It's been so long since we've had all three of us together and able to sing. Wow, it's fun. We're going to look again into Psalm 105. We started this passage a couple of weeks ago, and I said we wanted to follow it through because it follows this story that we're preaching about. It rehearses it for us. It reminds us of the story again, just as God impressed upon David to write this for the people to remind them of what God had done leading up to the exodus. The exodus was such a huge part of their history, and they refer back to it over and over again. And in fact, every year, remember, they come back to the exodus when they celebrate the Passover. But God wanted to remind them of what he had done to prepare them for the Passover. And that's, I believe, why David included this story in here, this record of the history. If you would turn with me to Psalm 105. Today we'll start reading in verse 12 and read through verse 22. And if you'd like to, and you're able to stand up and join with me, I'm reading from the Pew Bible, the New International Version. Psalm 105, verse 12, let's begin. When they were but few in number, few indeed, and strangers in it, They wandered from nation to nation, from one kingdom to another. He allowed no one to oppress them. For their sake, he rebuked kings. Do not touch my anointed ones. Do my prophets no harm. He called down famine on the land and destroyed all their supplies of food. And he sent a man before them, Joseph, sold as a slave. They bruised his feet with shackles, his neck was put in irons, till what he foretold came to pass, till the word of the Lord proved him true. The king sent and released him, the ruler of all people set him free. He made him master of his household, ruler over all he possessed, to instruct his princes as he pleased and teach his elders wisdom. Lord, we see a testimony here of your providence in action regarding Jacob and his family, whom you had promised that through Jacob you would make these many peoples the third child of promise. And then it appears that it all is lost because famine has struck the land and many, many people are dying. But you had prepared a way of salvation for them. You sent Joseph on ahead and you gave him favor in the eyes of Pharaoh. And you gave him an understanding of what you were going to do. And you gave him the wisdom to plan for what you were about to do. And through your work on Joseph's life, in his life, many, many peoples were saved. Lord, we thank you so much for being able to witness your hand at work, that there is nothing that is going on in our lives that is outside of what you have planned for us. We can trust that you will redeem it so that you are glorified. And we, your people, will rejoice that you are glorified. Our God wins. Lord, help us to rejoice even now as we see smaller examples of your providence at work. And help us to grow in our faith, even when our faith is being tested. Help us to grow in our faith and our trust in you. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Been a couple of weeks since we started this couplet of messages. And if you remember, two weeks ago, we looked at the family tree and we saw how we have Terah and Abraham, and through Hagar, Ishmael was born. And through Keterah, five other children were born, six other children were born, Midian and five others. And through Sarai, changed name to Sarah, came Isaac, married Rebekah, and through her came Jacob and Israel. and through Leah and Zilpah and Bilhah and Rachel came 12 sons and one daughter that we know of, Dinah. And there's a story there that's a pretty gruesome story as well. We asked the question two weeks ago about Benjamin. Was Benjamin alive when Joseph was taken prisoner and sold into slavery or was he dead? And the upshot of all the evidence that we looked at in the scriptures is that we don't know for sure. We looked at arguments and how some scriptures could argue for both interpretations. And now we're ready to go into the story itself. Get onto the Right slide, there we go. So we're in Genesis 37. And we'll pick up with a couple of verses that we ended with last time, starting in verse 18. When they saw Joseph from a distance, who was the they, his brothers, all except Benjamin. When they saw him from a distance and before he came close to them, they plotted against him to put him to death. They said to one another, here comes this dreamer. Now then come, let us kill him and throw him into one of the pits. And we will say a wild beast devoured him. Then let us see what becomes of his dreams. But Reuben heard this and rescued him out of their hands and said, let us not take his life. But Reuben kind of intervenes here. He at least convinces them, not let's kill him. And in their mind, they might be thinking something along the lines of, okay, he doesn't want us to kill him, but maybe he's okay with somebody else killing him. But Reuben's mind is something far different. Reuben's mind is, I'm gonna come back when they're off paying attention to the sheep and I'll sneak back and I'll get him out and stick him on home. And so Reuben further said to them, shed no blood, throw him into this pit that is in the wilderness, but don't lay hands on him. He might rescue, that he might rescue him out of their hands to restore him to his father. So while he is away waiting for the opportunity to come back and rescue his brother, his brothers had stripped Joseph of his tunic and took him and threw him into the pit. The pit was empty with no water in it, and they sat down to eat a meal. And as they raised their eyes and looked, behold, a caravan of Ishmaelites was coming from Gilead with their camels bearing aromatic gum and balm and urr on their way to bring them down to Egypt, and so Judah says to his brothers, and this is a key point here, Judah says to his brothers, what profit is it for us to kill our brother and cover up his blood? Come, let's sell him to the Ishmaelites and not lay our hands on him, for he's our brother and our own flesh, and his brothers listen to him. Let's not be the ones to kill him, let's let somebody else kill him. That way, there's no blood on our hands. Aren't we really good at trying to play off our guilt on other people? Adam, God, it was the woman you gave me. You gave me. You know, you bear some responsibility here, God. She bears responsibility, but I think I'm pretty clear on this. And Eve, it was the serpent We're so good at passing off our guilt to others and trying to find a way to get out from under punishment. For me, the story I told you sometime back about getting to go roller skating with the teenagers at our church, Holmdel Friends Community Church, and I was just a squirt. Playing outside, mom and dad had said, okay, you stay here in our yard. And I heard my friend down the alley saying, I just got a new skateboard, come and try it out with me. And we were having so much fun, me already falling many times off the stupid thing, I mean, off the skateboard. And got so engaged and caught up in that, that I completely forgot about the joy that had been set before me. God just made that connection in my heart and mind just now. There was this joy that had been set before me. Always the teenagers in the youth group, they would go and do stuff. And this was gonna be the first time that I would be allowed to participate with them. I was only six, six and a half years old. And to get to go with the youth group, that was a big deal. And for the joy that was set before me, I took my eyes off of it and disobeyed my mom and dad. But Jesus, for the joy that was set before him, willingly endured the suffering of the cross. Again, my heart is filled with thankfulness. So they're thinking, let's sell him. And Judah's brothers listened to Judah. And about that time, another caravan comes by. This time, some Midianite traders. Uncles. Cousins. That's one of the things that amazes me is how frequently we see brother against brother, cousin against cousin, father against son, son against father, etc. These cousins are coming by. And so the brothers pull Joseph up out of the pit and sell him to the Ishmaelites for 20 shekels of silver. And when Reuben returns, he is horror stricken. What happened to Joseph? And the brothers set the deception into motion. They've sold him. Now they take his coat that they had taken off of him and dip it into blood. Reuben returned to the pit and behold, Joseph was not in the pit. So he tore his garments. He grieved publicly. He returned to his brothers and said, the boy is not here. What am I going to do? And so they took Joseph's tunic and slaughtered a male goat and dipped the tunic in the blood. And they sent the very colored tunic and brought it to their father and said, We found this. Is this Joseph's? Notice who was silent during this planning. Reuben didn't say anything. He had been in a position to be able to say, I am free of the guilt of my brothers. But now by his silence, he's participating with them. And when this coat is brought to his father, in fact, even before that, he could have said, no, no, this is far worse than anything we could do. Let's not do this. Don't know what to do, but let's not do this. But he stayed silent. They took the coat to their father and their father jumps to conclusions. They didn't say anything but ask a question. That's all the serpent did, was ask a question. And Eve jumped to a conclusion. And Adam jumped to a conclusion when she offered the fruit to him. It didn't kill her. Or Dr. Creation Research Institute. Now I've lost his name. In his book, The Genesis Record, postulates another idea. Henry Morris postulates another idea where he says that it could be that Adam joined her in her sin so that she would not be punished alone as a foreshadowing of Jesus taking our suffering upon him. I don't know. I tend to lean the other way. But Jacob here looks at the jacket, looks at the coat, examines it and says, yes, this is Joseph's. A wild beast has devoured him. He doesn't ask the boys what happened. He doesn't ask, where did you find it? He doesn't ask anything about it. And he also doesn't examine the coat. Think about his conclusion, a wild beast has devoured him. What would have happened to his coat in the process? Ripped to shreds. Yeah. He's so macked, so surprised, so overwhelmed by the sight of his son's jacket with blood on it that he, His mind just locks up and he can't think enough to even think through, wait a minute, the evidence does not stack up to what they are implying or inferring. He just goes and runs with it. And then he grieves, he tore his clothes and put sackcloth on his loins and he mourned for his son for many days Interestingly, his ashes of grief would be later turned to the oil of gladness. When we get to Genesis 46.30, where he is reunited with his son, he hears Joseph is alive, and not only is he alive, he is the second ruler of Egypt, and he has food for our family so that we will not die. And so his ashes of grief are going to be turned in the oil of gladness, but he can't see that yet. He has no way of knowing what God is doing unless God reveals it to him, and God hasn't revealed it to him in very much detail, though he had revealed something to him. You and your wife and your sons are going to bow down to Joseph. And you remember what it said when Joseph had shared that dream with him? His brothers were jealous of Joseph. In verse 11 of chapter 37, his brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the saying in mind. It reminds me also of Mary, the mother of Jesus, keeping in mind all the things that the angel had said. And when she comes to the cross and Jesus is hanging on the cross and she's looking at this and saying, I know he's brought down many and he's raised up and he's brought salvation and he's brought healing and he's brought all these wonderful kinds of things. But how is the rest of it going to be fulfilled? He's dying on a cross. And I imagine In my mind, Jacob thinking, God said we were going to bow down before him. That must not have been from God. How could it be from God? Because Joseph is gone, Joseph is dead. Craig's saying, when there is no communication We have speculation, and speculation is almost always wrong. And Joseph begins to speculate, my son has died a gruesome death. So then we see the hypocrisy of the sons. All the sons and daughters come and they try to comfort him. Oh, dad, it's okay, he's gone now, he's not suffering now, it's all right. To use today's language, which may have been the same language they would have used, he's in a better place now. Dad, don't worry about it. Something good is going to happen out of this. Trying to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted and instead said, surely I am going to go down to Sheol in mourning for my son. And then the story gives us a summary statement of what has happened so far while Jacob is grieving for Joseph, something else is happening to Joseph. The Midianites take him on into Egypt and sell him in Egypt to a man named Potiphar. Potiphar is It says here he is Pharaoh's officer, the captain of the bodyguard. The word used for officer there is literally Pharaoh's eunuch. That's what happened when kings wanted their top, closest people to be faithful to them. They took away one of the key motives for rebelling against him and made him a eunuch. He is also the captain of Pharaoh's bodyguard. The word captain there can mean prince, it can mean leader, it can mean officer, it can mean captain. One of the translations of this is one of the guys that goes out and kills the food, guts the food, prepares the food, and serves the food. It can also mean executioner. It can also mean his bodyguard, his guardsman. And in this case, all four meanings are potentially there, which may lend some insight into his wife's desire for Joseph. We don't know. Then we have this interlude, this surprising interlude. And the interlude focuses on Judah. Remember, it was Judah who said, let's not kill him then, let's sell him. And he's the one who comes up with the idea. Now, oh, there's one other thing I should, no, I'll tell you later. I'll tell you later. Judah and his sons, Judah moves to a place called Adullam, or Adullam, and meets up there with a guy named Hira, or some translate it Hiram, and he sees there a daughter of one of the Canaanites whose name is Shua, and he's thinking there's something going on in him that is thinking, I can't do it the way mom and dad did it. Remember, grandpa had a servant sent off to find a wife for him, and Rebecca was brought back to marry his grandfather. Jacob was sent to the same relatives, and he came back with two wives and two concubines. And there's something here, some commentators speculate that he knew he was so far out of favor with his father that he took this on himself instead of asking his father for a wife. Some speculate that he was thinking, I can't go back to the family because when Jacob left there, it was not on good terms. And in fact, they had made this treaty there of, you don't come any further my direction and I won't come any further your direction. We will keep our eyes on each other so that we don't break this treaty. And so I can't go back there. What am I going to do? I want to marry. We don't know for sure what his motives are, but we do know this, that his eyes directed his life. He saw this woman, Canaanite woman named Shua, took her in and went into her and she conceived and bore a son named him Ur. in English that's kind of like named him, I don't know, what should I name him? I don't know what it is in Hebrew. Then she conceived again and bore a son and named him Onan. And she bore still another son and named him Shelah. And it was at Chezeb that she bore him. And so by now he's moved on from Adalom to Chezeb, I should say. And he's moving further and further away from his family, not a great distance, a total of maybe 10 to 12 miles, but a separation there. He goes on to, let me see here. It tells us here that Ur, verse seven, Judas firstborn was evil in the sight of the Lord, so the Lord took his life. It doesn't tell us what the evil was. There's a lot of speculation about that. Was the evil simply that he refused or refused to fulfill the marriage obligations to Tamar, whom Judah had given to him? It doesn't tell us whether there was something more. I happen to believe that that was a part of it, but there was something more, and that's reflected in God's statement to Abraham, you're going to go down into Egypt because the sin of this land is not yet full, and that he was a full and willing participant in the sin of this land. Somewhere in there, God has judged him as evil, as wicked. The Bible tells us that God's judgments are always true. They're righteous. They're altogether faithful and true. And so we can have this confidence that what Er did in his life was evil before the Lord, and whether it was the culmination, and then the time comes when he's going to come into the line of Christ. Because remember, Tamar is in the line of Christ. And so he stops it there. Whatever it is, he had done evil in the eyes of the Lord. So the Lord took his life. And so Judah says to Onan, go into your brother's wife and perform your duty as a brother-in-law to her and raise up offspring for your brother. What he's asking him to do is to follow a customary law that was common in many of the nations, many of the cultures in the Middle East, if not around the world, and it was called the Leverate Law. The Leverate Law was when a woman dies before having a baby for her husband, that the next younger brother-in-law is to come in and fulfill the duty of giving her a son so that the family line of the first son would not die out. When we were looking with Dr. Nathaniel Jensen at DNA studies, he said one of the problems that we have in looking back at previous populations is many times the family lines died out. And so that line was cut off from history. And so we're missing information that we can't get until we have a wider pool to draw from. But here in this case, the line is cut off. Judah has promised his older son to Tamar so that the line of Judah might be carried on and it's gone. So Judah says, I want that line to continue. Younger brother, take her as your wife. Younger brother refuses. Onan knew that the offspring would not be his. So when he went into his brother's wife, he wasted his seed on the ground in order not to give offspring to his brother. What he did was displeasing in the sight of the Lord, so the Lord took his life also." Man, that is so Old Testament. God taking the life of people. But there's something very eternal about this. Sin must be judged. A loving God must judge sin. It would not be loving to forgive the sin here without some sort of recompense to the victim of the sin. And so a judge who would say, it's not so bad that you murdered that family and three other neighbors that came to see what was going on. And because the state just wants you to know that we love you, we're gonna call this a mistrial, you're free to go. And we would all look at that and say, what a wicked judge. God judges unholiness. Not because he is capricious. Not because he's vindictive. Not because he changed his mind about whether he loved his creation or not. You say, but that is so Old Testament. That doesn't happen in the New Testament. That's one of the places where people who want to deconstruct their faith say, the God of the Old Testament isn't the God of the New Testament. And so we can disregard the Old Testament. except for one problem. It happens in the New Testament too. Do you remember when the church, the people in the church, culminated by the giving and maybe prompted by the giving of Barnabas, the son of encouragement, were bringing gifts, they'd selling land that they didn't really need and bringing the proceeds and laying it at the apostles feet in order to distribute to the many thousands of immigrant people who had stayed after the Passover and stayed after the Pentecost, whose homes and livelihoods were in countries scattered all around the world, and they had come for Passover, heard about Jesus, believed, and stayed. How are you going to feed all these people? How are you going to house all these people? And so the New Testament tells us that what happened was that the church, the Jewish believers who belonged there, who had their livelihoods and property there, they were selling things off and bringing it in and laying it at the disciples, the apostles' feet, so that these other people could be taken care of. And Ananias and Sapphira saw this and said, wow, look at how they elevated Barnabas. And all these other people, when they bring money in and they set it in Rwanda, when they take the offering, they bring out about a four foot by four foot blanket. and set it in front of the pulpit in the aisle and people come up and they drop their offering into the blanket and everybody sees what everybody else gives. And when somebody drops in a bunch, you just feel this go through the congregation. And I can just see Ananias and Sapphira saying, I want some of that. And they come and they sell the property and say, oh, this is a lot of money. Can't we keep some of this for ourselves? Yeah, how much could we take and make it still look like we actually sold the property? And so they set some aside and they bring the rest and they put it on the floor in front of the apostles and Ananias does this and Peter says to him, how come you're lying to the Holy Spirit? And he dies right there. Why? The Bible gives us a hint when it says that the church was well thought of by everybody. And so you had people coming in and participating, but not being believers. And they're coming in and they're getting all of the benefits, it looks like, of being a part of this group that is so well thought of. And yeah, I go to that church too. And God says, no, no, no, no, no, that's not the way it works. The church belongs to those who are saved, who have yielded their lives to Jesus. Ananias is taken out and buried, and he comes back after the young men come back after the burial. And about that time, Sapphira walks in and Peter says, did you and Ananias sell some property? Yeah. And you gave it all? Oh, yeah. The feet of the men who buried your husband are right here. They're going to bury you too. Why? So that the world would know that God is the Lord and that He is holy and righteous. It says, great fear came upon all of the people. It was like, I don't go to that church, no. God kills people in that church, I don't go there. And yet, even in the midst of that, there were those who were saying, it really is true. It really is true. And God kept adding to their numbers day by day, those who were being saved. His act of a righteous judgment in that case scared away the unbelievers and drew those whom God's Spirit had been working in to Jesus. So here we have Onan doing evil in the eyes of the Lord and God taking his life. Why? Partly to protect the line of the Messiah. partly to say that in this family, sin will be judged. You know, I can imagine Judah's thoughts. If I were him, this is what I would think. God's paying me back. God is taking my sons because I had a part in taking my father's son. And you can see in his actions throughout the rest of the story, you can see that the burden of what he has participated in weighs heavily upon him. And we'll see that played out when we get to Benjamin needing to go down to Egypt at Joseph's command. and Judah's response to Joseph when he says to Benjamin, you stay here, brothers, you go back. So, Onan also did evil in the eyes of the Lord, and Judah now is refusing to give his other son. I've lost two of my three sons. I don't want to lose all three of them. And so he withholds his youngest son from Tamar against what he has promised to do. He promised marriage to Tamar to one of his sons. And now he is saying to her, remain a widow in your father's house until my son Shele grows up. For he thought, I am afraid that he too may die like his brothers. So Tamar went and lived in her father's house in a position of disfavor. I gave you to him, there must be something wrong with you that he has not had you in his family and you have not born children to this man I gave you to. A woman without a husband in those cultures has no source of living unless her family takes her in. And everyone who looks at her, who knows the story, would probably look at her like, hmm, I wonder what you did wrong. Maybe I shouldn't be your friend anymore, lest it rub off on me. These cultures were very superstitious and very spiritual, but not at all godly. So he is refusing to her the rights of the Levirate. And the story goes on when Judah's grief period is over, an acceptable amount of time, he goes to Temna to check on his sheep and the sheep shearing that's going on. And Tamar figures out a way to fulfill Judah's promise to her even though Judah refuses to fulfill his promise to her. She figures out a way to allow for the family line of Judah to continue. And she goes and she takes off her grieving clothes, removed her widow garments, verse 14, covered herself with a veil and wrapped herself and set herself in the gateway of Aniim, which is on the road to Timnah. For she saw that Shelah had grown up and she had not been given to him as a wife. When Judah saw her, she thought she was a harlot, for she had covered her face. So he turned aside to her by the road and said, here, let me come in to you. Now in the English, it's translated harlot in several places here, but the word is one set aside as in temple prostitute. not a common harlot. She's not dressing up as a common woman who is an adulterous woman. She is dressing up in a way that is an acceptable way of life in that culture. And in fact, it is expected of every woman in the culture that at some time in your life, you will spend time as a temple prostitute. We look at that and we think, how in the world could you do that? And yet that was a part of their worship. And so she disguises herself as if she is a temple prostitute, and Judah thinks, well, I can go in. My wife has died, there's nothing keeping me from this now. It might even look good to the other people that I'm accepting of their lifestyles, that I'm okay with what they want to believe and what they want to do. It might even be that he is hungry. I suspect that's the greatest motivation and the rest of them are justifications for that motivation. So she asks him, How do I know that you'll pay me for my services of worship to our gods? He says, I'll send you a young goat from the flock. Okay, that sounds good. Contract. How are you going to seal this deal? I want to know that you're actually going to do this. So he says, She says to him, give me the pledge of your seal and your cord and your staff that is in your hand. That is all of the signs of his position in the family. And she says, give me everything that says you have any authority, any rights as a leader, everything that would identify you, give it to me. And he gives all of it to her. and she conceived by him. And then she arose and departed and removed her veil and put her widow's garments back on." Now, a couple months later, People notice, well, actually before that happens, Judah sends the goat with a couple of his servants. He doesn't go himself to reclaim his stuff. He sends it with the servant, trying now to hide his own participation in this, and they can't find her. And so they ask around. Judah asks the men of the place, where's the temple prostitute who was by the road to Nain? And they say, There's no temple prostitute there. There's never been a temple prostitute there. We don't have temple prostitutes in that location. And so Judah says in verse 23, let her keep these things, otherwise we will become a laughingstock. After all, I sent this young goat, but you did not find her. Notice when we have been caught in our sin, We try anything to cover it up, even to the point of turning away from it and leaving it behind and saying, that was somebody else's doing, that wasn't me. But she has the evidence. She has his most important physical objects in her possession. About three months later, Judah is informed Your daughter-in-law Tamar has played the harlot. She's with child by harlotry. And so Judah says, bring her out and let her be burned. Put her to death by fire. And it was while she was being brought out that she sent to her father-in-law saying, I am with child by the man to whom these things belong. Please examine and see whose signet ring and cords and staff are these. Now the lie has been exposed. Judah recognizes himself. Remember, David goes for a year after taking Bathsheba, killing her husband. A year goes by. And in his discomfort, you know what it's like to have a sin weighing on you? And in his discomfort, Nathan is sent by God to come to him and he says, tells him the story of the little ewe goat, ewe sheep, and how it's taken by the rich man and leaves the poor man with nothing. And David said, that man should die. And Nathan says, you are that man. And you remember what David's response was? immediate repentance and confession. That's what Judah does here. This is one of the things that tells us God's not finished with him yet. Judah sees the articles, recognizes them, and says, she is more righteous than I. as I did not give her to my son. He didn't put her to death, but it goes on and says he didn't live with her in husband and wife relationship. He can't live with her in husband and wife relationship. She is the wife of his sons. And he can't live with her in that relationship. But he does take care of her and bring her into the family Her children are recognized as children of Judah. And as they're being born, one of them, kind of in a familiar sounding story, one of them in the birth, they find out it's twins and one sticks his arm out and they wrap a marker around the arm so that they can tell the twins apart when they're born. The arm goes back in and the other one comes out, and then this one is born. The one who breached the birth canal, stuck his arm out, they call Perez. The other one they named Zerah. Let me see if I... Yeah. Remember Perez is listed in the family lines of those who came out of Egypt with the Exodus. He's also listed in Matthew chapter one. I can get to it here. The record of the genealogy of Jesus, the son of David, the son of Abraham. Abraham was the father of Isaac. Isaac, the father of Jacob. Jacob, the father of, not Reuben, Judah and his brothers. Judah was the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar. Perez was the father of Hezron, and Hezron the father of Ram, and on down until we get to Salmon, and Boaz, and Rahab. We see the line of God's Messiah being preserved here. Tamar included in the line of Jesus through Judah. And Tamar's not listed as being sinful in this matter. The Bible doesn't call her out on the sin of deceiving Judah. And think of a few reasons why maybe it doesn't. One would be that Judah had made a vow to give her to his son in marriage. Son dies, second son dies, third son grows up and Judah withholds him. And it appears that Tamar is trying to get Judah to fulfill his word, to continue his family line through her. It's not a way that we would look at and say, this is a good thing. Jacob had given Reuben's right of the firstborn to Judah, or he is going to give that right to Judah. Reuben had done a couple of things that forfeited that right to the firstborn. One, at some point in this timeframe, he went into Jacob's handmaid, Rachel's handmaid, and laid with her. And the Bible tells us in chapter 35 that Jacob did nothing. And it would be like one of those things of, I don't want to make a bigger scandal. We call it passive aggressive today. I'm not going to do something to him now. I'll do something to him later. See if he comes and repents. See if he has any remorse for it. And Reuben does save Joseph's life. but then he participates in the lie to their father. So when we get to chapter 49, Judah says, Reuben, you are my firstborn. You are the strength of my loins. You are like a wild animal, but you will not receive the inheritance. because you went up to your father's bed and defiled it. You went up to my couch with my wife and defiled it. Judah, verse 10 of chapter 49, the scepter shall not depart from you, nor the ruler's staff from between your feet until Messiah comes, until Shiloh comes, the promised one, and to him shall be the obedience of all peoples. This story is just, there are a few stories in the Bible that are just gruesome, that are just awful. And God records them for us to help us to see a couple of things. One, we think we are good. Jesus answered correctly when he said, there's only one who is good, and that is God. We think we are good. And these stories like this just remind us if we had opportunity and we thought we could get away with it, there are things that we would do. How do we know that? Because we think about them in the back of our mind. Maybe it's just in our dreams. Maybe it's just we start to think about it and then we force our mind away from it. Maybe we just dream sometimes. I used to, as a child, dream about the perfect murder. Murder is well within my grasp. Have any of you ever been angry enough with somebody you just wished they wouldn't be anymore? Murder is well within your grasp too. And the Bible tells us God does not save us because we are good. God saves us because He is full of grace. He is full of mercy. He is full of love. He is full of righteousness. He is full of justice. He is full of holiness. He is full of gentleness. He is full of perfection. He is not dependent upon us for anything. That's one reason the story is in there to remind us that he is God and we are not. Another reason is to remind us that he is able to show mercy on whom he will show mercy. He showed mercy on Tamar. He showed mercy on Perez. And we see later that he shows mercy even on Judah. God will show mercy on whom he will show mercy. Mike, we've gone far enough for today. Father in heaven, help us to remember that you are the faithful one. You are the one that though we would sin and appear to foul up your plans, yet you are the God who says what will be and who brings it about. And as bad as my mistakes are, you will still accomplish your will. So Lord, I just pray that you would encourage us today to know that we are in your hands and you will finish what you've begun in us so that you get the glory And we get the enjoyment of praising you for the demonstration of your majesty and your grace and your mercy. In Jesus name I pray. Amen.