This is class number 31 on dreams, visions, and hypnosis in the Bible. Now it doesn't mention much of that here, but the book of Ruth is kind of like a parenthetical book in the Bible. It's there for one reason. One reason mainly is to teach us about the kinsman-redeemer, because which Christ was our kinsman-redeemer. And we looked at that in the last class, in the introductory class to Ruth. in Genesis 3, 1 through 15. And the promise of the Messiah was definitely there, the seed of the woman. In Galatians, the book of Galatians, let's go there for just a moment. That's in the Hekinah, D.F.A.K., the New Testament. Galatians chapter 4, because the fourth chapter is about what we're talking about in the Book of Ruth. The Book of Ruth is just a complement to the Bible, teaching us about the Kingdom and Redeemer. Now I say, as long as the heir is a child, he does not differ from all the other slaves, though he is the owner of everything. But he is under guardians and managers until the date set by his father. So also we, while we were children, were held in bondage under the elemental things of the world. But when the fullness of time came, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, or born of a woman, born under the law, in order that he might redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons, we Othesia. is a Greek word, wios thesios. Wios is the heir. Thesios means the place as an heir. Now, in modern society, people can go down and they can make out a trust and they don't have to give it to their children, they can give it to somebody else or some entity. But here, they didn't have the system that we have today. and the system that they had, God adopted us, we Othesia, we had no hope without Christ as Gentiles. But now we are placed as sons, we are placed as heirs, heirs of salvation. And because you are sons, God has sent forth the spirit of his son into our hearts, crying Abba Father, or Father, Father, or Daddy, Daddy. Therefore you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God, However, at the time when you did not know God, you were slaves to those which by nature are no gods. But now that you have come to know God, or rather be known of God, how is it that you turn back again to the weak and worthless elemental things in which you desire to be enslaved all over again?" And he's talking about the Jewish people that the promise, the Goel had come here, the promised son, the Hamashiach is here, and yet they want to go back to the law. Everything that pointed to Christ was supposed to say, here, when Christ comes, over here, lay aside this. The law was supposed to point them to Christ. The law, they wanted to go back and, you know, look at James. James and Peter, Even Mark, they wanted to live under the law still. Remember in the book of Acts, where Peter is there near Joppa, and he's up on the roof taking a siesta, and he's hungry and he's dreaming about food. Dreams, visions, and hypnosis and the Bible, okay? And he sees this, all of these animals, and they're unclean animals, they're animals that a Jew doesn't eat. And then the God appears to them, and he said, Arise, slay, and eat. No way am I going to eat, he said, there has never been, never passed my lips anything unclean. And God told him, he said, what God calls clean, you don't call unclean. He said go to Joppa, go down there, Caesarea that is from Joppa and there is a Gentile and this Gentile is a righteous man and you go down there and you preach the gospel to them and you establish a church down there. So he took church members with him from the church in Joppa and went down there and they established the first Gentile church. That's what this is talking about right here. and you observed days and months and seasons and years, I fear that perhaps I have labored over you in vain. You want to go back to the law? You want to go back under the obedience of the law? I beg you, brethren, become as I am, for I also have become as you are, and you have done me no wrong. But you know that it was because of bodily illness that I preached the gospel to you the first time. He was sick, and he went there for healing, and then he preached the gospel to them. Now, all of this was to bring that church to God, the churches of Galatia. Now let's go back over here to the second chapter of the book, the Gospel of Ruth. Let's call it the Gospel of Ruth, because the gospel is in it. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life. Now Naomi had a kinsman, a Goel, and her husband, a man of great wealth and the family of Elimelech, and remember what that means, God is the God of the king, whose name was Boaz, and in his strength is what that means. And Ruth the Moabitess said to Naomi, please let me go to the field and glean among the ears of grains after one in whose sight I may find favor. And she said to her, go my daughter. Now this is a, she's going to seduce Boaz. Exactly what's going to happen, she's going to seduce him. But God's opening all these doors because this is the kinsman redeemer. And you know who her? There was Rahab the harlot, and then we have Ruth the Moabitess. They are in this direct line. You find out Boaz, his grandmother, so to speak, was Rahab the harlot. She was a Canaanite, but she was a believer. And Ruth the Moabitess said to Naomi, please let me go to the field. I want to leave your presence and I want to go down here to the field and I want to glean among the ears of grain after one whose sight I may find favor. And she said to her, go to my dog, go my daughter. And she departed and went and gleaned in the field after the reapers. And it so happened. She happened to come to the portion of the field belonging to Boaz, who was of the family of Elimelech. Now, behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem and said to the reapers, may the Lord be with you. And they said to him, may the Lord bless you. That's one of the greetings that they had for each other. Then Boaz said to his servants, who was in charge of the reapers, whose young woman is this? Who does she belong to? Who does she belong to? And the servant in charge of the reaper answered and said, she is a young Moabite woman who returned from Naomi from the land of Moab. Now this Eliezer in the Old Testament, you know, he was sent to Tharan to get a wife for Isaac. He was the type of John the Baptist. And here we see all these types in the Bible over and over and over again. And she said, please let me glean and gather after the reapers among the sheaves. Thus she came and has remained from the morning until now and she has been sitting in the house for a long time. And Boaz said to Ruth, now he directly talks to her. Do you think God's involved in all this now? Absolutely. Boaz said to Ruth, listen carefully, my daughter. Do not go to glean in another field. Furthermore, do not go on from this one, but stay here and be with my maids, my young women. Let your eyes be on the field which they reap and go after them. Indeed, I have commanded the servants not to touch you. Now, I'm going to tell you something. Back in those days, if some servant comes out and he sees a woman by herself, he's liable to seduce her or rape her. He said, you've got my protection. And when you're thirsty, go to the water jars and drink from what the servants draw. Then she fell on her face and bowed to the ground and said to him, why have I not found favor in your sight that you should take notice of me? I am a foreigner. But she's actually related. And Boaz answered and said to her, all that you have done for your mother-in-law after the death of your husband has been fully reported to me. And how that you left your father and your mother and the land of your birth and came to the people that you do not previously know. You did not know this place. It's like Abraham, you remember Abraham leaving the land because he heard the calves going into a land that he did not know by faith. For in grace you're saved through faith and that faith didn't come out of you. May the Lord reward your work and your wages be full from the God of Israel under whose wings you have come to seek refuge. You come to the God of Israel and He's going to take care of you. He said, I'm going to see to it, I'm going to be your protector. Then she said, I have found favor in your sight, my lord, for you have comforted me and indeed have spoken kindly to your maidservant, though I am not like one of your maidservants. In the meanwhile, Boaz said to her, come here that you may eat of the bread and dip your piece of bread in the vinegar. This is wine. This is wine, what it's talking about. Vinegar wine sauce. They would have this sauce that they dipped their bread in. And Jesus dipped his bread in the sauce there at the Last Supper, remember? It was actually the Passover before the Last Supper. And he dipped his bread in that sauce. And so she sat beside the reapers and he served her roasted grain and she ate and was satisfied and had some left over. And when she rose to glean, Boaz commanded his servants, saying, Let her glean even among the sheave, and do not insult her by any means. Do not castigate her in any way. Now this is the rich people's food that she was eating there. It was not the common man's food. This was the rich man's food. And also you shall purposely pull out for her some grain from the bundles and leave it that she may glean, and do not rebuke her in any way. Do not insult her, do not rebuke her. So she gleaned in the field until evening. Then she beat out what she had gleaned, and it was about an ephah of barley. And she took it up and went into the city, and her mother-in-law saw that she had gleaned, and she took it out and gave gave Naomi what she had left over after she was satisfied. And her mother-in-law then said to her, where did you go lean today and where did you work? May he who took notice of you be blessed. So she told her mother-in-law with whom she had worked and said, the name of the man at whom I work today is Boaz. And Boaz means in his strength. And by the way, When Solomon would build a temple, one of them was Jacob and one was Boaz. The whole foundation of faith, all the way from Genesis, the third chapter, verse 15, is coming down here and lighting in this book. Right here. And Naomi said to her mother, daughter-in-law, may be blessed the Lord who has not withdrawn his kindness to the living and the dead. Again, Naomi said to her, the man is our relative. He is our Goel. Our Goel. He is one of our closest relatives. There was a relative and then there was a closest relative. Then Ruth the Moabite said furthermore, he said to me, you shall stay close to my servants until they have finished all of the harvest. And by the way, you down in the San Joaquin Valley, when they'd gone in and harvest, it was all done in one day. Zipped. And it was taken right from the thrashing machine, right into the trailers and hauled off. Back then, they did it all by hand. They had sickles and they would go down and they'd cut this grain and sometimes grain would fall out of the heads of these. And that's what King James calls corn. But there was no corn in the land. Corn was here, came from here. and they would take it and tie it up in these sheaves and they would leave it sitting in the field. Then they would go take those sheaves and they'd take them to the threshing floor and they would beat them out. Then they would take the wheat and they'd throw it in the air and when the wind was blowing, they needed wind, and they'd throw it in the air and the heavy wheat would fall and the sheaves would go off. And Naomi said to Ruth, her daughter-in-law, it's good. It has become good, my daughter, that you go out with his maids, lest others fall upon you in another field. Like I told you, they would see this woman and they would rape her. That was very common back in that time. So she stayed close by the maids of Boaz in order to glean until the end of the barley harvest and the wheat harvest. And she lived with her mother-in-law. Now the barley harvest and the wheat harvest, let's talk about this for a while. One of the most nutritious food is basically barley. But wheat, wheat was a rich man's food. Now when you go into a wheat field, that's different. That's where you make this fine flour for bread and everything. Barley was the poor man's food, wheat was the rich man's food. Now she's going to go into the rich field. She's going to a field where actually she doesn't have any right to go at all. Then Naomi, her mother-in-law, 3 in verse 1, said to her, my daughter, shall I seek security for you? that you may be well with you. And now is not Boaz our kinsman, whose maids you were. Behold, he winnows barley in the threshing floor tonight. Now he's going to go out to the threshing floor, up in another area. He's going to take that wheat out into the threshing floor. And he's going to stay up there to guard his precious product. And he's going to stay all night there. And he shall lie down when he's done. He said, wash yourself, therefore, and anoint yourself. I want you to go get ready for marriage. I want you to go baptize yourself. I want you to go dip yourself in a font, in a baptismal font, because they were doing that. What she's telling her, go baptize yourself. Get ready to get married. That's exactly what the girls would do before they got married. Now, down in Petra. Petra is down in Arabia. And it is an area where it used to be a highly populated area. And they have rains to flash floods down there. And they would take those rains and flash floods, the water from down, and guide them in viaducts down into underground, great big underground water storage areas. You go in that area, even today, I don't know if you've been there enough Sharon, but you go down in there and you'll see ancient Arabic writing in there. In there were a man and a woman got married. She would go down there and dip herself in that water and bathe herself in that water before she got married. And that's exactly what Naomi is telling Ruth to do. Go get ready to get married. Wash yourself. Baptize yourself, anoint yourself, and put on your best clothes. And go down to the threshing floor, but do not make known yourself to the man until he has finished eating and drinking. And he shall be with, when he lies down, that you shall notice the place where he lies down. And you shall go and uncover his feet and lie down. You're going to go get in bed with him. You're going to go seduce him. And he will tell you what shall I do. And she said to her, all that you shall say I will do. So she went down to the session floor and did according to all that her mother-in-law had commanded her to do. She got married. She was going to get married. And what she's going to do is go down and prepare yourself, anoint yourself, put some type of nice smelling perfume on, oil, and wash and bathe yourself and make yourself clean. And went to uncover his feet and lie down. In the middle of the night, the man was startled and went bent forward and said, a woman was lying at his feet. And he said, who are you? And she answered, I am Ruth, your maid. So spread your covering over your maid, for you are a close relative. You are my Redeemer. You are my Goel. As a Goel, I will be your wife. But something happens. Something gets in the way. Then he said, May you be blessed with the Lord, my daughter. You have shown your last kindness to be better than the first by not going after young men, whether poor or rich. And now, my daughter, do not fear. I will do for you whatever you may request. For all of my people in the city know that you are a woman of excellence. You're a woman of mercy. Chassid is the word. Chassid. And all my people in the city know this. And now it is true that I am a close relative. However, there is a kink in the rope. There is a relative closer than I am. He's closer. There's a redeemer closer than I am. It remained this night, and when morning comes, if he will redeem you, go and let him redeem you. I can't consummate the marriage until I get his approval." They were going to consummate the marriage right here, but he knows better. I will redeem you. He said, if he does not wish to redeem you, I will redeem you as the Lord lives. Lie down until morning. So she laid down on his feet until morning. And she rose before he could recognize her. And he said, let it not be known that the woman came to the sessing floor. I don't want anybody to think that I have laid with this woman tonight. I want anybody to think that I have committed a marriage with her tonight, because she may have to go to this other person. And I want her to be fresh. I don't want her to be impregnated by me unless it's OK, because maybe she has to go be with this guy. And again he said, give me the cloak that is on you and hold it. So she held it and made it out six meters of barley and laid it on her and she went into the city. And when she came to her mother-in-law she said, how did it go my daughter? Are you married? Did it work? And she told her all that the man had done for her. And she said, these six mares of barley he gave to me. And he said, do not go to your mother-in-law empty-handed. He knows that he's a kinsman redeemer, but he knows there's one closer than him. Then she said, wait, my daughter, until you know how the matter may turn out. For the man will not rest until he has settled it to this day. The man will not rest until he knows how it's going to happen, what's going to happen. He knows this woman is a woman of mercy. He said, you didn't go after a young man, you went after an old codger now. He said, it wasn't lust that you're after. You're not here because you're lusting after me. You're here if you wanted a young man. wanted to lust after somebody, you would have lusted after a young man, not me. But because you're a woman of mercy and of great honor, you've come to me instead of going to young men. And he said, I will marry you, but you must wait until I find out this other one. You're a woman of excellence. You're a woman of mercy. Jonah 2 and 9, that word he used over there. The act of Goel was to make her his wife. John 3.16 says, For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life. Ruth believed. She believed. She was going to be part of this lineage. In Matthew and in Luke it tells you the lineage and she's there. She's in that lineage. Let's go there for just a moment. Matthew, Matthew starts out. The genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. To Abraham was born Isaac, Isaac, Jacob, and to Jacob was born Judah and his brothers. And Judah were born Perez and Zerah by Tamar. And Perez was born Hezron, and to Hezron was born Ram, and to Ram was born Amenadab, and Amenadab, Nishan, and to Nishan, Salmon, and to Salmon was born Boaz by Ruth. And to Boaz was born Obed, by Ruth. And to Obed was born Jesse. And to Jesse was born David, the king. And you go all the way down here now. And to Jacob was born Joseph, the husband of Mary, by whom was born Jesus, who is called the Christ. That's the story. We'll go back into the rest of the story in the next message. Our Father, we send this message out for your honor and glory. Please, I pray that people will glean from it, that they'll learn things and now understand why and your eternal purpose. Father, thank you for it. Thank you for your grace. Thank you for your mercy and your kindness. Please use this message wherever it goes. Please forgive me what I tell you. In Jesus' name I pray, amen. Amen.