Listen now to God's holy word from Genesis chapter 38. It happened at that time that Judah went down from his brothers and turned aside to a certain Adolamite 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 Ur. 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. Judah was in Kazeb 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. Then Judas 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. 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 course of time, the wife of Judah, Shewa's daughter, died. When Judah was comforted, he went up to Timna, to his sheep shearers, he and his friend Hira, the Adolamite. And when Tamar was told, Your father-in-law is going up to Temna to shear a sheep, she took off her widow's garments and covered herself with a veil, wrapping herself up, and sat at the entrance to Anayim, which is on the road to Temna. 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 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 Adelamite 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 colt prostitute who was at Aniim by 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 of 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, Tamar, your daughter-in-law, has been immoral. 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. 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 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 the scarlet thread on his hand, and his name was called Zerah. The grass withers, the flowers fade, but the word of our God endures forever. Let's ask his blessing upon our study of that word tonight, and another brief word of prayer. Father, we come tonight to a very difficult portion of your word. a passage which is in many ways quite jarring to us. We pray, Lord, though, that you would help us to see the usefulness and the truths contained within this portion of your word. You have inspired it by your Holy Spirit. You have preserved it down through the ages. And as we read it tonight, we pray that you would help us to see its significance, and as we do so, to grow in our faith. These things we ask in Jesus' name. Amen. Genesis 38 is a shock to the senses. If your senses aren't a little shocked, then you should check them out because you might be a little desensitized. In the preceding chapter in this book, Genesis 37, the drama has revolved around the character of Joseph, Jacob's favorite son. Loved by his father, hated by his brothers. And that dynamic has led to a great deal of conflict as we have seen in our study up to this point. When chapter 37 concluded, Joseph was on his way to Egypt stripped of that multicolored coat and sold into slavery by his brothers. This was after he was nearly killed. So when you turn the page from Genesis chapter 37 to Genesis chapter 38, you would expect the Joseph story to continue on. And we want to learn what happened in Egypt, after all. This is the story of Joseph, right? But what we find instead, as you've just seen, is the most sordid story in all of Genesis. And it has nothing to do with Joseph. It's actually a story about Joseph's older brother, Judah, the one who suggested selling Joseph into slavery in the first place. Now he is in the spotlight and that spotlight exposes grotesque sins which were percolating within him and his family. For many people, the initial reaction to this story is a mixture of confusion and disgust. A lot of people are not sure why this story is here, and they are not sure how this story could possibly make a positive contribution to the overarching story which is being told in Genesis. What good does this story do in the life of the Christian believer? Nonetheless, even if we may feel this way, our God knew exactly what He was doing when He caused this story to be inserted into this book at this point. Because this story serves as a timely reminder that this portion of Genesis, chapter 37 to the end, isn't just about Joseph. It's not just about Joseph. As we've discussed in previous weeks, if you've been here, Genesis chapter 37 verse 2 labels this chunk of Genesis as the generations of Jacob. Not Joseph. The generations of Jacob. It's the family history of Jacob, the patriarch and the father of the twelve tribes. And so this part of the book is about the fate of all twelve of his sons. So while this sudden shift from the Joseph story to the Judah story is unexpected, there's nothing unnatural about its inclusion within the narrative. In fact, I think and I hope that we will find this to be a very important story after all. It marks a turning point in the life of Judah. And as such, it's going to help us explain some of the later developments within the Joseph story. In previous accounts, look at Genesis chapter 37 and even prior, Judah has come across as a calloused, cold, and immoral man. Here too, Judah will act in a very calloused, cold, and immoral way. But at the end of this episode, Judah is going to experience a newfound sense of conviction over his sins. He is going to begin to feel his unrighteousness. And in later chapters, it will be obvious that because of this sense of conviction and this sense of his sin, that changes have been happening inside of him. Genesis 38 is truly a pivotal chapter in the book of Genesis. Because in it, God uses the sins of Judah and Tamar to humble Judah and to extend the long line of promised offspring into a new generation. And why does this matter for us? Well, in directing things in this way, God also reminds us of his willingness to use sinners and their sin to accomplish his redemption through Jesus Christ. We'll see how that unfolds as we work our way through this text. The first stage of development in the Judah story occurs in verses 1 through 5, as Judah begins to have sons of his own. With Joseph on his way to Egypt, he's been sold into slavery by his brothers. Judah, for whatever reason, decides that he wants to put a little bit of distance between himself and his siblings. We're told that he goes down from his brothers to live among the people of the land, making friends with an Adolamite man named Hira. And it's there, living alongside Hira, that Judah's life and his lust began to sink him deep down into the pit of wickedness that is going to become his existence. Now while Abraham had sent Isaac all the way to Mesopotamia for a wife, while Isaac had done the same for Jacob, Judah evidently feels no need to follow the example of his forefathers. He settles, when he goes and settles with this friend of his, he settles for the first Canaanite woman who strikes his fancy. He sees the daughter of a man named Shua, he takes her to be his wife, and they begin having children. One, two, three. Ur, Onan, and Shelah. And this is, the whole way that this is described stands as such a contrast with what we have seen among the patriarchs in earlier generations. Think back, if you're familiar with it, with the story that has been told up to this point in the book of Genesis, particularly with Isaac and with Jacob. Their wives, Rebekah, Rachel, Leah, they were not perfect. They were sinners. But they were women with strong personalities who played important roles in the development of God's covenant promises. And they showed at times strong commitments to those covenant purposes which God was working out in history. And that stands in contrast with this anonymous pagan woman who serves as the object of Judah's lust. And really the text gives us nothing to commend her to us other than her ability to bear children. And she has three for Judah. How quickly we see here in the text that standards fall from one generation to the next. How quickly piety and godliness and holiness falter. from one generation to the next. How quickly the covenant and the law of God is abandoned by this son of a holy man. Judah has here separated himself from the people of God and he is going to live to pay the price. We should let all that happens to him thereafter stand as a warning to us. of the sort of trouble which often befalls a person when they separate themselves from the people of God, when they remove themselves from the church and they try to live of their own accord, they try to live their own way, strike out on their own. Great trouble often comes. And the trouble which was to befall Judah comes into view in the next stage of his development as his sons begin to come of age in verses 6 through 11. Though Judah struck out and found his own wife among the Canaanites, he now is going to revert, he's going to go back to that tradition of arranging marriages when it comes to his own sons. And so he arranges for his son Ur to marry a Canaanite woman named Tamar once he's grown. We see here in the text that the arrangement between Ur and Tamar would not produce a love story that ended happily ever after. And for all the sin in Judah, Ur must have gone far beyond anything that his father had ever done. Judas, firstborn, was so evil in God's sight that the Lord strikes him dead. We don't know what exactly preceded this dramatic act of judgment. There's no description given for us. But this is the first time in the Bible that we read of God killing an individual for their wickedness. And so we can imagine that whatever he was doing, whatever pattern of corruption he was in, it was extreme. Once Ur is dead, the family quickly moves on. Judah is now ready to pass Tamar on to his second son Onan. Now, the thought of a brother marrying his dead brother's widow would usually be considered, I think, distasteful. in our modern Western society. This is not something you see a lot, but it was a widespread practice in the ancient world. In the ancient world, this was something called leveret marriage. Leveret marriage. There's your jeopardy question for tonight. What is leveret marriage? Well, the word leveret stems from the Hebrew word for brother-in-law or husband's brother. And so, leveret marriages is marriage to your husband's brother. And there were a few important reasons why this was a popular arrangement. First, a childless widow was viewed as a tragic figure in the ancient world. There was no welfare system, there was no social safety net, and so a widow left all on her own was exceedingly vulnerable, very vulnerable. In addition, it was considered a great tragedy for a man to die without an heir. It meant that his family line was in danger of being extinguished. It meant that his inheritance would be squandered. He would come to nothing in the eyes of those around him. And so both of these quandaries were considered big problems, and both problems could be solved through a leverant marriage. If a man died, his brother could just take his widow as a wife. That would provide for her physical needs. And then when they had children together, the firstborn son of their marriage would actually count as the heir of his deceased brother. And so the living brother would perpetuate the lineage of his deceased brother. And again, sounds strange, but later on the Mosaic Law is actually going to regulate this sort of arrangement in Deuteronomy chapter 25. Listen to some of the legislation that we find there. If brothers dwell together 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 whom she bears shall succeed to the name of his dead brother, that his name may not be blotted out of Israel. So within Israel, the people under the Mosaic Law, it was assumed that a brother would do this for his brother's widow and for his brother as a matter of course. It wasn't absolutely compulsory. A man could refuse. But if you go on and read the rest of Deuteronomy chapter 5, it's really clear that refusing such an arrangement was a shameful thing. In fact, there was a whole ceremony that you could get out of this, but you had to be willing to stand in front of all the people in town and let the woman spit on you and take your shoe, okay? It was clear, not a great person, not willing to care for your family. Now, we introduced this concept at length because it helps to explain everything that happens next. If you don't have this concept, really none of what happens in the rest of Genesis 38 makes any sense. With Ur dead, Tamar is given to Onan. They are going to enter a leverant marriage together. That's his duty. Onan needs to raise up offspring for his dead brother. Judah tells him as much. Here's the problem. Onan was wicked, like his brother Ur. He did not care much about his duties. And he had absolutely no interest in raising kids for his dead brother. And so he enters the Leverett marriage with the aim of enjoying the sexual union with Tamar and depriving his brother of descendants. Rather than being graphic, I will simply point you again to verse 9 as the explanation for how he tried to pull this off. But what he did was wicked in God's sight. Onan was acting deceptively, he was acting lustfully, he was disdaining the child-rearing procreative purposes of marriage, He was showing his lack of care for the covenant of his forefathers, which promised what? It promised blessing on the children of his family. Onan, if he had been righteous and had walked by faith and had done his duty, he actually had everything to gain. And so by pursuing sexual pleasure in a disobedient way, he was taking himself out from under the blessing of God and placing himself under the wrath of God. And the final result for him was the same as his brother, the Lord put him to death. And with Onan dead now too, childless Tamar was legally supposed to pass down to Judah's youngest son, Shelah. Problem is that Shelah was not old enough yet. Plus Judah was beginning to suspect that maybe something was wrong with Tamar. You can understand this. If you had married two of your sons off to a woman and they both wound up dead, you might begin to think this is not a match made in heaven. So he was not willing for his son, his last son to die in this way. Every time one of his sons shacks up, they wound up dead. And so he's going to put off marriage between the two for as long as possible. maybe even forever. But he doesn't say all that to Tamar. To her, he simply says, remain a widow in your father's house till Shelah, my son, grows up. Judah isn't even willing to care for this poor girl while she waits for her husband-to-be to come of age. He sends her packing and she submissively goes away. Eventually Tamar begins to suspect as Shelah begins to grow and as he becomes a man, she begins to expect that Judah has no intention of arranging the marriage between her and his youngest son. And thus the third stage of development arises when Tamar decides to deceive Judah as we observe in verses 12 through 19. Now here's something that you should know. One of the things that you'll find when you read the Old Testament, and you read these narratives which were written in Hebrew, is that the amount of words given to something, the amount of time that is spent describing something, can give you an indication to how important it is. Because the Hebrews didn't waste a lot of words. And so you might begin to sense the importance of what comes next when you think about the fact that the events of verses 1 through 11, okay, everything we've just discussed, probably took place over the course of 20 years, okay? 20 years. But now when we come to verse 12, the narrative, the story is going to slow down substantially. And from verse 12 to the end of the chapter, we're going to cover about nine months, okay? So we covered 20 years in 11 verses, and now in the next 20 or so verses, we're going to cover nine months. And it all kicks off when Judah's wife dies, after he has finished mourning, and after he begins to feel what you might call the, he's beginning to feel the freedom of being a widower. You know, the morning's over and now he thinks, you know, I can do what I want now. I'm a little bit more independent. You know, I might even see what else is out there. And that's what happens when Judah and his pal Herah, we're told, decide to go up to Timnah for a big sheep shearing. Now, maybe that doesn't mean a whole lot to you, but in those days, something like a sheep shearing That was big doings. It was treated like a party, it was treated like a festival. So events like these were frequently accompanied by heavy drinking, carousing, and one could anticipate, you might not think so, you could anticipate trouble of some sort, you could anticipate in conjunction with sheep shearing. This was not as tame or mundane as it sounds. And so when Tamar hears about her father-in-law's plans to go up to the sheep shearing, she decides she's going to take advantage of it. Now she's going to act. She's waited long enough. Judah's going to permanently deprive her of her children by withholding his son? Okay, she'll take things into her own hands. And with a knowledge of where Judah was headed, she dresses herself as a prostitute, And she seats herself by the roadside. She's going to try to entice her father-in-law to do something stupid as she veils her true identity when he passes by. And very quickly, the plan works. When Judah starts up to Timnah, he's feeling free, he's headed to the sheepshearing, he's looking to have fun. And when he passes through this place called Aniim, he finds a beautiful woman sitting by the gate. And naturally, he figures there's a prostitute. And so sinful Judah, not knowing who the woman was, propositions her very forthrightly. Excuse me, verse 16 says, 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. Remember, this is Tamar's plan. She wants to catch him in something. And so Tamar responds matter-of-factly, asking about payment. What are you going to give me in return? And Judah offers a young goat from his flock. The only problem is that he did not have the goat with him. And so Tamar demands a pledge, something she's going to hold on to until the goat is delivered. For a pledge, she specifically requested Judah's signet, his cord, and his staff. That was very strategic on her part. A signet was a cylindrical cylinder stamp that could be pressed into clay. and had unique markings so when you pressed it down into the clay, it would leave these markings and the markings would identify the one who had used it. Think of a notary stamp today. That kind of gets you there into the right frame of mind. These things were frequently carried around the neck on a cord because you used it when you conducted business. It was sort of a way of signing documents insofar as that sort of thing was done back in the day. And additionally, the man's staff was often carved with identifying symbols on it as well. So the net result, when you put all that together, as some commentators have noted, is that Judah is being asked to hand over the equivalent of his driver's license and his credit cards, okay? Give me all your identification. But despite the inherent value of those things, Judah gives them up as an I owe you all too happily. You hold on to all that until I can come back with the goat. And with their business transacted, Judah and Tamar go to do the deed and Tamar conceives. Tamar is pregnant by her father-in-law Judah, though they do not know it yet. And since she's gotten the leverage that she needs, she gets up, she goes away from Maniim, and she returns to her life as a widow. Congregation, we see sin on top of sin in these verses. Tamar sins by enticing her father-in-law to do this sort of thing. And Judah sins by hiring her as a prostitute. But that's not all. You see, from our modern perspective, I think, you can tell me afterwards whether you think I'm right or wrong about this, but I think from our modern perspective, we are probably likely, if you have to put them in order, worst sinner to best sinner, if that makes sense, I think we're likely to see Tamar as the worst sinner. I don't know what you think. You can tell me afterwards. I think we're likely to view Tamar as the worst sinner because what kind of woman purposely entices her father-in-law to do this sort of thing? She's intentionally deceived her father-in-law into doing something that is reprehensible. But I'm not so sure, if that's what you think, I'm not so sure that the Bible would agree with that evaluation. Tamar is a sinner, no doubt. Don't get me wrong here. Doing this to her father-in-law was immoral. It was wicked. It was sin. But let us not forget that Tamar was herself deceived and victimized long before she decided to tempt Judah. Think about this. She had been passed around this family from one wicked brother to the next. And then Judah sent her away rather than providing for her or giving her to his son Shelah. Here's the tricky thing. Tamar had a legitimate legal claim on Judah's third son. She was still owed offspring as part of her marriage to her. Really, I think you would consider them betrothed. They are engaged to be married, though they have not yet been married. And that means that she could not just go and find a new husband in some other family. So by disregarding this claim and holding his son back, Judah was intentionally keeping Tamar in a desperate and vulnerable and dangerous situation. And it's in that crucible that she is motivated to commit, out of desperation, these transgressions of her own. And if you don't buy that case, well, just take Judah's word himself. Because by the end of this story, he's going to say, she is more righteous than I. And I think that's the Bible's perspective on the matter. But before we hear that declaration, we first need to witness Judah's folly in the fourth stage of this story when Tamar disappears. This is recounted in verses 20 through 23. Remember, the signet, the cord, and the staff were a pledge. Judah was supposed to come back and get them when the goat was provided for a payment. Then he could have his things back. Rather than going back himself, he's evidently already feeling a little bit embarrassed about the whole thing. So he sends his friend here. Judah must have told him something like, hey, there's a prostitute that always sits by the side of the road down there in Aniam. Maybe you can go down there for me, take this goat, get my stuff back. But when Herod goes to do Judah's bidding, he finds no such prostitute. He starts asking around, where is the cult prostitute who was at an iamb at the roadside? But we know, Judah didn't know, we know that Tamar had only gone down there one time. And she had only gone down there to seduce Judah. These men have no idea who Hera is talking about. There was no cult prostitute in these parts. They had not seen anyone fitting that description. And thus Hera returns somewhat confused to his friends and reports on his findings. He's not located the prostitute and neither is anyone else. But Judah decides that continuing to push this subject was not a good idea. That's the sort of thing that would draw too much attention and he would become ultimately the source of, or the object of shame and embarrassment. So he, here in this portion of the text, he makes the difficult decision to cut his losses. He's going to have to get a new signet, a new cord, a new staff, because as far as he's concerned, those things are long gone. She can have them. She can keep them. This confusion quickly gives way in the fifth stage of Judah's development when he is convicted of his sins in verses 24 through 26. And here we reach really the climax of this story. Three months after that fateful day when Judah hired Tamar as a prostitute, she begins to show. She develops a belly. And people begin to notice that she is pregnant. Even though she has never been married off to Shelah. So everyone knows, evidently, she's betrothed and engaged to one man and she's pregnant by another. That's the message which gets back to Judah. And in spite of the fact that Judah sent Tamar off to live with her parents, he really couldn't be bothered with her, he's finally prepared to show a little initiative and take charge when he learns the news. Now he's upset. All he knows is that Tamar has been sexually immoral. Remember, he still doesn't know that he's involved in this. And he knows that she's pregnant. In response, those cold, calloused ways of his, they come back out. He's prepared to put her to death. Because she's an adulteress, right? She was engaged to his son. She's betrothed to his son Shalom, so it's only right that if she slept with another man, she ought to be executed. That's the sort of thing that frequently happened to adulteresses and their lovers in those days. They died for their iniquities. But Judah is not... Look how calm and cold he is. He is not content with the typical stoning. Brutal as that is. That would have been standard fare. Now he is prepared to put his daughter-in-law to death in one of the most horrific ways possible. He wants her publicly burned alive. Can you imagine that? He wants her publicly burned alive because she had apparently been unfaithful to the son that he would not give her. And so the folks go together. And as they're going to get her, they start dragging her out to her death. She's going to be burned. They're going to watch. But before the match can be lit, she asks for one final message to be carried off to her father-in-law. Here it is. By the man to whom these belong, I'm pregnant. And off she sends the signet, the cord, and the staff. And just as Judah had been there with his brothers, when they cruelly asked their father to identify the bloody coat of their brother, so now Tamar asks him to identify his personal belongings which he had given him for a pledge. What's he going to do? Is Judah going to deny it? Is he going to rush Tamar into the flames to keep her mouth shut? No. In a shocking change for Judah, he finally, maybe for once in his life, feels a little bit of conviction over his sins. He has done wrong. And he stands condemned. There's no way around it. Verse 26 explains, that then Judah identified them and said, She is more righteous than I. For I did not give her to my son Shelah, and he did not know her again. Judah, headstrong, independent, cruel. has finally been humbled. He sees himself in this moment, there's nowhere else to go, he's been found out, he sees himself as he really is, he is unrighteous, he is worthy of judgment, and he is worthy to be burned in the fire just as he was trying to do to his daughter-in-law. And while it's not a good thing that these sins were committed, sin is never good. They do ultimately produce positive results in the life of Judah. How can we say that? Because they lead to conviction. And it is good to be convicted of our sin. It is good to be convicted of our sin. Only when we are convicted of our sin can we feel sorrow over it and repent. For this reason, we ought to cherish conviction of sin when God impresses His Word upon us, and we ought to ask God to bring such conviction when it is needed. The Apostle Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 7, verse 10, that godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret. whereas worldly grief produces death. So when sincere conviction of sin comes, as we come under the law of God, and as the Holy Spirit begins to impress that law upon us, and when sincere repentance begins to occur, that is a good thing, because none can expect pardon. without repentance. We don't merit our salvation by our repentance. We don't earn our way to heaven by our repentance. But the Bible teaches us that we cannot expect to be pardoned if we do not return to Christ, turning away from our sin and trusting in the merits of his grace. Let us then seeing this story, seek repentance for ourselves. Knowing that much good comes of Judah's repentance in the chapters ahead. Can you imagine the embarrassment he felt in this moment? Can you imagine how he must have felt? It must have been one of the most difficult moments in his life. But this most difficult moment is going to be the start of Judah's future. It is going to be the start of God's good work in him. And we begin to see how that's going to play out when we come to the last stage of this story in verses 27 through 30, when humbled Judah has children by his daughter-in-law Tamar. There was no luck in bringing about children with Ur and Onan, but now Judah and Tamar, they produce twins the one and only time that they ever have relations with one another. And as is so typical of this patriarchal family, the birth is somewhat dramatic. We read this very bizarre story of how on the day of their delivery, one child started to come out first, and his arm came out first, and the midwife tied this thread around his arm so that everyone would know this is the firstborn. But unexpectedly, he draws his hand back inside, and the other child jumps the line, and the boy makes a breach for himself, earning the name Perez, which means breach. And afterwards his brother Zerah makes his way back out and was born with the thread still on his hand. And so just like you have this wrestling in the womb between Jacob and Esau, so now Jacob's grandsons are wrestling for first place in the womb and this one makes an unexpected breach for himself, which we are going to see, earns his place in history. At this stage, we don't know much about Perez and Zerah other than their names. But when we cast our eyes across the rest of Scripture, we see how significant this moment was. When Judah had these children by Tamar, we learn. These weren't any old kids. He was perpetuating the line of the promised offspring of the woman spoken of in Genesis 3.15, mentioned in the promises to Abraham. He's perpetuating that line into a new generation. And this is clearest when we get to the New Testament, where Jesus' genealogy in Matthew traces His descent through Judah and Perez. Matthew specifically highlights the fact that Perez was born to Judah and Tamar. Go back and pay attention to that genealogy sometime. You'll see that typically what happens is some man had some man had some man had some man. There's only a handful of women mentioned in the whole thing down through all these generations. Tamar's there. And as a result, this sinful Canaanite woman who seduced her father-in-law becomes one of the few women mentioned in Jesus' genealogy in the Gospel of Matthew. And that is, of course, intentional. God is teaching us something with that. We could go on much longer about this point. We'll keep it brief. God is teaching us, I believe, that since our Lord was born as the descendant of an adulterous Gentile woman who carried sons for her father-in-law, we learn that God is willing to use sinners and their sin to bring about the redemption of sinners through Jesus Christ. This whole story, when we read it in the light of the New Testament, functions as a beacon of the breadth of gospel grace. Because Jesus, the descendant of Judah, lived a perfect life without sin, and died an atoning death on the cross in the place of sinners, we can be included in his redemption plans like Tamar. We can be included in the people of God like her, sinful though we be. So if you want to know what to do with this text, start here. Let us be convicted of our sins. When we read of gross and bizarre sins like this, we have a tendency to put ourselves at a distance. That's not us. We wouldn't do something like that. But we sin every day and we deserve hell. So let us be convicted of our sins. Let us be humbled like Judah. Hopefully it won't take as much for us as it took for him. And let us ultimately look with faith to Jesus Christ. Descendant of Perez, Judah and Tamar. Knowing that in Him, We can also be saved from our sins. Jesus redeems sinners. Let's thank Him for that now in prayer.