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, Ammonadab, and to Ammonadab 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 field, 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 was 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 and 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? No, 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 is 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 to 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. Okay, 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 have 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, okay? 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's 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 Malon, 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 3, 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 4, 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 in your bulletin has it as well, Matthew 1, one through 17.

This is a continuation of the genealogy we just read in Ruth 4, 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. Ammon the father of 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 Shiathiel. Shiathiel, the father of Zerubbabel. Zerubbabel was the father of Abiud, and Abiud, the father of Eliakim. Eliakim, the father of Azor, and Azor, the father of Zadok.

Zadok, the father of Akhim, and Akhim, 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 going to culminate at the cross. Matthew says this is the record of the genealogy of Jesus, the Messiah.

In Hebrew, that means the Anointed One. And verse 1 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.

It 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 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, 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 going to 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 going to send her away. Oh, my goodness, you're pregnant. 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 going to mention him once more. Before Judah even performed the Leverant 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. 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 would 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.

Perez was born. The sin of selling his brother into slavery, that was past. 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 going to 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. It's interesting that Matthew says, Rahab, the mother of Boaz. 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.

That's how they often did it. When they say, Jesus, son of David, David's from generations past. Father Abraham, he's from generations past. 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.