Our Kinsman Redeemer

If you would, please open up your Bibles with me to Ruth Chapter 4. We're going to bring closure to a book that has hopefully been a blessing to you, and I've learned a ton from it.

May God bless it. Ruth Chapter 4. I'm going to be reading from the NIV. My Bible is size 14 point, so I can read it.

I think I'm going to go up to 16 here soon. Ruth Chapter 4. Hear the reading of God's Word, and may it be a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path. Meanwhile, Boaz went up to the town gate and sat there. When the kinsman redeemer he had mentioned came along, Boaz said, Come over here, my friend, and sit down. So he went over and sat down. Boaz took ten of the elders of the town and said, Sit here.

And they did so. Then he said to the kinsman redeemer, Naomi, who has come back from Moab, is selling a piece of land that belonged to our brother Elimelech. I thought I should bring the matter to your attention and suggest that you buy it in the presence of those seated here and in the presence of the elders of my people. If you will redeem it, do so.

But if you will not, tell me, so I will know. For no one has the right to do it except you, and I am next in line. I will redeem it, he said. Then Boaz said, On the day you buy the land from Naomi and from Ruth the Moabitess, you acquire the dead man's widow in order to maintain the name of the dead with his property. At this, the kinsman redeemer said, Then I cannot redeem it, because I might endanger my own estate. You redeem it yourself, I cannot do it. Now in the earlier times in Israel, for the redemption and transfer of property to become final, one party took off his sandal and gave it to the other.

This was the method of legalizing transactions in Israel. So the kinsman redeemer said to Boaz, Buy it yourself, and he removed his sandal. Then Boaz announced to the elders and all the people, Today you are witnesses that I have bought from Naomi all the property of Elimelech, Killian, and Malon. I have also acquired Ruth the Moabitess, Malon's widow, as my wife, in order to maintain the name of the dead with his property, so that his name will not disappear from among his family and from the town records. Today you are witnesses.

Then the elders and all those at the gate said, We are witnesses. May the Lord make the woman who is coming into your home like Rachel and Leah, who together built up the house of Israel. May you have standing in Ephrathah and be famous in Bethlehem. Through the offspring the Lord gives you by this young woman, may your family be like that of Perez, whom Tamar bore to Judah. So Boaz took Ruth and she became his wife. Then he went into her and the Lord enabled her to conceive and she gave birth to a son. The women said to Naomi, Praise be to the Lord, who this day has not left you without a kinsman redeemer. May he become famous throughout Israel.

He will renew your life and sustain you in your old age, for your daughter-in-law who loves you and who is better to you than seven sons has given him birth. Then Naomi took the child, laid him in her lap and cared for him. The women living there said, Naomi has a son and they named him Obed. He was the father of Jesse, the father of David. This then is the family line of Perez.

Perez was the father of Hezron, Hezron the father of Ram, Ram the father of Amenadab, Amenadab the father of Nashon, Nashon the father of Salmon, Salmon the father of Boaz, Boaz the father of Obed, Obed the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of David. Let us pray. Dear Heavenly Father, we're so thankful that you have given us your word that we might see clearly not only your love for your people, but your faithfulness to your promises in and through your son and our Lord Jesus to a people who are undeserving, who are sinful and have turned against you. But by your grace, Lord, and by your mercy, you have softened our hearts and opened our eyes and given us a love, an everlasting love as a deposit through your Holy Spirit that we would live for you and honor you and glorify you. I pray, Father, that you would bless the ministry of your word now, speak through me, calm my worries or my anxieties. I do pray, Father, that your word would be clear, Father, that it would be receptive by all. And, Father, we would walk out from this place bright lights and salt in a dark world. In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen. I do want to take a minute and look at the text. For those of you who are new, what I like to do is break it down so that you can see where I'm going, what the text has to say.

I do all sorts of kind of work. I write it down so that I can work with it and I can outline it and I can see it. I'm a visual type learner person. And I want you to see what I see so that it'll be a little bit clearer because sometimes when we're looking and reading in our word and it's in paragraph form and other people have annotated and moved things around, sometimes it's hard to grasp. But for me, this helps.

So I want to try and be as helpful as possible to you. The text is split up essentially in a couple ways. First of all, verses one through six, essentially you have a court setting. You have Boaz gathering the elders, seating them, and then you have the situation or the problem that he has gathered everybody together and the redeemer to resolve this problem, so to speak. In verses seven and eight you have a resolution and then in the end you have a response by the witnesses, those people who are seeing. So in verse nine it says, Boaz said to them, you are witnesses. And in verse 11, the response of the people, we are witnesses.

So it's a courtroom type of environment at the city gate. The response or what comes as a response to this courtroom setting is in verse 13 you have the marriage of Boaz and Ruth. And then you have, in verses 14 through 17a, you have the blessing of Naomi. So as a result of Boaz becoming the kinsman redeemer, the result is he marries Ruth and Naomi is blessed. And then following that there's a third response and that is a fulfillment of the lineage, the genealogy that takes us all the way to David.

So you have the situation and then you have a series of responses as a result of that event in the courtroom. So what I'm going to do is talk to you specifically about Boaz the Redeemer and then we're going to turn and we're going to look to Jesus as the application, Jesus our kinsman redeemer. Last year, I had already preached the first sermon and I was about to preach the chapter two when everything because of COVID was shut down. In the year 2020 of our Lord, America was shut down. It wasn't just this church, if you remember, it was by the government and many were afraid to meet because of the virus. So that the church militant, that is us, the people of God, the church of Jesus Christ was not allowed to gather to celebrate the resurrection of our Lord and our Savior Jesus Christ.

Take that into consideration. I don't think that's ever happened. Even the black plague or whatever you had in the past, that has never happened where the church was not allowed by the government for health reasons to gather together and worship our Lord. But 2,000 years ago, there was no crowd gathered to witness the resurrection either. But that did not stop the Father from raising his son from the dead to claim victory over sin, death and the grave for us. Jesus, up from the grave he arose despite the loneliness of his mission. He arose from the grave after everyone had abandoned him and even his father had rejected him.

Jesus rose from the grave even though there was no applause. It was a solitary, serene moment in time, so to speak. The seasons were changing. Spring had sprung. You can look outside and kind of transfer this environment to the desert over there. Spring had sprung.

The air was wet with dew and the smell of blossoms was pungent in the desert air. When no one was watching after sunrise on the third day, out from the grave he arose. Not a mere man, but fully God and fully man. Clothed in righteousness and the glory of the living God, stepping out from the grave, nothing could have held him back.

Not even the stone in front of the tomb. But by the power of the Father in heaven he was raised to new life so that everyone who would believe in him as well could be raised to new life. We have experienced that first resurrection, those who have been born again, born again to new life. In Christ we have been raised to that new life, to that newness of life in him. It's because of the resurrection, the gift of everlasting life that we possess now through the Holy Spirit that we long in our hearts for our heavenly home.

This world is not our home. God has placed a deposit in our hearts and a guarantee of better things that we set our eyes on things above and not on things of this earth. Because of the resurrection, there will be a happy ending. We have confidence because there will be a happy ending. We know because of the Scriptures and what they proclaim and because of the Spirit in our hearts that there will be a happy ending. In the last chapter of the book of Ruth, we have a happy ending similar to the hope that we have in Christ. In the storyline there was tragedy, there's redemption, and everyone lives happily ever after.

And the same applies to us. There was tragedy in the beginning. We've experienced that redemption and everyone's going to live happily ever after one day. So in our final chapter we see not only how Boaz becomes the kinsman redeemer preserving the lineage of David, but ultimately how Jesus is our kinsman redeemer securing redemption for his beloved so that whoever would believe on him would have everlasting life. My point or what you should take away from the text this evening in relationship to chapter four is just as Boaz becomes the kinsman redeemer, so Jesus becomes our kinsman redeemer.

Let me review just briefly for some of you who have not been through with me chapters one through three and simply put very briefly in chapter one we have a tragedy which is essentially the setting the stage for the rest of the book. For chapter four the redemption and ultimately a provision by God, by God's providence. In chapter two we have God's obvious providential hand directing Ruth to Boaz's field. In chapter three we have Naomi's matchmaking, taking matters into her own hands, essentially seeing the opportunity in Boaz, how God has brought Boaz into their lives. There's a favorableness in Ruth as well and recognizing by the blessings that she's brought home there's a connection and his love and care for Naomi as well for Ruth that maybe there's something going on here.

So she didn't sit back and just wait, she took initiative to bring these two together. At the end of chapter three verse 18 it says, Naomi replied, wait my daughter until you learn how the matter turns out for the man will not rest, but will settle the matter today. So that's our transitional text into our chapter we're waiting with anticipation, because Boaz has led Ruth to believe that today I'm going to resolve this matter.

And she requested that he marry her or she was interested in having him be her husband. In chapter two Naomi remarked that Boaz was one of their kinsmen redeemers. It turns out in chapter three Boaz confirmed that there was another kinsman redeemer, he called him in my text it says brother, the idea is that he's a relative, it's not very clear what relation he has to Boaz, but he's definitely older and he's first in line.

So that's the problem essentially that needs to be resolved. Boaz is going to approach this man to see whether or not he wants to be the kinsman redeemer or he wants to give that opportunity so to speak to him. So first of all our first point is that Boaz is the kinsman redeemer. In our text it shows that he went to the city gate. The city gate at the time, even back all the way with Moses, was defined as the place where the elders would meet to hold court and they would resolve problems within Israel. There was a situation in the book of Deuteronomy that far back, there was a need or a problem with a young man, a young child, I guess an adolescent so to speak, and they brought him to the elders at the gate. In Proverbs 31 verse 23 it says as well, speaking of the gate and the place where court was held, her husband, speaking of the godly woman's husband, is respected at the city gate where he takes his seat among the elders of the land.

You can picture a city gate being narrow so when people come into the gate it's a place of defense as well as a place where important people would meet, you could see people coming in, you could see people going out. Everyone was aware that this was happening, this meeting, when the elders gathered you would have an audience in the background watching and observing what was going on. He waited, it says here, for the kinsman redeemer who was passing by. It's interesting in our text, this kinsman redeemer in Hebrew, this is cool, his name is unmentionable.

What that means is that it was not designated who he was in relationship to the family, but in Hebrew the word, the name that was given to him was Mr. Poloni Almoni. Doesn't that sound funny? I thought that was kind of funny. I wasn't sure if it was an onomatopoeia, you know an onomatopoeia is kind of like Itzhak. The word means what it sounds like, laughter, you know, Itzhak. I don't know, onomatopoeia is a funny name for a guy who's supposed to be a man with no name, so to speak, you know.

Rhythmic, you know, but I think there's really a play on words here, I couldn't figure it out myself, but I like it, Mr. Poloni Almoni. When Mr. Poloni Almoni was seated, he gathered around the elders as the court. You essentially have the man that you're going to interact with, and then you have the people who are observing who are going to make the judgments. Those were the judges, and if you think back with Moses, when he was busy handling all the law, his father-in-law Jethro told him, no, you need to appoint other men to help you so that you're not going to be overburdened, and then the cases that they can't handle, they will come up to you.

So as we talk about this situation in just a second, you're going to realize that the judges have to take the law and apply it to specific situations, and that's what happens here in this situation. So look at verse 3, then he said to the kinsman redeemer, Naomi has come back from the land of Moab, has to sell a piece of land which belongs to our brother Elimelech. That is a huge surprise.

That's lights going off. So far in the book of Ruth, we've heard nothing about land, poverty, debt, a need for a kinsman redeemer to bail out Naomi out of hock, so to speak. That's a very big surprise. We hear for the first time that it has to do with land. Up to this point, we thought that there was kind of a warm relationship between Ruth and Naomi that was going on, and that's kind of what was being resolved here, but lo and behold, surprise, the author brings this up, no, it's all about land.

We don't know it, but Boaz did because he brings it up here. She is selling her land, and this is what we're here to deal with. And the man says, ah, ah, Mr. Poloni-Almoni says, ah, I'm in.

I'm all in. I'm looking for an opportunity to benefit. Anybody's looking for a fiscal raise, so to speak. He's looking for a profit.

He is looking to better himself and his future and his family. There's a benefit to him taking on this because as soon as he pays, he's going to essentially be purchasing his relative, Elimelech, whatever, I would say his brother, his brother Elimelech's land and property and responsibility. But, look at it says in verse 5, then Boaz said, on the day you buy the field, though, from the hand of Naomi, Ruth the Moabite is the wife of the deceased you acquire. And there he drops the bomb on him. I think that's really, the surprise causes him to pause and step back and consider the profit that he was going to make now has suddenly vanished.

Why has this profit vanished? Because as soon as he acquires Ruth, his obligation is going to become to marry her and to bear children, which ultimately is going to produce hopefully an heir and the heir is going to inherit the land, not him. So in other words, he would be putting out from his finances to rescue this relative of his, but in the end, the return is a financial loss. Some other commentaries have said, well, his wife wouldn't have liked it either, but either way, whether his life wouldn't have liked him marrying or taking on the responsibility of Ruth or whether it was the land, at this point, he steps back and says, I don't think I'm going to be able to do this.

So at first, this is where the problem in our text kind of builds for us. It causes us to think about, well, at first we thought that this was all about levered marriage, as I mentioned earlier, but now it seems like it's a kinsman redeemer or is it a kinsman redeemer levered marriage issue? What is the laws pertaining to resolving this problem? In Deuteronomy chapter 25, beginning in verse 5, I think I've spoken in the past briefly about levered marriage, but I want to touch on it right now. It says in Deuteronomy 25 verse 5 and following, if the brothers are living together and one of them dies without a son, his widow must not marry outside the family. Her husband's brother shall take her and marry her and fulfill the duty of her brother-in-law to her. The first son she bears shall carry on the name of the dead brother so that his name will not be blotted out from Israel. However, if a man does not want to marry his brother's wife, she shall go to the elders of the town gate and say, my husband's brother refuses to carry on his brother's name in Israel. He will not fulfill the duty of her brother-in-law to me. Then the elders of the town shall summon him, talk to him, and if he persists in saying, I don't want to have anything to do with her, his brother's widow shall go up to him in the presence of the elders, take off one of his sandals, and spit in his face and say, this is what is done to the man who will not build up his brother's family line. Then the man's line shall be known in Israel as the family of the unsandled. So, mixed up in the law here in this whole situation is in the background is a law of levered marriage and the law of kinsman redeemer. And the kinsman redeemer, he's just supposed to buy out his family member in case they were in debt, they had sold themselves into slavery, something to that extent.

In this case, there's a couple problems. Ruth is not here. It's just Boaz and the elders in front of the audience. So if this is a case of levered marriage, where's Ruth? She has to be there to say someone's not willing to fulfill, do that whole, it's called the chaletzah, this whole symbolic event, but she's not here.

There is not going to be any spitting. What do we find that's going on here? We have to remember that the law is, Paul said to the Galatians, a pedagogy. The law is a school teacher to lead us to Christ. The law is good in helping us to define situations, but sometimes the situations are out of bounds. It's not exactly as the law describes.

Not every situation is going to be perfect or ideal, easy to handle. It's going to be clear cut. That's why the judges and the elders are most likely here because there's something going on here.

We've got land and we've got this young woman who's married to Malon, but really it all has to do with Elimelech and Naomi, but Naomi's too old, and so what's the relationship to Ruth to this whole situation? Can you see how convoluted this is? It says in verse 7, This was the custom in the former times in Israel concerning the redemption and exchange of land to confirm a matter. A man removed his sandal and gave it to another, and this was the manner of attestation in Israel. So the kinsman redeemer said to Boaz, buy it for yourself, and he removed his sandal. There was no spitting at all.

What's interesting, you might be asking yourself, why was the spitting, what does that have to do with? Well this whole event is very interesting because in our text in chapter 4 it mentions Perez. Perez is the son of Judah and Tamar. Judah and Tamar, Judah, one of the 12 tribes, had three sons. He had Eir, Onan, and Sheila. Eir was wicked, he got a wife for his son Eir. Eir was wicked inside the Lord, so the Lord put him to death. The responsibility fell to Onan.

Do you know the story? Onan didn't want to fulfill his obligation, so he spilled a seed. That's where the spitting action comes from. And the Halitzah, this Jewish tradition, she doesn't spit in his face, she spits on the ground. But the idea is that was displeasing in the sight of the Lord because he was not willing to fulfill the leverage marriage obligation. So in this case, it still brings up a question that many scholars debate over.

Well he just passes the shoe. There is no spitting act and there is no Ruth. So it has to do with land, but yet on the backside of that, the person acquires Ruth.

So you see this whole conundrum of events that are going on. In the end, he marries Ruth. He becomes the kinsman redeemer and he marries Ruth.

Look what this text says there in verse 13. It says, So Boaz took Ruth, and she became his wife, and he went to her. And the Lord enabled her to conceive, and she gave birth to a son.

There's providence again. She was married to Malon. Did they conceive?

No. In fact, she came back with Naomi, barren. There was no heir to the family line, so to speak, through Malon. But here God, who can open the womb and who can close the womb, opens her womb so that they have this son Obed. Then in verses 14 through 17, we have this response, this Naomi is blessed.

And look what it says in verses 14 through 17. The women said to Naomi. Now you would think they would say to Ruth because she's conceived and given birth to a male, to a son.

Someone to inherit and continue the family line. No, they say to Naomi. Blessed is the Lord who has not left you without a redeemer today, and may his name become famous in Israel. May he also be to you a restorer of life, sustainer of your old age, for your daughter-in-law who loves you better than seven sons has given birth to him.

That's the key. She's given birth to him. Who is this redeemer? This Goel that she's given birth to? It's her son. It's not Boaz, whom you would think.

It's kind of confusing here. No, she's given birth to Obed, who is essentially her redeemer, who is going to provide for her in the end. Yes, Boaz is there as the son-in-law, and he is going to provide for her. But the joy she was who was once bitter, who was empty, is now returning to being pleasant and happy because she has a baby on her lap. When her hope was dashed, when her family, this tragedy, and she lost her husband and her two sons, and she was in a cul-de-sac of life and nowhere to turn. She was depressed and nowhere to turn except for up, and even by looking to the Lord, she's like, why is this happening to me? Has seen God orchestrate events to even to this point, he opens up the womb of Ruth so that she gives birth to a son.

Isn't that glorious? God is orchestrating and weaving in and out his blessings. The women cry out that she is blessed. Yahweh has come to her rescue and a son is born to Naomi. Not to Ruth, but to Naomi. It makes you want to go back to the whole book and think, Ruth only has one sentence there, verse 13. And you have this big couple paragraphs about Naomi.

Is the book really about Ruth or is it about Naomi? Because Naomi is in the background weaving and orchestrating and bringing people together and she knows what's going on. She knows the family relations and she knows about Mr. Paloni Almoni. And she knows about Boaz, who's more likable and probably closer to age, and there's a connection there between the two.

She's trying to work things out. Let me say this, Boaz is a type of Christ. As in the previous chapters, he shows a chesed, loving kindness. That's a covenantal love of God. He shows a mercy and a grace to Ruth and to Naomi by providing and protecting her.

He shows the same mercy to Naomi by providing food for her, communicating with her through Ruth that he's willing to take care of them. Then he buys the land. He purchases the land, the debt. He pays that debt securing the family line and taking care of them. He marries Ruth, the Moabites, who is like to us a Gentile and grafted into Israel. And then he secures the family line, the heritage to King David.

That's what Boaz is. He's a type of Christ. When you look at the Book of Ruth, it's a happy ending, isn't it? That happy ending is similar to ours. We might have tragedy, but God has brought about redemption for us that we might be saved. Even amidst this world, though we have to walk through the valley of the shadow of death, he's given us spiritual eyes to see the celestial city. He's given us his word.

He's given us fellowship so that we might persevere to the very end. Our second point is that Jesus is our kinsman redeemer. He's the fulfillment of that type. If Boaz is a stamp, he's a copy of the coin, then Jesus is the original.

He's the anti-type. Jesus is. Boaz is a figure that causes us to look to Christ.

Now they might not have seen that in him, but the author did, and I'm going to get to that in just a second. The author of the Book of Ruth. Just as Boaz redeemed Naomi and Ruth, so does Jesus redeem his people. Who are, and I got three points under Jesus our redeemer.

The first is that we are all sold into slavery. Jesus our redeemer rescues us. We are like Naomi in the respect, and Ruth, that we've had this tragedy occur to our lives. She lost her family. She lost her legacy. She had lost hope. She had lost financial comfort. She had lost her pride, her steam, her pleasantness.

She had become bitter and sour. We too have all been sold into slavery. We've all been cut off and displaced. We're all born outside of the garden, every one of us. We're all born into sin. The sin of Adam has been transferred to our accounts, and we have compounded that sin to prove our unworthiness. We've all sinned, as the scriptures say, and fallen short of the glory of God. In Psalm 53 it says, they are all corrupt. Their ways are vile. There is no one who does good.

God looks down from heaven on the sons of men to see if there are any who understand, any who seek God. Everyone is turned away. They've all become corrupt.

There is no one who does good, not even one. We find all of ourselves in that camp. It's not just you, it's me. Excuse me. We're the ones who rejected Christ, as Doug said this morning. We were out there in the crowds rejecting him, calling out for Barabbas. It was our sin that hung him on the cross. Consider how great your sin is, my sin, individually.

Contemplate the great penalty for our sin that has separated us from a holy and loving God who cannot stand the presence of iniquity. It was our sin, not just the sin of other people, people from the past, but God's people today in the future that caused the Lamb of God to be slain on the cross. So because of this covenantal faithfulness, God made a promise in the beginning. He made a covenant. They call it the Adamic Covenant, that he would redeem him. In Genesis chapter 3 verse 15, God made a promise to deliver his people. Even if they should turn away from sin, God would send his son in the fullness of time.

And that's what happened. This is our second point. Jesus becomes our kinsman redeemer. Now the word in Hebrew for kinsman redeemer is just one word. It's a solitary word, goel. But in English, when we translate it, it's two words.

And each word has a singular point of application for each one of us. Jesus becomes our kinsman. God didn't abandon us. He didn't abandon his beloved. Despite our sin, he loved her.

So we sin as one and only son. C.S. Lewis in his book, The Joyful Christian, has little chapters if you like C.S. Lewis.

They're great to read one a day. There's one there on incarnation and he wrote, He comes down, speaking of Jesus, down from the heights of absolute being into time and space, down into humanity, down further still, if embryologists are right, to recapitulate in the womb ancient and pre-human phases of life, down to the very roots in the sea bed of nature, he was created. Jesus becomes a relative. He becomes a human being like one of us to make atonement. He had to become a human being from the Immaculate Conception to the point where he overcomes the temptation by the devil as the second Adam to secure, essentially, a place for us. In order to pay the penalty for our sin, which is death, he had to become like us in every way to pay that debt. The author of Hebrews says in chapter 2 verses 14 through 18, Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity, so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death, that is the devil, and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.

For surely it is not Angel he helps, but Abraham's descendants. For this reason he had to be made like his brothers in every way in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people. He had to become one of us so that he could sympathize with us, yet without sin. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are, yet without sin. So Jesus had to stand in the dock.

Another C.S. Lewis book, God in the Dock, if you like C.S. Lewis. He had to stand in the dock. The rock had to be struck, as Paul said in 2 Corinthians 10.4, and that rock was Christ, that the water of life would flow from him to us to slake our thirst. He became our kinsman in order to redeem. And here's our third point, Jesus our Redeemer. He pays that debt of the land, that's what the Goel does, or the poverty or the slavery. He redeems Israel from bondage in Israel. God purchases us from slavery. He pays that debt as the Goel, the Redeemer. It says in Isaiah chapter 41 verse 14, I am the one who helps you, declares the Lord, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel. God proclaiming himself to be not only the judge, but the justifier.

The just and the justifier. Jesus is the ransom in his life, pays the price for his people. It was not for his own self, but for his people.

True Israel, that he paid that redemption price. He became one of us in order to stand in the dock to receive the punishment we justly deserve. That his innocence, his righteousness, might be transferred to our accounts.

So it's this double play here. He takes our sin, we take on his righteousness. He became our kinsman Redeemer. It says in Ephesians chapter 1 verse 7, in him we have redemption through his blood. The forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of his grace. 1 Corinthians 6, you are not your own, you were bought at a price. Galatians 3, 13, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. And then 1 Peter 3, 18, for Christ died for sins once and for all.

The righteous from the unrighteous to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body to make us alive by the Spirit. Let me conclude here. If you close your Bibles, turn back to chapter 4 verse 17. We have the genealogy.

I didn't leave this off, maybe you thought I did. I didn't leave out the genealogy. Beginning in verse 17 part B, we have a hindsight. The author of Ruth makes a connection between what's going on in King David.

I don't know if you caught that or not. That means the author had to come from the time of Samuel. And some would say that Samuel is the author of the book of Ruth, telling the story to make the connection so that we would see how God orchestrated this gap, so to speak.

He bridged the gap so that there would be a clear line from Perez to David. And then Matthew's genealogy quotes it verbatim from the Hebrew to Greek. He quotes it verbatim to make the point that it doesn't stop with David. It comes all the way from Abraham through David to us. Jesus becomes the King of Kings. He's the fulfillment of the Davidic kingship, which is a type like Boaz, that points to a future king, of a future spiritual kingdom. And you've got to remember now in Daniel how it prophesied that one would come in the fullness of time to establish a spiritual kingdom that would never end, who is Jesus.

Matthew's making that connection there between Jesus being the King of Kings with the lineage by Samuel, I'm supposing, presupposing here, assuming, in the book of Ruth. So we see that lineage there. Second of all, looking from the end of the story, we look backwards. And it reveals that the story, sometimes we can get caught up in the minutiae, the details of each chapter.

And I've done that. I've kind of gone through it to help you understand what's going on. But now in hindsight, we can see that God was orchestrating all things for his glory and for our good. Our good, 2,000 years after Jesus and however many thousand plus years there in the book of Ruth, God was working then for us today and for the future. God is faithful to his promises to provide a seed who would crush the head of the serpent. He used all the circumstances in the book of Ruth to place Boaz in the right place to marry Ruth, to provide an heir for the family name and to secure salvation in Jesus Christ, ultimately.

He bridged that gap. As you think back, Elimelech died. It was through that family line that Boaz is related. So even though Elimelech, by God's will, died, Melon and Killian died, the Lord brings in Boaz and he brings this woman. And you can't forget that there was Tamar in Matthew's genealogy. There's Tamar, there's Rahab, there's Ruth, there's Bathsheba. There's all these people who are brought in from the outside that we might be saved. God was working through these difficulties and all these strange relationships. When you think of Judah and Tamar, it's estranged. When you think of Lot and his daughters and you think of Moabites and all that mess and you think that she came from that and how that's the lineage of Jesus our Savior. And then he was adopted by Joseph and we are the recipients of all that.

Man, you couldn't have planned that. You couldn't have written a greater story. It boils down to this. God orchestrated all this that we might be called unto him. That we individually, right now and today, are chosen. We are a people who love Jesus. We were once a people who were not his people but we have become his people.

We've been engrafted into the root of Jesse. God has loved us with an everlasting love despite our sin. He's orchestrated events in our lives that we would be here right now to hear this word of God's love and faithfulness to his people. He's orchestrating events in our lives right now for his glory and for our good. Despite what's going on politically, despite what you might think is going to happen in the future, God is working and there's going to be a happy ending.

So in between here and there, we shouldn't have any concerns, any worries. Don't let the anxieties of this world and what's going on in America be a stumbling stone to you. That it might rob you of your joy and your love for Christ and your desire to share the good news. He's secured a place for us in heaven through his son and our Lord Jesus who will forever be praised. Amen? Before whom every knee shall bow and every tongue confess, Jesus is Lord. Before whose throne we will all cast our crowns and cry out, worthy is the lamb who was slain from the foundations of the world, worthy is the lamb. We'll cry out together with all the angels and all the beloved, holy is his name. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty.

But between then and now, it's an already not yet kind of event. We're still here and the celestial city is still there. God has given us a mission, a great commission. The scriptures say now go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey everything I've commanded you and surely I'm with you to the very end of the age. And likewise, he instructs us, Paul does in 2 Corinthians chapter 5.

He's committed to us in the meanwhile in this gap between the already and the not yet. He's given us this message of reconciliation. We were there for Christ's ambassadors as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Let us pray. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you that your Son and our Lord Jesus was faithful to your will. As he said in the garden, not my will be done, but thy will be done.

He had us and he had you in mind. Not only your glory and your faithfulness and your promises, but he had your people, those whom you had set apart unto yourself, that his mission required him to be faithful, as painful as it was, as solitary as it was, as lonely as it was. Even as Peter said, he descended into the grave, into the depths of hell, proclaiming the gospel, but yet in our place, paying that price that we would not have to. Dear Heavenly Father, we're so thankful that Jesus was faithful and that you've opened the eyes of our hearts that we can see what he has accomplished in his hands, in his feet, in his side. Lord Jesus, we thank you and we praise your name, Lord Jesus. Praise your name, Lord Jesus. We thank you for your Holy Spirit that you have given us as a guarantee and as a deposit till you come again to keep us, to cause us to persevere, to guide us in all truth, that we might be empowered to fulfill that great commission as Christ's ambassadors proclaiming the good news. I do pray, Father, that through the church in these last days that you would empower us and speak through us as we speak the word, even as we read in Acts, that those who hear would be convicted of their sin and turn to Jesus and be saved. Bless the church, Lord, we pray, that Christ might be lifted up and that he would draw all men unto himself. And we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.