More from the Book of Ruth

There is a mystical truth hidden in the Book of Ruth: Not only is the Law its own reward, but it invites God to pour out His glory in a very wide sweep, touching many lives for generations to come.

We understand that the sovereignty of God isn’t an iron will. It’s that God gets what He wants in every thing. Sometimes He is quite willing to let you choose against His revelation, and often it’s with the hope you will learn from your failures. He says as much in the Bible. He turns us over to the deceiving spirits to whom we listen for discipline. In other cases, ostensibly rather rare, He forces things to go a specific path for His inscrutable and ineffable reasons.

So when we turn to His revelation, there are always blessings attached. If nothing else, it binds the demons from interfering with things. Sometimes it plays into His long term agenda, and it becomes rather glorious to see. In the case of Ruth and Boaz, their determination to honor the levirate law becomes the basis for including them in the pinnacle of Israeli history: the reign of King David. They were his direct ancestors. (Side note: Ruth’s heritage from Moab is why David retained some friendship for Moab during his lifetime. He sent his parents there to escape Saul’s wrath.)

levirate: the biblical institution whereby a man must marry the widow of his childless brother in order to maintain the brother’s line

What few people can quite grasp is why the levirate principle matters so much. It can only be understood from within the Covenant. Under the Covenant prosperity has a distinct mystical meaning of its own. Under the Covenant the levirate law maintains God’s grant of who prospers and who does not. Under the Covenant God’s decision whom to bless materially can result in sweeping changes through generations into the future. The words “Law” and “Covenant” are synonymous in this context: The Covenant is its own reward.

But we live in a non-covenant world. This is why the blessings of obedience can be hindered or moderated. God’s will does not cease to influence events simply because everyone ignores Him. But it takes time and concerted effort for us as individuals and small communities of faith to rise to a place where it becomes likely God will reveal what He’s up to in the context around us.

Right away we begin to understand why America is doomed under God’s wrath: no covenant. But it gets worse — not only do we see vacated the covenant we should have had, but we realize America has flatly embraced an idolatrous commitment to evil. US laws on property and inheritance are consistently against Biblical Law.

It’s not that levirate law applies to us literally; it was granted by God for a specific context that no longer exists. Rather, it’s the underlying respect for how God does business with physical property. It should still be a matter of whom God chooses to prosper for reasons He doesn’t have to explain. We should bow the knee and walk in His revelation regardless of individual outcomes. Instead, we live in a culture with legal traditions that flatly violate God’s revealed ideals.

We have laws that confiscate property for the flimsiest excuses, mostly to enrich those already too wealthy for their own good. Sure, the State claims this rapacious right of confiscation, but it then is passed into the control of those who wrote the laws, or for whom the laws were written as a favor after bribery lobbying. Unjust favoritism is for sale. God isn’t ignoring this crap, but His plans may move Him to let the sins pile up to a certain height before He acts. That’s how He treated Israel under the Covenant, and every other nation with or without a covenant.

What few seem to understand is just how thoroughly the legacy of America offends God.