Revive Our Hearts

Dana Gresh: In Ruth's story, we catch a glimpse of redemption, the kind of redemption you and I so desperately need. Here's Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: God has an incredible way of taking the messed up, confused, discombobulated pieces of our stories and weaving them into something that is very beautiful, very precious, and ultimately brings great glory to Christ, who is our redeemer.

Dana Gresh: This is the Revive Our Hearts podcast with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, author of Adorned, for February 2nd, 2026. I'm Dana Gresh.

If you're walking through the 2026 Bible reading plan with us, today we're reading Leviticus 21 through 23. But here on the program, we're beginning a journey through the book of Ruth. This is a story of repentance, restoration, and redeeming love. Truly one of the most beautiful plotlines ever written. And the best part is, every word of it is true. It happened in real life. The book of Ruth really is proof that God writes the best stories.

To get excited for what's in store in this series, here's a preview of some moments to come.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: The past may seem to be hopeless, but when you figure Jesus into it, you now have a story of hope.

Food can be a real Moab for me. I just want to run into that pantry and find some quick satisfaction.

God is committed to making you and me like Jesus. And that involves a process because we didn't start out that way.

To the woman who has lost her joy in serving her family, her husband, and her children: come home.

Almost every day of my life, if I took the pathway that my emotions tell me to take, I would invariably do the wrong things. I would not choose the pathway of commitment and compassion unless I were willing to walk by faith.

For Elisabeth Elliot, "why" wasn't on the table. Because He's God and we're not. Right. And so she, a very practical person also, she just moved on to the question that she considered the relevant question, which was: what? As in, Lord, what would You have me do?

The effects of sin in our lives are irrecoverable apart from the grace of God. If it weren't for God's grace, this story would have only a very sad ending. But it's the grace of God that is going to recover the consequences and the effects that have been caused by the choices that she and her husband made.

As I was reading this part of the book of Ruth, what jumped out at me is Naomi feels uncomfortable with the people of God. I can relate to that. I love the people of God. I do. They are my family, my brothers and sisters. But there are times when I feel like, "I just don't fit here." And sometimes then I translate that to the Lord.

Behind what seems to be chance in our day-to-day encounters, our day-to-day experiences in life, there's no such thing as chance. It's all under providence.

Ruth had to learn, Naomi had to learn, and we have to learn that ultimately rest for our hearts cannot be found in any husband, in any man, in any friend, in any counselor, in any situation, in any job, in any geographic location. Ultimately rest for our souls is found in our relationship with Jesus Christ.

Dana Gresh: Oh yeah, I am excited. Here's Nancy to kick off our series, Ruth: The Transforming Power of Redeeming Love.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: Today on Revive Our Hearts, we're going to start a several-week journey through one of my very favorite books in all the Bible, the book of Ruth. As we start the series today, I thought it would be meaningful to have my friend Max McLean read for us a portion of the book of Ruth. Max is with the Fellowship for the Performing Arts. I believe there's something very powerful about just listening to the scripture being read. And God has given Max a great gift of reading the scripture in a way that makes it come alive. Let's join Max McLean in the book of Ruth.

Max McLean: Chapter 2. Now Naomi had a relative on her husband's side from the clan of Elimelek, a man of standing whose name was Boaz. And Ruth the Moabite said to Naomi, "Let me go to the fields and pick the leftover grain behind anyone whose eyes I find favor." Naomi said to her, "Go ahead, my daughter."

So she went out and began to glean in the fields behind the harvesters. As it turned out, she found herself working in a field belonging to Boaz, who was from the clan of Elimelek. Just then Boaz arrived from Bethlehem and greeted the harvesters, "The Lord be with you." "The Lord bless you," they called back. Boaz asked the foreman of his harvesters, "Whose young woman is that?"

The foreman replied, "She is the Moabite who came back from Moab with Naomi. She said, 'Please let me glean and gather among the sheaves behind the harvesters.' She went into the field and has worked steadily from morning till now, except for a short rest in the shelter."

So Boaz said to Ruth, "My daughter, listen to me. Don't go out and glean in another field and don't go away from here. Stay here with my servant girls. Watch the field where the men are harvesting and follow along after the girls. I have told the men not to touch you. And whenever you are thirsty, go and get a drink from the water jars the men have filled."

At this, she bowed down with her face to the ground. She exclaimed, "Why have I found such favor in your eyes that you notice me, a foreigner?"

Boaz replied, "I've been told all about what you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband, how you left your father and mother and your homeland and came to live with a people you did not know before. May the Lord repay you for what you have done. May you be richly rewarded by the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge."

"May I continue to find favor in your eyes, my lord," she said. "You have given me comfort and have spoken kindly to your servant, though I do not have the standing of one of your servant girls."

At mealtime, Boaz said to her, "Come over here. Have some bread and dip it in the wine vinegar." When she sat down with the harvesters, he offered her some roasted grain. She ate all she wanted and had some left over. As she got up to glean, Boaz gave orders to his men, "Even if she gathers among the sheaves, don't embarrass her. Rather, pull out some stalks for her from the bundles and leave them for her to pick up, and don't rebuke her."

So Ruth gleaned in the field until evening. Then she threshed the barley she had gathered, and it amounted to about an ephah. She carried it back to town, and her mother-in-law saw how much she had gathered. Ruth also brought out and gave her what she had left over after she had eaten enough. Her mother-in-law asked her, "Where did you glean today? Where did you work? Blessed be the man who took notice of you."

Then Ruth told her mother-in-law about the one at whose place she had been working. "The name of the man I worked with today is Boaz," she said.

"The Lord bless him," Naomi said to her daughter-in-law. "He has not stopped showing his kindness to the living and the dead." She added, "That man is our close relative. He is one of our kinsman-redeemers."

Then Ruth the Moabite said, "He even said to me, 'Stay with my workers until they finish harvesting all my grain.'"

Naomi said to Ruth her daughter-in-law, "It will be good for you, my daughter, to go with his girls because in someone else's field you might be harmed." So Ruth stayed close to the servant girls of Boaz to glean until the barley and wheat harvests were finished. And she lived with her mother-in-law.

Chapter 3. One day Naomi, her mother-in-law, said to her, "My daughter, should I not try to find a home for you where you will be well provided for? Is not Boaz, with whose servant girls you have been, a kinsman of ours? Tonight he will be winnowing barley on the threshing floor. Wash and perfume yourself, and put on your best clothes. Then go down to the threshing floor, but don't let him know you are there until he has finished eating and drinking. When he lies down, note the place where he is lying. Then go and uncover his feet and lie down. He will tell you what to do."

"I will do whatever you say," Ruth answered. So she went down to the threshing floor and did everything her mother-in-law told her to do. When Boaz had finished eating and drinking and was in good spirits, he went over to lie down at the far end of the grain pile. Ruth approached quietly, uncovered his feet, and lay down. In the middle of the night, something startled the man, and he turned and discovered a woman lying at his feet.

"Who are you?" he asked.

"I am your servant Ruth," she said. "Spread the corner of your garment over me, since you are a kinsman-redeemer."

"The Lord bless you, my daughter," he replied. "This kindness is greater than that which you showed earlier. You have not run after the younger men, whether rich or poor. And now, my daughter, don't be afraid. I will do for you all you ask. All my fellow townsmen know that you are a woman of noble character. Although it is true that I am near of kin, there is a kinsman-redeemer nearer than I. Stay here for the night, and in the morning if he wants to redeem, good. Let him redeem. But if he is not willing, as surely as the Lord lives, I will do it. Lie here until morning."

So she lay at his feet until morning, but got up before anyone could be recognized, and he said, "Don't let it be known that a woman came to the threshing floor." He also said, "Bring me the shawl you are wearing and hold it out." When she did so, he poured into it six measures of barley and put it on her. Then he went back to town.

When Ruth came to her mother-in-law, Naomi asked, "How did it go, my daughter?" Then she told her everything Boaz had done for her and added, "He gave me these six measures of barley, saying, 'Don't go back to your mother-in-law empty-handed.'" Then Naomi said, "Wait, my daughter, until you find out what happens. For the man will not rest until the matter is settled today."

Chapter 4. Meanwhile Boaz went up to the town gate and sat there. When the kinsman-redeemer he had mentioned came along, Boaz said, "Come over here, my friend, sit down." So he went over and sat down. Boaz took ten of the elders of the town and said, "Sit here," and they did so.

Then he said to the kinsman-redeemer, "Naomi, who has come back from Moab, is selling the piece of land that belonged to our brother Elimelek. I thought I should bring the matter to your attention and suggest that you buy it in the presence of these seated here and in the presence of the elders of my people. If you will redeem it, do so. But if you will not, tell me, so I will know. For no one has a right to do it except you, and I am next in line."

"I will redeem it," he said.

Then Boaz said, "On the day you buy the land from Naomi and from Ruth the Moabite, you acquire the dead man's widow, in order to maintain the name of the dead with his property."

At this, the kinsman-redeemer said, "Then I cannot redeem it because I might endanger my own estate. You redeem it yourself. I cannot do it." Now in earlier times in Israel, for the redemption and transfer of property to become final, one party took off his sandal and gave it to the other. This was the method of legalizing transactions in Israel. So the kinsman-redeemer said to Boaz, "Buy it yourself," and he removed his sandal.

Then Boaz announced to the elders and all the people, "Today you are witnesses that I have bought from Naomi all the property of Elimelek, Kilion, and Mahlon. I have also acquired Ruth the Moabite, Mahlon's widow, as my wife, in order to maintain the name of the dead with his property, so that his name will not disappear from among his family or from the town records. Today you are witnesses."

Then the elders and all those at the gate said, "We are witnesses. May the Lord make the woman who is coming into your home like Rachel and Leah, who together built up the house of Israel. May you have standing in Ephrathah and be famous in Bethlehem. Through the offspring the Lord gives you by this young woman, may your family be like that of Perez, whom Tamar bore to Judah."

So Boaz took Ruth and she became his wife. Then he went to her, and the Lord enabled her to conceive, and she gave birth to a son. The women said to Naomi, "Praise be to the Lord, who this day has not left you without a kinsman-redeemer. May he become famous throughout Israel. He will renew your life and sustain you in your old age. For your daughter-in-law, who loves you and who is better to you than seven sons, has given him birth."

Then Naomi took the child, laid him in her lap and cared for him. The women living there said, "Naomi has a son." And they named him Obed. He was the father of Jesse, the father of David.

This, then, is the family line of Perez: Perez was the father of Hezron, Hezron the father of Ram, Ram the father of Amminadab, Amminadab the father of Nahshon, Nahshon the father of Salmon, Salmon the father of Boaz, Boaz the father of Obed, Obed the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of David.

Dana Gresh: We've been hearing Max McLean reading a portion of the book of Ruth. I don't know about you, but I could listen all day. You really get a sense from that reading what an exciting story this is. Now, prepare to go in depth with Nancy. She's going to be teaching through Ruth over the next few weeks. And this isn't going to be a surface-level overview. It's going to be a deep dive. To get us started, here's Nancy.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: It seems that everywhere I turn these days, I'm hearing a story. I talk to a lot of different women, I hear from a lot of women through letters and email, different kinds of correspondence and calls. And everywhere I turn, it seems these days I'm hearing some heartbreaking stories of what women are walking through in their own pilgrimage. I'm looking today into some of your eyes and I know some of your stories, and know that there have been some real troublesome and difficult and painful issues that many of us have had to deal with, even those of us in this room.

I ran into a woman last week I'd never met before, and we just began to exchange, you know, "How are you doing? Fine. It's good to meet you." And she told me who she was, and then I said, "What does your husband do?" thinking this was just a simple "get to know you" question. And in fact, when I raised that question, I was on my way to a meeting and didn't have a lot of time. But she didn't know that, and she began to tell me this was in her workplace, just this long, heartbreaking story of her husband's unfaithfulness, which ultimately led to his death in a gruesome way.

And then painful, complicated issues with her children, who were little at the time but are now grown. And now there's the whole multiple-generation story of sexual abuse, immorality, divorce. You hear these stories and sometimes you're tempted to think: this is really hopeless. This is too complex. How can this all ever turn out into anything of beauty or anything that would be good?

And you may be tempted at times to think that your situation, something in your family, something that's close to your life or something that you're walking through, may be too complicated, too messed up. And perhaps like there's not even any hope, or where is God when you need His help?

We're going to be looking at a story about two women. Women who, based on their circumstances and their background, could have been extremely dysfunctional. But it's a story that gives me so much hope because we see how God turned a hopeless situation to joy. How He brought beauty out of ashes. And it all has to do with the fact that God does, in fact, have a sovereign plan. And that in the midst of the most desperate situations of life, God is working out His purposes.

We're going to find in this story that it's a redeemer, Christ Jesus, who makes all the difference in how our story ends up. Talking about the book of Ruth, the story of Ruth and her mother-in-law Naomi. Some of you know that Ruth is one of the two books in the Bible that is named after a woman. The other one is Esther. Esther was a Jewish woman who married a pagan Gentile king. Ruth is a Gentile woman who married a wealthy Jew. Both of these women are incredible examples of faith, of obedience, and both of these women were used by God in a significant way.

As you know, Esther was used to save the Jewish nation from destruction. And Ruth was part of God's plan to bring the Messiah, the Savior, into the world. She became an ancestress of the Messiah. I want to encourage you over these next days to read the book of Ruth for yourself. Not just to hear me tell the story, but to go home and open your Bible—80-some verses, four short chapters—and to begin to read it. I have been reading and rereading the book of Ruth several times over the past week as we've been preparing for this series of broadcasts. And though I've read the book many times before, as I've got into it again, the story has been so fresh to me. And God has brought new insight and new excitement about the wonder of this story.

The story of Ruth is one of the most beautiful love stories of all time. And it's love on a lot of different planes or levels. You read in this story about the love of a young woman for her grieving, widowed mother-in-law. The sacrificial love that Ruth demonstrates. And then you find in the story the surprising love of a wealthy landowner whose name was Boaz for a poverty-stricken young widow, an immigrant, a stranger, a foreigner, and how this wealthy Jew came to love this young woman who was poverty-stricken.

And then we find in this story the simple love of a woman for her God. Someone who did not start out in life knowing about that God, but who came to know Him and her devotion to Him is remarkable. And then the most important love of all in this story is the incredible love of God for His people. And we see that love lived out in the desperate and difficult circumstances of life.

This story shows the incredible power of love to transform a life. Apart from the love of God, Ruth and Naomi's lives would never have had a good ending. But it's the love of God that brought wholeness and healing and hope to their lives. And it's Ruth's love for her widowed, I might add, bitter mother-in-law. It's Ruth's love for this difficult-to-love woman that brought wholeness and healing to that woman. So we see how God's love for us transforms our lives, and then how that love can flow through us and bring grace to the lives of those that we love.

This is a story about relationships. We live in a world where people are starved for relationship. They're desperate to be connected. And they're desperate for relationships that last, because so many of the relationships we have today don't last. You're born into a family, and then you find out that your dad leaves, he abandons the family. Or your mom leaves your dad, or your husband leaves you, or your children leave home angry or rebellious. And we have so many broken relationships today. But this is a story about how relationships can be healed and can be whole and can be intimate. We learn in this story a lot about how to develop right kinds of relationships.

One of the things I appreciate about the story of Ruth is that somewhere in this short little book is a picture of almost every season of life that a woman can walk through. Almost every experience that a woman can have in life, certainly those that are most common to us. And I made a list of some of those just as I was reading through the book this past week. We read, of course, about courtship and marriage, the whole process of choosing a mate. We read what happens when a woman has a husband who makes a decision that's a wrong decision and that has consequences that the whole family has to experience.

The situation of loss of a mate, grief, widowhood. There are those in this room who have experienced something along this line. The whole aspect of remarriage. The whole idea of a second marriage and walking into that situation. There's the season of barrenness, childlessness, that some in this room have experienced. It happens in the book of Ruth. And then there's the season of childbirth, giving birth to a new life. And the women in this story experience that joy.

There's a season of parenting older children and children who go off in their own direction and don't always do what you trained them to do. And then the pain and sorrow and grief of losing a child. Some have walked through that. The aspect of multiple generations living together: grandparents and daughters and then grandchildren, and some of the challenges of that season of life. The season of life of caring for elderly parents. And some of you are walking through that. We experience that in the book of Ruth. Of growing older and wondering, "Who's going to take care of me when I don't have family left?"

The whole season of making a major move geographically to a new area, being uprooted, experiencing insecurity and change. And then there are times in this story where the key characters experience financial prosperity and abundance, and then there are times when they lose it all and they're poverty-stricken. Both of those seasons of life.

So many of the major emotions that we experience as women are found in this story: grief, depression, loneliness, isolation, anger. I've been hearing a lot from women recently about anger: anger toward God, anger toward a mate, anger toward a situation in life that they have no control over. We find anger in this story. We find anger turned to bitterness. And we're going to talk over these next weeks about how to deal with circumstances in life that cause us to become bitter.

There's the whole emotion of fear. There's a woman in this story who faced danger in her workplace and the threat of harassment and how she dealt with that. The struggle of difficult and painful relationships, of being married to an unbeliever. That's talked about in this book. The emotions connected with unfulfilled longings, seasons in life of confusion, not sure which direction to go, the need for guidance.

These are women who understood failure: making wrong choices and choices that have consequences in our lives, and some of those are painful. Dealing with guilt. The longing for a more intimate relationship with God. And that's why most of you are here today. That's why we're all here, because we have this longing in our hearts as children of God to have a more intimate relationship with Him. Those emotions that come with questioning God. Wondering if He's made a mistake.

Our theology tells us He hasn't, but don't we sometimes in our emotions think this just doesn't make sense? And even the tendency to blame God: "If God had only done this or not done this or stopped this, then things would be different in my life." We're tempted to do that, and we're going to meet two women here who had those same feelings, those same temptations.

These are two women from very different backgrounds: Ruth and her mother-in-law Naomi. But both of them are trophies of the grace of God. They're display cases for what God can do when we allow Him to have His way in our lives. An incredible illustration of the redeeming love and power of God, who takes our topsy-turvy worlds and circumstances and situations and, in His way and in His time, if we will let Him, is able to turn those to something of beauty.

I see in Ruth a beautiful model that really sparks my heart and my interest, challenges me about what it means to be a woman of God. There are so many precious and rare qualities in this woman. She's a portrait of godly womanhood. And I look at her and I say, "These are the qualities I want God to develop in my life."

And most of all, this is a story about redemption and about the redeemer. It's a story that, once you get familiar with it, you will see your salvation in a different light perhaps than you've ever seen it before. And you'll realize what a precious thing it is that Christ has done in redeeming us in a way that overrules the losses and the failures caused by our sin.

Now, that story doesn't always come to a quick ending. The beauty at the end of the ashes, the joy at the end of the tears, doesn't always happen right away. In fact, Paul says in Romans chapter 8 that we're in the process of being redeemed and that while we're in that process, there's groaning that goes on. And I see some heads nodding because we know about the groaning stages. He says the whole creation groans and travails in pain. But why? It's waiting for the redemption that is taking place and that God is bringing about in our world.

So in the meantime, while we're living out that process of being redeemed, Paul says we trust. We look to the final chapter. We look to the end of the story. And seeing the end, we can rejoice even while we're groaning and travailing in the pain that life on this planet brings to us. So this is a redemption story and as a result, it does have a happy ending. Don't you like stories with happy endings? This one, the story of redemption, does have a happy ending, and so will your story, if you allow God to have His way in your life and to use what's going on in your life in a way that is redemptive, there will be joy at the end of the journey.

I can't tell you when that will come or how long it will take to get there, but the story of Ruth says to me there will be that happy ending. There will be the joy, there will be the beauty coming out of ashes, that even our hopeless circumstances can turn to fruitfulness in our lives. And God has an incredible way of taking the messed up, confused, discombobulated pieces of our stories and weaving them into something that is very beautiful, very precious, and ultimately brings great glory to Christ, who is our redeemer.

Dana Gresh: That was Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth introducing the book of Ruth. If you're looking at your own story and thinking, "I just don't know how anything good could come of this," I hope you'll stick with us as we walk through Ruth with Nancy. Just like Ruth had a redeemer, so do you. And He wants to make all the messy, confusing, painful parts of your story into something beautiful when you put your trust in Him.

Now, if you don't know this redeemer yet and you'd like to learn more about Him, we'd love for you to visit ReviveOurHearts.com/goodnews. There you'll find just what the link promises: good news about Jesus and the redemption He offers. Again, that's ReviveOurHearts.com/goodnews.

All month long, when you make a donation of any amount, we'd like to send you a copy of Ruth: Experiencing a Life Restored. This six-week study will remind you of God's redemptive purposes. We have a God who loves restoration. Isn't that good news? Dive in to discover His grace in every chapter of your story. To give and request your copy, visit ReviveOurHearts.com or call us at 1-800-569-5959.

Tomorrow, Nancy will be back with us. She'll continue introducing you to the beautiful book of Ruth, and she'll encourage those who worry their past might be too messy to be used by God. If that's you, be sure to be back for Revive Our Hearts.

This program is a listener-supported production of Revive Our Hearts in Niles, Michigan, calling women to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.