Ruth 4:8
So the kinsman-redeemer removed his sandal and said to Boaz, "Buy it for yourself."
Sermons
The GoelJ.R. Thomson Ruth 4:3-8














Lest I mar mine own inheritance. How many do this? They have noble inheritances, but in a multitude of ways they mar them.

I. THERE IS THE INHERITANCE OF PHYSICAL HEALTH. Most precious; not to be gotten for fine gold. Yet how often it is injured by sloth and sin, by intemperance and lust, or by the overtaxed brain, and neglect of the simple economy of health.

II. THERE IS THE INHERITANCE OF A GOOD NAME. This too is a priceless gift. More to be desired than gold, yea, than fine gold. Character. It takes years to win - whether for a commercial house or for a personal reputation; but it takes only a moment to lose. How many a son has marred his inheritance! The "good name" is irrecoverable in the highest sense. Forgiveness may ensue, but the memory of evil lives after.

III. THERE IS THE INHERITANCE OF A RELIGIOUS FAITH. "My father's God." Then my father had a God! There had been a generation to serve him before I was born! Am I to be the first to break the glorious chain, to sever the great procession? "One generation shall praise thy works to another." How beautiful! Is my voice to be silent, my thought to be idle, my heart to be cold and dead to God my Savior? Let me think of the unfeigned faith of my grandmother Lois and my mother Eunice, and not mar the inheritance through unbelief. - W.M.S.

I cannot redeem it for myself, lest I mar mine own inheritance.
Many men mar noble inheritances.

I. The inheritance of PHYSICAL HEALTH. The ancients were right who spoke of a sound mind in a sound body as one of the best gifts of the gods. God has written His will upon the body as truly as upon the pages of the Bible. Every natural motion of the body is a revelation of the will and purpose of the Divine Creator. Ever since Christ was cradled in the manger at Bethlehem the body has been honoured, exalted, glorified. Ever since the descent of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost the body has been the temple of the Third Person of the Trinity. The man who overworks his body sins against God. The man who by intemperance in eating or drinking unfits his body for discharging its normal functions degrades himself and dishonours the Almighty. It is true that many men with broken bodies have accomplished wonderful results in life. The names of John Calvin, Robert Hall, and a score more, suggest themselves as illustrations. Let no man be discouraged who has inherited a weak body. Great souls have often dwelt in frail tenements, until the tired body was laid to its rest and the great soul went up in triumph to God. But let those who have received the inheritance of physical health prize it as one of the great gifts of life, care for it as one of the sacred inheritances of life, and lay it as a willing offering at the feet of the Lord Christ.

II. The inheritance of INTELLECTUAL CAPABILITIES. Of course there are great differences among men in these respects. But in our day ignorance is not simply a misfortune; it is a crime. Christian men must develop all their faculties to their highest possibilities. Every man is bound, by the most sacred obligations, to make the most of himself for time and for eternity. What a man is intellectually here will determine to some degree what he will be intellectually hereafter. The life to come is but the developed results of present conditions and attainments; that life is but the ripened fruit of the intellectual and moral seed sown in this life. Every Christian, because inspired by a sense of loyalty to Jesus Christ, will desire to develop his intellectual powers to their utmost degree. He cannot but wish to possess numerous and varied mental faculties for the salvation of men and for the greater glory of the Lord. Divine love in human hearts puts enlarged brains into human heads. Religion stimulates every noble faculty of the soul. It made John Bunyan the immortal dreamer; it made Samuel Bradburn one of the greatest workers and orators in his Church, a man of whom Dr. Abel Stevens said that "during forty years Samuel Bradburn was esteemed the Demosthenes of Methodism"; it made William Carey a profound scholar, a lofty thinker, a consecrated toiler, and an inspired genius. Christianity adorns culture with true symmetry and highest beauty; and culture, in turn, gives Christianity its fullest beauty and its grandest opportunity. They ought never to be separated. Each sweetly and divinely ministers to the other. Let no young man or woman neglect wide reading, careful study, earnest thought. Young Christians should be model students. They have Jesus Christ for their teacher and the noblest men and women in the world as their fellow-pupils.

III. The inheritance of A WORTHY FAMILY HISTORY. This is a gift above the worth of all mere financial values. A good name is more to be desired than gold, yea, than much fine gold. A good name is the ripe product of years of noble ancestral character. Is there a man who has wandered from his father's and his mother's God? Is there one who has lowered the standard of a noble family life and history? Is there one who is besmirching his name and staining his character by unholy thoughts and impure acts? In the name of that worthy family history, in the name of an ideal family life, in the name of the great God and Father of us all, I beseech him to stop and to stop now. He is marring his own inheritance. It is a blessed thing to be able to give a noble family inheritance to one's children. Let us carefully guard it; let us sacredly preserve it; let us continually honour it; let us never so live that our children shall be ashamed of the name they bear. Let us send it down to them as an honoured inheritance to which they shall add honours from all the generations to come.

IV. The inheritance of RELIGIOUS POSSIBILITIES. Intellectual attainments and religious experiences cannot be transmitted to our children. We can transmit our vices; but, strictly speaking, not our virtues. There is a sense, however, in which we can transmit tendencies toward good and God, or toward evil and the devil. There is a Divine truth in much that is said regarding heredity in our day. It is much for a man to be able to say, "My father's God"; it is vastly easier for such a man to say, "My Lord and my God," after having been taught to say, "My father's God." Children of Christian men and women stand upon a vastly higher plane of possibility than the children of ungodly men and women. The time may come when the natural will be much more like the supernatural than as we now see it. Indeed, there is a sense in which there is no distinction between the natural and supernatural. God is active in all spheres of nature. The possibility of being translated out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of God's dear Son ought to be realised in early childhood. No man, however far he may go into sin, can shake off entirely the influences of a godly parentage and of early religious training. I once talked with a man who had just recovered from a period of dissipation, and with broken voice and moist eyes, he said, "How could I so far forget myself, so greatly dishonour my sainted parents, and so wickedly disobey my father's God?" Oh! children of God's children, prize your privileges!

(R. S. MacArthur, D. D.)

People
Amminadab, Boaz, Chilion, David, Elimelech, Ephratah, Ephrath, Hezron, Jesse, Leah, Mahlon, Nahshon, Naomi, Obed, Perez, Pharez, Rachel, Ruth, Salmon, Tamar
Places
Bethlehem, Ephrathah, Moab
Topics
Boaz, Bo'az, Buy, Closest, Draweth, Drew, Kin, Kinsman, Redeemer, Redemption, Relation, Relative, Removed, Sandal, Shoe, Thyself
Outline
1. Boaz calls into judgment the next kinsman
6. He refuses the redemption according to the manner in Israel
9. Boaz buys the inheritance
11. He marries Ruth
13. She bears Obed, the grandfather of David
18. The generations of Pharez unto David

Dictionary of Bible Themes
Ruth 4:1-8

     6721   redemption, in life

Ruth 4:1-10

     5681   family, nature of

Ruth 4:1-11

     5623   witnesses, legal

Ruth 4:1-12

     5671   clan
     7719   elders, as leaders

Ruth 4:1-13

     5117   Ruth
     6714   ransom

Ruth 4:2-9

     5477   property, land

Ruth 4:7-8

     5179   sandal
     7328   ceremonies

Library
The Gospel of Matthew
Matthew's Gospel breaks the long silence that followed the ministry of Malachi the last of the Old Testament prophets. This silence extended for four hundred years, and during that time God was hid from Israel's view. Throughout this period there were no angelic manifestations, no prophet spake for Jehovah, and, though the Chosen People were sorely pressed, yet were there no Divine interpositions on their behalf. For four centuries God shut His people up to His written Word. Again and again had God
Arthur W. Pink—Why Four Gospels?

Christ the Redeemer
Q-xxx: HOW DOES THE SPIRIT APPLY TO US THE REDEMPTION PURCHASED BY CHRIST? A: The Spirit applies to us the redemption purchased by Christ by working faith in us, and thereby uniting us to Christ in our effectual calling. In this answer there are two things. It is implied that Christ is the glorious purchaser of our redemption, in the words, The redemption purchased by Christ,' and it is declared that the Spirit applies to us this purchased redemption, by working in us faith, &c. The thing implied
Thomas Watson—A Body of Divinity

Appendix ix. List of Old Testament Passages Messianically Applied in Ancient Rabbinic Writings
THE following list contains the passages in the Old Testament applied to the Messiah or to Messianic times in the most ancient Jewish writings. They amount in all to 456, thus distributed: 75 from the Pentateuch, 243 from the Prophets, and 138 from the Hagiorgrapha, and supported by more than 558 separate quotations from Rabbinic writings. Despite all labour care, it can scarcely be hoped that the list is quite complete, although, it is hoped, no important passage has been omitted. The Rabbinic references
Alfred Edersheim—The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah

Job's Faith and Expectation
I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that He shall stand in the latter day upon the earth. And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God. C hristianity, that is, the religion of which MESSIAH is the author and object, the foundation, life, and glory, though not altogether as old as creation, is nearly so. It is coeval [contemporary] with the first promise and intimation of mercy given to fallen man. When Adam, by transgression, had violated the order and law of
John Newton—Messiah Vol. 2

Ruth
Goethe has characterized the book of Ruth as the loveliest little idyll that tradition has transmitted to us. Whatever be its didactic purpose--and some would prefer to think that it had little or none-it is, at any rate, a wonderful prose poem, sweet, artless, and persuasive, touched with the quaintness of an older world and fresh with the scent of the harvest fields. The love--stronger than country--of Ruth for Naomi, the gracious figure of Boaz as he moves about the fields with a word of blessing
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament

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