Seize the Moment – Day 730
The Rescue of Ruth!
Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Thursday, March 17.
Have you ever needed to be rescued? Maybe you have been lost and needed to be found, or you got a cramp in the deep end of the pool, and someone needed to jump in to rescue you, setting your feet on solid ground once again?
That is exactly what Boaz was doing for Ruth and Naomi, he was rescuing them as their kinsmen-redeemer, the closest relative with the responsibility to deliver them and to set their feet on solid ground. Boaz testified of this in Ruth 4:9-10:
You are witnesses today that I have bought from the hand of Naomi all that belonged to Elimelech and all that belonged to Chilion and Mahlon. Moreover, I have acquired Ruth the Moabitess, the widow of Mahlon, to be my wife in order to raise up the name of the deceased on his inheritance, so that the name of the deceased will not be cut off from his brothers or from the court of his birth place; you are witnesses today.
Interestingly, the same word used to describe Boaz as the kinsmen-redeemer in Ruth 4:14, was also used of God in Job 19:25a, when Job proclaimed, “As for me, I know that my Redeemer lives.” This is also the same word used by God when He promised Moses that He would rescue His people from slavery in Exodus 6:6. To redeem is to rescue and deliver!
Do you recognize your own need to be rescued and delivered? Ruth did! In Ruth 3:9, she asked Boaz to “spread your covering over your maid, for you are a close relative.” This points to the Living Redeemer, Jesus Christ, and why He came from Heaven to Earth – “to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10).
Seize the moment and pray to God today that Jesus Christ would rescue you from sin and place your feet on the solid rock of His salvation!