Dead Men Walking Podcast Greg Moore & Josh Stacey: Book of Ruth Epsiode 18

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Exploring theology, doctrine, and all of the fascinating subjects in between, broadcasting from

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Well, hello, everyone.

Welcome back to another episode of Dead Men Walking.

I'm your host, Greg Moore.

And Greg Moore is reuniting with Josh Stacey.

Yes.

He's on again, back by popular demand.

Josh, how are you?

I am fantastic, living the dream.

Living the dream.

I always love talking to you because you always have such an upbeat attitude too, even though you just worked all day in the sweltering

heat.

Yes.

God is still good, right?

All the time.

So tonight we're gonna dive, well, today, tonight, this morning, whenever you're listening to this, we're gonna dive

into the Book of Ruth.

Yes.

Which is kind of a passion of yours, I hear.

Yes, the Book of Ruth is probably my third favorite book of the Bible.

I probably read it a couple times a month.

It's one of the ones that I just always get drawn back to and kind of helps me focus my eyes on

Jesus.

Sure.

Yeah, so before we dive into that, you got anything going on in your life?

What, like, what's up?

You just working like crazy?

Working like crazy.

Which I had a pastor tell me once when I complained about work,.

He said, don't ever complain about work.

The Lord has blessed you with work.

Exactly.

There's some people that don't have that.

Yes.

You do it under the glory of God.

Exactly.

And the really great thing, our company Versus Colossians 323, talking about

doing everything unto the Lord Jesus, which is super cool.

And I'm super blessed to work for a Christian corporation, Christian company that has those

values.

And yeah, we have been just going at it.

90 degree weather.

We've been setting our sales records month in and month out.

We've all been essential.

So work's been really crazy and just really good.

Been having lots of even great opportunities.

Even though I work for a Christian company, I have tons of guys that work within the company that are believers.

So getting to have those conversations with them, getting to talk to them about the Lord and really testify

about what he's done in my own life is always a fun experience.

And it just, it makes it worth it.

Yeah.

It's what it's all about.

For sure.

So how's homeownership?

You're a new homeowner here in the last couple of months.

Yes, homeownership.

Have the four walls fallen down yet?

Are you keeping them together?

We're keeping them together.

Thankfully, we trust that the Lord built the house.

And thankfully, we had a really great realtor friend that if you guys wanna know, I can tell you about him, that helped

us find our home.

But it's going really well.

We're navigating the summer, trying to get all of those before fall projects done.

And honestly, just purging, going back through.

Before we moved, we got into minimalism.

And so trying to condense everything down, condense our wardrobes.

I'm trying to get my library down to 50 books because I haven't read half of the books that I've had in my library.

Now hold on, them's fighting words.

You can throw out shoes and you can throw out clothes.

It's very selective.

You can't get rid of them books, man.

Nah.

They're gonna make their way to good homes.

Okay, there you go.

And some of them, I've shifted from the things that I thought were important before.

So having to kind of navigate through that.

But it's been going really good.

Really loving it.

I have recently picked up a new hobby, which is super fun, Airsoft.

So I mean.

What's Airsoft?

Like Airsoft pistols and stuff?

Yes, yes.

So at work, me and my coworkers, we'll go on the weekends and we'll go play Airsoft.

Wait, where do you do that around here?

We get to do it at the old business on School Road for Jacobs.

And we're actually working to try and become a distributor for

Airsoft stuff eventually.

But it's a big passion of his and he has blessed us to be able to kind of

explore it.

And we have a lot of fun.

Now I got into paintball when I was younger.

But it's kind of the same concept with Airsoft, but you've got the plastic pellets, right?

Yep, absolutely.

And you wear padding and stuff?

Because those can hurt, I feel like.

They can.

Give you a little sting.

At our last outing, actually, one of my coworkers lost two teeth, or

had two of his teeth chipped.

He was at the dentist earlier this week.

It was pretty rough.

But yeah, they can be a little painful.

I enjoy it a little bit more than paintball.

I had paintballed when I was younger.

It feels a little less dangerous.

But you want to wear the right safety stuff, which is something that, you know, some people.

You guys are out doing this in like 90 degrees?

Oh yeah, man.

Going in and out of barns, getting up on roofs and stuff.

It's a lot of fun.

See, now when I was into paintball,.

I was like the sniper.

I would go find a perch, like high up in a tree, or down.

We used to play behind these trails where they would test like ATVs and UTVs.

And it was an old nursery where they would just take whole trees and scoop them out and then go deliver them.

So you had all these like kind of already pre -dug foxholes, you know?

So I was the guy that would just sit somewhere and we'd play like capture the flag or something like that.

And I wouldn't move for like an hour.

And I would always do pretty well, because once you start moving around, man.

That's when they find you.

And I just remember thinking when I was younger, I go, good Lord, I can understand why people come back with some type of stress when they

get into combat, when it's like real stakes.

Oh yeah.

Like, oh, someone could shoot me at any time and I could die.

You feel that tension when you're just playing that paintball or airsoft.

Totally.

Where it's like, you know, you're looking and you're always over your shoulder and you're making sure you're being stealth and it's crazy.

Yeah, it gets the adrenaline going.

It's a lot of fun.

We don't have any snipers yet in our little crew of guys that are doing it.

We have to get one.

We've got one guy, he's just, he's very particular.

And so he wants to make sure that once he gets his gun and all that going, that he's actually gonna be able to do what he wants to do.

Well, that's crazy, man.

That's cool.

Yeah.

So yeah, let's jump into Ruth here.

This is gonna be a fun episode for me because obviously know about Ruth and the story,

but it's not one of those that I return to every month or so.

I mean, I am a Job, a Psalms, a James and a Romans guy.

Like those are my kind of the ones I fall to.

I don't know why.

Yeah.

And then I find myself going, I need to get into some other, you know what I mean?

I just can't go with those four or five books.

So Ruth is one of those that maybe it's a once a year, once every year and a half where I'll go back through it.

But I'm kind of excited to delve into it and just kind of hear your take on it and what it means to you and

kind of exposit and dig up some stuff out of Ruth.

Absolutely.

So give me a little, maybe we start with what the book's about and kind of, you know, go from there.

For sure.

Well, even talking about like the timing of reading it.

So it's actually a Jewish tradition yearly to read the book of Ruth during the feast of Shabbat

or as we would know in Christianity, the feast of Pentecost.

So they actually read it once a year on that date because Ruth is one of the direct descendants

of King David.

And so during that time they read it in remembrance and it's just one of those

books.

And even with that, it kind of has, when you look at some of the symbolic meaning, it pointing

to the feast of Pentecost, which we'll talk about a little bit later, it's got some real significance even for us as

Gentiles, which is super cool.

But the book of Ruth, it's four, just little chapters.

One of my favorite ways to read it, and I've done this with some of the guys I've done Bible studies through throughout the years,

is I actually will go through, go to your general Bible app, whatever, and go through and copy it all

down and just print the whole story.

I like to do that with different books because originally our Bible was never written that way.

Thank you, I think it was Tyndale, he was the one that started to pioneer towards

the whole chapters.

It was actually a German priest.

Was it?

He was on the run and he divvied them up so he could distribute them a little easier.

Tyndale did, though, give us our verses.

Yeah.

The chapters were by a German priest and then Tyndale did the actual

verses.

That's cool.

And you and I are the exact same.

Yeah.

Like when I read a book of the Bible, it's like you almost gotta read the whole thing.

Absolutely.

You can focus on a little bit of it but it's real easy to get it out of context because we naturally wanna make those breaks where the chapter and

verses are.

And it's like, man, that's not how it was written.

Exactly.

It'd be like me telling you two minutes of this podcast and it's an hour long and you think you don't, you know what I mean?

Absolutely.

And you get the whole point of it, but.

Yeah, so I love to do that because it gives you the whole framework of the story.

And one of the things that people miss out on, they don't understand why the book of Ruth is

there.

We go through, we read our Bibles and you're reading through the Old Testament.

You get into the promised land, you get to the time of the judges and then right before the prophet Samuel comes onto the

scene, we just have this story of this gal that travels with this woman who could

essentially be called the female version of the book of Job.

You look at Naomi's life, what happened to her.

She left her homeland, lost her husband, lost both of her sons, adopted into her

family two young Moabite women and was left with nothing and felt as though

God had turned his back on her.

And so when she returns back to the city of Bethlehem, she tells people to call

her Amara, which means bitter.

So kind of a cool correlation, you brought up Job, but.

Rough life kind of.

Yeah, absolutely.

But the book of Ruth is one of the reasons it's so, so essential is that when you read the

book of Revelation in chapter five, it gives reason and precedence for what happens

there, which I'll build up to that.

I don't wanna give it away right away.

But it's one of, it carries the basic tenets of understanding so that we can understand what

the whole chapter five is about when Jesus shows up while the father is sitting on the

throne and is able to take the scroll.

And so to kind of rewind and go back, there are so many little biblical principles

from the Levitical law, the ceremonial things that are actually littered through the

story of Ruth.

But when it starts out, you hear about this family, this man named Elimelech, and his name

means my God is king.

And one of the cool things I love in Hebraic thinking, the names are so important when you go.

And we talked about this when we talked about the Moses Tabernacle, but the names have such significance.

And so I made sure to jot them down because I can't always remember it.

But Elimelech stands for my God is king.

Naomi, her name means pleasing.

Ruth means, come on, man.

Ruth means friend, which that one, that's kind of significant.

But the two sons' names, Melon, his name means sickness.

And the other son, Chilion, his name meant wasting.

And we see this Jewish family, they leave the land, they leave Israel to go to Moab.

And Moab, in that day, was one of the most unclean nations to them.

That's where Balak, the king of Moab, hired Balaam to curse Israel, and then

he instead blessed them later.

The nation of Moab actually came up from the peoples that were born out of the

incestuous relationship of Lot and one of his daughters.

That is where the kingdom of Moab actually came from.

And so to the Lord, they were considered an abomination.

God told the children of Israel different points in time, have nothing to do with them

whatsoever.

So you have this family that leave.

Then once they get there, they've been settled there for 10 years.

And then the father, Elimelech, and the two sons both die after the two sons have taken wives.

The first one's name is Orpah, and then the other, not Oprah, Orpah, and then the other one is Ruth.

And so Naomi comes to this point where she hears that, again, in the

land of Israel, because the reason they had left was because there was a famine in the land.

And when this happened during the time of Judges, so when you read through the book of Judges.

Yeah, because Judges and Ruth are pretty,.

They're kind of happening at the same time, right?

Yes, definitely.

Ruth happens sometime within the component of the book of Judges because it

says that the Judges were over the land of Israel and they were in one of the times of famine.

So that meant the nation had turned from God and had given over to apostasy.

And so God's judgment was there and there was no food.

There was famine and all those things going on.

And so Naomi heard that bread, that food had returned back to

Israel.

So she had decided that she was going to return.

And she entreated her daughter -in -laws to stay in their

nation, stay in their land.

And Orpah was like, all right, cool, I'm out of here.

Her name literally means fawn.

So like when the little deer, that's kind of how I imagined she was just ready to just run off.

She wasn't committed, she wasn't loyal.

But then you look at Ruth, Ruth makes some really significant statements.

She says, where you go, I'm going to go.

Where you lay, I'm going to lay your God.

And this is super big because in Moab, they believed in a completely different God.

They believed in a fish God.

And so she was forsaking her ancestry, forsaking her homeland to say your

God, Jehovah, your God, Yahweh will be my God.

And then she says, and if I leave you, may death be on my hands by the

accordance of your God.

And at that point, Naomi's like, all right, I'm not going to argue with you.

And they head off to the land of Israel.

And so that kind of sums up the first chapter.

And one of the things that I love going into chapter two, so they get there and they get to Bethlehem,

which one of the cool things with that, Bethlehem means house of bread.

So they return back to the nation of Israel, to the city that's name means

house of bread.

And they get there.

And because Ruth has grown up with Naomi now, don't know exactly how many years,

but she knows that her and her mother -in -law are widows.

And there's actually a law that is given in the book of Leviticus, where

people are told during harvest season that they are supposed to leave grain and leave

different pieces for the people, the widows and the poor to glean from.

And so she entreats her and says, let me go and let me find a field to glean from so that we

might eat.

And so she sends her out.

And I love the word, like, this is one of those things, Chuck Missler always used to say that

the rabbis coincident, the rabbis would say that coincidence is not a kosher word.

So when something just happens, we know that like God so specifically

knew that that was going to happen.

It did not just happen by happenstance or circumstance.

And there's one of these verses, it's chapter two, verse three.

And so she went to glean in the field behind the harvesters, and she just happened to come to a part

of the field belonging to Boaz, who was from the clan of Alimelech.

She just happened to come upon this field.

And so she happens upon this field.

And in that same moment, that is where Boaz returns back to Bethlehem.

He greets the workers in his field, and he begins to ask them about her.

Who's this young lady?

And they tell him, and he tells them specifically, let nothing happen to her,

protect her, and even leave behind extra.

And Boaz, in this point, and this is one of the things, we talked about it a little bit last time,

people can get super weird when it comes to typologies and symbolism and stuff like that.

But Boaz is a type of Christ in this kind of scenario.

And one of the things that he really shows us, and just, he shows us the right way to live is how you treat the

foreigner.

Which I mean, even in our day and age right now, with everything going on, let's treat the foreigner right.

In this moment, he opens up everything to her, saying, go ahead,

make sure you're even getting something to drink.

They're gonna let you do whatever you're gonna do.

You're even gonna be protected from the young men.

We all know what that means.

So, he was putting specific protection over her so that she could do her due

diligence.

One of the main reasons, because he knew who her mother -in -law was, and that he actually was related to her

late husband.

And so, it comes to the point, she eats at the table, and Boaz is just super

kind, and she gets to thank him and just say, I can't believe the favor that you have shown me,

and the way that you have opened up, let me pick from your fields, and just so grateful.

And she goes home to her mother -in -law, and she brings back

what she gleaned throughout the day, and she's super taken back.

Naomi was surprised, essentially, because she had so much.

And so, she asked her, what field did you happen upon?

And when she told her, Naomi knew that that man was someone who could be a redeemer

for them, who could be a kinsman, a near kinsman, that through something called

Leverite marriage, because Ruth's husband had died, he

actually could lay claim to Naomi's land, and in that, it meant that he would take Ruth

on as a bride.

And so, that sets the precedent now for the next parts of the story.

And so, it goes forward where, let me bust it out for a

second.

Sure.

To kind of refresh.

Yeah.

So, we're moving into?

Chapter three.

Chapter three, at this point.

And I would say, to your point, too, he goes above and beyond what the law requires.

Yes.

He could have just done the bare minimum and let them glean, which the Levitical law, and he would have been called righteous for

doing that and a good Jewish man for doing it.

Definitely.

But he goes above and beyond to show her a certain amount of grace.

Absolutely.

Which I think, once again, is that Christ kind of figure.

Yeah, absolutely.

And it just, it sets the stage for what begins to happen afterwards.

So, as it goes into the next component, and most people

kind of miss, they misread chapter three.

People get confused by what happens in chapter three because the rest of the season goes on and she's able

to glean from the fields of Boaz, but it comes time to the threshing floor season.

So, when they are separating the wheat and the chaff and they have a big party and everybody

gets rowdy and it's merry and has a good time.

And Boaz stays up the entire evening waiting for everything to be put asunder and

all of the different components to be waived out.

And Naomi gives Ruth some really specific instructions of something to do at this time.

And she tells her that she puts on her best and then she goes and she waits the entire evening,

no matter how long it takes.

And once Boaz falls asleep, she's to go up and she's to uncover the bottom of his cloak.

And when she does that, she's supposed to put herself underneath it and wait.

And so she does so, and he wakes up, he's had a little wine, he's been celebrating, he looks down,

he doesn't recognize who it is and he says, who is that?

And she says, it is I.

And he's asked, what are you doing here?

And she lets him know, I'm here because you are able to be my kinsman

redeemer.

And so this is the principle to pull out and what the foundation block for even the Revelation

chapter five thing, Boaz, because he is a part of the

family of a Lamelech can claim Ruth as his bride.

And so she does that.

And there's been commentaries through the ages and all those different things that assumed that relations were

had and some different stuff, but it was really just the act of her saying, I am

putting myself before you for you to consider me to be your bride.

And what happens, he gives her six things of barley in the

morning.

He has her sleep the rest of the night because they don't want anybody to see it.

One reason is because there is a near kinsman who actually can lay claim beforehand.

And the way that it has to be addressed has to be done in a certain form and fashion according to Levitical,

to the law that was given.

And so in the morning, he sends her away with the six e -paths of barley.

And so when she gets back to Naomi, the way

as much as she gave to her, as much as he gave to her, it actually makes it look like she has a

baby belly.

And one of the incredible kind of symbolic things is that he was sending her back to Naomi

full because Naomi makes a claim when she returns back that she's lost everything.

And so it's Boaz saying, I'm actually going to refill everything.

Right.

And then Naomi tells Ruth, you just have to hold tight

and he's going to take care of this matter and there'll be settled by the end of the day.

And so that moves into the segue of the next fun part where Boaz has to go

to the city gate and he's standing there, he's waiting and waiting for the near kinsmen to pass by and he sees the

guy pass, flags him down.

Hey man, we got to have a talk.

And then flags down some of the different elders of the city to sit

there and to be witness to what's going to happen.

And he comes and he tells him, now that Naomi has returned, you have

stake to her land.

And the gentleman is like, okay, I'll take that.

And then he said, but in order for you to do that, you have to take Ruth as your wife as well.

And the guy steps back and says, I don't want to do that because I don't want to ruin my own inheritance.

And it's because she's a Moabite.

So to him, she's an unclean person.

Now, one of the things that's interesting though, Boaz doesn't seem to care.

And the reason why, and this is something that gets alluded to at the end is because he is part of the

lineage of Perez.

And so, and we'll dig into that.

The other interesting thing is that he is actually the son of Rahab.

Who's Rahab?

Rahab from the story of Jericho.

Oh, from Jericho.

Yes, that lets the two spies in and protects them and then therefore she is

from the destruction of Jericho.

Boaz is her son.

Oh, wow, I didn't know that.

Yes, it's super incredible.

It verifies it in the book of Matthew through the genealogy of Joseph.

It actually points out that he, that Boaz was her son.

So he's already outside, not, he's in an irregular bloodline at

the moment.

So he's not that worried about it, which sometimes that can kind of like just go over our heads, but when

understanding a little bit later, because he goes and does that, and he does the gentleman.

Or unique bloodline.

Very.

A very ordained, unique bloodline, much like Christ, I would say.

Very much so.

Another parallel there.

Yes, and he directly is a part of it.

That, and there's some things that happen within the bloodline that get fulfilled

because of him becoming in relations with Ruth and everything that comes apart, which is,

it's just crazy.

It's crazy when you see things in scripture that like you read about, and you're like, why is that?

Why did God make that a law?

Why was that important?

Right.

And so the gentleman ends up having to give Boaz his shoe.

And that's kind of him saying like, I pass on rights and ownership, and it's actually a super

shameful thing, but the way the story alludes to it, he was just kind of like, just get it over with.

I don't want to deal with this anymore.

And so that leads into the component where Boaz and Ruth are able to get married.

And super celebratory.

It's amazing.

And at the end of the story, there are some interesting things, just interesting

correlations that happen where the women are blessing Naomi.

The women of the city are blessing Naomi, even though it's Ruth, who isn't even her blood daughter, who's being

married in with Boaz, and they're all celebrating and talking to Naomi about it.

So why are they celebrating Naomi?

Just because she's in on the -.

Absolutely. Part of that blessing.

Yes.

Both of them are being taken care of now.

Yes.

Okay.

Because one of the things that could be asked is like, well, why didn't he marry Naomi?

Instead of, now Naomi would have been much older and wouldn't have been able to bear a seed.

And the whole component of him, by Leverite marriage, marrying Ruth is so that it can

carry on the family line of a limeleck and keep it flowing and keep it going because

legacy is one of those things that is absolutely important to God.

And when people are a part of his family, in the Jewish people, the

legacy component is a very important thing as you read through a lot of the things in the Old Testament.

And then one of the blessings that the women give is that their child would be

like the lineage of Perez, which is super interesting because it actually turns out that he

is a part of the lineage of Perez.

And now the reason why that's important, many people might not even know the name of him.

If you go back to the story - I feel like you're gonna tell us though.

Absolutely.

Awesome.

Gotta open it up.

Because this is where these things, it's just so cool how God ties

and weaves all of these things together because there is a certain man

that pioneered and whose inheritance became a tribe of people

named the tribe of Judah.

Okay.

And his bloodline seemingly stops in the book of Genesis.

We don't read anything more about it.

Now in the book of Genesis chapter 38, we see a really interesting story about Judah,

the son of Israel.

And what happens to Judah is Judah has a son and he has a wife named Tamar, who also

is a part of the bloodline of Jesus Christ when we read through the lineage that's given in the book of Matthew.

Right.

So Tamar is married to Judah's son and he dies.

And then through the Levirate marriage, same way, the other son of

Judah is supposed to marry Tamar.

Well, he won't fulfill his husbandly duties.

And there's a whole thing about him spilling his seed and all that stuff.

And God gets pretty frustrated about it and kills him.

And he dies.

Then Judah had one more son, but he was a wee little lad, couldn't get married and wasn't ready for

all of that.

And so the way things were looking, it was looking real bleak for Tamar.

She lost her first husband, God killed the other one, and she's gonna be waiting for this wee one to grow up.

And so she gets this idea.

She dresses up as a prostitute.

She goes and stands on a corner and she seduces her father -in -law.

Okay.

And so Judah has relations with her.

And then she takes his cloak and his signet ring and disappears.

Can't find her.

He goes back to the same place to try and find where she is, can't find her.

And then a few months go by and she turns out to be pregnant.

So then Judah is furious, super frustrated.

Like, I'm saving my son for you.

You already, all these things have happened in my life because of you.

And then this and disrespected me.

And she pulled out the signet ring and said, actually, actually you are the one.

And it's super interesting because Judah is actually really taken back and apologetic and

claims to be the sinful one in the whole situation.

And the child that is born out of that, can you guess what his name is?

It's Perez.

Okay.

And so the interesting part of that, he was born out of an improper marriage.

And there is a specific verse in the book of Deuteronomy 23 verse

two, that talks about illegitimate birth and his generations being excluded from the

assembly of Israel, excluded from citizenship for 10 generations.

And so the interesting thing about the line of Perez and it lays it down.

And Boaz's son, his name is Obed.

And we know in the bloodline of King David, Obed was his grandfather.

And then you have Jesse, then you have King David.

And so as you look at the genealogy, that's at the end of the book of Ruth, from Perez

to King David is 10 generations.

At curse, the illegitimacy of his bloodline lifts when King David

comes on the scene.

Wow.

And one of the really cool things, because people so often just think that Israel made

this split second choice to just say, you know what?

We want a King now, we want a King.

And it seemed like they went to God, but actually in the book of,

I wanna say it is Deuteronomy.

I did a teaching on this at another study the other day, but God made an entire

set of things of his desire when he was going to place a King over Israel.

They were literally going to come to him and say, we want a King like the rest of the nations.

And God had a specific person in mind already.

It was always supposed to be David.

He is from the bloodline of Judah.

He said originally that the scepter was never going to depart from the house of Judy.

Talks about in Genesis 49, a couple of their different areas, but they choose

King Saul from the tribe of Benjamin because he's tall, good looking, and looks like all the

other Kings on the earth in that day.

Now, one of the really neat and significant things, so we see there like the

bloodline of Judah from Perez down to David, the way it lays it out,

if without the book of Ruth, that connection point's not there.

Without the book of Ruth, we don't see what happened after Perez.

And for even the, Paul definitely warns against like people getting so wrapped

up in endless genealogies and some of those different things.

And especially you look at the Jewish world today, it's gotta be confusing.

Some of them wondering like, what tribe was I from?

Right, where am I playing in all this stuff?

But the significance behind understanding the genealogy, it validates

the, who Jesus Christ was.

It validates his hold to the actual kingship

that is afforded to him because of the bloodline of Joseph, because all of these different people are

tied directly in to the bloodline of Joseph, even though he was his stepdad.

There's still an important claim to be had there for him.

Now, one of the cool things, and this is something that Chuck Missler talks about in his, we talked about it a little

bit, his study on learn the Bible in 24 hours, because this would be a difficult one unless you're a

Hebrew whiz.

In Genesis 38, if you go and you break down the

whole chapter in 49 letter intervals in the original Hebrew text,

it spells out the genealogy of David.

Really?

Hidden in the text, underneath it, proclaiming and talking about the king that was eventually going to

come from this really weird story of essentially a kind of incestuous

relationship of a law and her father -in -law, which according to Leviticus 17,

that's a no -no, and they produced an illegitimate child.

And so to kind of pull it all back, it's really cool because then you get this tie -in for King

David being that 10th generation and being the first one that is legitimized again

in the assembly of the Lord.

And then we see his life.

We see the way that King David lived his life, and God literally called him one,

a man after his heart, which is just so incredible because before that,

none of them were even considered citizens of Israel.

None of his family members before that.

And so it's super cool, and it's just one of those neat ways that we let the Bible

interpret the Bible.

We let the Bible lay out our timelines and all those cool things.

And so now to why is it important to Jesus?

Like how much more is it important to Jesus?

And it's the whole principle for Boaz being the kinsman redeemer for Ruth.

And just as much as Boaz was a kinsman redeemer for Ruth, Jesus is a kinsman

redeemer for us.

Bought and paid our behalf so that we could be in relationship with him forever.

And one of the cool ways that that actually happens is because of this Moabitess woman, who to the people of

Israel in that day and age was unclean, undesirable, not even

supposed to be wed in.

And yet she made it into the bloodline of Jesus.

She made it into the lineage of Jesus and her being a part of it as a Gentile

is actually what grafts us into the vine.

Sure.

It makes it so that we actually have direct connection with Christ.

And one of the reasons I really love it is because in that day and age, she would have been considered

like the leper.

And as we talked about my story last time, I'm like a leper of the 21st century.

One of the ones that is disregarded, unwanted, nobody cares about me or my rights

or any of those types of things.

And she was the same way.

And so I feel a kindred fellowship with her and knowing that and seeing

just the redemptive power of God in it.

She laid down her life for God saying, I am going to follow you wherever you go and your

God will be my God and made that choice.

And seeing what God did, he literally painted her into the story of the

Messiah.

How incredible would that be?

Because they always read this on the Feast of Pentecost.

They always read this every single year during the time when the birth of the church

happened, which is essentially the greatest infusion and grafting in of the Gentiles with

Israel that ever happened.

It's just, wow.

And then if you even look at, excuse me, if you look at, if we're following that

analogy of Boaz being that redeemer and representing Christ, you have

a Jewish man that is obeying Jewish law.

And then, like I said earlier, going above and beyond the law through grace.

Come on.

Fulfilling that law with grace.

Definitely.

And then who benefits from his grace to a Gentile, but the Jews?

And who benefited from the grace that Christ showed the Gentiles, the Jews?

Yeah.

He says, look it, when he tells Abraham, you're going to have all these, you know, the stars in the sky and the sand on

the earth.

And even Jesus said that you Jews who I came for are going to benefit from blessing

through these Gentiles because now I've come for them as well.

So I even see Ruth representing us, like you just said, being grafted in into a,

he could have very well married Naomi.

Like you said, there's probably some logistical things there with, you know, the legacy and the

generational having children and stuff.

But how apt is it as a representation of Christ that he goes outside of,

I don't wanna say outside of the law.

He fulfills it through grace by saying, I'm going, you know, cause there was another Jewish man that was like, hey, whoa, no Moab,

no, I'm not taking part of that.

Exactly.

Even though I'm supposed to fill that contract through law and it's supposed to be the right thing I'm supposed to do.

No, I don't wanna get in bed figuratively and literally with a foreigner.

Exactly.

But Boaz being such a great representation of Christ says, no, I take her in.

And with that, the Jewish people are blessed as well.

Yeah.

So, and we see this with David being a representation of Christ,

you know, obviously with Boaz.

And I like it because sometimes I feel, and we talked about this before, you talk to Christians now and

it's like, and don't get me wrong.

I love the New Testament.

I love the words of Jesus.

I'm a red letter Christian through and through.

But man, sometimes we don't dig in to where our faith was.

That's the foundation of our faith really is the Old Testament.

It is.

Our faith is Judeo -Christian.

Yeah.

It's Jewish in foundation.

So when you can dig into these things and you can see the reflection of Christ through these characters.

And then like you said, I didn't know that was 10 generations.

That just blows my mind.

To me, that tells me the people are saying, we want a King and God's going, no, I'm supposed to

be your King.

And he's like, no, but we want to pick our King.

And he's thinking, well, you can't not pick anyone but Saul because guess what?

You still got a generation left before this curse is lifted.

Exactly.

Like he knew exactly what he was doing and how funny as soon as that curse is lifted, look at the man of

God David was.

Yeah.

It's incredible.

You know?

Ah, and just to even touch on what you're saying, that's one of my

hearts, man.

Not in the, cause you can get weird with the Jewish stuff.

People, there's parts of the Hebrew roots movement that are super weird, but.

You remember that Bible code book that was out like 10, 15, maybe even 15 years ago?

No, it wasn't in yet.

Yeah.

They took the original Hebrew and you could basically find messages of the future and stuff in the

original.

Like it was a coding.

Oh dude, totally.

And look at, I believe in an all powerful, all knowing omnipresent God that can do whatever he

wants.

And he could absolutely, the exact words in that Hebrew.

Now it's not doctrinal for me.

I'm not going and learning Hebrew and then trying to find codes and then predicting the future with it.

Yeah.

But I think those are legitimate.

I think God knows exactly what he's doing all the time.

I think numbers are very important to him.

Names are very important.

Order of sequence is very important.

Generational things are very important.

So we can't throw those out.

No.

We can say all day long, people can get weird with it and they can, but that doesn't mean we throw the baby out with the bath water and say, our

God isn't very specific, all knowing, and sets everything in perfect order because he's a

God of order.

Yeah, absolutely.

So even, like I said, even when you just said that 10 generation thing, I said, oh, that is so cool.

Cause that makes total sense because it was, you know, cause I've always, when you read the

verse that says, you might have to help me on this, but you'll see a curse from the third

and fourth generations and there's even some scientific evidence with like

junk DNA and stuff that back that up.

Yep.

And I think it can be spiritual and I think it could also be something that science hasn't found

out yet.

I mean, I can take it multiple ways because God said it, I can believe it in every format.

I might not just have the head knowledge, like right now as a man to fully grasp it.

Yeah.

Right.

But if he says it, it's true.

And it's fun when you start to find those things out and go, oh, that's what that meant.

You know, 10 generations previous, who knows?

Maybe there was juice standing around going, what are you talking about?

Okay, 10 generations he'll be, you know, outside of the whatever, you know, and then boom, 10 generations, you see this direct

lineage and then David picks up right where that lineage left off.

But you said they were saying in there, we want your child to be like the lineage of Perez, correct?

So do you think they had knowledge that there was direct lineage back to Perez through Boaz?

They could have, but it was six generations past already.

I mean, that's, what was a generation back then?

Typically it's between 40 to 60 years.

Okay, I was just gonna say 60 years.

So that's what I thought.

I couldn't remember, I had to go back to my Sunday school there for a minute.

So yeah, so I mean, you're talking - 240 years.

Yeah, almost 300 years.

Yeah, and yet that is -.

That'd be like us knowing what Benjamin Franklin and Jefferson were talking about.

Yeah, it's crazy.

And to touch on, this is a little fun fact with the generational cursing.

So for me, I was released from prison when I was 27 and so was my father.

Wow.

Yeah, and once he got out, that was when he met my mom and his whole

life changed.

And it's really cool even for me.

That's why I love, like we said, like there is a spiritual component to it, but there's

definitely, you can look at it in a natural component and see some of the same things sometimes.

It was just mind blowing when I kind of learned that stuff and learned that history with my dad of just

seeing like, but it could end with this generation.

Right now, my children may not have to go through that because of the blood of

Jesus, the impact that he's had on my life, lay claim and hold onto that, but it's

super cool.

Yeah, it's just super neat.

Or like the name thing.

Like I'm a huge believer, like you said at the top of the episode here, you were saying like, oh no, names mean

something because that always stuck out to me when I read through the Bible and the Lord would change someone's name.

Oh, come on.

Why are we changing someone's name?

That's my first thought.

It's like, what is a name, but just

sounds coming out of your mouth to form wavelengths to make a noise?

And then it's like, no, there's something very, and I think it goes deeper than that.

I mean, we don't even know how sound waves, or they did a study in Japan where the guy put up two plants

and one plant, he just talked horrible to.

You're a horrible plant.

You're gonna die, right?

And then to the other plant, oh, you're a lovely plant, you're so, right?

And he did this for 30 days and he did it five times and every time, and he switched locations and everything, but

the one that he despised and said negative words to died.

The one that, and you go, okay, look at, I can't, that's not a coincidence at that point.

He did five blind placebo tests in a row and the one he's cursing is,

you know what I mean?

Dying.

And then you go, okay, so there's something to do with words there.

And we can talk about positive confession and all that kind of stuff.

Definitely.

And how people can get wacky in that, but there is something in how you say it and

what you say, how the intention of your heart and when it comes out in physical words affects somehow.

Now, I don't know how that works.

I mean, we're still studying it as scientists and as fallen men, but God

knows what's going on there.

I think the son of God, when he came to earth, when he cursed the fig tree, it just straight up died.

It did.

Whatever we don't have there, he had to be able to go, no, you know what I mean?

Yeah, absolutely.

He did to that plant or that fig, what the guy did in Japan, but in less than a day, but so names

are the same way.

So I look at like, even like personally, like before I even was saved or was into names,

my name in the original Greek means a watchful one or guardian of truth.

And I've just found that that's my whole, I'm just always seeking and trying to guard truth.

What's the truth?

I want people to know the truth.

You can't tell a falsehood, right?

That's just what I'm drawn to.

Sometimes a little too overboard to where you get blow back.

My wife's name in the original Greek means one who listens.

She's the most introverted list.

I mean, everyone comes to her to just tell her stuff.

She goes, I don't know why they come.

Well, because you listen and then you're wise when you do open your mouth, it means something.

When I open my mouth, people just go out, Greg's talking again, but when my wife says something, people go, wait, what was that?

Because it's very measured and she's a listener.

And what does your name mean?

I got to think, you know, right?

The Lord is my salvation.

That's perfect for you, right?

Oh yeah, it's Yeshua.

What's your name, it's Yeshua, it's Joshua.

Yes.

Oh, brain fart.

Sorry about that.

Of course, that's what it means.

But so I don't know.

I haven't figured that out, but there's something about the name,

how it's pronounced.

I don't know what it is.

It's like, it puts a mantle and a calling on you.

We see that in the Bible all the time.

It doesn't really discuss why, but it's there and it's real.

Absolutely.

And I've seen names actually affect people who aren't believers to the negative, to where I've seen their name mean something and you're

like, oh my gosh, you're doing that exact thing that's detrimental to your health and your name.

And you're almost like, not only do we need to tell you about the gospel, I think we need to change your name when you get baptized.

You know what I mean?

Come on.

I don't understand it.

That's one of those things that just, it bugs me, but it amazes me because I want to understand it, but you just have to have that faith and go,

they're important.

Names, generational curses, these are all things that are real.

Numerology, how God sets up numbers.

I mean, we talked about that on the previous episode with the tabernacle.

Those things are all important.

Or they wouldn't be in the Bible, first of all.

And God wouldn't focus on them so much like he did.

I don't know.

That was kind of a thought that just popped into my head because this book that you're talking about, Ruth, it is so, it's

such a gap filler, like you said, for the genealogy, but there's just so many analogies

and comparisons and deeper things in it.

Because if you read it at face value, it's kind of like, there's a lot of crazy, there's some lying going on.

There's some, you know what I mean?

It's one of those books where, you know.

It could be a soap opera.

It could be a soap opera, right.

And you're like, what is this even in here for?

Like, what am I, you know?

Exactly.

And especially because the way it's portrayed, it's not even the story about a Jewish woman.

It's a story about a woman that was actually a part of a people that were appalling to the Jewish people.

And she comes in and she, it's one of two books that's actually written about a woman,

which is super cool.

And even to touch on the biblical numerics thing, a little tie in the 10 generations,

the number 10 generally talks about the divine ordering of God.

Sure.

Which is super cool, because not only was it 10 years that they had lived in Moab before they returned to

Bethlehem, but then it was also the 10 years and 10, or the 10 generations from Perez

to the bloodline of David that was connected, which is just awesome.

And now I'll touch on the Revelation five, which five is the number of grace, which is

just super cool and powerful.

You go read Romans five, that's the one that just lays it out.

Sure.

It's the grace chapter essentially.

And so you go to the story of the book of Revelation in chapter five, and you see

Jesus, a slain lamb approached the throne of God and the

John's weeping, the elders are weeping.

Everyone is just crying because no one can open this scroll.

No one is found worthy, but Jesus approaches and the angel says,

be joyful.

The lion of the tribe of Judah approaches and he is worthy to

take the scroll.

And everybody just freaks out.

They sing a new song in heaven, but you see him take the scroll.

And the reason why it was so important and why it ties back to the book of Ruth is because of the principle of the

kinsmen redeemer, because Jesus is our redeemer.

The reason he is able to take that scroll is because he, as a

man, paid for our sins, became our propitiation and our

cost for the father's relationship with us.

And the other thing that he bought though was the earth.

He took back over inheritance over the earth by taking away the authority from the devil, by taking

back the keys to sin in the grave.

And ultimately he sets the earth back up for his return later.

And the reason why is because he fulfilled the role.

One of the components of the messianic profile is that he would be the kinsmen redeemer for humanity.

And it's just, it's super incredible.

And like people can read the book of Revelation in that one chapter and be like, why does he get to take

the scroll?

Like, what is that thing even about?

You read the description of it and it's a scroll that's written on the front and on the back and it's got these seals

on it that have sealed it.

And then all of a sudden these seals start opening and all that other stuff.

But why does, why, what made him worthy?

And it was because he was our redeemer.

He was the one because he came as a man.

And the cool thing, when you look at the genealogy of Joseph.

Joseph.

Fully God and fully man.

Yes, exactly.

And you look at the genealogy of Joseph, Joseph wasn't his father.

He was his stepdad.

I know what it's like to be a stepdad.

That was probably, I've seen, I always see that meme of baby Jesus standing on the

water and Mary telling him to get down.

Like, I can only imagine what it was like to be the stepfather.

Have you ever heard like Jim Gaffigan's bit about that from like, oh, it's one of his original.

He goes, could you imagine being like a Jesus, Jesus's dad, you know?

Now, Jesus, I want you back at 10 o 'clock.

Yeah, whatever.

You're not my real dad.

You know, like that kind of stuff.

Dude.

A little sacrilegious, but kind of funny.

Like basically putting it into perspective, but yet you're right.

So stepdad.

So that's one of those things that you were going.

I've, I've often wondered like, what would that have been like?

How many times do, did Jesus, did you ever really say that to Joseph?

Like, you're not my real dad, bro.

I think the hyperstatic union of Christ being fully God and fully man,

he was obviously limited in his nature as a deity because he was in

human form and had emotions and things like that, but he was without sin.

So I think he showed the proper respect where he needed respect.

I don't know.

I don't think he went through his terrible teens because that's a, you know, rebellion is a, just a natural state

of fallen man.

Yeah.

And he was without.

As a man.

So don't, you know.

Exactly.

We have to realize that that's the mystery of Christ and we're getting off on another tangent here, but we can talk about it for a

minute because sometimes I also see people will go one way too far or

one way or the other.

Well, he was, he emptied himself.

He was fully man.

Well, hold on.

No, he was also fully God or he was God.

So that's why he could perform miracles and do all this.

And well, no, but he had the limitations of human nature, not sin nature, but human nature.

Exactly.

He cried.

He got tired.

He got hungry.

He probably did get annoyed without sin.

He got upset, righteously anger.

I mean, it wasn't based in a sin, but it was those natural emotions that men have.

And for an almighty holy God to essentially, you know, put

himself in his own creation in a jar of clay, so to speak, that's an amazing

thing.

And then have it, and Michael Heisner talks about this, about how, and it's so funny

because he says it kind of like a snarky, which I thought was hilarious.

He said, basically along uses a serpent or lizard or whatever you think it was

to basically, you know, say, hey, you should take that apple or fruit or whatever it is because you could be like God, right?

Tricks, God's creation.

God comes down and goes, oh, first of all, you're gonna crawl on your belly.

Let's just get that out of the way.

All right, because you're not worth to be elevated for even allowing Satan to use your form.

Two, he goes, the exact creation that you thought was going to ruin me, I'm gonna

use their seed to crush your head.

Yeah, come on, man.

And then from that point forward, Michael Heisner's like, then it was just like Satan on the run and seeing Christ -like images.

Boom, Abraham, boom, Elijah, boom, Moab, boom, David.

And it was just like, Satan was probably like, okay, is this the one?

Is it like, it was just image after image of what was to come and how his head was going to be crushed by the seed of

the man.

Because Heisner has this whole seed war thing too, you know what I mean?

Satan was like, no, man, the humans on my side, we'll have them repopulate.

God gave a command, you know, you populate the earth.

And then God just comes down from his counsel and goes, oh no, I'm just gonna use that exact seed that you think is

going to work to your benefit to crush your head.

Yeah, and the crazy thing with that too is like, whether we realize or not,

Satan knows the word better than you do.

Like he knows the word.

I always say that, Satan believes in Jesus,.

He knew who he was.

Exactly.

Bow before me and I'll give you this key.

He wanted his earthly authority, you know?

And you see, just like you were saying, the moment from that point forward, you just see

Satan on this objective, he's trying to destroy the work of God in that every opportunity

good.

When you see the destruction in the killing of the Hebrew children in the story of Moses, in the

time of Jesus, you see all these different things.

And how much do you think it just messed him up when he didn't realize that the reason he couldn't pinpoint David's

family was because he thought they were excluded?

Yeah, or his, you know, David's, I

don't know what it would be, great, great, great, great, how many generations, you said it was back to tomorrow.

Yeah.

But that was a rape situation.

Yeah.

That was a horrible situation.

And that's why I love the verse when it says, what you meant for evil, God meant for good.

Exactly.

He can work in any situation and he, this tapestry of genealogy preordained before the

beginning of the world because he knew that his redemptive work was going to take place.

And just to work that all out, you know what I mean?

And Satan always thinking, oh, I can do this horrendous act or I can, you know, afflict this horrendous

death or, you know, whatever it is on this person or this family.

And it's like, God's going, who do you think you're messing with, first of all?

You know, I'm the creator of this universe, time, space, everything in it.

And he doesn't prevail.

That's the good news, he can't prevail.

Satan cannot win.

He's already lost.

Yeah.

Our team won, we're 1 -0.

We're, God and Jesus are 1 -0 universe champs, you know?

Yes.

Back -to -back champs.

But that's why I just, I love reading through the Old Testament too and seeing it just

so neatly in the New Testament and just all those reflections of Christ in the Old Testament.

That's why, like, if I sit down with a Jewish person, first of all, I love their history.

I love their perspective on the Old Testament just because, first of

all, it was written by them, for them, well before I was ever here or Christ was ever thought of

to them.

But then also, when I bring those things up, because I've had a chance to talk to a few Jewish people, and go, well, what do you just think about, like,

these kind of foreshadowings of Christ?

Yeah.

Well, that's quite a coincidence because, yeah, they either have to say, well, the New Testament writers wrote

that way so they could reflect it, or it was reflected, but it's not really Jesus.

It's someone yet to come.

Those are the two main arguments I usually get.

And then I say, well, in the second point, that would be a vast conspiracy

that 15, 20 different guys across 200 years got together to somehow make some

agenda to make it look like, you know, as for, like, they think it's, he's still yet to come, that's probably

a better argument for them to take.

But then I would just say, there's just too many correlations between the new and old.

So many.

That just say, this was, I mean, that happened while Jesus was here on earth,

that just line up all those things, those 750 messianic prophecies.

Yep.

You just go, well, like you said, you know, an hour ago, what is it?

Jewish people say, coincidence is not a kosher word.

Thank you.

Jeez, been a long day.

I'm stumbling over my words.

Great time to stumble over your words on a podcast.

But yeah, so same thing with me.

Like, I don't, I look at coincidences and go, I don't think so.

Especially when I'm reading the Bible.

All that stuff's laid out and it's so exciting.

And it's stuff that, I love your excitement for it too, because I think it's things that, that

believers really need to delve into.

Yeah.

Not just have a surface understanding of who Christ was.

Well, he died for my sins.

He loves me.

I'm going to heaven.

Okay.

All that's true.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

But man, how much does it reaffirm your faith?

How much does it set the anchors and the rebar in that wet concrete when you first come to the Lord and you start digging down into that

and you can get ahold of a new believer and go, well, hey, hold on.

If you think that blows your mind, let me show you this.

Yeah.

And just reaffirms, reaffirms, reaffirms.

And it really just strengthens.

And we don't necessarily need that, right?

We're saved by faith alone through grace or grace alone through faith.

But boy, do I love it.

Yeah.

I love all that stuff.

It helps you run the race.

It does.

It helps you just see, like when you read in the book of Hebrews and it talks about the great cloud

of witnesses, it lets you know who they are, what they went through and really getting an understanding because we

can so often read the Bible and read these stories and think of them as stories.

We're so inundated with the entertainment industry and the way that entertainment is that we can

even read the Bible and just think, man, that was a really great story.

Or I heard about that one in Sunday school when I was a kid.

Yeah, we had the little foam.

I didn't go to Sunday school, but had those little foam things with the Noah's Ark.

I've heard about that one.

Heard that was a great hit.

But you look at that.

The felt.

Yes, the felt.

Stick the felt up there, yeah.

But this is why I get so excited because it's a part of our heritage.

Jesus was a Jew.

He was not a Palestinian.

He was a Jewish man living in Israel.

And when he returns, that's where he's gonna be.

And to know that these were his people, these were true things that happened that God mapped out

and knew were going to happen and strategically planned and placed everything in such a way is just so

incredible.

And it just opens up the scriptures in such a greater way.

We can understand even what it was like to be one of the apostles, to really understand, oh, wow,

that when those dudes were walking on the road to Emmaus, this is what Jesus might have been talking about.

This is what Jesus could have been alluding to because when it says that he opened up the scriptures to them, it's not talking about

Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, guys.

It's talking about Genesis, Ezra, Nehemiah, Isaiah, Malachi,

whatever book you wanna go to.

And the thing I really love to kind of bridge on what you were talking about a moment ago, the way the Bible

validates itself through some of these crazy little things.

One of the fun things when it comes to talking to a Jewish person, because when I

went to Israel, I got the really unique opportunity to hang out with non -Messianic Jews.

They were my tour guides.

Quite a while.

Yes, 10 days, and I got to meet with one of the most prominent

Jewish rabbis of today.

He has a quote at the Wailing Wall and got to go inside of his synagogue and see the

Torah scrolls that they have there.

It was so awesome.

And getting to have those conversations about these things and same types of responses

and very passionate ones, because for Jewish people that take their culture and their heritage seriously,

they have something called chutzpah.

They have an angst for it.

They have just a passion for it that even here in this day and age, we don't see any longer,

and it's sad.

But this is an interesting one.

When you can have a conversation with a Jewish person, go and ask them to look at the genealogy of Noah.

So for them, and I think I might have bridged on this, but for someone that may not have listened to the podcast last time,

if you go through the genealogy of Noah, from Adam all the way up to Noah, you got Seth,

Enosh, Mahaloel, Kenan, Yared, Enoch, Methuselah,

Lamech.

You go through those guys and you study what their names mean in the Hebrew, and it literally spells out the

Christian gospel.

It literally goes, as you read through their names, it goes, man is appointed

mortal sorrow, but the blessed God shall come down teaching that his death

shall bring the comfort, rest.

No way.

It's incredible.

And so like that right there, that is the gospel.

That is the Christian gospel hidden in the genealogy of Noah in the

Old Testament.

By the definition of names.

Yes, by the definition, and that's just a very -.

Why didn't you tell me that a half hour ago when I said I gotcha.

It's a very, I was waiting.

I was waiting, because that's like one of my favorite, when you can just stump them, because they'll look

at you and be like, oh.

And they'll say, well, that's coincidence.

That's whatever it is, but God knows what he's doing.

Yeah, and then you can ask them,.

Well, was it coincidence when Ruth happened upon that field?

And one other, because the reason these things are in the Bible and the way God set it up is he's going to validate

everything he wrote.

So this is one of the cool ones, and I know because of the numbers saying, this is a New Testament one.

This is really interesting, it's really fun.

If you take Jesus' genealogy in the book of Matthew, first 18 verses, Matthew 1,

1 through 18, and you take that in the original Greek.

Now, the Greek language is one of the most precise, specific languages

ever.

Besides Hebrew, it's probably one of the most beautiful, but it's so specific, so precise.

27 words for love, and English has one, just to give you an example, yeah.

So when you go through and you break it down in the original Greek, if you go through, you count the number of

consonants, you count the number of vowels, you count the number of nouns, verbs,

adverbs, names, every single one of them is divisible by seven.

Really?

Yes, and that includes their matrical value.

So in the Jewish culture, and some other languages do this too, they have

gematria, so they can correlate the letters of their alphabet to numbers.

And so in the same way, those words, their gematrical value also adds

up to a number that is divisible by seven.

It has over 73 different variations of codes that can be lined up in that specific scripture,

talking about Jesus' genealogy.

Now, I know Matthew was a tax collector, and he probably knew math, but he wasn't that stinking smart, guys.

He could not have manipulated the text in order to do that, and that is where we see the four different

women who are included in the genealogy of Jesus.

You have Rahab, you have Tamar, you have Ruth and Mary.

And you look at that, and that's one of those ones where you just go, wow.

Now, another interesting part, and this'll be some, because I think the last time I was on, we talked a little bit

about transcripts and the different biblical transcripts.

So one that is widely challenged, because they say that it wasn't in older transcripts, is in the book of Mark,

chapter 16, verses nine through 20.

So that is what the Gnostics would try to argue and be left out, because it was about

the resurrection.

If you take that same portion of scripture that is not included in the Alexandrian codices, and you

put that same principle against it, the consonant vowels does the exact same thing.

Wow.

And that's just one of those things where God, the supreme ruler of the universe, the

creator, the one who made numbers, the one who made language and everything confined within our

reality, so made his word come together that it did that.

Well, that just also reinforces when we say God breathed, right?

It just doesn't mean, because I truly believe the exact words

and the exact order of what is written down in our canonized Bible was

exactly what the Holy Spirit wanted.

Absolutely.

And really, you can talk about different parchments and different texts and things like that.

Dead Sea Scrolls put a lot of that to rest when they discovered those, whatever it was, 75 years ago, because it just reconfirmed

everything.

It did.

And all the atheists and agnostics and people who, and liberal scholars were like, oh, darn.

We were hoping that.

You know what I mean?

Because it really did.

I mean, now we're nitpicking some other things and hoping to find something, but I mean, it really

solidified.

Yes.

Before, when was Dead Sea Scrolls, 55 or, I don't know, when they found the last big portion

of it.

I think it was 54 or 55.

Okay, and I'll look it up, and we'll post it just to make sure, because I don't want to misguide anyone, but

it was really kind of a faith -based statement to say, God breathed, and these are

the exact words, and they're inherent, and all that.

And then, once again, the Bible is proved right through scientific method or whatever it is.

I kind of love that.

It's kind of like punching the devil in the throat a little bit.

Heck yeah, it's awesome.

Because it's always trying to mislead, not trust, downplay the authenticity of God, the sovereignty of God, the power of

God, but yet it just keeps, you know, that's why I love Job, too, because there's so many things in there that

are just like, they didn't even know existed.

God's talking about making them, and then five, eight, 10 ,000 years later, we're now finding these things, and we're

going, oh, is that what the book of Job is talking about, when God came down and was like, have you made the rivers and the oceans of the deep?

Have you done this?

Have you done that?

Have you moved the sun through space?

And everyone goes, sun doesn't move through space.

We move around the sun, and then we realize, oh, we're moving around the sun.

Well, everything's expanding.

The sun is moving through space.

Like, everything's moving, because everything's expanding.

Right, so all these things that were very specific when they were writing it down, and I always think of the

person who's writing that down going, this doesn't even make sense.

I mean, the sun's moving, and there's rivers in the water, the deep, and all these things, right?

But God knows exactly what he's doing, and I think he knew exactly what he was doing in Ruth, too, in making sure that she was taken care of, and it was

a beautiful representation of a foreshadowing of what Christ did for us.

Absolutely, and the engrafting.

That's one of those things that I love, because she was a Gentile, and it made way for us, and the

day of the birth of the church is when the Jewish people still read that story today,

and still remember that, and eventually, God's going to open up that mystery to them, too, and it's gonna be

amazing, and just beautiful.

And how about the four women in his genealogy, in Christ's genealogy, that were just kind of either outcast, promiscuous, they

were like not, wasn't like it was the queen of whatever in his, I mean, it was Rahab, right, it was

Tamar, it was, obviously, Mary was outcast with what was going on with her and Joseph,

and then, Ruth, thank you, we're talking about it, all kind of had these issues and

problems, had to depend on other people, whether it be outcast, and you just go,

that right there is such a beautiful thing that the Lord, His power is not made known

unless it's through your weakness.

Like, your weakness is His power, and the world just doesn't understand that.

No, it weirds them out, actually.

It does, doesn't it?

They can't get why someone wouldn't wanna use their strength.

It's just, it's baffling.

I remember when I was an evangelistic atheist back in my high school days, and I would

argue with my Christian friends back then, and just, I could never understand it, even when I was

first coming to faith, and I was telling all of my garbage to this pastor that just

decided, that opened up his church to me, to say, yeah, I'll come and listen to you, and just,

it was him just being a meek man, not trying to give me all the answers, not

trying to tell me what to do, but just listening.

That was the thing that shook me.

I couldn't shake it off.

I couldn't stop, and then I had to ask him, dude, what is it?

How can you treat me the way that you treat me?

And he told me, it's Jesus.

I mean, even look at, you know,.

I was just talking to a pastor earlier today, and he said, he brought the example of Corinthians.

He's like, literally the worst church.

Just, they had the market on taking everything pagan and trying to, you know, make it,

normalize it, and rebel against God, and what does Paul do?

He comes with them with grace, right off of chapter one.

Like, the only thing I want you to understand is Christ crucified, like, grace, grace, grace, and that would have been

a really good opportunity for him to get up on his high horse and say, hey, you guys aren't doing what I told you.

You know, you're sinners, you're gonna go to hell, all these things.

Instead, he said, oh, no, I'm the chief of sinners, and by the way, grace, and the gospel, and Christ crucified you.

And that's what I work on daily, to make sure that the same, I mean, I'm never gonna be able to extend the

same grace to people that God extended to me, because I know what a wretch I was, and still am,

but that's what I work on, making sure that I'm not that

parable of the debtor, you know, that was forgiven such a huge, lifelong debt that he couldn't pay

off even if he worked the rest of his life, and then sees his friend, throws him in for 10 bucks, put him in

prison.

It's like, I never want to be that guy.

In my theology, and the way I talk, and the way I treat people, and the way I look at people that believe differently or don't believe,

God's always just tapping me on my shoulder, going, excuse me, do you remember what I saved you from?

So have grace.

Maybe that comes with age and maturity.

It's hard for me, though, you know, but I think it's hard for a lot of people.

Absolutely.

We get up in our own little heads, and we think, well, I deserve this and that, and God loves me, but he doesn't.

We love to compare sin, too.

Like, oh, at least I don't do that, and God's like.

Bro.

Your righteousness is like filthy rags, all right?

So.

Yeah, and it stinks.

And the only way you got righteous is of my son.

Exactly.

So don't be acting like you did anything.

Come on.

So as we finish up here, man, the time just flew by.

It's always good having you here.

I know we powered through almost two hours last time, but we're a little over an hour, so let's kind of, you got a final thought

on Ruth or anything else that you wanted to add before we?

I mean, we went pretty deep.

Yeah.

We got into numerology, we got into genealogy, we got into foreshadowing of Christ, all out of a

four -chapter book that I would say many Christians kind of overlook, or I've heard

the Naomi preached a hundred times, which not a bad thing, but never

really what you hit on in which I find absolutely beautiful is that foreshadowing of a

Christ redeemer.

Yeah.

And Boaz and the relationship between a foreigner, right?

Like you said, in this climate, in this culture.

Come on.

And really looking at Ruth.

So you brought up the Ruth Naomi, her statement, when we, as Gentiles,

it's a completely different thing for us to follow the God that we follow.

It goes against our nature.

The people of Israel were raised knowing Yahweh.

Right.

Even the ones that are secularized Jews now, they know of their heritage, they know of all those things.

Yeah.

But for us, just like Paul at Mars Hill saying this, you

have this altar to this unknown God.

We approach and get to meet and encounter and know a God whom we did

not.

And say in our, when we accept Christ, and when we truly follow after him as he would

desire, we forsake all else.

We lay it all.

We say, where you go, I will go.

Where you lay, I will lay.

Your God will be my God.

We choose that because he chose us.

Because he chose us, we get that opportunity to choose him.

And when we have that, it's just so beautiful.

He's so kind to us.

When, like you were saying, of all I am the chief, I would say, for

things I've went through, Jesus, man, I'd love to try and talk to Paul and be like, hey man,

I don't know, I'd like to argue.

Yeah, but I'm just overwhelmed by the goodness God in that,

in that he chose us and he made a way for us.

And for those listening, really quick before we wrap up, when Josh and I are saying, chief of

sinners, we're not living in a state of condemnation because there is no condemnation in Christ.

Exactly.

But I think it's good to know what you were saved from.

If you think you're a pretty good person and I'm okay, then you don't really need the gospel and you don't need saving.

I think it's to know, you know, amazing grace,

like me, he understood where the Lord brought him from.

Exactly.

And I think that's what we're talking about.

We're not saying get up every day and go, oh, I'm such a horrible person and I'm gonna sin again this week probably and God's

probably gonna drop a piano on my head.

No, I'm not, we're not saying that.

The good news is we've been called righteous.

We have righteousness impudiated onto us because of what Christ did on the cross.

When God looks at us, he looks at righteousness because the law requires perfection.

We could never do that, Josh.

I can't do it.

You can't do it.

Guess who can do it?

The son of God, Jesus Christ.

And now when we've been engrafted in and God looks at us, he goes, I see perfection.

Yeah.

You've been purchased with a price and you have right legal standing before me.

And that's the good news of the gospel.

Come on.

So I just wanted people to know when they're hearing us say that, we're not wallowing in what we were,

but we don't forget.

Where we came from.

We know that we were sinners in need of saving.

So there's a dichotomy there that I think is important to make sure we're not either side of that.

Yeah.

And guys, with that, having that right perspective on that, because I even know earlier in

my Christian walk, it was hard for me to reconcile that.

It was hard for me to walk that out.

Being able to walk with Christ and overcome the shame of the things that I had

done when I was without Christ, but really recognizing the power that you have and the

power that comes behind your testimony.

It is literally the witness of Christ in your life that no one can argue with.

Amen.

People that have known me in my 30 years of life, people that knew me when I was a heathen, running in the

streets, drinking, partying, and all that stuff.

All those things, yep.

They look at my life now and they know that that person is dead.

They know, and they look at my life and they call me.

They won't say it to my face, but I'm the Jesus freak.

I am the person that they feel like left their life because I went and joined a cult, but really it's just

because I love Jesus.

And I know that he redeemed me from all that.

And you never know, even yesterday, hired a new guy at work.

He's a believer, goes to a Bible study with my boss, but he's very young and he

just looked at me, he asked me my story and I was very real and raw and my story can be a

little rough on people.

Like you got six to eight hours, sit down.

Yeah.

I'll tell you.

And when I told him and he just like looked at me like deer in the headlights, I was like, man, that's what Jesus can do.

And that was the thing that really like kind of shook him and saying like, man, I don't know what it's like to have done all this

stuff that you did, but man, Jesus is good to me.

Jesus is good to us.

And it just, it created and took our work relationship and our friendship to a whole new level

because he could understand even what the Lord had brought me through.

And for all you guys and gals listening out there, that's an important component of your testimony.

Yes, we tell people that Jesus Christ is Lord, that he is savior, that he can save them, that they

are in need of a savior, but tell them what he did for you because people can't argue with a

transformed life.

People can't argue with the fruit of the gospel, which is a life transformed.

You wanna, I think we're gonna wrap it up there.

I couldn't have said it better myself.

Josh, it's always great having you on.

You're gonna have to come back again.

Definitely, I love it, man.

And we'll deep dive into something else.

If people wanna get ahold of you that are listening, is there a ministry page or a Facebook page or

where do they get ahold of you if they will go, hey, I want some notes on Ruth.

I like what you said there.

Absolutely.

I do have a Facebook page for the ministry.

It is His Purpose Ministries.

It's got a cool little HP and a compass because that's really what my ministry is all

about is helping people discover what the work that God is doing in their life is all

about, to discover his purpose for them.

And so you can reach out to me there.

I also have personal Facebook.

And I am currently in the works of becoming a 501c3, gonna have a website and get all that stuff up and

running probably in the next three months, which is super exciting.

Well, when you get that all up and running, come back and maybe we can talk about that a little bit, too.

Absolutely.

In that journey.

And of course, if anyone needs to get in touch with Josh, you can always get ahold of us at Dead Men

Walking on Instagram, Facebook, or in our email, which is deadmenwalkingpodcast at

gmail .com and I'll get you in touch with Josh.

As always, guys, thanks for listening and God bless.

Good.