Book of Ruth

[0:00] Well, good morning, everybody. Good morning. Let's get the right page here.

[0:21] Okay, so, are we on, Allie, did you flip this one on? Thanks. Find the book of Ruth, please. We're going to finish. Lord willing, we'll finish.

[0:34] I think we will. Getting down to the last of chapter 4. I think we ended in 9 and 10, Ruth chapter 4. And so let's go there.

[0:50] And I know we ended last Sunday with some Bible doctrine about an inheritance and how we're joint heirs with Jesus Christ.

[1:02] And saw the typology here of Ruth as a Gentile getting in on something that she would otherwise have no right to and would never be coming her way.

[1:12] But she gets connected to Boaz, a type of Jesus Christ, and becomes an heir. And really, I mean, technically she gets in through marriage to Malon.

[1:25] But back in Moab, she's still like Orpah. She didn't have any access to anything. And so when she came to the land, she ends with an inheritance and ends plugged into that land.

[1:35] Now, today we'll pick it up from there and see how this story resolves and how it closes down. But so far, we've seen them leave their hometown, Elimelech and Naomi, travel to Moab because of a famine, have children, raise their sons in Moab, have them marry, have them die.

[1:55] And Naomi and Ruth come back into the land into Bethlehem and goes to work in a field. And there she finds out she's in the field of Boaz.

[2:07] And Boaz is a mighty man of wealth. And he's a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ throughout these chapters in so many particulars. It's an incredible thought that we've been kind of uncovering the typology here.

[2:19] And long story short, and it is a little bit of a long story, despite its four chapters, Boaz takes Ruth to be his wife.

[2:31] And he does so to redeem the field of Naomi, to buy it from her, and also to raise up a son on that land that the name of the dead be alive again on his inheritance, that being Elimelech specifically.

[2:50] So we'll pick it up in verse number 9, where they're still seated there at the gate. They're having this public ceremony of sorts where the one removes his shoe, the kinsman that's closer.

[3:05] And in verse 9, Boaz said unto the elders and unto all the people, Ye are witnesses this day that I have bought all that was Elimelech's and all that was Chileon's and Malon's of the hand of Naomi.

[3:15] Moreover, Ruth the Moabitess, the wife of Malon, have I purchased to be my wife, to raise up the name of the dead upon his inheritance, that the name of the dead be not cut off from among his brethren, and from the gate of his place ye are witnesses this day.

[3:31] So the task was fulfilled. It was solidified. It was confirmed. And the shoe was removed in verse number 7. And everybody's witnesses. And so now the people are going to respond to this, and they're going to give some comments.

[3:45] They're going to pronounce a blessing is what they're going to do. In verse number 11, it says, And all the people that were in the gate and the elders said, We are witnesses. The Lord make the woman that has come into thine house like Rachel and like Leah, which too did build the house of Israel.

[4:03] And do thou worthily in Ephrata, and be famous in Bethlehem, and let thy house be like the house of Phares, whom Tamar bare unto Judah, of the seed which the Lord shall give thee of this young woman.

[4:17] So they're pronouncing this blessing, and it's a bit exaggerated maybe, in the wording there, talking about Rachel and Leah, the two that built the house of Israel.

[4:30] And you know that it was Jacob's two wives, Leah, Rachel, and then their two concubines, Bilhah, Zilpah.

[4:41] Bilhah and Zilpah. That's, whew, that one came out of there. Those four, technically, but it was the two ladies that are the wives of Jacob that got credit to build the entirety of the house of Israel, the twelve sons that came from them.

[4:57] And I think it's an exaggerated statement of blessing upon them. I don't know that it's an expectation in any way that Boaz and Ruth would form a union and start a new nation of sorts.

[5:13] I don't think that's the statement at all. I think it's just a kind and generous thought. But we will get down into the genealogies of it. And, I mean, what came from that union, and son and son and grandson and on and on, I mean, it leads all the way up to the Messiah.

[5:31] So there is something pretty special and spectacular that comes out of this. So they pronounce this blessing upon their union. And beyond just this, what I'm calling an exaggerated view of their prosperity, they also localize it.

[5:48] They say in verse 11 that they say that, Do thou worthily in Ephrida, and be famous in Bethlehem. And now they're bringing it right down to their own hometown. And I think it's just a natural thing.

[6:01] I think it's kind of a normal, like, local town pride to desire that, to make a name for us, put us on the map kind of statement there.

[6:12] They even mention Phares in verse 12. Phares is the son of Judah that Tamar bear unto Judah.

[6:24] See, that's the one, as we see later in the genealogy, that they came from. So it starts kind of a bigger picture thing, but then it really gets narrowed down to their own very hometown and culture of this blessing they're pronouncing on these people.

[6:40] And I think some of that wording is just kind of a sense of community in the speech of make us proud, and we're behind you kind of a thing in blessing them. Now in verse 13, so Boaz took Ruth, and she was his wife.

[6:54] And so we have this type of the church and type of Christ, and it just carries all the way to the end here. In verse 13, it says, He went in unto her, and the Lord gave her conception, and she bare a son.

[7:08] I found it interesting to consider that phrase shows up that the Lord gave her conception. It's not a surprise, but it's not a common phrase in the Bible necessarily.

[7:19] Of all the unions in Scripture, of all the mentions of a husband and wife, and of a child, or particularly in many cases of a son, you don't often see that say, specifically, the Lord gave her conception.

[7:32] Certain times when a woman's barren, it'll mention that, and you'll see the Lord open her womb, and that kind of thing. But in every union in the Scripture, you don't see God getting the credit for it by the Holy Ghost.

[7:45] Sometimes man or the woman will glorify God, or acknowledge and credit God for the child. Eve did that, saying, I've gotten a man from the Lord. But you don't see that phrase.

[7:56] And it begs me to think, did that mean that the Lord had shut Ruth's womb before that? And you might say, well, there's nothing in the Scripture that says it.

[8:07] No, it's not. But it does say that the Lord gave her conception. And so, it's worth considering, though, she's already been married, right? A young woman, married to Malon, but no seed, no son.

[8:23] Had there been a son, had that son traveled back to Bethlehem, that son would be the heir, and there would be no Boaz. There would be no need for the Redeemer.

[8:34] There would be no Obed, Jesse, David, and on. So, it could very well mean that the Lord withheld fruit from this woman's womb because he had a bigger plan, a bigger picture, to use her to bring her back to Bethlehem, to unite Boaz to her, and to go on down through this line of Judah.

[8:57] So, I don't know, but it makes me think about that when I see the phrase that the Lord gave her conception and she bare a son. It's just, it's not, it's kind of a rare thing for the Scripture to mention that specifically about a woman and the Lord giving them conception.

[9:14] Verse number 14 says, Now, there's just more blessing the Lord.

[9:43] I got to point it out. These women say to Naomi, not just, Wow, boy, you sure struck it good, or you sure are lucky. No, they say, Naomi, blessed be the Lord.

[9:55] They turn the good fortune, the good tidings to her upward and say this is a gift from God. And again, I point out what a glorious thought to have a culture that is aimed at acknowledging the hand of God, the blessing of God, the direction of God throughout their lives, throughout all these instances.

[10:18] They're glorifying God. And if it can't be in our culture in this land, at least let it be in our culture in this church, that our mouths speak the name of the Lord.

[10:32] When we converse with each other, when we talk about things, that we give God the credit for what he's done, for the job that we have, or for fixing our tire, or for just things that go on through our lives.

[10:45] Let it be ingrained in our culture and our mindset that the name of God comes from our mouth in blessing him. Not in throwing his name out when something surprises us.

[10:59] Not in speaking his name when something discourages us. But in blessing him, because he deserves a blessing. He definitely doesn't deserve his name being taken in vain from our lips.

[11:13] And so that's the culture. That's in their hearts and their minds, and it comes out of their mouth all the time. I pointed out already. I can't help it. It just bears repeating when they continue. So the women said in verse 14, Blessed be the Lord, which hath not left thee this day without a kinsman.

[11:37] Maybe we can get the door shut or something like that. Seriously. Seriously. All right, I'm going to back up to verse 14.

[11:50] The women said unto Naomi, Blessed be the Lord, which hath not left thee this day without a kinsman. And so it was the Lord that didn't leave her. It was the Lord that never forsook her.

[12:02] Even in her old age, he's still there, and he's still working, and he's still doing something that she could not, she could not take credit for. She could not overlook. It was the hand of God. Even in her old age.

[12:14] Now, in the end here of this short book, Naomi's back on top. You remember she started at the bottom. You remember she started desperate, depressed, bitterness.

[12:30] Call me bitterness. Call me Mara. She was not feeling it. She started off so low, and then she, by the end of it, God had something in store for her, and he had something in store for her through an unlikely hero, a Moabitess daughter-in-law that wouldn't leave her side.

[12:47] Even when she said, Get out of here. Just go back. I got nothing for you. And Naomi just went on to just push her way through the rest of her life. not knowing that God saw the thing the whole time from his perspective, had a plan, had something that was going to take place, and even in her old age, when her life was just in disrepair, the Lord still has something in store for her.

[13:16] And I'm sure it didn't feel like it for quite a while, but he provided somebody who these ladies said is a restorer of thy life. You know what it's like to, whether you've done it or not, to what it is to restore a house or to restore an old car.

[13:34] I mean, the thing's kind of useless. It's just sitting. It's got no real benefit until it's restored. And now that it's restored, it has life back in it.

[13:46] You can drive it again or you can live in it again. You can enjoy it again. And that's what this grandchild is. It's considered a son. That's what this child is to Naomi.

[13:57] It's a restorer of her life. She's not on the bottom anymore, but she's got some days ahead of her. And so it's a blessing to see this revival take place in this woman's life at the end of her life, the latter years of her life, because of the good hand of God on her.

[14:12] He provided a restorer of her life. We read it in verse 15. He's called a nourisher of thine old age. And so it seems when she had no husband and no sons to take care of her, God provided somebody to fill that void and to step in.

[14:28] And so from Ruth's side, this is a story of redemption, a story of acceptance. From Ruth's side, this is a second chance for her. But for Naomi's side, it's a story of hope.

[14:42] It's a story of revival and a blessing in the end of her life. And I think this ought to speak to every single born-again Christian that's above maybe age 60 that gets past a certain year.

[14:56] You tend to think the greatest years of my life are behind me. And I've done what I've done. I've raised my kids. And I don't really have a strong sense of purpose. You know, you could almost just count your days in a sense.

[15:10] But take a little glimpse here from the scriptures and say that if God's not finished with you, don't be finished with Him. And don't write it off. But there's always hope.

[15:21] And what a blessing to consider that. It ought to speak to you that God brought some things to pass in her life. He guided her way back to a blessing.

[15:32] He blessed the home. He provided the needs. And He's still capable of doing what He's done in the past for you, even more in the future. He still cares. He still is aware of you.

[15:43] And there's something that He can use you for. And only the Bible is going to give you that kind of hope or those kind of thoughts. The world's just going to, you know, enjoy the last years of your life.

[15:54] If you've got a little money saved up or be wise or invest or something, they're going to talk. You won't get that from the Bible. What you get is that God's not done with you. And He can still do something.

[16:05] Go to verse 16 now. Verse 16 says, Naomi took the child and laid it in her bosom and became nurse unto it. Now, that does not mean that she fed the child like this infant child.

[16:18] Now she became its nursing mother in the sense that we kind of think of the term. You may assume that, but the Bible won't let you assume that if you study the Word in the Bible.

[16:30] And that's what we'll do. And so I've thought that myself and I thought, man, that doesn't quite match up with her saying that she's old and it's past that stage of life for her and then all of a sudden now she's taking this baby and becoming the mother.

[16:47] But I'm mistaking the word. I'm reading into it and it's not what the Scripture says. By the way, the Bible never uses the word nurse in that way. It always uses a different word.

[16:59] It uses the word suck or suckling child or something like that. It never uses nurse to describe a mother and a child and feeding and that kind of thing. To nurse is to tenderly care for someone else and to oversee and to care for details and small things and guide and even bring back to health or something like that.

[17:23] The profession itself that we know of, a registered nurse, none of that implies anything about babies at all. It totally implies caring for others and that's what the word means and that's what it means here in the Bible.

[17:36] Paul said in 1 Thessalonians 2 that we were gentle among you even as a nurse cherisheth her children. It has nothing to do with anything else but taking care of the way Paul took care delicately for these young believers.

[17:53] But I'll give you some more on it just to solidify it. The first time the word shows up in the Bible is in Genesis 24. The first time the word nurse shows up and is when Rebecca is leaving her country to go back to be Isaac's wife and it says in the verse 59 that they sent away Rebecca their sister and her nurse and they traveled back.

[18:19] Now Rebecca was not a mother. Rebecca did not have children. She was not even married yet but she had a nurse and it had nothing to do with taking care of a baby. It had everything to do with somebody who cared for her.

[18:33] Numbers chapter 12 just to give you a whole different perspective of it Moses referred to himself as a nursing father as he was discussing the children of Israel and this nation that is whining and complaining and it's too much for him to bear and he says I'm as a nursing father so he's taking care of them and he's doing it without a mother.

[18:56] He's on his own. A single dad and it's a lot of kids the way he looked at it in Numbers 11. One more is in Isaiah 49 where the Bible says kings shall be thy nursing fathers and their queens thy nursing mothers.

[19:11] So it has nothing to do with feeding a child but rather everything to do with caring for and cherishing and all of that. So just to back up the thought in case they entered your mind or confused you when you read that about Naomi she took the child laid it in her bosom became nurse unto it.

[19:27] That's all that means she cared for the baby. More than a babysitter she became the mother and oversaw this. From what I understand and from the way they talked look at verse 17 the women her neighbors gave it a name saying there is a son born to Naomi and they called his name Obed.

[19:52] So the way the neighbors or the ladies talk it seems that Obed's considered Naomi's child as she was the original widow and the original owner of the property that Boaz is now playing the kidsman part to.

[20:06] Just to give you another side thought on this concept in Genesis 30 I mentioned Rachel and Leah and the handmaids in Genesis 30 when Rachel couldn't have any children she gave her handmaid to Leah or I'm saying to Jacob and the quote is that that I may also have children by her and so there's a thought there with Naomi having a child by Ruth and Boaz and taking it to herself becoming nurse to the child raising the child and they say that the son is born to Naomi in verse 17 they called his name Obed Obed I don't know what that name means it doesn't say it in the text the only thing I can connect it to is back to what they said earlier that he's a nourisher of thine old age and that he's a restorer of life and it's these it's the women in verse 14 that are blessing the Lord and Naomi and it's the women her neighbors that gave it a name saying there's a son born to Naomi they called his name

[21:14] Obed now I've read a lot of stuff it's not really that crucial I don't suppose but I just was looking to try to find out what his name means since we saw the names of Ruth and Malon and all these guys early on in the book and there's some say his name means worshipper worshipper of the Lord and that's a very rare one and the ones that say that they reason it and they find a way to describe why but most all sources say his name means servant and then the best one I found was when somebody put it like this saying that his name means the serving one and I thought in the context that looks like that matches that the women are saying this boy was born to you to nourish you to restore you to take care of you he is the serving one for you not like a slave but he's that one that's going to be that son that would take care of her in her old age and so it seems like that might be the best way to look at it as to what his name means in the scripture so Obed is what they call him now this is what the neighbors the women they says gave it a name the child that doesn't mean that that's the name that he went by or grew up as that's the name that you see in scripture as far as I know that's the only name that we know of in scripture but there's so many cases of men that have up to three different names that they're called by and I wouldn't doubt that Boaz or Ruth maybe gave him a son or a name or that Naomi called him whatever she called him maybe something to do with the Lord or a gift from God or something you know but the women are the one that name him

[22:57] Obed in the view of him taking care of her so in verse 17 the women her neighbors gave it a name saying there's a son born to Naomi and they called his name Obed he's the father of Jesse the father of David now this is interesting here when you hit that phrase and I don't know about you specifically individually but I imagine that everybody the first time I don't know if you could even go back to the first time you read that verse or that you saw that and as you're reading through this kind of neat little story at the close of the judges and before it jumps into the book of Samuel and going in through the kings of Israel and I don't know if it ever but I just imagine that the first time you read that there was just this kind of sense of surprise or just this mind blowing notion when you saw David because you know who David is you know David slew the giant you know David was the great king of Israel you know David was the sweet psalmist and wrote so much of the psalm so you know that man but the first time reading through you didn't know that it was

[24:11] Ruth Naomi Elimelech that and then led into the Boaz thing and then when you saw that I bet you just said whoa there was a connection there that you probably were ignorant of until you first the first time again you probably some of you can't go back and imagine that first time seeing that but it's just one of those things where the Bible just it connects something it makes a connection that you weren't even aware of and when it says this is the father of Jesse the father of David all of a sudden there's some light and some clarity some historical context given to something that you are very much aware of in the life of David and it's a kind of a neat thing and what happens here is this is a link in the genealogy that it causes us to realize that the story of Ruth isn't just some neat little thing pulled out of thin air about a man and a woman and we just love the book and handfuls of purpose and thy people shall be my people and we're going to hang on to these little phrases that we like but no this thing is actually a connection to all the way what follows this has very heavy strong bearing on the rest of the Old

[25:35] Testament and it doesn't stop in the Old Testament without this this goes all the way to Christ this has bearing on the entire New Testament as well the thread is there and it runs right through the book of Ruth and it's strong as a matter of fact without the Christ there is no New Testament he is the mediator of the New Testament and he came right out of this tribe of Judah through Pharez and we'll see this as we close the book here the genealogy itself now practically speaking this is the end of the story where it mentions he's the father of Jesse the father of David and before the book closes it's like well let's give a quick backtrack and just nail down this genealogy to prove what I'm saying just can't throw out David nobody can just say yeah I'm with the line of David too but no let's trace it and let's prove it and that's what they do and nail it down for you if it just was too much of an information overload to believe it's too good to be true and so he backtracks through

[26:43] Phares now before we get to that I want to point out something we've been studying this type throughout here and in verse 13 when Boaz took Ruth she was his wife there's this union that takes place and that Gentile Moabitess gets connected to Jesus Christ the type there and there's no mention from there on forward of them living happily ever after having more children there's no mention of their union of what goes on in that at all it just it completely fades out of the story at that point and it's not to say that it's leaving you with some cliffhanger there at all it's just the narrative switches back to somebody else and the close of this book is verse 14 Naomi Naomi Naomi Naomi Naomi and you say well what's the big deal about it well at the end of the story

[27:48] Ruth fades out and the focus and the emphasis and the blessing goes back to that Jew where it started the story started with the Jew it ends with the Jew that Gentile got in got connected to Christ and then just disappears into the heavenly somewhere along the way we don't know but this Bible is amazing if you haven't figured that part out even in the story lines the typology just is it drives through the truth and doctrines that we understand from the New Testament and then come back here we see it just screaming at us in these stories in the Old Testament and I hope you understand what I'm saying there about the Jew and the Gentile and Jesus Christ and how God's going to go back to the Jew in the last days and going to turn back to them and how he's going to take them back and the blessing is going to come on the Jew and the Gentile got in on it because of the Jew but they're not the focal point of scripture at all we aren't so that's an interesting side note there now let's finish this off in this genealogy and before we read it go in your Bible to Matthew chapter 1

[29:04] I'd like you just to get your finger there for a moment we're going to be there very soon so verse 17 ended by saying that they called his name Obed he is the father of Jesse the father of David and now this story in its conclusion it reveals to us exactly why Joseph and Mary traveled to Bethlehem because the Bible said that they were of the house and lineage of David and there's that historical context that this story provides long before we read about it in Luke chapter 2 alright so we're starting in Ruth and verse number 18 now these are the generations of

[30:04] Phares we know that Phares is the son of Judah from verse 12 and Judah is one of Jacob's sons one of the twelve ok so now these are the generations of Phares Phares begat Hezron and that's mentioned in Genesis 38 and Hezron begat Ram and Ram begat Amminadab and Amminadab begat Nashon and Nashon begat Salmon and Salmon begat Boaz and Boaz begat Obed and Obed begat Jesse and Jesse begat David and it's a period there but you and I know how the thing carries forward so flip over to Matthew chapter 1 and I'm not going to take you all the way through the genealogy here but let's begin at verse number 1 as you start reading in your New Testament the gospel according to Matthew it starts right off with a genealogy and in that genealogy you can't miss there's some key figures that we've been studying so verse number 1 the book of the generation of Jesus

[31:11] Christ the son of David the son of Abraham now this is Jesus' genealogy and as we pointed out years ago when we studied this book those two phrases the son of David and the son of Abraham have significance they're not just random just picking names out but the son of David shows his kingly line coming through Judah and he has a right to the throne it's called the throne of David and he's the son of Abraham showing him to be a Hebrew that takes you back to the father of the Jewish people and so he is the king of the Jews is what those two phrases together are saying the book of the generation of Jesus Christ the son of David kingly the son of Abraham Hebrew Abraham begat Isaac and Isaac begat Jacob and Jacob begat Judas there's Judah and his brethren so we're just going to focus on Jesus' genealogy not the rest of them and Judas begat Pharez of Zerah of Tamar and Zerah of Tamar sorry and Pharez begat

[32:13] Ezram and Ezram begat Aram and Aram begat Aminadab and Aminadab begat Neashon and Neashon begat Salmon and Salmon begat Boaz and of Raqib and Boaz begat Obed of Ruth and Obed begat Jesse and Jesse begat David the king and David the king begat Solomon of her that had been the wife of Uriah now what I want to draw your attention to here is because we've been studying Ruth this Moabitess this Gentile what I want to see here is that this genealogy of Jesus Christ you see the names they're a little bit different spelling because it's coming from Greek into English versus Hebrew into English and these are the same guys the same names the same line but it's kind of a messy a messy genealogy by our standards for the son of God I mean wouldn't his son come from some holy line some pure and unadulterated just purely clean and perfect line wouldn't that what we'd be under the assumption of to look for this

[33:25] Messiah but there's some things that come through here verse number three Judas begat Pharez of Tamar do you know who Tamar is that was his daughter in law she was a wife of one of his sons that died and he told her to wait till his other son be grown and he'd give him to her and he never did that and she pulled a little move on him and got pregnant by him had two sons and the one there is Pharez the other one was Zerah that's interesting that's that's kind of not a very becoming thing to have in your family lineage and then there's more of course there's more Salmon let's see he's in verse number five he begat Boaz of Rechab that's Rahab that's Joshua chapter two you know who

[34:25] Rahab was she was a Gentile a Canaanite living in Jericho she was a harlot she's the one that let down the scarlet thread through her window and she hid those spies and helped them escape and the Lord delivered her and her family but a Gentile harlot and she ends up surviving and this man takes her as his wife and that's who Boaz's mother was and then Ruth gets in on it in verse number five a Moabitess the Moabites as we studied early in this book were not to enter into the congregation of the Lord and that's a command of Moses presumably the men but nevertheless Moses told them that they are not to seek their peace forever and yet one gets in on the genealogy of Jesus Christ and then finally past Ruth and Boaz and David David takes the one that had been the wife of

[35:28] Uriah Bathsheba an adulterous situation there to bring forth Solomon in and he there's four they're not just blemishes these are like full on blots full on horrible I mean can you think of anything else that would be worse to have in your family history in line bringing about the son of God the only begotten son of God it's some pretty ugly stuff and some pretty uncomely situations adultery and a daughter-in-law deception of Moabitess a harlot and you might expect Christ would come from some holy line but it turns out there isn't a holy line on the face of the planet because God hath concluded all under sin and so whatever the sin is whether it's this or that one there's no way to bring forth that Messiah from a human line without sin and so he came to cover that sin and to pay for all of that sin now we're going to close the book of

[36:36] Ruth here with just a few concluding comments just some reiterations of a few things that we've studied and kind of points to just plug in there and make sure you fully got them some takeaways from the book of Ruth as we dismiss number one God has a plan God has a plan Naomi didn't know it Ruth didn't know it Boaz didn't know it God's the only one that knew it and he brought it to pass and in all of this he saw his only begotten son God has a plan unseen to individuals invisible but he has a way of taking something that's a bitter situation turning it into a blessing and the Lord can do that a blessing that overcomes sorrow a blessing that outlasts the pain and so trust in the Lord God has a plan even when it's bitter and even when it's ugly number two you're never too old for God to use you or for you to experience the goodness of God in a new way a brand new way not just milking off the blessings of the past you're never too old for God to show himself to you in your life as you seek to serve him and surrender your life to him your days to him he can do something new with you even in your old age number three

[38:08] God uses unlikely people to fulfill divine purposes in this case we're studying a lowly humble Moabitess who has no business but the Lord will use her to bring about something glorious in the future the king of the Jews and so don't overlook the people don't overlook who they are the Jews in that day would have saw this Moabitess and probably despised her and little did they know that she was going to be the one that brought forth the son to be the restorer of life and to put this place on the map Bethlehem they weren't on the map until right there number four the typology that we've studied I won't go over it all again but it reveals these details of Christ's care for his church and his kindness his provision his blessings even his intentions and so

[39:08] I know that it wasn't something that you catch as you read through but when you study the words and you look at it and you compare it the doctrine comes out and it's some beautiful stuff to see in these Old Testament passages and then lastly these Ephrathites remember in chapter 1 verse 1 they were Ephrathites of Bethlehem Judah as chapter 1 and verse 2 these Ephrathites play a considerable role in the scripture you're at Ruth chapter 4 look at the next verse in the Bible 1 Samuel chapter 1 and there's a man named Elkanah and look at the very last two words of verse 1 that man is an Ephrathite that's interesting and he has a wife named Hannah and she's barren and they go to Shiloh and to Eli the priest to sacrifice yearly and she's praying for a child the Lord gives her a son they name him Samuel because he was asked of God and Samuel is an

[40:14] Ephrathite and Samuel becomes Israel's prophet and Israel's priest and Israel's judge for years and then he anoints David guess what David is we know what he is he's an Ephrathite he's called that in 1 Samuel 17 when he I think it's 17 when he goes to fight the giant he's called an Ephrathite or a son of an Ephrathite Jesse and so these guys the line of the Messiah doesn't come through Levi Levi gives the law but not the king the king comes through Judah the deliverer and the savior comes through Judah and it just it's right in this little window of scripture it's this Ephrathites that are the ones that are the Lord's using and there's a concentration of them in scripture that's interesting associated with that town of Bethlehem Judah where the Lord Jesus Christ is going to come out of and so all interesting thoughts to see how this book ties together the history of it and the prophecy of it and the pictures and typologies and all to come in together to make a book that only God could write and it's a blessing to study it it's a blessing to draw out some truths and to see the little glimpses that we get understandably there's much more

[41:36] I'm convinced there's things even in here that I'm missing and that we just didn't hit because it's just there's layers to this scripture and we might only be on layer three and think it's really cool to see typology but if we understood layer five it might be blowing our minds right now so we can't handle it I don't know but this book's amazing so that'll conclude the book of Ruth and next Sunday we'll have Brother Pilkington with us for Sunday school so we'll have two weeks before we start something new but let's conclude with that and let's take a break there for about ten minutes before the next service next