Good morning, great to see you all.  Go ahead and turn in your bibles to the book of Genesis, Chapter 38.  This narrative follows directly after last week’s introduction to Joseph.  The author of Genesis takes a little pause in telling us what happened to Joseph when he gets to Egypt.  We will find that out next week but first he stops to catch us up on the life of Judah.  Judah, remember, is the one through whom the line of Christ moves so getting an update on him is important.  

A couple things to note as we get into this section of text.  This is possibly the most difficult passage of scripture I have had to preach, not because of the theological topics addressed, those are pretty straight forward, but because of the content of the story.  There is a lot of really bad behavior going on here and the bible does not withhold any of the details.  For the sake of our younger congregants I will steer around some of them but the story is the story and there is much we can learn and there is certainly Christ and the gospel here.  Just as a fair warning, we see the effects of sin and the depravity of man on full display.  I hope I have made this point clear previously but it will be crystal clear this morning, even those in the lineage of Christ are not immune to grievous sins. Maybe it’s better stated, God continually uses terrible decisions and otherwise horrible actions for his purposes and glory.  

The final thing to note here is that the time-frame of our passage this morning covers roughly 20 years.  This is a good perspective for next week when we pick back up the story of Joseph to understand that Joseph’s time in Egypt and the time it took him to work his way through all his difficulties was not a short stent.  The road to Joseph’s redemption and his brother’s salvation was a rather long and winding one.  There is much to glean from just that reality alone but we will save that for next week.

Ok, I have given you the warning that this text is rather interesting so go ahead and shake out your awkwardness as we begin.  God willing, there is hope and encouragement for us here.  Stand with me and I will read starting in verse 1 of Chapter 38. 

It happened at that time that Judah went down from his brothers and turned aside to a certain Adullamite, whose name was Hirah. 2 There Judah saw the daughter of a certain Canaanite whose name was Shua. He took her and went in to her, 3 and she conceived and bore a son, and he called his name Er. 4 She conceived again and bore a son, and she called his name Onan. 5 Yet again she bore a son, and she called his name Shelah. Judah was in Chezib when she bore him. 6 And Judah took a wife for Er his firstborn, and her name was Tamar.

12 In the course of time the wife of Judah, Shua’s daughter, died. When Judah was comforted, he went up to Timnah to his sheepshearers, he and his friend Hirah the Adullamite. 13 And when Tamar was told, “Your father-in-law is going up to Timnah to shear his sheep,” 14 she took off her widow’s garments and covered herself with a veil, wrapping herself up, and sat at the entrance to Enaim, which is on the road to Timnah. For she saw that Shelah was grown up, and she had not been given to him in marriage. 15 When Judah saw her, he thought she was a prostitute, for she had covered her face. 16 He turned to her at the roadside and said, “Come, let me come in to you,” for he did not know that she was his daughter-in-law. She said, “What will you give me, that you may come in to me?” 17 He answered, “I will send you a young goat from the flock.” And she said, “If you give me a pledge, until you send it—” 18 He said, “What pledge shall I give you?” She replied, “Your signet and your cord and your staff that is in your hand.” So he gave them to her and went in to her, and she conceived by him. 19 Then she arose and went away, and taking off her veil she put on the garments of her widowhood. 

24 About three months later Judah was told, “Tamar your daughter-in-law has been immoral. Moreover, she is pregnant by immorality.” And Judah said, “Bring her out, and let her be burned.” 25 As she was being brought out, she sent word to her father-in-law, “By the man to whom these belong, I am pregnant.” And she said, “Please identify whose these are, the signet and the cord and the staff.” 26 Then Judah identified them and said, “She is more righteous than I, since I did not give her to my son Shelah.” And he did not know her again. 

27 When the time of her labor came, there were twins in her womb. 28 And when she was in labor, one put out a hand, and the midwife took and tied a scarlet thread on his hand, saying, “This one came out first.” 29 But as he drew back his hand, behold, his brother came out. And she said, “What a breach you have made for yourself!” Therefore his name was called Perez. 30 Afterward his brother came out with the scarlet thread on his hand, and his name was called Zerah. 

Who is Judah?

Continuing the trend of getting to know the biblical characters better let’s mine what we can from the text concerning Judah.  We know that Judah was the fourth born son of Jacob.  Ruben was the oldest, the one who tried to save Joseph last week.  Simeon then Levi and fourthly Judah.  As we have previously said and will get to again, Judah is the line that carries forward to Christ.  What else do we know about Judah? We know he was a bit greedy, possibly a lover of money.  I didn’t point it out last week but remember when Joseph’s brothers are conspiring against him and when the suggestion is made to kill him, it is Judah who speaks up and says, “What profit is there in killing him.”  That is to say that Judah is arguing that if they are going to off their brother they may as well try to make some money off of it.  He is looking at this situation with Joseph as an opportunity to make money.  

The other thing to note about Judah is that our text this morning opens by telling us that Judah does the same thing to Jacob that Jacob’s brother Esau did to their parents.  He runs off to the pagans and finds a wife among the Adullamites.  Shua was a Canaanite and to go and marry her was not only against the wishes of his father but was in direct violation of the will of God.  Maybe Judah was racked with guilt over what he did to his brother and felt he needed to get away and run from his sin.  Or maybe he just didn’t care about God’s intentions or commands and just wanted to go out on his own and live his life.  I don’t want to read too much into that but either way, he left his home to go find a pagan wife and live with them.  

So we know that Judah is greedy, loves money, is selfish, and disobedient to his fathers wishes and to God by running off to the pagan Canaanites and marrying one. Not a great start for Judah here right?  A reader might be asking themselves at this point, “is this who the line of Christ really moves through?”  As the situation gets worse, it becomes an even greater wonder and mystery how God is going to turn this situation around.  Let’s continue. 

Judah’s Sons

I want to consider next the sons of Judah and their role in this story.  First, is Judah’s first born Er. The only thing we know about Er is that he was wicked in the sight of God, so God put him to death (verse 7).  Er must have been exceedingly wicked for the Lord to put him to death so swiftly.  The Lord has judged people through the penalty of death to this point, think of Sodom and Gomorrah, but this is the first time someone within the covenant lineage (sons of Abraham) has been judged unto death.  We don’t have time this morning to get into the reasons why that may be the case but we should see that the judgment of God against wickedness is sometimes very swift and that should make us all the more thankful for his patience in bearing with the sins of our day.  He does not wish that any of his should perish so he suffers long with us that all may reach repentance unto salvation.  

The second son mentioned is Onan.  Onan is put in a bit of a situation and let me explain this very quickly.  It was their custom, which was later put into law in Deut 25, that if a man died and didn’t have a son, his brother was to take his widow as a wife and have a son by her continuing the lineage.  The problem was that the inheritance that was to be passed from the father to the now deceased firstborn son would then pass to the new born heir and not the younger brother.  In that case Onan was in line to receive the inheritance from Judah but if he was to take Tamar as his wife and produce a son with her then that son would be the heir and his portion would be reduced.  Onan knew this and in his selfishness and desire to keep the inheritance for himself he refused to have a child with Tamar.  Onan’s actions were selfish to his father, Tamar, and the custom meant to protect family lineage.

Perhaps he justified it in his own mind by arguing that his older brother Er was wicked and didn’t deserve the inheritance in the first place so he should be the heir.  We don’t know for sure but we can say he was full of selfishness and pride and for that reason the Lord killed him too.  This leaves the third son to fulfill the duty and take Tamar as his wife and produce a son but now Judah has become superstitious.  Judah fears that his last son will be disobedient and die as well so he withholds him from Tamar and sends Tamar back to her father and uses the excuse that Shelah isn’t old enough yet and she just needs to wait for him to grow up.  Instead of pushing his youngest son to straighten up and follow the Lord and do what’s right lest he be judged, he disobeys and tries to insulate his son from the judgment of God by hiding him away.  As though we can hide from the judgment of God.  What a mess this has become right? disobedience and wickedness from the top down.  Lies, deception, pride, selfishness, it’s all here.  It’s not over yet either. 

Tamar’s Deception

Tamar, not to be outdone in the deception department, as we read to begin, disguises herself as a prostitute so that she can trick Judah into getting her pregnant.  We know from others passages in 1 and 2 Samuel that the time of sheep shearing was a time of festival.  There was lots of food and lots of wine and Judah takes his pal Hirah the Adullamite with him so we can be sure that impaired judgment is going to be commonplace for them. I won’t go into any more details as we read it but Judah is deceived and Tamar becomes pregnant.  

Later when she begins to show, she is accused of prostitution and Judah calls her out to be burned for her sins and deception.  It’s notable how quickly Judah condemns Tamar’s apparent sin, all while ignoring his own involvement in the very same act.  Fortunately for her, she was careful enough to require some life insurance from Judah in the form of his signet and staff revealing that the deceiver was beaten at his own game.  This finally brings Judah to a state of confession whereby he admits that “She is more righteous than I, since I did not give her to my son, Shelah.”  She and her children are spared and she gives birth to two sons, Perez and Zerah.  

What an absolute wild story, right? You can’t write a soap opera like this story and if this was a soap opera you would inevitably say, “what a complete mess of people.” This is family drama to the max, characterized by back stabbing, greed, attempted unlawful killing, and blackmail.  How is this in the bible and what is the point of all this? Let me turn your attention to Matthew, Chapter 1 

Judah the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar, and Perez the father of Hezron, and Hezron the father of Aram, and Aram the father of Aminadab, and Aminadab the father of Nahshon, and Nahshon the father of Salmon, and Salmon the father of Boaz by Rahab, and Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth, and Obed the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of King David. And David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah …, and Jacob the father of Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called the Messiah

Consider for a moment just the women in that line leading to Christ.  One commentator says this,

All four women had “a highly irregular and potentially scandalous marital union.” Tamar had to play the harlot to conceive Perez; Rahab was a former prostitute; Ruth, also a childless widow of an Israelite, went to the threshing floor to solicit Boaz to be her kinsman-redeemer; and “the wife of Uriah” had an adulterous relationship with King David, who subsequently had her husband killed, and then married her. All these sinful acts of men and women took place in Judah’s family line from which the Messiah would be born. Jesus truly “emptied himself” (Phil 2:7) by being born into the human family. Yet in spite of many sins and shortcoming, “these unions were, by God’s providence, links in the chain to the Messiah.”

This reality should bring us to our knees that Christ, our Lord, came to us through sinners, using the sins of sinners to save sinners.  What an incredibly humbling reality to see. That God didn’t wait for us to clean up our act before he accomplished his purpose and saved us.  Nor does he expect us to finish in our own power the very work that he started when we were sinners.  

15 The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. 1 Timothy 1 :15 

6 And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. Philippians 1: 6

All to show us that despite our sin and unfaithfulness, the plan and purpose of God to redeem a people for his own possession, to purchase them with his blood, and to glorify them for all eternity will be completed because he is a faithful God. 

11 The saying is trustworthy, for:…. 13  if we are faithless, he remains faithful—

Conclusion

Let’s apply this then to our lives and spiritual walk.  First, we very often try to whitewash Christianity and our own walk acting as though we are more faithful than we really are and that God associates with sinners far less than he actually does.  I don’t know why we do this because the bible certainly doesn’t.  God, the spirit, when inspiring the word didn’t try to clean up or hide the seemingly sketchy past of the people through whom Christ came.  He didn’t cover up all the sin and junk that God had to work through to save us. Why? Because this way we can be assured that our salvation has nothing to do with us.  It was not the faithfulness of God’s people that brought Christ into the world and it is not your faithfulness that has saved you and will keep you.  

I know I have said this a bunch lately but if you are in Christ the only reason why that is the case is because God has shown grace and mercy to you.  If left to our own will, every one of us would follow the path of every wicked and sinful character in the bible.  If left to our own will every one of us would turn from Christ having tasted his goodness because we would all choose darkness rather than light.  If left to our own will Satan would sift us like wheat.  But the faithfulness of Christ prays for you, intercedes for you, and works in you.  This is so clear all throughout scripture, I pray you have eyes to see it this morning.  

Secondly, this passage should teach us that God is in control no matter what.  When Tamar tricked Judah she sat at the entrance to a city called Enaim.  This name carries a literal translation of “opening of the eyes.”  Maybe it’s just a coincidence but the events that transpired at the place called opening of the eyes, did in fact open their eyes to the work of God and should open ours too.  This passage reassures us that no sin is too great to be beyond the reach of God’s redemptive plans.  No one has sinned to the degree that the grace of God can not cover them.  No one has sinned such that their eyes can not be opened should our God wash the scales from their eyes.  If you yourself have fallen into sin, lean on the powerful grace of God to cover you.  If you know someone who you fear is irredeemable, pray for them, don’t give up on them, if they are alive there is still hope that their eyes may be opened.  

Finally, this passage should show us that given enough time, we will always see that our biggest mistakes, most grievous errors, and most humbling moments become the most potent things that God uses to draw us to himself and to transform us.  Hear the words of our baptist confession of Faith: 

The most wise, righteous, and gracious God does often times leave for a season His own children to manifold temptations and the corruptions of their own hearts, to chastise them for their former sins, or to discover unto them the hidden strength of corruption and deceitfulness of their hearts, that they may be humbled; and to raise them to a more close and constant dependence for their support upon Himself; and to make them more watchful against all future occasions of sin, and for other just and holy ends.15 So that whatsoever befalls any of His elect is by His appointment, for His glory, and their good.16

I have no doubt that when all is said and done, we will sit in glory reflecting on the whole of our lives to that point and see the mighty and gracious hand of God working at every moment, and every occasion.  This is certainly true as we look back at Judah and Tamar and it will certainly be true of you, if you are in Christ.  Once again, lean on the faithfulness of God, no matter what, and all shall surely be made right in glory.  Amen.