Ready for round two. Today will be just one chapter over the next chapter in Ruth 3. Ruth 3, start of verse 1. So while you're going there, really what we'll get out of this chapter and just the message, the big takeaway that I think the Lord's trying to show us here in this chapter is that If you throw yourself upon the Savior, if you cast yourself upon Christ and cling to Him, then you will not be rejected, but you will be redeemed. He will be faithful and will redeem us. So let's go ahead and read the whole passage to get an idea of what we're doing. doing today all right so first one then naomi her mother-in-law said to her my daughter shall i not not seek a state of rest for you that it may be well with you And now is not Boaz our kinsman with whose young women you were? Behold, he is winnowing barley at the threshing floor tonight. So you shall wash yourself, and anoint yourself, and put on your best clothes, and you shall go down to the threshing floor. But do not make yourself known to the man until he is finished eating and drinking. Let it be that when he lies down, you shall know the place where he lies, and you shall go and uncover his feet and lie down. Then he will tell you what you shall do. She said to her, all that you say I will do. So she went down to the threshing floor and did according to all that her mother-in-law had commanded her. And Boaz ate and drank, and his heart was merry. And he went to lie down at the end of the heap of grain. And she came secretly and uncovered his feet and lay down. Then it happened in the middle of the night, that the man was startled and bent forward, and behold, a woman was lying at his feet. And he said, who are you? And she answered, I am Ruth, your maidservant. So spread your wings over your maidservant, for you are a kinsman redeemer. Then he said, may you be blessed of the Lord, my daughter. You have shown your last loving kindness to be better than the first by not going after young men, whether poor or rich. So now, my daughter, do not fear. All that you say, I will do for you. For all my people within the gates of the city know that you are a woman of excellence. But now it is true that I am a kinsman-redeemer. However, there is a kinsman-redeemer closer than I. Stay this night, and it will be in the morning that, if he will redeem you, good, let him redeem you. But if he does not desire to redeem you, then I will redeem you as the Lord lives. Lie down until morning. So she laid his feet until morning and rose before one could recognize another. And he said, let it not be known that the woman came to the threshing floor. And he said, give me the cloak that is on you and hold it. So she held it, and he measured six of barley and placed it on her. Then she went into the city. Then she came to her mother-in-law, and she said, how did it go, my daughter? And she told her all that the man had done for her. She said, these six measures of barley he gave to me. For he said, do not go to your mother-in-law empty. And she said, sit, then, my daughter, until you know how the matter falls into place. For the man will not remain quiet until he has finished the matter today. Let's pray. Dear only Father, Lord God, we thank you for your abundant grace and kindness you've showed to us. Lord God, I thank you just for Christ the Redeemer Church, Lord. And I pray just for our brothers and sisters that you would place your hand upon them. Lord, I pray in this time that we would all Listen to your word, that we would hear it and be grown in your grace and edified and enriched, Lord God. And help us to see more of who you are. Reveal yourself to us now, Lord God. Give us your spirit. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. So if our great spaghetti lunch hasn't caused us to forget what we went over this morning, Good, but I'll still give a quick recap just in case of where we're at and where we left off in the last chapter. But we've seen that one, that Ruth went out to glean. And she went out to happen to come upon, which we know is the sovereignty of our Lord, that she came by the sovereign hand of God to glean in the field of Boaz. And he showed her kindness because he had heard of how she devoted herself to Naomi. And so he gives her food. He elevates her status among his servants. And he invites her to the meal to come up closer. And he gives her an ifa of barley, which we looked at, probably around 30 pounds or so, a good heaping of barley to take back with her and to bless Naomi as well. And so it ends, the last chapter ended, where it said that she stayed until the end of barley harvest and wheat harvest and lived with her mother-in-law. And so we see that the story still hasn't resolved yet, because of this verse. She's living with her mother-in-law. She's not redeemed yet. She's not married to Boaz. And so we still have more. God's still unfolding the story here. And that's where we get in chapter 3, where the story progresses on. But with this chapter book, I'd like to go over again just some more on the idea of the Kinsmen Redeemer and on the Leveret Law. Because it really comes to a head in this chapter, and especially this chapter and the next chapter really becomes very important. And it won't be easy to understand without a good grasp of what this law is, the Leveret Law, and the idea of the Kinsmen Redeemer. So as we heard this morning, Leveret Law, it doesn't have to do with Levi, but it deals with the idea of the Lever, who is the husband's brother. That's spelled L-E-V-I-R. I think I forgot to mention how it's spelled, but yes, the Lever. And so it's the husband's brother. And as I said, the basic scenario with this law was that when a wife's husband died, his younger brother would then marry her. The first child, the first male child of that union He would take the name of the brother who died, and he would take the inheritance of the first husband. It's spelled out in depth back in Deuteronomy 25, 5 through 10, which if you want, you can turn there. It's Deuteronomy 25, 5 through 10. So in verse 5 it says, if brothers live together and one of them dies and has no son, then the wife of the one who died shall not be married outside the family to a strange man. Her husband's brother shall go into her and take her to himself as wife and perform the duty of a husband's brother to her. So we see here it's dealing with male children, the idea of if she hasn't already had a male child, they're there to raise up a son. And so this duty to raise up a seed for the brother who's deceased, it's required here in verse 5 from the immediate family. It would be somebody who was in the family up, which means it would be the deceased husband's brother. It would probably have an order from older to youngest in. and so on, but this isn't quite the scenario that we have in Ruth as Boaz is not Elimelech's direct brother. We just mentioned that he's a relative. He's a kinsman in the house of Elimelech. And so when it came to the immediate family, this was a duty, a responsibility that the brother had to carry out. This was his duty to his dead brother that he would do this and raise up a seed for him. And if he did not, he would be punished, as we'll look at in a second, but he would be humiliated. But when it comes to somebody who's – there was no immediate family, there was no brother, then it could extend to the – outside the immediate family. It could extend outwards. But in this case, it was optional. It was not a duty. It was not required of him as a brother. As somebody who's a relative to Jacob, his brother's wife, it was something that if he did not do it, he would not be punished for. And so we move on to... to the fact of the lever of marriage, the lever of law, it's based on the name. It's not merely dealing with land, it's not merely dealing with his stuff, but the big focus in the passage, in the verse, it says that his name will not be blotted out from Israel. And so the name in the Bible, name communicates more than just when we're introducing each other, just I'm Brandon Henderson. It communicates the whole person. It encompasses all of who you are. We pray in the name of Jesus. We ask in Jesus' name because it's encompassing all of who Christ is, and His glory, and His faithfulness, and all His attributes. And so, name in the Bible was more significant than just the mere words of a name. And it's also important because What did we talk about this morning about the seed that was to come crush the head of the serpent? There's a name that's being, a lineage of this Messiah that's being traced down by the Jews, and the name was important as a sign for this Messiah, as a sign for Christ. The lineage of the Messiah. And this comes to bear here on this passage, because both Boaz and Ruth are included in that lineage. Jesus came from Boaz and Ruth. And then, verse 7, the rest of the passage says, we can look here at verse 7, if the man does not desire to take his brother's wife, then his brother's wife shall go up to the gate, to the elders, and say, my husband's brother refuses to raise up a name for his brother in Israel. He is not willing to perform the duty of a husband's brother to me. And the elders of his city shall summon him and speak to him. And if he stands and says, I do not desire to take her, then his brother's wife shall come to him in the sight of the elders and pull his sandal off his foot and spit in his face. And she shall answer and say, thus is done to the man who does not build up his father's house. And in Israel his name shall then be called, the house of him whose sandal is removed." So, the brother doesn't fulfill this duty. He's like, I'm not having any part with that. Then, there would be public humiliation for him. Spitting on the face is easy for us to understand, right? The face here in the Bible as well communicates, like, We're ashamed. We're ashamed. We're ashamed, but we hide our face. And so it was a shameful thing, as it still is today, to spit in one's face. But the taking off of the sandals isn't as quite clear what does that mean. Like, how do we today, how do we understand that? I won't go into all the details, but... Most oftentimes in the Bible, taking off the sandal means to uncover nakedness. It means to expose. And in this passage, it's a symbol. She's symbolically, in a way, tearing a skirt off, exposing his shame that he would not perform the duty of a lover. He would not perform this duty. And the shame will be exposed in front of all the people. It's symbolic for that. She wouldn't actually, you know, but it's symbolic. And this is going to give us an idea, going back to Ruth, of kind of what's going on. But also, one more thing I think that's important that we should see here with the idea of the lever of law and also the kinsman redeemer is that the kinsman redeemer in the Bible, it encompassed more than just raising up a seed for your brother who had passed away. It also can apply to other situations. which is goel, goel in Hebrew, it can apply to multiple duties, multiple responsibilities. He was somebody who, he would buy back your land if your land was sold. So if your land had been sold, it wasn't in the family anymore, he would buy it back, bring it back, the inheritance that you had, your possessions. If you were sold into slavery, also the kinsman redeemer would be the one who could buy you back. He could bring you back out of slavery into his family. And then if you were killed, if you happened to be murdered, the kinsman redeemer Also, as we might call it, the Avenger of Blood would come and have the task to enact God's justice and to avenge your death upon the guy who murdered you. And so overall, he was somebody who stepped in to save, to rescue. He stepped in when there was nobody else to help. There was nobody else. There was nothing He could do in these issues, these problems, these dilemmas, that He would come in and rescue you and deliver you and redeem. Okay, so now we come back to Ruth. And it's important to note here, in verse 1, where it says, my daughter, shall I not? Naomi's saying to Ruth, she's coming up with a plan of what they're going to do. Boaz hasn't initiated the duty of the lever. He hasn't redeemed Ruth. And it's the end of barley season. It's the end of the barley and wheat seasons. And so Naomi comes up with a plan. And she tells her daughter, I'm going to seek a state of rest for you. Now, rest in the Bible. It encompasses many things. I mean, we think of the Sabbath rest, you know, that pictures God's ending of creation, that he rested on the seventh day. And also after he, the people of Israel, he brought them out of Egypt and through the waters that he brought them out. And this, they were to commemorate the Sabbath day in memory of that, how God gave them rest from their affliction. He gave them rest. Well, here in this context, it's speaking of the security that Ruth was to find in a home with a husband who would provide and protect for her. So Naomi's looking for rest for her, which would literally be… having her be redeemed by Boaz, being in a house, being provided for, secured. And ultimately, the rest that would come upon the whole house as there would be a continuation in the lineage, that there would be a name continued, that the inheritance would continue. And so in verse 2, we see that it says she's preparing herself, that Naomi wants her to wash herself, anoint herself, put on her best clothes. So just as a bride prepares herself for her wedding day, this is what's going on here. And some of the details with the Leveret Law, with that law that we just looked at, come to play here because the way it was viewed was that there would be no ceremony after the brother died and the husband marries the wife. There wasn't a ceremony. It's viewed as an extension of the first marriage. And so we have here, if Ruth were to go to him and ask that, hey, would you perform this duty? Would you be the lever? And he agreed, that would have been it. They would have been married. So there doesn't have to be a ceremony involved. It's an extension of that first marriage. But as we'll see, there's some complications with how it works in the upcoming verses. Then down a couple, she keeps a couple verses. We still see Naomi's continuing on telling that she's gonna, she wants Ruth to lie down at his feet and then to uncover his feet. And that Ruth indeed goes, listens to her mother-in-law and does all that she tells her. Boaz falls asleep, guarding some grain. After a day on the threshing floor, he's been threshing again. And it says he drank and his heart was merry. In verse 7, he went to lie down at the heap of grain. So he's been having a celebration of peace, probably with his young man at the end of the day. And so Ruth comes. She lies herself. He's already asleep. Ruth comes. She lies herself down there and uncovers his feet. And it's interesting because there was the uncovering of the feet back in the other passage. And now it shows up here again. So what does it mean here? I don't think it literally, I don't think it means that she removed his skirt. I don't think it means that. But it's probably a symbolic act that of, wanting him to fulfill the duty of the labyrinth, to raise up a seed. Basically, she's initiating a marriage for Pope. She's saying, will you provide, will you be the redeemer? I don't think this is a shameful act. Some people will try to say that what she did was wrong. But as we'll see with the response of Boaz, that he praises her. He says, your loving kindness was better. the second time than it was the first. And he's a righteous man. And so I do think what Ruth did here was admirable. She was within her rights to say, hey, you're a relative. You can redeem us. Will you please redeem me and Naomi? And so whatever the meaning is, it's clear. Like I said, it's initiating a marriage proposal. She wants Boaz to be her kinsman redeemer. And then in the night, we see in verse 8 that he gets startled. He knows someone's there. He can't see who it is. It's pitch black in the room. This is a few years before the light bulb was invented, so it's pretty dark. But Ruth answers him when he asks who it is. She says in verse 9, I am Ruth, your maidservant. So spread your wing over your maidservant, for you are a kinsman redeemer. This is the second time we've seen that picture of covering under the wings. We saw that in chapter 2, that Boaz, he said that, he prayed that she would receive covering under the Lord's wings by seeking refuge with the people of God, that the Lord would cover her in His wings. And now, she's coming to ask Him to cover Boaz, that Boaz would cover her with His wings, His cloth. And Boaz answers her. He answers her by saying that her second kindness was greater than the first. Now, the first kindness that she showed was she devoted herself to Naomi. We saw that in chapter 1, where she says, your God will be my God, your people my people, your land my lands. And so this was the kindness she showed, and also the fact that she went to glean for Naomi, to provide for Naomi, who's a widow afflicted, who was probably at that age where she wouldn't go out and glean herself. So Ruth showed her kindness in that way as well. But her second kindness is what Boaz is picking up on here. he's picking up on the fact that the faith of Ruth, he's picking up on the Leverett Law, since Boaz is related to Naomi's husband, then the liberal law would say that Naomi would have to marry Boaz. But since we already know from passage, Naomi is too old to bear children, right? Those years are over. That Ruth is acting on her behalf. Ruth goes in her place and acts on her behalf. And that means that Ruth's son would be Naomi's son. Ruth's son would continue the line of Naomi's husband, Elimelech. This would continue the family name on through the generations. Boaz says here in verse 10 that she could have gone after young men, whether poor or rich. So he's getting at that she could have married for romance, she could have married for love, somebody her age, or she could have married a guy for his money, who had more money than Boaz. But, he praises her that she is faithful. that she is faithful to Naomi, acting on her behalf, wanting to give Naomi rest, to restore her by being redeemed by Boaz. So, he's seeing that she, that Ruth, is being faithful. That Ruth is being faithful, again, devoted and clinging to Naomi. And so he praises her for this, that she is faithful. And he praises her out of love for her and faith in God. And her covenant faithfulness, this hesed, is what attracts, is attracting Boaz to her. It's not as romantic as some of us like to make it out to seem. I'm not saying there's no romance here at all. But what brings his admiration is the fact that this is a righteous woman who is faithful to the covenant, a woman who believes in God, and shows covenant faithfulness. So, we should look to the example of Ruth. Her covenant faithfulness that she showed to Naomi, and to her God, that we should do the same. We should follow in her example. We should be faithful to one another. We should be faithful to our brothers, and try to seek their good, and try to seek their rest. That they would be comforted. That they would be secure. So when a brother comes and says to you, hey, man, I've been going through this, or I've got this on my time, and you say, hey, I got you. I'm praying for you. Do you follow through? Do you follow through with that and actually pray? That's one example of how we show the covenant faithfulness, that God has shown us to one another. That's how we show it to one another. That's one example. But when we promise to help, when we give ourselves to help, and we promise to do something, promise to help our brothers and sisters, we should follow through and show covenant faithfulness to them, just like Ruth did. Just like Ruth did here, treating others higher than ourselves, treating others better than ourselves. And so while everything up to this point seems to be going smoothly so far, in verse 12, Boaz gives the revelation. He says, but now it is true that I am a kinsman redeemer. However, there is a kinsman redeemer closer than I. So we see there's a little hiccup in the plan of Naomi and Ruth that they probably didn't see. There's some tension in the story, and there's a drama. I mean, all great stories work this way, as we were talking about before, is that God adds this into the story to show that he's in control of the valleys and the mountains, the ups and downs, that he is working even throughout it. And it adds this drama, this suspense to this story. And then Boaz says, more that you would say to knights, then he'll go and see if the guy wants to redeem her, the other closer redeemer. And if he doesn't, then Boaz himself will redeem her. And so he's showing that he's a mighty man of excellence. He's showing that he's an honorable man by going to her. But by going to the other Redeemer first, since He is closer in line with the family, He's closer as a kinsman. And so in verse 13 through 15, as we saw, then 14, verse 14, She lays at His feet until morning, and rose before one could recognize another. And he said, let it not be known that the woman came with the threshing floor. And he said, give me the cloak that is on you and hold it. So she held it, and he measured six measures of barley and placed it on her. Then she went to the city. So here's the story that God's trying to tell. Ruth isn't going to her mother-in-law empty. Boaz ensures that she will go with something, with some grain. Naomi had previously lamented that the Lord brought her back to the land empty. She said, I went out of Israel full, then I came back empty. But God is reversing her emptiness here. He is reversing that, as we saw in the last chapter. He's given her hope. He's reversing that and restoring the emptiness, turning it into fullness. This is entirely by the unmerited grace of God. But God does this all the time for us. He does this all the time for His people, even when they don't deserve anything good because of our sin. We don't deserve anything but condemnation. We don't deserve anything but the wrath of God. But yet, even in this state, God loves to give and give salvation, blesses His people out of the generosity and grace that He has. What an amazing God we serve. He is faithful to Naomi here. He has not changed. He will still be faithful to us, no matter the situation, no matter what we're going through, the hardship or trial. He will still be faithful to us in all our situations. Another significant thing is in the text, it says he measured six measures of barley. Most translations will say measures. Which, your Bible might have italics there, which indicates that that word isn't, it's not in the original, but it's being supplied just to help it read, help it smoothly read. But literally it's saying, He gave her six of barley. So the emphasis is on the fact that he gave her, the emphasis is on the number, that he gave her six. So why is this important? Well, this chapter, how did this chapter begin? It's Naomi seeking a state of rest, seeking a state of rest for her daughter Ruth. And then it ends with verse 18, Naomi telling her that Boaz will not rest, that he will not rest until he has accomplished this for her. So, the 6 of barley is indicating, just as the wheat has 6 days, and then on the 7th day is that rest, that he gives her the 6, pledging that there will be a 7th day, that he will accomplish rest, that Boaz will give her rest. So, this is the picture that we're seeing here. that God will work through Boaz to give rest to Naomi. And He still does it today. He gives rest to us, and delights to give us rest. We skipped over an important part in verse 16, where it says, she came to her mother-in-law, and Naomi asked, how did it go, my daughter? Or some translation might say, what happened, my daughter? A better translation would not be how or what, but literally, it's about who. It says, who are you? She's asking, who are you, my daughter? And if we look at the KJV Bible, if we look at the 1611 KJV Bible, it translates it this way. It does a good job. It translates it, who art thou? And so the idea here, it's not merely how did it go, but she's asking if Ruth has come back, and she's Mrs. Boaz now. Are you Mrs. Boaz? Are you guys married? Has he redeemed you? As we looked at it, if all went according to plan, they would have been married on the spot, and that would have been it. She would have been Mrs. Boaz. And so, this idea of who she is, gets back to the idea of the name. The name. Which, as we looked at it, it encompasses all that a person is. The whole person. And so, Naomi's asking Ruth that she has a new name. She's asking her if she has a new name. And for us, it's no different. The Lord Jesus Christ, when He redeemed us, when He married His bride to church, He gave her a new name. He gave her a new identity. And you are mine. I sign your name onto mine. You are mine. You're my bride. And all that I have, you can now come in and join. He gives her a new name. Everything that Christ has is now ours. And this is the picture. This is the good news. This is the gospel. That all that Christ has is now ours. Ruth wanted Boaz to cover her under his wing. That he would wrap his cloth around her. That one cloth would be around two. That two would become one flesh. The picture that we have in the garden. And this shows the gospel where through Christ's death, through His burial and resurrection, that He has made His bride, made Christ, made His church, His body, one with Him. That He has given us all that we need. He's given us life, forgiveness. He's given us His righteousness in Him. And so this is a beautiful picture of Christ in the church that we have here with Boaz and Ruth. the beauty of Christ and His Church, a mystery hidden for all ages, but now revealed to us through the Word of God, through Christ. And so what brings us into union with Christ? It's faith. Faith brings us and unites us to Christ. It's what joins us to our Savior. Simply trusting in Him, trusting in His character, that what He has said, that He will do it. And He says, here is my salvation, here is my free gift to you, that He will give it. He is a Savior who shows great, loving kindness. And if we come away with anything, if we come away with anything from this story, we can be assured of this, that if you throw yourself, if you cast yourself upon Christ, if you throw yourself upon the Redeemer, He will redeem you. He is willing. He's not unwilling. He is faithful. He will not turn you away. That is the Savior we serve. Christ, our Redeemer. Christ, the Redeemer. Christ, the Redeemer. That sounds like a good name for a church. All right, let us go ahead and pray. Heavenly Father, Lord God, we thank you that you have shown us your Word, Lord. We thank you that...