Light at a Time of Darkness.

The Book of Ruth, in the Tanakh (the Old, or First, Testament), is a love story with a difference! It is certainly not a "Mills & Boon" romantic novel. There is the love shown by Ruth, to her mother-in-law, Naomi; and the love that blossomed between Ruth and Boaz. There is also, on the part of all three, an obvious love of Almighty God, characterised by their trust in Him.

We may better appreciate the significance of this story by placing it in its proper context. The stories described in the Book take place at the same time as the events of the Book of Judges – a dark and difficult era for the people of Israel. After the death of Joshua, the tribes of Israel each operated independently of one another. Lacking unity, the tribes were weak and vulnerable to attack from neighboring countries and plundering tribes. At the same time, without consistently strong leadership, the Israelites frequently turned away from God and worshiped the pagan gods of surrounding nations. The Book of Judges can be described as a painful cycle: the people become complacent and turn away from God; God sends foreign enemies to subjugate the people; the people cry out and God sends a savior to redeem them; finally, saved from their enemies, the people become complacent and the cycle is repeated once again.
Is there a message, here, for the people of Israel today, as the war with Hamas rages on?
After selflessly following her mother-in-law to Judea, Ruth is rewarded with a life of poverty and no marriage prospects. However, Ruth finds herself at the farm of a man named Boaz who, unknown to her, is a near kinsman of Naomi, and he is kind to her. (One can almost hear the wedding bells!) But once again, Ruth is disappointed. The harvest season ends and nothing happens. Boaz fails to act.
In a bold move, Naomi instructs Ruth to sneak into the threshing floor where Boaz is asleep. And yet, instead of a romantic scene, Boaz essentially tells Ruth: “There is another redeemer-kinsman, more closely related than I. Wait, and I shall speak with him tomorrow.” This other relative is given the opportunity to marry Ruth, but he turns it down – yet another moment of rejection and disappointment! It is only then, at the very end of the book, that we finally reach the moment we’ve been waiting for. Boaz takes her to be his wife. Ruth was a Moabitess; Boaz was descended from Rahab, the prostitute from Jericho.  Yet from this union, the Messiah is born. How amazing is the grace of Almighty God!
The lesson of the Book of Ruth is particularly important for both Jews, and Gentile and Jewish disciples of Yeshua (Jesus). In many ways, the modern State of Israel is re-experiencing the era of the Book of Judges. Modern Israel is divided into “tribes” – religious and secular; Orthodox Jews who seek to scrupulously live by the Torah and Messianic Jews who have accepted Yeshua as HaMashiach; Jews of Middle Eastern origin and Jews from Europe; Jews who believe the State of Israel is the harbinger of redemption and Jews who reject its religious significance altogether. At the same time, dangerous enemies like Iran and its terror proxies such as HamaS (remember HamaN? see Esther 3:6 ff), threaten Israel from without, while "Palestinian" terrorists murder as many Jews as they can within Israel. From this perspective, Israel is living through an era of great pain and national disappointment.
But the Book of Ruth teaches us that it is precisely during times like this that the seeds of redemption are sown. Perhaps, at this very moment of civil strife and external threats, the story of the final Redeemer, Yeshua HaMashiach (Jesus, the Messiah), is being set in motion – right under our noses!
Ruth reminds us that the people of Israel, and disciples of Jesus, must never give up hope, for God will not forsake His people - whether His Chosen people, or those who are redeemed by the blood of the Lamb. Take strength, for the redemption will come!

I shall return!

In 1914, Ernest Shackleton, the Anglo-Irish explorer from the early 20th century, led an expedition to sail to Antarctica, and then walk to the South Pole. The expedition was going according to plan until the ice trapped their ship, the Endurance, and eventually crushed its hull. The expedition team set up camp on an unstable ice-floe, and then rowed lifeboats until they reached the comparative safety of Cape Wild, on the coast of Elephant Island.

However, they were still far from safe! They needed help, and they needed it quickly. Promising that he would return for the rest of the team, Shackleton announced that he would take one of the lifeboats and, with a crew of eight, and only a sextant to guide them, set off on the 800 mile voyage to the island of South Georgia, in the South Atlantic. Amazingly - some might even say, miraculously! - they succeeded and, having clambered over the island's ice-capped mountains, reached a whaling station, and the help they so desperately needed. A ship was despatched and, four-and-a-half months after having arrived at Cape Wild, the stranded crew of Endurance were rescued, with not one life having been lost. Their leader had kept his word.

That makes me think of a somewhat similar situation! As the Lord Jesus was preparing to leave His disciples, He promised to return. He sai: "If I go and prepare a place for you,I will come again, and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you will be also." (Jn.14:3). Then, after enduring the horrors of His passion and crucifixion - beside which, even the ordeal of Shackleton and his men pales into insignificance - He rose from the dead to provide eternal life for all who place their trust in Him, and in Him alone, as their Saviour. He lives with them, today, by God the Holy Spirit, Who indwells each one but, one day, He will return and gather them into His presence. Paul writes to the disciples of Jesus in Thessalonica: "For this we declare to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, shall not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the archangel's call, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first; then we who are alive, who are left, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and so we shall always be with the Lord." (I Thess.4:15-17).

I find myself wondering if those who had been left behind by Ernest Shackleton were constantly looking to see if their was any sign of their leader. I suspect that they were, and that they would have noticed some sign - perhaps the top of a mast - before he actually arrived to rescue them.

Many disciples of Jesus are certainly looking for His return - and we are living at a time when signs of that imminent return are all around us! He is even more true to His word than was Shackleton to his. The rapture of the genuine disciples of Jesus is certain - because He has said so. 

Are you looking? Are you listening for the sound of the shofar? If you are His, He is coming for you. If you have not yet come to Him, in faith, and received the salvation that is available by the grace of the Father, then I urge you to think carefully about such matters. The time is now short, and it is only those who are truly His who will rise to meet with Him in the air. Will you be one of them?!