I invite you now to turn in a copy of God's Word to Genesis chapter 38 this morning, this evening, Genesis chapter 38. As you're turning there, a brief word of introduction, particularly if you were not able to be with us last week. We began looking at what you might call the Joseph narrative in the book of Genesis. Genesis 37 we saw last week. Joseph In his early life, that coat of many colors that he was given at the beginning of the text, an emblem of his status as a beloved son, became, by the end of the text, an emblem of a status of a betrayed brother. And we come to Genesis chapter 38, and Joseph is nowhere to be seen. And some scholars have puzzled wondering why this chapter is here, particularly in this place. They say, is this an imposition? Was it added to the text later? Is it just a nice story to kind of break up the narrative flow? But if you recall last Sunday evening when we read Genesis chapter 37, the text began by telling us that this is the generations of Jacob, that there is more going on here than simply the narrative of Joseph. But Moses, as he penned this book, was casting a wider net over all of the family of Jacob and his 12 sons. So as we read through Genesis chapter 38, listen for those parallels. those echoes, those connections to what we saw last week. And if you know anything of the rest of the Joseph story, listen for those foreshadowings of what is to come. So that in mind, let us hear God's word from Genesis chapter 38. We will read the entire chapter. It happened at that time that Judah went down from his brothers and turned aside to a certain Adulamite, whose name was Hura. 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 Shalah. Judah was in Kezib when she bore him. And Judah took a wife for Er, 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. Then Judah said to Anan, go in to your brother's wife and perform the duty of a brother-in-law to her and raise up offspring for your brother. But Anan 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 Shalab, 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 course of time, the wife of Judah, Shewa's daughter, died. When Judah was comforted, he went up to Timnah to his sheep shearers, he and his friend Harah, the Adullamite. And when Tamar was told, your father-in-law is going up to Timnah 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 Anain, which is on the road to Timnah. For she saw that Shella 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 go 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 cord, 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 Edulamite, to take back the pledge for the woman's hand, he did not find her. And he asked the men of the place, where is the cult prostitute who is at Enaim at the roadside? And they said, no cult prostitute has been here. So he returned to Judah and said, I have not found her. Also, the men in the place said, no cult 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, tomorrow your daughter-in-law has been immoral. Moreover, she is pregnant by immorality. Then 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. And she said, please identify whose they 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, Shelah. and he did not know her again. Well, 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 Zerah. Thus far the reading of God's word. Let us pray. Give him thanks for it and ask that he would bless it to all of our hearts. Indeed, Lord God, we pray that you would take this word that you would print it on our hearts as we just song that you would speak to us the word of Christ. That as we read here of his ancestors, we would see in them our ancestors as well. In the faith, this we ask in Christ's name. Amen. Well, there is a certain kind of preacher who always begins his sermon with a joke. Now, you all know me well enough to know I am not that kind of preacher. However, about 20 years ago, there was a British institution trying to come up with the best joke of all time. And one of the finalists told of when Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson were going out for a camping trip. So after a good dinner around the fire, they settled down for the night and went to sleep. One point in the middle of the night, Holmes nudges Watson awake and says, Watson, look at the sky, what do you see? Watson looked up and said, millions and millions of stars. And Holmes asked him, yeah, and what does that mean to you, Dr. Watson? Watson said, well, astronomically, it means that there are millions and billions of stars and possibly millions and billions of planets. Astrologically, I see that Jupiter is in Leo. Horologically, I see that it's about a quarter after three. Meteorologically, I see that tomorrow should be a fair day weather-wise. Theologically, I see that God is great and deep and that mankind is very small. But Sherlock, what does it mean to you? Holmes thought for a minute and looked at Watson and said, Watson, you didn't come poop. It means someone stole our tent. Now, why does this pastor tell this joke? Nothing worse than explaining a joke, but here we go. The point of the joke is don't miss the obvious. Don't overlook the obvious. People have come to Genesis 38 for thousands of years and wondered, why is it here? And they have debated, is it this reason? Is that reason? And some say, well, obvious. We see why this is here. Look at the end of stress. Look where the story ends with children, with descendants of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob being born. Others say, oh yeah, that's nice, but obviously this has something else to say. This is a moral story. This is supposed to teach us about avoiding cult prostitutes. It's supposed to teach us about being a man of your word and about onanism and all these things. And there's clearly a moral formation trying to go on here with this text. Don't miss the obvious. Well, which is it? Is this a little story about a man and his wickedness being confronted by a woman more righteous than he? Or is this telling us something deep and significant about the redemptive history of God's people and how he can raise up ancestors to his people from people even as this? I hope you can tell that that is a false dilemma. Because in this text, we see that both are true. We see first the Lord working miraculously through the life of Judah to bring a man who is far from him to the end of himself. But we also see working through that way that the Lord brings to his people the promised seed of Abraham, of Isaac, of Jacob. And isn't this often the way in which it works in scripture? that as God works redemption through one man or one woman, he is also going about the process of doing that for the purpose of greater redemption for his people. Don't we see that in the life of Moses? Don't we see that here in the life of Judah? Don't we see that in the life of the apostle Peter or of Saul of Tarsus who was brought to an end of himself and thereby becoming the apostle to the Gentiles? God works the small story, the microcosm, as a part of what he is doing in all creation to win the people for himself. Of course, if we follow that pattern through, where does that lead us? Leave us, but as reflections of that redemptive work. as the recipients and those who look back on what God has done primarily in Christ and take our place in that same story. And so this is our task this evening, to see what the Lord is doing in the life of Judah and his family. But thereby, as he does those things, brings about the promised seed of Eve, of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the one who will ultimately lead to Christ. And this is indeed true, a wonderful story. It's woven together very tightly. It's kind of like a five-part Shakespeare play, a play in five acts. So as we go through the text, we'll survey the narrative arc of this text. And like many good Israelite stories, it's an A, B, B, A form. So you have Judah taking Act one, then you have Tamar in Acts two and three, and then Judah becoming again the main character in Act four before the resolution in Act five. Let's begin with Act one with Judah leaving home. The text begins by telling us It happened at that time, explicitly linking back to chapter 37, when Joseph has just been sold into slavery, happened at that time that Judah decides to leave his family. So you see from the get-go that his father's family is in the process of unraveling, is it not? First, Joseph was sold into slavery to Egypt. at the suggestion of Judah, may I remind you. And now Judah says, I've had enough of life with my family, I'm going to go elsewhere. Remember, Abraham, Judah's great grandfather, had been promised a great nation. But now his ancestors seem to be unraveling. So Judah thinks, well, I'm going to get a new start elsewhere. Of course, there's only one problem when we go about life attempting to start over in a new place. What do we always bring with us? Ourselves. Our sinful selves. And of course, this is the case for Judah as well. Where does he go, verse 1? Well, it doesn't quite tell us, but he finds an Adulamite, a native of Canaan. And Adullam is in fact a royal Canaanite city. So warning bells are supposed to be going off now as we hear where Judah has headed, the high point of pagan Canaanite culture. And what does he do when he gets there? Verse two tells us that he sees a woman and he takes her for his wife. Now this is actually strong, Language in the Hebrew has overtones of rape and of lust and of conquest. And so he marries her. And those warning bells get louder, don't they? Remember how his great-grandfather Abraham went to such lengths to secure a wife for his son Isaac that was of his own family, that was of a family who called upon the Lord, who was heir to the promises that God had made to them, or at least in conjunction to those promises, a near relative. But now we have Judah doing quite the opposite, reminiscent not of Abraham and Isaac, but of his uncle Esau, who went and married Canaanite women. And if you remember in Genesis 26, his mother, Rebekah, basically said, those pagan women are going to be the death of us. One of the most sadly comical verses in all of Genesis. But Judah is following after the ways of his pagan ancestor, Esau. Begins to have children, evidently in quick succession. with his unnamed wife. Don't misread verse two. Shua is the name of the man, the father of the king, right? And that's not the name of his wife. He has three sons, Er, Onan, and Shelah. And if the warning bells weren't ringing loudly enough, in verse five, the text goes out of its way to tell us that Judah was in Kaziv when she bore these sons to him. You don't know what Kiziv means. You surely don't. It is the city of lies, the city of falsehood. The warning bells are at full bore at this point, as Act I lays out the beginning of the plot of this chapter. But then as we move to Act II, and generally in Act II, a great drama, a conflict is introduced. Issues are introduced that will be resolved, Lord willing, later in the text. And here, Tamar takes center stage, because she is unable to bear children. She is unable to conceive, not because of any fault of her own, though, as we will see. Doesn't tell us, but probably 20 years have passed by verse 6, because of now, who was a Baby, in verse 3, Ere is now marriageable age. And he is introduced, and we are introduced, to Tamar, or Tamar, in verse 6. Tamar, whose name means date palm, could have been an indication of her beauty. You can think of the song of Solomon when husband compares the beauty of his wife to beautiful date palm tree. And we see fruit here, but it's not, uh, palm and dates here that we are seething fruit. We see actually the fruit of, of Judah's poor parenting and verse seven, don't we? The text tells us that air Judah's firstborn was wicked at the side of the Lord. We don't know how, so we know that He was wicked, and that was enough for the Lord to put him to death. Now, Hebrew scholars will make a note of pointing out that Ere's name is wicked in Hebrew spelled backwards. I don't recommend always going around and spelling people's names backwards and see what word you come up with. But it does seem to be some sort of theological point here. It actually works in English, too. We can say Ere, Ere. Er was in great sin and rebellion against the Lord. And so he was struck down by God. And this of course left Tamar in a vulnerable spot. She is now a widow. She is now without a provider, a protector, one who will provide her sons, one who will provide her workers to care for her. as she ages. But as you know, and as the text points out, there were arrangements for this, where they're not. These arrangements were codified later in the book of Deuteronomy, but they must have already been in practice in Israelite life because they are referred to in verse eight, when Judah tells Onan to go into your brother's wife and perform the duty of a brother-in-law to her. The question is, well, what is this duty of a brother-in-law? To what is Judah referring? Well, in Deuteronomy 25, as I said later, this would get codified into the covenant law of God's people. In Deuteronomy 25, it says this, if brothers dwell together, verse five, and one of them dies and has no son, the wife of the dead man shall not be married outside the family to a stranger. Her husband's brother shall go into her and take her as his wife, and perform the duty of a husband's brother to her. And the first son, not all the sons, but the first son that the brother provides to this woman shall be reckoned the son of the dead brother, that his name may not be blotted out of Israel. So to provide sons, really sons both for the wife and also for the dead brother, the second brother is to be married to her and to her by children. The firstborn would then be the heir of the older brother, the one who'd carry on his name, carry on his property. Think, for instance, of Boaz in the book of Ruth. Now, Boaz is not the brother of Malon, Ruth's deceased husband, but he is a near relative. And by that time, the phrase became kinsmen redeemer, combining a couple of concepts of Israelite law of providing for those who needed to be provided for. Unfortunately, Onan, Ere's brother, erred also, doesn't he? Verses 8 to 10. He refuses to perform the duty that Judah and God command him to perform. And the text is very clear about why this is the case in verse nine, isn't it? He knew the offspring would not be his. Think about this. If your older brother is going to inherit, but then he dies, you become the inheritor. unless your older brother has a son. And the only way for his older brother to have a son would be if Onan himself provided for it. So selfishly, he looks at the situation and says, this son won't be mine. He'll be the inheritor of Judah's estate, not mine. Therefore, I'm going to keep myself from impregnating this woman. He wants to inherit. Evidently, he has no problem enjoying her physically, but one of times to actually impregnate her, he refuses. He sins grievously against Tamar. Grievously against the law of the Lord. So error airs and Onan airs and Judah is not any better. He's a scoundrel too. In verse 11 you may have noticed. That what does he do? Two things stick out. One, he refuses Shelah to Tamar. And two, he sends her back home. I mean, it's bad enough that he doesn't give her his son to provide for her, but he won't even allow her into his own household. where he himself can provide for her food and shelter and all that she needed to survive in the society. No, he won't even do that. He sends her back to her father's house. Friends, you don't have to read far in the Old Testament law to know how dear orphans, widows, sojourners were to the heart of the Lord and therefore were to be to the people of God. But Judah will have none of that. He casts her off, sends her away. Thanks. While I'm done with her, I'll never have to mess with her again. How little did he know? He calculated the cost of obedience in his mind of giving his third son to Tamar. He said, no thanks. Now, the text doesn't say how old Shalal was. We saw how quickly they were born. in verse four, so, excuse me, if he was not old enough, surely he was going to be old enough soon. This doesn't seem to be a case of, well, let's just wait a year. No, this seems to be, let's out of sight, out of mind, never have to deal with her again. In short, one commentator puts it this way. Judas sold his brother, ditched his family, plunged into a shotgun wedding, ran with the wrong crowd, and ignored his children. And evidently, he seems to think that there's something wrong with Tamar. Did you notice that in verse 11? He says, remain a widow in your father's house, for he feared that he, his third born, would die like his brothers. Notice the implication there. He seems to be saying that there's something wrong with Tamar, that I keep marrying off my sons to this woman and they keep dying. The problem must be with Tamar. So you know what? We've seen what kind of father Judah is. We've seen Er, one who sinned wickedly in the sight of the Lord. We've seen Onan sin wickedly. Friends, at this point in the text, Tamar has done nothing wrong. We must never blame the victim. We will see Tamar make her own share of mistakes. But at this point, Tamar is the innocent victim. It is so easy to blame Judah as we read this. But of course, we know that when we condemn Judah, do we not also condemn ourselves? Often do we count the cost of obedience and determine it's not worth it. I'm going to go my own way. How often is the fruit of our sin so clear to anyone with eyes to see, and yet we find someone else to blame? How easy is it to know the will of God, and yet still, out of hardness of heart, refuse to obey that will? It is easy to condemn Judah, and he does deserve it. But when we do so, we realize we condemn ourselves as well. So that leads us to Act III. Typically, in any great drama with a narrative arc like this one, Act III is the biggest and the longest and the most involved. This is when the conflict ramps up to its highest degree. This is when things begin to happen that will lead to an inexorable result that cannot be avoided. And that, of course, is the case here in the third act of our great drama here in Genesis chapter 38, as Tamar begins intrigues of her own, you can say, in verse 12. Tamar, you may wonder, what is she up to? It doesn't tell us. We come along the text in real time. We see that she hears that her father-in-law is now a widow, hear that he's gone up to shear the sheep. So she goes, takes off her widow's garments, covers herself with a veil, and the text then tells us what she's up to. The key is right there in the second half of verse 14, isn't it? For she saw that Shalall was grown up, and she had not been given to him in marriage. So she thinks, aha, I'm going to take things into my own hand. Yes, Judah through his sons owed her a son of her own. No, not the way to go about it. Taking advantage of him and his grieving, using her body against him in this way. This is indeed great wickedness on Tamar's part as well. You may wonder, what is all this talk about a pledge? So much of this text seems to be about these items. There's a goat, and then there's a staff, and a signet, and a cloak, and all these things. What is going on? Well, a pledge in verse 17. is basically like an IOU. He says, I will pay you for your prostituting services a goat. And I don't have one in my back pocket, so I'll give you an IOU so that later you can call me on this debt, and I will pay you what you have been promised. A signet would be like an identifying thing that he would carry, a seal that he would use to show ownership of documents and other items. So by giving this to her, he's kind of like giving her his driver's license. So you can know exactly who this was by this signet. Now, she knew who it was. He didn't know who she was. We see the imbalance of power there actually leaning towards the woman. interestingly enough. But he gives her these IOUs, the signet, as well as his staff and cord, which would be the cord being attached to the seal and the staff, another probably precious thing to him. Guarantee, yes, I'm going to pay you back. I will pay you this goat when I have the opportunity. And of course, we see him actually seek to do this, sending his friend her adulamite as a runner to carry this to her. And isn't that, shall we say, ironic? Verse 20, he seeks to pay her. So he'll honor his pledge to a prostitute, but he won't honor his pledge to give her his son. He'll honor his pledge to give her a goat, but he won't honor his pledge to his daughter-in-law to give her his son. Little did he know it was the same woman. He was happy to satisfy, if you will, his own desires and not the needs of this widow. Tells you something about him. But of course, when it comes time to find this cult prostitute, verse 21, they can't find her. Should tell you something about Judah's faith, or lack of it at this point, that he had no shame of going into this cult prostitute, that this someone who would be, that he thought in his mind evidently was a cult prostitute. That seems to be what he told Herod when he told him to go find her as a cult prostitute, someone whose sexual activity and money-making was associated with the worship of a false god. at a cultic place of worship. Now, we know this is not the case with Tamar, but the point is that Judah thought it was. Judah thought he was engaging in that sort of pagan worship practice, and he had no problem with that. Again, no problem with that, and yet every problem with obeying the command of the Lord to give her his son. And what is he worried about? Well, you notice there in verse 23, when he finds out that Hera can't find Tamar, he says, let her keep those things or we shall be laughed at. This is Judah's concern. Not obedience, faithfulness to the Lord, not the care and protection of this woman, his own reputation in the community. He's worried about becoming a laughingstock. At this point, if Hera knew anything, he would say, don't worry, Judah, you'll still become a laughingstock. Because Tamar is about to turn the tables. This takes us to the fourth act of our great drama here, as Judah is identified. Judah is identified. He's left his home behind. He's left his land behind. He's withheld his youngest son. He's being bested by a prostitute, and now he is identified. The high point of this narrative, verses 24 to 26, of course, is also the low point morally of this, as we have what you might call a double expose, a double expose. The first person exposed is Tamar. Judah finds out that she's pregnant. Judah hears, it's become clear, he was told somehow or later, three months later, she was showing. They go to him and say, excuse me, Judah, your daughter-in-law, interestingly enough, Judah has no problem taking control of her now. He has sent her back to her father's house earlier this chapter, but now that he can take advantage of the situation to what? To get rid of her once and for all. Now he's happy. Now he's happy to take charge over Tamar, is he not? He says, let us give her to be burned. Now this was a valid sentence for someone who was convicted. a fornication, adultery, cult, prostitution. However, the one suggesting this sentence should probably not be the man who's just as guilty as she. And yet, evidently, that doesn't even cross his mind. Or more likely, it does cross his mind to think, I'll never get caught. that this could possibly be the woman that entrapped him back earlier in the chapter. And then the turn comes in chapter 20, in verse 25. As I've called this a double expose, first Tamar was exposed, but now Judah. will be exposed. She's being brought out. We don't know what that means. Perhaps literally the fire is lit. Perhaps this is the time of her execution. This is the same phrase that Judah uses in the previous verse, bring her out to be burned. As she was being brought out, she sent word to her father-in-law, oh, by the way, by the man to whom these belong, I am pregnant. Can you please identify who they are? The signet, the cord, and the staff. You gotta love Tamar's guts, if nothing else, to pull out these this late in the game. But the tension in the text comes as we wonder, how will Judah respond? Especially in light of everything we've seen of Judah up to this point. Seen him fail as a son, abandoning his father, We've seen him fail as a brother, getting his younger brother sold to midnight slave traders. We've seen him fail as a father and as a father-in-law. How will he respond when his sin is laid bare for the entire community to see. This would be a public execution, preceded, presumably, by a public trial, a revelation. that is for all to see. And we could envision reactions of the Judah that we have met so far. Perhaps he would accuse her of stealing those things. Oh, you've stolen them from me. I wonder where those went. I'm so thankful that you found them. Those have been stolen from me. Or perhaps he'll blame her again. He'll say, you tricked me. You conned me into this. I cannot believe that this happened. He could have treated her just as he's been treating her this entire chapter as someone either to use or to get out of the way or someone to use and then get out of the way. But no. That's not how Judah responds at all. Is it? No, rather we see a heart that has has come to the end of his own sinfulness. We are stunned by verse 26 because the one whose sin has been obvious to everyone but Judah in this entire chapter is now confessed by Judah. As he looks at her and says, you are more righteous than I. There's a physical recognition of these objects, but much more deeply, there's a spiritual recognition the depths of the sinfulness of his own heart. He's not saying that Tamar is totally innocent. He's not saying that Tamar is without fault. He's saying that I have wronged you much more than I could ever claim that you have wronged me. I mean, this is the woman he has blamed for the death of his first two sons. This change is, humanly speaking, impossible. This confession of his own worthlessness is possible only by the work of the Spirit, breathing life into a heart that desperately needed it. The only way we can come to an understanding of our own sin, the only way we can come to an understanding of our own need for forgiveness and reconciliation and repentance, by the Lord's redeeming work on our hearts. This is really all that Act V of this drama is. The Lord working redemption out of an ugly and horrible and frankly despicable on all sides situation. The Lord coming to that mess and said, yes, I am going to use this to bring about redemption in your life and in your family's life. And oh, by the way, redemption for my entire chosen people as well. Think of how we see that playing out in the last five verses of our chapter. We see it in these children, as life is brought out of this ugly situation. Perez, whose name means burst forth, being the second born. Zerah, the one who was born first, at least by a fist, who had the scarlet cord tied around him, which basically means bright scarlet. But as the Lord is want to do, he takes that second son, just as he took Isaac, not Ishmael, just as he took Jacob and not Esau, now he takes Perez, not Zerah, and says, I will make you the forefather of a line of kings. I will make you an ancestor of the king of kings. You turn to Matthew chapter one and you read the ancestry of Jesus and who do you find right in there? Perez, the son of the union of a pseudo cult prostitute and a man who grieves for his wife by finding a prostitute on the side of the road. This is the Lord's doing. Remember how all the promises of this book of Genesis are now funneling through this family. His promise to Eve that one who would come after her would crush the head of the serpent. Well, who is able to defeat the prince of this world other than the king of all worlds? The Lord Jesus Christ, the promise to Abraham that through him all the nations of the world will be blessed. Who can bring that fulfillment besides the one who is king of all nations? The Lord Jesus Christ, and from whence does he come? But Perez, the second born son of an illicit union. Even that is a cord the Lord can tie into the tapestry of the salvation of his people. We see his redemption through the work of these sons. We also see his redemption in the life of Judah. This great realization in verse 26 of his wickedness and sin, as we remarked earlier, was probably 20 years after his settling of the brother Joseph into slavery. And if you read the rest of Genesis, you realize that tracking with his 20 years is just about the time when Judah had to go back to his family to make their way down to Egypt. So when we get to the later chapters and Judah reappears, this isn't ancient history in his life. This has probably just happened. If you look at Judah there, what kind of man do you get? He's compassionate. He's caring for his younger half-brother, Benjamin. He's interceding on behalf of the family. This is a man who has been changed by the hard grace of God in his life. This is a man who has been transformed by the Holy Spirit's work, and now his redemption becomes part of the salvation of God's people as they survive in Egypt because of his intercession on my behalf. Don't you think it had to be this very event that turned Judah into that man? Not only do the numbers add up in a certain number of years, but the spirituality is clear as it comes to an end of himself and realizes that even Tamar, this woman who has tricked him into prostitution, is more righteous than he. But of course, we see the Lord's redemption in her heart as well, too, do we not? Tamar goes from having no children to being a two-time widow, to becoming the queen mom of Israel. So much so that by the time you get to Ruth, and when Ruth and Boaz get married, you read the toast at their wedding in Ruth chapter four, and it mentions Tamar. She's become a part of the toast, a wedding that will, in just a few generations, give birth to Obed and to Jesse and to David. progenitor of that great dynasty that is the longest dynasty in all of ancient history, leading all the way down to 587 in the fall of Jerusalem, Babylon, resuscitated by Zerubbabel in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, and climaxing on the person, the Lord Jesus Christ. Through her, and we can't say it's Because of her sin, we can say it's despite her sin, but we can say it's because of the Lord's. Working. And planning. Through even these events. That great salvation came to pass. Do you recognize that theme from a previous chapter? You recognize that theme from Genesis chapter 37, how the Lord was working despite the great evil of those brothers telling their younger brethren to slavery, that the Lord was working his providential acts to bring that even to his great plan of redemption. So we have the same case here. As I close, I'll just remind you what I said at the beginning, that as we see redemption in one man working out the redemption of all Israel, we take our place in that story by reflecting that same story. But remember, just as we condemned Judah, so we condemned ourselves. Well, so the salvation of Judah is ours as well. As Christ comes to our heart, Christ shows us the depths of our sin. Christ shows us that he, the one who can defeat sin and Satan and death itself, could do so only by crucifying that sin, nailing it to His cross, that we may follow after Him as subjects of the great King, the descendant of Judah, the descendant of Tamar, the descendant of Perez, the one who reigns now and will ever reign forever and ever. Amen. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we are humbled by your word. We are grateful for the fact that you work through people such as this. For, Lord, if you did not, what hope would we have? Lord, we have no righteousness to offer you. So cause us to cling to Christ. Cause him to reign, to rule over us, not merely as our Savior, but as our Lord, the one who has done all that is necessary to make us your people, your subjects, your servants, those who will dwell with our great King forever. May that hope fill our hearts and our lives each and every day until he returns or calls us home. We pray this and ask this in his great interceding name. Amen.