Ruth 4

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Please open your Bibles to the book of Ruth. This wonderful book, the book of Ruth. Many of you went to the play,
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Ruth, in the last several weeks. And now we'll come to the text for that, the book of Ruth, inspired by God.
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We don't know really who wrote the book of Ruth besides the Holy Spirit. Maybe it was Samuel, maybe it was someone else.
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It's during the time of the judges. And it has been many, many months since we've been in the book of Ruth. And so I'm going to read some of the book of Ruth, not to bore you, but just to catch you up because this is an historically important book.
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It's important for the gospel, especially when the main reason the book of Ruth is written, and that would be to show the readers that David is king, even though he has
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Moab in his blood. This is an apologetic for the kingship of David.
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Why is David king? And you can imagine David is king and people cast and throw stones at leaders.
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Well, how can this guy rule over us? And they'll try to find things in his background. How do you defame someone?
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You could do a background check through the FBI now and get some dirt on someone. And so here you can imagine the dirt was
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Moab. And you remember the story of how the Moabites started. It's a very sad situation.
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And so this is an apologetic of the line of David. It's not about a man and his love for a woman, although that is true.
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It's not about loyal love in the time of judges, although that's true.
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It is primarily true that this is a book that says David is king because there's a greater David who came and his name was
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Jesus Christ. By the way, how many people saw the Ruth play? How many people went?
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Quite a few, okay. How many people were in the play? Oh, quite a few. It was the
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Cranes and the Jeffreys kind of took over, you know, in typical
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BBC 11 fashion, permeating into the whole superstructure.
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Let me just read chapter one. Now, it came about in the days when the judges governed.
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And remember right away, you should be thinking, this was a horrible time. This is bad.
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That there was a famine in the land. And right there again, you say to yourself, why is there a famine in the land? And God said, you obey me,
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I'll bless you. I'll give you all kinds of land with, I'll give you a land flowing with milk and honey.
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There's disobedience everywhere. And there's a certain man of Bethlehem in Judah who went to sojourn in the land of Moab with his wife and two sons.
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And the name of the man, according to the play, was Elimelech, according to Pastor Mike, Elimelech. And the names of his wife,
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Naomi, and the names of his two sons. Who can tell me the names of the two sons that's transliterated or defined in Hebrew?
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Anyone? Sickly and what? Okay, sickly and failing, that'll do.
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I'll just take two pejorative comments and that'll just be fine. Because they just had weak names and they were weak people.
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And so you know what happened. Who can tell me kind of what happens next? I don't even have to read Ruth one. What's the next thing on the timeline?
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What happens? They got wives, right? Andrew? Okay, so off to Moab they go.
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Then what happens down in Moab? Luke? You can say
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Elimelech, that's okay. Okay, Elimelech and Sickly and Pining died.
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Okay, good. You're listening. By the way,
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I love to have kids in the congregation because kids listen. And they might not wanna pay attention, but they get it as time goes on.
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And so they died. And somebody went back to the
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Promised Land. And who was that? Who stayed? Orpah, okay, good.
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Now, what's gonna happen? Let's go to chapter two. And we have the whole idea of Ruth gleaning in Boaz's field and Boaz and Ruth end up meeting.
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And essentially in chapter two, the short -term needs are provided for regarding this widow and her widowed daughter -in -law.
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John Piper said, so far, quote, the lessons of chapters one and two is surely at least this.
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You fearful saints, fresh courage take. The clouds you so much dread are big with mercy and will break in blessings on your head.
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And God is very merciful to those ladies. And that's just like God. God is a God who cares for orphans and widows.
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And he says, you have refuge in Israel. And he was very, very kind to them. Chapter three deals with the long -term, trying to have security and rest and trying to have a husband.
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Hubbard said, this chapter relates the climactic turning point of the entire story. And when you read this book, there's all kinds of tension and suspense.
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And you'll see tonight when I read chapter four, I wanna read it with sometimes being really slow. And you're gonna think, if Ruth was there watching this right now, she must be having a heart attack.
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The guy says, I'm gonna redeem it. And she's thinking, that's not Boaz. There's suspense in this story. And this is a good story to read to the kids at night.
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And you say, well, what do I do for Bible study? How about just reading the Bible to the kids at night? Read the book of Ruth and you can just see the pace and you can see what happens.
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It's exciting. Like I said, personal confession. I thought I need to preach Ruth because I just don't know it that well.
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And I'm not that excited about it. So if I study God's word, what happens? You get excited about it. I think this is a great book.
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Chapter three, everything happens within a 24 hour period. A lot of stuff going on in the field.
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A lot of it at dark, all kinds of intrigue. And again, you can just imagine if there's an apology for the throne of David, it must have all kinds of intrigue and suspense and darkness and plots and mystery.
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Will they do this? Will they do that? Strangely, look at Ruth chapter three.
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The narrator calls the people, the man and the woman, not Boaz and Ruth. There's this kind of cloak.
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Verse eight of chapter three, it happened in the middle of the night that the man was startled. Behold, a woman was lying at his feet.
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The narrator knows the names. Why doesn't he use them? And I think this is going back to the intrigue and the suspense of it all.
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Look at verse 14 of the same chapter, chapter three. So she lay at his feet until morning and rose before one could recognize another.
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And he said, let it not be known that the woman came to the threshing floor.
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Verse 18, then she said, wait my daughter until you know how the matter turns out for the man.
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All kinds of intrigue and suspense and lots of ambiguity in that chapter.
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It's kind of gripping. It will make you pay attention when you read it. It won't let your mind wander off.
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They've got food now. They've got safety. And now there's a greater need. And that's when we go to chapter four.
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So let's go to chapter four of Ruth and see how far we get tonight. Straight to the city gate.
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And now action starts happening quickly. Naomi needs an heir and let's see if she gets an heir.
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Boaz, by the way, has always kind of done things right up to this point. And now he's gonna do a couple of things that if you don't think properly, he's not gonna be doing it rightly.
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Boaz is going to go on the offense now to get his lady. Curtain opens now, final scene.
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Now Boaz went up to the gate. What's so significant about the gate? Have to stop there for a second.
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What was done at the gate? Everything was done at the gate. Business matters were done at the gate. Legal matters were done at the gate.
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People come in and out of the gate. If you had to go out and work in the fields, you'd have to walk out through the, if you wanna track somebody down, where do you go?
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If I wanna track somebody down, I usually go to the post office is where I go because every time I go to the post office,
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I find somebody from BBC there. And so I just run into people. And so it's like that. The gate is not like the post office, but it's a place where people go.
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They go out of the gate. At the gate, the elders would hang around and make all kinds of decisions. And they'd have these legal quorums there.
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And he goes to the gate because he's looking for someone. And who is he looking for?
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He's looking for that nearest kinsman. He's gonna do things the right way. He went up to the gate and sat down and behold, the close relative of whom
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Boaz spoke was passing by. Yeah, just kind of coinkydink, isn't it? Well, yeah, it just, yeah, just kind of happens.
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And remember, one of the themes of this book is you can see the sovereign hand of God guiding everything.
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We talked about it today. That sovereign agent was actually the pre -incarnate Christ holding everything up, drawing it along to the proper end.
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Turn aside, friends, sit down here. And he turned aside and sat down. And we have to stop there because if you just read that in English, you're not gonna get it.
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I know when I preach something that's insightful, Mr. Brown writes it down in his Bible. When he doesn't write anything down, an entire sermon,
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I knew I pretty much didn't study that whole week. But I do study that week. This is going to be one that when you watch
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Mr. Brown, he's going to write something down, okay? I guarantee it, unless he's gonna be stubborn now.
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But he's gonna write this down because there's stuff in this verse that is amazing. And I think it's the fruit of deep
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Bible study where you can just dig in and try to understand this. This is not the writing down part, but let's just kind of paint the picture a little bit.
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I know, that's what I'm doing. I'm trying to do suspense and intrigue like the writer of Ruth. Now, Boaz in English, literally in Hebrew, it's, and just then.
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So that's kind of suspenseful as well. It's meant to convey surprise. The commentators will say, here's the surprise.
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The right moment, the right place, the right person, the right God working behind the scenes.
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He went up to the gate and sat down. And so now what does Boaz say to him? He says, literally, turn aside.
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It's an imperative. And he says, he said, you're going outside to work in the fields, maybe. Turn aside, swerve over here.
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You're going that way, come this way. And then it says, friend.
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Turn aside, friend. That is a horrible translation. This is the moment to write things down.
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This is a horrible translation. I just want to take a little show of hands. I have the
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New American Standard and it says, turn aside, friend, sit down here. Who has the NIV? What's the NIV say?
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Turn aside what? No one will actually admit they have NIV. Is anyone here
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NIV positive? Anyone? Nobody has NIV? Okay, let's try another one.
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King James? Turn aside, friend, is it even in there? Okay. Who has a new
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King James? Yes, Becky? Turn aside, friend. Anybody have anything else?
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ESV? Nate? Nate? Turn aside, friend. Doesn't say turn aside, friend.
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What'd you have? Okay, well, we're getting close.
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Alimony, Palimony, is that what you said? No, but it's close. Okay. Literally, so -and -so.
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Now this is what's called, and this is just thrown out for the students. Hey, you, almost, but it's more pejorative than that.
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So -and -so. Well, what this is called, this is Palimony, Alimony, that's just, it's kind of a wordplay, and it's called a farago.
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Not Fargo, but a farago. F -A -R -R -A -G -O. Yes, it is translated so -and -so, but it is a wordplay.
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A farago is a wordplay. Let me give you some other faragos. Heebie -jeebies.
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Helter -skelter. Hocus -pocus. Let's see, do I have any more here?
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It's a wordplay, and the same expression, Younger says, is used in 1
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Samuel 21 and 2 Kings 6, where the narrator does not wish to give the name of the place.
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So he says, such and such a place. Why, in a book with all kinds of exact names of exact places with the real nouns and descriptions of people, why all of a sudden is he saying, hey you,
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Mr. So -and -so? You think, at the gate where all the elders are, that he would say somebody's real name there.
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What's the big deal? Daniel Block says, quote, why would the narrator, who is otherwise so careful with his names, keep this character anonymous?
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Friend misses the entire point. Hey, so -and -so. So -and -so, isn't he a near relative?
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Isn't he a kinsman? Isn't he somebody that's well -known? Isn't he somehow even related? In a farrago, the wordplay definition is this.
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Elements involved often rhyme, and not infrequently, one or more of them are without meaning outside of the given expression.
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Bush uses hodgepodge. Now, here's the point. It better be good, right?
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I built this whole thing up. I haven't built it up, the text has. In a book that has the apology for David so important, with such high importance, what do we have, by the way, at the very end of this book in chapter four?
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The genealogy. The man who should be in the genealogy by name.
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Here, his name is almost unutterable because of what he's going to do.
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Block said he will shortly be dismissed as irrelevant to the central theme of the book, the preservation of the royal line of David.
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Commentator Bush said, such a pointed way of underscoring the namelessness of this man in a narrative that so carefully names the other protagonists suddenly creates a less than favorable impression of him and prompts us to suspect a pejorative purpose in the choice of expression.
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Why did he say, hey, mister, hey, so -and -so? Hey, you. Sometimes even in English, so -and -so can be pejorative.
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Hey, so -and -so. Why is he saying, hey, so -and -so here? And I just find it's amazing because we're gonna find out what this guy does.
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Just knowing how he says that to him, what do you think the outcome is going to be with this redemption? And the man who's going to want to preserve his own name is recorded as nameless for centuries and thousands of years.
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Interesting, let's see how it unfolds. Verse two, so he took 10 men of the elders of the city and said, sit down here.
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So they sat down. Why 10? Anyone? Later, he needed 10 people for a synagogue.
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What'd you say? A minyan. What's a minyan? Oh, okay, for like a synagogue, okay.
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And learn the new words. Okay, that's right. And it didn't say that biblically, but that was the proper tradition to have a legal quorum.
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You had a legal amount of people and the elders would have now the ability to sift through this case.
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And then they would have the ability and the pressure to put on people if they did not do the right thing.
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And the transaction would be legally secure. Later, you'd have to have 10 men to be in a synagogue.
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Elders, by the way here, means to have a beard. And so if you're an elder, you've got a beard.
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If you're not old enough to grow a beard, you can't be an elder. Now, let me read this in verse three.
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How many people have ever been in a court? This is a court talk right here. Then he said to the closest relative, by the way, what's the guy's name?
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Think he knows the name? It's an unutterable name. They won't tell us even the name, the closest relative.
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Naomi, who has come back from the land of Moab, has to sell the piece of land which belonged to our brother
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Elimelech. She has to surrender this right. Okay.
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So I thought to inform you, verse four, saying, buy it before those who are sitting here, before the elders of my people.
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If you will redeem it, redeem it. But if not, tell me that I may know, for there is no one but you to redeem it, and I am after you.
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And he said, I will redeem it. If Naomi's there, I mean, if Ruth is there, what must she be thinking?
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Who just said that? Oh, you did, okay. Oh no, that's exactly right.
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This sounded like some kind of ventriloquist thing over here. I couldn't tell. That's exactly right.
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Her heart must have sank. Well, we don't know if she's there or not, but the reader's hearts are sinking.
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They're intended to sink. We already know the end of the story though. Now, I don't want to get into too much of the
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Leviticus and Deuteronomy, Deuteronomic leverite things.
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I will just say this. There are two different prescriptions for dealing with these kinds of cases in the
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Old Testament. In Leviticus, it talks about the redemption of property, Leviticus 25.
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In Deuteronomy 25, it talks about the leverite marriage. And so you could read Leviticus if you want to talk about property.
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If you want to read Deuteronomy 25, you can talk about marriage. I have these in my notes. I just think I'm going to skip them because we don't need to read that because it's kind of a strange case here in Ruth.
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So let's just skip it. Here he says, I will redeem it. Now, just imagine the guy's going to work.
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No big deal. He walks out by the gate. He's ready to go out of the gate probably and go into the fields. And here comes
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Boaz and would you like to redeem this land? He's hit the jackpot.
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This is my lucky day. Wow, I'm going to get to have this lady and some land and I'll have to at least get the land and I'll have my barns increased.
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Come over here, minimal risk, hardly any money. I'll get
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Naomi. I'll get the land. Naomi was pretty well -known. She's too old to have a kid so I don't have to split it up.
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Why did Boaz not say anything about Ruth? I thought he was a pretty upstanding guy. I thought he was a pretty righteous guy.
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And here Boaz is masterful and it's suspenseful and you see it in verse five. Then Boaz said, oh, by the way,
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P .S. There's just a little bit more information you need. I know you've consented but there's a condition to this consent.
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And this is what Bloch said is the most entire significant verse of the entire book.
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Then Boaz said, on the day you buy the field from the hand of Naomi, you know, that older lady that can't have any more children so you don't have to worry about your property being split up.
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You must also acquire Ruth. You know,
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Ruth, the what? The Moabitess, the widow of the deceased in order to raise up the name of the deceased on his inheritance.
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By the way, Ruth is younger. Ruth can have children and all of a sudden you have children now most likely and you're gonna have other children and then you're going to have to split that all up and divide up that land, divide up the property.
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The suspense is building. Will this great lady be lost to this nameless redeemer?
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I have in my notes, pause, pause and drum roll. The closest relative said, here's the moment of truth for Mr.
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So -and -so. What will helter -skelter, hodgepodge, heebie -jeebies do? And closest relative said,
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I cannot redeem it for myself. And there's a sigh of relief. Here's the moment of truth. Why?
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This is the book so far that has shown Boaz always doing the right thing even if it's his harm.
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He's doing the right things at the expense of himself. He shows this man having hesed with just this loyal love for people and he's always giving even though it might cost and he's giving and loving just like gospel love today.
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It's agape love. He's always giving and all of a sudden we get this guy here and he does the exact opposite.
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I cannot redeem it for myself even though there's social pressure, Leviticus pressure, Deuteronomy pressure on trying to keep this in the family.
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I cannot redeem it for myself because I would jeopardize my own inheritance. Redeem it for yourself.
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You may have my right of redemption for I cannot redeem it. And that word jeopardize is big.
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That word is really ruin. That's the word of a band of nomads and they come in, the marauders come in and destroy crops.
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That's a word ruin that talks about war ruins things. This is talking about a jealous husband and he has revenge on someone and ruin something.
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I can't do it because I would ruin my inheritance. I'm unwilling to do this. I'm concerned about myself.
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I don't have any concern about Ruth or the line of Alimelech. And I know if Ruth has a son,
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I would eventually have to give up some of my redeemed property and some of my own estate, not just the estate that she brings to me, but my own estate that I'll have to split up as well.
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He didn't say, I will not. He said, what? I cannot. I'm going to mar my own inheritance.
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This field that I'm going to take is not going to belong to me, but it's going to belong to the son of Ruth. So I won't do that.
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And here's what Tribble said. Since he refused to restore the name of the dead to his inheritance, he himself has no name.
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Anonymity implies judgment. Interesting. It's going to endanger this.
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Well, let's see this purchase of the land. Now this was the custom in former times in Israel concerning the redemption.
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Notice it talks about custom. There's all kinds of these laws, mosaic laws, but this is not that. This is a custom concerning redemption and the exchange of land to confirm any matter.
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A man removed his sandal and gave it to another. And this was the manner of attestation in Israel.
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So the closest relative said, Boaz, buy it for yourself. And he removed his sandal. Question. Is the pace slowing?
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Yes, the pace is going to slow down a little bit. We've got this kind of sandal thing. What is going on with the sandal business?
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Who is giving it to who? He removed his sandal. Did Boaz give his sandal to the nameless one so -and -so or did so -and -so give him the sandal?
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We can't tell from the text. So you have to imply by context, which one was, what would they do back then?
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Why would they even have a sandal? My favorite sandal shoe story is a long time ago.
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I was in the Lutheran church growing up and there was a young man we had in the church and he had Down syndrome and he still could function pretty well as a pastor's son.
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And that was the time of get smart. It was in the sixties. And so I wish
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I remember the young man's name, but he would run up and down the aisle with the shoe off.
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And he had a shoe next to his ear because kind of Maxwell smart had that phone. Yeah.
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What about the sandal? Would Boaz have to give the man the sandal? That doesn't seem to make sense.
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The man gives his sandal to Boaz. Now Boaz has the sandal to say later, here was the deal.
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I was in front of the elders. They are my witnesses. He gave up his right to the land and to the woman.
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And I have his sandal to prove it. I think that's the best way to take it. You can argue back and forth.
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I think that the loosing of the sandal talked about the transaction was completed and he's got some kind of almost collateral kind of thing.
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Buy it for yourself. Deed was done. Now it starts to move quickly again. Then Boaz said to all the elders and the people, you are witnesses today that I bought from the hand of Naomi all that belong to Elimelech and all that belong to Kilian and Melon.
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I bought it all. These are the last words from Boaz. Solemn, precise, kind of his closing argument.
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He wraps it all up. Moreover, I have acquired Ruth. Well, we have a few more words before the last words.
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The Moabitess, the wife of Melon to be my wife in order to raise up the name of the deceased on his inheritance so that the name of the deceased will not be cut off from his brothers or from the court of his birthplace.
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You are witnesses today. All the people who were in court and the elders said, yes.
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Did they say that? True or false? Hebrew has no word for yes. There's no word in Hebrew for yes.
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See, no word for yes. So he would just repeat something. So are you witnesses? And they all said, instead of yes, they all said witnesses.
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Yes, in affirmation. We're witnesses. We are witnesses. May the
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Lord make the woman who is coming in your home like Rachel and Leah, both of whom have built the house of Israel that you may achieve wealth in Ephrathah and become famous in Bethlehem.
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No longer she's a maid. No longer she's a Moabitess, but she's going to be a wife. And it's interesting to see this little
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Greek word, the little Hebrew word edom. Commentator Moore said the single word edom is the antiphonal response of the elders and all those at the gate.
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Perhaps the best way to catch the flavor of this is to imagine Boaz's repetitive edom edom as hip hip and the edom of the council as the answering hooray.
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Hip hip hooray. Not for he's a jolly good fellow, but hip hip hooray.
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For he is a jolly good fellow. He's done something at the expense of his own self. Moreover, may your house be like the house of Perez whom
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Tamar bore to Judah through the offspring which the Lord will give you by this young man.
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And now here the tempo picks up. Now what about the heir? We've got the wife going to be taken care of, but now what about the heir?
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And now we have something just jammed into us. Just one verse, nine months. What's going to happen?
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Well, fast forward a little bit. We still need the children. By the way, Ruth was infertile for how many years in Moab?
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10 years, she's married and have no children. So I wonder if the same thing will happen here. You gotta raise up a seed, a godly seed.
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Verse 13, so Boaz took Ruth. She became his wife. He went into her and the Lord enabled her to conceive and she gave birth to a son.
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I call that a honeymoon pregnancy. And so nine months later, we have nine months of history in one verse.
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And she goes from the foreigner, these are the words of Ruth, foreigner, lowest servant, maidservant, wife now, from the bottom to the top.
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And so you say, well, he took her home. And right there, if you read the passage,
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I wanna make sure you just get this right and I have to be delicate regarding the whole thing. He took her, she became his wife and the text literally says, and he went to her.
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Here's the idea, the text does not say into there, it says in, and that's not even in the text.
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He went to her and here's what would happen. She would be at the groom's house and he would ride almost like in India where the husband would ride over to the bridegroom's house waiting.
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The wife would be there waiting to consummate the marriage. He went to the tent, he went to the place, he went to where she was and there, obviously it was consummated, but the text doesn't, if you just read this, he went into her, there's a space in between the words in and to, it just says he went to her literally and then the
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Lord enabled her to conceive. There is a
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Hebrew word for into and that's not even close. And here for the only the second time, we see
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God as a subject of a verb. The Lord enabled her to conceive. She was dead and barren for 10 years and now she's gonna have a child.
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The royal line is preserved. 10 years of infidelity, of infertility in Moab.
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Boy, you have to be careful with what you say. 10 years of infertility. On a side note, the
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Lord enabled her to conceive. Nothing has changed with that, right? How do people conceive these days?
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God enables them to conceive. You'll never see any place in the Bible where children are a curse, where children are a hassle, where children are something that's not good.
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Children are shown as a gift from God. And so we wanna make sure we have the same thing. I'm gonna deviate big time now, but I'm just gonna go quickly.
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You can talk to me later. That's why with this whole debate with abortion, do not fall into the trap with your friends where they'll say, well, abortion is always wrong, except in the case of rape or incest.
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If out of that horrible sin comes a child, God has opened that womb.
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Is that child a curse or a blessing? And so we have to be very, very careful.
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We don't wanna have one sin and then another sin killed the child because of that. But look at the back of the passage of verse 13.
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And the Lord enabled her to conceive and she gave birth to a daughter. I can go for a daughter, have three daughters.
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But no, a son. And back in those days to carry on the line and something else is coming up here soon too in verses 18 and following.
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And she gave birth to a son. Can you imagine if you were Naomi, what would you be doing? If you were
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Ruth, what would you be doing? If you were hodgepodge, helter -skelter, heebie -jeebies, what would you be doing?
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No, it doesn't say anything about that. Then the woman said to Naomi, blessed is the Lord who has not left you without a redeemer today.
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And may verse 14, his name become famous in Israel, lot unlike Mr. So -and -so, that's for sure.
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The Lord hasn't left you. In contrast to Naomi's worst moments of despair,
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MacArthur says. And here the women who had witnessed how bitter she was, how lamenting she was, how barren she was, now they're all rejoicing.
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Blessed be the Lord. That's the way the Jews would express thankfulness. That God would bring his plans to pass.
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Notice what didn't happen. Oh, praise God for Boaz's ingenuity. Oh, we praise
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Ruth for her steadfast love. No, we know the praise goes to God. May he also, verse 15, be a restorer of life and a sustainer of your old age, for your daughter -in -law who loves you and is better to you than seven sons.
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Now that's big. Better than a good son is one thing. Better than a good daughter is another.
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Better than seven sons in this patriarchal time? Better than seven sons.
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A complete family. The number of seven, a perfect number. The love of Ruth.
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That couldn't be any higher compliment or honor. Then Naomi took the child and laid him in her lap and became his nurse.
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Now, one thing that she didn't do, she did not become his wet nurse. She didn't actually nurse the child.
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She placed him literally in her bosom. And if she was going to actually breastfeed the child, first of all, could she?
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But second of all, this is not the kind of word that would refer to that. This is the kind of word where you take a baby and you hold the baby right in your bosom.
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It never refers to a breast that's being nursed. It refers to the bosom where even a man could take that little baby and just hold that baby right there.
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And you can just think, Naomi holding that little baby, all the different people in the community are all saying, oh,
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God is great. God's gonna be blessed. Naomi doesn't need to adopt this baby because of the rightful heir anyway.
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If she were to adopt the baby, then remember what they would do back in the Old Testament? The ladies would kind of squat down to have the baby and she would be there.
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And it was like, when the baby came out, it would symbolically come out between the legs of Naomi, even though it didn't, and then it would be given to her.
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Everybody's just staring at me like, what? If you do some
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Old Testament study, you'll see that that's one of the ways that people would adopt children, is that other lady would be right there and so the baby would be birthed out, but it would in symbolic way be birthed out to the other woman.
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That's not what happened here either. It's getting hot in here, man.
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No need for adoption because the boy is the heir to the property of a limeleck. He's not put at her knees where that right of the children that were born were acknowledged as others.
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This just means she cared for him. She was a guardian. She loved him. Just imagine the joy of the baby and the joy of Naomi of just snuggling that little baby in her bosom.
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What did the neighbor women do? They did something that never ever happens. I still can't get over this one.
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The neighbor woman gave him a name saying, a son has been born to Naomi. So they named him
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Obed or servant. He's the father of Jesse, the father of David. Who names people by the way?
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Who names babies? Father, there's not too many places in the Bible where someone outside the father gives name to the baby.
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And so maybe all the women said he should be named Obed and finally Boaz said, yeah, I'll capitulate and that would be a good name.
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If not, they just named it. It's not very traditional. It's not very cultural, but here they named him Obed which is a shortened form of Obediah.
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That's right, Obediah. The servant of Yahweh, one who serves. Obed, the father of Jesse, the father of David.
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I'll never forget when Maddie was born. And when you first have a child, we already knew names.
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If it's a boy, this, if it's a girl, this. The second one, if it's a boy, this, if it's a girl, this. When Maddie came along, we were in the hospital and you just go third one.
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We'll just see what they look like and then name the kid kind of thing. And so it was like a day later, we still don't have a name for, hey you, hey little
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Maddie. And we were told Maddie was gonna be a boy anyway. They said, we went to get the ultrasound and they said, well, do you wanna know?
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No, we don't wanna know. And then in the midst of the ultrasound, they said the H -E word, he. And we thought, oh, it's a boy.
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We know it's a boy. Changed the decorations in the room. You know, it's a boy. And all of a sudden, out comes
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Maddie and they go, it's a girl. Wow, and I just built it out.
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I've told you what I said. I said, ain't evolution grand. They gave me a shot of Vicodin or something.
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Well, we didn't have the name of the child. And so we finally said, we like that. Madeline Olivia Claire Abendroth, M -O -C -A.
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Mocha, we'll call her. That was her little nickname, Mocha. You know, the coolies have the dogs, Kona, Starbucks, Latte.
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For us, it was Mocha. And so I remember we got to choose the name and called up Grandma Evie and said,
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Grandma. She goes, oh, that's interesting.
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It was my right to choose. In this particular case, whether Boaz just capitulated or Boaz said, yeah, that's a good idea.
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Or, you know, how could he just, you know, ruin everybody's joy or somehow the spirit of God made those ladies say,
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Obed, we don't know. But his name means servant and you don't find him anywhere else except in the genealogies of Jesus and here.
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And he was the father of Jesse, the father of David. And now we get to the really boring part.
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How many people think genealogies are just as boring as anything? There's about three people sleeping here tonight. Maybe you think it's boring.
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What about the genealogy? Why is this here? It's kind of surprising. A true or false?
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Obed was, no, let's not do true or false. Let's just go into this for a second. Now, these are the generations of Perez.
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To Perez was born Hezron. And you can study all these people in the genealogy, who Perez was and the illegitimate son of Judah and all that stuff.
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But we've got Perez was born to Hezron. Who's the next one?
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And to Hezron was born Ram and to Ram, Aminadab. And to Aminadab was born
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Nashlon and to Nash, excuse me, Nashon, Salmon. Who is Salmon, by the way?
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Does anybody remember Salmon? Husband of Rahab the harlot.
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Good. And to Salmon was born Boaz and to Boaz, Obed. Well, let's stop right there.
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Is this a closed genealogy or an open genealogy? Have you ever thought of that? Robert Wilson said in Old Testament genealogies, quote, this is based on the assumption that genealogy of Ruth 4, 18 to 22 is closed.
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Remember people talk about David's grandfather is, Gravid's great -grandfather is,
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Boaz, are you sure? That may be true, but just listen to this as another option because it doesn't have to be true.
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These genealogies could be closed or open. Ruth 4 is a closed, it assumes that it's closed and that Obed is the actual father of Jesse.
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There's a tension in the genealogy, of course, since an earlier conquest date of 1400 BC would place
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Salmon and Rahab, the parents of Boaz, as early as 1400s where David's birth can be no earlier than 1040.
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This means that only three generations separate Salmon from David, a period of around 300 years.
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A conquest date of around 1250 would alleviate this tension, but it would also create a far more difficult chronological problem.
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Most likely the Ruth genealogy like many others is selective and retains only representative names.
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I just want you to say, I wanna say that if you believe that and I believe that, it doesn't mean you're some kind of liberal thinking there's all kinds of funny things going on with who's grandpa and who's not.
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Are you surprised if you read the genealogy in Matthew or Luke? Do you think every name is named in that genealogy?
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Does it have to be named? So anyway, let's look at verse 22. And to Obed was born
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Jesse and to Jesse David. What's the last word of this whole book?
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I think that's the key to the whole book. Here's what's happened to get David. How could God take the
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Moab, the famine, the time of judges, all these people, all these issues and out comes
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David. Sometimes the last word of the book gives you the whole theme of the book.
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And what a great way to show that God's sovereign over everything by showing a genealogy at the very end.
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History is not haphazard, history has a reason and a driving force and his name is God.
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That would be one takeaway. Another takeaway would be God uses faithful people to do great things.
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Ordinary faithful people, he does great things for them. True? How many people here are ordinary? How many people wanna be faithful?
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Can you imagine God could do something great through you? He can. Thirdly, this book is about the providence of God.
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We talked about it this morning. It just screams Jesus Christ upholds everything by the word of his power.
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It uses the word Yahweh 17 times to say that he's not only God that upholds everything by the word of his power, but that he's close, that he's familiar, that he uses a personal name when he deals with these people.
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Elohim's not used that much. Shaddai, Almighty's not used that much, but the Lord is.
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How about this? Interestingly, here's another takeaway. No one in this book prays for a resolution of his own crisis.
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In each case, the person prays that Yahweh would bless someone else. How's your prayer life? Do you always pray for yourself?
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Please come on Wednesday. We had a good showing to start, and now it's kind of tailored off a little bit, but we have a rule on that morning on Wednesday at 6 .15.
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The rule is you have to pray for something great that only God can do, so when he does it, he will be praised. We're gonna start on time.
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We share no prayer request, and you can't pray for yourself. Isn't it amazing that nobody in here was praying for himself?
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Boaz isn't off by the fields. God, you're gonna have to give me a good woman. It's fine to pray that, but I'd rather have you praying for someone else.
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And then lastly, when you think of Redeemer, do you just think of Boaz, or do you think of someone else, a greater
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Redeemer? I mean, this book just preaches Jesus Christ is the
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Redeemer. Can you have redemption in anyone else besides Christ Jesus? No.
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Ephesians 1 says, in him we have redemption. And who could tell me just a little bit about redemption?
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Not kinsmen, Redeemer, redemption, but how does Jesus redeem? What's the key to redemption?
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And we're gonna wrap it up. Who can tell me something about redemption? I'm gonna be looking for one particular word. Yes. Pardon me?
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He bought us. Okay, bought is good. Keep going. Rescued, saved.
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Melduk, delivered. Okay, good. No. I'm just kidding.
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He bought us with a price. Here you have redemption, and redemption is someone's in the slave market, and you take them out, but it always costs something.
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In Ephesians 1 says, it costs Christ's blood. 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
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Baptist, the endurance of Paul, you would still need redemption through Christ's blood, the forgiveness of sins.
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And I like it because when I think of redemption, you can write songs about redemption. You can sing about redemption.
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And B .B. Warfield said, out of all the words and titles about Christ, his favorite one is what?
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Redeemer. If you had to pick one title of Jesus, what would you pick? Warfield said, Redeemer.
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He said, it's more precious to Christian hearts than any other word. The word Redeemer is the name specifically of Christ on the cross.
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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 with it.
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That's why we have songs like, redeemed how I love to proclaim it, redeemed, redeemed by the blood of the lamb, because God who cannot look upon evil can make his son bear our evil so then he can look at us.
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Well, I think I'm done. What is the theme to the book of Ruth?
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That's right, way to put them together. God's providence in bringing David to the throne. Who's the major player of Ruth?
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Who's the key person? When you look at Ruth, say who's the number one person in the book of Ruth? Thank you, because I would have just wasted all this time for nothing.
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It's not be like Ruth, it's not be like Boaz, it's not be like heebie -jeebies. We would never want to do that.
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It is, here's the God who works through these kind of people and we say that is what God can do and God is still eternal and he hasn't changed one bit.