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Stories about rags to riches usually attract our attention because they do not happen very often. It is rare when you learn that the
prince has fallen in love with Cinderella. When we do hear of a situation where someone comes from humble beginnings, recovers
from a devastating illness, survives a major accident, or overcomes the odds and arises to a place of prominence or acclaim, emerges
from the ashes, or gets up off the emergency room table, we are amazed. It is rare to find a true rags to riches story. As believers,
usually such an incident, causes us to wonder about the graciousness and the favor of God. As we read of the life of Ruth, we see such
a person and learn of her redemptive story.

Ruth was a Moabitess. The Moabites were a pagan, idolatress, outcast nation of people born out of incest. The region was a barren
desert area, considered dirty by all accounts, a land of emptiness, long discarded and cursed by God. Moab was characterized as a
washpot or a toilet. Despite the curse that was pronounced on Moab, God uses the story of Ruth as an illustration to help us understand
the idea of Redemption. God uses the life of Ruth as an illustration of His grace. We may be most familiar with this term 'Redemption'
as it involves the redeeming of or the buying back of something that was pawned to receive money in exchange for the thing that was
pawned. The Law of Redemption involved redeeming both property and people.

But Ruth said, "Don't force me to leave you; don't make me go home (back to that lifestyle, back to that reputation, back to those false
Gods). Where you go, I go; and where you live, I'll live. Your people are my people, your God is my god; where you die, I'll die, and that's
where I'll be buried, so help me GOD-not even death itself is going to come between us!" Ruth 1:16

Ruth was the daughter-in-law of Naomi, and she makes a lift changing decision to not only follow Naomi back to Israel, to Bethlehem,
Judah but also to follow the true and living God. Bethlehem means 'house of bread' and Judah represented the 'place of praise'. Ruth
and Naomi did not have a lot in common religiously or ethnically, but they were bound together by the fellowship of suffering. Naomi
was originally from Bethlehem, Judah and after 10 years returned to her people, returned to her country, returned to where she belonged.
It is never too late to return home. The prodigal son is another illustration of the Law of Redemption, as he also, while in a far-off
country, came to himself, after living in a cesspool, after swirling around in the toilet bowl of life, decided to return to his Father's house.
Naomi had decided to return to Bethlehem, Judah, the place where praise ascends and where bread is enjoyed.

As you read through the Book of Ruth, you realize that God is a God of grace. He is a God of renewal, of redemption and restoration.
Here God selects a woman born among an accursed incestuous group of people and begins to extend His grace over her life. God was
so favorable to Ruth that through a nation whose history was degenerative Ruth becomes the great-grand mother of Jesus Christ. The
name Ruth means friendship. Jesus Christ is the friend of the outcast, the downtrodden, the forgotten, the sinner to the praise of His
glory. For the bible says, we too, were once an enemy of God. We too were once outcasts in God's sight. Only yesterday, we too were
once outsiders and not a people of God. We had no idea how to locate and walk along the path of righteousness. We hadn't the faintest
idea, hadn't a clue about Christ. We knew nothing of the riches of God's grace. Now because of Christ-dying that death, shedding that
blood-we who were once outcasts can be revived and renewed to a blessed hope to the praise of His glory.