Ruth 4 - Ten Generations of Rejects

Well, welcome back to our last episode in the Book of Ruth. And we are in Ruth for today. We've been going through a great God-written love story.

And it's a very interesting thing is, if you're reading through the Bible, you get Exodus and there's big, amazing stories, and there's different law codes in the end of Exodus, and in Leviticus, and Deuteronomy.

There's tragic stories in the Book of Numbers. You get all of the military exploits and how God does things that people could never in the Book of Joshua. You get all of the heartbreaks and the amazing victories that God has in the Book of Judges.

And all that way through, it's all very big tiered, national level things. And then you come to the Book of Ruth, and it's just a story of one family of two widows and how God orchestrated it so that the younger widow would find a husband.

And we'll see in just a moment why that is. As we've gone through chapters one, two, and three, we were introduced to Ruth. Ruth was a Moabitess, one that was not from a people group that worshiped God.

And a family from Bethlehem had moved to Moab. She had married one of their sons. He died.

And she went back to Israel and to the town of Bethlehem with her mother-in-law, who had also lost her husband and had lost her other son as well.

Once they got to Bethlehem, Naomi, the mother-in-law, went, okay, my life is embittered and, you know, there's really nothing for me anymore. And Ruth went out and she was a hard worker.

And she utilized the, if you will, kind of the government assistance program of the day that God had told the children of Israel to do.

And she happened to go to the field of a person that could redeem everything that had belonged to her late husband's family, one that was kind of nearer in relation. And we've talked about that before. We have our right marriage.

That someone could take care of a family member, specifically a widow, and make sure that all of those things that were a part of their family lineage, that it didn't just fade away forever, but that everyone would be cared for.

And so there was all of that taking place. Then, Ruth chapter three, Naomi finds out, oh yeah, she met this person.

And so she says, go to Boaz, this family redeemer, this kinsman redeemer, or possibly kinsman or family redeemer, and she says, I want you to ask him if he will redeem everything that belonged to our husbands through marrying you.

And so Ruth goes, she follows everything Naomi says. And Boaz, being the godly man that he was, says, I would love to do that.

However, there's one person that is closer in relation to your late husband, and so he gets, if you will, first choice, first right of refusal.

And he says, I'm gonna go and I'm gonna talk to this guy and if he does not redeem you, he says in verse number 13 of chapter three, if he wants to redeem you, that's good. Let him redeem you.

But if he doesn't want to redeem you, as he always lives, I will. And we talked about some of the ways in which that shows us Jesus and all of that. And now we finish the book starting with chapter four and verse number one.

Boaz went to the gate of the town and sat down there. This is where business happened in the towns in Israel. It happens at the gate as everyone's going in and out.

So soon the family redeemer Boaz had spoken about came by. Boaz said, come over here and sit down. So he went over and sat down.

Then Boaz took 10 men of the town's elders, the leaders and said, sit here. And they sat down.

He said to the redeemer, Naomi, who has returned from the territory of Moab, is selling the portion of the field that belonged to our brother Olimlech, our family member Olimlech. I thought I should inform you.

Buy it back in the presence of those seated here and in the presence of the elders of my people. If you want to redeem it, do it.

But if you do not want to redeem it, tell me so that I will know, because there isn't anyone other than you to redeem it, and I am next after you. So he starts off with, hey, like, do you want, do you want the field?

Do you want these pasture places that belonged to Alimelech? And the man says, I want to redeem it, he answered.

Then Boaz said, on the day you buy the field from Naomi, you will acquire Ruth the Moabitess, the wife of the deceased man, to perpetuate the man's name on his property. So now Boaz gives the second part.

He goes, okay, you get the field, you also get the wife. And he reminds him, hey, this is a Moabitess, and if you remember from, I know I mentioned it in the last episode, I think it might have been the Book of Deuteronomy.

Someone that intermarried with a Moabite, or an Ammonite, or one of the Philistines, their children could not enter into the Tabernacle, later the temple structure, for up to 10 generations.

So he's telling him, and not only will that like impact, you know, your worship and things like that. He says also, your kids will basically be raised in the name of this other person.

So it won't be, what's interesting here is the family redeemer's name isn't mentioned. The implication is he was so concerned about perpetuating his name, but yet his name is forgotten.

And Boaz, who is technically following in the line of Elimelech, or the line of Killian, and who basically said, it's totally fine, I want to do right by her and by Naomi. I'm not looking in it for raising up my own name.

His is the name that we remember, and his is the name that we read about. So the redeemer replied in verse number six, I can't redeem it myself or I will ruin my own inheritance. Take my right of redemption because I can't redeem it.

He says, then it'll be like, oh yeah, this was all Elimelech's land, and it continues in Elimelech's lineage, not this family redeemer's lineage.

Verse number seven, at an earlier period in Israel, a man removed his sandal and gave it to the other party in order to make any matter legally binding concerning the right of redemption or the exchange of property.

This was the method of legally binding a transaction in Israel. Give you my shoe. So the redeemer removed his sandal and said to Boaz, buy back the property yourself.

Boaz said to the elders and to all the people, you are witnesses today that I am buying from Naomi everything that belonged to Elimelech, Killian, and Malone. I have also acquired Ruth the Moabitess, Malone's widow.

I misspoke earlier and said Killian's widow. As my wife to perpetuate the deceased man's name on his property so that his name will not disappear among his relatives or from the gate of his hometown, you are witnesses today.

He says, I am buying back everything that death had taken from this family, everything that famine had taken. He says, it's all returning back to the family name.

Verse 11, all the people who were at the city gate, including the elders said, we are witnesses. May Yahweh make the woman who is entering your house like Rachel and Leah, who together built the house of Israel.

May you be powerful in Ephrata and your name well-known in Bethlehem. May your house become like the house of Peres, the son Tamar bore to Judah because of the offspring Yahweh will give you by this young woman.

So here they give a blessing and they say, hey, like may God, here these are descendants of Judah, descendants of Peres, descendants of Leah.

So all of those things are drawn in like, hey, our ancestors, they had lots of kids, and they made our, if you will, they made our great nation and all the people that are in our nation and in our tribe.

And may God bless you and your wife with that, that you would have many children.

What's interesting here is Ruth is, the implication given, especially with some of the names that are given, is that there was a barrenness prior before that her and her husband at no point had kids.

And so even mentioning Rachel and Leah, both of whom at times were unable to have kids at times.

And so there's also some of that implication there, or if you look at, it says the house of Peres, the son Tamar bore to Judah, that Tamar wasn't able to have kids with her two husbands that both died because of their wickedness before the Lord.

And so God gave her Peres and his brother through Judah. And so there's a question mark that's there of, why didn't Ruth have kids at some point before? It was, again, not in a necessarily God-ordained way.

If this is the only thing women are good for, but it would have been very abnormal back in this day and age for someone to be married and to not have kids. It was kind of the expectation. If you're married, you're having children.

So this is then what we see in verse number 13. Boaz took Ruth and she became his wife. He slept with her and Yahweh granted conception to her, and she gave birth to a son.

The woman said to Naomi, blessed be Yahweh, who has not left you without a family redeemer today. May his name become well-known in Israel. He will renew your life and sustain you in your old age.

Like, he's going to breathe new life into you because you now have this baby in your family. They say, indeed, your daughter-in-law who loves you and is better to you than seven sons has given birth to him.

Naomi took the child, placed him on her lap, and became his nanny. The neighbor woman said, a son has been born to Naomi, and they named him Obed. He was the father of Jesse, the father of David.

Man, what a great thing here. Though it looks like one little family, it's planting the seeds for David, the greatest king of Israel, the promised ancestor of the Messiah, the king who would reign on David's throne forever.

This is his family lineage. It doesn't come from the greatest or the simplest line. It comes from a long line of difficult circumstances.

And the book ends in verses 18 through 22 with something that I want to highlight. Here, there's a genealogy, something we would often skip over. It says this, now, these are the family records of Perez.

Perez fathered Hezron, Hezron fathered Ram, Ram fathered Amenadab, Amenadab fathered Nashon, Nashon fathered Salman, Salman fathered Boaz, Boaz fathered Obed, Obed fathered Jesse, Jesse fathered David. Okay. Why this genealogy?

It shows us God's love and God's care and also God's perfect timing. So Perez was the son of Judah, and he was one that was born out of trickery and deceit and wickedness that his father had hired his mother as a prostitute.

His mother had disguised herself because she had been married to two of Judah's sons, but because of their wickedness, God had killed them because they were so evil. Judah had a third son who had to grow up a little bit before he could marry Tamar.

But when it was time for when the son was old enough to have married Tamar, Judah didn't give him. And the implication is he had a fear like, oh, what if this was really her fault and not my son's fault?

And so Tamar, she disguised herself as a prostitute. And she sat by a side of the road that she knew Judah was going to pass by. Judah was not a good person and he hired her and he slept with her.

But then a couple months later, he heard from the servants, oh, your daughter-in-law Tamar is pregnant. And he was irate and he was like, but she's supposed to be promised to my third born son.

And so he goes, all right, you guys need to take her and she needs to be burned because she was supposed to be for this son that he refused to give her to.

And so then she sends basically the payment items to Judah and says, hey, this is the person whose kids I'm having. And Judah goes, oh, I was really in the wrong. She's been more righteous than I was.

Now, Tamar was a Philistine woman. She was one of the Canaanites. And as I mentioned earlier, those children of Canaanites or Philistines or Ammonites or Moabites, they could not go into the sanctuary.

They couldn't be in that congregation for up to 10 generations. And here's what we read in Ruth 4. We've got Peres, that's what Generation 1.

Hezron, that's 2, Ram is 3, Amenadab is 4, Nashon is 5, Salman is 6, and Salman married Rahab the harlot that we read about in Joshua 2. So that's a... they already can't go in the congregation into that area because of Perez way back when the son...

so 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, Salman fathered Boaz, that's 7, Boaz fathered Obed, that's 8, Obed fathered Jesse, that's 9, and then Jesse fathered David, and that's that 10th generation.

So all the way through here, God is working like generations back to be able to say, hey, here's the beautiful picture that I'm painting for you, that these people, especially as you look at Salman, as you look at Boaz, these are people that didn't

care about their status, that they loved people who loved God, that Rahab, the harlot, someone that people would despise and not want anything to do with, she was one that loved God, and God put her in the ancestry of Jesus Christ. Here you have Boaz

that didn't care about his own inheritance. He cared about doing good for Naomi and for Ruth, and God put him in the ancestry of Christ. And then you have David.

What's really interesting too, two things, number one, that David's son Solomon is the one that builds the temple itself. What's also very interesting is Solomon and Solomon's brother Nathan were both sons of Bathsheba.

Now, I know at one point I'm going to go through the Book of Second Samuel, chapter 11 in particular, and 12, and look at that story. I know I've mentioned it a few times before, but I want to say this.

What's really interesting is Uriah the Hethite, which was one of the groups in Canaan that could not be intermarried with. They were not supposed to be in the worship of God.

All of that, like it was a condemned group that was supposed to be destroyed, and Israel did not destroy them, did not drive out the Hethites, but Uriah was one that believed in the God of Israel, that followed him, that fought for God's people, that

loved God's people, and did what was right. And God took this man who was from a condemned people group, but because of his love for God, he's mentioned in the genealogies of Christ.

Like it wasn't that Solomon or Nathan was his son, it was, you know, he died, David had him killed so that then he could have Bathsheba, but Uriah's name is still mentioned.

And as you look at the Old Testament, and as you look at the New Testament reflecting back, over and over again, we're reminded, it's not your genealogy, it's not what your parents did that endears you to the Lord.

Instead, like if you love God, God loves you, like he is for you, he will bring you blessing, and it doesn't matter if you're one of the condemned, God has forgiveness, God has love for you.

You look at the story of Jonah, it's a great illustration of that.

Hey, here's this city of wickedness set aside for destruction, and yet when they repented, God spared them, even though it angered the righteous, you can't see it on the audio podcast, but I'm putting air quotes around it, the righteous Jonah, that

God has love and forgiveness for everyone. As 2 Peter 3 would say, God is not willing that any would perish, but that all would come to repentance. And today, God sees you.

If you're like Naomi, if you're embittered in spirit, God sees you, and he wants to bring that grace of Jesus, that joy back into your life. It may take some seasons, but keep on running to him. Don't run from him.

Maybe you're like Ruth, and you've undergone bad circumstances. Continue following the Lord. Continue joining yourself with God's people.

Don't isolate yourself away from God's people. Join up with them. You don't know how God might bless.

Listen to those that are giving you good godly advice as Naomi gave to Ruth later in the book, not when she told her, hey, go back to your father's house and to your family's gods. That part wasn't good, but the rest of the advice was good.

Maybe you're like Boaz. Don't be afraid to do good for others, even if it means you don't really come out on top, that you haven't orchestrated the art of the deal. Have a love and a care for others, and let that overflow in your actions.

In all of it, we can see Jesus so clearly, that Jesus is the one, he bought us back, he's redeemed us, not with corruptible things like silver or gold or money. He gave his own life for us. And if he loved us that much, may we live for him.

May we realize God is working behind the scenes, that those condemned and shut out are making way for God's like greatest love in the Old Testament. In King David, the one who was after, who was pursuing God's own heart, the sweet psalmist of Israel.

May we realize that we are never too far from God. God has not abandoned us. He might just be working an amazing love story behind the scenes.

So, don't run from him, run to him. Thanks for tuning in to the Book of Ruth. And I hope it's been an encouragement to you.

And it's one of my favorite stories of Scripture. And I love getting to walk through it over the past couple of days with you. But looking forward to tomorrow's study.

To be completely honest with you, I haven't yet decided what it's going to be. So, when I open tomorrow, or when you see the title, you'll go, oh, OK, that's what he picked. But thanks for journeying through the Book of Ruth here on Tabernacle Talk.