Three Women Used of God — Genesis 49

0:00 Good morning. Good morning. Play with the technology a bit here. Make sure we're ready to go. Voila.

0:18 Okay, let's pray. Father, we're very grateful that you've given us this opportunity to open your word. Lord, we pray that you will speak to us through it, that you will use us for your purposes, not mine and that you will guide us as we go. We pray these things in your son's name, amen. So I thought this is an interesting comment to start with, used of God.

0:43 Used of God, is there something that we could say late in life or maybe after we're gone or generations later, would you like somebody to think of you and say, he, she, they, we were used of God. Maybe that's something I'd like to have on my tombstone, you know. Or if you walked by a tombstone and you said, used of God, Well, that would be maybe somewhat of a proud statement but we hope that people would think of that as they considered us years gone by. So let's let's take a look at that in the scriptures. I'm going to bring up a set of scriptures here that I would think or maybe in my experience, okay.

1:33 Maybe it's the scriptures that we read the fastest or that we don't skip over, but we skip through pretty quickly. Okay, and in this particular case, I think it's unfortunate that it's the first verses in the New Testament. Now why would I say that? Why would I say, gee, we skip over these very quickly, but I see Don smiling. Why do we skip over these?

1:58 Go ahead. It's a genealogy, right? There's all these begots and begots and this is the way I kind of envision on a scroll with old English print, right? So that you can't read it even worse. So I don't feel guilty about moving past it.

2:12 But I think it's important for us to take a look at this section, okay? Just today we'll take a look at this section. I want to highlight a little bit more and see if there's something important here that we might have skipped over or that I frequently skip over, okay? So, if you read through that, it says, Abraham begot Isaac, Isaac begot Jacob, and let's put it in a form that we can watch, look at, and understand a little bit better, okay? When when we say Abraham was the father of Isaac, who is the father of Jacob, who is the father of Judah.

2:48 In this format, it kind of helps us to, it helps me at least to picture it, to understand it. And this, we'll keep this genealogy, if you will, here for us to refer to as we go through the talk today. Okay? Now, this is not new. The last time I was up, I talked a little bit about this, okay?

3:08 And so I'm sort of spinning off of that a little bit, so hopefully some of this is a reminder to you and it's not all new. So, let's take a look here. You remember, this is not too difficult. The the genealogy, and and it's important that we we realize this last point here, It's the genealogy of the lord Jesus, right? And that's why it's important here.

4:00 Remember we talked a little bit about this, there's four of them. The one that he loves, the one that he worked for, the one that he intended to marry is Rachel. Okay, remember that. Rachel was the one he loved the most, the one that he intended to marry. Unfortunately, after working seven years, he wakes up the morning after his wedding night with Leah, Rachel's sister, which doesn't make sense to me, but that's what happened.

4:26 We know that to be true. That's what they told us. We got Leah and Rachel. Now, Laban sent Bilhah with Rachel as a handmaiden, probably a young lady that waited on her and helped her with chores, household, whatever. Bilhah went with Rachel and in like fashion, Zilpah came, if I'm saying those right, came with Leah, right?

4:50 So, much to Jacob and Rachel's dismay, there's these first four boys born to Leah. Now, these are the sons of Leah, right? They're jealous. There's a competition going on. Rachel can't get pregnant.

5:08 She decides, well, I'm in control of this young lady named Bilhah. Maybe she can raise children on my behalf for Jacob, right? And we have Reuben, Simeon, Levi, then Dan and Naftali, okay? I want to put a picture in your mind so you can understand where this is going. Not to be outdone.

5:31 Leah says, well, I can play the same game. Zilpa can raise children on my behalf and that's where we come up with Gad and Asher. Moving on down the line, Leah ends up having two more, Issachar and Zebulon. Now, these these names are important and the arrangement of them is important. You need to understand this.

5:54 Try to get the picture in your mind. We'll move on from this but still, finally, Rachel conceives and born to her are Joseph and much later after they leave, Laban actually is Benjamin. A significant portion about Benjamin right now is that very close after childbirth, Rachel dies and the young one, Benjamin, is left, okay? And and there we have em, the 12 tribes of Israel. Now, throughout the Old Testament, these come up over and over again.

6:28 So, it's important for us to understand how they're arranged, who's from who, and how it's important. It'll come back in our in discussion today but put them all together, and we know that these are the 12 tribes in the order that they were born, in their birth order. Okay? Now, unfortunately, when we go to the inheritance, we find out that there's 13 tribes. Okay?

6:53 Doesn't make sense. How did you ever add them up? Did you ever look? How did Ephraim and Manasseh end up getting in there? Because they were the sons of Joseph, okay?

7:03 The sons of Joseph are split. It's in the Ephraim and Manasseh. Actually, Manasseh was born first but Ephraim takes the lead role if you will. I'm not going to go into that a lot and the the tribe of Levi ends up becoming the priesthood, okay? And they're provided for by the rest of these 12 tribes, okay?

7:25 Again, try and put the picture in your mind, alright? So, let's go back here and think before I go there. Let's go back here and look. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and out of Jacob, the next individual in the lineage of Christ is who? Judah.

7:45 Well, now, wait a minute. Was he the oldest? He wasn't, was he? It was Reuben was the oldest. Simeon, Levi, and then Judah but Judah of Leah, alright?

8:24 Your hands shall be on the neck of your enemies. Your father's children, meaning your other brothers, sisters, shall bow down before you. My brother or my sons and daughters will bow down before you. Well, okay, that's nice that he says that about Judah but what about those older guys? Simeon and Levi are brothers, instruments of cruelty are in their dwelling place.

8:49 Let not their soul enter their council or let not my soul enter their council. Let not my honor be united to their assembly. Not the thing you'd want your dad to say about you is his last words, right? What about Reuben? Now, Reuben, you are my firstborn, my might, and the beginning of my strength, the excellency of dignity and the excellency of power.

9:14 Unstable as water, you shall not excel. There's history with these guys, right? Reuben ends up having an illicit relationship with Bilhaw, right? And that among other things gives you an indication of what his character is. Simeon and Levi, in order to revenge their sister Dinah, who was born to Leah as well, says, you know, we're going to go and take out these guys that that that took advantage of Dinah and they have blood in their hands from that.

9:51 So, Judah is the guy. Let's take a little better look at him and in order to take a little better look at Judah, we need to have a conversation about the story of Joseph. Now, we know that Joseph was sold, right? So, here we're going to talk about Judah but it starts with the story of Joseph. There's Joseph.

10:10 Now, what do we know about Joseph? Joseph, all all our Sunday school, we always remember that Joseph had this. Go ahead, Phil. He had a code of many colors. So, there's that Joseph.

10:22 It's amazing what you can find on the internet, okay? And I'm not I'm I'm not trying to go over any copyright laws or anything here. I'm just using these pictures for my purposes to explain a point. So, there's my get out of jail free card for today. But so, here's Joseph.

10:37 Joseph's got this coat of many colors and Joseph heads out into the field one day with his coat of many colors on. Does he look like he's ready to work? No. Does he look like he is going to be a help to his brothers who he's going to visit? No.

10:56 What do his brothers think? He's not going to be much help to us and they are jealous of him because he's favored by Jacob. Why? Because he was Rachel's firstborn. Rachel was his love of his life.

11:10 This is his favorite son, the firstborn of Rachel. He was a dreamer and dreamed these many dreams. He had this coat of many colors. He goes out to visit them and they decide, I'm not going to read this for the sake of time but if you want to write these verses down, this will help you where it says read. You can do that in your homework, okay?

11:31 And you'll get sort of the flow of what the conversation is today. I I I believe this is just my way of thinking. The Simeon and Levi in in in the same fashion as before had said, let's kill em. That's their their choice or not their choice but that's their solution to the problem. Kill him.

11:50 They throw him into a pit mainly because Reuben says, oh, hold on. Come on now. We can't do that. He has a design to try and see if he can't find a way to avoid this from happening. Somehow, it goes on to Judah and Judah says, you know what?

12:06 That doesn't help us anything. We can accomplish the same thing. He'll be out of our life. He will be in this place where where we don't have to worry about him. Let's sell him.

12:16 We can get a profit out of this, right? So, there's our guy, Judah, right? Does he sound like somebody you'd want to be your ancestor ancestor or to carry for your name? No, it doesn't. Now, it's not too long later that some years later, Judah, it says in in Genesis chapter 38, he departs from his family, departs from his brothers, he marries a Canaanite and there's an error right here.

12:45 It says named Shua. That's not correct. It's actually the daughter of Shua. We never found out her name or I haven't, I don't remember it. I can't find it but it says, the daughter of Shua, he he marries who's a Canaanite.

13:00 Now, in in in Hebrew history or direction, that was not supposed to happen, okay? He was intended to marry within his quote unquote lineage and he didn't. So, he goes off. He does this in not too distant pattern, you know, in quarter or order of business. Why do we want to say that?

13:24 In short order, that's what I want to say. He has three sons, Er, Onan, and Sheila, okay? And they they are born, they grow up, ergus to an age where it says, you know what? He needs a a wife. It says that Judah picks Tamar.

13:45 Again, a Canaanite woman. There's Tamar, Er and Tamar. Says the lord said, Er is wicked and Er is not going to live. The lord kills Er and he's out of the picture. So, in the tradition of the time and what goes on to be a direction from the Lord later in the scriptures, the the point is...

14:11 Or the the idea is that an heir still needed to be provided for in order to pass things down in history, it needed to have an heir for Er, and so the tradition was that Onan would provide that heir. He would take Tamar as wife, and then he would raise up an heir for his brother. Okay? When he has the opportunity, he takes the pleasure, doesn't provide the seed, and the Lord kills him too. He's out of the picture.

14:43 So Judah, in his wisdom says, boy, if I give him one more, I'm out of sons here. Right? So so he makes a false promise and said, when Sheila get... Gets or Shelah, however we say that, gets old enough, then she will be your wife too. In the meantime, he sends her back to her father.

15:06 Now, this is a shameful thing. He had taken responsibility. His family is responsible for her now, irresponsible now the culture and in the time to provide an heir. And he says, you know what, you go back to your father. She's shamed.

15:24 Okay? This is a horrible spot for her to be in, destined to... Or destitute, if you will, and having to rely on her father to support her after all this has happened, and it's a bad thing. Okay. So, unfortunately, Judah goes one step further, right?

15:43 And he says, not only does he abandon her, he sends him back to a father, makes a a false promise and then, his wife dies, okay? So, now, here's here's Judah, right? He's lost two sons. He's lost his wife. He's sent his daughter-in-law away and he is...

16:05 It says that he's comforted, right? He goes through the grieving period, but he's also maybe on the lookout, right? And it says that he's going to go up to the Sheep Shearer's Convention. Well, not really convention, but this was a big deal. In order for you to shear your sheep, it was...

16:24 Everybody had to come. It was a big operation. If you've ever sheared one, think about shearing thousands, and it was a very difficult thing. So they all come together, he's headed there, and Tamar finds out about this. Tamar finds out and she prepares a disguise, and she comes up with a deceptive plan.

16:45 He owes me an heir. He owes my husband an heir and therefore, I am going to deceive him, dress up like a harlot, it says, a prostitute, and proposition him along the road which she does. She's successful at, but before they they go through with that, she extracts a price from him. And he says, I'll pay you one goat. She says, that's fine, where's the goat?

17:15 He said, I'll have to send it to you. Okay. Well, how do I know you're gonna send it to you? Sue me. And he provides the signet, the cord, and staff.

17:24 Now, in today's terminology, we don't know what a signet, cord, and staff mean. Right? But think about it this way. I will pay you, I will give you a surety, my passport, my credit card, and my birth certificate. Is that good enough for you?

17:41 You're all looking at me like, is that crazy? Who would do such a thing in today's day? Nobody, but that's what he did essentially. He basically gave away his identity, who he was and the strength of him. And he gave it to her, she blackmailed him basically.

18:02 So, if you move on to the end of chapter 38, you find out that she's found out. After three months, now, that's what everybody happens, right? I don't tell anybody for about three months. I'm going to keep it to ourselves. We're not going to but after three months, what happens?

18:20 You can't hide it any longer, right? There there's going to be something that's going to show and at three months, she's found out and they tell Judah, Judah, you can't believe this but that daughter-in-law of yours, whom you abandoned, now all of a sudden, he feels like he's got a way to to say something about her and he says, she's pregnant. You're kidding me. Burn her. Quick to condemn her after all this and maybe quick to get her out of his life.

18:49 Maybe he's quick to say, you know what? This is my way out. I can move on with life. I don't know but he's quick to condemn her until she produces the passport, the credit card, and the birth certificate. So this is the guy by whom I'm pregnant.

19:04 And what does he say? All of a sudden, truth is there, and twins are the result of it. But he says, oh my goodness, she has been more righteous than I. She has been more righteous than I. So you can see that Judah's heart is beginning to change.

19:45 Joseph sells them the food, puts their money back in their sacks, says, bring back your younger brother. They said, how do you know we had a younger brother? Well, don't worry. Just bring him back the next time you come or I'll think you're a spy and and as surety for that, I'm going keep Simeon. He keeps Simeon.

20:00 They go back. They tell their dad the whole story. Find out there's still money in their pouches. Can't understand what's going on. These guys are trying to set us up.

20:09 We're in trouble. What are we going to do? I don't know. But we need more food. So, they return to Egypt and they bring the little brother with them, okay?

20:19 They bring Benjamin with them. Now, who's Benjamin? Benjamin is the son of Rachel, the younger brother of Joseph, okay? The loved one. So, he lost Joseph, right?

20:32 Jacob, Israel, loses Joseph. Now, he has to send Benjamin. He's thinking, he ain't coming back. It's awful. What am I going to do?

20:39 And Judah intercedes for Benjamin, pleading not only or first, he pleads with his father. Please, we're all going to die, us and our little ones, if we don't go get more food. I, I Judah, will take responsibility. You will you will get him from me back. I promise you.

21:01 And if you don't, you can blame me for the rest of your life. It's me, on me, only me. And so he vouches for him. Then, there's this intricate scheme, the Joseph's cup goes with Benjamin. He finds out Benjamin is accused of being the thief of the cup of Joseph, the second in command of Egypt.

21:21 And they drag him all back in there and what happens? But that but they say, I'm going Joseph says, I'm keeping him as my slave. Judah stands up and says, oh no, we can't do that, right? I promised that I would bring him back. We'll all be your slaves.

21:36 Nope. I'm only going to keep him. He's the one. Judah says, look, you can do whatever you want with anybody else. I'll stay.

21:43 I'm telling you, it's me on me. I cannot do this to my father. I cannot do this to my father. Now, here is Judah, the the the son of Leah. Bargaining on behalf of the oldest and the youngest or before the oldest, on behalf of the youngest son of Rachel.

22:05 His mother and and and Rachel had been rivals all their lives. That's all they knew. It caused conflict the whole time. But here's Judah, a new man, a different state of life saying, I will, I will sacrifice my life for that boy. So, he does do that.

22:26 Joseph says, okay, I get it. I believe you. Hold on. I'm Joseph and we we know the rest of the story there but it's a pivotal point in his life and this truth comes to to to Judah and it was all part of, believe it or not, this deception by Tamar. So we could talk about Judah, but there's a story here related to Tamar.

22:52 Alright. Let's keep going. We we don't have a lot of time but let's move down to another name in the line here, Salmon. How many of you remember that he was in the line if I hadn't put up here? Not many.

23:05 Well, yeah, there's a couple, right? And Miriam has them memorized, so of course she would know. I'm sorry. So at any rate, you remember this chart from long ago, right? This was the last time I was up here.

23:19 There's these... The Exodus happens about a year later, thirteen months afterwards, they group as an army, okay? And they organize in numbers, right? Here's the numbers. Judah will lead first.

23:35 Reuben will follow by Ephraim and then Dan, right? These are the leaders of the tribes and the leader of Judah which was really a combination of the three tribes, Judah, Issachar, and Zebulon. Go back and look, Issachar and Zebulon are the two younger brothers of Judah by Leah, okay? And the same thing happens around the around the horn here. It's Reuben, Simeon, and Gad, all from Leah, etcetera, okay?

24:05 So so these are important when we do that but here's 603,550 fighting men and their families are all traveling as one group, right? And there was leaders of each one of these tribes. Judah first, the leader of Judah was a guy by the name of Naishan. Remember we talked about him last time? Naishan, okay?

24:25 He was the leader. Now, he was probably a politician and a soldier. He was probably like the mayor of Cleveland now. He was well known. He would have been like commanding an army of a 186,400 people.

24:41 A very privileged position and job. Well, look underneath him, Nashon begot, Salmon. So, Salmon is his boy. Oops, wrong one. We talked about this.

24:58 They they send the spies in. They're very doubtful that they can conquer and they're they're sentenced to a forty year wandering in the wilderness, okay? Don't forget that that Naishan was a leader in Judah. Paul, brother-in-law to Moses as well. He was a well known guy.

25:16 They they go for forty years after a futile attempt. This guy, Salmon, may have been a shepherd in the wilderness. It says, I'm going to condemn your sons to be shepherds in the wilderness. So, I don't know but he grew up privileged. He ended up in the wilderness.

25:30 This is the guy, okay? Moses dies. Joshua is the next leader. He crossover the order to crossover the Jordan and the first thing they run into is the walls of what? Jericho.

25:43 Jericho. That's right. They're going they're going to have to to to conquer Jericho first and so, what does Joshua do? He sends out two spies. He says, go check out the land and let me know what you see.

26:19 At least that's the way I would term it, okay? She has a reputation but she's not only that, she's a known woman, okay? When the leader of Jericho, the mayor or whoever he was, of Jericho says, hey, I'm looking for these guys. Who does he go to? He sends people directly to Rahab and said, heard they were in your house.

26:39 And she says, you know what? They did stop by here and she goes us through this plan of deception, right? But but let's make sure we understand a little bit more. Read the whole story about Rahab, right? She has a reputation.

26:53 We know that. She's known in the village or in the city. She has a house with flax on the roof. What's flax for? Anybody know what flax is used for?

27:04 It's for making linen. It's what you weave to make linen cloth. Okay? So it would appear to me, this is just my putting the pieces together, that maybe she had put together a business. She had...

27:17 She's beyond this this know... What she was known for and she has a business. Not only that, but she's there protecting her father, her mother, her sisters, and her brothers. So that's that's a good bunch of people. Okay?

27:31 I don't know. This is my thought and the way I'm reading through it but I wonder, what were the circumstances that led her into the position where she took that made the choice to be a prostitute? I don't know but we can't judge. We don't know and she's definitely an industrious woman as she is you can see here. She hid the spies.

27:53 She misled their pursuers. They were rescued because she lowered them down through the wall and she has an agreement with them. If you listen to her testimony in verses eight through 11 here in Joshua two, she would say, I have heard of your god. How he brought you out of Egypt, how he has defeated the kings on the other side of the river. We all are scared and are melting before him.

28:22 I believe in him, that god. I believe that was a true faith. So, if we go on to to read the the end of the story where they come back and and we all know about the marching around Jericho, right? Miraculous, miraculous victory. Nobody could say it was the army and the way they were organized.

28:44 It was Joshua and his careful planning. It was Joshua telling them what to do based on the lord. They blew the trumpets. The walls fell down but this one, this wall, apparently, the house on would would have been on the wall which had a red signet cord outside said, that's where Rahab lives. Go in and rescue her and so, they they had the miraculous victory.

29:06 They recovered her and and the scripture say that she lives to this day. So, it's written at a time where she was still alive, it appears and you could go and ask her. You could ask her to tell her testimony and she would tell you what miracle happened. So was there an impressed young man there? Who were the spies?

29:29 Who was impressed with her testimony? Who ended up taking her as a wife? Was this guy Salmon? In my rendition of the story, he was one of the spies. Don't know.

29:42 Can't say. But I like to think of it that way, that he was one of the spies that went in. He met her. He saw... He he...

29:49 She saved him or he knew of whom she had saved. Whatever, he was impressed. This guy was well known, but yet he took her as a wife. So we could talk about Salmon, but if you miss the story of Rahab, you've missed Salmon's story. Let's move on down.

30:23 It's beautiful story. It should be on the Hallmark Channel probably. So, anyway, it this starts with Ruth and her family. Famine in Bethlehem which is interesting. It's only, it's not even a generation later and there's a famine in the land of milk and honey.

30:41 Something's something's interesting there. There's reasons for famine. Usually, it's weather but sometimes it can be unrest, political unrest or whatever. Who knows? But Elimelech is the father, Naomi is the mother, Malin is the firstborn son who ends up getting a wife named Ruth, and Chilion, a wife named Orpa.

31:01 Okay? So, all three of those men die. Dead. Where does that leave those women? In this culture, in that day, it leaves them destitute.

31:14 They have nobody to provide for them. Okay? So they decide with few options. The three of them are going to return to Bethlehem because we figure there's things better now. Okay?

31:24 They'd left, and now they're going to go back and fall if you will on the mercy of those of their brethren, of of the brethren of Naomi and we we find out that Orpa turns back. Ruth says in her testimony, go where you go or go where you might wanna go, but I will be right with you. I will die before I leave you and your God. That's my paraphrase, is what Ruth's testimony was. Now, that's a true faith there too.

31:58 I have to believe that Naomi had taught her daughters in law, particularly Ruth, of the God of the Bible, and she said, that's who I wanna go with. So they happened to get there during the barley harvest, and it continues on through the wheat harvest. They glean... Or she gleans... I hope you know what that means.

32:18 When you cut the barley, some of it you gather up, and as you're carrying it, some of it falls or pieces fall. Well, she goes back behind and gathers up bushels of grain to care for herself and her mother-in-law. It was a common practice here. She's in the fields of Boaz. He's benevolent, industrious.

32:37 I like to think it's because of his mother. Now, who was his mother? Who was Boaz's mother? Rahab. Okay?

32:47 I think he knew the story of his mother well. And it ended up making him an industrious guy as well. He's a relative of Naomi. Ruth's story is known. Her kindness is known throughout the land.

33:04 She's a known woman again because of what she's done, and there's some attachment between her and Boaz. Eventually, she says, hey, you're our close relative. Will you redeem me and my mother-in-law? And he says, you're right. I am a close relative but there's one closer.

33:24 There's one that I need to go and see if that guy will redeem you first. That guy says, no. Take off a sandal and then, you find out that he ends up redeeming not just Naomi and Ruth but Malon, right? Melon needs this heir, so we'll keep moving on. They take off the sandal.

33:47 It's a public declaration before the elders at the gate, which would have been where the political activity happened for the day, and she's adopted and married. If you read Ruth chapter four verse eleven and twelve, the ladies say, may you be blessed like Perez, who was born of Tamar to Judah and on down the line. So it wraps up Rachel and Joseph, Leah and Judah, Tamar and Perez, Boaz and Rehab, Ruth and Naomi, they're all... I'd like to think that Naomi and Rahab were there when this... When they were saying this, okay?

34:35 It was quite a story that people knew. People knew the story of Tamar. Okay, they have the baby. His name is Obed. Obed begets begets has Jesse and then David.

34:50 So, the son to and he becomes a son to Naomi. So, again, this is a well known history, one that they would have talked about regularly at the dinner table, okay? This this lineage. Okay. So, you can't think about the history of Boaz without thinking of Ruth.

35:31 So we're dealing with three in the lineage today. So what can we find out from a genealogy? I mean, is there anything there that's important for me today? Should I just skip over it? Is it important for us to know?

35:46 I'd say yes, okay? There's three women, at least, there's five, but these three we're talking about today. Three women used of God. And their testimony and their story is given here. There's something important that we need to all walk away with today.

36:07 These are real people with real struggles and had a real testimony. Okay? Sometimes, I think of these like Aesop's fables or or, you know, their their children's stories that we talk about the code of many colors and and the walls that came tumbling down. This actually happened. If we believe it, it happened.

36:27 Okay? And and there it is for these real people. The other thing is that these Old Testament principles are lay a foundation for the New Testament principles. This is not a something different. Let's forget about the Old Testament and just worry about the New Testament, etcetera.

36:43 We we must understand the old in order to understand the new. Okay. And then there's these three women. What can we learn from these stories today? Okay?

37:09 There is a pivot point in everyone's life, okay? A pivot point where you decide I'm going this way, I'm going that way, where I realize the truth of who I am and I take a I make a decision and take a step forward based on that, okay? That don't miss it. Don't miss that pivot point in your life, okay? It may be because be because of a woman or ladies in the case, it might be because of a man But don't miss it just because of the source.

37:42 You know, Judah could easily miss this. Okay? But he realized where he was at, and the truth the truth changed his life. Okay? Rahab, our past does not need to define our future.

37:59 Let me say that again. Your past does not need to define your future. She took action. You know what? I'm known for that, but I'm moving on.

38:10 I see her as one of a very industrious woman that moved on past that. Now, her reputation never left her. To this day, her reputation never left her but she took a step forward and said, life continues. I must move on. And she made a life that was important and she understood who the lord god was.

38:33 She had a tremendous influence in my mind on Boaz. She went beyond rescue and and ended up she ended up being rescued but she was provided with abundance. Alright, let's look at Ruth. Ruth, overwhelming disaster had belayed her. She was in poverty and had no out core, out out options moving forward but she was obedient.

38:56 She followed the ways that the lord had prescribed. She was obedient in spite of the difficulty and took care of her mother-in-law, Naomi, sacrificially, okay? She trusted, followed the principles, god is a rewarder of those who are obedient, alright? Okay, we can sum this up. I think just a little bit here saying, truth in in Tamar's story, truth led to repentance.

39:25 Who I really am and then I repent. Faith of Rahab led to her rescue and salvation but faith led to salvation. And then obedience in Ruth's case led to assurance. Not she obeyed believing but then she was sure to see afterwards the way Boaz had providing... Provided to her and was providing for her.

39:55 Now, are these subjects that you've ever heard of before? Truth, faith, obedience? There's a lot of that in the New Testament, wouldn't you say? But we didn't talk anything about that. We only took the first seventeen seventeen verses of the New Testament, not even first five or so.

40:13 There it is. Two books, one message. Important for us to remember that today as we move forward. Let's pray. Father, we are grateful for the opportunity again to open up your word.

40:28 Lord, we do thank you for for these stories. Some ways, they're they contain subjects that are hard to discuss or consider and and yet lord, we can see that that you had an opportunity to work through these, individuals. We thank you for the story of Tay... Tamar, Rahab, and for Ruth. Lord, there's many others that you've put there for our purposes, and we just pray that we might be able to learn from them.

40:56 We pray these things in your son's precious name. Amen.