Well, we’re going to get into Hour Six of Learn the Bible in 24 Hours, and, this is the session where they’re in the land. We’ve been through the Creation. We’ve
been through the Call of Abraham. They go down to Egypt as a family, they come out as a nation. They blow it at Kadesh-Barnea and they
wander for 40 years. Now they’re at the threshold. They’re finally at ... the
gate, the second time. The first time they blew it, the second time
they’re going to do better. And interestingly enough, if you study the summary
of the Old Testament given by Stephen in Acts 7. It’s very interesting to outline his
sermon. They never let him finish, so you don’t get,
he doesn’t get to his final point, but if you notice, his whole presentation was
Israel always blows it the first time, makes it on the second. Blows it on the first time,
makes it on the second. Blew it at Kadesh-Barnea, and he goes through, ...
and of course, on Christ’s first coming, they crucify Him. He doesn’t get to the second coming, but
on the second coming, of course, they are going to petition Him and it’s,
going to be fulfilled. People ask me, “Why is Israel the chosen
people?” Well, God chose them, and, it’s
clear that’s what the whole Bible’s all about. That’s what the Old Testament ...
It’s the story of a nation, and that nation brings forth a person, and the whole Bible’s
about that person. The person of Jesus Christ. The Creator Himself became man and dwelt among
us, and that’s what this is all about. But here we are in the land, and we’re now going
to be in the ... we’ve been through the Torah. We’re now going to be in the book of
Joshua. And we’re going to look at Judges and Ruth. Ruth occurs during the period of the judges
and it’s going to be the dessert of the evening. We’ll go through this other stuff, but hang in there for Ruth. That, it’s worth the whole trip. But of
course, we’re moving now from Exodus time, up to the time of David. Joshua enters the land, overcomes the land,
and in there we’re going to have a little addenda. We’ll talk about the sun standing still. A lot of Christians have a problem with this. Joshua says, “the Bible says the earth
stopped rotating.” No it doesn’t. It says there’s a long day. You can do that by changing the precession
of the earth a bit, but, we’ll get to that, but it’s going to be a surprise
to many.Then he enters the land, overcomes the land, and then divides the land. That’s what the book of Joshua’s all about. Then we get to the generation that followed
Joshua. Joshua did, all in all, a
pretty good job, but his descendants really mess up. And, we have 450 years of doing
“what was right in their own eyes,” whatever that means, we’ll get to that. Sinning, suffering, repentance, and deliverance
is the pattern. Again and again, they sin, they suffer for it, they repent, a deliverer is
come, gives them some relief, but then the whole cycle repeats again. And, then ... as a climax this period, we get to Ruth. And this period that we’re
looking at is the bridge between the entering land and the monarchy which will follow, because
after this will come, Samuel and so forth. But the book of Ruth is a love story. That is even celebrated in colleges
as a piece of literature, quite apart from the Bible. It’s often portrayed as one of the most
eloquent pieces of literature, but as you get into it, you’re going to be ... every line
is full of surprises, and we’ll get there. Joshua, entering the land. He actually crosses the Jordan with his gang
and the first thing he does at Gilgal is a surprise. He circumcises the nation. It’s a shock to realize after all of that,
they were uncircumcised. The first generation died away. The children, in large measure, weren’t
circumcised. These were Israelis, and, so they have
a circumcision. It’s also here where the manna ceases. Up ‘til now, they’ve got the supernatural
bread every day. That now stops, because they’re now in the
land - the land of milk and honey. But also as they enter the land, they get a very, very
interesting night visitor that most people miss. And we’ll get into that. And that’s
the first five chapters. Verses 6 through 12, they’re going to overcome the land, and
then they’re going to occupy the land, and they’ll enjoy the victory of faith. So, entering
the land. They crossed the Jordan. Joshua, among other
things, makes a little mound of 12 stones. He actually does that twice, by the way, and
this monument of 12 stones, many people miss. In the New Testament, in John chapter 1, John
the Baptist is baptizing in the Jordan. In fact, in John 1 verse 28, it says, “These
things were done at Bethabara beyond the Jordan where John was baptizing.” The word Bethabara means “the house of passage.” John the Baptist is baptizing in the very place
that Joshua brings the people into the land. When you get to Matthew, it quotes John the
Baptist saying something additional. It says, “We have Abraham to our father:
for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham.” When people read that, they don’t connect
the dots. The stones he’s probably pointing to are
probably the very stones that Joshua set up, one stone for each of the 12 tribes, so you,
... it closes the loop for you, if you follow me. Watch for those things as you study your Bible. It’ll tie it together. And then, of course,
you have the circumcision at Gilgil, the Manna ceases then. And we have this strange
visitor. Now this visitor, I visualize this as ... Joshua wandering around in the evening one night, and he encounters this guy with
a sword drawn. And Joshua challenges him like a sentry, “Are you for us or for our enemies?” And the person there says, “I am the captain
of the Lord’s host.” Now don’t let that word throw you. When we hear captain, most of us in the military
think of a field grade officer. The captain here means the top guy, the commander.
He’s the commander of the Lord’s hosts, and he’s got a sword drawn. (Laughs) And he tells Joshua, “Take
off your shoes. You’re on hallowed ground." Well, first
of all, you need to understand. When you read your Bible, you’ll discover
that angels do not allow themselves to be worshiped. Several times, Daniel, John, whenever,
they go to worship, “See thou do it not.” You with me? Angels do not allow themselves to be worshiped. There’s one exception, that’s an angel
of God, because he allowed that and that got himself into a lot of trouble, a guy by the name of Satan, we'll get to there when the time comes, but angels do not allow themselves to be worshiped.This
guy commands Joshua to worship him. In fact, uses a phrase that he knew Joshua
would associate with what happened 40 years ago by the burning bush. Okay, and also on
Mount Sinai, where Joshua was with Moses, by the way. “Take off your shoes, you’re on hallowed
ground,” so obviously Joshua connects the dots. This is the guy that’s going to actually
lead the battle the next morning of Jericho. Jericho ... the nation Israel ... is populated by, originally 10 tribes, now seven, and the most powerful of them were
the Amorites. And the capital of the Amorites was Jericho, Bet Yerah, which is
the ... it means the house of the moon god. House of the moon god. That’s what Jericho means. Where is the capital
of the PLO today? In Jericho. What’s the symbol of Islam? The moon god, yah al-ilah. Kind
of interesting, isn’t it? The conquest of Canaan. The conquest of Jericho involves the
failure at Ai, the battle at BethHoron, the division of the land. We can’t go through it all, obviously. I’ve taken just the highlights here. The conquest of Jericho, Bet
Yerah, the “House of the Moon God.” It’s interesting. Joshua sends in two spies. Why didn’t he send 12, like Moses did? Well, maybe ... 10 of them were useless,
and two of them were enough if you had the right ones, right. But did they bring back
intelligence that bas- ... upon which he built his battle plans? I don’t think so. I wouldn’t call them spies. What’d they accomplish? They got Rahab saved. Call them witnesses. So he sends in two, ... okay, they’re sheltered by Rahab, so I’m going to call these guys witnesses. You’ll see why in a minute. Then the battle
plan. They’re going to go against the capitol
of the most powerful adversary, and here’s his battle plan. We’re going to march around the city once
a day for six days, keeping silent. Then on the seventh day, we’re going to
march around seven times. And then after the seventh time, we’re going to blow our trumpets
and yell and the wall’s going to fall down.” Really? Can you visualize his generals saying,
“The boss is off his rocker. The lights are on, but no one’s home. Now, what’s going on here?” That’s the
battle plan, and I don’t know how he sold it to his troops, but he obviously did, and ...
he also told them, “Don’t take any spoil. Don’t take any accursed thing,” and, of course you know the story of Jericho. That’s exactly what they do, right? ... and that’s the way it
goes. You get to the next one. The next challenge is Ai. By now they’re feeling their oats. They’re feeling, ... they’ve
got a lot of confidence in themselves. Big mistake. Don’t have confidence in yourself. ... And they underestimated
the enemy. Well, 3000 guys should
be enough for this one. And they get clobbered. They actually lose 36, but, of course,
accomplish nothing. This is the only loss in their seven-year
campaign - is at Ai. Why? Joshua prays. The Lord says unto Joshua, “Get thee up. Why do you lie there on your face?” I love this. (Laughs) Do your homework, in other words. It turns out, they found out that
Achan, one of the guys, had smuggled some forbidden loot. He violated God’s injunction. He broke the rules, and because of that, they
failed. That’s scary, by the way. God means what He says and says what He means,
right? We need to learn that. So the sack of Ai follows. After stoning Achan and his family and his
belongings, a second attack was undertaken. This time they take 10 times as
many people, 30,000 guys, with a 5000 man ambush force and they wipe out the city. Big success. There were lots of other battles up north,
but the big, the watershed battle, the battle of Midway, so to speak of the ... conquest is the Battle of Beth-Horon. The kings by now have confederated themselves
under a guy who calls himself “Adonai-Zedek,” the Lord of Righteousness. Really? He’s the king of Jerusalem. He gets defeated in this battle by stones
of fire from heaven. In fact, the day isn’t long enough for them
to complete the rout, so God ... Joshua asked God to ... have the sun
stand still - make the day longer - so he can finish the job.The sun’s commanded to stand
still in order to give them the time. The kings, by the way, subsequently run and hide in a cave and are dealt with later.
And this will complete the southern strategy, and the rest of the campaign is mop-up. But
let’s get back to this sun standing still. A lot of people are upset by that. In fact, the more you know about science and,
and our solar system, the more troublesome that is. You, you tend to visualize the earth
stopping, the inertia, you just can’t, it just, you can’t visualize it. Let’s back up. Let’s realize, first of all,
that the earth does not have to stop spinning to have the day longer. A change in precession would accomplish that,
apparently. But one thing, as you start studying this, you discover some interesting things. All ancient calendars, I can give you 14 of
them, were originally based on 360-day years. All ancient calendars changed after 701 BC
for some unexplained reason. Another thing you’ll notice, if you do your
homework, is the planet Mars would terrify, just terrify the ancient cultures. The ancient cultures worshiped
Mars. He was called the god of war. That still occurs in our language, because
we speak of martial arts. The word is still there, it’s saying
the same thing. There is a hypothesis by some experts, some
scientific experts, that there was a near pass-by in the orbit of Mars and the earth, and let
me get into that a little bit. The belief now by some is that earth and Mars
were originally on resonant orbits. Now, resonance is a concept you people in
music know about. If you have a tuning fork on one side of the
room and you hit it, a tuning fork of the same frequency on the other side of the room
will pick up on that. They’ll get resonance. That’s the way your radio tunes in certain
stations. It makes your circuits resonant to the frequency
of that particular station, so that’s what ... Well, they’ve
discovered, as they’ve learned about orbital mechanics, ... In our modern age, they’ve
discovered orbits also influence each other’s and they can be in orbital relationships,
in resonant relationships. And the belief is that earth had a 360-day year and Mars
a 720. They were on ... resonant orbits. However, ... the orbits were such
they had near pass-bys of each other every 108 years, and they would give, one would
give energy to the other, depending which one’s coming in or which one’s going out.
And it turns out by modeling this, it accounts for catastrophic events on a number of occasions
through history, at least seven of them. That’s what put them on the trail of this
thing, and these energy transfers apparently stabilized, finally, in 701 B.C. And a change
in precession is all that’s necessary. Let’s take a look at this. Earth is on an orbit around the sun, an elliptical
orbit, and Mars is also on an elliptical orbit around the sun, and, the res-, ... it’s a resident orbit. The earth’s on 360 days, Mars 720. In the
spring, typically on March 20 or 21st, every 108 years, there’ll be a near pass-by. In the spring one, it happens after
perihelion, after the closest part of the sun, and, the one that’s ahead loses
a little energy. The earth gains a little, Mars loses a little. The second pass-by, again 108 years between
these things, is in the fall, October 25th. This time, Mars comes in from the outside
of aphelion, that is, the furthest from the sun. It passes behind the earth, causing the earth
to lose some energy, Mars to pick up some energy. Sort of a slingshot effect, sort of.
And so, what this causes, then, this, these transfers occur
every time. It’s every 108 years. Some amount, some add, some less, and this has all been modeled, by the way,
to some extent, and quite a detailed extent.When they finally stabilize,
the earth is no longer 360 days, it’s 365¼ days. Mars is no longer 720, it’s now 687.
But that means the calendars on the earth need adjustment. The Romans, of course, add
4¼ ... 5¼ days. Other calendars do it slightly differently. The Hebrew
ones do a really, they add ... a month, seven times every 19 years, a very
weird thing, and all the rabbis have books where they speculate why did Hezekiah
do it that way, and, they don’t explain why they have to do anything at all. Why did
it have to change? They don’t talk about that. Well, this has been very detailed,
makes some very interesting reading, but, it sounds like just a conjecture,
except, thanks to Jonathan Swift, it seems to be substantiated. And, let’s back
up a little and talk about early telescope technology. In 1610 is when Galileo invented the telescope,
and discovered the four moons of Jupiter and Saturn’s rings, pretty obvious. In about
1781, Hershel has a better telescope by then. He discovers Uranus. 1787, he ... finds two moons of Uranus. 1789, two more moons of Uranus, and 1846, Laverrier discovers Neptune, and one of its moons. It’s in 1877 when Asaph Hall, with a brand new telescope at the U.S.Naval Observatory, discovers the two moons
of Mars and makes astronomical history. They didn’t know it had two moons. The reason
they didn’t, Deimos has ... it’s ... they’re very, very
small. One is only eight miles in diameter, and it’s almost black. It has a reflectivity
or albedo of only 3%, and, ... what’s strange about this is that, ... the small one is going backwards. It’s the only one that goes backwards in the entire solar system.
And, you say, “Okay, so what, Chuck? You got the, ... by the
way, they didn’t, it means fear and panic in Greek, by the way, appropriate for, you
know, the god of war. But anyway, most of you know Gulliver’s Travels, written by
Jonathan Swift. He lived between 1667 and 1745, and in 1726, he wrote Gulliver’s
Travels. There are several voyages of Gulliver in his books. We all know the Lilliputs, the little people, that’s the one that makes the cute little movies and stuff. By the way, these things
were intended as political satire, not children’s stories. Through the years, they’ve become
popular as children’s stories, but in his third voyage of Gulliver, he’s said to go to a place called Laputa, where the astronomers there brag that they know about the two moons of Mars and the astronomers in London don’t. And they go on to talk about the size, the revolution and the orbits of the two moons of Mars within a 20% accuracy, by the way. You say, “Well, so what?” Well, the problem is this. Jonathan Swift published Gulliver’s Travels in 1726, 151 years before they were discovered by astronomers. Now how do you explain that? Well, one conjecture is, “Well, he was just lucky.” I don’t think so. They’re within, ... the numbers are in ... his little story, and, ... it’s surprisingly accurate, within 20%, and one, the fact that one is going backwards
is ... astonishing. Well, how would he, how would he have guessed that?
So the other possibility is that, did he, did he, did he guess it? I don’t think so.
Did he really know that? I don’t think so. He knew Hershel. These people knew each other,
and the astronomy world didn’t know there were two moons of Mars, and I don’t think
Jonathan Swift did either. I suspect he drew on some legends to color and embroider his
political satire, that’s really, it’s, ... it’s all going. What he didn’t realize
is that, ... the things he was drawing upon were eye-witness accounts. And in order
to see the two moons of Mars, Mars would have to be close enough to the earth to see with
the naked eye the two moons of Mars. And so this is a strange corroboration of this theory ... the long day. Let’s go back to Joshua. There’s
a third of a million men at Beth-Horon. On October 25th of 1404 B.C., Mars is on a polar
pass at only 70,000 miles from the earth. It appears to rise 50 times the size of the
moon. There are severe earthquakes and land tides. By the way, did you know that, we know
that there’s ocean tides. Did you know there are land tides? They are only about an inch,
so you don’t notice them, but they’re there. They can be measured. Anyway, here we
have severe earthquakes and land tides, and, ... there’s a polar shift of about 5˚,
which would lengthen the day, and meteors follow about two to three hours later at about
30,000 miles an hour. And the meteors are amazing, because they hit only Israel’s
enemies. I want you to think about that. God put them in orbit whenever, but in such a
way as to anticipate the enemies of Israel to act, their act is, ... like fire
from heaven and wipe out Israel’s enemies. Bizarre. What’s interesting is that this
legend of the long day isn’t just in the Bible. We’re indebted to Immanuel Veloskovsky who discovered the legends in China of the long night about the same time. The
long night of China. So it’s these things are, ... but the campaign, of course, in the south we have the various treaties. They had a treaty with the Gibeonites, the Battle
of Beth Horon, and all that, and then there’s some quick surprise attacks they get into
in the south. In the north, we have, ... Hazor's alliance, ... a slower guerilla war
going on up there, but in any case, the, ... before the thing’s over, they, ...
conquer the land. The book of Joshua has also been contrasted with the book of Ephesians,
Victorious Christian living. In Joshua, we have Israel. In Ephesians, we have the
Church. In Joshua, they’re entering and possessing, and in Ephesians, we are to enter
and possess our possession. In Joshua, there’s an earthly inheritance, in Ephesians,
it speaks of our heavenly inheritance. Joshua, it’s given in Abraham, and of course in
Ephesians, it’s given in Christ. Each is opened by a divinely appointed leader, each
is given grace and received by faith, each, ... has the sphere of ... striking divine
revelations in both books, so that it ... Alan Redpath has made it on his ... a
book called Victorious Christian Living. He contrasts the two books as, as parallels.
Each is a scene of warfare and conflict. Ephesians, of course, has Ephesians 6, our armor of God.
We are also in a warfare, a spiritual warfare. So that’s interesting. But there’s
another comparison. I want to tell you, frankly, up front, I can’t find anyone that agrees
with me. I don’t mean they disagree with me, but I can’t find a commentary that has,
highlights the fact, that Joshua is a model of the book of Revelation. First of all, Joshua
is Yehoshua, it’s the name of Jesus on the book. Yehoshua is a variant, in effect,
of Yeshua. In each book, you’ve got a military commander dispossessing the land of its usurpers.
In Joshua, it’s the land of Canaan, in Revelation, it’s the planet earth. In each case, it’s
a seven-year campaign, and it’s against seven of an original 10 nations in each case. What’s
strange as you study Jericho, the Torah is ignored in Jericho. They’re not supposed
to do anything on the Sabbath, that’s ignored in Jericho. In the Torah, it says the Levites
are not to go to war. They lead the procession in Jericho, and I could go on and on, and
it’s interesting, Joshua first sends in two witnesses. What have they accomplished?
Not battle plan intelligence. They got Rahab saved. Who becomes ... who gets on the family
tree of David, by the way, and there’s seven trumpet events. They keep silent until
the seventh deal here. It’s interesting when you get to Revelation chapter 8, before
the trumpet judgments, there’s silence in heaven for half an hour. You’ve got the
same ... echoing the same structure here. It gets, it goes more than that. In Joshua, the enemies
are confederated under a leader in Jerusalem, Adoni-Zedek, “The Lord of Righteousness.”
Of course in Revelation, you have the anti-Christ, and ... they’re ultimately defeated with
hailstones and fire in heaven in both cases with signs in the sun and the moon and so
forth. And, in both cases, the kings hide in caves. Back to Revelation 6, “Rocks
fall on us and hide us from the wrath of the Lamb.” The parallel, once you see a little
of it, when you study Joshua, you study Revelation, you’ll be startled with how, apparently,
deliberately, structurally parallel the two books are. Well, after the conquest of the
land, of course, they divide the land. The tribes are allocated their portions by casting
lots. The half tribe of Manasseh and Gad and Reuben on the ... that are east of the Jordan,
and, ... then we have ... all the rest of them being, ... Ephraim, of course, becomes, ...
idiomatic of the whole northern group. Dan is given ... a place that’s
west of Benjamin, but he can’t hold it. And when Samson finally dies, who doesn’t
accomplish much but a bunch of pranks. They can’t hang on to it, so they go up north
to a place called Laish. And so Dan really settles in the north part of the country. But
they don’t really help much. During the judges, Deborah upset because Dan
doesn’t even leave their ships. What’s he doing in ships in the first place?
And so Dan spins off from the Commonwealth of Israel. It’s one of the reasons why he’s
not mentioned in Revelation when the 12 tribes are listed, strangely enough. There’s a
whole thing about that we’ll deal with when we get there.Then we’ve got Benjamin and
Judah in the south and Simeon to the south, so we have the various tribes. Now the Levites
don’t get an inheritance of land, they get 48 cities instead, because the Lord’s their inheritance. Six of those cities are designated as Cities of Refuge,
and, ... three on the east, three east of the Jordan, three west of the Jordan. And
we want to talk a little bit about Cities of Refuge. I said everything, ...
all these strange things. They sound strange to our ears until we understand how they point
to Jesus Christ. The idea of a City of Refuge. See, they didn’t have prisons. They didn’t
have a police force. If you killed somebody, the next of kin came after you. That was the way it worked. Well, suppose it was an accidental death, what we would
call manslaughter? Well, if you accidentally killed someone, what you did immediately, is
you high-tailed it to one of the Cities of Refuge. And if you could, if, I’m assuming
now this is not premeditated murder, if it’s, ... what we call manslaughter, and what you
did is, you, if you could get to the City of Refuge, you were secured there, in
safety from the avenger of blood. The next of kin would be after you, but if you’re,
if you can ... take refuge in the City of Refuge. If you convince the city fathers that
this was a manslaughter thing, as long as you’re in the city, you’re safe. If you
left the city, you’re fair game. That was why it was called a City of Refuge. And this
situation stayed as it was until the high priest down in Jerusalem died. Now, you’ll
look, most commentaries, it’s just a quaint tribal custom here,
but wait a minute. What’s this got, what’s the high priest got to do with the situation
one way or the other, do you follow me? It’s a little, strange situation. Well, let’s
take, let’s analyze this a little bit, ... see if it applies to us. Let’s talk about
the crucifixion of Christ. Was it premeditated murder or was it manslaughter? From God’s
point of view, it was premeditated. He was foreordained before the foundations, it, it
was God’s, it was by His determinant counsel, and so forth. From our point of view, what
did Jesus say, “Father, forgive them,” for what? They know not what we do, so we can claim, use that and say, “Okay, this is at least, from our point of view,
it’s man-, it’s manslaughter, not premeditated.” Okay, so, ... the next question is, "where
is our City of Refuge?" It’s in Jesus Christ, of course. For how long?
Until the High Priest died. Who’s our high priest?
Speaker 2: "Jesus" Chuck: Where did He die? Right then, so you
can, I’ll let you, ... if you see that, great, ... that’s, ... there’s
another little quaint thing that deserves comment, and that’s the daughters of Zelophehad. When Moses was establishing the laws of inheritance, a guy by the name of Zelophehad came to Moses.
“I’ve got a problem. I only have, I have five daughters, no sons. How are they going
to inherit? Moses does the right thing. He goes to the Lord. The Lord says, “Make an
exception,” so there’s an exception written in the Torah for the daughters of Zelophehad.
And, ... on the rules, if a man has no sons, and the daughters marry within the
tribe, the ... inheritance will flow through to her husband, you follow me?
That’s what it basically says. It was requested by Moses in Numbers 27, “And when you
get to the land,” and Joshua’s laying out the land here, these five daughters come
to say, “By the way, check the records, read the fine print, we got an exception.”Joshua
does, he’s, “Sure enough, you do,” and that’s in John, ... that’s in Joshua
17. What most people who read this don’t understand is how this worked. What happened
was, if he had no sons, when the daughters married, the father of the bride adopted the
husband as his son by adoption, and you’ll find that in Ezra 2 and Nehemiah 7 and a number
of other places. It’s amazing how you can go through most commentators, and I couldn’t
find any that really understand. They said this is just a quaint tribal custom, they
don’t, they don’t attach any significance to this, ... theologically. Every detail in
the Bible is there by deliberate design. That’s my challenge to you. Check it out. It turns
out the claims of Christ hang on this. This anticipates the lineage of Christ because
there’s a blood curse on the line of Joseph, but Jesus is not a son of Joseph, he’s just a legal father of Jesus. He’s, ... that’s why you have a virgin
birth. He’s born of Mary. Mary’s father was Heli. She was the only, she had
no brothers. When Mary marries Joseph, Heli adopts Joseph as his son, and that’s how
the line of, that’s, when you go to Matthew, Matthew has the Jewish line from Abraham down
through Joseph to Christ. Luke, being a doctor, is interested in His
humanity, starts at Adam, goes all the way to, from Adam to Abraham. From Abraham to
David they’re identical, but at David, Luke takes a left turn and goes through
the second surviving son of Bathsheba, not the first one, which was Solomon, and down
through Mary and, ... so the point is, ... Jesus is of the house and lineage of David,
but those are two different lines, so we’ll get into that when we get in the book of Luke.But
all this hangs on the, the daughters of Zelophehad. This quaint little strange thing in the Torah.
All these little rules you find, one way or another will point to Jesus Christ. The book
of Judges follows. This is a very dismal book. The 450 years following the Conquest, the
next generation blow it again and again and again. They don’t follow through. There
are 400-year segments of ... the nation’s history, from the birth of Adam to the death
of Joseph, about 400 years, death of Joseph to Exodus just about 400 years, Exodus to
the Monarchy about 400 years, so these are just horseback kind of numbers, and from the
Monarchy to the Exile, is also about 400 years, so these are just a rough feeling for the
things. But the book of Judges is a record of occasional deliverers rather than a succession
of governors. It was probably written by Samuel before the accession of David.
And the whole pattern in Judges is dismal. They sin, and they get oppressed by their,
the indigenous tribes, and then they repent, and a deliverer comes and gives them
some relief. But then they fall right back into it. The recurring phrase in the book of
Judges is, “Everyone did what was right in their own eyes.” That doesn’t sound
too insidious on its own. You need to realize where it stands. It’s
a scathing indictment. Everyone did what was right in their own eyes, this is value relativism,
and it led to chaos. The only person that decides what’s right and wrong is God. And
you’re right or wrong if you’re conformed to God’s rules, or you’re
not. And, ... so that’s really the repeated refrain all the way through the book of Judges,
and, ... there is a, ... it’s the cost of compromise. See, another generation arose and they were unwilling to help the rest. They were living among idolaters and they became
contaminated with the idolatry. God had told them to wipe out every man, woman and child
of certain tribes because there were Nephilim among them, and they didn’t do that. They
made peace with them. And if you study the book of Judges, you’ll discover their failures
are up on the Golan Heights, upper Bashan, they’re also in the core middle area, and
they’re also down in the Gaza Strip, and when you look, when you do it, study it by,
... a geographic, you’ll see it’s exactly the same thing today. Those places where they
didn’t deal with it back then, they’re now suffering for it, and, ... interesting.
Demons are territorial. And of course, the surrounding nations around, I’m just summarizing,
the whole judges thing, the surrounding nations exploited their degeneracy. They had
incomplete mastery, they made inappropriate military alliances, they intermarried with
these, pagan groups, and they had, that led to apostasy and idolatry. And, ... God
occasionally intervenes, and they interrupted their sordid slide into failure. That book
of Judges is a grim one, a lot of lessons.There are six servitudes. These are not accidents,
they are brought about by God as punishments, and the privileges are not, ... life’s privileges
are not a license to sin. And it was a pattern all through the book of Judges. They sin,
they suffer, they repent, and then they’re delivered. And they started well, but
they finished dismally. They were without a king. God was supposed to be
their King, but everyone did what was right in their own eyes. What you also notice is
the degradation of the role of women. Deborah was a military commander earlier in the
book. Jephthah gets set aside for some silly reasons, and then the concubine gets, ... raped and killed in that dismal thing near the end. There are six servitudes. The book of ... in the book of Judges, Mesopotamia, there was a deliverer Othaniel,
then the Moabites had a place for a time and Ehud delivers them. Then the Canaanites
and Deborah, uh, delivers it from them, the Midianites and we have the famous Gideon thing.
Jephthah and the Ammonites, the Philistines. There’s six of these. They add up to 111
years out of the total calendar time, in which they are in servitude. I want to come back
to that later, that’s why in a summary I’ll show you. It turns out that the history of
Israel is always in 490 year segments. From Abraham to the Exodus is a period
of time. The promise was 75 years before. ... We have ... the ... Isaac
and all that, and, we get to the Exodus. So you’ve got a total of 505 years, but
of those years, 15 years Ishmael was the usurper. When you subtract the 15 from 505, you get
490. Okay, well, so what? Well, Exodus to Temple turns out to be, ... 601 years,
594 from I Kings 6 on, and then completed, in I Kings 6 verse 38, so you’ve
got seven there, so anyway, you’ve got ... 601 years there, but you’ve
got these servitudes between Exodus and the Temple of 111, but they put them all in here,
there’s 111 of those, so again, you’ve got 490 years. You’re going to discover
later that Israel’s is always 490 years if you subtract the time that they
are ... out of the land, and ... We’re in that parentheses
before the final seven years to make up the final 490, so we’ll get to that later. There’s
this sordid chapter in, ... at the end of the book of Judges. The Levite
and his concubine. There’s this Levite, he happens to be geographically in the tribe
of Benjamin, but he travels, he’s traveling to repair his marriage. He’s unable to find
safe lodging, so he’s out on the street, out on the street at night. His ... concubine is raped and left for dead, in fact, left dead. And, he’s so upset,
he cuts her in 12 parts and sends it to the 12 tribes of Israel. The tribes are absolutely
shocked at the Benjamites, so the outraged tribes... It becomes a big cause celeb,
and they attack the Benjamites, only to wake up to the reality they almost eliminate the
Tribe of Benjamin. The pendulum swings the other way. They all pitch in. There’s only
600 left of the Benjamites, so they all pitch in to get brides for their remaining Benjamites
to save this, the enduring, endurance of the Tribe, of the Tribe of Benjamin, and
so all the tribes assist in getting brides for these 600. So strange, strange, but it’s,
if nothing else, describes the sad state of affairs in Israel. But, let’s
not leave it there. Let’s have our dessert and get into the book of Ruth. A little book,
a romance of redemption. It opens up in the days where the judges ruled. So this is not
the period, it’s the ultimate love story that emerged, emerges out of this mess. At
the literary level, it is widely venerated in colleges. It’s just as an element of
literature, apart from the Biblical, implications. At the prophetic and personal
level, it’s an incredible gem. It has prophecy in it, and it also has personal implications
for each of us. Strangely enough, even though it’s in the Old Testament and the Church
is not visible in the Old Testament, this is one of the most significant books of the
Old Testament regarding the Church. And I’ll show you why. One of the things it includes
as part of the story, is the role of this strange thing that in Hebrew they call the Goel,
the Kinsman-Redeemer. What is he, what does he do, what’s that all about? And I want
to suggest to you that this book is an essential pre-requisite before you study Revelation
chapter 5. You won’t understand what’s going on unless you really understand
the book of Ruth. A little background. In the genealogies of the Bible, the tenth man
is always significant. From Adam to Noah, we talked about that before. From Shem to
Abraham’s obviously significant, from Isaac to Boaz, he turns out to be the tenth again, and so he turns out to be a very significant guy. He’s going to be a type,
or a foreshadowing in a sense, of Jesus Christ. And so the tenth man is always important. Now,
the book of Ruth, first chapter, is about love’s resolve. Where Ruth cleaves to her
mother-in-law Naomi. The second chapter is love’s response, where she then gleans on
behalf of her mother-in-law because they’re destitute there in Bethlehem, and then we
have love’s request. Out of this comes an opportunity, and there’s this very misunderstood
scene on the threshing floor. We’ll get to. And then there’s a climactic
scene, which has some surprises for everyone in chapter 4, the Redemption of both the Land
and the Bride, and we’ll talk about that when we get there. Ruth clings ...
chapter 1, the famine, there’s famine in Bethlehem, so Naomi and her husband Elimelech
and their two sons, Mahlon and Chilion, go to Moab because things are better there. And
in Moab, these two sons take up Moabite daughters, as wives, and, Elimelech dies, leaving
Naomi as a widow. And her two sons also die. Rather weird names, unhealthy and puny apparently
is what the names mean. Speaks for itself, I guess. Naomi’s name means pleasant,
and I’m going to suggest it means pleasant land, because she’s going to turn out to
be, in a sense, a type of Israel. But she’s in Moab. She’s in exile, and she’s destitute.
But 10 years have gone by. She now hears things are better ... back at home in Bethlehem.
So she’s going to go back home, and her two daughters-in-law want to go with her.
That tells you a lot about Naomi, two daughters-in-law would want to stick it out with her. She talks
them out of it, and one of them, Orpah, ultimately does return
to her own people, but Ruth refuses. She’s obstinate, and she decides to stay with her
mother-in-law, and her testimony is worth quoting. Ruth said to ... Naomi,
“Intreat me not to leave thee, nor to return from following after thee, for whither thou
goest, I will go, and where thou lodgest, I will lodge. Thy people shall be my people,
and thy God my God, and where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried. The
LORD do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and me.” What a statement,
and Naomi realizes she’s resolute, so she yields, and, and she goes back. So they go
back to Bethlehem. You have to learn, one of the reasons the book’s of value, you
have to learn some laws. One is the Law of Gleaning. The rules were, that if you had a
piece of land, your reapers could go through once and only once. What they missed was left
for the widows and orphans and destitute. That was called the law of gleaning. You’d
go through once, but you weren’t allowed to go back and skim it. That was what you
inherently would miss belonged to the destitute. That’s in Leviticus 19, Deuteronomy 24,
it’s several places. So Naomi and Ruth are destitute. They’re back in the land,
but trying to make it and so Ruth, being younger, goes to glean, and ... she happens upon the field of Boaz. I love that word “Happens.” You know
what the rabbis say? They say, “Coincidence is not a kosher word.” Well, the way we
see it, there are no accidents in God’s Kingdom. It turns out she happens on the one
field that’s going to change the destiny of the world. Boaz, by the way, means “In
Him is Strength,” and it’s a very interesting name because one of the two pillars in the
Temple are named Boaz for some significant reasons. We’ll get there later. He’s introduced
to Ruth by an unnamed servant, and I’m fascinated that we’re going to discover,
of course, Boaz is in the role of the Lord of the Harvest. Ruth, of course,
will end up becoming his Gentile bride. The unnamed servant is the one that
introduces her to Boaz, and the Holy Spirit always is an unnamed servant. We went through
that in Genesis, you may recall. Here it happens again. Jesus says, explains why. “The Holy
Spirit will never testify of Himself,” and when Boaz finds out that Ruth is there, he
instructs ... her, “Don’t be in any other fields. Stay here, and I …” He
instructs his young men not to touch her, and also to drop handfuls on purpose (laughs)
to make sure there’s plenty they missed that she can glean for herself and her
mother-in-law. And so you begin to see there’s something going on here. Boaz will be, turn
out to be, the role of a Goel. That’s the Hebrew term meaning the Kinsman-Redeemer,
and he has some interesting, ... you have to do, to get into this, you have to
understand the law of redemption, and also the law of Levirate marriage. Two of
the laws you need, the law of redemption was that if a person had
to sell his land, that is, lease it, in effect because he was destitute, the next
of kin could come and redeem the land for the family if he chose to, but he had to be
able, he had to be willing, and he had to able to, he had to take all of the obligations
of the lost guy to do that. So that’s what ... it was ... an optional responsibility so to speak of the Law of Redemption. The Law of Levirate
Marriage is the one we talked about. That’s where a guy, if a guy dies, his brother is
supposed to take, if he can, take the woman to raise up seed for the dead brother.
And so the levirate, so that’s what the levirate marriage was. Anyway, so in
chapter 2, by the way, when Ruth comes home with all this stuff, Naomi
smells a fish here. What’s going on? And when she finds out that Naomi’s been in
Boaz’s land, ... Naomi realizes that Boaz is a kinsman, and she realizes here
is an opportunity, not just for herself, but also for her daughter, who’s
been so faithful. And she says, “Do exactly as I instruct you.” When you get to chapter,
this all sets the stage for chapter 3, the famous threshing floor scene. So see, Naomi
recognizes the opportunity for the redemption of her land that she wants, but also for a
whole new life for Ruth. So she instructs Ruth on what to do. So, in accordance with
the instructions, Ruth approaches Boaz to fulfill the role of the Goel, and, ... what happens, she tells her, ... See, the threshing floor takes place on a
saddleback where there’s a wind all the time, and what you did at the end of the day,
you took the grain that had been harvested and you threw it up into the wind, and the,
the good stuff, the heavy stuff, would fall in a pile downwind a little bit. Now the light
stuff, the stuff you don’t want, would fall further downwind. If you did this right, you
ended up with two piles. The one closer in, you’d bag for market, and the one further
down, you’d burn to keep away vermin and so forth. But all this was done in the atmosphere
of a carnival, a feast in the evening. So, after the partying and all that,
they would sleep, but the owner of the, of the material would sleep by the, and, ...
probably his key guys, would sleep by the grain so it wouldn’t be stolen. And so it
was an overnight slumber party kind of thing. What, Naomi tells Ruth to do, “Watch where
he sleeps, and when it’s all quiet, you go and sleep at his feet, and he’ll tell
you what to do.” And so he does, in the middle of the night he wakes up and here’s
Ruth, and he’s shook, and she, ... when people read that, it sounds
like she is propositioning him sexually. No, it’s worse than that. She’s asking him
to do his kinsman’s part. To “Spread your skirt over me,” is his expression.
You need to understand that culture. Hems were where the badge of authority resided.
We think of authority as stripes on a sleeve or on a shoulder. In ancient Israel,
it was on the border of your garment. That’s when David cuts the hem of Saul’s garment,
he’s cutting his genealogy away. The hem, when the woman, ... the issue
of blood, if she could touch the hem of Christ, her mind is, that’s where His authority
is. See, the hems were the authority. When God speaks in Isaiah, God speaks of Israel,
putting His skirt over Israel, putting his authority and protection over her. She asks
him to put his skirt over her. People misunderstand that without the background. What she’s
asking him to do is marry her to raise up seed, because he’s a kinsman. And he said,
and he’s flattered. He’s flattered that she does it, but, unfortunately there is
someone, a closer kinsman, that he has to clear the way for first. And so she ... wants him to fulfill the role of a Goel, but there’s a nearer kinsman in
the way. And when you get through the story. See, by now, you get this love story going
and she wants to be married, and when he says there’s a nearer kinsman, you know, that’s,
that’s a cloud. That’s your plot problem. What’s going to happen here? We’ll get
to that. And what ... he does do, he gives her six measures of meal, barley,
to take back to Naomi. You and I miss that, but Naomi, when she gets back, Naomi recognizes
what that means. She says, “That means he won’t rest until this is resolved.” See,
the six days God worked and the seventh He rested. There’s six, it, it’s a ... code, a code that Naomi picks up and understands when she gets home. So
that leads to chapter 4, the Big Deal. Boaz confronts this guy that’s the nearer kinsman
and Naomi has a property, land, and looking for somebody to redeem it. He says, “I’ll
redeem it.” See, at this point, by the way, you’re getting the real picture here. You’ve
got to picture, you know. Boaz is sort of a Charleton Heston or a Harrison Ford kind
of guy. The nearer kinsman is probably what, Danny DeVito or something, see. He says,
“I’m willing to do it.” Boaz says, “Wait a minute. Whoever takes that has to take
all the obligations. You’d have to take Ruth as a bride.” Well, he can’t do that
because it’ll mar his own inheritance, so he passes. And he passes by giving ... the symbol of his passing is to give, to take your shoe and give it to Boaz.
And of course to him, it’s a disgrace, but to Boaz, it’s a marriage license, see.
And so he, ... that’s the big win, because Boaz now, the road is clear for him to take
Ruth as a bride. And so the guy yields the shoe to relieve the obligation. Boaz steps
up, he purchases the land for Naomi, and he purchases, that’s the word used, Ruth as
a bride, a Gentile bride. She’s a Moabitess, right? Do you, do you see the symbolism starting
to unfold here? You haven’t seen the half of it. Okay. At the big celebration where
Ruth and Boaz are being married, somebody says, “May your house be like Perez.” Now
if you don’t know your stories, it sounds like a toast. Isn’t that great? But if you’ve
read Genesis 38, you know what a sordid thing the birth of Perez was. That’s where Tamar
gets Judah to, on a ... not realizing it, have incest with her to have a child.
Do you remember that whole thing? And, Perez is the illegitimate
son of Tamar, and here they’re, “May your house be like Perez.” If someone said
that to you, you’d say, “Same to you, fella,” you know. No, it’s actually a strange
prophecy buried in Ruth here. “Let thy house be like the house of Perez, whom Tamar bare
unto Judah, of the seed which the Lord shall give thee of this young woman.” You need
to know in Deuteronomy 23, it says, “A bastard shall not enter into the congregation of the
Lord. Even to his tenth generation shall he not enter into the Lord.” It, in other words,
it takes 10 generations to purge the illegitimacy, if you will. Well, if you
go through here and you see Perez, Hezron, Ram, Amminadab, Nahshon, Salmon, Boaz, Obed,
Jesse, and David, you’ve got 10 generations. In fact, you may recall that Boaz, Obed, Jesse
and David were encrypted in Genesis 38 behind the text. We looked at that then, but we have
here, the 10th generation after Perez is David, ... so here we have a prophecy
in the book of Ruth. This is in the time of Judges of David being the king. The second time this comes up, it came up in Genesis 38, but it also comes up here, and, this
is in the time of the Judges, interesting little thing. Now there’s more to it. The
Goel Kinsman-Redeemer course, the kinsman had to be a kinsman, he had
to be able to perform, he has to be willing to perform, those are two different things,
and he has to assume all of the obligations. And Jesus Christ is our kinsman. He became
man and dwelt among us. He has to be able to perform. He could perform because He’s
sinless on our behalf. He had to be willing, and he was. He loved us that much, and He
had to assume all of our obligations, which He did, so that’s why this thing is fitting
the model here. Boaz is the Lord of the Harvest. He is the Kinsman-Redeemer. What’s Naomi?
She’s Israel. Because of His redemption, Israel’s return to the land, to her land,
and Ruth, of course, is the Gentile Bride.You wonder, how can Boaz, a good, self-respecting
Israeli leader, take on a Gentile bride? You have to know who Boaz’ mother was. His mother
was Rahab, the harlot of Jericho, so no wonder he had a ... See, what the law could not do,
grace can. Some other observations, in order to bring Ruth to Naomi, Naomi had to be exiled
from her land. Now that’s kind of interesting. Think that through. What the law could not
do, grace did. It was illegal to marry a Moabite, but, our kinsman-redeemer did, and Ruth
does not replace Naomi. They have different destinies. Ruth learns of Boaz’s ways through
Naomi, but Naomi meets Boaz through Ruth. Think that one through. And no matter how much
Boaz loved Ruth, he had to wait for her move. Jesus is waiting for your move. Do you receive
Him? Do you accept Him so that He can be your kinsman-redeemer? It’s interesting that Boaz,
not Ruth, confronts the nearer kinsman. You know, the law required that the estranged girl to confront the nearer kinsman. No, Boaz did it for her, and He does it for us. He makes intersession for us. It’s interesting how
much the model fits, and it’s also interesting how much the model is twisted to fit the real
reality we have. Some final remarks. The book of Ruth turns out to always be read at the
Feast of Pentecost, the Feast of Shavout. How interesting. The Feast of Shavout was
the birth of the Church and the book of Ruth, in a sense, anticipates the
Church. And you can’t really understand what’s going on in Revelation chapter 5,
where the Lamb takes the title deed to the earth and takes possession over that which
He purchased unless you understand these things in the book of Ruth. You and I are beneficiaries
of a love story that was written in blood on a wooden cross, erected in Judea some 2000 years
ago. The book of Ruth profiles that for us. Panorama of History. Next time we’re going to get
into David and the Monarchy. The Monarchy will be I and II Samuel, I and II Kings, I
and II Chronicles. We’re going to ... conclude the reign of Saul and the Davidic
dynasty, David, Solomon, the Temple. That’s that’s our task for Hour Number
Seven. Let’s stand for a closing word of prayer. Joshua, Judges, and Ruth. Judges’
dismal story, but all of them full of lessons in terms of understanding God’s total plan,
also lessons for us personally. The failures are lessons of failure, and we need to understand
that and what the remedies for failure are. We need to understand that. We are in a warfare,
just like Joshua was, a spiritual warfare, that what Ephesians 6 is all about, so it’s
a very, very pregnant period that we’ve gone through here. There’s no little
book that’ll charm you more than if you dig into the book of Ruth. I’ve taught it
probably 100 times, and every time I go through it, I see another insight. It’s
inexhaustible. So is the Gospel of John have that very conspicuous characteristic.
Let’s bow our hearts. Father, we just thank You for Your Word. We stand in awe
of Your Word and the extremes You’ve gone to that we might have Your illumination. We
thank You, Father, for these little treasures You’ve hidden around every corner, but we
do pray, Father, that through Your Holy Spirit, You would illuminate all of this to put it
in perspective for our lives, that we might understand what it is You would have us in
the days that remain. We do pray, Father, that You would, oh, just reignite in each
of us a new passion, a new hunger for Your Word, that we might grow in grace and in the
knowledge of our Lord and Savior, and that we might be more fruitful stewards of the
opportunities before us. We do pray, Father, that You’d just open our hearts and lives
to Your Word as we commit ourselves into Your hands without any reservation in the name
of Yeshua, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen.
