Not Without A Redeemer | Sermon 07/21/2024

going through tons of different scripture. In fact, you should have a printout in your Bibles. I would really follow along with that.

We're gonna be looking at a lot of stuff through salvation history today. So in the book of Ruth, chapter four, verses 18 through 22, today's sermon is called

Not Without a Redeemer. Not without a Redeemer. So starting in verse 18 of the book of Ruth, chapter four, we're here now, the inerrant and infallible word of the living and true

God. Now these are the generations of Perez. To Perez was born

Hezron, and to Hezron was born Ram, and to Ram, Aminadab, and to Aminadab was born

Nashon, and to Nashon, Salmon, and to Salmon was born Boaz, and to Boaz, Obed, and to Obed was born

Jesse, and to Jesse, David. Thus ends the reading of God's holy and inspired word.

Let's pray once more as God's people. Lord, we come before you today asking that you would illuminate your word to us by the

Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit that indwells us, the same Holy Spirit who gave us these words, who divinely inspired every single word in this wonderful and holy and transcendent and eternal book,

Lord. God, we thank you for your word. Please, God, help me to get out of the way, to be a vessel today,

Lord, that the word of God may go forth and edify your people, encourage your people, correct your people,

Lord, and God, that it would save people today, that your word can save even today.

Lord, I guess my biggest prayer today is that we would see the lengths in which you went to save us, that we would see,

Lord, all the brokenness and all the sin and all the transgressions along the way of salvation history, that it would lead to the point of the

Messiah, and that in that moment when Christ came and then when he died upon that cross that salvation history was fulfilled, and we're waiting for you again,

Lord, as your redeemed people. God, teach us today what it means to be redeemed. Teach us today,

Lord, what you went through to save us. Pray this all in your mighty name,

Lord Jesus Christ, amen. Well, church, I've told you before, but it's worth considering again, that the holy seed has always been under attack.

And what seed is this? This is Genesis 3 .15, the seed after the fall occurred, after death came into the world, the

Lord God said to the serpent Satan, in Genesis 3 .15, and I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed.

He shall crush you on the head, he's saying this to the serpent, and you shall bruise him on the heel. This is the holy seed.

And at this moment, salvation history had begun. When will the holy seed crush the head of the ancient snake?

When will the death blow be delivered? Well, at every single turn in salvation history, the seed was pursued.

The devil thought to cut off the bloodline before the holy one came. Cain murdered righteous

Abel in the fields, right? Ham incurred a curse on his son

Canaan. Abram almost lost his life and his wife to Pharaoh and Abimelech going down to Egypt.

Abraham and Hagar tried to make a new seed with Ishmael.

Esau at first wanted to kill his brother Jacob for taking his blessing and birthright. Then after that, the

Hebrews were put into slavery in Egypt. The firstborn sons were what? They were ordered to be slaughtered, slaughtered at Pharaoh's orders.

Every nation wanted to destroy Israel as they pursued the promised land.

When they left slavery, every nation was going after them, including

Balak, king of Moab, who sought to curse Israel that they would never rise, that they would never inherit the land.

But instead, Balaam, who was paid to curse him, got a word of God in his mouth and he said that a star would come forth from Jacob.

A scepter will rise from Israel. It was a momentous occasion where he prophesied the coming of the seed.

The evil days during the book of Judges even, where the seed was almost snuffed out.

Then you have King Saul, who satanically sought to murder young David when the Lord took the

Holy Spirit from him. And he called David his chosen one. Then you have

David's son, you have Absalom. Absalom's conspiracy to destroy his father and murder his siblings.

You have the idolatry of Solomon that captured his heart when he gathered many wives and concubines.

Then from that moment forward, when the nation split, when you had the Israel, the Northern Kingdom, and Judah, the

Southern Kingdom, they had constant infighting. Brothers, people who came from the same bloodline, fighting and fighting and fighting, even all the way up to Judah going to Babylon in exile.

And the seed was hunted from that very moment. You even had in exile, what did

Haman do? Haman conspired against Mordecai and the Jews and he got King Ahasuerus to make a decree that on this day, everyone could go slaughter the

Jews. The seed has continually been hunted from the beginning.

After that, after they came back to Israel, there was more than 400 years of prophetic silence and many wondered if the bloodline was finally destroyed.

But there was a voice of one who is crying in the wilderness, make straight the way of the

Lord. And that voice wasn't long after a group of Magi who came from the days of Daniel in Persia, who had heard back then over history, that there was

Yahweh, that there was one true God. And Daniel even shared with these Magi who had many generations of people, they knew that a

King was coming, they knew a Messiah, Jewish Messiah was coming, but he was gonna impact the whole world. And they came as the star went before them in the first century.

But then a demonic new King, King Herod rose up and the dark principalities told him, go ahead, snuff out the seed.

And what did Herod do? He ordered the death of the firstborn sons in Bethlehem, where the

Magi went. But this bloodline wasn't cut off, was it?

The seed wasn't destroyed. And the promises of salvation history were coming to a point.

Now, on that line of salvation history, the book of Ruth has been right in the center.

It's been on that line of salvation history. We've taken kind of a magnifying glass, so to speak, and we've looked at one single point on that salvation history line, we looked at Ruth.

We looked at Boaz. And we've looked at those who were part of the royal line of Jesus Christ.

So today I wanted to do a few things as we end this series today. I wanted to first consider some of these people in this bloodline, consider the people in the genealogy that I just read.

I also want to consider the typological aspects of Ruth.

What are the images we see in Ruth that are fulfilled in Jesus Christ? I wanted to see even other people who were part of the genealogy of Christ.

We'll look at that as well. And then I will conclude today on the redemption that we have and how it is so much greater than the kinsmen redemption in the book of Ruth, okay?

So once again, we look at verses 18 through 22 in the book of Ruth.

You see Perez, Hezron, you have Ram, you have Aminadab, you have Nashon, you have

Salmon, Boaz, Obed, Jesse, and David. These are 10 full generations, 10 full names from Perez to David.

And I've said previously, this is a royal line and you're like, why? Why are these men of a royal line?

Well, a couple of hundred years before this point, right before the patriarch

Jacob died, he gave all of his sons who would make up the 12 tribes of Israel, he gave them a blessing.

And this is what God had him say concerning Judah in particular. You can look at your printout,

Genesis 49, eight through 10. This is what Jacob said to Judah. Judah, your brothers shall praise you.

Your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies. Your father's sons shall bow down to you.

Judah is a lion's whelp. From the prey, my son, you have gone up. He couches, he lies down as a lion, and as a lion, who dares rouse him?

And here it is. And the scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler's staff from between his feet until Shiloh comes, and to him shall be the obedience of the nations.

So out of all the tribes of Judah, I'm sorry, out of all the tribes of Israel, Judah was to be the one in which the most righteous kings would come.

Those who truly possess what are called the crown rights. Who has the crown rights?

Out of all those tribes, Judah. Judah does, at least until Shiloh comes.

Until Shiloh comes. And that brings up the question then, why wouldn't the author of the book of Ruth start with Judah, right?

If Judah's one of the most important figures, why is Judah not mentioned in the genealogy of these 10 names?

Well, if you know anything about Jewish grammar and Jewish idioms, Hebrew grammar and things like that, they really liked whole numbers, so they started with Perez and went down to David, because David is who they wanted to get to in this.

There's no doubt about that. The author of the book of Ruth wanted to get to David, so if you added Judah at the beginning, you would have had 11 names, and Hebrews don't like 11, they like 10.

So maybe they just left Judah out for that reason. But the other reason could have been this.

The other reason is that, if you remember when I went over Genesis 18, there was what?

Judah, whose son, Heir, had died. Tamar was a widow, and Onan was supposed to take

Judah's daughter -in -law, Tamar, who was a widow, and perform what? Leveret marriage, I talked about Leveret marriage last week.

And Onan spilled his seed, and so God was displeased with him for not taking up the mantle for his brother and doing

Leveret marriage. So Heir is dead, Judah's son Heir is dead, Judah's son Onan is dead, his last son is

Shelah, and he didn't want Shelah to die, and so basically, he told his daughter -in -law, who's a widow,

Tamar, and said, go to your father's house, I'll let you know when Shelah is old enough, which he was old enough.

What we really found out is he was worried that his son would be killed as well for not taking up the name of his older brother.

That's called Leveret marriage in Hebrew culture. And so pirez was the outcome of all that, right?

When Tamar laid with Judah, her father -in -law, but also, and this is why

I'm getting to the fact that Judah's not mentioned, but also, you have that Leveret marriage there in Genesis 38, but in Ruth, you had a form of Leveret marriage as well.

Boaz didn't have to do what he did. He actually, by Jewish law, by the

Mosaic law, he didn't have to marry Ruth, but he did, he performed a type of Leveret marriage.

And so you kind of have those similarities which ended with pirez and then ends with Obed.

And so that may be why he does it as well. So moving on, we've talked quite a bit about the names in the book of Ruth, right?

So although I don't have much background information on each of these men, I'll give you what little

I do know, okay? So the name pirez, again, this is the son of Judah with his daughter -in -law,

Tamar. Pirez means breach, means he who bursts forth, and it refers to how he was born.

If you remember the story, Tamar became pregnant with twin boys, and no one knew that she had gotten pregnant.

They thought she was a widow waiting in her father's house for her next husband, but she had dressed up as a prostitute and laid with her father -in -law.

She was pregnant with two children, Zerah and Pirez, and at the time that she was giving birth, the midwife saw

Zerah's hand come out, and she tied like a red piece of string or yarn on his hand, but then all of a sudden,

Zerah went back inside the womb of Tamar, and then it says that Pirez burst out.

He came out, he's like, no, I'll be firstborn, I'll take that right. And so that's why they called him

Pirez, that's why they called him he who bursts forth, that refers to the way he was delivered.

Hezron's name means in close court, Ram's name means exalted, Aminadab's name means my father's brother is generous.

I guess maybe someone's uncle was being really kind during that time, my father's brother is generous, Aminadab. Aminadab is the father of Nashon and Elisheba.

Elisheba is the wife of Aaron. According to Exodus six. So you have the

Judah line, the royal line, mixing even with the Levite line. Then you have

Nashon. Nashon's name means little snake. Little snake, and it's not because he actually did anything wicked or anything like that.

I honestly don't know why, in a culture where names mean so much, why this man was named little snake, but he was.

Nashon was ordered by Moses to be the leader of the tribe of Judah in the desert wilderness wanderings in Hebrews, of the

Hebrews in Numbers. He even helped defend the people of God in Numbers.

And it shows in that book that Nashon, little snake, made many acceptable sacrifices and offerings to God.

He was a good man. He was a good man. Salmon's name means mantle or cloak.

Boaz's name means strength. Obed's name means servant. And we really don't have much on them,

Salmon and Obed. This is it, this is their history. Jesse comes next after them.

Jesse's name, believe it or not, has no clear meaning in the text. No clear connections in the

Hebrew. Scholars have tried to make multiple connections to other words in the Bible. Some say that Jesse means

God's gift or God exists, or just that basically Obed and his wife came together and made up a name.

They made up a name, something completely new. But what was

Jesse's honor? He didn't care about his own name. What was the honor of Jesse? The honor of Jesse was revealed in 1

Samuel 16, when the Lord said to Samuel the prophet, how long will you grieve over Saul?

I've rejected him from being king over Israel. God tells Samuel the prophet, fill your horn, go with oil, and I'll send you to Jesse the

Bethlehemite, for I've selected a king for myself among his sons.

That's an amazing privilege that Jesse, the man who maybe has no meaning to his name, his son, one of his sons will become king.

That's a tremendous blessing. And you see here that Jesse stayed in Bethlehem even after Boaz and Obed did.

So moving on, David's name is the final name in the genealogy. David's name means beloved.

And besides Moses, David is the next most important individual in all of the

Old Testament. Moses and David are the two most important individuals in the

Old Testament. And it was through David that so much prosperity and peace came to Israel.

The text of the Bible says that Saul was the choice of the people. Saul was the kind of man that the people wanted.

But God said, David is a man after my own heart. David was God's choice.

David was a man who wrote the Psalms, many of the Psalms, many prophetic utterances.

It was through David that Nathan, the prophet, would give his covenantal promise of a descendant who would come after David and in him would be one who would sit on the throne forever and ever.

This is the promise of the Messiah in 2 Samuel 7. And David was an amazing young man.

If you read about him, he loved the Lord from his youth. He was a strong, courageous young man, even as a little shepherd teenager, he would slay bears and he would slay lions.

And he had no fear, but fear of the Lord. That's who David was.

He would sing songs to God. He would write songs for God. He fought for God.

He defended Yahweh's honor time and time again. He fought many wars and he won many wars.

He danced for the Lord, right? When the Ark of the Covenant made its way to its home in Jerusalem, David loved the word of God.

David loved God. David would love to come into the temple and just sit and enjoy

God's presence. But is David the pinnacle of salvation history?

He was the last name in the book of Ruth, but is David the person in whom we should stop?

Does it end at David? Does it end at David? So what's the purpose in this genealogy in Ruth?

Throughout the book of Ruth, we have seen God's providence. We have seen God has said,

I told you, that's the Hebrew word has said, that means kindness or grace. We've seen

God's grace running all throughout the book of Ruth, that God, not man, is the initiator of all things good.

And so what we're supposed to see in this genealogy is that at the seventh generation, 10 names, seventh generation at Boaz, all of a sudden, providence skyrocketed, everything changed.

The providence and plan of God jettisons history to a period of some of the greatest evidences of God's kindness in the

Old Testament. It runs all the way to the period of the Davidic reign. You see,

Boaz may have thought that he was raising up the name of Elimelech or the name of Mahlon, but God in his providence actually wanted, as the witnesses at the gate in Bethlehem said, that Boaz's name and his descendants' names would be remembered.

Actual blood won out, not legal designations. He was the

Goel, the kinsmen redeemer. The book of Ruth shows us that there is a way out of the dark days of the period of judges.

The sin and oppression and judgment will not always be characteristic of life in Israel.

That one day, these deliverers who keep coming, they constantly come, that there will be a better deliverer.

These deliverers keep coming, but they're not good enough. They keep dying. David is a great hero.

He's a champion of God. He's often called God's anointed. He's loyal, he's compassionate, he's faithful, he loves

God fiercely, but the problem is, David is still flawed. David is still flawed.

He still has sin, and the other problem is David dies.

Does he not? David dies. We need God to send his anointed one, that is the

Messiah, who doesn't have sin and will never die. He can always lead

God's people in benevolence and holiness. We need someone who's not like this, not someone like David, who still sins and dies.

We need someone to come who's different. The women of Bethlehem told

Naomi, the Lord has not left you without a redeemer today, but what about tomorrow? But what about the next day?

She needs a redeemer the day after that and the day after that and forever and ever. She needs a redeemer, and that's the goal of salvation history, that a redeemer would come who's better than all these men in these genealogies, okay?

So the women of Bethlehem also cried, a son has been born to Naomi, but what about everyone else?

A son to everyone else, and so the prophet Isaiah cries out under the divine inspiration of the

Holy Spirit in Isaiah 9, six through seven, if you wanna look at your printout. Isaiah says, for a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us, and the government will rest upon his shoulders and his name will be called

Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace, and there will be no end to the increase of his government or of peace on the throne of David and over his kingdom to establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness from then on and forevermore, the zeal of the

Lord of hosts will accomplish this. You see, a son will be given,

Isaiah's after Ruth, a son will be given, not just one to Naomi, a son will be given to everyone, a son will be given to us, and he will sit on the throne of David.

He will be of this same bloodline that we just went over in Ruth. He's a new king, the one who holds the righteous scepter, the one whom the crown rights belong, and they will stay with him and go to no one else.

This is Shiloh, as Jacob said, from Genesis. He will be the last king from the line of Judah.

He will be the forever king. We can see other prophets told of his coming.

It won't be Boaz, it won't be Obed of Bethlehem, and it won't even be David of Bethlehem. As the prophet

Micah warns the people of Judah, he cries out in Micah 5, 2 through 4, but as for you,

Bethlehem, Ephrathah, too little to be named among the clans of Judah from you, one will go forth for me to be ruler in Israel.

So one is coming from Bethlehem, who will be a ruler for God.

His going, here it is, his goings forth are from long ago, from the days of eternity, okay?

So there's gonna be a child born. He's gonna be eternal. He's gonna be the mighty

God. He's gonna bring peace. He's gonna sit on the throne of David, and he's gonna be from Bethlehem, and he's gonna be a ruler, and his days are from eternity past,

Micah 5, 2 through 4. Therefore, he will give them until the time when she who is in labor has born a child.

Then the remainder of his brethren will return to the sons of Israel. People will be gathered when this one comes.

And he will arise and he will shepherd his flock in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the

Lord, his God. And they will remain because at that time, he will be great to the ends of the earth.

This one coming will be our peace, he says. So from Bethlehem, from the very context that we've been in in the book of Ruth, from the place where you have

Judah, from the place where you have Perez and Boaz and Obed and Jesse comes this one, this new child, this ruler.

And he is to be infinitely greater than they. He is to be better than Boaz.

He is to be better than Perez. He is to be better than Obed. He is to be better than David. That's the point.

The holy seed promised and predicted in Genesis three, he was not cut off.

Nothing and no one could stop this one from coming. God has not left us without a redeemer today, tomorrow and forever.

That's the point. So in Ruth four, we saw kind of a small piece of the genealogy, but it's incomplete.

There's another place where we see the royal genealogy, the one coming. That's far beyond David.

Let's read through that genealogy. Grab your Bible, go to Matthew chapter one. Let's read it real quick as a church or go to your printout.

Your printout and your bulletin has it as well. Matthew one, one through 17. This is a continuation of the genealogy we just read in Ruth four, okay?

This is the royal bloodline. Matthew chapter one, verse one through 17.

Hang with me. We're gonna get through it. A lot of names, but every piece of scripture is worth reading, okay?

So the record of the genealogy of Jesus, the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham.

Abraham was the father of Isaac. Isaac, the father of Jacob, and Jacob, the father of Judah and his brothers.

Judah was the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar. Perez was the father of Hezron. Hezron, the father of Ram.

Ram was the father of Amminadab, and Amminadab, the father of Nashon. And Nashon, the father of Salmon.

Salmon was the father of Boaz by Rahab. Boaz was the father of Obed by Ruth. And Obed, the father of Jesse.

Jesse was the father of David, the king. David was the father of Solomon by Bathsheba, who had been the wife of Uriah.

Solomon was the father of Rehoboam. Rehoboam, the father of Abijah. And Abijah, the father of Asa.

Asa was the father of Jehoshaphat, and Jehoshaphat, the father of Joram. Joram, the father of Uzziah.

Uzziah was the father of Jotham. Jotham, the father of Ahaz. And Ahaz, the father of Hezekiah.

Hezekiah was the father of Manasseh. Manasseh, the father of Ammon. And Ammon, the father of Josiah.

Josiah became the father of Jeconiah and his brothers at the time of the deportation to Babylon. After the deportation to Babylon, Jeconiah became the father of Sheatiel.

Sheatiel, the father of Zerubbabel. Zerubbabel was the father of Abiud. and Abihud the father of Eliakim, and Eliakim the father of Azor, and Azor the father of Zadok, Zadok the father of Akim, and Akim the father of Eliud, Eliud the father of Eleazar, Eleazar the father of Matham, and Matham the father of Jacob, Jacob was the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, by whom

Jesus was born, who was called the Messiah. So the generations from Abraham to David are 14 generations, from David to the deportation to Babylon, 14, and from the deportation to Babylon to the

Messiah, 14 generations. Wow. A lot of names.

That's a big royal line. That's a big bloodline for Jesus Christ. And so, in Matthew 1, the birth of Jesus is the beginning of the pinnacle of salvation history.

It's gonna culminate at the cross, all right? Matthew says this is the record of the genealogy of Jesus the

Messiah. In the Hebrew, that means the anointed one. And verse one of Matthew 1, which

I believe is an extension of Ruth 4 here, gives Jesus two names of fathers.

Two fathers. Jesus is the son of David, and he's the son of Abraham.

Now, why would Matthew point those two names out in particular, okay? Jesus is the son of Abraham.

He's the son of David. Son of David is a messianic title that comes from the promise of God to David in 2

Samuel 7, that I will raise up a descendant after you. I will be a father to him, and he will be a son to me.

His throne will be established forever. That's the son of David. It's a messianic title. And so what this genealogy in Matthew 1 first does is it legitimizes

Jesus of Bethlehem as the heir to the throne through David.

He is of the royal bloodline. Kingship runs in his veins. All the kingly messianic prophecies are fulfilled in Christ, and they couldn't be if he wasn't of this tribe.

If Jesus was of another tribe, he couldn't be in this role. This is essential.

And so the next name that Matthew offers is Abraham. Jesus is a son of Abraham.

He is the one who must be offered as a sacrifice, not Isaac. He is the one in whom all nations will be blessed.

He is the descendant the entire world has been waiting for. And by mentioning

Abraham right away, we recognize that Jesus is the singular fulfillment to the

Abrahamic covenant that was given in Genesis. You even see that when you see in Matthew 28, the great commission.

The great commission, when Jesus orders it after his resurrection, is the means by which the

Abrahamic covenant will spread. You share the gospel, you make disciples, you baptize them in the name of the

Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. That's the Abrahamic covenant in motion. And so Jesus is the fulfillment of this.

He's a son of Abraham. He's the child of promise. He's the covenantal king.

Matthew shows that this cannot be disputed. Now, some other interesting names.

We're gonna go through a few names on here, and then we'll move on to redemption, we'll end it. So we have five names of women here.

Only five of the whole genealogy. You have what, Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba, and Mary.

All of whom had suspicions of illegitimacy surrounding the sexual activity of their childbearing, right?

All of them had suspicions about that. Even Mary was found by Joseph to be pregnant, and he was gonna send her away.

Oh my goodness, you're pregnant. I was betrothed to you. I'm betrothed to you. What's going on here?

And if it weren't for the angel of the Lord to come and tell Joseph, hey, no, be wed to this woman.

Take her as your wife. Don't lay with her. Keep her a virgin until she gives birth to this child, for he is the

Christ. That had to be done, and so that's what he did. Joseph didn't send her away.

He kept Mary. He was wed to her, and he did not touch her until Jesus was born.

So although what we see in this genealogy is the legitimacy of Jesus Christ as the

Messiah, the names in it reveal something of people who are far from perfect, far from perfect.

In fact, in this line of people, there are tons of transgressors, substantial sinners against God, and yet they're all in the line of salvation history.

We picked Boaz and Ruth out of that line to observe, but let's look at a few others, okay?

So we already talked about Judah a little bit. I'm gonna mention him once more.

Before Judah even performed the levitic marriage, or at least laid with his daughter -in -law,

Tamar, before that even happened, you saw in Genesis that Jacob had a favorite son.

Who was that favorite son? Joseph. And Joseph would have these dreams, and the brothers would say, oh, here comes the dreamer.

If only we could get rid of him. And the brothers of the sons of Jacob conspired together, and they said, let's get rid of him.

And so when they're off tending the sheep, Joseph's looking for his brothers to tell them something from his father, and Joseph comes out to his brothers, and as they see him walking ahead, they're like, hey, let's throw him in a pit.

Let's kill him and throw him in a pit. Yeah. And then all of a sudden, Reuben, the oldest brother, says what?

He says, you know, let's not kill him. Let's just throw him in the pit.

And I don't know if he thought that was merciful, by the way. I feel like that'd be a more painful death.

You'd die from exposure, dehydration, things like that. Let's throw him in the pit. But we know, obviously, that Reuben intended to go back to save him, right?

But you know what happened? As Joseph was walking ahead and coming towards them, it was

Judah, Judah of the royal line, who said to his brothers, no, no, no, no, no.

What profit is there for us if we simply kill him or throw him in a pit? And he saw these

Ishmaelites, this caravan of traders going down to Israel. You know what they were selling, by the way?

They were selling frankincense and myrrh. Did you know that? They're taking that down to Egypt. And they say, hey, would you buy this man?

And they take their young brother, Joseph, out. They take his coat of many colors. And they sold their youngest brother into slavery for 20 pieces of silver, okay?

And it was Judah's idea. And they split the money. And that's the man in the line of Jesus Christ, Judah.

He sold his own brother into slavery. But what's amazing is, fast forward now, the sin of fornicating with his daughter -in -law, it's over.

Pires was born. The sin of selling his brother into slavery, that was passed.

Go to the future now. What happens in Genesis 44? The brothers are starving in the land of Israel.

They go to Egypt to look for grain. And Joseph is what? He's like second head honcho in all of Egypt.

He's the one distributing the grain. He recognizes his brothers. And the brothers go, and then they come back.

And there's the cup in the bag. You remember the story, right? And of course, the second time they come,

Joseph disguised, of course, they didn't recognize him, by the way. Disguised, Joseph says, bring back your youngest brother, which happened to be his blood brother, by his mother,

Rachel. And he says, bring back your youngest, Benjamin. So the brothers bring back

Benjamin. And this is where Judah redeems himself. He's in the royal line of Jesus Christ.

He's done these wicked things. And all of a sudden, Joseph says, you leave that brother, he will be my slave.

To Benjamin, their youngest little brother. Once again, this is like deja vu.

Are they, the older brothers, going to sell their brother? This is their chance.

Are they gonna repeat the offense? This is the youngest brother again. Are you going to destroy the family by selling the youngest brother again and giving him to me?

Well, he's better off with me, Joseph's thinking. But what happens? Judah says this in Genesis 44, 33.

He says to Joseph, who he doesn't realize is Joseph, please, let your servant remain.

Let me remain instead of the boy. I will be the slave. Let the lad go with his brothers.

In the Hebrew, he says, I will be your slave. I will be the substitute.

I will take the place of the young boy. Judah was offering himself as a substitution.

Sound familiar? Offering himself as a substitution for the life of another.

Redemption. Redemption. A change of heart. True contrition came over Judah in Genesis 44.

This man is in the line of Jesus Christ. Then next one, a couple more examples.

Matthew brought up Rahab. It says Rahab, the mother of Boaz. This has trumped scholars for a while.

Rahab was from 150 to 200 years before Boaz. She was before they even got into the promised land.

This is at the time that they were going to destroy Jericho. This is before they got into the promised land, before the time of judges.

And so it's interesting that Matthew says, Rahab, the mother of Boaz, but what scholars think is basically, maybe his direct blood mother was related to Rahab.

That is to say, maybe Rahab, the prostitute, was Boaz's several times great -grandmother.

But that's how they often did it. When they say, Jesus, son of David, David's from generations past.

Oh, father Abraham, he's from generations past. So Rahab was like a mother to Boaz, and that's what

Matthew points out. But what about Rahab? She's this professional prostitute in the land of Jericho.

She gives herself, sells her body for money. What did she do?

She's a Gentile woman, by the way. You see, when Joseph and the Israelite spies came into the land to capture

Jericho, they hid in Rahab's home. Rahab, the prostitute, and despite being an immoral woman, she hid the men.

She hid the Hebrew men from the king of Jericho, and she saved their lives. The author of the book of Hebrews and the author of James in the

New Testament, these men say Rahab's actions are incredible.

They say she was a woman of faith. She was a woman who put faith specifically in Yahweh, in the

God of Israel. And so what happened in that moment in Joshua is everyone in Jericho was slaughtered.

Everyone except Rahab and her family. And you know what she got?

She's a Gentile prostitute, but you know what she got? They gave her land and a home in Israel.

They gave her land and a home in Israel. And what did she do? Did she ever go back to Jericho?

No, she became essentially an Israelite for life, for life.

And somehow Boaz in our book of Ruth that we've been going over is related to this woman.

She was a woman of faith. You see that in Joshua, it took a lot of faith. She put everything she had into faith in the

God of Israel by saving these men, and then everyone else died.

This is a prostitute in the line of Jesus Christ. A prostitute in the line of Jesus Christ.

What about the other woman mentioned? You have Bathsheba. Well, one time during the spring,

King David was supposed to be out to war. He was supposed to be out at the battle lines, but David, it says, stayed home instead.

Joab went for him. So David wasn't out doing his job. So what do you do when you're home and everyone else is at war?

He was experiencing leisure time, walking around the top of his king's home.

He was in the king's palace or king's home, king's house. He was walking around the roof of his house. What does he see?

Lo and behold, he sees a naked woman bathing on the roof of her house.

King David's already married. What does he do? He calls to his servants. He said, hey, find that woman, bring her to me.

And it says specifically that Bathsheba came to David.

We see a sense of willingness there. We see that they committed adultery.

David and Bathsheba committed adultery. And what did David do to hide his sin?

He ordered that Uriah the Hittite, the husband of this woman Bathsheba, he ordered this man to specifically go to the front lines, the front of the front lines.

And this man, do you remember this story? You guys know the story, right? Uriah was like so willing.

Remember even before that, he comes home and they're trying to make it look like he could lay with Bathsheba so that the child that's born is his son or daughter.

And Uriah's like, no, as the Lord lives, I'm not even gonna sleep with my wife. In fact, I'm not even gonna sleep in my home and experience any pleasures of my household.

I'll sleep on the ground with the rest of the army. And Uriah was just an amazing man.

And when they said, hey, will you go to the front lines? He was the kind of man who said, yeah, I'll fight for God at the front lines.

And he did die. He died. And the Bible called that murder. The Bible called what

David did murder, adultery and murder. And this is in the line of Jesus Christ, the

Messiah. The prophet

Nathan said that, David, you'll never rest from this point. You'll never get to be the one who gets to build me a temple.

You'll never get to be the one who has a real sense of peace. God said from that moment forward, you will always be fighting enemies.

You're constantly gonna be fighting. And that's what happened. He never got to rest. David lost his son with Bathsheba, the one that was conceived through adultery.

He lost that son. What happened after that? As his son started to grow, you had

Amnon. And Amnon committed incest with one of his sisters of a different mother.

One of David's sons committed incest to a half sister. And what does

Absalom do? Kills him. Now, David has a second son dead.

What happens now, fast forward a little after that, Absalom creates a conspiracy. He wants to overtake the throne from his father,

David. And so all of a sudden, David is in hiding again, like he was when King Saul was after him.

Absalom is starting to get pronounced in the Israelite culture. Absalom may steal the throne from his father.

What happens? Joab, the general of David's army, hated

David's son, Absalom. And he killed him. And David wept.

Three sons of David were killed prematurely. These people were in the line of Jesus Christ.

What happened after that? There was Solomon, who was the second son born of David and Bathsheba.

Solomon's mentioned here in our Matthew 1 genealogy. What happened to him? Well, it says that he asked the

Lord for wisdom. He got inherited the kingdom from his father, David. It was going well. God was pleased when he said, you didn't ask for riches.

You didn't ask for the best this or that. You didn't ask for the biggest army. You asked for wisdom.

And God was pleased and God gave him not only all the wisdom, but he gave him those other things as well.

And then all of a sudden, with his skills and his administration, Solomon ordered all these men and women and they got together and they built the first temple, not the tabernacle, not the cloth tabernacle, the first monumental temple of the living

God. And there's this moment where Solomon dedicates it and he prays to Yahweh and it's just glorious, glorious, glorious.

And then all of a sudden God's glory comes down from heaven and he goes into the temple and you see it shining,

Shekinah glory come out of the temple. Amazing, amazing moment. But what happened?

First Kings 11, what happened? Solomon took for himself up to a thousand wives and concubines and it said that he turned his heart from God, he turned his heart from Yahweh.

It says that he served idols. He started to serve Molech. He started to serve Chemosh.

He started to serve Ashtoreth, Poles and all other false gods. Why? Because Solomon disobeyed

Deuteronomy 17. What's Deuteronomy 17 says? It says the king, that man shall not multiply for himself wives.

Solomon became a polygamist against the orders of the living God. He became a polygamist.

He was not to multiply wives according to God. And these women left him, led him after other gods being from foreign countries.

So now besides prostitutes, besides fornicators, besides adulterers, besides murderers, you have an idolatrous polygamist in the line of Jesus Christ.

I think we see eventually in Ecclesiastes that as Solomon got older, he repented.

I believe that Solomon experienced the grace of God. I do.

All right, there's some more, you guys. I know I'm going through a lot today. There's some more. Let me go through them.

After that, you have the kingdom split. Solomon's son,

Rehoboam. Rehoboam was much the worst king in Judah ever since. The two before him.

Rehoboam listened to his young foolish friends instead of the elderly councilmen who were to his father.

Rehoboam listened to the buddies. Hey, buddies, what should I do? And they said, yeah, you should put more taxes and more labor and more things upon the nation.

And all of a sudden, the kingdom was split. Rehoboam got two southern kingdoms, and then the 10 northern kingdoms went up of Israel.

And at that point, they had their own king. You had Rehoboam was a king where he was.

After that, you had Asa. Asa was a good king in Judah after his father,

Rehoboam. He removed many of the cult practices, but you know what happened? Asa never tore down the high places that were put up.

He stopped a lot of the pagan practices, but he never tore down the high places. Jehoshaphat came after his father,

Asa. He's in the line as well. He did the same thing. He didn't do any cult practices, but he never tore down the high places.

A few generations after Jehoshaphat, you have Ahaz. Ahaz is also in the

Matthew 1 royal genealogy. He was the father of who? Hezekiah.

Well, 2 Kings 16 said Ahaz did not do what was right in the sight of the

Lord or like his father, David. Do you know what Ahaz did? Ahaz came along and they built this metal tower and they put a metal figure of a false deity and they would light these fires under the arms of this deity, these hot, hot fires, and they would make their children pass through it.

In fact, Ahaz the king came up to this idol with the fires and Ahaz put his own son into the fire and burned his child up in an offering to this demon.

Ahaz. Ahaz did that. He sacrificed his own son. It said he committed many abominations.

He even sacrificed animals and incense to idols. It's honestly incredible that his son is

Hezekiah. His son Hezekiah didn't go through the fire. His son Hezekiah survived.

Hezekiah was an amazing king, an amazing king. It says that when Hezekiah became king, he tore down everything that was pagan in Judah.

They stopped every pagan practice and he tore down the high places. He'd have none of it.

It says in the book of Kings that he trusted Yahweh. It says that he loved

Yahweh. He loved the Lord and he obeyed all of God's commandments. You know what even happened?

The people took the, they were so desperate for a false deity, they took the staff that belonged to Moses from centuries prior, the one that he turned into a bronze snake, and they started to worship the snake staff.

And so what did Hezekiah do? He came up, he broke that staff in half.

He broke it to pieces, burned it up. He wouldn't let anyone do false worship in the kingdom.

It was amazing. It was amazing. But even Hezekiah had moments of faithlessness, especially in the face of invasion from the

Assyrians. Okay? Now, after the fall of Israel, you have more bad kings in Judah.

All seemed lost. This is a hard time. All of a sudden prophets are coming.

The northern kingdom was already taken by Assyria. The 10 tribes are gone. Okay? At this point in time, the 10 tribes are gone from Assyria.

You just have two tribes. You have Judah left, and they're starting to get prophets going, guys, if you don't change, if you don't repent, you're going like the northern kingdom.

You're going into exile. Well, you know what happened? When all seemed lost, when even the word of God seemed lost, you know who came into the picture?

A young man, actually a boy, eight years old, took the throne. His name was

Josiah. Eight years old, Josiah took the throne in Judah, and he sent his priest and said, okay, priest, would you go count the offering?

Because we need to make repairs to the temple. And when his priest went down to count the offering for the repairs of the temple, you know what that priest found?

People thought it was lost forever. They found the word of God. They found the Pentateuch. They found the law of God.

They found what they did not know was there. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.

They hadn't seen it in a couple centuries. And this priest found the word of God, and he brought it up to this eight -year -old

Josiah king. And Josiah's like, oh my goodness. This is the word of the

Lord. We're gonna do everything this says. And you know what happened? Because a couple bad kings were before Josiah.

Well, Josiah looks at all these things. He tears down all the high places. There was even a prophecy centuries prior that a man named

Josiah would come, and he would take the false idol priests, and he would take these men, and they would kill these men.

These men who don't repent. They don't serve Yahweh. They serve false gods, Baal, Chemosh, Molech, you name it.

And Josiah took these men, he killed them, and he fulfilled prophecy, and he burned their bodies on their false altars, on the altars to these pagans.

And then after their ashes blew away, Josiah destroyed every single high place.

It was one of the most prosperous moments of revival in all of Judah's history.

Revival and reform came like never before. It says in 2

Kings 23, 25, before Josiah, there was no king like him who turned to the Lord with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his might, according to the law of Moses.

And there was no other human king like him. What a king!

But still, do you know what happened after Josiah? Did it stay like that? Did reform and revival continue?

It didn't. Even Josiah fixing that in his generation wasn't enough.

It wasn't enough. We need someone who will totally and completely eradicate sin.

And so what happened? Lawlessness crept back into the land. Lawlessness and evil and wickedness came back into the land, and Judah, of course, was finally exiled.

People of God were taken out of their birthright, out of their home. And the king they needed must live forever.

Josiah died, and they need one who will live forever, one who will be even more righteous than Hezekiah and Josiah and David.

So with all that said, these are just a sample of the imperfect and often evil men and women in the bloodline of Jesus Christ.

You say, Pastor Wade, what's your point with all these names? Why did we go over all these people?

Well, you see, I don't bring up these people and their names and what they did to defame

Jesus Christ. Like, oh, look, look at the dirty blood He comes from, okay? I bring them up because after comparing

Christ to these people, there is no doubt that He is the one we've all been waiting for.

He is the righteous one. Compared to them, Christ shines. Compared to these men and women,

Christ is like a lighthouse shining brightly in the blackest of storms on the ocean clifftop.

Christ is the beacon of light in the darkest of places. That's how

He looks compared to these people. He, in shining brilliance, is the one who alone that can defeat the world's biggest enemies that come from the garden, sin and the devil.

You see, these other people, they fought against sin and the devil, but they could never truly defeat them. We need someone who will fight against sin and the devil and will vanquish them for good, for good.

And so this is why the Holy Seed was pursued from Genesis 3. He was chased everywhere.

The bloodline, the devil always tried to come and chop the bloodline, stop salvation history, cut it off, but it never happened.

Nothing could stop him from coming. But this is also why so many of these people were enticed by sin, because the devil and their flesh wanted the bloodline to die.

So they were tempted by sin themselves, anything to stop Him from coming. But these are the exact type of people that He came to save, right?

Amen? These people in this bloodline are the exact type of people the Messiah came to save.

The faithless, the betrayer, the coward, the liar, the adulterer, the murderer, the fornicator, the prostitute, the polygamist, the pagan worshiper, and even the foreigner.

These are the type of people Christ came to save. And really, it shows that the perfect and holy

Son of God went to great lengths to save His people.

It shows humility, does it not? It shows the depths of His condescension when

He came from heaven, that He became a slave. Truly God and truly man,

Jesus was brought so very low so that we would be brought so very high. It's incredible.

One theological thing to mention real quick, by the way, I mentioned blood and bloodline, dirty blood.

Well, original sin wasn't communicated to Jesus because of the virgin birth by the conception of the

Holy Spirit. Jesus was sinless. He didn't start with dirty blood and became righteous.

Jesus was righteous from the beginning. And yet He's connected to these people in this genealogy.

Jesus is otherly, He is divine, He is God. He is, as Micah says, from the days of eternity.

As much as He is like these individuals in human flesh, Jesus Christ is completely different, and that's what we need.

That's what we need. The Messiah, do you get that?

The Messiah didn't just kind of get beamed down from heaven and all of a sudden it's like, I'm the Messiah, I'm here to save.

Jesus Christ came through this line. He came through this way.

This is such a great sense of humility. He came to be our Redeemer, our Goel. He became flesh like us.

It's as if by coming to earth, connected to all these individuals, the thread of salvation history is showing us that we can be saved too.

If Jesus can come through this bloodline and all these people are in this bloodline and they've done all these terrible things, then you and I can be saved too.

We can be saved too. Jesus is connected to Adam.

He's the better Adam. And we being connected to Adam can have Jesus deal with the sins that we've committed since the days of Adam.

Jesus is perfect in that sense. So let me go to my conclusion here.

You know, thinking back to the book of Ruth, one can't help but think how Ruth got to be in this bloodline of Jesus Christ.

How did Ruth, a Moabitess, get in this bloodline? Well, listen to this.

She isn't supposed to be. Hear me out here. Ruth isn't supposed to be in this position.

Deuteronomy 23, two through three says, no one born out of wedlock, nor anyone born from incest shall enter the assembly of the

Lord. None of his descendants, even to the 10th generation, shall they enter the assembly of the

Lord. And then it goes on to show who are the products of incest.

Lot had sexual relations with his daughter and in that incest, Ammon and Moab was born.

And those became two nations that always fought against Israel, pagan nations. And what does God say in Deuteronomy?

He continues, no Ammonite or Moabite shall enter the assembly of the

Lord. None of their descendants, even to the 10th generation, shall ever enter the assembly of the

Lord. So who does Ruth belong to? Moab.

She's a daughter of incest. She's a daughter of incest.

Now, some have astutely observed and articulated that, well,

Ruth is the 11th generation. She's just past that 10th generation that she's forgiven by basically having a timestamp expired.

Okay, God said, no Moabite shall enter the assembly. No one born of incest shall enter the assembly ever except by the 10th generation.

Well, if you understand again, once again, Hebrew grammar, what

God is trying to say here, 10 means completeness. 10 means that this will always be the case.

No child of incest, no Moabite will enter the assembly of the Lord. This is specifically a curse from God.

And there's no way, there's no way that a human can change or reverse a curse of God.

None. None. So how do you reverse the curse?

You see, you guys, Ruth wasn't saved because of good works to the law.

Ruth was saved and brought into the assembly of the Lord because there was one whom she had faith in who could reverse the curse.

She had faith in Yahweh. Christ must become a curse for Ruth.

He must become a curse for all of us. Jesus alone can break generational curses.

Ruth's faith in Yahweh as her redeemer was not a faith divorced from the son. God was triune then as he is now.

And so God's kindness, God has said, God's grace is the only thing, the only thing

I'm telling you that could bring Ruth to him in the end, his grace. And that was retroactively applied by Jesus Christ, the eternal

God who took on flesh. That is to say, if there was no

Jesus Christ, if there was no sacrifice of Jesus, the best there would be would be animal sacrifice that would only last a short amount of time.

And those animal sacrifices would only be good enough for ethnic Israel. That means most of us who are not

Jewish by blood would be lost. We would be lost.

The kindness of God in the book of Ruth is not just for ethnic Israel, it's for spiritual

Israel, made up of every tongue, tribe, people, and nation. The book of Ruth has not been about the redemption of two people,

Naomi and Ruth, but it's been about the redemption of a multitude of people. Ruth is a promise that the genealogy will reach its fulfillment to Jesus Christ.

You see, there's a big blank in my Bible after Ruth 4 .22, when the name of David ends, there's a blank.

And I believe that Jesus's name is supposed to be there. And so like Ruth, listen to this, we're almost done, like Ruth, the son of God left his home.

He left his father's throne above, like Ruth left her home. John 6,

Jesus has thrived. I've come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. This is the will of him who sent me, that all that he has given me,

I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day. Not only this, the other connection to the book of Ruth is the office of Goel, the office of kinsmen redeemer, needs a connection of family.

So is Jesus related to us? Well, Hebrews 2 .14 says this, therefore, since we share in flesh and blood, he likewise also partook of the same flesh and blood, that through death he might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is the devil.

So Jesus, although otherly and divine, he took on flesh. Why? We need a kinsmen redeemer who is also the same as us.

And yet he's totally God and totally man, but he can pay for sin for humans because he is also human.

What else? Paul tells the Ephesian church that Gentiles were excluded from the commonwealth of Israel.

We were all like Ruth. Ruth was excluded, strangers, foreigners, having no hope and having no

God in the world. Well, Ephesians 2 .13 through 14 says, but now in Christ Jesus, you who were formerly far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ, for he himself is our peace who made both groups into one and broke down the barrier of the dividing wall.

Like Ruth, you and I, Gentiles, got to come and be in the assembly of the

Lord. Like Boaz, Jesus was willing to redeem. Boaz was willing to do what he did.

And Hebrews 12 .2 says, who for the joy set before him,

Jesus Christ endured the cross, despising the shame and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God, who for the joy set before him,

Jesus did it willingly. Like Boaz did what he did willingly. Like Boaz, Jesus not only pays your debt, but he unites himself to you so that all his inheritance is yours as well.

When Ruth married Boaz, she got all that was Boaz's. When Jesus takes you and brings him to himself, he gives you his name and he gives you an inheritance and he gives you eternal life.

In him, we have also obtained an inheritance. We've been predestined according to his purpose.

And Jesus marries us. Jesus marries us, the widow, the adulterer, the fornicator, the idolater, people just like the ones in the bloodline that we just went over or worse.

Revelation 21 .9 says, come here, I will show you the bride, the wife of the lamb, the saints of God in Jesus Christ.

We have been married to him. There's so many other parallels in the book of Ruth, but I'm gonna finish on this, the word redeem.

We've talked about redemption a lot in the book of Ruth. In the

New Testament, the word redeem means to purchase completely from something. There's no longer any possession for the previous owner.

Galatians 3 says, Christ redeemed us from the curse of law. That means the curse of the law doesn't own us anymore.

Titus 2 says, he redeemed us from every lawless deed that we've committed. That means who you were and what you did doesn't own you anymore, it doesn't define you anymore.

Peter says that we were redeemed from our futile way of life by the blood of a precious lamb, unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ.

Brothers and sisters, God looks at you. God looks at you with greater love than Boaz looked at Ruth.

God looks at you with greater love than Boaz looked at Ruth. God saw that we had greater need than Boaz saw the need of this young woman,

Ruth. And so do we get it yet? Let me tell you the whole point of the book of Ruth.

The whole point is to say, kinship redemption is not enough.

It's not enough to just be redeemed in this life. You need to be redeemed for the next life.

Boaz will never give up on Ruth, but you know, God will never give up on you and me.

He will never leave us. He will never go back on the purchase he made. He spared his own son for you.

The perfect blood of his son was spilled for you and your previous owner gets none of you now.

That's what redemption means. Purchase, taken, new ownership. You are owned by the old man, the old woman, or that serpent, the devil.

The Lord loves you. The Lord gave his son for you. The Lord did more than kinship redemption for you.

And so as the book of Ruth said, for God has not left you without a redeemer today and tomorrow and forever.

That's the promise. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, Lord, we thank you for this message.

Lord, we thank you for your word. It's so rich and so full of truths that we need,

Lord. We see now, God, how the book of Ruth was an arrow pointing forward to Jesus Christ.

The redemption that we've always needed, that Jesus gave himself.

He did all the things that those in the bloodline did but better. He gave himself as a substitute.

He made war for us. He purchased us. He married us.

He's the one who rules with righteousness. He's the one who tears down all the high places.

He's the one who vanquishes sin and the devil and even death.

We know now that Jesus Christ is the one who never dies.

He is the one who is our perfect representative. And Lord, we believe in him and on him forever for eternal life.

So Lord, thank you for this series in the book of Ruth. Thank you, Lord, for what you've shown us in this today.

We give you all the glory in Jesus' name, amen. Thank you guys for hanging with me.

I know that was a long one. Very rich, very important to consider.

But before we take up the Lord's Supper, we have a baptism, praise God. And so why don't we have the individual coming up who's gonna be baptized.