Kinsman-Redeemer - [Ruth 2]

The book I'd like to recommend tonight is a book that ties in with our theme on Sunday mornings lately.

It's called Power Encounters Reclaiming Spiritual Warfare by David Powlison.

You may know David Powlison from New Thetic Counseling Ministries. This is a book that will give you a good overview.

There are many other books. John MacArthur wrote one, How to Meet the Enemy. B .B. Warfield wrote a good book called

Counterfeit Miracles. This is a very large topic, a very detailed topic, but this is an easy read.

He deals with some of the issues that we spoke of this morning. Do you cast out demons of sin or do you cast out the demons who goad others to sin?

Just good questions and simply written so you can just work through it. I would recommend this book by David Powlison as you're studying through the issues.

By the way, if you don't take my view in spiritual warfare, that's okay. What I want you to do and what

I'm trying to do with the men in discipleship is I want you to study and I want you to own your theology on your own.

If you come to church and you think that you have to buy everything I say, I don't want you to do that.

I want you to buy this statement though from scripture. You are to examine everything carefully, especially you dads and you husbands.

When you need to go home and say, well, I agreed with that, but I'm not sure what he meant by that. And honey, what do you think of this?

And go through those issues. I will make mistakes. I have made mistakes and you need to test me against scriptures all the time.

And if you have not been taught to do that, tonight's a good start. You just cannot believe everything people say when they stand up and say, let's open the

Bible. And I don't want you to just say, well, Mike said it, therefore it must be true. I want to establish and I hope that it has been established over the last eight years.

There's some degree of fidelity and faithfulness to the text here by the men in the pulpit. And that is by the grace of God alone.

So it's not as if you should sit there every week and think, I don't know if I can trust the guy, but you should only trust me as my father would say, as far as you could throw me.

And so there has to be trust. And that's by the way, why pastors are attacked by people and slandered because without our integrity, then our message doesn't mean anything.

And so Satan uses people to attack the credibility of a pastor by attacking his character.

But I want you to be Bereans. When I die, you kick me out or I kick you out.

We want to all say we have been taught by God to be Bereans and to study. And so remember these days, it's okay to disagree.

It's not a personal thing. If I say I disagree with you, I'm not somehow demeaning you as a person.

I'm saying I disagree. And how could iron sharpen iron if everybody just agreed?

I think the sparks are a good thing. We can just do it with respect, with humility. And matter of fact, if I'm right on my views,

I'm only right because God has graciously let me be right. It's not because I'm better or smarter or anything else.

And so some of these topics like spiritual warfare, I know some don't agree. That's fine.

I just want you to study because if you say I disagree with Mike and it ends there, shame on you.

But if you say I disagree with Mike, let me get back into the text and prove why I disagree. Then that's good because I'm goading you to study the word of God.

And that's what I want. I don't want a bunch of people who just shake their head and everything I say goes except for my children.

And when they get older, it will be different. All right. Any questions about that, by the way?

Well, let's take our Bibles, please, and open to the book of Ruth, the Old Testament book of Ruth. And we want to catch up a little bit tonight.

I'm sorry I haven't been in the book of Ruth for a long time, but that's just the way it goes sometimes with India and my schedule and my mother and other things.

But hopefully in the next several weeks, we'll be in the book of Ruth. Next Sunday, the ladies have a retreat, but we'll still be meeting

Sunday night. The week after that will be Memorial Day, so we will not have a Sunday night. And I hope to get done with the book of Ruth and maybe in the next four or five

Sunday nights as we meet soon, it will be summertime. And then in the fall,

I hope to start the series. Fifty seven weeks looking through systematic theology. What does the

Bible teach about the Bible? What does the Bible teach about sin? What does the Bible teach about end times? What does the Bible teach about whatever topic it might be for fifty seven weeks?

You might want to save your shekels and buy the book Systematic Theology by Wayne Rudin. And you can just go chapter by chapter with us as we look at fifty seven weeks, almost like Bible college in a year.

And one of the things that churches lack these days is a comprehensive view of scripture. What does it teach?

What does the scripture teach about that subject in totality versus kind of hunt and peck?

John Reed said this about the book of Ruth, quote, The book of Ruth gleams like a beautiful pearl against a black jet background.

The action recorded in the narrative took place during the period of the book of Judges. Those days were the dark ages of Israel's history.

The victories of Joshua had been followed by periods of spiritual declension with but brief periods of revival.

Ruth also stood in stark relief against the dark background of her own Moabite ancestry.

Ruth the Moabitess broke the tradition, her idolatrous people and her irresponsible ancestor

Lot's older daughter. Ruth became a believer in the God of Hebrews. And that pretty much sums up the book of Ruth.

Who wrote the book of Ruth? I'll just ask you some questions Sunday night. You can give answers Sunday morning when

I ask questions. Just kind of answer in your mind. Who wrote the book of Ruth? Yes.

Samuel, that's a good guess. We don't really know. I think if I had to guess, I would pick Samuel. We're not sure.

The good news is we know the Holy Spirit wrote it, so that's enough. That's who I would pick if I had to guess.

Samuel. That is, by the way, Jewish traditions standpoint is Samuel wrote the book.

When was it written? Yeah, when

Samuel was alive. Thank you, Carl. Very insightful. We have a keen group here that God would give me the privilege to come be your pastor.

While Samuel was alive, but we think sometime while David was alive because it is written as an apologetic for his kingly position.

If you realize, and I've just been in India, and there's a struggle between Pakistan and India. And so you can't understand it unless you're an

Indian or a Pakistani. But if you had the prime minister of India, and he wasn't a prime minister, but he was a monarch, and his grandmother was from Pakistan, some of the people in India might not want to submit to that monarch, or in this case a prime minister, because of the background and who was in the line of that person.

And so if you've got a Moabitess in the line of David, you can imagine people saying, how could David be the king with a

Moabitess in his immediate family? On the side, though, there are other purposes of the book.

One could be how to live a holy life in a perverse time. Another could be tracing the genealogy of David.

We'll see in chapter 4, you can look in the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew 1 and see Ruth's name.

And so we just want to study this very, very interesting book, one of two books in the Old Testament named after women.

Which is the other one? Esther, good. And this is a book that would be read at the

Jewish Feast of Pentecost. All right, let me just read chapter 1 since it's been a while. I'll read through chapter 1 and then we'll dive into chapter 2 and hopefully finish that tonight.

I can't promise that, but that's what I'm going to try to do. Now, it came about in the days when the judges governed that there was a famine in the land.

I can't go on. Why was there a famine in the land? What did the famine indicate of Israel's spiritual condition?

They were in sin. Why? Because God said, if you sin, I will what?

Bring a famine in the land. Right. So we start reading. I don't know if you were the keen ones or I'm the keen one.

I'm not sure. And so you start reading this. It's just packed full of information.

And a certain man of Bethlehem in Judah went to sojourn in the land of Moab with his wife and his two sons. Not really telling us who, that's not the point at the moment.

The name of the man was Elimelech. Now he starts bringing that in. And the name of his wife, Naomi, and the names of his two sons were

Melon and Chilion. Does anybody remember what those names meant? Okay, good.

You could even call one Scrawny if you wanted. Who knows? Ephratites of Bethlehem in Judah.

Now they entered the land of Moab and remained there. Then Elimelech, Naomi's husband died and she was left with her two sons.

A very precarious situation in those days. They took for themselves Moabite women as wives.

The name of the one was Orpah and the name of the other Ruth. And they lived there about 10 years.

Then both Melon and Chilion also died and the woman was bereft of her two children and her husband.

So it goes from bad to worse. Then she arose with her daughters -in -law that she might return from the land of Moab for she had heard in the land of Moab that the

Lord, Yahweh, had visited his people in giving them food.

So she departed from the place where she was and her two daughters -in -law with her and they went on the way to return to the land of Judah.

And Naomi said to her two daughters -in -law, go return each of you to her mother's house. May the Lord, Yahweh, deal kindly with you as you have dealt with the dead and with me.

May the Lord grant that you may find rest each in the house of her husband. Then she kissed them, they lifted up their voices and wept.

And they said to her, no, but we will surely return with you to your people. But Naomi said, return my daughters, why should you go with me?

Have I yet sons in my womb that they may be your husbands? Return my daughters, go, for I am too old to have a husband.

If I said I have hope, if I should have even a husband tonight and also bear sons, would you therefore wait until they're grown?

Would you therefore refrain from marrying? No, my daughters, for it is harder for me than for you.

For the hand of the Lord has gone forth against me. And they lifted up their voices and wept again. And Orpah kissed her mother -in -law, but Ruth clung to her.

Verse 15 of Ruth 1. Then she said, behold, your sister -in -law has gone back to her people and her gods.

Return after your sister -in -law. But Ruth said, do not urge me to leave you or turn back from following you. For where you go,

I will go. And where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my

God. Where you die, I will die. And there I will be buried. Thus may Yahweh the Lord do to me.

And worse, if anything but death departs you and me. When she saw that she was determined to go with her, she said no more to her.

So they both went until they came to Bethlehem. And when they had come to Bethlehem, all the city was stirred because of them.

And the women said, is this Naomi? She said to them, do not call me Naomi. Call me Mara, for the

Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me. Mara means, by the way, congregation. What in Hebrew? Bitter.

Good. I went out full, but the Lord has brought me back empty. Why do you call me

Naomi? Since the Lord has witnessed against me and the Almighty has afflicted me. So Naomi returned, and with her

Ruth the Moabitess, her daughter -in -law, who returned from the land of Moab, and they came to Bethlehem at the beginning of the barley harvest.

Now we move to chapter 2, and you're going to see the scene revolving around the conversation that's happening.

It's like everything else is gone, and we've moved to this conversation. Nothing else is talked about. It's the central purpose, and all the extracurricular activities that are going on or happening are not talked about.

It's just the conversation. Ruth chapter 2, verse 1. Still a little bit in review. Now Naomi had a kinsman of her husband, a man of great wealth of the family of Elimelech, whose name was

Boaz. Did Naomi know about this family member? Did Ruth know about this family member?

I think the answer to the first question is yes. The answer to the second question is no. But you know.

And here the author is going to be giving you information, but Ruth doesn't necessarily know. Sometimes we know things and the people in the story don't know.

His name was Boaz. What's Boaz mean? We're not quite sure, but we think we know.

He's strong. So you got scrawny and weakling, sniveling, and then you got strong.

And Ruth the Moabitess, again notice Ruth the Moabitess, it's almost like Rahab the...

So you keep this in mind. Said to Naomi, please let me go to the field and glean among the ears of grain after one in whose side

I may find favor. And she said to her, go my daughter. Ruth wants to take care of her mother -in -law, and her mother -in -law doesn't say get out there and work, but both just kind.

And Ruth says, I've got the initiative to go do it. I want to go. Yes, you may. So she departed and went and gleaned in the field after the reapers.

And she happened by chance, accidentally, to come to the portion of the field belonging to Boaz, who was of the family of Elimelech.

And here the author, the narrator is trying to create suspense. Who owns the field?

We all know we've read the story, but the first time you're reading that, you're kind of drawn in and you think, okay, he's trying to tell us something.

What's he trying to say? Suspense. Now behold,

Boaz came from Bethlehem and said to the reapers, may the Lord be with you.

And they said to him, may the Lord bless you. Interesting way to talk to your employees.

Then Boaz said to his servant who's in charge of the reapers, whose young woman is this? The servant in charge of the reapers replied, she's the young Moabite woman who returned with Naomi from the land of Moab.

And she said, here the servant is in charge, saying these things, speaking for Ruth.

And she said, please let me glean and gather after the reapers among the sheaves. Thus she came and has remained from morning until now.

She's been sitting in the house for a little while. We've preached through all this. We're still in review. Then Boaz said to Ruth, listen carefully, my daughter, do not go glean in another field.

Furthermore, do not go on from this one, but stay here with my maids. Let your eyes be on the field, which they reap and go after them.

Indeed, I have commanded the servants not to touch you. When you are thirsty, go to the water jars and drink from what the servants draw.

And now all of a sudden Boaz is starting to show great kindness to Ruth. Incredible kindness.

Here's a Jew. Here's a Gentile. Here's a Jew. Here's a Moabitess. Here's a Jew man.

Here's a woman. Provides everything she needs. And his godliness is starting to come to the surface as we get to see this, as he takes care of Ruth and he takes care of her welfare.

And her response was I'm not worthy. We don't think this is strange, but she thinks it's strange.

Why? She fell on her face, bowing to the ground and said to him, why have I found favor in your sight that you should take notice of me since I am a foreigner?

Very, very profound. She says, I, this is surprising to me. Why would this happen? I mentioned last time, what a great question for us to ask

God, why have you taken notice of us? We're foreigners. God has saved us. Verse 11 and now we're coming up to about where we left off before.

Boaz replied to her, all that you have done for your mother -in -law after the death of your husband has been fully reported to me. There was a big stirring in the city and he knows about it.

He knew the lady. He just didn't know what she looked like or her name and how that you left your father and your mother in the land of your birth and came to a people that you did not previously know.

It almost sounds like Abraham. Abraham, go to a place. Where do I go? God, I'll tell you later. Very Abraham esque.

Go to the land. I'll show you. Everybody knows about this. Her kindness to her mother -in -law.

It's getting around the town. She's known for her by her reputation.

It's impressive. Verse 12. May the Lord rewards your work and your wages be full from the

Lord, the God of Israel under whose wings you have come to seek refuge. What a great picture of divine protection.

Somebody in this congregation has an email address very close to this. And what's your email address under his wings?

Well, I wonder where you got under his wings. What verse might that be from? The divine protection and almost like a mother hen just bringing up those little chicks underneath her as she protects and she watches over under his wings.

And that's exactly what we're thinking about here. We've got this great picture of God portrayed as a

God who shelters and a God who cares for and a God who provides divine protection.

Is that picture? Hubbard said, quote, Boaz pictured Ruth as a defenseless young bird now safely under the warm wings of Yahweh that spread over Israel.

What a good picture. Just makes it come alive where you think of God as a God like that.

Now we come to the new ground. Verse 13. Then she said, I have found favor in your sight. That's a third time favor is used by Ruth in chapter two, verse two, verse 10.

Now here for the third time, verse 13, I found favor in your sight, my Lord, for you have confronted me.

And indeed you have spoken kindly to your maidservant, though I am not like one of your maidservants. Have you spoken to my heart?

It's just a good Hebrew language. You've gotten close and you've spoken right to me.

At mealtime, Boaz said to her, I mean, here we go. This is going to be a pylon coming up here of the goodness and graciousness of God to Ruth through a person.

Come here that you may eat of the bread and dip your piece of bread in the vinegar. So she sat beside the reapers and he served her roasted grain and she ate and was satisfied and had some left.

Come here. It means to approach. It's as if she was sitting far away from Boaz in the same general area, but far enough away.

She knows better than to go to the man who owns the field and who's a man. Matter of fact, when I first went to India and went to a home in Nasik and was served, the men sat over here and the wives and the children all served us.

And I don't know if that happened every single night, but it happened that night because we were the special guests, not only the special guests, but the special guests from America, the special guests from America who were the

Bible teachers. And so we were given great respect. And it was almost this Eastern culture thing where you've got the leader, the owner

Boaz, and she knows better than to come right over and sit by him and just kind of belly up to the, to the table saying, you know,

I'm just going to sit right here like cafeteria style. That's not the way it worked back then. And he says,

I want you to dip the piece of bread in the vinegar. Now I'm going to give you a Hebrew word. You tell me an equivalent English word.

That's going to be close to something like this. The Hebrew word for vinegar is Hametz.

Tell me another word that sounds like it, that you take bread and dip it into this thing. Hametz. Hummus.

Same kind of idea. You have bread and you dip the bread into vinegar, something that gives it a little liveliness.

And I'm not saying they're dipping it into hummus, but some word like that where it's just something that you dip your bread into.

You dip your, I'm trying to think of the Indian word for bread. What is it again?

Yeah. No, something else. Non -something else.

I was going to say Jalopies. It's not Jalopies. For deep help me. Japati.

Thank you, innocent. How soon we forget. I can't say the word, but they were good.

And so it's this Eastern idea that we're not used to. And they're not sitting up in tables.

And again, not at some kind of cafeteria style. And the men are eating, and he's the leader, and he's the owner, and he's a man, if I haven't mentioned that before, and just different culturally.

Come over and dip out of my same bowl. And she sat beside him.

It says that that phraseology is used only one other time in the Bible. And it's used of a place of honor when

Abner sat next to King Saul in first Samuel 20 verse 25.

And eating was not just about food in those days. Eating was about what? So much more.

It wasn't just, you know, I need my nutritional calories. I need a little bit of fat and a few carbos and some protein.

It's just kind of eat on the run. No, it was symbolic and hospitality. And that was so good.

And I love so much about going to India because it wasn't about anything except the social aspect.

Come over and eat. Two times ago when I was in India, I got a call at about 8 .30 at night. Come over and have dinner. I've already had dinner.

Thank you. Well, I didn't get it because I was the Western American. And I said, well,

I've already eaten. That wasn't the question. Come over and eat. It wasn't, are you hungry? Is your stomach full?

The question was, we want to spend time with you and have fellowship with you. And food is just the excuse.

So please come on over. And so I went and had great fellowship, learned what a birthday bum was for the first time in my life that night.

And if you think you're going to try to give me 45 birthday bums tonight, you've got another thing coming. That's when you grab the arms and you grab the legs and then you bounce the person on their bottom and you do it 45 times.

And so, oh, Mark said he has his camera. We gave

Kim some birthday bums on her birthday on Saturday and the kids grabbed the legs and I grabbed her arms and you wish you would have been there for the picture on that one.

In the Near East, eating wasn't about food, although that was there. And he served her.

The Old Testament was written mostly in Hebrew, but during Jesus' time, they had the

Old Testament was written in Greek because that was the common language they would speak. So the book of Ruth in Greek, what we call the

Septuagint has a word for he served her and it's the word to heap or to pile.

He heaped on the food for her. When was the last time she really had a good meal, a full meal?

He just piled that thing on. He heaped it on. It was a dog pile. No, strike that.

It was a pig pile of food on that. I remember again my India story when I would go over there and it's very frightening to me to go to a place to be served because I kind of like to have a little control of my food, how much of this and how much of that.

But when you go and you sit and you're served, you have the food come out and then they just keep putting it on your plate higher and higher and higher.

And what do you do? You don't do anything. You just sit and look and smile. And then here's what we do in America.

You begin to eat your food and after you eat all your potatoes or something, then someone, maybe the hostess might say, oh, would you like more potatoes?

And then you can say yes or you say no. When I was in India and I was a special honored guest, then

I would get some food and I would take about 10 bites of the food, this huge piling Mount Everest K2 pile.

Then more food would be served on top of that because you're not going to let me eat all the food and then do you want some more? No, they're just going to keep piling it on and on and on.

Why? Because they love the Lord and they're showing their love for the

Lord in this particular case by loving me, by showing me hospitality, by giving me this food. And here

God is working through Boaz to just bless and bless and bless.

Ruth reminds me of the way

God gives Romans 8 32, he who did not spare his own son, but delivered him over for us all.

How will he not also with him freely give us all things? That's just the way God gives exceedingly abundantly above all we ask are what even think that God's working through Boaz and when

God gives, he doesn't just give little bits. We've gone from chapter one.

Did you get it? Famine. We've gone to chapter two. Leftovers. That's what's happening.

The leftovers. So much. There's so much food.

This is the kind of situation where if you're a guy, you secretly kind of unbutton the top button of your jeans before you get up.

That's exactly what it is. Back then it was probably a robe and you just kind of loosen up the robe a little bit because you've eaten so much.

And again, the idea is the blessing of God through Boaz to Ruth. Bigger picture.

Telescope back a little bit. How could David not be the king when God so work through his lineage,

Ruth, the Moabitess? That's the bigger point. When she rose to glean,

Boaz commanded his servants. He didn't say to the leader of the servants do thus and such.

He's purposely said to the servants to bypass any kind of communication breakdown.

Let her glean even among the sheaves and do not insult her. Skip the middleman for even more weight.

First of all, he serves her all this food. Men don't serve women. He serves a Moabitess all this food.

Jews don't serve Gentiles. You go around and get away from these and she's just welcome in as a foreigner and now she's protected on the job site.

Let her glean even among the sheaves. Do not insult her. People were insulted.

Women were insulted. Women were taken advantage of by the men and he with his generosity and his protection doesn't want that to happen.

Let her glean even among the sheaves. It's unusual. Let her go even between the large piles of harvested grain.

Don't let people go to those. Those are the piles. We've got those already. Go out there and get enough grain to make the pile.

Now let her go right by the big pile. Even more. Here comes even more pile on blessing. Heaped up.

Also you shall purposely pull out for her some grain from the bundles and leave it that she may glean and do not rebuke her.

The blessings of God. This is like the old days when you got a college scholarship to play football for UMass and your job was to watch the sprinkler system turn on and turn off and they would pay you for it.

That's that kind of deal. Where here's your job is I got to go out and get some and by the way just kind of bundle it up for her.

Put some grain there from the bundles. This is amazing. Boaz because of God working through him wanted to have nothing left to chance.

Nothing left that she might not get the food. In my notes

I have a little smiley face and I said I think he likes her.

Drum roll. Does Ruth know who

Boaz really is? Maybe she does but I don't think she does.

She doesn't know what's hit her yet. Naomi is there.

Ruth goes out. Ruth knows that she got work. Naomi doesn't know.

Naomi knows that there's this man named Boaz. Ruth doesn't know. Very very interesting the way the author does this.

And what we're supposed to do is we're supposed to see the providential hand of God. God's controlling all this.

So she gleaned in the field until evening. Then she beat out what she had gleaned and it was about a truckload of barley.

She just backed the truck up. What's an ephah? It doesn't matter. It's a lot.

You know people are trying to study it's between let's see between 29 pounds and 50 pounds according to the latest scholarship involved in Hebrew terminology.

That's true between 29 and 50 pounds. It normally would take you a day to get 1 to 2 pounds.

This is a lot but we're not to argue how much it was in terms of exact precise what's an ephah of barley today but the idea is it's a lot.

The issue is God's generosity through Boaz. David must be the king to have this kind of grandmother 1 to 2 pounds a day and now there's 29 to 50.

They left in chapter 1 because there was a famine in the land. The generosity of God through this man.

She took it up and went in the city. How do you carry all that? That's amazing. Sometimes they put it on their head.

Sometimes they put it in a shawl over their shoulder. And by the way flashback to Naomi. I wonder what she's doing.

I wonder if she's pacing, fidgeting. What's happening? Is she working? I'm hungry. What's going on?

The narrator's very, very good at what he does if it's in fact

Samuel. And her mother -in -law saw what she had gleaned. She also took it out and gave

Naomi what she had left after she was satisfied. You didn't believe me that we were talking about leftovers, did you?

I thought I was just making that up. The leftovers she brought. No comments about leftover hummus but it was good back in those days.

Commentator Bush said, quote, the whole exchange is fraught with delightful irony. For we the hearers realize that each of the women knows more than the other.

Ruth knows that she worked with Boaz but does not know who Boaz is. While Naomi has no idea that Ruth has worked all day with Boaz but knows very well who he is.

And now verse 19. I love this. I'm going to try to read it the way it must have come across to the original readers.

Her mother -in -law then said to her, where did you go and glean today and where did you work?

I put in go, I didn't mean to. Where did you glean today and where did you work? May he who took notice of you be blessed.

All that food, all that grain. She told her mother -in -law with whom she had worked.

Okay, who is it? What's his name? You can see you're just kind of going, please tell me. It's like the people who get a book and it's fictional book and they have to read the last chapter before they start the book because they can't stand it.

He's trying to create that kind of environment. Where did you work? May he who took notice of you be blessed.

So she said to her mother -in -law with whom she had worked and said, the name of the man with whom

I worked today. And he puts it at the very end.

She puts it at the very end is Boaz. And it's like the rocket just going, finally, pregnant pauses.

I don't know how she said it, but that's just the way it seems. The where question, where did you work quickly turned to who was it?

The name of the man with whom I work today is Boaz. Now if you look at 19, who's speaking, go ahead.

Who? Ruth. If you look at 21, who's speaking? If you look at 20, who's speaking?

Naomi. I can't believe she interrupted her. Of course she interrupted her. Ruth saying all this, the name is

Boaz. And then Naomi interrupts and says to her daughter -in -law, may he be blessed of Yahweh who has now withdrawn his kindness to the living and the dead.

Wow. She's done a 180 from chapter one. Call me Mara. Boy, she's acting differently now.

Oh, may God be blessed. And again, Naomi said to her, the man's our relative.

He is one of our closest relatives. Commentator Moore said a blessing to Yahweh for revealing to her that God has been at work all along, even in her darkest hour.

That's exactly the way it is with us. We go through a trial. It's a health issue. It's a financial trial.

It's a personal trial. It's a family trial. And you think, God, where are you? And he's working. We might not be able to see, we might not be able to taste or touch, but the same

God who's working back in those days is working for us as well. Now, let's talk a little bit about this close relative business and kinsman redeemer.

What is a kinsman redeemer? Now, the first thing I want to say is this. The book of Ruth does not teach that Boaz is a type of Christ and who is a kinsman redeemer to come.

If you say that the book teaches that, then you need to make sure that the author of the book of Ruth, maybe

Samuel, is trying to teach us something about Christ. And you will find quickly that that is not the main purpose of the book.

The purpose of the book is an apologetic for David, and it shows how God has been working in the line of David.

What does it say here about the second person of the Trinity? What does it say about the Messiah? We want to be careful, and so now we're going to break down what is a kinsman redeemer, and can we say as Boaz was a kinsman redeemer to Ruth, so too

Jesus and even more is our kinsman redeemer. Would that be fair to say? Yes, but you have to be careful when you say to yourself, the book of Ruth is talking about Jesus, the kinsman redeemer.

You have to be careful. Now, what is a kinsman redeemer? What is a gael or a goel in Hebrew?

Well, let me give you some of the descriptions of this kinsman redeemer.

There were different aspects to a kinsman redeemer. One, you don't have to write this down necessarily, but let me just give them to you.

One, the kinsman redeemer would make sure the family property would stay in the family, the clan.

It wasn't like mom and dad's property. It could be, but stays in the clan. Two, if there was a clan member sold into slavery, the kinsman redeemer could redeem that person sold into slavery by their own selling out and get their freedom.

Three, if you had a near relative who was murdered and then those people ran away, you could track them down and kill them and be your family's kinsman redeemer.

Four, you could receive money on behalf of a deceased victim of a crime. So someone kills a family member, that family, a faraway family member, then money is due to that family, but that family member is not around.

There's no other brothers and sisters. So you could step in and say, I will receive that money as a kinsman redeemer. Or fifthly, to ensure justice is served in a lawsuit of a family member.

You have a poor family member that are getting taken to the cleaners because they don't have enough money because they don't have any money for good lawyers.

And so you step in to try to help. And those would be the five different aspects of the kinsman redeemer.

Now, Dr. Block, a Hebrew scholar, written a commentary on the book of Ruth and judges said, Dr. Block has even been here.

If you haven't listened to the tapes online, you should. Dr. Block said this, remarkably, in none of the texts clarifying the role of the

Gael, kinsman redeemer, is there any reference to marrying the widow of a deceased person?

Still, it is commonly assumed that in addition to these functions, those five, the kinsman redeemer also came into place in the case of a widow whose husband had died without leaving any progeny.

The kinsman redeemer. Now, before we get into that any farther, do you know, true or false,

God is described as a Gael, a kinsman redeemer. He's a redeemer. Has God ever called that?

True. Good. If I ask true or false questions, just a little hint, typically they're always true when

I preach because I'm just trying to get you to think. Your mind goes 400 words a minute and I only speak 180 words a minute.

So I want to try to get you to think about what I'm talking about because otherwise you're thinking about the idol of the

Red Sox or something. I don't know what you might be thinking about. Turn to Isaiah 41, please.

And I just want to give you an overview of this wonderful word, Gael, that means redeemer, as God is described, even in Exodus chapter 6, as this great

God who redeems with an outstretched arm. And I think it is fair to say, as Boaz redeemed

Ruth, we have a greater redeemer who has redeemed us and his name is God. Even though the text isn't talking about God redeeming us, the text is talking about God working through this human redeemer.

Now, Isaiah chapter 41 will start and I'm just going to give you a bunch of verses between Isaiah 40 and 55 and you see if you can find the refrain or the common theme between these verses.

And I'll call to your attention that we have the capital L, capital O, capital R, capital

D, meaning Yahweh, the great covenant keeping personal name of God. And we're going to see the redeeming redemption theme.

Isaiah 41, 14. Do not fear you worm, Jacob, you men of Israel.

I will help you, declares the Lord. And your redeemer is the holy one of Israel. Gael chapter 43 verse 14.

And just raise your hand or blurt it out when you see the theme. Isaiah 43, 14.

Thus says the Lord, your redeemer, the holy one of Israel, for your sake, I have sent to Babylon and I will bring them all down as fugitives.

Isaiah 44, 6. 44, 6. Thus says the

Lord, the king of Israel and his redeemer, the Lord of hosts. I am the first and the last. There is no

God beside me. 44, 24. Thus says the

Lord, your redeemer, and the one who formed you from the womb. I, the Lord, am the maker of all things, stretching out the heavens by myself and spreading out the earth all alone.

47, 40. Jumping ahead, Isaiah 47, 40. Again, just showing you the same word,

Gael, that is used of Boaz, but in this particular case, used of God as a great redeemer. 47, 4.

Our redeemer, the Lord of hosts, is his name, the holy one of Israel. Now, we missed a few holy ones, but the theme is the redeemer of Israel, this holy one.

And I could keep going. If you just want to listen and not jump around, Isaiah 48, 17. Thus says the

Lord, your redeemer, the holy one of Israel. Isaiah 49, 7.

Thus says the Lord, the redeemer of Israel and the one who formed you from the womb and its holy one. Isaiah 49, 26.

I will feed your oppressors with their own flesh and they will become drunk with their own blood as with sweet wine.

And all flesh will know that I, the Lord, am your savior and your redeemer, the mighty one of Jacob.

Now, just two more. Isaiah 54, 5 and 8. Did you see this theme of this redeemer

God? Yahweh is called a redeemer as Boaz is. For your husband is your maker,

Isaiah 54, 5 says, whose name is the Lord of hosts and your redeemer is the holy one of Israel who is called the

God of all the earth. Verse 8. I, excuse me, in an outburst of anger, I hid my face from you for a moment, but with everlasting loving kindness,

I will have compassion on you, says the Lord, your redeemer. Just a bunch of great verses that talk about the covenant keeping personal name of God as a redeemer.

Now, let's talk a little bit more about this kinsman redeemer. It had to be a relative and he served this function to marry

Ruth. My question is this. Why did God, the second person of the

Trinity, have to become man in order to redeem us? Anyone. Why did he have to be a near relative as it were?

Why did he have to be human as we kind of branch off in this kinsman redeemer idea? Couldn't he just be up in heaven and say,

I decide to save those people? Yes, Bruce? Okay, excellent.

On the priestly aspect, it would be hard to have someone sympathize with our weaknesses who wasn't weak like we were.

So that is very good on the priestly side. I did not consider that, but that's excellent, Bruce. Lewis? Okay, that was what

I was looking more in particular, although what Bruce said is very true. He has to be like us to be our kinsman, to be our substitute.

The one verse I think of all the time is when John the Baptist was baptizing. He was baptizing people for what?

It was a baptism for the what of sins. Why did Jesus insist that he was baptized by John the

Baptist? It's very interesting as you look at the passage, and we don't even have to go there, but it's in Matthew 3.

Jesus arrived from Galilee to the Jordan coming to John to be baptized by him, but John tried to prevent him saying,

I have need to be baptized by you and you come to me? But Jesus answering said to him,

Matthew 3 .15, permitted at this time, for in this way it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.

Then he permitted him. To be a substitute, you had to be human, and so if human sins need to be taken care of and God poured out his wrath on humans, he had to be a human in our place because he couldn't be an angel.

Why couldn't Michael the Archangel die in our place? Could he have?

That sounds like a different religion. That almost sounds like Mormonism in a sense where Michael the

Archangel is Jesus's brother kind of thing. By the way, on a side note, I'm sad that you have

Christian publishers like Erdman's publishing pro -Mormon books. Very, very sad.

You used to be able to pick a book up and say, well, who published this book? Baker. I can pretty much trust

Baker, and so I'll go ahead and read that. And now these days, IVP is suspect,

Erdman's is suspect, NAB depressed, excuse me, NAB pressed is suspect. You have to be careful.

Moody's slogan used to be Moody, a name you can trust. You have to be very, very careful and so please don't buy books based on publishers.

Buy books based on who the authors are, and I think you'll be much better off. But here we have the

God man. He's human because he can be our substitute and identify with us, and he could live the perfect life we could never live.

He could die the death that we couldn't die, and he's God. Why does Jesus have to be fully God to be our substitute?

What if he wasn't God? He was just perfect. How many? Yes. So his death is of such a high value, it can be applied to all those who would ever believe.

There's an infinite value to his death, and so when you think of Christ, why does he have to be man, and why does he have to be

God? You think of infinite value, he was God, and also he was a human, so he could die for humans.

That's exactly right. And by the way, why didn't Jesus just come down on Good Friday, die, be raised from the dead on Sunday, and go back to heaven?

Why did he have to do all that living and everything? He had to live the life that we couldn't live, and we not only get our sins placed to Christ's account, but Christ gives us his perfect perfection and his perfect life as God sees that place to our account.

And even though I didn't live a perfect life, God treats me as I did because of Christ, and even though Jesus didn't sin one time with thought, word, and deed, by the way, can you imagine the pressure of that?

When we have pressure to sin and then we finally give in, there's no more pressure to sin, because we've just given in.

But all the pressure built up, it was almost like the water at Hoover Dam, just the pressure there, and Jesus never ever caved in or capitulated to sin.

And so he had to live a perfect life, that's why he lived over 33 years on the earth. And the good news is, let me just take you to the last, you know,

I guess I'm not going to be able to, you just get all caught up in this, and you forget about the time and everything.

I wanted to take you to Ephesians 1, 7, where it says, in Christ we have redemption. R .L.

Wheeler said, if we had the wisdom of Solomon, the patience of John, the meekness of Moses, the strength of Samson, the obedience of Abraham, the compassion of Joseph, the tears of Jeremiah, the poetic skill of David, the prophetic voice of Elijah, the courage of Daniel, the greatness of John the

Baptist, and the endurance and love of Paul, I would still need redemption through Christ's blood, the forgiveness of sins.

And Ephesians 1, 7 says, we have it, and for you Greek students, we have it, and we always have it, and continually have it.

I'm glad for that. I'm super glad for that. It should make us want to praise, and as Bruce just said, say amen.

B .B. Warfield said, there is no one of the titles of Christ which is more precious to the

Christian hearts than Redeemer. Redeemer is the name specifically of Christ on the cross.

Whenever we pronounce it, the cross is placarded before our eyes, and our hearts are filled with loving remembrance not only that Christ has given us salvation, but that he paid a mighty price for it.

Redeemed, redeemed by the blood of the Lamb, redeemed how I love to what? Proclaim it. That's exactly right.

Redemption with a price. Now, let's go to Ruth chapter 2. Let's finish it up, and we'll at least be done with chapter 2, and so we all can feel good tonight.

Okay, we finished Ruth 2. I'm concerned about your feelings, beloved, and so we want to make sure we feel good.

We've accomplished something. I am concerned about your feelings, but I want them as the caboose to truth.

I don't want you to run your life by feelings. Remember this great paradigm when you're thinking about your life.

Proverbs chapter 29, verse 18, happiest he who keeps the law, and so if you obey

God, he blushes you with good feelings. If you take your finger and you touch it to the oven, we're going to have treat night, and Kim just made some cookies tonight, and so whatever you baked in the oven, maybe brownies, you take your finger and you go like that to the hot stove, what's going to happen to your finger?

How could God do that? Give you nerves on the end of your finger? What kind of God is that? It'll turn black, just like our hearts, right?

How could God do that? I mean, nerves on the end of our finger? Do you think your emotions are set up any other way?

When you do good things, when you do healthy things, when you do godly things, what kind of feelings do you think you have even in spite of your circumstances?

You have good feelings because your feelings are given by God almost like the nerve cells, nerve endings, when you touch something hot, yow, when you sin, you don't feel good.

If you are happy when you keep the law, what must you be if you don't keep the law? Let me give you some code words for us that we don't really like to talk about these things out loud.

How about down? How about crabby? And this happens to me a lot, where I'll be driving out of the church parking lot and I'll think, why am

I not in a good mood? And then I'll say, Mike, and I'll start preaching to myself. Happens all the time.

Well, if I've been doing the right things, if I've been in the word and in prayer and doing the right things, God will grant me the fruit of what

I've been doing. And it'll either be good fruit or rotten fruit. And so when you say, well, I don't feel good,

I'm analyzing my own life. I feel like I should pay myself for my own psychoanalysis, even though it's not psychoanalysis.

If I start preaching psychoanalysis, you know I'll have gone psycho because I don't, we don't need psychology.

We have the sufficiency of scripture. But you start preaching yourself and you say, self, why are you doing that? Self, if I feel down and I don't feel good, then back up and what have

I been doing? A classic illustration. You say, I have to get up and go help. I'm going to go downtown and I'm going to feed some people or I'm going to preach the gospel to people and I have to get up at three in the morning.

And you get up at three in the morning. How do you feel? I'm walking around going,

I need my coffee. But when you go and you minister to others who are in need, how do you feel driving home?

You feel good. That's exactly right. Now, what does this have to do with anything in the book of Ruth?

I have no idea. Ruth chapter two, verse 21, then

Ruth, the Moabitess said, furthermore, he said to me, you should stay close to my servants until they have finished all my harvest.

Stay close. Cling. Same closely related to the word in chapter one, verse 14.

Clinging. Naomi said to Ruth, her daughter -in -law, it is good my daughter that you shall go out with his maids so that others do not fall upon you in another field.

All kinds of trouble in those days. Now, fall upon you could be used for attack or abuse.

And Hubbard said, like Sarah and Rebecca, Ruth was protected for an as yet unknown purpose, perhaps even to bear a child of destiny.

So she stayed close by the maids of Boaz in order to glean until the end of the barley harvest and the wheat harvest.

And she lived with her mother -in -law. How many more weeks? Seven more weeks.

Seven weeks times 29 to 50 pounds a day. How much food did she have?

She probably had enough food to live for the rest of the year. We've gone from famine to bulging out of the barns, as it were.

I just love chapter two. I just like to read it thinking what these people knew and didn't know.

And I have the advantage of knowing more because I'm the reader. And just to see the providential hand of God and his generosity to Ruth through Boaz.

And if Boaz was used of God to bless Ruth, I just think of everything

God has given me. If the reader reads this and says, I can't believe how blessed

Ruth was by God. I think I'm probably about 4 ,000 times more blessed than Ruth, don't you?

Even the poorest person in West Boilson is rich according to Bible standards. All that God has given us, he's so blessed us.

We should be the most thankful people. Well, chapter three, my homework assignment for you is to read chapter three and chapter four before next

Sunday night to kind of get caught up in it again, to see what's going on. And would you please try to read it as you would for the very first time so you could see what the narrator's trying to do because otherwise you're going to miss it.

And then we'll pray for the food. And do you think, Lewis, we should sing, redeemed, redeemed? All right, let me pray for the food.

We'll sing that, be dismissed. And let's study up for Ruth next week.

Lord, thank you for our time tonight. I thank you just for the exciting story of Ruth, how you blessed her, how you were caring for her, how you provided for her.

And Lord, how much more do you care for us? And how much more do you manifest your presence and your goodness towards us today?

Father, help us to see your providential hand. Help us to give you thanks. Help us to be thankful and to notice the work that you've done.

You're working all the time. We just ask that you give us spiritual eyes to see that and then to be thankful.

Thank you for our food tonight and the fellowship. We pray that it might be productive, that we might comfort those who need it, that we might encourage others to be spurred on to live godly lives, and that this just might be an opportunity, like it was in India and like it was back in the days of Ruth, that food would be just a good opportunity for sweet fellowship.