Ruth, Zechariah, Joseph: When God Shows You the Door

Introduction

Antonio Sanchez opens this sixth study of the 2026 Convention of the Église biblique franco-espagnole Le Phare by recalling a word of Jesus: "I am the door. If anyone enters in through me, he will be saved, and will go in and go out, and will find pasture" (John 10:9). Picking up what he said at the start of the series, he acknowledges that Christ has the authority to open and close the doors we must walk through to do his will, an authority the Father entrusted to him.

This time he moves through the Old and New Testaments with three very different situations: a broken family (Naomi and Ruth), a righteous and blameless family (Zechariah and Elizabeth), and a faithful young man sold as a slave (Joseph). His hope is that you will recognize yourself in one of them and see what God wants to show you.

One thread runs through all three stories: there is a moment when God begins to show a door. We often struggle to see it, but the Lord acts "again and again" to make us notice that he is there.

Outline of the Message

1. Ruth 1: Ten Years Without Blessing God

The book of Ruth is set in the time of the judges, an era when everyone did what seemed right to them, even among the people of Israel. The preacher sees a warning here: never let that attitude settle into our hearts.
The story begins in Bethlehem of Judah, the town where King David and our Savior were born. Bethlehem means "house of bread," or "house of provision." Elimelech means "my God is king" and Naomi means "pleasant."
Because of a famine, the family leaves for the fields of Moab. Elimelech dies there. His sons Mahlon and Chilion marry two Moabite women, Orpah and Ruth, and then they die too. They stayed there about ten years (Ruth 1:1-5).
"Ten years are months and days too." Time sometimes passes quickly and sometimes very slowly, depending on what we are going through. For this woman, ten years was a long stretch.
Naomi describes her inner state with one word: bitterness. "Yahweh's hand has gone out against me" (Ruth 1:13). When she returns, she tells the women of Bethlehem: "Don’t call me Naomi. Call me Mara, for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me. I went out full, and Yahweh has brought me home again empty" (Ruth 1:20-21).
According to Antonio Sanchez, her heart was grieved, broken, damaged, "ruined." That is the verdict she pronounces on herself.

2. Ruth 1 and 2: Harvest Time, a Door Opening Slightly

The verse that catches the preacher's attention is Ruth 1:22: they arrive in Bethlehem "in the beginning of barley harvest." It was not just any moment: it was the time when the Lord was about to start opening a door.
The harvest lasted about two months, one month for barley and one for wheat. Two months of provision, especially for the poor, the orphans, and the widows. Ruth and Naomi belonged to that group.
God's law commanded that fallen sheaves not be gathered a second time but left for the poor, the widow, and the orphan (Deuteronomy 24, Leviticus 19). Naomi saw nothing but her pain, "but it was the time."
Ruth goes out to glean like a poor woman, and "she happened to come to the part of the field belonging to Boaz, who was of the family of Elimelech" (Ruth 2:3). There were many landowners, since the Hebrew people lived off agriculture, and yet it is precisely this field she arrives at.
The preacher recalls the word of Isaiah: the Lord's thoughts and ways are higher than ours. We want to live in those thoughts and ways, and we need him to show them to us.

3. Ruth 2: "Coincidences" That Are Signs

"Up to here, someone might say: these are coincidences." But Boaz tells Ruth not to glean in another field, to stay close to his servant girls, to drink from the water jars, and he orders his young men not to trouble her (Ruth 2:8-9).
Ruth is a Moabite, a foreigner: many things were against her in that society. The text suggests that poor people and widows moved from field to field and suffered mockery and harassment. Boaz says to her, in essence: stay, I am for you.
He speaks God's promises over her: "Yahweh repay your work, and a full reward be given you from Yahweh, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge" (Ruth 2:12). He sees Ruth's humility and the effort she puts in to obtain provision and share it with her mother-in-law.
By evening she had gathered about an ephah of barley (Ruth 2:17), which is 12 to 15 kilos (about 26 to 33 pounds) according to the preacher. "For us, that is nothing." For her, it was a lot: Boaz's blessing and her own effort came together.
"These are signs, these are indications." Antonio Sanchez stresses these signs: behind the coincidences there was a plan, a design of God, the door through which this family was meant to enter.

4. Ruth 2 and 3: Naomi Blesses the Lord Again

When Ruth speaks Boaz's name, Naomi exclaims: "May he be blessed by Yahweh, who has not forsaken his kindness to the living and to the dead." Then: "The man is a close relative to us, one of our near kinsmen" (Ruth 2:20).
After ten years, this is the first time in the book that she blesses the Lord. She senses that the Lord is drawing near to her, she lifts her hands to heaven and blesses him.
The preacher speaks to you directly: perhaps you have lived through a season when the Lord seemed far away, without warmth, without fire, without feeling blessed. Perhaps it was shorter, perhaps it is still going on.
Ruth stays with Boaz's servant girls until the end of the barley and wheat harvests, and she lives with her mother-in-law (Ruth 2:23). We find here the commitment made in chapter 1: "Your people will be my people, and your God my God" (Ruth 1:16).
In chapter 3, Naomi is a different woman: "Bitterness stayed far from her." She is now led by the Lord and guides Ruth to Boaz's threshing floor so that she lies down at his feet (Ruth 3:1-4).
Servants would sometimes cover themselves with a corner of the master's blanket on cold nights. But this gesture also let Boaz understand that he was the nearest relative, the one who could redeem this family. The rest is well known: they are united, and all Bethlehem bears witness to the Lord's favor on Naomi and Ruth.

5. Luke 1: A Righteous Family, a Prayer Set Aside

"Now let us look at the other side of the coin." After a broken family, here is a family of whom God says "they were both righteous before God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord" (Luke 1:6). That does not mean they had no needs: God still had to keep perfecting his work in them.
The context is not favorable either. The people are coming out of four hundred years of silence since the last prophet, Malachi. Empires had followed one another up to the Roman Empire, and God was preparing the way for the birth of his Son in a different manner.
This family's problem is found in verse 7: they had no child, Elizabeth was barren, and both were advanced in years. A prayer that had perhaps gone on for some time, left there, in the sense of: "it is impossible, it can no longer happen."
"And something unexpected happens. Grace breaks in." Zechariah is chosen by lot to offer incense in the Lord's temple (Luke 1:8-9). The preacher underlines this "by lot": at his age, it was the first time he entered the holy place, a privilege many Levites never had in their entire lives, because of the large number of divisions.
These divisions go back to King David, who had prepared the building of the temple that Solomon carried out. Seeing the large number of priests, he had set up different turns of service (1 Chronicles 24).
The angel tells him: "Don’t be afraid, Zacharias, because your request has been heard, and your wife, Elizabeth, will bear you a son, and you will call his name John" (Luke 1:13). He even tells him about the ministry of this son, the one who will prepare the way of the Lord.

6. Luke 1: The Sign of Silence

Zechariah answers: "How will I know this?" (Luke 1:18). In other words: how can I be sure this will happen, at my age and at my wife's age? This prayer, probably constant in his youth, had been somewhat "parked."
He asks for a sign, and the sign is given: "Behold, you will be silent and not able to speak, until the day that these things will happen, because you didn’t believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their proper time" (Luke 1:20). "Surely not what he wanted. The Lord's work is mysterious."
Antonio Sanchez speaks in the first person: "My problem is that I know where the Lord is going to come from. Sometimes I even believe that lie." We prepare in our heads and in our hearts, we anticipate a delicate conversation, we get our justifications ready. "But the Lord keeps surprising us, again and again."
Zechariah can tell no one what he saw or what he felt in the holy place. The Lord seems to say to him: you will speak of my wonders when you see your son. Nine months of silence. God showed him the door, he went in, and yet God still has to deal with his heart.
The things of the Lord carry weight: we have to digest them and draw out all their substance. Life often tears us away from that sap, and the Lord knows how to stop us, especially when he wants to communicate something important for our spiritual health.
Zechariah had to learn to believe and to value every word that comes out of God's mouth, and to free himself from his own understanding. Paul reminds us: "Watch yourself." We can be one of our own worst enemies, by diluting the word we have received and stripping it of its value.

7. Genesis 45: Joseph Waits for God to Open the Door

"Now don’t be grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that you sold me here, for God sent me before you to preserve life" (Genesis 45:5). The preacher holds on to this expression: preservation of life, or "release of life."
Joseph was 17 when he was unjustly sold as a slave. He was a faithful man who sought God with all his heart and waited for God to show him what came next, the door to walk through.
He was a fellow worker with the Lord, like Paul: "For we are God’s fellow workers" (1 Corinthians 3:9). A fellow worker works with someone else, helping and assisting in that person's purposes. "They are not our purposes, they are his," but the Lord lets us take part in them. It is also "Christ in you, the hope of glory" (Colossians 1:27).
Joseph wanted his family to be united in one mind before God, not only in a natural way: so that they could worship the Lord.
According to the preacher, 22 years passed between his sale and the reunion. About 420 kilometers (roughly 260 miles) separated Egypt from Hebron, about two weeks of travel. Joseph had been second to Pharaoh for about nine years (seven years of plenty and two of famine).
The question Antonio Sanchez put to the Lord: "Did he not have the authority to go and see his family, or to send someone?" In his place, our heart would have wanted to go and embrace his father and brothers, to tell them the wonders of the Lord. It was within his means, and it was a legitimate and good desire.
"But he waited for the Lord's time." His prayer went further than what he could desire. The door that opened was a blessing for his family, for the tribes, and for much more.
The preacher concludes: "Don't run. Let's not rush, but wait before the Lord." He knows what you are going through, your sufferings, your deep, legitimate, and true desire, and your abilities. It pleases him when you lay all of this before him, so that he opens the door and you keep marveling at his wonders.

Key Takeaways

There is a moment when God begins to show a door, even after long years of bitterness, as with Naomi.
What looks like coincidence can be a sign: the Lord acts again and again to make you notice that he is there.
A righteous family also has needs and prayers set aside. Grace can break in right where you said: "it is impossible."
God does not always come from where you expect. He may stop you to teach you to believe his word and to free yourself from your own understanding.
Like Joseph, wait for the Lord's time instead of opening the door yourself: the one he opens is for life.

Personal Application

Are you going through a season when the Lord seems far away, without warmth or fire? How long has it been since you blessed God with all your heart?
Which recent "chances" in your life could be signs that God is drawing near to you?
Is there a prayer you have "parked" because it seemed impossible to you?
In which situation do you think you know where the Lord will come from, to the point of preparing everything ahead of time in your head?
Which door are you tempted to open yourself, when the Lord invites you to wait for his time?

Verses Cited

Frequently Asked Questions

Why did Naomi go ten years without blessing God?

Having left Bethlehem during a famine, Naomi lost her husband and her two sons in Moab. She returns saying: "Don’t call me Naomi. Call me Mara." Antonio Sanchez describes a heart that is broken, damaged, ruined. It is only in Ruth 2:20, when she learns that Ruth gleaned in Boaz's field, that she blesses the Lord for the first time in the book.

Why did Zechariah become mute in Luke 1?

Zechariah asks the angel for a sign: "How will I know this?" The sign given is silence, because he did not believe the angel's words. For Antonio Sanchez, God is teaching him in this way to believe and to value every word that comes out of his mouth, and to free himself from his own understanding of things.

What does Joseph teach us about waiting for God's door?

Having become second to Pharaoh, Joseph had the authority to go and see his family or to send someone to Hebron, about two weeks of travel away. Yet he waited for the Lord's time. According to Genesis 45:5, the door that opened was "to preserve life." The preacher draws an appeal from it: don't run, don't rush, wait before the Lord.