, the father of Jesse and Jesse, the father of David, the king. And David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Eureia. Our children look at the first seven verses of it today. I promise that will not be the pace for the whole book, but it is today. And let me just kind of tell you some of the benefits I think to our study. You know, as we look at this book, it's a historical book. And I think we can see how God works in history and benefit from that. It should help us as we look at our own culture and our own day and think about God's work in our day and recognize that hand of God. Hopefully we'll learn to trust God in His grace in the midst of difficult times. We'll see that in the book of Ruth and just have a better sense of how to live for His glory. We think about the book of Ruth. It is in the genre of literature, a short story, and just as literature is a short story, it's really good. I recommend it to you for your reading. It's a quality piece of literature. It's a love story. It's a story of redemption as it relates to the Bible. It's a redemptive history. It's in the historical books of the Bible and it's placed where it is between judges and first Samuel for a good reason. We'll talk more about that as we go along. As we look at this, we'll see that it talks about faith in the midst of a rebellious generation, a rebellious and unbelieving culture. We'll see that the gospel is for all sorts of people in all the countries, from all sorts of different diverse backgrounds, and that the gospel is powerful to say that it calls us to God and redeems us. We see in this book that Israel needs a king, and this book sets the stage for us to see not only the king that God will provide in history in David, but the greater king, the God-man king, the Lord Jesus Christ. It looks forward to that day. It gives us good teaching about how the Kinsman Redeemer aspect of the Bible works, and we'll see that over a period of time as well. This morning, I really do plan on preaching on the first seven words of the book, which really is an overview of the preceding book, The Book of Judges. I'll explain why as I read to you, verse 1 again, and you have it written in your bulletin, if you want to follow along or take notes, notice these first seven words. In the days when the judges rule, okay, that's where I'm taking my text this morning. That's what I'm preaching on, and this is what I want to try and get across to you, that you need to do. We should live and do what is right in the eyes of the Lord. Do what is right in the eyes of the Lord. That's it in its simplest form. If you want to, if you like a little bit of complication, I'll give you that too. Do what is right in the eyes of the Lord and not your own eyes, or the eyes of the other. Do what is right in the eyes of the Lord, not your own eyes, the eyes of others. That's what I want to get at today, but I want to set the stages. We look at the book of Ruth. It's important to understand something of the setting and the backdrop, the kind of the backstory to what was going on in Israel and the time Ruth was written. And that's why we're going to spend our time looking at just these first seven words this morning in the days when the judges ruled. There's three marks of this period of history when the days in which the judges ruled. The first one is this, the people of God were doing what was evil in the eyes of the Lord. The people of God were doing what was evil in the eyes of the Lord. I'll show you that from the book of judges, Judges chapter 2 and verse 11. And the people did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and served the bells. By the way, it'll say in the sight of the Lord in the ESV, the version I'm using, but if you look at the literal wording, it is in the eyes of the Lord and some of the various translations point that out. It tells us further, they abandoned the Lord, the God of their fathers who had brought them out of the land of Egypt. They went after other gods from among the gods of the peoples who were around them. They bowed down to them and provoked the Lord to anger. So there it is. They did evil in the eyes of the Lord and not something of a phrase, especially of the first half of the book. That phrase is used in chapter 2 and verse 11. It's used again in chapter 3, verse 7 and verse 12 in chapter 4, verse 1, chapter 6, verse 1, chapter 10, verse 6 and chapter 13, verse 1. You get the idea. God keeps saying that Israel, the people of God did what was evil in the eyes of the Lord. Let me just read one for you. One of those passages, Judges 10, 6 and 7. The people of Israel again did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and served the bells and the ashroth. The gods of Syria, the gods of Sidon, the gods of Moab, I point that out because Ruth is from Moab and that's where Naomi and her husband and two sons went to escape a famine was in Moab. The gods of the Ammonites, the gods of the sons of Philistines. They forsook the Lord and did not serve him. So the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel and he sold them into the hand of the Philistines and into the hand of the Ammonites. In fact, if you follow this cycle, I don't know if you noticed it, but it's a little bit heavy in chapter 1, chapter 2 and 3. Again, the people of Israel did evil in the eyes of the Lord and then it starts to be more and more harshed out or spaced and that's because of the stories of the various judges. But that's the thing. People were doing evil in the eyes of the Lord and the cycle kind of went like this. The people started worshiping the idols of the nations surrounding them and started kind of following their customs. And at the same time, they were forsaking God. It's not like they forsook him completely. It was more of a mixing, but for God that's forsaking. He does not approve of there being more than one God in the lives of his children. And so when they did this, God would withhold his protection, the protection that he promised to his people in the promised land. And when he withheld his protection, these nations surrounding them would begin to oppress them in one way or another. And when they were oppressed, they would cry out to God and God in his mercy would send a deliverer, a hero, a judge. And that was kind of the cycle. So it would go like that from time to time and people just kind of learned to live in that cycle. This is a cycle by the way where people are looking to the eyes of the surrounding nations and think, well, how do they worship? Well, why do they worship? Why do they worship? And they were doing what was right in the eyes of the other nations. They're doing what's evil in the eyes of the Lord, but they're doing what's right in the eyes of the other nations. And that's one of the reasons why I say, do what's right in the eyes of the Lord, not in your own eyes or in the eyes of other people. They were doing what was right in the eyes of the surrounding nations. And it was getting them in trouble with the Lord. In fact, several of these cycles talks about the anger of the Lord and his withholding his protection from them. So we may want to ask the question. In fact, it kind of begs the question, okay, they were doing evil in the eyes of the Lord. What does it mean to do? What is right in the eyes of the Lord? How do we do what is right in the eyes of the Lord? Is the answer coming to you? You don't have to shout it out. It is rhetorical, but I want you to think, well, how do we know? How do we know what is right in the eyes of the Lord? They were doing what was right in the eyes of the surrounding nations. How do we know what we ought to do with the scriptures? In fact, at this time, what they had written for them was the law of Moses. Our children are memorizing the great commandment, right? To love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and might. I think we said that with them just a few minutes ago. Let's look at that passage in a little more context. Deuteronomy chapter 5 is the second giving of the law. It's where Moses goes over the things that God has commanded his people in the earlier books, Exodus numbers Deuteronomy. He goes over the 10 commandments again just in chapter 5 and he's encouraging them to keep the covenant, to keep the way of God, that is, God brings them to the promised land and they're right on the border of it, that if they will follow the Lord and trust him and do what he says, God will bless them and protect them and multiply them and provide for them in great ways. And this is how it's kind of sunned up in chapter 6 starting at verse 3. Hear therefore, O Israel, and be careful to do them, the commandments that is, that it may go well with you and that you may multiply greatly as the Lord, the God of your fathers has promised you in a land flowing with milk and honey. Hero Israel, the Lord, our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart and with all of your soul and with all of your might and these words which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up. God was very clear, listen, I want you to do what is right in my eyes and that me tell you what that is. Here, keep these commandments and I want you to know that there was in a soul saved by keeping those commandments. God saved them from the land of Egypt and being a saved people. He said, now this is how I want you to live and he gave them the law to follow that way. Now you may say to me, okay Mark, that's great. That's great for the people in Ruth's day and in the time of the judges and those going into the promised land but we're on the other side of the cross. Christ is our righteousness and therefore we don't have to keep the law. We can't be enslaved to the law and I want to say to you, you're right. We are on the other side of the cross and you're right. Christ is our righteousness and he has saved us to love and serve him and he calls us to keep this commandments. This is clear in the Scriptures. Remember we looked before Easter at how I think it was Palm Sunday and maybe a little bit Monday, Thursday so maybe you don't remember but at any rate we looked and saw that between John 13 and John 18 we have all this teaching of our Lord Jesus about his leaving and then part of that teaching would be in chapter 14 where he says, if you love me you will keep my commandments. Does that in several ways? In fact one way in verse 31 is very good for us. Jesus gives himself as an example. He says, I do as the Father commanded me so that the world may know that I love the Father. I do what the Father commanded me. I the Lord of glory, the Savior, the Messiah, I do what the Father commanded me for a purpose. I think it was because he loves the Father but in this particular case he wants to point out I do this so that the whole world will know that I love God. That's what he said and it's not just Jesus in the book of John. Think about the teaching of the Apostle Paul and the book of Romans chapter 13. He says, oh no one anything except to love each other for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. The commandments you shall not commit adultery, you shall not murder, you shall not steal, you shall not covet. And if there are any other commandments, I think Paul knows there are, there's some up in the words, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. Love does no wrong to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfilling of the law. The Apostle John takes this up and in first John 5 says, everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him. By this we know that we love the children of God when we love God and obey His commandments. And this is the love of God that we keep as commandments and His commandments are not burdensome. For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world, this is the victory that overcomes the world our faith. And so we see this keeping the commandments of God by faith to demonstrate our love for God. This is how we do what is right in the eyes of the Lord. And this does require of us to be in the Word, to be studying the scriptures, to know what God says about Himself and what love looks like and how we ought to love. Let's move on. There is a second aspect of the day, the culture, the time in which the Book of Judges was written. It was a time when number two, the people of God were doing what was right in their own eye. Now this is almost saying the same thing as they were doing evil in the eyes of the Lord. It is a little bit different. And it's, again, it's a theme that's in primarily the second half of the Book of Judges. For example, in chapter 17 and verse 6 it says, in those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eye. In the purposes that get you to see, this was part of the problem. Not only were they doing what was right in the surround, in the eyes of the surrounding nations, they were doing what was right in their own eyes. And in chapter 17 and moving forward, he gives two graphic examples of what that looks like. It builds on their problem with idolatry, which is spoken of very much in the first half with the Bales and Asher and such, but it builds on it. It's they're doing right in their own eyes. And there's two examples and we'll take the time to look at one of them. And as I do so, I want to give kind of a rating for you. The section this story is rated R for mature audiences. If you have young children and you are afraid that what I read from the scriptures and explain from the scriptures is to mature for your little ones, you may want to take a potty break right about now. And we'll because we'll be looking at this story. It's in the scriptures, so I'm not encouraging you to leave. I'm just giving you heads up that that's the way it is. Now it's the second story. In chapter 19, it starts this way. In those days, when there was no king in Israel, a certain Levite was so journeying in the remote parts of the hill country of Ephraim. And he took to himself a concubine from Bethlehem of Judea. This is important from Bethlehem. This is Bethlehem is where Naomi is from and where Ruth and Naomi return after the famine is over when they're both widows and such. It plays an important part. And these books are put together for a purpose. And this idea of Bethlehem is small but significant. And his concubine was unfaithful to him. And she went away from him to her father's house at Bethlehem in Judea. And they were there some four months. She was there four months. Now in this story, it starts with a concubine which already tells you this guy's married and he's looking for more love than he's getting at home. And so he gets this concubine and she's unfaithful to him. She committed adultery. And I don't know if he sent her away. The text doesn't say or she left. But whatever the conflict was, they were separated for four months. And then he went to Bethlehem and he went to get her. And it was kind of an interesting read. I do recommend read 19, 2021 of Judges and you'll get all the details. But the father-in-law, this woman's father said, why don't you stay and eat and drink and you can leave tomorrow. Okay, so we did that. And next day, getting ready to leave. And last day, I have something to eat and drink and you can leave tomorrow. And it's almost a week before this guy at the end of the day says, I'm leaving. And the dad's against a father-in-law saying, come on, stay a little bit longer. And he goes, no, I'm out of here. And he takes his concubine and they take off. Well, it's late enough in the day to where they're not making it back home. And they have to stop overnight. And I think there's a servant with him and he says, hey, let's go stay over here. And it's one of the cities in the Israel promise land, but it's not one of the cities that has been taken by Israel yet. And the guy says, he's a Levite. He says, no, I'm not going to stay in that city. Let's go to a city where Israel is in control. We're one of the tribes of Jacob has taken conquered the city and our people are there. And so they went to a city called Ghibia. And in Ghibia, we have something akin to what happened to the angels that rescued Lot from Sodom and Gomorrah. This is what it says. This guy with this concubine, they stayed in the square and no one was inviting them in. And finally, some old guy came and said, why are you in the square? Well, I'm traveling. Well, why don't you stay at my house? Don't stay in the square. That'd be terrible. Let me show hospital. Okay, we'll show, we'll do that. This is what's going on. While they were making Mary in their hearts, behold the men of the city, worthless fellows, surrounded the house, beating on the door. And they said to the old man, the master of the house, bring out the man who came into your house that we may know him, rape him. And the man, the master of the house went out and said to them, no, my brothers, do not act so wickedly since this man has come to my house. Do not do this while thing. The old, here is my virgin daughter and his concubine that then be brought out, violate them, and do with them as seems good to you, as seems right in your own eye. But against this man, do not do this outrageous thing, but the men would not listen to him. So the man sees this concubine and made her go out to them and they knew her and abused her all night until morning. And as Don began to break, they let her go. Now that's the example that is given to us and it is horrible. It's just a horrible image and it goes from bad to work. This woman makes her way to the house where her husband didn't protect her at all, is staying and she dies at the threshold from the abuse she suffered from the men of that town. The man comes out in the morning and he says to her, get up. She's dead. She doesn't get up. So he takes her on his donkey and goes back to where he's from. He takes a knife. He cuts her into 12 pieces and delivers the 12 pieces to the 12 tribes of Israel saying, what do you think about this? And the nation gathers. The men of war some 400,000 come together and he explains to them what has happened. The section I just read to you basically has repeated again. And he tells them what happened and they respond, behold, you people of Israel, all of you, give your advice and counsel. What's right in your eyes and all the people arose as one man saying, none of us will go to his tent and none of us will return to his house. But now this is what we will do to give you where this happened. We will go up against it by lot and we will take and it tells how it's going to divide the men up. Like I say, there's 400,000 soldiers and they say we'll go and we're going to we're going to do to them what they deserve for the outrage that they have committed in Israel. And they attack in the first day some 20,000 Israelites die. And before it's over between the people from Ghibliah and the Benjaminites who are defending the people of Ghibliah and the Israelis, the Israelites, over 65,000 people died as a result of what happened. It's terrible. They wiped out so many of the Benjaminites that they after it was over, they began to feel bad about it. What do you think they did? They devised a way for some of these guys to steal some of the virgin daughters of Israel and take them by force to be their wife. They did what was right in their own eye. It's just terrible. It's just terrible. Let's take a minute to reflect on our culture for just a few minutes. It's almost an axiom in our day. We hear it in our culture all over the place. It's in our movies. It's in our entertainment. We may have even said it. You've got to follow your heart. We say it. We might as well say, you've got to do what is right in your own eye. And what the scriptures would teach us is no, don't do what is right in your eyes. Do what is right in the eyes of the Lord. Let's think about our culture a little bit. Just last month there were two high school students found guilty of rape from Stephenville, Ohio. Did you read about that? It was on, I think, 60 minutes or 2020 and various news outlets talked about it. It was a party. The high school was known for their awesome football team and how the kids just one year after year and such. And it was just an after it wasn't a government sanction or school sanctioned party. It was just these guys getting together to party and they were getting sloppy drunk in this young 16 year old girl who was sloppy drunk and out of control. They started to sexually abuse. They started tweeting and taking pictures and posting it on Facebook and the word got out. And two high school football players were accused of rape. And at least the telling of the news story that I saw, the section I saw, the sense of concern was this happened all over America. So many high school parties. Again, high school aged people have these kind of parties. And frankly, I remember those parties from my high school days where you don't practice social drinking, you get sloppy drunk. It's what's right in our own age. It happens on so many college campuses. We kind of shrug and know it's there. Also in our news, the Supreme Court is dealing with a couple items that deal with the sense of marriage and gay marriage and homosexual rights for marriage and such. And that's been in the news as well. In fact, you know, often I tell you guys I listened to NPR and enjoy listening to them. I got to tell you that every single day they were not telling news they were campaigning and seeking to bend the minds of the American. I had to turn it off. I go to my radio every morning to practice something and say, what in the world's going on? Knowing that it'll be the news is going on. One report I read said that 58% of the American society now supports the freedom of gay couples to marry and that that thought figure skyrockets to 81% for those who are under 30 regardless of party affiliation. 81% have determined that what God does, well, may not know what God does. And let's write in our eyes this is good. This is right. This is brother. I want to be perfectly clear. God says adultery is wrong
and rape is wrong as well as homosexuality and gender confusion. And it says that premarital sex is wrong. And we have to be careful that we understand that all of these things are wrong in the eyes of the Lord and not just pick on one but say these are wrong but not just that. If you are here today as one who struggles with homosexuality or one of the sins that I'm talking about, I want to say very clearly to you, I do not hate you and I do not want to foe mate hate towards you. I rather love you. I think the most loving thing to do is to love God and believe what He says and that it's saying that it's just saying what's true and that if it's true it's what's best that He makes His laws because He loves us and His laws around sexuality are good because there's such a thing as good and pure and holy sex that God has made for our enjoyment. And He's so concerned that that He kept pure and holy and used for Him for His glory and our enjoyment that He sets these strict rules up to guard what is good and holy. When you promote or legalize what God condemns, you're doing evil in the eyes of the Lord and if you say, well I'm not for it but it seems like so many people are, maybe we should do it. You're doing what's evil in the eyes of the Lord and you care more about what's right in the eyes of me. Brothers and sisters, love the Lord, love Him, do what is right in the eyes of the Lord and let Him say what is good and right and true and love your brothers and sisters and the people God has put in this world regardless of their situation. Let's move on from that. There's one last point that the book of judges seems to make a big deal about and that plays in very specifically to the book of Ruth. It's this, there was no king over God's people.
We saw that at the beginning of this terrible story that we just looked at from from judges 19 through 21 in those days there was no king of Israel as how it started and if you have your Bible, if you remember we're looking at in the days when the judges ruled, if you have your Bible, that's you can see that's the very first verse of the book of Ruth and if you look at the very last verse of the book that preceded it, the book of judges, it says in those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes. That's how the book is summarized. There was no king. It's as though they're saying we need a king and the book of Ruth is a book that says but we have a king or there's going to be a king in this period of darkest darkness called the time of the judges when the judges ruled when people are doing what is right in their own eyes and dying awful battles and there's rape and adultery and immorality of all sorts. In the darkest time we are told that God raises up the king and we see it at the end of of Ruth and that's why we read the generations of Perez son of Judah by a prostitute not really a prostitute his daughter-in-law that Judah thought was a prostitute Genesis 38 and it goes through and it lists out then it says verse 22 the last verse of the book oh bed the father of Jesse and Jesse the father of David and that's what sets us up for first Samuel and the story about the king. And I read to you from Matthew's gospel earlier to show you that same passage and let me just point out that there are a couple women who are mentioned in that passage in Matthew there is the fact that Tamar who was a daughter-in-law dressed up as a prostitute and Judah slept with her not knowing that it was his daughter-in-law she's mentioned in the line of Christ the next one to be mentioned is Boaz's mother who is Rahab the harlot the pagan harlot from Jericho presumably and then there's Ruth the Moabitis and finally in verse 6 after we learn about David the king we learned that David's son Solomon was born by Daeshiba, Yoraya the Hittite's wife. I point that out to say two things first of all God works salvation in the darkest of time he is angered by sin he is angered when we do what is right in our own eyes when we forsake him when we go after other gods and he provides a redeemer he works for God to provide he he has God provides a king for Israel and even he is the picture David's a king after God's own heart but he falls miserably short too but he's a picture of the great king the king the Lord Jesus who is the God man who is perfect as the king who always does the will of the father whose kingdom shall never end whose kingdom is perfectly just and righteous who defends and protects us people and gives them the victory the great king is the king that we look for he's the one who shows us what is right in the eyes of the of the of God and he's the one who empowers us to live right in the eyes of God and that's what we have in our day there is the king he's seated at the right hand of God and he's interceding for you he is your life and your protection and your hope we thank you oh lord for the book of Ruth and for the whole bible and how it points us to you how it tells us about what you like and what you hate and how good you are and how merciful you are even when you're angry and punishing your people how grateful we are that you bring salvation grant us to trust in you to look to you to walk in newness of life by Christ Jesus to pray this for you're on your own and for our own good in Jesus name