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[0:00] Our scripture lesson this morning is taken from the book of Genesis, Genesis 38 verses 1-30.! Genesis 38, verses 1-30.

[0:13] It happened at that time that Judah went down from his brothers and turned aside to a certain Adulamite whose name was Herah.

[0:25] There Judah saw the daughter of a certain Canaanite whose name was Shewa. He took her and went into her. And she conceived and bore a son, and he called his name Ur.

[0:38] She conceived again and bore a son, and she called his name Onan. Yet again she bore a son, and she called his name Shelah.

[0:49] Judah was in Shezeb when she bore him. And Judah took a wife for Ur, his firstborn, and her name was Tamar. But Ur, Judah's firstborn, was wicked in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord put him to death.

[1:07] Then Judah said to Onan, Go into your brother's wife and perform the duty of a brother-in-law to her and raise up offspring for your brother. But Onan knew that the offspring would not be his.

[1:21] So whenever he went into his brother's wife, he would waste the semen on the ground so as not to give offspring to his brother. And what he did was wicked in the sight of the Lord, and he put him to death also.

[1:35] Then Judah said to Tamar, his daughter-in-law, Remain a widow in your father's house till Shelah, my son, grows up. For he feared that he would die like his brothers.

[1:48] So Tamar went and remained in her father's house. In the course of time, the wife of Judah, Shewa's daughter, died. When Judah was comforted, he went up to Timnah to his sheep-sharers, and he and his friend, Hira, the Adulamite.

[2:06] And when Tamar was told, Your father-in-law is going up to Timnah to share his sheep, she took off her widow's garments and covered herself with a veil, wrapping herself up and sat at the entrance to Enahim, which is on the road to Timnah.

[2:23] For she saw that Shelah was grown up, and she had not been given to him in marriage. When Judah saw her, he thought she was a prostitute, for she had covered her face.

[2:36] He turned to her at the roadside and said, Come, let me come into you. For he did not know that she was his daughter-in-law. She said, What will you give me that you may come into me?

[2:48] 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. He said, What pledge shall I give you?

[3:00] She replied, Your signet and your cord and your staff that is in your hand. So he gave them to her and went into her, and she conceived by him.

[3:12] Then she arose and went away. Taking off her veil, she put on the garments of her widowhood. When Judah sent the young goat by his friend, the Adulamite, to take back the pledge from the woman's hand, he did not find her.

[3:27] And he asked the men of the place, Where is the cult prostitute who was at Enahim at the roadside? And they said, No cult prostitute has been here.

[3:39] And Judah replied, Let her keep the things as her own, or we shall be laughed at. You see, I sent this young goat, and you did not find her. About three months later, Judah was told, Temar, your daughter-in-law, has been immoral.

[3:56] Moreover, she is pregnant by immorality. And Judah said, Bring her out, and let her be burned. As she was being brought out, she sent word to her father-in-law, By the man to whom these belong, I am pregnant.

[4:11] And she said, Please identify whose these are, the signet and the cord and the staff. Then Judah identified them and said, She is more righteous than I, since I did not give her to my son, Shalah, and he did not know her again.

[4:29] When the time of her labor came, there were twins in her womb. And when she was in labor, one put out her hand, and the midwife took and tied a scarlet thread on his hand, saying, This one came out first.

[4:44] 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. Afterward, his brother came out, with the scarlet thread on his hand, and his name was called Zerah.

[5:01] This ends our scripture reading for today. Thank you very much, David. As we continue our sermon series in the book of Genesis, we come to a chapter that is, without question, the darkest and most sin-ridden chapter in the historical account of Abraham Abraham and his descendants in the book of Genesis.

[5:35] In this chapter, we find for the very first time that God specifically kills a man for wickedness. In fact, what we see in this chapter is that God killed two of the great grandsons of Abraham because they were wicked.

[5:59] But brothers and sisters, as dark as this chapter is, as dark as this historical account of Abraham's descendants is, we also see God's gracious hand was at work.

[6:17] God's gracious hand was at work through the covenant, through his faithfulness to that covenant that he made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, despite the unfaithfulness to him.

[6:39] And God's covenant faithfulness in the midst of his people at Genesis 37, and we saw how Joseph was sold into Egypt by his potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh.

[6:55] And in order to appreciate this particular point in this narrative that we have come to, it's important to see that what happens with Joseph and what is happening with Judah in chapter 38, they're happening simultaneously.

[7:15] And the way we get to see that is, if you notice in verse 1, it says, it happened at that time that Judah ran down from his brothers and turned aside to a certain Adullamite whose name is Hira.

[7:26] So at the same time that Joseph was unwillingly taken down to Egypt, Judah willingly separates himself from his father and his brothers, and he goes deep into Canaanite territory and aligns himself with a Canaanite in the area of Adullam by the name of Hira.

[7:52] He turns his back on all that he had with his family and he resorts to life among the Canaanites. And so what we see is that Genesis 38 and 39 are laid side by side.

[8:09] And we see a picture of two men. The narrative narrows down now to these two men. Of all the sons, these are the two who will be focused upon from this point straight to the end of Genesis.

[8:22] And what's important to see is that Genesis 38, the events that take place in Genesis 38, they take place between 20 to 22 years.

[8:41] And when we will make our way through the rest of Genesis, Genesis 39, 40, and 41, they all take place within a period of 20 years.

[8:58] And we know this because Joseph was sold into slavery when he was 17 and he became the second in charge in Egypt when he was 30, 37, sorry.

[9:16] Sold at 17, he became ruler at 37 years old. That is in chapter 41, verse 46, it says, Joseph was 37 years old when he entered the service of Pharaoh, king of Egypt.

[9:32] And so what we have here is we have simultaneous events happening when Joseph is living out the purposes of God in Egypt, Judah is in Canaan living the way that we see him live.

[9:48] It's important to bear that in mind because we're going to see a progression of Judah's life over time and it's easy to think that what happens here in chapter 38 was just something that took place very quickly.

[10:07] The narrative now is on two sons, the fourth son Judah and the 11th son Joseph. So how is God's gracious hand at work in this dark chapter?

[10:25] That is what I want us to consider this morning but first let us pray. Father, we are so grateful that we are able to gather this morning.

[10:39] Thank you Lord for the privilege that we have to do so. and thank you now for the privilege that we have to sit under the preaching of your word. Lord, may we sit under your word and may your word have its way with us.

[10:57] Would you speak to our hearts individually and corporately? Lord, you know what we need on both levels. Would you give us airs to hear and hearts to obey?

[11:11] And Father, would you grant me grace to be faithful to your word and to bring your word to your people this morning? We pray and ask these things in Jesus' name.

[11:24] Amen. There are two aspects of this account of Judah and the picture that Moses paints of him that I want us to consider.

[11:36] first, in Judah, we see a man who is calloused by sin. To be calloused is to be hardened.

[11:51] And Judah was hardened by sin. That's the picture that we see in these verses, in verses 1 to 23 in particular. Judah. In Judah, we see a man who is so calloused by his sin, he is numb and indifferent to his sins and how they affect other people.

[12:16] Judah was indifferent when he sold his brother, was one of the ringleaders in selling his brother Joseph into slavery. He was the one who suggested that rather than just let Joseph die, they should make some money off of him and sell him to the Ishmaelites.

[12:41] We see the callousness of Judah when he is able to abandon his brother, his brothers, and abandon his father, and to leave the land behind where they were living, walk away from the covenant that God had given to him that he would have known very well.

[12:58] Judah's rebellion and we're told that he goes down and he turns aside to a man by the name of Hira, an Adullamite.

[13:12] He was a Canaanite, but he lived in an area of Adullam. And these two descriptions helped us to see the kind of man that Judah was.

[13:23] He ran down, he turned aside. Judah's rebellion rebelling against every single thing that he was brought up to appreciate and to value.

[13:35] And that would have been an oral culture so they would have rehearsed the history. Judah turned his back on all of it. In Judah we see a man who was promiscuous.

[13:45] a man who was sexually promiscuous and driven by what his eyes saw. He was undiscerning, he was an impulsive man.

[13:57] And we see this in verse 2 when it came to sex. We're told that Judah saw the daughter of a Canaanite man named Shua who became his wife.

[14:14] But the description of how this happens helps us to see that Judah's relationship with Shua's daughter was driven by sexual desire, not by love for her.

[14:27] Look again at how Moses describes Judah's marriage in verse 2. Starting in verse 2. There Judah saw the daughter of a certain Canaanite whose name was Shua.

[14:41] He took her and went into her and she conceived and bore a son and he called his name Ur. She conceived again and bore a son and she called him Onan.

[14:56] Yet again she bore! She bore a son and she called his name Shelah. Judah was in Kizeb when she bore him.

[15:08] Notice that the name of Judah's wife is not even given. She's referred to in this passage as Shua's daughter. And her namelessness functions to show that as far as Judah was concerned she had little meaning to him beyond having sex and bearing offspring.

[15:34] Judah's marriage to this woman is simply described as he saw her he took her he went into her.

[15:51] And this description points to the fact that Judah was a man who was driven by gratifying his sexual desire more than pursuing love. And in marrying a Canaanite Judah was turning his back on the covenant that God made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

[16:08] And we remember as we worked our way through the narrative how when the time came for Isaac to be married how Abraham made his servants swear that he would not get him a wife from among the Canaanites.

[16:23] We remember how when Esau went and married a Canaanite how it pained the hearts of his parents, Isaac, and Rebekah. Again, this would have been history known to Judah.

[16:37] Judah turns his back on all of it, rejecting the covenant and disobediently marrying a Canaanite. And the reason that Canaanites were forbidden for the Israelites was not because of race.

[16:54] It was because of the wickedness of the Canaanite as we clearly see in this passage. But here Judah shows himself to be very much at home among the Canaanites.

[17:11] In verses 6 to 12 we get a picture of Judah's family life and it's a sad picture. She was daughter bears him three sons, heir, Onan, and Shelah.

[17:26] Judah takes a wife for his first son, heir, and the Bible says he was wicked and God killed him. We don't know what the wickedness was, but God killed him. And then Judah followed near eastern cultural practice at the time where he directed his second son, Onan, to perform the duty of a brother-in-law to his sister-in-law Tamar.

[17:55] And this was widespread practice in that area, in the near eastern area in which they lived, where when a man was married and he died without children, then one of his brothers, the one, the eldest one, would raise up a child, a male child, at least, to him to carry on his name and his inheritance in the nation, in the family.

[18:29] And Onan had no desire or interest in performing this duty to his brother and raising up offspring in the name of his brother.

[18:45] And so what Onan did was Onan decided that he would take the pleasure of being with his sister-in-law, but did everything and ensured that she would not get pregnant. And notice, we see Onan's wickedness in what it says that whenever he would go into her.

[19:07] Notice it says that in look at verse nine, but Onan knew that the offspring would not be his, so whenever. So this was not just a one-time thing that he did, this was over some long period of time that he did this.

[19:25] And it was a wicked thing that he was doing and the Lord killed him. And Onan was very much like his father. Onan was driven by greed. Onan knew that if there was a child to come up in his brother's name, that child would share the inheritance as well.

[19:44] Without another child, the inheritance was going to be shared between him and his brother, Shelah. And he wanted to preserve what he had, what his father Judah had for them.

[20:00] So he was being greedy and selfish like his father Judah. He repeatedly had intercourse with Tamar, but ensured that she would not get pregnant.

[20:14] And so the Lord killed him. And what's Judah's response to all this? God has just killed his first two sons because of their personal wickedness.

[20:29] And look at Judah's response in verse 11. Then Judah said to Tamar, his daughter-in-law, remain a widow in your father's house. Till Shelah, my son, grows up.

[20:41] For he feared that she would die like his brothers. So Tamar went and remained in her father's house. Judah self-righteously false Tamar as the reason that Er and Onan died.

[20:56] And he dishonestly sells her the lie that if she would just go and stay in her father's house, that when Shelah grew up, Shelah was obviously not of age to be married, he would give her to him and he had no intention of doing it.

[21:16] What is clear is that Judas was so callous as a man that he did not even reflect on his own life. He did not reflect on his own example and the role that his own sinfulness and disobedience may have played in the lives of his sons and the wickedness that led to their death.

[21:39] In this account we see a man who is so calloused by sin that he is not even moved by the death of two sons. There's no record of any kind of emotion or mourning that he experienced losing two sons.

[21:57] And right in the previous chapter we recall when Joseph was sold into slavery and his brothers lied to their father Jacob and said your son is dead.

[22:12] We're told that he mourned, Jacob mourned and he said I will go to my grave mourning over the loss of one son. Judah loses too and there's no indication of grief on his part.

[22:29] We also see his lack of compassion towards Tamar. He treated her badly. He was a wealthy man. He was so wealthy he had sheep sharers working for him and he was going to go down, later we'll see, to share the sheep.

[22:48] We also see that he was wearing a signet around his neck and that was a symbol of a very prominent or wealthy person who would have that.

[22:59] And so he was a well-to-do man. And here he has his daughter-in-law who's been widowed twice and rather than take responsibility for and he had responsibility for her and we know that he had responsibility for her because later when he calls her out to be stoned he had the authority to do that.

[23:20] But he sends her to her father, go to his house and he freeloaded on her father to take care of her when he could have taken care of her and he should have taken care of her.

[23:34] He had no compassion on her. She lost her husband, she'd been abused by Onan, and now Judah adds to that abuse and callously and selfishly sends her away.

[23:52] He showed no compassion whatsoever to his daughter-in-law. But the turning point of this account takes place in verse 12.

[24:06] We're told in verse 12 that Judah's wife dies. And we're briefly told that when he was comforted, he went to Timnah with his friend Hira.

[24:21] But something else happens. We're told in verse 13 that his daughter-in-law, Tamar, somehow learned that he was going down to Timnah to share his sheep.

[24:38] And she takes off her widow's garments, she puts on the clothing of a cult prostitute, which would have been common in Canaanite culture at that time.

[24:48] and she disguises herself and she goes and she sits at the entrance of Anahem where he would have to pass on his way to Timnah.

[24:59] Why did she do that? How could she do that? She knew her father-in-law. She knew her father-in-law was a calloused, promiscuous man.

[25:11] And her plan was to deceive her father-in-law into having relations with her so that she could hopefully bear a son. Let me just say something here real quick.

[25:23] I didn't plan to dwell on this long and I'll just say it in passing because it's not the point of the story. This chapter is silent on the morality, the immorality of what Tamar did.

[25:44] But somehow God was at work in Tamar's heart that she was determined to have a child in the family that God had chosen that he was going to bring redemption through.

[26:00] And she showed herself to be, though a Canaanite, she showed herself to be more honorable than Judah himself. love. And that's the reason that there's no comment on it because it's not the point of the passage.

[26:18] The point of this passage is about Judah, it's not about Tamar, that's really a side point, but I mention it in passing just to say somehow in her determination, in her willingness to be abused by Onan, in a willingness to wait for Sheila.

[26:37] God was at work on her heart in some way to cause her to be determined to have a child in that family that God had chosen to bring redemption through.

[26:52] What is clear is that Tamar was not interested in sex with Judah. That was not her goal. She was determined to have a son.

[27:07] And so she develops this plan to deceive her promiscuous father-in-law. And true to form, Judah is passing, he sees Tamar, and he propositions her not knowing who she was because she had a veil on her face.

[27:28] And it's clear that Judah didn't even plan to go and buy sex that day. He had no money, he had nothing to be able to purchase it. It was a whimsical, on-the-fly, promiscuous act to solicit this prostitute.

[27:44] He had nothing to pay. And in the negotiation, he offers to give her a goat from his flock, which she knew that he obviously did not have.

[27:57] And she said to him, well, I need some security. And he says, what do you want for security? And she says, I want your signet, I want your cord, and I want your staff.

[28:11] And here, again, we see the callousness of Judah, that he can have this conversation with his own daughter-in-law. And he's so wrapped up in his selfish desires that he doesn't know.

[28:26] He gives her the things that she asked for, he sleeps with her, still doesn't know it's his daughter-in-law because he's so callous, he's so into himself, he's not even interested in what her face looks like.

[28:39] And he's no different from some man who would go somewhere in very suspicious circumstances like these and would leave his passport or his driver's license or his credit card.

[29:01] And that's essentially what Judah does. And they both go their way when it's all over. And then shortly after that he sends his friend, Hira, to go and pay.

[29:19] I imagine he's too embarrassed to go back and pay. So he sends his friend, his friend goes, and she's gone. He inquires with the men of the town about the cult prostitute who sat at the gate and they said there's no cult prostitute here.

[29:35] And as callous as Judah was and a selfish as he was, he was also filled with pride. Look at his prideful response in verse 23.

[29:48] Judah replied, let her keep the things as her own or we should be laughed at. You see, I sent this young goat and you did not find her.

[30:00] Judah's pride did not want him to be identified as a man who slept with a prostitute and who was duped by her to leave evidence of who he was. And so he decides, let her keep it.

[30:15] He'll just replace it. It's like someone leaving the driver's license, leaving the passport and just say, I lost it. And they go and get another one.

[30:28] But that's Judah, a man calloused by sin. He's selfish, he's promiscuous, he's proud. He cares about no one and nothing other than himself.

[30:43] Judah shows himself to be an ungodly man who was right at home with the ungodly Canaanites. But something dramatic happens in this narrative.

[30:56] Something dramatic happens in Judah's life. Judah goes from being a calloused man to being a changed man. And this is my second and final point.

[31:13] We see the change in Judah in verses 24 to 26. Look again at what happened to Judah starting in verse 24. About three months later, Judah was told, Tamar, your daughter-in-law, has been immoral.

[31:29] Moreover, she is pregnant by immorality. And Judah said, bring her out and let her be burned. And as she was being brought out, she sent word to her father-in-law, by the man to whom these belong, I am pregnant.

[31:46] And she said, please identify whose these are, the signet and the cord and the staff. Then Judah identified them and said, she is more righteous than I, since I did not give her to my son, Sheila.

[32:06] And he did not know her again. So Judah's first reaction upon hearing the news that Tamar was pregnant was, bring her out to be burned.

[32:19] That was his first reaction. That's the reaction of a man who three months earlier had slept with a prostitute.

[32:32] A man who himself committed immorality. And he's condemning his daughter-in-law.

[32:44] And what's worse is the very act that he wants to condemn her for and burn her for is the very act that he himself committed. And brothers and sisters, how true the form this is for us as fallen people.

[33:01] But we are quick to condemn and meet out the harshest punishment to others. And we want ourselves to be given a pass.

[33:15] Here again, Judah demonstrates the authority that he had over Tamar by being able to call her out to be burned. And yet, he never shouldered the responsibility to take care of her.

[33:26] as his widowed daughter-in-law. But Tamar had a plan. And she sent his signet and the cord and the staff and said, identify these.

[33:39] I'm pregnant by the man who owns these. You may remember in chapter 37 that Judah and his brothers did a similar thing to their father.

[33:50] they sent the blood-drenched robe of Joseph to Jacob and said, identify this.

[34:01] See if this is your son. And Judah identifies it and he says in verse 26, she is more righteous than I since I did not give her my son Sheila.

[34:25] Theologian Bruce Waltke in his commentary on Genesis, he points out that a better translation for these words of Judah is this, she is righteous, not I.

[34:41] not I.

[35:04] I want you to imagine for a moment, imagine for a moment that you didn't have a Bible and you didn't know anything about this story and I came and I was just reading this story to you and I'm working through the narrative and you know the kind of man that Judah is.

[35:23] And if I were to stop right at the point where Tamar says identify whose these belong to and I would say to you what do you think Judah is going to do.

[35:40] Based on everything that we have known about Judah up to this point I don't think there's a single sober person who would think that what Judah would do is confess it and say I did it.

[35:58] I think Judah would say man when I went to share the sheep I forgot those things back at the house and somehow she went to the house she stole those! Judah would have done anything and everything except own up to that just based on the man that we have seen him to be up to this point he sold his own brother into slavery for money and yet when confronted by Tamar no doubt in the presence of witnesses Judah says she is more righteous than I she is righteous not I and so why does Judah with his calloused heart and his indifference to people why does

[36:59] Judah confess that Tamar is righteous and he is not brothers and sisters there's only one reason that Judah came to this point to be able to say these words and that was because the gracious hand of God was at work in Judah's callous heart causing him to confess his sin and acknowledge his unrighteousness there's no other explanation that can explain how a man moves from burner now to yes these are mine she is righteous I am not only the grace of God brings that change of heart to a calloused man a powerful man who humanly speaking had Tamar's life in his hands a gracious God was at work in this callous man's heart and brought about the change that we see here and this change marks a new chapter in

[38:13] Judah's life and again remember this is 20 to 22 years and we are to the end of those 22 years and what happens a little later is the famine comes and Judah reunites with his family and they go down to Egypt in search of grain and what we see is a different man who goes back to his family and a different man who goes to Egypt Judah shows he's no longer selfish when he goes back and he is considerate of his father he didn't care earlier on when he was selling Joseph and the effect that it would have on his father Jacob but later we will see when Jacob's heart is wrapped up in

[39:14] Benjamin and he doesn't want to release Benjamin Judah says to him I will be the pledge for his safe return Judah of all the sons he is the one I will be the pledge and then when they go to Egypt and Joseph says Benjamin must stay behind Judah is the brother who volunteers I will take his place let them go and I will take his place!

[39:40] It's a fascinating story to see how this happened with Judah by the time you get to Genesis 49 what we see is that Judah is the elected son that God chooses to continue the line of Abraham Isaac and Jacob of all the sons of the 12 sons he is the one Joseph was used to preserve the people of God but Judah is the one that God uses through whom the line of the Messiah would come and what we see about this is it's God's sovereign choice to do this it was through Judah that the promise that God gave to Abraham Isaac and Jacob continues!

[41:00] a hand and the midwife took and tied a scarlet thread on his hand saying this one came out first 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 afterward his brother came out with the scarlet thread on his hand and his name was called Zerah here we see that God worked in the midst of Judah's sin and God gave Judah two sons two sons to replace the two sons that he lost and reading the narrative it's pretty clear that Judah didn't expect to have any further sons it seems like after the third son his wife she was daughter just ceased having children but

[42:02] God gave him two sons and God chooses one of those sons who will be the one through whom the messianic line would flow to Jesus Christ and it was the second son the first son was Zerah who put his hand out first and this is very similar reminiscent of Genesis 25 with Jacob and Esau when they were fighting and God chose the younger to lead the older the older would serve the younger and here we see another another very similar occurrence!

[42:38] and it points to God's election that though they would have thought that Zerah would have been the one who would be first because he put his hand out first the thread was on his hand but no it was Perez who broke through and that's what it means to break through and what it is is a picture of God's grace breaking through in the darkness that had come upon his people and we see this even more clearly as the biblical revelation unfolds and so in Deuteronomy 23 verse 2 we read no one of a forbidden union may enter the assembly of the Lord even to the tenth generation none of his descendants may enter the assembly of the Lord and this was Perez's lot Perez was conceived and born from a forbidden union of a man and his daughter in law and what we see here is that he and they those who came from him for ten generations they could not go into the assembly of the

[43:55] Lord's people they were barred as it were from the presence of God and then when we come to the book of Ruth in Ruth chapter 4 verses 18 to 22 this is the way the book of Ruth ends these are the last verses and words in the book of Ruth now these are generations of Perez Perez fathered Hezron Hezron fathered Ram Ram fathered Aminadab Aminadab fathered Nashon Nashon fathered Salmon Salmon fathered Boaz Boaz fathered Obed Obed fathered Jesse and Jesse fathered David when you count those generations it's 10 the birth of David opened the way for the forbidden people from Perez up to David to be able to go into the presence of

[44:59] God David who became Israel's king opened the way for forbidden people to come into God's assembly and David's greater son the Lord Jesus Christ made it possible for God's people to enter into God's presence sinners like you and me who would be condemned the Lord Jesus Christ made it possible that we can go into God's presence we were forbidden to go but Jesus doesn't open the way because he was born it was through the birth of David that people were able to go into the presence of God in the assembly of his people it is through the death of

[46:01] Jesus that we are able to go into the presence of God the death of David's greatest son opened the way for forbidden people like you and me to go into God's presence have you ever thought about why would the all sovereign all powerful God allow his son the Messiah to be born God in the lineage of Judah through a forbidden union with a forbidden woman why would the sovereign God who can do all things why would he allow it to be when you go to the genealogies that you find in Matthew chapter 1 and in

[47:02] Luke chapter 3 you'll see that Perez is in that line and Jesus the Messiah comes straight down through that line why would he choose that line of all of the other options that he had brothers and sisters he chooses it to shout with a magnaphone to shout with a megaphone that he is a God of grace and he is a God of grace who reaches sinners and Jesus is a man who identifies with sinners you read the genealogy of Jesus and you see these forbidden women starting with Tamar and Rahab and then Ruth and then Bathsheba a sovereign all powerful God does this and he does it to demonstrate his grace to undeserving sinners like you and me undeserving sinners who have far more in common with

[48:09] Judah than we have with Jesus he does it because of his grace as I read this account I couldn't help but reflect on the fact that Judah had somehow come to prize his third son Shelah he lost two sons and no doubt he wanted seed but in his dark thinking he thought if I give Shelah to Tamar he surely is going to die and he held his son he spared his son because he had come to love his son having lost two other sons and I couldn't help but think about how that picture points us to

[49:12] God the father how he did not spare his only son but sent him not to a possible death but to a certain death and not just to die from natural causes but to die the death of a criminal to hang on a cross to hang naked to not only be a sin but be a shame as well he knowing he did that for sinners like you and me and there's only one word that explains all of that and it is the word grace and it is amazing grace that has come to sinners like you and me and so what we see in this dark chapter of Genesis 38 the darkest point in the account of

[50:13] Abraham and his descendants in Genesis we see the grace of God breaking through and we see God showing that he would send his son to identify with sinners so that he could be their savior what we see is the reason that God had to take them out of Canaan and put them in another place for the time being and so what we have come to this morning is pretty much the end of life in Canaan and from this point on chapter 39 to the end we'll see how God takes them out of Canaan he puts them in Egypt and then that sets up to go into the book of Exodus brothers and sisters I pray that your hearts are affected I pray your hearts are moved by the grace of

[51:13] God that we see in this dark chapter in the midst of the most scandalous sin God would use that man who is a product of that scandal and he would allow the Messiah to come through that line so he can identify the sinners like you and me let's pray together Lord thank you for your amazing grace thank you for your grace to undeserving sinners thank you that your grace is able to break through into the darkest places I pray that your grace will break through to our hearts this morning I pray oh Lord that there would be none of us who would think that our sin is too great or too grave God may we be drawn to your mercy and your grace that you have demonstrated in sending your son to die for sinners like us work in all of our hearts

[52:26]  Lord in Jesus name Amen Amen