Please stand with me if you are able and turn to Genesis chapter 38 for our scripture reading this morning. Genesis chapter 38 beginning in verse 1. 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 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 Chizib when she bore him. And Judah took a wife, for Ur his firstborn, 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 Shilla, 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, Shua's daughter, died. When Judah was comforted, he went up to Timnah, to his shepherd, Shearer's. He and his friend, Hira the Adulamite, 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 a name which is on the road to Timnah. For she saw that Shelah was grown up and she had not been given to him in marriage. When Judas 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 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 cult prostitute who was at a name 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 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 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 of yourself. Therefore, his name was called Perez. Afterwards, his brother came out with a scarlet thread on his hand, and his name was called Zerah." Amen. May God bless the reading of his holy word to our hearts and minds this morning. Please be seated. Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Heavenly Father, we ask that you use this word in such a way to Convict our hearts this day, that as we were convicted of sin earlier, Father, that you would convict us of moving forward, taking the truth of what you have to share with us today, and being changed, being sanctified, being made just a little more holy, being made just a little bit more in the image of your Son, brightly shining forth the truth of who and what the righteousness of Christ means to a lost world. and to those that have received salvation. It's in Christ's name that we pray. Amen. Well, the name of today's message is A Pledge Reneged and A Pledge Reckoned. And it's a big chunk of text. We were not going to take all of the text into consideration. We're just going to take parts of it as we look at it. But the text has to deal with honoring pledges. And I thought, before we would get started, that I would pose a question that probably most everybody, even those that are children in here or have siblings in here, can relate to. And that is, have you ever been busted by a child on the integrity of your pledge or promise to do something? And that's why I say even siblings can do this because you might have a younger sibling that might be asking something of you and you're just so tired of them asking that you're saying, yeah, yeah, we'll get to it later. And that's not really the case. There are some examples I could give that might cause memories to come back. How about when they asked you to read a bedtime story and you're exhausted at the end of your day? And you say yes, but you don't mean yes, because you're hoping they'll forget. Or how about pull them in a wagon in the middle of the hot day in Arizona, or go to the park with them, or watch a favorite movie for the 20th time. You could practically recite the movie or the book yourself by everything. And so you put off, and you give them the impression that you're going to fall through, but you never intend to keep that pledge. We all fall to that. The main point of today's message though, if you leave with nothing else remembered, leave with this truth, that God never reneges on any of his pledges or promises. Let that be a comfort when you feel the injustices of the world around you and you're sitting there Trying to find comfort in the midst of it all, you need only reflect on the faithfulness of your God, and knowing maybe all of that is true, but this about my God is what will get me through. And in reading or listening to this passage today, you're thinking, how are you going to tie this to Father's Day? How is this going to be something good about Father's? Because Judah's not an example of a good father today. This actually helps us realize that there's no father in here. There's no father that's ever been born that is righteous and perfect righteousness. At least not from the womb. We get imputed righteousness from Christ Jesus. God the father is the only righteous father. And that's kind of a neat picture because even if some of our fathers were terrible fathers, we can look at the example of God the Father and recognize that's my true Heavenly Father and take comfort in this and that truth on this Father's Day. Well, today we're going to look at, we talked about a pledge, we're going to look at a pledge with no intent. And that's what we'll see from the beginning of this passage. And then we'll take a look at Tamar's righteous pursuit of justice. Interesting, when you're reading this, you might have thought, that seems a little deceptive. Can that be righteousness when it's deception on her part? And then we'll look at a broken pledge reveals a man's true heart. And lastly, we'll look at pursuing justice is righteousness. So let's start with a pledge with no intent. This deals with verses 1 through 11. And we see here there's a new person up front, a new main character. Joseph has been taken by the Midianites. He's going down to Egypt into slavery. He's out of the picture for now. And so we see Judah being introduced into the picture. We saw that He became the de facto leader in the absence of Joseph, who was Jacob's choice of firstborn son after Reuben defaulted. And then we also know that Simeon and Levi were disqualified by their slaughter. of the men of Shechem, so certainly they're not going to be the de facto leader, and we saw that it really became Judah. And we can see now on our side of things why that is, because we know ultimately the line of Christ came through Judah. So we see this insertion here, but we see is what we've seen with so many of the patriarchs that these men aren't picked by God because of their righteousness. They're picked by God despite their unrighteousness. And then so we see here the case with Judah. Judah marries an unknown named woman. Her name was never even named. Only her mother got there and got her name in there. And we saw that at Shua. But why not name? Why not give us a name? Because she's not the focus here. And so she's not given a name. And so we do see the focus, at least initially, we see the focus is on the three children that she's bared by way of Judah, which is Ur, Onan, and Shelah. These are the three sons that she has, and they are, so we have a primary figure in Judah, we have secondary figures in the three sons, and then we get to verses six through 11. And now we have the introduction of a new person. We have the introduction of Tamar, and what's interesting about Tamar, I don't know if you caught this, but Tamar is handpicked by Judah. Judah picks Ur's wife, and it's Tamar. You can see the providence of God at work here in this. We realize in this section that Ur, and we're not told what his wickedness was, but Ur was so wicked that God put him to death. How wicked do you have to be for God to put you to death? So you have a picture, and I want you to think about this. As a father, if one of my sons was that wicked, I would know it because they would probably not be obeying me if I'm obeying God and God's ways. It would be very apparent to a father. So keep that in mind as we're walking through this. We also see that Onan is listed as wicked. And we were even told why he's wicked. Here's somebody that's supposed to take on the leverage marriage duty or responsibilities. That is, in that time in the ancient Near East, keep in mind. The law of God has not been given yet. We're not at Sinai yet. There is no Exodus. They are living by ancient Near East cultures. Sometimes theologians try to force the law back into the pre-law patriarchs. They don't have the law. They didn't know about the law as what was given at Sinai. So they are living by that culture by which they live in. And interesting, we're gonna find out this particular Levirate marriage, because most of the cultures had a Levirate law, because it was a way of sustaining the continuation of the generations, the inheritance, the people. But this particular Hittite Levirate law has a caveat, and we'll get to that caveat in a minute. Almost all of them had the understanding that the other brother, if there were two brothers and one of the brothers died, the brother that is living was supposed to take over the responsibility of bringing up or bearing a son who could take the inheritance forward. It was a really a beautiful picture of mercy upon the mother. the woman that was married, that would have been left in widowhood without any means to provide for herself, she is given this opportunity for there to be a replacement. The Onan would have, if he would have done his responsibility and had a son, that son becomes not his son, it becomes the son of, and I'm gonna lose my, Tamar, sorry about that, I was losing track there, Tamar and continues with all the inheritance. What does that mean for Onan? That means there's somebody back in the firstborn position. With Ere's death, there wasn't, and Onan was up there. If Onan does what he's supposed to do, Onan comes back down, and that son takes his father's place, and he stays the firstborn. He will lose his firstborn status, Onan, if he does his duty. Now we're not told that, that's just the reality of what is going on here. And so we see that God judges Onan as wicked and Onan is brought to death. And then the next person we see, so we've got two brothers, both are considered wicked and both are brought to death. You and me as a listening audience, the Israelites as a listening audience are thinking, okay, is the next one up gonna be righteous or are we gonna have another death that Yahweh is going to bring? And those are the two options that we're looking at. And what ends up is we end up Judas in the picture here. And it says that Judah says, hey, remain a widow in your father's house. And then when Shalach gets old enough, I'll give him to you in marriage, and he'll take on that duty. Now that's a command form. He didn't say suggest it. He commanded her. And then we read this, this little caveat in here. It says, for he, speaking of Judah, feared that he would die like his brothers. And it makes us go, what? Why is that in there? Is it possible that he's not really gonna do what he says he's gonna do? And that leads us to our next section, which we have categorized as Tamar's righteous pursuit of justice, and that's truly what it is. So we take a look now at that, and look at verse 13 in your Bible. If you have the ESV, you are missing a word, and the word is behold. And we've talked about this word. Let me give you the verse and then let me see if I can't give you some understanding as to why behold is so important. It says this in the quotation marks. Behold. Your father-in-law is going up to Timnah to shear his sheep. She's told, and then she's told, behold. Well, we've talked about this. Behold is an attention getter in Hebrew. Behold is meant to say, hey, something important is going on here. Pay close attention. Sometimes when we see it in the ESV, it's not translated, behold. It's translated, look or see. We might say, look at that. And we go to study and we go, what do you see? What are you looking at? My wife constantly says, Nick, will you identify what that is? Because I'll say, look at that. And I'm just looking in an area. And she's like, what? Well, that's kind of what behold does. It slows us down so we study that which is being or that which is in front of us. And so that's what's designed to do. And it says in the text, your father-in-law, choice means meaning in everything that language has to do. We choose words because of what they mean and what we're trying to carry as an understanding. He didn't say, or this person who told Tamar didn't say, behold, Judah is going up to Timnah. Why did this person say father-in-law? Because in the Hittite Leverite law of marriage, if the final son, if there is no other son, or if the final son, in our case, is deprived, in other words, we learn in this, in the next verses, in this next clump of verses, that Shelah came to age and Judah isn't giving her. Shalah to Tamar. Tamar knows she's been done wrong. There is an injustice. And the Hittite law says that if there is no other son, different than the law that's going to be given at Moses, excuse me, to Moses on Mount Sinai, in the Hittite law, that responsibility falls on the father-in-law. Hence the reason why father-in-law, a title is given instead of Judah's name. It's now his responsibility. So when you start to understand what Tamar does in her plan, you start to go, oh, she's actually honoring the command She's not seeking out anything from Shelah. She is going to the father because he has denied Shelah. He would be the next in to take on this responsibility. That's why Judah is targeted by Tamar. Tamar has figured out that Judah is not a man of his word. Tamar has figured out that Judah was likely to fall to her plan. or we just read the ugliness of the plan, and you sit there and you might be thinking, Tamar, how could you pretend to be somebody of that nature? Well, you're looking at it completely backwards. Take the binoculars and spin them around the other way, or take the microscope and look here at Judah. It is an issue for Judah. In fact, she devises a plan that we're not told, but this plan, she believes, is able to come to fruition. There's something about her father-in-law's character that would make her believe that if I do this, he'll do that. And that's exactly what happened in this case. It's a clever plan. In order to get what Judah wants, he must pledge his identity. Remember the cord, the signet? The signet was a seal. It would go around your neck on a cord. The cord would be unique. The person would choose whatever cord they were gonna make it out of, leather or something else. It would be unique. You would hold it here. It was typically cylinder-like. It would be like a pen, kind of like cylinder-like. And you would have it, and it would be elongated, and you could roll it in the wax seal, and it would be your seal. It would identify you. And what is it identifying? It's identifying your integrity of whatever you agreed to. Here's my seal that I will carry through. She takes that, and she takes his staff, which would be unique. It would be something identified. You could just find anyone's staff, per se, and know that, oh, that's this person's staff, or that's this person's staff, because that was a unique thing given. It was a unique part of who they were. I heard one commentator say, this is like giving their social security card and his driver's license. It would be so unique that it would be undeniable. And you go, OK, there's an issue of identity here. So we look at this. Tamar was pursuing justice. But there's more going on here. Remember the behold. Our job here is to study what's going on. God was also pursuing justice. Remember earlier, God pursued justice, and this may sting a little bit, God should pursue justice by the death, by him killing the two wicked brothers. That's his justice in action. And now we see him pursuing justice in life. She has been refused the life of a child that is promised to her by law, that was told to her in the form of a command by her father-in-law that would come to fruition, and she has been denied this little baby boy. that she longs to have because she wants to be a mother and hold this child for reasons of motherhood, but also for reasons of this is my father, excuse me, my husband's inheritance. This is what is owed me. I have standing in this society with this son. This son gives me standing. I have financial benefit. I can exist here is the picture here. God was using Tamar as his agent in pursuing his promise to Abraham. Well, wait a second. There's not just the promise that Judah made to Tamar. Remember, there's the promise that God made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, that from your seed will come the one that will bless the nations. That person is Jesus Christ. That would come through Judah. So we have Judah standing in the way of God fulfilling a promise that's supposed to come through Judah. And you can sit there and you go, wow, I gotta get my head around that one. God is over the top of all of this, intervening, orchestrating, coordinating, so that His promise will not be reneged on. Remember our main point today? God will never allow any of his promises to be reneged on. And yet there's one more aspect going on here. If there wasn't enough that God was orchestrating that we go, wow, God is huge. God is big. I could never manage all these intricacies of all of these other details. God was pursuing Judah. The unrighteous, dishonest Judah. He is pursuing him, and we'll watch that unfold. But I want to, before we go on, let's take just a minute and look at Tamar. I don't think Tamar gets enough of a billing here. I don't think she gets enough attention here. I think it's possible that we've read this before and thought, Tamar shouldn't be acting like a prostitute. That's a no-no. Tamar isn't trusting Jesus, or if that was us, God, in a sense, if you're the Israelite audience that's listening in. And that's just not fair to Tamar. Tamar daringly pursues justice. You say, why the adjective daringly? Because it's at the cost of her life. In fact, we're going to find out a little bit further in this passage that It's her life that's sought because of the misunderstanding of what she has done here. Everyone thinks that she's the immoral one. They don't recognize Judah's immorality. They think she is, and she's not. She is putting it all on the line. She is risking her life in seeking justice, justice that was owed her. So I want to ask something of us. To what extent are we willing to pursue justice? But I want to take it in a little bit different direction. When I ask the question, to what extent are we willing to pursue justice? I'm not talking about an injustice done to us. I'm talking about an injustice done to a neighbor, somebody we know. To what degree are we God's agents of justice, seeking justice for others? You know, I was pondering, on who I would think of, you know, who would come to mind as I thought about that, that's somebody that I should aspire to be more like that. You know, as a police officer, that used to actually give me much pleasure to think that when I arrived, I would attempt to bring about some justice. This victim would stop being victimized and I could right the wrong. But it's interesting, as I've left the department And some nine years ago, in the midst of writing this sermon, studying God's Word, I realized I don't do that to the degree I used to do that. I'm not seeking justice like I used to. When I changed what I did, I somehow slipped into this place where I don't seek it for others like I used to seek it. It was a part of the job before, and so I had more opportunities, but I really had to be honest with myself I kind of fall into a comfortable place of convenience. And so that's why I want to ask you guys, have you fallen to convenience? Are you seeking justice? I have a sister-in-law. It's my wife's sister. She is a champion of justice, particularly justice for her children. If there's an injustice against her children, she will deal with it. But what's interesting about her that is unusual is she thinks every sibling that she has, their children are her children. And so she seeks the justice of my children more so than I'm tempted to do so. If she catches wind of an injustice happening to one of our kids or one of the other siblings' kids, she inserts herself into the issue and wants to find out, well, what have you done? What are you doing to make it right which was wrong? And if you haven't done anything, she'll say kind of, come on, let's take care of this. She's a woman and she's not intimidated by a man's world. She doesn't care if it's a man. There's no fear of man there. She's not intimidated if it's a teacher, a person of authority. If it's a wrong, if it's an injustice, she stands on the fact that it's an injustice. She's a seeker of justice and imaging her God who will one day usher in perfect justice, and she goes about it. And I sit there and think to myself, I never thought about emulating my sister-in-law. Isn't that interesting? And yet she's right in front of me. And to that perspective, I need to gain that understanding. Let's continue on. Let's look at a broken pledge reveals a man's true heart. And we're looking at Judah here. I really only want to look at verse 23. If you'll look down in your Bible to verse 23, I hope I don't tire you when I challenge some of the translations. We have many translations. bazillions of Bibles it seems like now. We are so blessed. It's good when you're studying the Bible to not just look at one Bible translation. I hope you're starting to see that. Let's read verse 23. It says, let her keep the things as her own or we shall be laughed at. The word there, if it was woodenly translated from the Hebrew, the word that the ESV chose to translate as laughed at is contemptible. We would be found in contempt. In fact, I know Dennis enjoys the King James Version. The King James Version says that we would be shamed. If people found out, we would be in a position of being shamed. I like what the new English translation uses because the issue here, I believe, is more specific than just shame. It's dishonesty. He pledged, and he's not following through on his pledge. And so the New English translation says that we would appear dishonest. And you think about that for a second. Judah, in talking to his friend, it's more important for him to appear honest than to be honest. And that's one of those where you go, ouch. Where is that? Where am I like that? Where I'm trying to present image, you know, I'm a Sprite commercial, image is everything. And so I've got to present this perfect image, not willing to really look at, no, I want to be an image of God, a true image, an image that lines up actually when no one's around and no one sees. I'm actually living out that image of honesty. Well, let's continue on in the final section here, verses 24 to 30. We end today looking at pursuing justice is righteousness. You want to know what righteousness is? Well, what do I do to be righteous? Pursue justice. Pursue what God has determined to be just, and you will be pursuing righteousness. So let's take a look at Tamar's righteousness. Tamar acted within the law that she knows, the Hittite Leverite law. She acts within the moral bounds that she knows of her culture to obtain what was rightfully hers. We're gonna see in a moment, she is determined, she is declared before all of the witnesses there, she's righteous. I know it says she's more righteous than I, but if I could put that and bring that down, it's clearly saying, Tamar is saying, I'm not righteous, but she is. That's what, she is more righteous than I. That's the slang way of saying she's righteous and I got nothing. Tamar was not acting immorally or unrighteously, the very thing that she's accused of and is going to be murdered by fire for. Tamar was not only God's agent of justice, and this is, This is neat. This is special. This is the gospel breaking through. She's not only God's agent of justice, but she was God's agent of mercy, and you say, Nick, please show me that. Okay, let's take a look. God is using Tamar to allow Judah the opportunity to identify himself as unrighteous. How many times do we walk the lie until we're confronted? Jacob, my son, used to say, Dad, don't tell me maybe so. Excuse me. Don't tell me we'll see. Tell me maybe so. Why, Jacob? Jacob's a little guy, four or five years old. And he goes, because when you say we'll see, it means it's not going to happen. But when you say maybe so, it means it's happened. right in the heart. I didn't even know that about myself. Those are the words I say. Yeah, he tracked that, this little guy. And so this is that situation where I go, oh, I'm not righteous. Well, that's what's happening here to Judah. And it comes through Tamar seeking justice. She was God's agent of mercy, justifying her actions by Judah's own mouth, which doesn't only justify her, he exalts her as righteous. So he is lowering himself and exalting her. In a patriarchal culture that says that men are more important than women. Wow, what a statement to make in front of all the witnesses. We see a heart of repentance. It's the heart of transparency. He could have mumbled it. Yeah, she's more righteous than I am. He could pull one of those. I don't want all the witnesses to know. He's in front of witnesses. Hey, we'll burn her right now. Let's do it. I got the match. They didn't have matches. But you see my point? He says it to them. They know I'm the dog here. She is the righteous one. Praise be to God that God is using her to bring about mercy. Let's go back to as it relates to justice for a moment, and then we'll end with our final application. Tamar was God's agent of justice. She ensured the birth of Perez. Perez means breach. And what does breach mean for those of us that are husbands and only think of, oh, that means it's a bad thing, and my wife is going to be in a lot of pain, and I got to do a lot of stuff fast. No, no, no. It's not just that going on here. Breach means to think of a wall, an impenetrable barrier. Breach means to break through. That's what we see. It's the other brother, twin brother, that's in the way here. His arm comes out first, and we see Perez breach, break through the obstacle. I'm out, I'm here. And it's not a statement of, I'm the firstborn. That's already identified by the scarlet thread around him, or the cord, or whatever your version says it is. No, this is a statement. God's salvation will break through when God makes a promise It will break through and there is nothing that human beings can do to stop it. He will be forever remembered as the child. We will see him later on in the New Testament. They reference that you be blessed like Tamar. You be blessed with carrying forth the seed that would be the lineage that would bring forth the final savior. That's what the picture is here. This is the good news. The gospel breaks through all injustices. God orchestrated salvation through the death of his son on a cross, knowing the sinfulness of man, despite the sinfulness of man. Do not allow what looks like, and I'm going to use this adjective purposefully, complete chaos, because we are living in a world of chaos. There's no doubt about that. But do not allow yourself to think that this complete chaos is outside the power and providence of God to bring about what he intends to bring about. Our God, Jesus Christ himself, is seated on the throne. He has been seated on that throne since the time he left the grave and ascended to heaven. And certainly he had time here on earth, but my point is one of authority. My point is that he is always ruling and reigning and orchestrating. When he returns, he will set straight, he will make good, he will reckon the pledge that we fail to reckon. We don't have the ability to bring forth the righteousness in the midst of all of this evil. But that's our role. That's one of our roles. We are supposed to be those who seek justice, not agree with justice when we see it. Seek justice. Seek it on our behalf. Seek it on others behalf. It's not wrong. You're not more humble because you just kind of let this one go by. Seek justice. It ushers in the kingdom of God. God works through our obedience in this area. Upon his return, Jesus Christ will break through the evil of the world and he will usher in his kingdom of perfect, eternal, that means never-ending, justice, but it has a caveat. It's to those who repented of their sins and profess him as Lord and Savior. Let us go to the Lord in prayer. Oh, Heavenly Father, we thank you for what only you could do. We thank you that We will forever remember the name of Perez, that that is the name of breaking through. That is the lineage that would bring forth your son, Jesus Christ. That's the truth of what he does in the midst of it. No matter the sin we face today, the injustices, the chaos, the incredible decision-making by our leaders, Father, no matter that, We stand as seekers of righteousness. We will not back down. We will advance the kingdom. We will bring forth the gospel to those that are in the darkness, that they might be those just like us who have been brought in to this kingdom of light. It's in Christ's name that we pray, amen.