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00:00:01 [Applause] [Music] genesis chapter 38 verses 1 to 26 from the niv at that time judah left his brothers and went to stay with the man of abdullah called hira there judah met the daughter of a canaanite man named shua he married her and made love to her she became pregnant and gave birth to a son who was named air she conceived again and gave birth to a son and named him onan she gave birth still to another son and named him sheila it was at kazaap that she gave birth to him judah got a wife for earth his first
00:00:48 born and her name was tamar but er judah's firstborn was wicked in the lord's sight so the lord put him to death then judah said to onan sleep with your brother's wife and fulfill your duty to her as a brother-in-law to raise up offspring for your brother but owner knew that the child would not be his so whenever he slept with his brother's wife he spilt his semen on the ground to keep from providing offspring for his brother what he did was wicked in the lord's side so the lord put him to death
00:01:22 also judah then said to his daughter-in-law tamar live as a widow in your father's household until my son sheila grows up for he thought he may die too just like his brothers so tamar went to live in her father's household after a long time judah's wife the daughter of shua died when judah had recovered from his grief he went up to timnah to the man who was shearing his sheep and his friend hera the abdullah might went with him when tamar was told your father-in-law is on his way to timna to share his
00:02:01 shape she took off her widow's clothes covered herself with a veil to disguise herself and then sat down at the entrance to innaam which is on the road to timna for she saw that although sheila had grown up she had not been given to him as his wife when judah saw her he thought she was a prostitute for she had covered her face not realizing that she was his daughter-in-law he went over to her by the roadside and said come now let me sleep with you and what will you give me to sleep with you she asked
00:02:39 i'll send you a young goat from my flock he said will you give me something as a pleasure until you send it she asked he said what pledge should i give you your sill and its card and the staff in your hand she answered so he gave them to her and slept with her and she became pregnant by him after she left she took off her veil and put on her widow's clothes again meanwhile judah sent a young good by his friend the abdullah might in order to get his pledge back from the woman but he did not find her
00:03:16 he asked the man who lived there where is the shrine prostitute who was beside the road at inaudible there hasn't been any shrine prostitute here they said so he went back to judah and said i didn't find her besides the man who lived there said there hasn't been any shrine prostitute here then judas said let her keep what she has or we will become a laughingstock after all i did send her this young goat but you didn't find her about three months later judah was told your daughter-in-law tamar is guilty of
00:03:53 prostitution and as a result she is now pregnant judah said bring her out and have her burnt to death as she was being brought out she sent a message to her father-in-law i'm pregnant by the man who owns this she said and she added see if you recognize whose seal and caught and stuff this are judah recognized them and said she is more righteous than i since i wouldn't give him to my son sheila and he did not sleep with her again the word of god once again it's my joy and privilege to be standing here sharing with you from
00:04:39 the word of god with a huge surge in new kovid knighting cases over the past weeks i am back to facing the camera which is not an easy thing to do i would much rather see you all face to face in the auditorium let's pray that the situation will improve and we can resume fiscal services soon we are now in the midst of our long running series on the book of genesis and this morning we have come to chapter 38 with the title judah and tamar the text is taken from verses 1 to 26 besides the difficulty i
00:05:13 face in delivering this sermon in this studio without the congregation physically present i'm confronted by an even greater challenge in that genesis 38 is one of the toughest most extraordinary passages in the bible there are explicit depictions of sex and prostitution if ever there is a biblical text that is rated pg or parental guidance this is it this is the narrative that no sunday school would ever include in his teaching curriculum if you have young children and the chance upon genesis 38
00:05:47 you'll be at a loss to explain to them what is happening in the story of judah and tamar it contains ingredients that might be used for a juicy story that will make your korean dramas boring in comparison after reading genesis 38 the usual immediate reaction is why is this chapter even in the bible how can this be considered the word of god what possible spiritual lessons can we derive from such a bizarre account nonetheless we'll soon find out that our text today is really very instructive that not only teaches us a lot about the
00:06:22 nature of sin but also about god's amazing grace when he deals with these people who sin against him there is much we can learn about how sin operates and how god works in relation to our propensity to sin but shall we first commit this time to the lord in prayer our father in heaven as we meet virtually this morning as we dwell on this difficult text from genesis 38 we pray that your spirit will be our teacher to open the eyes of our faith and to illumine our minds reveal to us your deeper truths
00:06:58 for we ask this in the name of your son our lord jesus amen whenever i see my wife fixated on the gripping korean drama i've learned not to interrupt her she'll get a little upset if she had to hit the pause button to attend to me it's better for me to wait 30 minutes or so for her to finish the show and then she would give me her undivided attention similarly i hate to be interrupted when i'm watching an exciting movie unless of course the kitchen is on fire in a way genesis chapter 38 is like an interruption as i
00:07:36 mentioned in my last sermon the book of the book of genesis is about the four old testament patriarchs abraham isaac jacob and joseph the account of joseph starts from chapter 37 and it stretches all the way to the end of genesis chapter 50. then out of nowhere suddenly we have chapter 38 which says nothing about joseph it's it sticks out like a sore tongue in the account of the life of joseph our text for today seems to have been plucked from nowhere and then inserted randomly into the storyline of joseph it breaks
00:08:13 the flow of the storyline of joseph so from the onset the big question hanging over genesis 38 is what was the writer trying to do why interrupt the illustrious account of joseph with this somewhat dark and rather solid story of joseph of judah and tema but i submit to you that chapter 38 is very well placed in the book of genesis it is a necessary interruption in the account of joseph and i'll but i'll keep you in suspense for a while because i'll only review the answer why towards the end of the sermon so
00:08:47 that you will stick with me until the end in the meantime let's first dive into the text and go through the narratives we have a long way to cover we will dig deeper into the verses to uncover what really what is really going on with the character of judah and his daughter-in-law tamar will pick up some secondary lessons along the way before we look at key lessons in the later part of the sermon now to make it easier to digest the text i've divided it into five segments one canaanite connection from the first
00:09:23 five verses two the curse of tamar verses six to eleven three carnal encounter between judah and tamar verses 12 to 19 4 chari tema i wanted to say search for tama but i couldn't think of a word for search that starts with c so i use the malay word chari that's verses 20 to 23 and lastly confronting judah verses 24 to 26 the text opens in verse 1 with judah leaving his family to live in a place called adullam now adolam was the city of the canaanites and so judah left home and settled down in canaan
00:10:07 that was how in verse 2 he met the canaanite man named shua whose unnamed daughter he married no reason is given in the text to explain why judah left the comforts of home to live among the canaanites all this happened sometime after the brothers sold joseph into slavery from the end of the previous chapter chapter 37 i can imagine the father jacob being in a state of prolonged grief over the loss of his favorite son joseph i can also imagine the atmosphere in the house being never the same as before with a
00:10:41 father in perpetual mourning jacob lamented in chapter 37 35 i'll continue to mourn until i join my son in the grave besides judah himself was the architect of the hideous plan to sell joseph into slavery he soaked that idea to his brothers jacob never knew what actually happened to joseph he was told a big lie judah was hence living a life of deception and he must have found it hard to face his father day after day and this may explain why he left home rather than being repentant and coming clean with his
00:11:20 father he chose to escape from his guilt by moving away from home it's a social distancing of swords but relocating to canaan was a terrible decision by doing so he effectively cut himself off from all spiritual resources and denied himself any opportunity for remorse or repentance in other words by moving to canaan he found himself in the worst place where he would sing deeper and deeper into sin which is exactly what happened to him as the narrative unfolds but that was what judah chose to do and here lies the
00:12:00 first lesson for us from the text spiritual wisdom is not isolating yourself from the body of christ that is to say all christians should belong to a community of believers where we can check on each other and spur each other on we ought to walk the path of faith together strengthening one another encouraging one another there shouldn't be any lone ranger christians you shouldn't say oh it's okay i don't want to belong to any church i don't need to attend sunday service i worship god at home on my own after all god is omnipresent
00:12:37 this is very ill advice no believers should be outside the parameters of christian fellowship and care and mutual support for this reason if you have not already done so please get connected by joining a live group especially now during the cmco most if not all live groups are meeting virtually weekly or bi-weekly do not isolate yourself from your spiritual family like how judah cut himself off from his family getting on with segment one not surprisingly or living in canaan judah soon met and married a canaanite woman
00:13:18 she is not named in a text he only says that she was the daughter of a canaanite man named shuwa i'm not sure how judah met her but that but the niv is very explicit about what happened next he married her and made love to her from verse 2. the way the verse is worded it sounds as though it was all very physical and lastful she must have been the very attractive woman judah desired her only as the sexual object for his own gratification he should have he should have been he married her and loved her
00:13:52 instead what we read is he married her and made love to her in any case judas canaanite wife bore for him three sons er onan and shella from verses three to five here if here the pertinent thing to note is that earlier in genesis 24 abraham was very specific about the choice of a wife for his son isaac he told his chief servant i want you to swear by the lord that you will not get a wife from my son from the daughters of the canaanites similarly when isaac uh was also worried about whom his son jacob would marry in genesis 28
00:14:37 when when jacob was leaving to flee from esau so isaac called for jacob and blessed him and then he commanded him do not marry a canaanite woman and so we see that from the days of the patriarchs intermarriage with the canaanites was strongly discouraged as a rule this ruling was later ratified as law by moses in deuteronomy 7. do not intermarry with them the word damn here refers to the seven tribes of canaan do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons we now understand that
00:15:13 the origin of this law can be traced back to abraham's time from this vantage point judah's marriage in verse 2 is clearly ungodly and unwise he did what isaac told his father jacob not to do he did what abraham didn't want isaac to do here an interesting question arises why did god forbid his people for marrying canaanites is it a blanket ban on us marrying someone from a different ethnic group is god a racist the answer is of course no god is not a racist of course you're free to marry across racial lines the prohibition here
00:15:53 was against marrying canaanites the reason why he forbade the israelites for marrying canaanites is because there was something evil about the canaanites and their culture with their worship of pagan gods which which included child sacrifice which god detested greatly god didn't want his people to be corrupted or compromised by this evil culture the purpose was to protect them and to shield them and this is clear from the next verse in deuteronomy 7 for they meaning the canaanites will turn your
00:16:25 children away from following me to serve other gods i believe that we believers also face similar dangers as we live in an in an increasing godless world where money positions material things have become gods if we let our guts down our faith may be compromised like judah we may end up straying from the right path granted we cannot avoid interacting with non-believers in the workplace in the neighborhood etc this is the reality of living in a modern society we are in this world although we are not
00:17:00 of this world but we must be careful not to be influenced by the values of this world that run counter to biblical teachings here lies another lesson for us spiritual wisdom is not compromising your faith in a godless world we must remain vigilant against being swayed spiritually or morally by the people we mix with actually this is an added reason for us to hit the first lesson of not isolating yourself from the body of christ moving on to the second segment the curse of thema many years passed and the first two sons
00:17:38 of judah had already grown up he found a wife for his eldest son er not unexpectedly judah found a canaanite woman for him and her name was tema the other main character in the narrative but before anything could happen her husband died in verse 7 he was so evil that god took his life we're not told the kind of wicked things he did that caused god to judge him so severely in any case this set emotion all the things that would happen in the rest of the chapter in verse 8 judah instructed his second
00:18:13 son onan to marry tema to fulfill your duty to her as a brother-in-law to raise up offspring for help for your brother this is based on the law in deuteronomy 25 if brothers are living together and one of them dies without the son his widow must not marry outside the family her husband's brother shall take her and marry her and fulfill the duty of a brother-in-law to her this is known as the leverage law from the latin word levier which means brother husband's brother according to this law if a woman's husband
00:18:51 dies leaving no son to carry on his name it's the duty of his brother to produce a son by his widow who will carry on the name of the deceased now if the deceased is the firstborn who is entitled to a double portion of the inheritance then the son from the union between his widow and his brother would receive this double inheritance now some of you may point out that this law of moses was only enacted centuries after the events of genesis 38. now you're right but just like the earlier law in deuteronomy 7
00:19:25 this law was also a ratification of what was already in practice at the time of the old testament patriarchs onan did what his father told him and married but he had no intention of producing a child or a son for his late brother verse 9 says owner knew that the child would not be his he was motivated by greed why should he produce an heir for his late brother which would mean a smaller share of the inheritance for himself so what he did was that he practiced birth control by spilling his seat on the ground
00:20:03 and this is the part that is hard to explain to young children some translations render this less graphically by saying he did not complete the fiscal act owner not only disobeyed his father he also dishonored his late brother he also denied tamar her rights and what is worse is that while he refused to fulfill his responsibility he was more than eager to use tema for his own sexual gratification verse 9 further says whenever whenever he slept with his brother's wife so it wasn't just a single episode
00:20:39 but over a period of time tamar was just a means to satisfy his lust verse 10 what onan did was wicked in the lord's sight so the lord put him to death also god judged him severely as he did his elders his elder brother both of them met the same terrible fate now there are several instances in the bible where when god struck individuals dead because of the evil the well-known new testament example is in acts chapter 5 in the case of ananias and his wife safira who both angered the lord greatly the patent
00:21:17 lesson for us here is this spiritual wisdom is not taking god lightly for is the god of judgment he hates sin and he despises evil to use the local slang don't play play god can get very angry when his people behave badly we often think of god as the god of love but let's not forget that he's also a god of holiness he says in leviticus 11 i am the lord your god you shall be holy for i am holy to continue with segment 2 with the death of onan the levirate law will need to be applied again as judah
00:21:58 had the third son and tamar still without the son but he was reluctant to give shella to temar as he thought that his daughter-in-law was cursed in verse 11 he was afraid that his third son shella would suffer a similar premature demise like his other two sons in all likelihood judah might not have known the cause of death of his two sons it appears that he was unaware of the divine judgment that was meted out on each of them he blamed it all on tamar he thought that she was jinxed and he feared for sheila's life
00:22:35 and so judah told tema to bali kampung to live a life of a widow for the time being his excuses that shella was not yet of marriageable age now this is an obvious lie he just wanted to get rid of her judah deceived tamar just like the way he deceived his father jacob years ago deception after deception the same sin again and sin as a way of trapping you if you are not careful another point worthy of note is that when judah deceived his father years ago he couldn't care less about the grief his father would suffer
00:23:13 over the loss of a son now he had to bear the same grief over the loss of his own son and then another son as the idiom goes what goes around comes around only this time he came back to him twice over we come to the third segment a most astounding segment the carnal encounter between judah and tamara and this section of the text starts with after a long time so many years have passed since the encounter since the events of the last segment we read that judas a canaanite wife had just died and he was mourning over her passing the
00:23:54 the typical morning period in ancient biblical times was seven days so a week passed and judah decided to go to this place timna to join his men shearing his sheep in verse 12. now to give you a geographical sense of this timna is to the northwest of adullam where judah lived only about 15 kilometers away to give you more background information ship sharing in old testament days took place usually in the season of spring and it was typically a time for settling old schools and for making right what was wrong
00:24:33 which is exactly what tema did by this time judah's third son shella had grown up and she realized that her father-in-law had lied to her by withholding sheila from her this we read in the second part of verse 14. so the poor widow concorted a cunning plan to settle the score she decided to take matters into her own hands just like what sarah and rachel did in earlier chapters of genesis taking matters in our own hands is mostly triggered by impulse or haste and not trusting in god's control and timing
00:25:15 over the situation she got wind of judah's plan to travel to timna so she dressed up to look like a prostitute covering her face with a veil to disguise herself then she sat along the road to timnah waiting for judah her scheme was to track him to trick him so that he would father a son for her she was planning to deceive the deceiver but why such desperate measures why didn't she just find a husband and remarry someone from the town where her father lived now that she was back home with her own family perhaps as the widow
00:25:57 twice over no one would wonder but answer is not what we expect the amazing thing about thema is that having been married into judah's family she took it upon herself to follow hebrew customs and laws including the levy rate law now back to deuteronomy 25 the levy rate law didn't allow her to marry outside the family if you notice in the verse as long as her deceased husband had a brother if judah refused to let her have shella she was destined to live the life of a destitute widow after her own father died now in those
00:26:36 days women were not financial financially independent as they are today without a husband or a son she faced a big future so out of desperation and also determination she sat there waiting for judah and soon enough judah came along and this is what it might have looked like on that fateful road to timna this was painted by a dutch artist in 1644 but hima here looked more like judah's aunt she couldn't have been as old as this if we work backwards tema would have been at most in the early 30s now this is another painting by the same
00:27:19 artist nine years later after the earlier piece someone must have told him tema shouldn't be that old so the artist painted her younger here but can you point out another problem here she didn't paint thema wearing a veil over her face the artist didn't read genesis 38 in detail especially verse 14. now what about this painting by a french artist from the late 19th century now this is much more accurate we see tema dressed colorfully with the face half covered she comes across more like a prostitute
00:27:57 here not that i know how prostitutes look like in those days anyway along came judah looking her over as if she were a merchandise satisfied with what he saw in verse 16 judah proceeded to make a direct proposition come now let me sleep with you normally i thought it was the girl who makes the first move hey mister want to have some fun tonight hey i saw that in some movies okay but tamar quickly moved to conversation to price negotiation what will you give me to sleep with you she asked judah then offered her a young goat as
00:28:35 payment in verse 17. notice that it wasn't the customer who was asking about the price it was tayma who asked how much now if there is one thing this says about judah this doesn't appear to be the first time he was soliciting the services of a prostitute you see he knew the market price which was the value of a young goat and also the first timer wouldn't be so direct as to say let me sleep with you judah judah was no first timer the other thing we can infer about judah is even worse later in verses 21 222
00:29:14 km is described as a shrine prostitute or a temple prostitute or more accurately she dressed she was dressed like a temple prostitute you should know that in those days when the canaanites worship their fertility gods prostitution was widely practiced in the temple grounds as part of the ritual sex was part of the worship it's hard to imagine a more perverted and immoral culture the indictment against judah is therefore this sleeping with a prostitute is bad enough it's a sin of fornication but in
00:29:47 performing a physical act with a temple prostitute it gets much worse he was also indirectly worshiping their pagan gods but judah had no qualms walking down the path of spiritual decline his path of sin started in genesis 37 when he hatched the plan to get rid of joseph then he deceived his father then he married the canaanite woman then he lied to them when he sent her away then he withheld his third son sheila from her and now the sin of sexual immorality and also indirectly the sin of idolatry
00:30:26 worshiping pagan gods one sin led to another to another to another sin can trap us and lead us into a down roads downward spiral and the useful lesson for us here is that spiritual wisdom is not underestimating the ensnaring power of sin in genesis 4 when cain got upset god said to him if you don't if you don't if you do not do what is right sin is crouching at your door it desires to have you be mindful of how sin works it develops or grows then it dominates and finally it destroys to finish off segment three tamar accepted
00:31:11 a young goat as payment judo of course didn't have the goods with him so she asked him for a pledge or as we say today a collateral now needless to say she wasn't interested in animal i mean what was she going to do with a young goat she wanted something more convenient that could be of use to her later so she asked him for his seal and his cord and his stuff a seal or something they carried in those days to stem on documents it could be in the form of a ring you wear on your finger called the signet ring or it could be
00:31:46 worn around the neck which is the case here and hence your seal with his cord he also she also wanted his staff and all these things were judah's personal effects so the deal was sealed the deal was concluded and the transaction carried out he got what he wanted she got what she wanted but she got much more from him than he from her and as this part of the text ends tema conceived bearing judah's child annoying to him she then went back to resume her life as a widow but satisfied that she now had a child
00:32:28 next the fourth segment which we shall look at quickly the search for thema judo wanted these things back but he wanted to look respectable and didn't want to be seen carrying a goat looking for a prostitute so judah sent a friend to locate tema in order to retrieve his collaterals but she was nowhere to be found three times in a text it says that he didn't find her which underscores the predicament judah was in is a little like a respectable gentleman losing his credit card in the brothel hello citibank
00:33:05 is that citibank i just lost my credit card how did you do the credit card i was sleeping with a prostitute so judah risked losing his credibility and becoming the subject of the town's gossip at first he didn't think that this brief affair with a prostitute will become so complicated but this prostitute now has his credit card and she was missing but he was powerless to do anything about it he thought he could trust her to return his things but and the whole incident would be quickly forgotten and his sin
00:33:40 would remain hidden he only goes to show that sin cannot be concealed sooner or later it will spill out in the end he decided to let her let her keep his seal and the cord and the stuff if he and or his friend had kept on looking for her his secrets would eventually be known and they will become the butt of everyone's joke it will be hugely embarrassing for him and this brings us to the last segment confronting judah three months into tama's pregnancy judah received news that his daughter-in-law
00:34:19 was with child which to him was impossible since she was a widow without a husband and what was more shocking to him he was told that she prostituted herself which was the which was the reason she became pregnant judah's reaction was swift and severe how dare she do this in verse 24 heifer burn to death now this is surely a very harsh punishment for thema is it because she prostituted herself now his word is worthy of note that while the mosaic law prohibits prostitution based on leviticus 1929 the penalty for
00:35:00 prostitution is not clearly specified and hence judah's judgment on them was not based on her bait or was more based on a sin of fornication not on her prostitution fornication which means illicit sexual relationship outside of marriage fornication is a broad term that is best understood as sexual immorality what's remarkable is that judah himself was equally guilty of this sin since he did sleep with a prostitute or possibly many prostitutes as we saw earlier it's remarkable that he found it easy to
00:35:37 pass judgment on someone who has sinned just as he had sinned without passing the same judgment on himself what height of hypocrisy or the sense of self-righteousness a fixation on other people's sin and not on his own judah just went one notch down in his downward spiral of sin jesus cautions us in matthew 7 why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and not pay attention to the plank in your own eye in reflection i'm inclined to think that there is a little judah in all of us
00:36:18 as we are quick and prone to pointing our fingers at others and not directing the finger at ourselves first we are as much a sinner as those who sin and this we do we and we and this we do need to reflect here lies the last secondary lesson for us spiritual wisdom is not neglecting to examine yourself honestly now this doesn't mean that we keep silent about the wrong doings of others but it does mean that we shouldn't be too hasty in judging others lest we be similarly judged the psalmist exhorts us to come to god in earnest
00:36:55 reflection he writes in the psalm 139 search me oh god know my heart test me and know my anxious thoughts see if there is any offensive way in me and lead me in the way everlasting as for the rest of the text we see that thema was rather calm and collected in a response she didn't shut up in open my accuser is the father is the father of my son she didn't want to embarrass him in public instead she quietly sent the seal and the court and the staff to judah with the message in verse 25 you know these
00:37:35 items belong to the men who make me pregnant do they look familiar to you now you can pick you can try to picture the look on judah's face his reaction is not recorded in the text but you can imagine his jaw dropped he could only say in verse 26 she is more righteous than i since i wouldn't give her to my son sheila now this doesn't mean that she was righteous and that he was less righteous it's not a comparison of the level of righteousness rather it was judah saying yes i'm in the wrong it means that he searched his own heart
00:38:10 and finally acknowledged that he was at fault for not giving his last son shella to tema which triggered the the tragic chain of events leading to him committing the grievous sin of incest you see incest is such a detestable sin in god's eyes including incest with one's daughter-in-law based on leviticus 2012. judah realized just how low he had sunk descending even to the depth of incest and this is indicated by the last line of attacks and he did not sleep with her again and this realization kindled a reversal in his long decline
00:38:51 down the path of sin in mark a big the beginning of his redemption we'll finish scrutinizing the text and we have picked up a couple of secondary lessons in the concluding part of the sermon i shall now offer you three main lessons from an overview of the text and for that let me return to the big question i asked at the beginning why place chapter 38 here in the book of genesis to interrupt the long narrative of the life of joseph how can chapter 38 fit into the account of joseph as i mentioned earlier genesis 38 is
00:39:26 right here in the book for a good reason in fact three reasons firstly to present to us the contrast between joseph and judah specifically between the upright and moral standing of joseph and the careless and flawed character of judah joseph was a was was a faith was faithful and strong spiritually whereas judah was sinful and weak and this contrast comes out best when you compare genesis 39 12 where we read how joseph fled from temptation when porifer's wife approached him compare this with genesis
00:40:05 38 16 where we see how judah gave in to temptation when he approached tema both joseph and judah found themselves in foreign lands joseph was force forcibly taken down to egypt from genesis 39 1 while judah willingly willingly went down to canaan from genesis 38 1. notice the common word down taken down went down but joseph flourished while judah floundered within the pages of scripture god often use contrast to teach us his truth contrast is often employed in genesis as a structural motive as a means to impart
00:40:49 important lessons of faith abel is contrasted with cain abraham contrasted with lord jacob with esau and now joseph with judah as we read judas dark descend into sin in chapter 38 we start to see joseph as a shining example joseph's outstanding spiritual credentials become more enhanced and magnified when compared to judah's spiritual shortcomings we begin to look at the conduct of joseph as the spiritual compass to guide us in our own journey of faith to press this point further joseph is considered a prototype of jesus
00:41:32 we find in joseph's life many similarities to jesus and hence the first main lesson for us here is this god's son jesus is the model of our faith we are to emulate jesus to walk in these steps we are to become more and more christ-like one john 2 6 says those who say they live in god should live their lives as jesus did secondly genesis 38 sits very well here and is connected in a strategic way to the account of joseph because it serves as a backdrop to explain why god had to move the israelites to
00:42:13 egypt let me explain in the overall architecture of the story of joseph he was first forced into slavery in egypt but later rose to become its prime minister this is so that the family could move to egypt years later to escape the famine which we read in the later chapters of genesis but that's just the surface reason there is a deeper reason relating to god's longer term purpose jacob's family stayed on in egypt and the israelites were there many generations where they were they multiplied in numbers one
00:42:50 question here why didn't god just move jacob's family back to the promised land after the famine why did jacob's descendants have to remain in egypt you see it's because they were not ready to possess the land promised by god to abraham the actions of the brothers in genesis 37 showed that perhaps minus joseph and benjamin jacob's sons lacked the moral integrity that god had wanted to see in his people they were not ready to be custodians of god's covenant with abraham what our text does is that
00:43:27 it zooms into the into one of the brothers as an example namely judah to expose his sinful nature the text shows that judah had no hesitation in feminizing with the canaanites he married a canaanite woman slept with canaanite prostitutes so god had the israelites stuck in egypt for the longest time so that they wouldn't be corrupted by pagan culture how so well you see the egyptians despise the hebrews and they practice social distancing from them they wanted to have nothing to do with them the outcome is that the israelites
00:44:04 were not contaminated by pagan culture and you can now appreciate why genesis 38 has been placed where it is to explain why the events later in genesis had to take place namely the relocation of the of the sons of jacob to egypt but what's the main lesson for us here is this god will do whatever it takes to make sure his people whom he loves would eventually live up to his purpose our spiritual lives may be be marked by ups and downs but god will steer us guide us even admonish us to fulfill his
00:44:42 purpose blessed then are those whose lives are directed by his purpose the lesson for us is that god's purpose should be the steering wheel of our faith thirdly and lastly why was the story of judah and thema purposely placed within the story of joseph it is to illustrate that while god used a faithful servant like joseph he could also use a corruptable sinner like judah we discuss in detail from our text judas descend into a downward spiral of sin his life starting from the chapter before was a catalogue of willful
00:45:21 transgressions and yet god used him to further his divine purpose god also used thema a canaanite woman who counter-deceived judah both of them committed the grievous sin of incest and yet out of this immoral relationship came a son who would become the forefather of david and later the messiah our lord jesus surprisingly neither david nor jesus came through the line of joseph towards the end of genesis 38 which is outside our text thema gave birth to twin boys named perez and zira now perez would become
00:45:57 the ancestor of jesus in the genealogy of jesus in matthew chapter 1 this is just a partial list we see the names of judah and perez clearly tema is also listed but we don't see the name joseph genesis 38 is that single chapter on the lesser person of judah against a dozen or so chapters on the better person in joseph who would have thought that the messianic line will run through judah and not joseph who would have imagined that judah will be given the prominence over joseph in revelation 5 king jesus
00:46:32 will be given the title the lion of judah the only way to explain this is this thing called grace god's grace genesis 38 is ultimately about god's grace grace is unmerited favor you didn't earn it bestowed on an undeserving person you shouldn't be getting it that's what that's what happened to judah and that's what happened to us when we were saved god chose us not because of any inherent good in us but solely on the basis of his grace we must remember always that grace is the foundation of our faith when we realize that it
00:47:14 will precipitate in us a deeper sense of humility and gratitude it will also propel us to align ourselves with god's purpose and to be more christ-like the problem with us is that we think we are good enough when actually we are no different from judah in god's eyes without his grace we are nothing the story of judah and thema is far from a positive one the chapter includes broken promises deception immorality and even incest but through it all we see the grace of god the grace of god is even more amazing
00:47:52 when we see the transformation of judah at the end at the end of our text we noted a turnaround in judah he admitted he was wrong the rest of genesis gave gives no further detail on his transformation but by the time we get to chapter 44 we see that judah was a changed man he was willing to give up his own freedom for the sake of his youngest brother benjamin and his father jacob god's grace was at work in his life lifting him up from the pit of sin to a place of honor as the messiah's forefather in a similar
00:48:28 fashion god's grace is at work in our lives he's transforming us his spirit is continuing its work of renewal in us and he will finish the good work that has begun in us grace is the starting point of our faith and grace will lead us home let's close in prayer our father in heaven how is it possible that wretched sinners like us can have a place in your eternal plans from our text today on judah we learn it's all because of your amazing grace remind us now that we have been set apart for your purpose
00:49:07 to be driven by your purpose as we look to your son the model of our faith as a spirit continues to purify us for we ask this in jesus name amen
