THROUGH THE BIBLE - Genesis..

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Would you please open up your Bible to Genesis chapter 38? Genesis chapter 38. By the grace of God, brothers and sisters, we continue with a with a corporate reading of scripture. So we come on this Lord's Day and we are going to be reading together chapter 38. So please open up your Bibles to chapter 38.

A very interesting chapter in the transition of the story of the book of Genesis. So let's read together with reverent hearts and paying much attention to each one of the words. Genesis, Chapter 38. It happened at that time that Judah went down from his brothers and turned aside to a certain Adulamite, whose name was Hira. There, Judah saw the daughter of a certain Canaanite, whose name was Shua.

He took her and went into her, and 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. Yet again she bore a son, and she called his name Shila. Judah was in Kezib when she bore him. And 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 put him to death. Then Judah said to Anan, 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, 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. 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.

So Tamar went and remained in her father's house. In the curse of time, the wife of Judah, Shua's daughter, died. When Judah was comforted, he went up to Tigna to his sheep shearers, and he and his friend Hira, the Adulamite. And when Tamar was told, your father-in-law is going up to Timna to shear his sheep, she took off her widow's garments and covered herself with a veil, wrapping herself up and sat at the entrance to Enaim, which is on the road to Timna. 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. 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? 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? She replied, your signet and your court and your staff that is in your hand. So he gave them to her and went into her and she conceived by him. Then she arose and went away and 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.

And he asked the men of the place, where is the cold prostitute who was at Enaim, at the roadside? And they said, no cold prostitute has been here. So he returned to Judah and said, I have not found her. Also, the men of the place said, no cold prostitute has been here. 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, Tamar, your daughter-in-law has been immoral. Moreover, she's 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 men to whom these belong, I am pregnant.

And she said, please identify those who these are, the signet, and the court, and the staff. Then Judah identified them and said, she is more righteous than I, since I did not give her to my son Shelah. and he did not know her again. When the time of her labor came, there were twins in her womb, and when she was in labor, one put out a hand, and the midwife took and tied a scarlet thread on his hand, saying, This one came out first. 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 a scarlet thread on his hand, and his name was called Zira. Amen. This is the word of God.

Brothers and sisters, last week, when we were addressing chapter 37, we said that was the beginning of a change in the story. That was the commencement of something different in the book of Genesis, that the book of Genesis so far had been about Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. And in chapter 37, the story was changing and taking a different direction. And that was the direction of Joseph. And this is going to be the rest of the book.

The rest of the book is going to be from Chapter 37 to Chapter 50 is going to be the story of Joseph. However, Moses decides to give us a parenthetical story here in Chapter 38. We finish Chapter 37 saying that Joseph was sold to the Ishmaelites, and then he got into Egypt to be a slave or to be in the house of Pharaoh. And this is exactly the same way that Chapter 39 is going to start. And this is because Moses is giving us a parenthetical story about Judah.

Judah. You might remember him. He is the fourth son of Leah, the first wife of Jacob. You may remember that Jacob had two wives, Leah and Rachel, and Judah is the fourth son of Leah, the first one being Reuben, the second one being Simeon, and the third one being Levi. And then the fourth one is Judah, the one that we have here.

There's something very interesting about Reuben being the first one of Leah, We know from what I said last week that he lost his first right because he defiled the bed of Jacob. He came into one of Jacob's concubine. And because of that, he lost the right of the firstborn. And that was transferred onto the sons of Joseph. We know that because of First Chronicles, Chapter five, verse one, the right of the first one was transferred from Ruben to the sons of Joseph.

But now here we have this story of the four son of Leah, Judah, the same one that if you remember in chapter 37, when the brothers of Joseph were planning the killing, the assassination of his brother Joseph, he came to them and said, guys, Why are we going to kill our brother? He's our own blood. Let's just sell it to the Ishmaelites. And then the brothers of Judah actually listened to him. And for that reason, they did not kill Joseph.

This is the Judah who is the main character of this story. And some people say that because of the discussion and because of the situation that happened with Joseph in chapter 37, that the relationship between the brothers was not destroyed, was in a very difficult The state, imagine that they were going to kill one of the brothers. And then Judah came and says, let's not kill him. Let's just sell it. And after that, they come to his father, Jacob, and they lie to Jacob.

They say your our brother was dead. He was killed by a beast in the field. Now, the relationship among the brothers, it seems that it was destroyed and it was not in a very good state because Chapter 38 is going to start saying that Judah departed from among their brothers. He was removed. He removed himself from among them.

He departed. We went to a different place. Now, remember, brethren, That now Jacob is not Jacob anymore. This is Israel. This is not a big family anymore.

This is the nation of Israel. This is the covenant people of God. And now Judah is departing from these people there in Hebron, and then he's going to a different city. He's going to end up in a city that is called Kaseb. that it means deception or deceptive.

And this word, deception, is actually going to be the main message of what we have here in chapter 38. Because you can see, as you read through it, the difficulty of the things that happen. There is a lot of wickedness and there is a lot of sin. There's a lot of deception. And the main character of this is Judah, who has departed from the immediate presence of the covenant people, violating one of the most important things that he had inherited and learned from his forefathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, that you get your wife from among your people.

This was very important for them. You get your wife from among your people. They had given their lives in order to get wise from among their people. And now we have Judah departing from these other Canaanites, these other people and finding for himself a wife. This is the first wickedness of the first error of the first mistake, the first scene of Judah finding a wife for himself that was not among his people.

Now Judah, in this place that he arrives, Keziv, which means deception, he's going to have three sons. Er, Onan, and Shelah. These three sons that bore this woman that was not from his people. Now, the thing is that he's going to find a wife for Er, who is the first one. This is Tamar.

And Tamar is not going to give any offspring to air. And then we are told in the text that air the firstborn of Judah, that he was a wicked person in the sight of the Lord. And then he's here. We see here we see the administration of the righteous and perfect judgment of God upon this person air because he's put to death. We are not told what is the wickedness of air, but we told that this is wicked in the sight of the Lord and therefore the righteous and always perfect judgment of God is poured upon this person and he dies.

Now, there is a thing that once you have a wife, the firstborn especially, the father would want that the firstborn will have children because the offspring of Judah now will go through air, the firstborn. But now he's dead. So then Judah is going to take Tamar, the wife of Aaron. He's going to give her to Onan. And there's something very interesting here, brothers.

He's going to say, go into to Onan, the second one going to your brother, brother's wife. You know, he was dead now and performed the duty. of the brother-in-law. Perform the duty of the brother-in-law. This is that now you are going to come into her as the second one and your offspring is going to belong to the first one, namely heir.

Now let me just give you a parenthetical comment here that is not necessarily connected to what I'm going to reach and the point that I'm just going to but it's very important this brothers and sisters As you go through the Old Testament, don't you see that the people of Israel, even before they were given the mosaic coat, they were already performing many things that will be later given in the mosaic coat, like the burnt offerings in Genesis or the altars. And now this law that we have here, because it's in Deuteronomy. This is my best pronunciation of Deuteronomy 25 verse five. This law is going to be given. This law in which a brother who dies or the brother of the one who dies is going to take the wife of the other to give him offspring.

Don't you remember in Matthew 22 when the Sadducees approached the Lord Jesus Christ in one of the best examples of biblical exegesis? They Sadducees approached the Lord Jesus Christ to ask him about the resurrection. They did not believe in resurrection. But with these cunning questions, they come and they give the example of the Lord Jesus Christ saying, what happens if there is a man who has a wife and then this man dies and there is no offspring, there is no children. And then if the second brother or the brother of these men takes this wife and then there is no children, there is no offspring.

And what happens if all of them die and there are seven brothers who take this wife or who take this woman and there is no offspring? whose wife, this woman, is going to be in the resurrection. And the Lord Jesus Christ is something very interesting. You err because you do not know the scriptures and something very interesting, nor the power of God. Brothers and sisters, this thing that is happening here is a shadow or it is already something that is given to us of the mosaic law that is going to be given later on.

The people of Israel was starting to operate already as a nation. But now this guy, Onan, he does not perform the duty that he was supposed to perform. And then when he was coming in intimacy with Tamar, the wife of his brother, he was wasting, as the ESV say, wasting his seed or his semen on the ground, as the King James will say. So he did not want Tamar to have a child, because he knew that if that happened, then the offspring was not going to be his or Nan's, but rather was going to be heirs. This was dishonoring not only to Tamar and not only not only to Judah, but this was wicked in the sight of the Lord.

And again, the perfect, holy, pure, righteous God of this universe that is going to judge you and judge me in perfect righteousness. right, rightfully judge Onan, and he was put to death. Abundance of wickedness, brothers and sisters, what we see here. Then Judah in fear. Imagine all of my sons are being put to death or they are dying every time that they marry Tamar.

And I just have the last one who is Sheila. He's the last one that I have. He's my offspring. So in that fear, he says to Tamar that once Sheila is grown up, that he is going to be given to her as a husband. But that never happens.

But something really wicked comes after that, brothers, because Judah's wife is going to die. And after that, once Judah's heart is comforted, the Bible says here, he's going to go to this place, Tigna, to a great feast, to what it seems to be a feast where there is a lot of sin. Because here we know that Tamar decides to disguise or just to cover herself like a prostitute by sitting in a place she knew Look what this says of Judah's character. She knew that once Judah will come and see her as a prostitute, that he was going to come into her. That's what actually happens.

Judah goes to that place, and then as he approaches Timnah, he arrives to this place and see her Tamar, who is The person who was waiting to be given to Sheila as wife, she is now disguised as a prostitute. And then we know what happens there. They end up having intimacy. And then she conceives of Judah. Now, Tamar was interested in something very particular.

She wanted justice. And she was not going to be able just to conceive of Judah and then say, this son that I have belongs to Judah. So for that reason, he or she was going to ask of himself something that belonged to his identity, something that would prove that Judah was the father of Tamar's offspring or Tamar's children, in this case, to Perez and Zira. Now, so for that reason, she's going to ask of him a court and a signet and the staff, which these were possessions of a man that will show who the person is. Now, brothers and sisters, we know what the story says afterwards.

After three months, Tamar is found to be pregnant. And then people say, oh, she has committed adultery or immorality or prostitution, the Hebrew will say. And then once she is brought to life, she says, whoever these things belong to, this is the father or this is the man that I'm pregnant of. And then Judah knows that when these things are brought to Judah, then Judah realizes and she says, he says, she is more righteous than I am because I did not give my third son, Sheila, to Tamar. What an abundance of wickedness, brothers and sisters.

What an abundance of wickedness. And the question that we need to ask ourselves is, Why did Moses decided? Why did he decide to put this story as a parenthetical story in the development of the story of Joseph? And then he's not going to mention this anymore. And plus the abundance of sin.

And I think that just as wicked Joseph's story is, in which he is sold into slavery to Egypt by his brothers, this one that we have here is. So we can learn something very important from the mouth of Joseph about his story that is going to tell us the substance and the meaning of the story that we have here. And that is found in Genesis 50. So go with me to Genesis 50, because Joseph is speaking of the wickedness that was committed against him is going to speak of a providential principle that speaks of who God is, that will also help us to understand the purpose of the abundance of wickedness that we have in chapter 38. In chapter 50 of the book of Genesis brothers, you might remember from your readings of Genesis that once the brothers of Joseph know that who Joseph is and they are speaking, they are, they have this fear that something is going to happen to them.

Joseph is going to say something very interesting to them in verse 19, but Joseph said to them, the brothers do not fear. They thought that he was going to put them to death because of what they did to him. For I, For am I in the place of God? As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good to bring it about that many people should be kept alive as they are today. You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good.

Something like this we could say of the story of Judah, brothers and sisters, because if you go back to chapter 49 in genesis you will see the blessings you will see the blessings that now jacob when he's about to die that he's given to his sons and pay attention to the blessing that is now given to judah if you go to verse 1 in chapter 49 he says then jacob called his sons and said gather yourselves together that i may tell you what shall happen to you in the days to come and then it comes in verse 8 the blessing that is given to judah Judah, your brother shall praise you and your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies. Your father's son shall bow down before you. And I don't know if it comes to your mind, but remember the dream that Joseph had. of all the little things bowing to himself. Now, the immediate fulfillment of that dream, of course, applies to Joseph.

Once the brothers come to Egypt, they bow down to him. But Jacob, eschatologically speaking now, it says of Judah that his father's sons, that is, his brothers, are going to bow down not to Joseph, but to Judah. And why is that? Continue. Judah is a lion's cub.

From the prey, my son, you have gone up. He stooped down. He crouched as a lion. And as a lioness, who dares rouse him? No.

Verse 10. Deceptor. Is that how you pronounce the word? The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler's staff from between his feet. The scepter of a king shall not depart from Judah.

Why, brothers and sisters? Because through Joseph, the people of Israel was preserved. But through Judah, the Messiah was given. Now through the abundance of sin of Judah, Peres and Zerah were born. Now come with me to Matthew, Matthew chapter one.

Matthew chapter 1. If all of that evil had not happened, what we are about to read, it wouldn't happen. It says the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. Abraham was the father of Isaac and Isaac, the father of Jacob and Jacob, the father of Judah and Judah and his brothers and Judah, the father of Perez, the one who was conceived by Tamar. Judah, the father of Pyrrhus, and Zerah by Tamar.

The evil, the wickedness that was committed by men, God in his providential wisdom, in his eternal decree, he used it so that the Messiah will be not only preserved, the people of the nation of the Messiah will not only be preserved through Joseph, but the life of the Messiah will be preserved through this. Brothers and sisters, I don't know if you are not amazed, but how God in his providential wisdom, in his sovereign decree, has organized everything so that everything points to Jesus Christ and contributes to give him more glory when he arrives. Everything was pointing to the person of Jesus Christ, even in the midst of wickedness and even in the midst of sin. There is always the promise of redemption that is only given through the person of Jesus Christ. Amen.