Well, for one chapter, we leave
Joseph in Egypt and Moses is led to devote all of these verses
to Judah and his family. These 30 verses have to do with
Judah and his family and his offspring. And it's very interesting
that with none of the other sons of Jacob is this true. In fact,
with most of them, we know very little about their posterity,
who they married, who their children were. We have very little information
on those things. And yet, the Spirit of God determined
that a good portion of the book of Genesis, that is all 30 verses
of this particular chapter, would be devoted to Judah. Now there's
a reason for that. Because our Lord Jesus, the scripture
says, he sprang forth from the tribe of Judah. So Judah is very,
very important. Now Judah did a very foolish
thing. And we see that right from the
beginning of the chapter. It came to pass at that time
that Judah, whose name means, I will praise the Lord, he didn't
live up to that name. He did not live up to that name,
but he went down from his brethren. He left. He left his father. He left his brethren. He left
where they worshipped. Joseph is now gone. He's been
taken into captivity. And now Judah decides he's going
to go out on his own. And going out on his own, he
goes among the people who are idolaters. This is a man that
God has ordained that he would be in the lineage of the Son
of God. We read in Hebrews chapter 7
when the apostle Paul, if indeed he wrote the book of Hebrews,
and I suppose he did, it really doesn't matter, it's the Holy
Spirit who wrote it, but we find that when Paul is writing, the
Spirit of God is writing about the high priesthood of our Lord
Jesus Christ, it says that he didn't come forth from the tribe
of Levi, He came forth from the tribe of Judah. Judah was not
the priestly tribe. Judah was the royal tribe. Judah
was the kingly tribe. While on their banner there was
a lion. This is the brave, the royal
Judah. and His posterity now that is
being unfolded before us, but He's acting absolutely opposite
to the meaning of His name. And He reveals to us, if there
were ever any doubt, that He's just a sinner. He's a sinner. Now, our Lord indeed did come
through Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah. and go right down the
line to David, and then all the way down the line to our Lord
Jesus. This shows that our Savior, though
he was of the lineage of Judah, he was not affected with the
iniquity or the sinfulness of that lineage. It has no effect
on him. Because though he is in the lineage
of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Judah, He was born by the incorruptible
seed of the Holy Ghost. And yet, our Lord was pleased
to be associated with the name of Judah. And as you read through chapter
38, you say, well, this is just a wretched man. This is horrible. This is horrible. I mean, he
solicited a prostitute. And he had a child by her. You say, how could this man ever
be attached, or how could our Savior ever be attached to a
man who was a sinner? This is our Lord's glory. That's
what you've got to see. This is His glory. You see, our Lord, when He was
born, He was born of a mother who was herself a sinner. She
said, My soul doth rejoice in God my Savior. Well, who needs
a Savior except a sinner? So His mother was a sinner. And
then during his lifetime, he associated with sinners. In fact,
the Pharisees said of him, this man, he's the friend of publicans
and sinners. In Luke chapter 19, when our
Lord went home with Zacchaeus, they said, this man, this man
has gone home to be with a man who's a sinner. But that's his
glory. That's His glory. And when our
Lord Jesus, when He hung on a cross to lay down His life, to give
up His life to save His people, He associated with sinful men
on both sides, two convicted felons. And one of them was one of His
elect. You see, there is no shame put
upon the Savior because He's of the lineage of this man. There's
no shame there. There's only glory there. Because
only the Lord Jesus, only the Savior would Himself stoop down
to be associated with people who were vile and wicked and
wretched and not only them, but us. Us. You know what the scripture
says? He's not ashamed to call us brethren. Us. Us. Yeah. Because this is a faithful
saying. and worthy of all acceptation."
Well, what is it, Paul, that Christ Jesus came into the world
to save sinners? Of whom, he said, I'm chief. So, right from the outset, we
need to understand that Judah was one of the Lord's elect ones.
He's appointed unto salvation. He's an heir of grace. Grace
was given him in Christ before the world began. He had been
chosen in old eternity. And our Lord wasn't ashamed to
be identified as coming out of the tribe of Judah. Judah does a very foolish thing. He joins up with a group of people
who were idolaters. They worshiped various gods and
goddesses. Oh, how contrary that was to
that which he had been taught from his earliest childhood.
He had been instructed in the things of God. That's how he
grew up. He didn't grow up under idolatry,
under false religion, none of that junk. He grew up with a
father, a grandfather who knew the gospel of God's grace, who
knew that the seed of the woman was coming. He knew the seed
of Abraham was one man, the God-man. He knew that. He knew those things
in his mind. And he rebelled. and left home
and left all of that he thought behind. He was done with it. And he is a picture to each of
us of our own sinfulness. For all have sinned and come
short of the glory of God. And when we go to talking about
Judah some of the things that he did here, especially revealed
in this chapter. We've got to be careful about
throwing stones at him, lest we have to be stoned ourselves. Because maybe and hopefully we
haven't done some of the things that he did literally. But you
see, our hearts are a cesspool of iniquity. And all of these
things, and if they don't come out, if they don't come out,
it isn't because they're not in there. It's because God restrained
you. He kept you. With men, I'll tell
you, a young man came to me one time and he said, he said, I
have lustful thoughts. He said, I don't know what to
do. I said, well, number one, don't give in to them. And I
said, ask God this, Lord, when I have the desire, keep me from
the opportunity. And when I have the opportunity,
keep me from the desire. That's all you can pray. Because
let me tell you something, and you know that's true, and I'm
just being honest with you, and you know, you know to a degree
your own depravity, and you do too, those of you out there watching.
Anything that any other son or daughter of Adam has ever done,
you and me, we're capable of doing. We have that capability. So I've never done anything like
this. Well, don't pat yourself on the
back too hard. If you haven't brought embarrassment
and shame to your family, it's not because of goodness in you.
Because I'm going to tell you something. There is no goodness
in you. There isn't. There never was. There never will be in you as
a result of yourself. You're made the righteousness
of God in Christ Jesus. You're only good in the Savior.
And He's the one who has kept us from bringing embarrassment
and shame to our families. Well, Judah made some serious
mistakes. He chose a pagan for a friend. Be careful who you pal around
with. Oh, this man Ahira. He was an enemy of the gospel. I know you have acquaintances
and you have various relationships, work relationships, business
relationships with people who don't love the gospel. But be
careful, don't cultivate that into a deep friendship. Because
it's very rare that the good apple helps the bad apple to
get better. That just don't happen. You hang around with a bad apple, you'll be bad. You'll be worse
than you are. He chose a pagan for his friend,
and then he chose a heathen woman to be his wife. A heathen woman. Oh, let's be careful with our
relationships. Try to hang around with people,
young people or older people, who love the gospel. People who
will nurture you in the faith and not pull you away. Pull you
away. So he married a heathen woman,
had three sons. First one got married, married
Tamar and then I don't know what he did but God killed him. The Lord said to Judah, tell
your second son Onan. And this became a law as a result
of the law that God gave to Moses, that if your brother died and
didn't have an heir and didn't have a son, then the next one
would bear a child by his wife, by the dead brother's wife, then
raise up a seed in his name. Just the first one now. And then
the rest of the children would be his own seed. Well, Oldman
said, I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to raise up seed
to my brother. That's not for me. And ultimately,
and listen to this carefully, here's what he did. He, by his actions, he refused
to identify with that one who would be the Messiah. He wanted
nothing to do with that. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah. Who's going to be the next? And
he said, I don't want anything to do with the Son of God. I
don't want anything to do with the Christ that they're talking
about. God said, I'm going to kill you
for that. Now you hear me. If your attitude is, I don't
want to have anything to do with the Son of God. If you want to
follow Him, if you want to believe Him, if you want to bow to Him,
if you want to worship Him, you go ahead, but that's not for
me. That's not for me. God will flat put you into hell.
There's no doubt about it. Odom, he found out the God of
the Bible don't play games with anybody. And you turn thumbs
down on His only begotten Son, God will turn thumbs down on
you. That will be the end of you.
So He's just erased. He's gone. He's gone. And as we know, in time, of course,
Judah's third son wasn't old enough to get married, but he
wasn't going to give his son to be married anyway. Not that
third son. He said, I don't want him to die too. So in time, Judah's wife died. And I read the story to you.
He was comforted. Then he decided he'd take a little
vacation. I'm going to get out of town
for a while. Got to clear my head. Need to get away. And this woman, Tamar, she heard
where he is at. And she was more righteous than
Judah was because she wanted to be associated with the promised
seed. See, that's why Judah said, she's
more righteous than I was. She saw more, she understood
more than I understood. She had a depth of knowledge,
a depth of understanding that I didn't have. That's what Judas
says. And in that he confessed his
own sinfulness. He said, she's more righteous
than I am. Listen, she had committed incest. And he had hired a harlot. Both
of them are ungodly. But one of them, by the grace
of God, said, I'm going to do whatever it takes to be in the
lineage of the Son of God. And she got what she wanted.
She's in the lineage. Nobody can ever take that away
from her. Here, I see several things. And
of course, she has two sons by Judah, and one of them is Perez. I see several things. Number
one, I'll give them to you quick. I see God's election. You know,
divine election, and we don't need to be schooled on this because
we know this. It's a matter of pure, free,
sovereign grace. Judah, he was an object of the
sovereign love of God. There was nothing good about
him. Nothing good about you. Nothing noble about him. Nothing
noble about you. Nothing righteous about this
man by nature, nothing righteous about you by nature. And every
choice Judah made was a wretched choice. Well, that's the way
it is with a natural man. He doesn't seek God. He's not
looking for righteousness. He's not looking for a Savior.
I'll tell you something about Judah. He was no better than
his three sons. What we just say is His sons
were just like Him. But there's no record that God
did anything for His three sons. But God did something for Judah.
That's sovereign grace. It don't run in our bloodline.
You're not born of blood. You're born of God. You're not born because somebody
wants you to come to Christ. You're not born again because
of man's will. You're born again by God Himself,
by the will of God. That's what the Scripture says. Judah was no better than his
three sons. Why, they're just three acorns
that fell from the tree and growing up just like their dad. I don't
know what happened to the third one, but I know what happened
to the first two. They perished. They perished. Well, why not
Judah? Man, look what he did. What kind
of life did he live? A wretched life, but God loved
him. Christ's gonna die for him. And the Spirit of God, I believe,
in this passage toward the end of the chapter is dealing with
him. God's going to have him. God says, you're mine. You're
mine. And you see, those who belong to
the Lord, He reels us in in His time. We'll be brought to Him by effectual
grace. whenever He's pleased to draw
us. I see God's election. I see God's purpose. I see the
unchangeableness of the purpose of God. You see, our Lord, He
ordained that His Son would come into this world through the lineage
of Judah. Nothing's going to change that.
Nothing's going to change the purpose of God, frustrate His
purpose, As He ordained things, so they
shall be." Judah is going to have a son.
He's going to have a son who will carry on the lineage of
Messiah. And the mother of that son is
a sinful woman herself. A Gentile woman. but I'll show you in a couple
of minutes. She's in the lineage. Her name's written in the Lamb's
Book of Life first, and it's written in this book too. And see God's, not only God's
election of Judah and God's providence and all of this, see God's purpose
at work. Who could have arranged this
except God? As you read this, you say, boy,
Jim, this is almost, it's hardly fit to be read in a mixed congregation. I mean, this is, you're talking
about spilling seed on the ground? I just assume you didn't read
that part. Well, it's in the Word of God. There's a man who didn't want
to have anything to do with the promise of the Lord concerning
the seed of Abraham. And he said, that's not for me.
God said, well, I'll kill you. But get this, it wasn't ordained
that Aaron be the father of the seed anyhow. Isn't that something? Are you talking about God's mysterious
providence and purpose at work? No, he wasn't a man anyway, but
here's his responsibility. I don't want anything to do with
the Messiah. Okay, that's it for you. But
that didn't frustrate God, because he already had a purpose what
he's gonna do. And Judah's gonna have a son. He's gonna have a son by Tamar. And that son will be in the lineage
of the Savior. Let me give you two passages.
First of all, Ruth chapter four. Ruth chapter four. You know the story of Ruth. What a beautiful story it is. with Boaz being the kinsman redeemer,
typical of our Savior. He's kin to Naomi and therefore
Ruth, and he bought back everything that they lost. I tell you, our
Lord Jesus, He restored that which He took not away. Everything
that we lost in Adam, Christ Jesus, He has brought back for
us and infinitely more. and he did it by his substitutionary
sacrifice on the cross. So here we are hundreds of years
in the future from the story in Genesis 38. And so we read verse 11, chapter four, and all
the people They were in the gate, and the elders, Ruth 411, and
the elders said, We are witnesses. The Lord make the woman that
is come into thine house like Rachel and like Leah, which too
did build the house of Israel, and do thou worthily in Ephrathah. and famous in Bethlehem. And
let thy house be like the house of Phares, whom Tamar bear unto
Judah, of the seed which the Lord shall give thee of this
young woman." You can say what you want to
about Judah and about Tamar. and about their offspring, pharaohs. But the blessing of God is in
that lineage. Sinners. I wish I'd get a hold of us. Our Lord saved sinners. He came
to seek and to save that which was lost. And then look in Matthew
chapter 1. I'll give you this and I'll quit.
Matthew 1. Verse 1. The book of the generation of
Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. Here we go. Abraham begat Isaac, and Isaac
begat Jacob, And Jacob begat Judas, or Judah, and his brethren. The rest of them aren't even
named, just his brethren. Because the one that God had
the interest in and the love for was Judah, who was in the
lineage. He begat Judah and his brethren,
and Judah begat Phares and Zerah. of Tamar. It's Thamar there,
but it's Tamar. And Phares begat Esram, and Esram
begat Aram. And you keep on going down and
going down. And you finally get down to verse
16. And Jacob, this is a later Jacob, of course, begat Joseph,
the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called
Christ. I want to be associated with
the Lord Jesus Christ, don't you? I want to be numbered as
one of His followers. And I'm like Tamar. I want to
get in on this. Well, how do you get in on it?
Well, it's according to the purpose of God. And I'll tell you this,
here's our responsibility to believe Him. Believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. Oh, may God give you faith. It's a gift, isn't it? Faith's
a gift. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
and thou shalt be saved and The other words to the Philippian
jailer were, and thy house. If your house believes, it'd
be saved too. And I'll tell you, all of you
and those who are watching, you believe on Christ, God says,
I'll save you. And really, if you come to believe
on Christ, you're already saved. You're saved in the everlasting
purpose of God.