If you will take your Bibles and turn with me in the written word of God to Genesis chapter 38. You may have noticed, if you download things on Sermon Audio, that I changed the name of our sermon series from The Gospel According to Genesis to instead The Promise of the Messianic Seed, because that really is the heart and the essence of what's going on in the book of Genesis. And we're going to see that surprisingly in Genesis 38, in surprising ways. As I read the text, you're going to notice something, and that is God's name doesn't even appear anywhere in this entire chapter. And yet for all of that, as we're going to see, he is all over the chapter. He is at work. He's doing things behind the scenes in extraordinary ways, as we shall see in a moment. But here in Genesis 38, we're going to read the entire chapter together. It came to pass at that time that Judah departed from his brothers and visited a certain Adulamite whose name was Hira. And Judah saw there a daughter of a certain Canaanite whose name was Shua, and he married her and went into her. So she conceived and bore a son, and he called his name Er. She conceived again, and bore a son, and she called his name Onan. And she conceived yet again, and bore a son, and called his name Shelah. He was at Shezeb when she bore him. Then Judah took a wife for Er, his firstborn, and her name was Tamar. But Er, Judah's firstborn, was wicked in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord killed him. And Judah said to Onan, Go into your brother's wife and marry her, and raise up an heir to your brother. But Onan knew that the heir would not be his, and it came to pass, when he went into his brother's wife, that he omitted on the ground, lest he should give an heir to his brother. And the thing which he did displeased the Lord, therefore he killed him also. Then Judah said to Tamar his daughter-in-law, Remain a widow in your father's house till my son Shelah is grown. For he said, lest he also die like his brothers. And Tamar went and dwelt in her father's house. Now in the process of time, the daughter of Shuah, Judah's wife, died. And Judah was comforted and went up to his sheep shearers at Timnah, he and his friend Hira the Adulamite. And it was told Tamar, saying, Look, your father-in-law is going up to Temna to shear his sheep. So she took off her widow's garments, covered herself with a veil, and wrapped herself, and sat in an open place which was on the way to Temna. For she saw that Shelah was grown, and she was not given to him as a wife. When Judas saw her, he thought she was a harlot because she had covered her face. Then he turned to her by the way and said, Please let me come into you. For he did not know that she was his daughter-in-law. So she said, What will you give me that you may come into me? And he said, I will send a young goat from the flock. So she said, Will you give me a pledge till you send it? Then he said, What pledge shall I give you? So she said, Your signet, and cord, and your staff that is in your hand. Then he gave them to her, and went into her, and she conceived by him. So she arose, and went away, and laid aside her veil, and put on the garments of her widowhood. And Judah sent the young goat by the hand of his friend the Adulamite to receive his pledge from the woman's hand, but he did not find her. Then he asked the men of that place, saying, Where is the harlot who was openly by the roadside? And they said, There was no harlot in this place. So he returned to Judah and said, I cannot find her. Also the men of the place said that there was no harlot in this place. Then Judah said, Let her take them for herself, lest we be shamed, for I sent this young goat, and you have not found her. And it came to pass, about three months later, that Judah was told, saying, Tamar, your daughter-in-law has played the harlot. Furthermore, she is with child by harlotry. So Judah said, bring her out and let her be burned. When she was brought out, she said to her father-in-law, saying, by the man to whom these belong, I am with child. And she said, please determine whose these are, the signet and cord and staff. So Judah acknowledged them and said, she has been more righteous than I because I did not give her to Shelah my son, and he never knew her again. Now it came to pass at the time for giving birth that, behold, twins were in her womb. And so it was, when she was giving birth, that the one put out his hand, and the midwife took a scarlet thread and bound it on his hand, saying, This one came out first. Then it happened, as he drew back his hand, that his brother came out unexpectedly, and she said, How did you break through? This breach be upon you. Therefore, his name was called Perez. Afterward, his brother came out, who had the scarlet thread on his hand, and his name was called Zerah. Let's pray. Father, we pray that you'll open our eyes to see what this text is teaching us, not so much about Judah, but rather what this text is teaching us about you. And we pray that you'll have mercy upon us, that you will minister to us, anoint my lips and anoint the ears of your people. Father, I would pray that you forgive us for any sin that would grieve and quench your spirit. We pray the Spirit would fall with great power from on high, that we might be profited from the preaching of the Word. We ask in Jesus' name. Amen. Our ongoing study of Genesis is now focusing upon the fourth generation of the patriarchs, specifically the twelve sons of Jacob. And the Spirit of God has furnished us thus far with plenty of evidence that the sons of Jacob, by and large, were not regenerate. and did not love the Lord, with the exception of Joseph." Jacob's sons, they were basically a bunch of unregenerate cutthroats at this point. So we have Simon and Levi who deceived an entire city of men and then slaughtered those men, giving a bad reputation to Jacob and his family. And despite all the gracious things that God had done for Jacob and his family, we find that when God calls him to go to Bethel, he has to tell his sons to put away their idols, and they have all these household idols that they gathered from the surrounding nations. So they're not worshipping the Lord their God, they're worshipping false gods. We read about how Reuben, Jacob's firstborn, committed incest with one of his father's wives, Bilhah. Of all of Jacob's sons, the only one who shows any promise is Joseph. And the other men are so jealous of him that they conspire to murder him. Not only do they conspire to murder him, they know how to hide the evidence. We're going to throw away his lifeless corpse into some pit somewhere, and we're going to lie to our father and say a beast tore him up. Well, cooler heads thankfully prevail. And instead of murdering him, they sell him as a slave. Nice guys. And Judah's motivation for this is, well, if we kill him, we can't make any profit on him. If we sell him into slavery, we can get rid of Joseph and line our pockets with silver. And that's what they do. And then they come to Jacob. And they lie to him. They say, whose garments are these? And they show him the torn garments of Joseph, with the blood of a goat all over him. And they watch, as this brings them almost to the point of going to the grave. And yet, though they know Joseph is alive, they would rather watch their father grieve unto death, than that they should admit their sin and acknowledge it before him. If we weren't convinced of how wicked these men were already, we then have Genesis chapter 38. And at the end of chapter 37, it ends by telling us that despite all the wicked things that Joseph's brothers had done, God has Joseph exactly where He wants him. He's been sold into slavery. He now belongs to Potiphar, who is the captain of Pharaoh's guard. And you would think by the end of chapter 37 that all of chapter 38 is now going to focus on Joseph, and his plight in Egypt, but instead the Holy Spirit interrupts the natural narrative flow to focus on a different son of Jacob, and that is Judah. And he focuses upon this horrible, horrible story about how Judah gets his own daughter-in-law pregnant, and basically his response to it all is, oh, I'm sorry, I thought you were somebody else. I thought you were a harlot rather than my daughter-in-law, and that's why I got you pregnant. Not exactly the most shining, brilliant kind of story that you would ever want to read about. It makes for painful reading to work through it. And there's at least two questions that arise from the text as we think about these things. The first is this. Why on earth would the thrice holy God want his name associated with a wicked and vile man like Judah? And the second question that arises in my mind is this. Why does the Holy Spirit interrupt the narrative flow of Genesis to focus upon how the tribe of Judah came into being and how the seed of Judah was propagated when the Lord never gives equal time to any other tribe of Israel? Why the focus and the emphasis and the magnification of Judah and where his seed came from? I suspect you already know the answer or suspect the answer to both questions, but I will come back at the end to both questions in the applications. For now, for this morning, I want to preach this text to you under four headings. First, we see an imprudent marriage. Secondly, we see an incestuous union. Third, we see a hypocritical accusation. And fourth, we see a messianic seed. So first of all, an imprudent marriage. Notice verse 1. It had come to pass at that time that Judah departed from his brothers. What is that time? The time after Joseph had been sold into slavery. Judah departed from his brothers. And I believe we're to understand that as more than Judah changed his geography. It's saying he left the covenant family. He left Jacob's household. He hasn't just left geographically. He's not loyal to Jacob's God. Therefore, he leaves and goes into the surrounding Canaanite world. And that's affirmed when you see the very next thing. Look at the end of verse 1, "...and visited a certain Adulamite, whose name was Hira." Here's an uncircumcised Gentile, a pagan, a man who worships false gods, an idolater, And yet, he keeps rising up all throughout this passage. We're going to run into this man Hira over and over and over again. And it doesn't speak well of Judah that he was attracted to this man. Because birds of a feather flock together. And there's a reason that Judah was attracted to this man. You get the impression as you read the text, actually, that Judah and Hira were best friends. They hung out at each other's house. They went together in traveling. They showed hospitality to one another. As a matter of fact, as we're going to see, they even went whoremongering together. That's how wicked they are. Because Judah was a man who loved the world and the things of the world, and did not love the Lord God. And so he was attracted to worldlings with whom he had things in common. Sometimes people will say of a rebellious teenager, oh, he's a good guy, he just runs with the wrong friends. I wonder about that. Why does he run with those friends? Why is he attracted to them? Look at the people that you're drawn most to. You've probably seen something of a mirror image of yourself. Are you drawn to people who love the Lord, who desire holiness? Or are you drawn to people who love the world and the things of the world? There's a reason you're drawn to those kinds of people. If you were to take a group of 100 strangers, 100 young men, and let's say 98 of those men love the Lord, knew the Lord, but never knew one another. And you put them into one room. And then you took two rebels, two rebellious young men, and you put them in that room, and they've never met each other, and you put them on opposite sides of the room. You sit back and you watch, and I promise you what's going to happen before the night's over. The two rebellious young men are going to find each other. And they're going to form a friendship before the night is over. Because they're drawn to men who are rebellious just like them. And so it does not speak well of Judah that he was drawn so closely to form an intimate friendship with this man, Hira. And we're going to see this as we continue through the text. And it's while he's buddy's buddy with this man, Hira, that he meets a Canaanite woman in verse 2. When verse 2 begins with the words, And Judah saw, we already know we're in trouble. Two different times the text is going to say, and Judah saw a woman, and both times it's going to lead him into all kinds of mischief. It reminds us of things we've seen throughout the book of Genesis thus far. Eve saw the fruit and she took it. The sons of God saw the daughters of women, and they took them, as many wives as they wanted. Lot lifted up his eyes and saw the well-watered plain near Sodom and Gomorrah, and took it." Over and over again, it's this. He sees a Canaanite woman, and he takes her. Later, he's going to see a harlot, and he's going to take her. It starts with the eye. All sexual morality starts here. with what we allow into our eyes, with what we set before our eyes, what we think about. It starts with desire, lust coming through the eyes. Well, he sees this woman, and this woman is a Canaanite. Now, think about this. Who was Judah? Judah was the great-grandson of Abraham, he was the grandson of Isaac, and he was the son of Jacob. How much time does Genesis 24 spend telling us about how careful Abraham was to make sure his son Isaac married a godly wife? and did not marry an ungodly Canaanite woman. The Bible spends no less than 67 verses telling us about how careful Abraham was to make sure his son married a woman who was not an ungodly Canaanite. We find for Isaac then, he marries a godly woman. And then it's his wife who says to him, would you please send your son Jacob back to the household of my brother so that he can find a godly wife for himself, lest he marry a Canaanite like Esau has done, and it grieved me. And so he sends him off to Laban. We've read of the 20-year struggle that Jacob had as he acquired Rachel as a wife. Here are these three generations so careful to not intermingle with the ungodly pagans, and yet when we come to Judah, the Bible spends all of one verse to tell us, he saw a Canaanite woman, he married her, and went into her. In other words, he's neglected three generations of precedent. To do what he wanted to do, he sees something that looks beautiful on the outside, and that's what he goes for. So it's telling us something about his character. And from this union with this woman, They have three sons. And once again, another theme we've seen all throughout Genesis, the acorn does not fall far from the tree. These men are just as wicked as Judah who spawned them. Their names are Er, Onan, and Shelah. Now notice Er in verse 6. Er is a grown man. Judah takes a wife for Er, his firstborn, and her name was Tamar. Just as Judah himself had married a Canaanite woman, so he finds a Canaanite woman, this woman Tamar, to give to his son Er. And Er was such a wicked man, the Bible doesn't tell us what his wickedness consisted of. But he was so bad and so wicked that God literally wiped him off the face of the earth and killed him. And so, here is Tamar, left without a child and left without a husband. And so, what does Judah do? He says to Onan, his second son, verse 8, Now you need to understand what's going on in this text. There's an ancient custom being spoken of here that the Bible will later tell us more about. It was a custom, and I'm probably not pronouncing this right, but it was called leverate marriage. L-E-V-I-R-A-T-E. Leverate marriage. Leverate, the word means husband's brother. That's what the word means. The custom was this. If a man died and he left his wife a widow and she did not have children, then one of his brothers was to marry her, get her pregnant, and the first child that she would bear would be considered the son of his dead brother. He would carry on his name and that young man would inherit his father's estate. And then the rest of the children would be considered his own children, but the first would be considered his brother's children. If you'll turn with me to Deuteronomy chapter 25, God himself would make this a part of the law of Moses, so it was understood by the Hebrews. Deuteronomy 25, verses 5 to 6. If brothers dwell together, and one of them dies and has no son, the widow of the dead man shall not be married to a stranger outside the family. Her husband's brother shall go into her, take her as his wife, and perform the duty of a husband's brother to her. And it shall be that the firstborn son which she bears will succeed to the name of his dead brother, that his name may not be blotted out of Israel." And it goes on to detail, we won't read it here, but you can read the rest of Deuteronomy 25. It goes on to tell us that it was a great shame for a man to refuse to do this for his brother. Because what he was showing was, I don't care if my brother's name perishes from the face of the earth. Now, you're probably more familiar with this custom than you realize. And I'm going to tell you a short story, and you'll recognize it immediately. Many years later, there would be a man from Judah whose name was Chilion. And Chilion would marry a woman who was a Moabite woman. But he would die without giving her any children. And she would accompany her mother-in-law back into Israel. And while there, there was a relative of Achillean whose name was Boaz, who would fulfill the custom of Leverite marriage and would marry this woman, this Moabitess, whose name was Ruth. And the two of them together, Boaz and Ruth, would have a great-grandson whose name was David. So you're very familiar with this custom, even if you didn't realize it, but now you do. Well, coming back then to this situation, here is Judah saying to his son, Onan, fulfill the custom for your brother, Er, whom God has killed, basically, and fulfill this right. Well, he marries her. He practices a form of birth control so that he can enjoy the pleasures of the marriage bed without having the responsibility of raising a son for his dead brother. He doesn't want to do that, and the language of the Hebrew is, he didn't do this one time. This was a habitual sin that he repeated over and over again because he knew the son would be considered his brother's son rather than his. And it displeased the Lord, and so God killed him too. Well, when we come down to verse 11, Judah's running out of sons because God is killing them all. And there's two things that happen here, both of which are very, very sad. He says to Tamar, "'Remain a widow in your father's house until my son Shelah is grown.'" In other words, you're in line to be married to my third son, but then the Bible tells us he didn't intend to give him to her at all. And that's the sad thing, because first of all, he's lied to her. Go back into your house and just wait there until my son's old enough to marry you. But what is secondly sad about it is the reason that he withheld his son from her. Because he's blaming Tamar for her first two sons' death. It's as if she has poisonous lipstick. And that's why my sons have died. She's a curse. She's a poison. And if I let my third son marry her, then he's going to die as well. What he's failing to recognize is it was his two oldest sons' sin that caused their death, not Tamar. It wasn't Tamar's sin, it wasn't Tamar's fault. And he's not recognizing that the judgment of his two sons was God's just judgment upon them. He's not recognizing this was God's punishment of their wickedness and it was just. It's very sad to see the way he's thinking. So we've seen, first of all, an imprudent marriage. The word imprudent means something not well considered, a very foolishly, rashly enacted thing. This imprudent marriage to a Canaanite woman has caused all kinds of trouble for Judah. What we see next, in verses 12 to 22, is an incestuous union. Verse 12 tells us that in the process of time, the daughter of Sheua, Judah's wife, died. So he goes mourning because his wife is now dead. And Judah finally is comforted. In other words, life begins to return to normal. And he goes up to his sheep shearers at Timnah. And notice the end of verse 12. Here's something ominous. This can't turn out well. He's with his friend Hira the Adulamite. We're going to see that this is a great problem in just a moment. And so they're on their way to this festival. And Tamar senses an opportunity because she recognizes Judah had no intention of giving his third son. Many years have passed and he has not given his third son to her. He's now grown. He's of marrying age and he has not done so. And so what he does, or what she does, is she covers herself with a veil so that you can't tell who she is. She dresses like a prostitute and she goes to a place called the Enam Gate. And that gate was a place that Judah would have to pass on his way to Timnah. And so there's several things to note about this. The first is this. We've already seen hints that Judah was an idolater. What happens next is another clue pointing in that same direction. Because down in verses 21 and 22, three different times, Tamar is referred to as a harlot. But the Hebrew word for harlot means literally a ritual prostitute. a ritual prostitute. That's how she dressed herself. What you need to understand is that harvest seasons and sheep shearing seasons were often used as excuses by the Canaanites to indulge in all kinds of moral excesses. The wine would flow freely. They would have festivals where they're singing praises to their false gods because of the fertility and that kind of thing. And they very often indulged in fertility rites by employing temple prostitutes and engaging in sexual morality at seasons like this. The idea was, Baal will give us fertile land if we exercise these fertility rites. You can see why the Israelites were so often drawn to worship the gods of the Canaanites because they were able to indulge in their sinful pleasures as a part of their worship of the Baals. Derek Kidner says it this way, Sheep-shearing was a festive time when sexual temptation would be sharpened by the Canaanite cult, which encouraged ritual fornication as fertility magic. The word for harlot that's used in verses 21 and 22 suggests that Tamar posed as a cult prostitute, perhaps to make doubly sure of her victim. The veil that she wears in verse 14 seems to confirm this, since if Assyrian law is any guide, No prostitute except a cultic one might wear it." But the second thing I want you to note about this is something that one commentator points out. Judah doesn't recognize who Tamar is. But our text tells us Tamar knew exactly who Judah was. She knows her father-in-law's wickedness well enough to know, if I will cover myself and if I will dress as a temple prostitute, My father-in-law will lust after me. He'll come to me and he'll proposition me to sleep with me." He's so wicked that she can predict his character and his sin. And subsequent events prove she was exactly right. She had nailed him. That's how wicked and vile this man is. She knows his character to know this temptation will snare him. And so, this is what he does. Look at verses 15 to 18. Again, verse 15 starts off with ominous words, "...when Judah saw..." We've already seen that one time in the text. He saw a Canaanite woman, he marries her. Now he sees a harlot. And he lusts after her. And so he comes to her, didn't recognize who she was because she covered her face. It begins with lust in the heart and in the eyes. Then he acts upon it. He comes in verse 16 and propositions her. And she responds and says, what will you give me in exchange for this? And he says, A small goat. A young goat. Give me your body, I'll give you a goat. Matthew Henry points something out here that I really appreciate. Is that what your virtue is worth? A young goat? Is that what you'll give in exchange for giving your body away? This is what Matthew Henry says, and I'm going to refine some of his language because it's a little bit archaic. He says this, a kid from the flock was the fair price at which her chastity and honor were valued. No, had the price been thousands of rams and 10,000 rivers of oil, it would not have been a fair trade. The favor of God, the purity of the soul, the peace of conscience, and the hope of heaven are too precious to be exposed to sell at any such rates. Ladies, the only man who should have access to your body like this is a man who pays the price of loving you until death do you part within the bonds of the covenant of marriage. No price less than that is to be paid. That is what a man must give his whole life to a woman in the covenant bonds of marriage in order to have access to her body. Well, the problem is he doesn't have his payment with him. And so she asks him to give her a pledge, a pledge that you'll make good on the payment if I render this service for you. And so he asks, what should I give you? And you need to understand that what Tamar is doing here is she's trying to protect herself because she knows once she gets pregnant, if she gets pregnant by her father-in-law, then she's going to be accused of adultery because she had been married to these two other men. She's going to be accused of adultery and the penalty for that is her life. And so she's protecting herself so she can later prove who the father of her children is. And so what she asks for is something very specific. Give me your signet and your cord and your staff. Now let's talk about what those things are. A signet, back in those days, very often it was on a ring. A ring would have an encrusting symbol or sign on it. And what you did is when you had a legal document, you sealed that legal document with wax and you would take your signet ring and you would emboss it into the wax as a proof that this was a legally binding document. Now, what he had was not a ring. Rather, his signet was worn as a necklace. That's what the signet and the cord are all about. The cord was something you held as a necklace. It was a cylindrical piece of either steel or of stone, and on the end of it would be the symbol of your and you would use that to emboss. So he's giving this to her. And also he had a walking staff, and walking staffs in those days were very ornately laid and they had the name of the person who owned them on them. So you could prove whose walking staff it was. So basically what she's saying is, give me your signet, give me your staff, and then I will give these back to you once the goat is given to me in payment. Now, what kind of idiot frankly, gives a signet ring to a prostitute, where you can be shown in a court of law that you were with this woman. But lust makes men do stupid things, doesn't it? And so that's what Jacob agrees to this, or Judah agrees to this, gives these things to her, they sleep together, and she gets pregnant, she goes back, takes away her harlotry clothes, puts back on her widow clothing, Here's Judah, none the wiser for what's gone on. But there's something else I want you to notice here. The scriptures are very specific in verse 12, that as Jacob was traveling and passed by this woman, he was not alone. His friend Hira was with him. Now, explain to me what kind of friend is with you on the road, and you say to him, hey, let's pause for a minute. I'm going to go hire this prostitute, and I'm going to come back after I'm done with her, and we'll continue our journey. A godly man would put his friendship at risk and say, please, don't sin against God. And please, don't sin against this woman. And don't sin against your own soul. And you're putting your own good name at risk if you do this. But Hira does no such thing. He doesn't rebuke his friend. He doesn't stop him from indulging in sin. In fact, as we're going to see, he's complicit in it. What does Paul say in Romans 1, verse 30? He speaks of those who not only do the same, but also approve of those who practice them. And that's the kind of man Hira was. He wasn't a man who provoked his friend to godliness and to holiness. My question for you this morning is, what kind of friend are you? What kind of friend are you? In the year 1995, my wife and I were invited to go to Indonesia to accompany her uncle who was a missionary there. We were invited to come and teach the missionary kids who were high schoolers there. As we came and as we got to meet the missionaries, And they were coming in to meet Angela's uncle and ask him about all kinds of things. Okay, have you got my tickets ready? You got this ready, that ready? And there was all this administrative stuff going on. And when all that stuff, when there was kind of a, some of the flurry of activity subsided, her uncle looked at us and said, this is how it is all the time. I'm in an office surrounded by missionaries. And while I've been here on the mission field, not one of them has ever come to me and asked me, how's my time with the Lord? How's my time in the Word? How's my prayer life going? How's your relationship with your wife? How are things going with your children? How's your relationship with God? He says, I'm on the mission field, surrounded by missionaries, and I never get asked that question. And I'll never forget that when he said that, I thought to myself, well, I live in the Bible Belt in the United States, and I'm never asked that question either. that there's not many people who provoke me to love and to good deeds. And I realized, I better not go home and wait for someone else to provoke me. I ought to be a provoker myself. And I should start, among my friends, asking those kinds of questions to spur us on to love and to holiness and to good deeds. And I found that as you begin doing that, people return the favor. But my point is, how many people in your life actually provoke you to love and good deeds? How many people in your life love you enough that when they see you walking into sin, come to you and say, brother, sister, do you realize that you're going in a direction that is not helpful? But aren't you thankful for all the friends you have that are like that? People who point you to Christ. Hyrule was not such a man. He was the opposite kind of friend, a man who rejoiced in sin and wickedness, but we need friends who provoke us to love and good deeds. I tell people all the time, I've got plenty of people who provoke me. but not to love and good deeds. And we need friends who provoke us to point us to Christ. Well, this being said, let's talk about Hira, because verse 19 and onward tells us about him. Judah finally arrives at his destination, and he doesn't take the young goat back to the harlot. He sends his friend. Hira to take it for him. He knows that he can trust this man to keep his secret about being with this harlot, but he takes the goat to her, can't find her, looks around, asks the men, where's the harlot that was here? What harlot? There's no harlot here. He comes back, and he comes back to Judah, and says, no one knew about it. We couldn't find her. Here's the goat. Well, she's got my signet. It's got the necklace that goes with it. It's got my staff. And notice how sad the response of verse 23 is. Then Judah said, let her take them for herself. lest we be shamed." Let's not inquire about it anymore because that might give us a bad reputation among people. For I sent this young goat, and you have not found her. Do you see in this, he doesn't care at all that he sinned against God. He's not struck in his conscience about that at all. There's no godly sorrow, no remorse that he's offended God. There's only concern of what other men may think about him. John Calvin says this, here we see that men who are not governed by the Spirit of God are always more concerned about the opinion of the world than about the judgment of God. Well, what have we seen? We've seen an imprudent marriage, an incestuous union. Third, we see a hypocritical accusation. Look at verse 24. It came to pass, about three months after, that Judah was told, saying, Tamar, your daughter-in-law, has played the harlot. Furthermore, she is with child by harlotry. And look at Judah's response. Bring her out and let her be burned. We don't tolerate that sort of thing around here. We don't put up with harlots. We put up with people who consort with harlots, but harlots we don't put up with. And you see something of an unfair accusation that has taken place throughout the centuries, that men can get away with sowing their wild oats, but women, when they get pregnant, well, that's a mighty sin. But notice the hypocrisy that he's ready to burn her at the stake. for the very sin which he committed, and unbeknownst to him, he was the very one who committed it with her. Isn't it so often true that we are hardest upon others where we ourselves are the weakest? That so often we're ready to accuse other people for sins we ourselves are guilty of? More about that in a moment. But he wants to be, as far as he's concerned, he's judge, jury, and executioner. In her mind, she's already tried, condemned, and burned. And that's what we need to do. Well, they bring her out for this public trial. And as they're bringing her out, she sends a message. Sends a message to her father-in-law, Judah. And there's some parcels attached to her message. There's the signet, and there's the cord, and there's the staff. And I see here a bit of poetic justice that she doesn't come out and say, hey look, these are your things. Instead, she says, whose do these belong to? Sounds a little bit like what Judah himself had said to his father, whose clothing is this that's been torn? You tell me who this is because you know something, it takes two to tango. And the person who got me pregnant needs to be burned just like I'm about to be burned. That's the message that's being sent here. So literally, as one person says, he sends her exhibits A, B, and C. Let's put it this way, he's got three witnesses against him. His own signet, the cord that ties it to his neck, and the staff that he carries in his hand are witnesses against him. And notice in verse 26, remember, he and Hira had tried to carefully conceal this from Pew, lest they should be subjected to the ridicule of men. But now, notice what's happening, now he's publicly exposed. Verse 26, so Judah acknowledged them. These belong to me." And then he says, she's been more righteous than I, because I did not give her to Sheila, my son. It doesn't mean that her act of incest was okay or not sinful, but what he's saying is I am more guilty of sin than she is, because her motivation wasn't lust. Mine was. She was wronged by me, by what I did by withholding my son from her when I promised I would give him to her. He recognizes what's behind it. Now, be careful. Don't justify Tamar in your mind because a lot of commentators try to. Henry Morris in his commentary on Genesis, which is terrible, by the way, he actually tries to justify and vindicate her for this act. There's no justifying this. The ends do not justify the means. If she had a complaint, she needed to make that complaint known, but you don't commit incest with your father-in-law to try to write something. Two wrongs don't make a right. But it is interesting that there is at least this positive thing at the end of 26. He never knew her again. He recognizes who this is and he never sleeps with her again. It's kind of like the woman caught in adultery. What did Jesus say to her? Go and sin no more. From this point on, don't do this anymore. Let this past be in your past, don't let it be in your future. Turning away from sin means you don't go on living in the sin. So there's at least a tremor of hope right here. So what have we seen? We've seen an imprudent marriage, an incestuous union, a hypocritical accusation, and finally, unexpectedly, the last thing in the world you would ever expect in a sordid tale like this is we see a Messianic seed. Tamar has conceived two children, and immediately we think there's two twin boys in her womb. That sounds very familiar. That's happened recently, hasn't it? Because it was Judah's father, Jacob, was a twin as well. And Jacob and Esau, as twin boys, had fought inside the womb. And remember when they were born, Esau came out first as the firstborn, but when Jacob came out, he was grabbing a hold of his heel. Even from birth, he was trying to usurp his place as the firstborn. Well, these two grandsons of his do even more, Perez and Zerah. Zerah's hand comes out, and they put a scarlet thread around his wrist to prove that this is the firstborn, but then he withdraws, and his son beats him to it, or his brother beats him to it. Perez breaks through, comes by, and he's the firstborn. And then Zerah comes out after him. And it seems that there's almost an imprecatory thing saying, how did you break through this breach be upon you? That sounds kind of negative to me. But here's the thing, this young man, Perez, is the one through whom the tribe of Judah descends. Three applications that I want to make from our text this morning. The first is this, whenever you're dealing with someone else's sins, Always start by dealing with your own sins first. Judah was ready to burn Tamar at the stake for acting like a harlot, and yet he was the one with whom she had played the harlot. He consorted with prostitutes and somehow thought that was okay, but he wanted to condemn someone else who was guilty of the exact same sin. You may remember another story when the prophet Nathan came to King David. He says, O King, there was a man who had many, many goats, or many, many sheep. He had an abundance of pastures, and he was a rich man, and he invited some people to come to a feast. But there was another poor man who had only one sheep. And the rich man insisted, give me your one sheep that I may feed it to my guests. And he pleaded with him, but the man took it by force and killed it and destroyed it and fed it to his people and took away the poor man's sheep. And you remember what happened in David? It stirred up his passions. He got angry. And he said, this man will pay for what he's done. He will lose his life. And that's when Nathan pointed his finger right in his face and said, you're the man. You're the man. Look at all the wives God has given you. Look at your concubines and your harems. And yet you stole Uriah's wife Bathsheba, who did not belong to you. You have condemned this fictional rich man to death, and in doing so, you've condemned yourself. How prone we are in our pride. to point out the sins of others and be so hypercritical of other people, and yet we ourselves can be guilty of the exact same sin and never stop to notice it. In fact, sometimes our fallenness seems to be the hardest on other people, we ourselves are the weakest. And you may think to yourself, well, I'm pretty hard on myself. I'll give you a test to show that you probably really aren't as hard on yourself as you think. It's one thing for me to acknowledge my foibles and my faults and my sins, but let somebody else point out the same exact sin in me and see how quickly my pride rises up to defend myself. In other words, I can talk about my sin, but you can't talk about my sin, because that's the way our pride works. Jesus has warned us about these very things. Turn with me to Matthew chapter 7. Matthew 7.1 is probably the most misinterpreted, misapplied verse in all of Scripture. That's where he says, And people take that to mean that you can't be discerning or make judgment calls about anything. The same Lord, in another place, said, Judge with righteous judgment. So what He's forbidding here is not judgment, but judging with unrighteous, hypocritical judgment. Notice what He says, verse 1, Judge not that you be not judged. For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged. And with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you. In other words, the standard you have for others is the standard that you'll be held to as well. And why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye? but do not consider the plank in your own eye." In other words, your brother has a splinter in his eye, and you say, let me help you with that. Meanwhile, you've got two before sticking out your own, is what he's saying. And he says, or how can you say to your brother, let me remove the speck from your eye, and look, a plank is in your own eye. Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you'll see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye. He doesn't say you should never deal with your brother's sin, but he says you better deal with your sin first. And once you've dealt with your sin, you'll be much more well-equipped to deal with your brother's sin. You'll see more clearly, and frankly, you'll approach him with a lot more humility. What does it tell us in Galatians 6.1? Brethren, if any man is overtaken in a trespass, let you who are spiritual restore such a one, very next phrase, in a spirit of meekness. in a spirit of humility, considering yourself, lest you too be tempted." In other words, help your brother be restored and deal with his sin, but realize the brother you're confronting today may be confronting you tomorrow. And so you better approach Him with humility and approach Him the way you want Him to approach you when that day comes. So learn a lesson from Judah of how not to act, to not condemn others for sins you yourself are guilty of, but to deal with your sin first, and then, you can see clearly, to deal with other sins. Second thing, God's election of sinners is according to an election of grace and not of merit. I began my message this morning by asking you two questions. The first question was this, why on earth would the thrice holy God want his name associated with vile, wicked men like Judah? And as we've gone through the text, have we not seen that even more? Why on earth would he want this man's name associated as one of the tribes of his chosen nation of Israel? I believe we can find the answer by asking a parallel question. The parallel question is this. Why on earth did Jesus submit himself to a baptism of repentance? A baptism for sinners. You realize that when people came to John's baptism, there's one place that tells us that as they were baptized, they confessed their sins. What they were professing to do when they were baptized is they're saying, I have repented of my sins before God. Why on earth would Jesus Christ, at the very beginning of His earthly ministry, undergo a baptism of repentance by which He's saying, I'm repenting of my sins, I'm coming clean about my sins, when Jesus had no sin to come clean about? He needed no repentance. He was holy, harmless, and undefiled. Do you realize, of all the men who have ever walked on the face of the earth, the only man who ever perfectly kept God's law is Jesus Christ. He never understood what it meant to commit sin personally, experientially. He knew what it was to be tempted. He knew what it was to resist sin, but he did not know what it was to commit sin. That's why the Bible says he knew no sin. And yet, here's this perfect man coming to John for baptism. And John was perplexed. I need you to baptize me, and you want me to baptize you? Permitted to be so? Fulfill our righteousness? Just trust me, John, just do it. Just obey me and baptize me. You're thinking to yourself, why on earth would Jesus, at the beginning of His ministry, undergo a baptism of repentance? And I'll tell you why. He came to acknowledge from the very beginning of His ministry, I have come to be numbered with the transgressors. I have come not for the righteous, but for sinners. I have come to be identified with them. With people who have done all kinds of vile things. In other words, let's put it this way. He was saying this from the very beginning of His ministry. I've not come to the earth to save righteous people. I've come to be identified with wicked people. I've come to be numbered with the transgressors so that transgressors can be numbered among the righteous. Their sin is going to become my sin so that my righteousness can become their righteousness. I'm going to be rejected by God the Father so that they can be accepted by God the Father. I'm going to be condemned by God so that they can be justified by God. I'm going to endure the wrath of Almighty God so that guilty sinners can escape the wrath that is to come. I've come to be identified with guilty people so that they may be cleansed of their sin. Why does God want his name associated with Judah? Because Jesus paid for Judah's sin. Because Jesus paid for Tamar's sin and gave them his righteousness. Now, in Genesis, where we are, Judah was not yet regenerate. That's obvious. But the time would come when he would be. And God would take away his sin and give him his perfect righteousness. And my point is this, your merit and my merit doesn't save us at all. It has no power to save us. What you do has nothing to do with you being saved. It's what Christ has done. Because of what Christ has done for people like Judah and Tamar, there's hope for every last one of you in this room. Hope that you can be reconciled to God. Hope that you can have eternal life. Hope that you can be dressed in Christ's righteousness. Hope that you will live in heaven for all of eternity. That's what can be yours because of what Jesus has done. If you'll turn from your sins and put your faith in Jesus Christ, He can reconcile you to God. He's able, just as willing as He is able. And that leads me to the third thing. where sin abounds, God's grace abounds even more. And I know you're probably thinking, man, you've been using that one over and over again. That's been like your application repeatedly throughout Genesis. Well, that's because that's the message Genesis keeps on giving us. Look at Judah. What a great sinner. What a vile man, and yet God's grace is greater than Judah's sin. What an amazing thing. The Lord's never mentioned in all of Genesis chapter 38, and yet God's all over that chapter. He's all over that chapter because he's doing great things. I asked you a second question this morning, and it was this. Why does the Holy Spirit spill so much ink about the tribe of Judah and how it came into existence when he doesn't give equal time to the others of Jacob's sons? The central theme of Genesis is the promise, propagation, and the preservation of the Messianic seed. How does this particular chapter fit into that theme? Turn to Matthew chapter 1 and I'll show you. Turn to Matthew chapter 1, verses 1 through 3. The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. Abraham begot Isaac. Isaac begot Jacob, and Jacob begot Judah and his brothers." Now, thus far, everything they're saying is just like every other genealogy in all the Old Testament. This father begot this son, who begot this son, who begot this son, who begot this son. It's always the man who begets the son who begets this son. It's always male after male after male. But do you realize that in the genealogy of Christ, there's five women whose names are mentioned? It's very unusual. And the first one we find is in verse 3. Judah begot Perez and Zerah by Tamar. They want us to remember. Oh yeah, you remember Judah committed incest with his daughter-in-law? And this is how the Messiah came. He's reminding us of how sinful the past of his genealogy was. And yet, the Messiah is brought about through these means. Perez begot Hezron, and Hezron begot Ram. Notice it keeps on going. Ram begot Amenadab. Amenadab begot Nashun. Nashun begot Salmon. Salmon begot Boaz by Rahab. Do you remember who Rahab was? She was a prostitute. and she was a Canaanite woman in the city of Jericho. Boaz begot Obed by Ruth. Ruth was a Moabitess. There's another Gentile. Obed begot Jesse, Jesse begot David the King, David the King begot Solomon by her who had been the wife of Uriah. We've mentioned all three of these women this morning, haven't we? Here's this man who had an adulterous affair with a woman, and yet God brought Solomon about through her. What is the Scripture trying to tell us? It's telling us two things. First of all, God has shown grace to great sinners who have done vile, wicked things. And Jesus has that blood flowing through His veins, though He's without sin. because he came to represent sinners. But there's something else it's telling us. It's telling us this, here's a man who is a Jewish man, descended from a line of Jewish people, and yet this very Jewish man, Jesus, has Gentile blood flowing through his veins. Why? Because when Jesus came to this world, he didn't just come to represent Israel. He didn't come to just represent ethnic Jews. He came to represent Gentiles from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation. He is the glory of His people, Israel, but He's also the light of the Gentiles. Remember in Isaiah, where God is speaking to the Son, the Father speaking to the Son, and it's like you're listening to the covenant of redemption, as it were. And what happens is He says to him, Behold, it is too small a thing that I should send you to the lost tribes of Israel. In other words, your name is too great. It's not enough for me to send you to save ethnic Jews. I will make you my salvation to the ends of the earth. I'm going to bring representatives from every tribe, every tongue, every nation, who are going to glorify your name. Because your name is just too great and mighty for us to limit it to the place in Israel. And here we are on the other side of the world, just about all of us in this room are Gentiles, who have believed on Jesus Christ. And why? Because God sent His Son to represent peoples from all tribes, all skin colors, all ethnicities, all cultures. What a glorious thing to think about. In other words, God had you and I on His heart. And He's sending a message because there's Canaanite blood, Gentile blood flowing through the Messiah's veins. It's because He came to represent people like you and me. Aren't you so glad? The reason God is not ashamed to be associated with men like Judah is the same reason He's not ashamed to be associated with people like you and me. Because He's a God of grace. He's a God of mercy. A God who delights to save sinners. Tell me a religion anywhere where the good guy dies for the bad guy. to save him. And yet that's exactly what God has done. He sent his son Jesus, his only begotten son, to die for vile, rebellious sinners like you and me. Praise his name, that this is the God we have. Let's pray. Father, we do praise you for sending your son. We thank you, Lord Jesus, that you're not only the glory of your people Israel, but you are also, Lord, the light of Gentiles like us. We praise you for this. We pray we'll never take this for granted. Thank you for the mercy you showed to Judah and to Tamar, that they would actually be instruments in the Messianic line. Lord, we marvel at your grace and we marvel at your ways. Bless us now as we sing your praises once more in Jesus' name. Amen.