Ruth Chapter Four

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We've been kind of looking at, we've been looking at the book of Ruth and trying to work through it.
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It's a, it's a small book, but as we've been noticing, I hope, although it's a small book, it really speaks volumes about certainly redemption because it is really the story about how Boaz being the near kinsman redeems Ruth, the Moabite, and not only does he redeem Ruth, but he restores Naomi, who has been suffering since she lost her husband and her two sons.
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So let's just read chapter four, the last chapter in the book, and we'll go from there.
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So, and I read from the New King James, so if it's different, you'll understand.
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Now Boaz went up to the gate and sat down there and behold, a near kinsman of whom Boaz has spoken came by.
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So Boaz said, come aside, friend, sit down here.
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So he came aside and sat down and he took 10 men of the elders of the city and said, sit down here.
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So they sat down.
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Then he said to the near kinsman, Naomi, who has come back from the country of Moab, sold the piece of land, which belonged to our brother Liminac.
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And I thought to inform you saying, buy it back in the presence of the inhabitants of the elders of my people.
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If you will redeem it, redeem it.
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But if you will not redeem it, then tell me that I may know for there is no one but you to redeem it.
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And I am next after you.
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And he said, I will redeem it.
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And then Boaz said, on the day you buy the field from the hand of Naomi, you must also buy it from Ruth the Moabitess, the wife of the dead, to raise up the name of the dead on his inheritance.
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And then the kinsman said, I cannot redeem it for myself, lest I ruin my own inheritance.
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You redeem my right of redemption for yourself, for I cannot redeem it.
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Now, this was the custom in former times in Israel concerning redeeming and exchanging to confirm anything.
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One man took off his sandal and gave it to the other.
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And this was an attestation in Israel.
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Therefore, the near kinsman said to Boaz, buy it for yourself.
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So he took off his sandal and Boaz said to the elders and to all the people, you are witnesses this day that I have bought all that was a limonex and all that was chileans and melons.
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Those were sons from the hand of Naomi.
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Moreover, Ruth the Moabitess, the wife of Melon, I have acquired as my wife to raise up the name of the dead on his inheritance, that the name of the dead may not be cut off from among the brethren and from the gate of his place.
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You are witnesses this day.
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And all the people who were at the gate and the elders said, we are witnesses.
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The Lord make the woman who is coming to your house, like Rachel and Leah, the two who built the house of Israel.
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And may you prosper in Ephrathah and be famous in Bethlehem.
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May your house be like the house of Perez, who Tamar bore to Judah because of the offspring, which the Lord will give you from this young woman.
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So Boaz took root and she became his wife.
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And when he went into her, the Lord gave her conception and she bore a son.
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Then the women said to Naomi, bless be of the Lord who has not left you this day without a near kinsman.
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And may his name be famous in Israel.
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And may it be to you a restorer of life and a nourisher in your old age for your daughter in law, who loves you, who is better to you than seven sons has bore him.
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I only took the child, laid him on a bosom and became a nurse to him.
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And also the neighbor women gave him a name saying there is a son born to Naomi and they called his name Obed.
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He's the father of Jesse, the father of David.
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Now, this is the genealogy of Perez.
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Perez begot Harzon and Harzon begot Ram and Ram begot Aminadab and Aminadab begot Nashum and Nashum begot Salmon, Salmon begot Boaz, Boaz begot Obed and Obed begot Jesse and Jesse begot David.
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Of course, speaking of David, the king.
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OK, so again, we're kind of coming to the point now where this the fulfillment, if you will, of the activities of Boaz at being the near kinsmen are about to come to pass and be fulfilled.
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And remember, now we have been following Naomi and Ruth and Naomi has had a rough go at it, to say the least.
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Remember, she went down to Moab, spent 10 years, lost her husband, lost the two sons, had two daughter in laws.
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One went back to to serve her own God.
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And then Ruth, of course, clung to her.
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So and then remember, Ruth finds herself in a situation where she's got to try to help, if you will, supply Naomi's needs.
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And so she starts to glean in the fields.
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And as she's gleaning in the fields, she just happens to come on Boaz's place.
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And what happens is, and I said this before and I'll say it again, I think that Boaz and Ruth have fallen in love.
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And it's not just an act on Boaz's part of some legal redemptive purpose, but that he truly loves Ruth.
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And remember, there's a fairly good age difference between Boaz and Ruth.
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Now, I know we call older women who go after younger men cougars, right? What do we call an older man that goes after a younger woman? Ma'am, I don't know why that is that.
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Why is it OK for I mean, why can't a man have like a majestic name like a cougar? Why has he got to be whatever? That's not really in the text.
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So maybe we should just leave it alone.
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But nevertheless, there is a good age difference between Boaz and Ruth.
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So just setting the scene in the first couple of verses, Boaz went up to the gate and sat down there.
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And behold, the near kinsmen of whom Boaz had spoken came by.
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So Boaz said, come aside, friend, sit down here.
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So he came aside and sat down.
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And then it says, and he took 10 men of the elders of the city and said, sit down here.
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So they sat down.
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So remember now the right of and we'll look at it in a minute, but the right of continuing the seed falls to the closest relative of a limineck.
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Remember, it's on the the husband's side.
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And so Boaz is a near kinsman, but he's not the closest near kinsman.
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Right.
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So if you think about it, what we just read and what we'll try to see in a minute, Boaz is not really the one who's calling the shots right now.
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I believe he he has an outcome in mind.
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Right.
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I believe he really, truly wants to marry Ruth.
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And I believe Ruth really wants to be with Boaz.
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But this near kinsman is in between them.
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So Boaz has to work through this issue.
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And so he he gathers a bunch of people, a bunch of men, and he brings them to the gate.
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And the gate was like the the town square.
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It was where transactions took place.
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It was the place where the elders gathered and and and where things were done in a legal way.
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And whether it be for redemption or judgment or whatever it is.
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So he kind of gets everybody together.
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And lo and behold, the near kinsman whom Boaz spoke came by.
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And I thought about that.
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And remember what we've been talking about in the book of Ruth, the providence of God, how, if you will, Naomi has to go all the way down to Moab to meet Ruth, who God has a purpose for.
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And then Ruth just happens to walk into the field of Boaz.
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Remember, Naomi never really talks to Boaz.
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I pointed that out a couple of times.
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There's no direct conversation between Naomi and Boaz.
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And yet they're related through marriage.
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So Naomi must have known who Boaz was.
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Boaz must have known who Ruth Naomi was.
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But nevertheless, here comes the near kinsman.
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And I thought about it just so happens that he comes walking by.
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And so Boaz, in a very right way, says, come aside, friend, sit down here.
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So he came and sat down.
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And if you think about it, maybe this relative was passing by to go to his own field.
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Remember, it's the time of harvest.
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And I said to you in the beginning that it starts at it started, if you remember the beginning of the book, it started at the barley harvest and then it ends at the wheat harvest.
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And there's like a three month period.
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So they've been going at it for a couple of months.
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And maybe Boaz knew that his near kinsman had to come by to get to his field.
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And if I remember right, there really weren't like picket fences around everybody's land and razor wire and electric fences.
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It was just a giant field that had some way of marking off whose was what.
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And so it just so happens that as he's coming by, Boaz sees him.
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And here's another interesting thought or something to think about.
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We never find out the relative's name.
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Never says anything about who he is.
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And I thought about that a little bit.
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And I try to to ask, well, ask or read some of the brothers who have looked at this over the years.
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And and there's some interesting thoughts that have come out of it.
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Why? Why this relative is never named? Maybe it's because I mean, certainly Boaz has to know him, right? He knew him because as he walked by, he said, come sit down.
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Maybe it's because he's going to refuse.
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To redeem.
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Both the land and Ruth and and maybe.
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If he had refused it, maybe it would have given him a bad name, just something to think about, or maybe it's just the fact that God chooses to be silent about it.
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And I thought about that a little bit.
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Isn't that interesting that sometimes God gives us a great deal of detail.
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And sometimes God gives us very little detail.
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And I think we have to consider it as purposeful, right? God doesn't omit things just for omitting, nor does he add things just to add them.
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There's a specific purpose in it.
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Why he's omitted from giving us his name? I don't know.
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Maybe that'll be a question we can ask when we get there.
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Maybe we could find Boaz and ask him.
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I know we'll find Boaz and maybe we'll ask him why he well, he didn't write the book.
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Of course, Samuel did.
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But but nevertheless, so he comes by.
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And so now this this transaction is about to take place.
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And so in verse three starts to explain what's happened.
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And he said to the near kinsmen, Naomi, who has come back from the country of Moab, sold the piece of land which belonged to our brother Eliminate.
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So remember what's happened now.
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Naomi left, remember, she said they went out full and she came back empty.
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She went out with her husband and sons, found daughter in laws, and she comes back basically with the exception of Ruth comes back empty.
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And so when you think about it, she had to provide for for herself.
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Remember, Naomi and Ruth love each other.
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I mean, they're close.
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They're tight.
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Right.
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And even in this chapter, it says that Ruth was closer to Naomi than a son, which is another lesson in and of itself between mother in laws and daughter in laws.
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And those kinds of things, you know, that that whole thing that's the world likes to promote, you know, the mother in law and a daughter in law never get along with father in law and the son in law never get along.
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That's that's not the biblical example.
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But nevertheless, he she must have sold the land.
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I want you to think about that.
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She must have sold the land that she had because it was only it was hers to sell.
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In other words, they left and went down and she's down in Moab.
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For at least 10 years, what we read, right, so that that land must have just sat there.
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It wasn't like somebody can come in and just claim it for themselves in old, especially in Old Testament times.
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The land was such an important thing as the seed was.
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And we'll see that.
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But nevertheless, she must have had to have sold the land.
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But now we're never told that Naomi worked.
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We're only told about Ruth.
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And what did Ruth do for a living? She gleaned right, which I said to you was not the most glorious job.
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I mean, I don't think it was on the higher end of the scale.
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She just picked up whatever was left over that the Reapers forgot.
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Well, or miss.
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And we read that in the Old Testament that you weren't allowed to go back the second time.
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I mean, as the Reapers came by, whatever they got the first time, that's all they got.
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And they were supposed to leave the rest for the stranger and the foreigner.
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And you remember what God told God says through Boaz.
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Remember when he sent away the first time he told his workers to do what? Let some of the some of the sheaths fall off the back.
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So that Ruth would have it.
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But nevertheless, Ruth doesn't make she doesn't have a six figure salary.
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I'll put it to you that way.
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So Naomi sells the land because she needs to support herself and Ruth.
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Remember, two women in Old Testament times without a husband, without sons, without a family was not in the best of situations.
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Right.
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The feminist movement hadn't started yet in the Old Testament.
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I'll put it that way.
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But so he explains to him what's going on.
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So he says that she came back, she sold the land.
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And verse four, I thought to inform you, saying, buy it back in the presence of the inhabitants of the elders of my people.
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If you will redeem it, redeem it.
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If you will not redeem it, tell me that I may know for there is no one but you to redeem it.
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And I'm next after you.
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And he said, I will redeem it.
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Just check the scene out is in the is in the place of transactions.
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And this he brings 10 witnesses.
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Now, how many witnesses does the Old Testament, how many witnesses was usually needed? Two or three.
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Right.
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And even we know that from the New Testament, if you were going to bring an accusation against someone, you had to have you have to have what? Least two, two to three witnesses to justify.
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So it's not a manipulation or a rouse.
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So he brings 10.
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I like what the at first what he his the closest relative says, I'll buy it.
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Yeah, man, land.
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I'll take it.
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Maybe he thought he was going to get it at a cut rate.
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Maybe he thought he would be able to cash in and increase his wealth.
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I'm not really sure what he's thinking, other than the fact that he sees an opportunity and he's going to seize on it.
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I also want you to think about this.
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Boaz hasn't mentioned Ruth yet.
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He's holding Ruth back from this whole deal.
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And I think there's a specific reason.
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And to me, the reason is he really wants to marry Ruth.
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And so he's kind of working through this situation and something to think about.
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I think Boaz's emotions are involved, he's got feelings, he's got desires, he's got a purpose in his mind being Ruth.
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And at the same time, he deals up rightly.
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Gets the nearest relative, tells him to sit down, explains to him about Naomi and the piece of land, holding back Ruth.
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Yes, but I thought that was a good lesson for all of us, that we should not allow our emotions and our feelings to interrupt us from doing what's right.
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Because it's very easy to allow emotions and feelings to run ahead of integrity.
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Just think about that.
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I mean, usually people get excited the most when what their emotions are hot.
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Usually people will say things they shouldn't say or say things they're sorry about saying when emotions run.
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So Boaz is he's he's upright in his character.
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He's got definitely has desires.
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And yet.
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He presents himself in an upright way and he tells the nearest relative, you can you can buy it if you want.
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And remember this, the nearest relative is not under obligation to do this, folks.
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Because as the law set it out, if one of the relatives didn't want to buy it, didn't want to redeem it, it would go to the next one.
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And that's what Boaz knows.
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Boaz knows he's next in line.
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How how that all worked out.
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I'm not sure we don't even know the relationship of this person.
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Right.
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Doesn't say it was a little next brother.
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It doesn't say he was first cousin.
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Second, I don't know, but I know this.
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Boaz is the next one in line and Boaz knows it.
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So although he has this desire for Ruth, he also realizes he's got to do this in the right way.
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And interesting how he now brings if you look at in verse four, he tells them to buy it back and I'll do it.
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Now, watch what Boaz does in verse five.
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Then Boaz said, on the day you buy the field from the hand of Naomi, you must also buy it from Ruth, the Moabitess, the wife of the dead, to raise up to the name of the dead, raise up the name of the dead on his inheritance.
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So now he brings another stipulation in and the stipulation is, you know, I say it this way and it might sound a little odd.
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Ruth goes with the land.
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Because Ruth is next, she's the widow and she has a right, if there are no one else, there is no one else to redeem it, she comes into play and we were talking about it on the way here.
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These are pretty strange times, don't you think? Imagine that if you go buy a piece of land today and there's a woman attached to it, pervert.
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But nevertheless, there's this situation and now Boaz brings to the close relative, okay, man, you buy the land, you buy Ruth and watch what he says, verse six, basically, he says, uh-uh.
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Neokinsman said, I can't redeem it for myself, lest I ruin my own inheritance, you redeem my right of redemption for yourself, I can't redeem it.
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So I'll ask you a quick question, why do you think he changes his mind? Any thoughts? If he was married or had kids and had stuff he was going to be passing down, that could have been the reason.
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Agree with Brother Stephen or should we throw rocks at him? I think that definitely enters into it.
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And not only that, if he takes Ruth, he's got to share what he already has and give it to Ruth and if Ruth has kids, guess what? He's going to have to share it with her, with them.
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So I think that's really what's at the heart of this, is that although he thought he was going to get a good deal on a piece of land and although he didn't think there was any stipulations other than the land attached to it, now he finds out there's a whole lot of luggage in this thing.
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And he's not willing to give away what he has.
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And I'll just make one quick point.
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There are many people today who are willing to listen to the gospel.
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But they're not willing to give everything away to receive it.
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And I thought about that, I thought about he's all happy about prospering, but he's not happy about what the cost is.
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Remember what Jesus said? We ought to count the cost.
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And so I think there's a lesson for us in that, that it's not always just a matter of what's going to help me.
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It's what's the right thing to do.
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And again, I'm not saying he's obligated because he's not.
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And so, and I also think Boaz says, this is going to work out just the way I desired it.
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I'm going to get Ruth.
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And I would think if Ruth was sitting there, she's probably going, yeah, yeah, yeah.
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I mean, I don't know the whole situation.
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I don't think any of us know.
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But nevertheless, he does that.
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And the Nehekism said, I can't redeem it unless I ruin my own inheritance.
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You redeem it.
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Now, verse seven is an interesting verse, right? Now, this was the custom in former times in Israel concerning redeeming and exchanging.
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Remember, he's got the 10 elders there.
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This is a legal transaction.
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And it says, as far as redeeming and exchanging, to confirm anything, one man took off his sandal, gave it to the other, and this was an attestation in Israel.
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This really doesn't help lawyers, does it? Imagine if that was as simple.
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You buy a house, you take your shoe off, you give it to the lender, and it's a done deal.
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You don't have to get fire and fire involved.
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You don't have to get Morgan and Morgan.
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And you don't have to get all this rigmarole.
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There was this, when it says custom, it was more than just a mere custom.
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It was a rule that was in place.
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Now, I'm going to show you something in Deuteronomy that kind of ties into this.
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But I want to mention this.
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What's the significance? What do you think is the significance of the Nehekisman, who doesn't want the land, taking off his sandal and giving it to Boaz? Any thoughts? Could it be that taking off your sandal and giving it to the person who's buying it is a way of saying, I won't walk on your land? You got it.
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It's yours.
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I won't touch it.
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I'll stay away from it.
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So it kind of binds the person who's doing it to not later on go back and say, hey, wait a minute, I changed my mind.
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It was a custom, and it was more than a custom.
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It was the standing practice, if you will.
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Now, I want to show you something.
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Go to Deuteronomy in a minute, Deuteronomy 25.
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And I want to show you how else this was brought into play, this whole thing with the sandal.
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And you know, in some countries still today, it's dishonorable to be slapped by a shoe, right? You take off your shoe and you slap somebody.
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I would think it's dishonorable if anybody did that.
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But still today in some of those nations around it, it's still considered an insult to take off your shoe and to whack somebody with it.
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But I want to show you this in Deuteronomy 25.
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OK.
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Verse 1 of chapter 25 says this.
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If there is a dispute between men, and they come to court, that the judges may judge them, and they justify the righteous and contend the wicked, then it shall be if the wicked man deserves to be beaten, then the judge will cause him to lie down and be beaten in the presence according to his guilt with a certain number of blows.
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40 blows he may give him, and no more, lest he should exceed this and beat him with many blows above these, and your brother be humiliated in your sight, and you shall not muzzle an ox while it treads out the corn.
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Now, if brothers dwell together and one of them dies and has no son, the widow of the dead man shall not be married to a stranger outside the family.
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Her husband's brother shall go into her, take her as his wife, perform the duty of the husband's brother to her, and it shall be that the firstborn son which he bears will succeed to the name of his dead brother, that his name might not be blotted out in Israel.
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But if the man does not want to take his brother's wife, then let his brother's wife go up to the gate to the elders and say, My husband's brother refuses to raise up a name to his brother in Israel.
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He will not perform the duty of my husband's brother, and all the elders of the city shall call and speak to him.
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And if he stands firm and says, I do not want to take her, then his brother's wife shall come to him in the presence of the elders, remove his sandal from his foot, spit in his face, and saying, So shall it be done to the man who will not build up his brother's house.
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And his name shall be called in Israel the house of him who had his sandal removed." Interesting.
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So again, I suggest that might be one of the reasons why we never find out who this near kinsman is, and that this was to be something that would always be remembered.
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That this was the man who refused to raise up.
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See, do you remember the New Testament when the Pharisees were trying to entangle Christ? And they brought that whole thing to him.
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A man had a wife and he died and his brother married her and he never had any kids.
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And he goes through the whole thing about seven brothers.
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And finally, of course, the Lord corrects them and he says, there's no such thing in heaven.
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But this was something that was standing throughout Old Testament times.
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And I think one of the reasons is, I hope we understand how important, again, the land was.
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If you think about how much importance God put on the land of Israel.
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And land was at a premium and it was allotted.
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Remember when they went into the promised land, there were allotted pieces of land.
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And even as we went through the book of Judges, you remember they had a fight for their land.
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So land was precious, seed was precious.
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You can imagine Naomi, she's had it rough and she doesn't even have anything that she could look to for future.
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She's bankrupt.
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And it's not something that would have been desirable.
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Again, I think that's interesting in the book.
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A lot of the things that take place are not the most desirable things.
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But then again, if you think about it, God never calls us just to be happy and satisfied.
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He calls us to be holy.
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So when you stop thinking about that, it changes things around.
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So I wanted to bring that into focus.
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And so he takes off his sandal, he gives it to Boaz.
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All the elders, their witnesses in verse nine.
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I bought all that was a limonex, all that was chileans and melons from the hand of Naomi.
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Verse 10, moreover, Ruth the Moabitess, the wife of Melon, I have acquired as my wife to raise up the name of the dead on his inheritance that the name of the dead not be cut off from among the brethren and from the gate, you all witnesses this day.
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That's what we just read about in Deuteronomy.
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You can read about it in Leviticus.
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That Boaz is going to fulfill, and I'm going to say he's fulfilling by desire, not just merely a legal thing.
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But he really wants to become, to Ruth, everything.
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And also Naomi.
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As Boaz buys Ruth, in essence, he's restoring Naomi.
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And I'm going to point this out next week when we summarize some points in the book.
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That Boaz is such a picture of Christ.
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I'll save that for a little bit for next week.
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But Boaz redeems and restores what happens to us when we come to Christ.
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We are redeemed, we are restored.
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Beautiful pictures.
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Like I said, this book is just little, four chapters, but it speaks volumes.
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So anyway, he buys her.
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And then people say in verse 11, and the people who were at the gate, the elders said, we are witnesses.
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The Lord make the woman who is coming to your house like Rachel and Leah.
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Remember who Rachel and Leah are, right? They're the ones that really gave birth.
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Interesting that it excludes the concubines, right? It talks about Leah and it talks about Rachel.
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And remember what we've learned and been considering.
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Who was the one woman that was truly loved? Was Rachel, right? And he was tricked into getting Leah first.
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And again, that whole thing is a little bit odd, right? Yeah, especially with the concubines and all.
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As I say, don't try to New Testamentize everything in the Old Testament.
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Because if you do, you'll go bonkers.
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And the same way you need to.
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The New Testament is in clearness the way we ought to conduct ourselves.
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And so sometimes it's like trying to put a square peg in a round hole.
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It's not gonna fit.
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But remember, God has a purpose.
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God has a plan.
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And God doesn't change.
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But God did permit, and I should use a stronger word, God decreed certain things to take place at certain times to fulfill his purposes that are no longer in effect today.
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Again, just like I said, you don't buy a piece of land and get a woman.
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I don't think there'll be much real estate left if that was the case.
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Or there might be a whole lot of real estate left.
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I don't know.
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It depends on which way you go.
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Remember what happened at the end of Judges? I was just thinking about, remember what happened when the 600 men couldn't find wives and they were told to go into the town? And when the women came by, they would have run out and grabbed themselves a woman.
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And you brought up seven brides with seven brothers.
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Wild days, guys.
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Some might like that idea, but leave that alone.
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All right.
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So may your house, verse 12, be like the house of Perez who Tamar bore to Judah because of the offspring which the Lord will give you from this young woman.
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Remember the story.
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Judah wound up sleeping with his daughter-in-law because Judah's son refused to give seed to Tamar.
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And so, and again, wild stories, right? She dresses up like a prostitute.
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Judah takes her.
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Unbeknown to him, he's sleeping with his daughter-in-law.
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And in that sense, he's raising up the seed to continue on.
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Again, Jerry Springer.
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God has his purposes.
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So Boaz, verse 13.
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I want to try to get through the rest of this before we stop.
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Boaz took Ruth.
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She became his wife.
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And when he went into her, the Lord gave her conception and she bore a son.
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And the women said to Naomi, blessed be the Lord who has not left you this day without a near kinsman.
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And may his name be famous in Israel.
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Well, I'll tell you what, God's surely going to bring that to pass, isn't he? Because remember the lineage of Christ.
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Who's in the lineage of Christ? Ruth the Moabite.
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And who else? And where does Ruth the Moabite come from? Remember who Boaz's mother is? Rahab the holic.
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I mean, it's just, it's an amazing thing, the providence of God.
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So may he be a restorer to you, a restorer of life and a nourisher of your old age.
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Verse 15.
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For your daughter-in-law who loves you, who is better to you than seven sons is born.
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Naomi took the child, laid him on a bosom and she became a nurse to him.
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You know what I thought about when I read that verse? I thought about Moses.
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Remember the story of Moses real quick? When the mother put him in the blue basket, sent him down a river, wasn't eaten by an alligator and Pharaoh's daughter finds him.
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Remember who Pharaoh's daughter called to nurse Moses? Who was it? His mother.
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So you think about that and Naomi is now in many ways refreshed.
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She's restored.
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She now has a heritage.
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She now has an inheritance.
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She now has something that gives her, because again, I say to you, Naomi's had a rough go at it.
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Just like many times in our lives, if you think about it, we go through trials and tribulations.
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Some of them seem like they're about to break us.
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Only to find out at the end, what? God is always faithful, right? And though we bend because we're rooted in Christ, we will never break.
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The trees can blow as hard as they want.
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We shall, again, overcome.
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He who began a good work in us will what? He will continue it until the day of redemption.
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So let me just finish the text as we close.
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So she gets to raise him up.
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Balaaz is married to Ruth.
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I doubt very much of Ruth's going to have to glean in the field anymore.
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And Naomi is probably well taken care of now.
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And then verse 17, and also the neighbor women gave him a name.
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I thought that was interesting that they get to name.
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They give him a name.
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There, because usually it would have been the father who gave the name, by the way, remember in the New Testament when Zacharias went into the temple and they waited for him to come out and he couldn't speak.
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And then when John the Baptist was born, they look to Zacharias and say, is in his name Zacharias? And right, it's John and his tongue is loose.
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Okay, so the neighbor women give him a name saying there was a son born to Naomi.
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Doesn't say there's a son born to Ruth, says there's a son born to Naomi.
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And they call his name Obed.
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And he is the father of Jesse, the father of David.
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And Obed really means servant or serving.
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And he is going to be one who serves if you think of it in no other way than he is going to be in the line of David, the King.
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And of course, that great picture of David, the King is a picture of the King of Kings, the Lord Jesus Christ.
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And so interesting as the book closes, it gives us another little view of the genealogy.
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Now, this is the genealogy of Perez.
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Perez begot Herzog, Herzog begot Ram.
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Ram begot Abinadab, Abinadab begot Nation.
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Nation begot Solomon.
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Solomon begot Boaz.
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Solomon was the one who was married to Rahab.
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Solomon begot Boaz.
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Boaz begot Obed.
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Obed begot Jesse.
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Jesse begot David.
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God always does things in a pure way, in a righteous way.
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If you think about that as we close, when God in the garden said, I will raise up a seed, it wasn't just going to be any random seed.
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It certainly was going to be the Lord Jesus Christ.
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But there was a legal transaction that took place down through history.
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Isn't that great that God superseded all this? That, do you remember, who was it that tried to kill all the godly seed? It was Adaliah.
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I think it was her.
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The queen, Queen Adaliah.
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She tried to kill all the legal heirs that went all the way back.
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And remember, she missed one.
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Who did she miss? I think it was Josiah.
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Maybe it was Josiah or it was Joash.
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Anyway, what I'm saying is, God always brings the past.
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And that what it says in Psalm 76 says, the wrath of man shall praise him, and the remainder of wrath he will restrain.
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God never loses friends.
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So I hope this little book has been encouraging to us.
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Next week, we'll just look at some types and analogies.
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And then again, I said, Lord willing, after that, if brother Mike is ready, he'll take us through 1 Samuel.
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All right, let's just close with a word of prayer.
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Our father and our God, thank you for your revelation, Lord.
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Thank you that we could read of things that took place century, even millennium ago.
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And yet we will always find you faithful.
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And we will always find you working on behalf of your people, working on behalf of your progressive revelation that brought us the Lord Jesus Christ.
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Thank you, Lord, for saving our souls.
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May we worship you in spirit and truth.
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May we sing from joyful hearts, pray from hearts that desire to meet with you.
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And may we have good fellowship in the things of Christ in Jesus name.
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Amen.