Well, good evening. If you would
open your Bibles with me to First Timothy, chapter one. First Timothy,
chapter one. I heard from Deb Sparks today. She said that next week, Lovi
is scheduled for her sixth esophagus dilation, which is the polite
way of saying she's having her throat stretched for the sixth
time. And hopefully after that, Those
doctors and her kidney doctors will okay her to have surgery
on the hernia that's in the lower part of the esophagus, causing
all this trouble for her. So we want to remember them in
prayer. And I went to the bedside of
Brother Cecil Thornberry this morning, and the time is short. And if you haven't been already,
it certainly is time that we pray that the Lord take him home
quickly. I thought about this driving
here this evening. I don't ever want for you to think
I'm overly serious. Maybe I am turning into a grouchy
old man, I don't know. But the effort is for your sakes
in this. I take this time. that we have
so seriously. I devote nearly every waking
moment to it from Sunday till tonight, getting ready to preach
a message of Christ to you. And I have absolutely no tolerance
for playing games with the gospel. Brother Henry used to say that
people treating this like a This and our sister church and our
association with folks is a poor man's country club for their
own benefit. I have no tolerance for it, and
I make no apologies for that. And it's for your sake, because
as Sheila and I were talking this morning, sooner or later,
if the Lord tarries, every one of us is gonna be laying where
Cecil's laying. And I'm thankful The Lord's kept
us here from playing those kinds of games, because if we had,
what good would that be doing our brother right now? You walk
into a home like that, there's a brother or sister on the precipice
of eternity, getting ready to be satisfied, because he's going
to open his eyes and see Christ. And there's a grieving family. What good playing games have
done any of them? or you, or me, when we find ourselves
in that situation. And I say all that to say, bear
with my grumpiness sometimes. It's an honest effort, at any
rate, for our good. For what it's worth. 1 Timothy
chapter 1. And I thank Christ Jesus our
Lord. Or verse 12 of 1 Timothy chapter 1. I thank Christ Jesus,
our Lord, who hath enabled me, for that he counted me faithful,
putting me into the ministry, who was before a blasphemer and
a persecutor and injurious. But I obtained mercy, because
I did it ignorantly in unbelief, and the grace of our Lord was
exceeding abundant, with faith and love, which is in Christ
Jesus. This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation.
This is worthy that every son of Adam believe. that Christ
Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief. We'll end our reading there.
Look with me, if you would, at Genesis chapter 38. This will
serve as our text this evening. Genesis chapter 38. And it came to pass at that time
that Judah went down from his brethren and turned into a certain
Adolamite whose name was Hiram. And Judah saw there a daughter
of a certain Canaanite whose name was Shewa. And he took her
and went in unto her, and she conceived and bare a son, and
he called his name Ur. And she conceived again and bare
a son, and she called his name Onan. And she yet again conceived
and bare a son, and called his name Shelah. And he was at Chezab
when she bared him. And Judah took a wife for Ur
his firstborn, whose name was Tamar. And Ur, Judah's firstborn,
was wicked in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord slew him.
And Judah said unto Onan, Go in unto thy brother's wife, and
marry her, and raise up seed to thy brother. And Onan knew
that the seed should not be his. And it came to pass, when he
went in unto his brother's wife, that he spilled it on the ground,
lest that he should give seed to his brother. And the thing
which he did displeased the Lord, wherefore he slew him also. Then
said Judah to Tamar, his daughter-in-law, remain a widow at thy father's
house, till Shelah, my son, be grown. For, he said, lest peradventure
he die also, as his brethren did. And Tamar went and dwelt
in her father's house. And in the process of time, the
daughter of Shewa, Judah's wife, died. And Judah was comforted,
and went up into his sheep shears to Timnah, he and his friend
Hira the Adolamite. And it was told Tamar, saying,
Behold, thy father-in-law goeth up to Timnath to shear a sheep.
And she put off her widow's garments from off her, and covered her
with a veil, and wrapped herself, and sat in an open place, which
is by the way to Timnath. For she saw that Shelah was grown,
and she was not given unto him to wife. When Judah saw her,
he thought her to be in harlot, because she had covered her face.
And he turned unto her by the way, and said, go to, I pray
thee, let me come in unto thee. For he knew not that she was
his daughter-in-law. And she said, what wilt thou
give me, that thou mayest come in unto me? And he said, I will
send thee a kid from the flock. And she said, wilt thou give
me a pledge, till thou send it? And he said, what pledge shall
I give thee? And she said, thy signet, and thy bracelets, and
thy staff that is in thine hand. And he gave it her and came in
under her and she conceived by him. And she arose and went away
and laid by her veil from her and put on the garments of her
widowhood. And Judah sent the kid by the hand of his friend,
the Adolamite to receive his pledge from the woman's hand,
but he found her not. Then he asked the men of the
place saying, where is the harlot that was openly by the wayside?
And they said, there was no harlot in this place. And he returned
to Judah and said, I cannot find her. And also the men of the
place said that there was no harlot in this place. And Judah
said, let her take it to her, lest we be ashamed. Behold, I
sent this kid and thou hast not found her. And it came to pass
about three months after that it was told Judah saying, Tamar,
thy daughter-in-law has played the harlot. And also behold,
she is with child by Hordan. And Judah said, bring her forth
and let her be burned. When she was brought forth, she
sent to her father-in-law, saying, by the man whose these are, am
I with child? And she said to Sirn, I pray
thee, whose are these, the signet, and the bracelet, and the staff?
And Judah recognized them, and said, she hath been more righteous
than I, because that I gave her not to Shelah, my son. So he
knew her again no more. Let's bow together in prayer. Our Father, which art in heaven,
holy and reverent is your matchless name. Father, we come carefully
and reverently into your awesome, holy presence. So thankful that
we can come before a throne of grace, crying Abba Father, pleading
the obedience, the righteousness, the blood, the person of our
Lord Jesus Christ. Father, how thankful you are
that you've said in your word that we're accepted in the beloved.
Not in what we've done or what we haven't done, but in Christ,
the beloved. We're so thankful. And Father,
we come before you pleading that one more time you'd bless your
word as it's preached to us. Bless the gospel of our Lord
Jesus Christ. Cause it to go forth in power
that, Father, you would use it to reveal to us one more time
the glory of Christ our Savior. And Father, I pray you cause
faith to be mixed in what we hear. Cause each heart here to
see the redemptive glory of Christ the Savior, wonder of wonders,
that by his obedience and by his sacrifice, he has made his
people to be perfectly righteous and perfectly holy. Father, cause
us to truly believe in him. and rest in him, he's finished
the work. Father, what we pray for ourselves,
we pray for your people, wherever they might be meeting together
right now, Father, bless your word where it's preached. In
this dark, dark day, Father, how we pray that you'd show us
your glory, that you'd cause a revival to spring out in the
land, that people might be called to Christ our Savior, faith and
love for him. And Father, we pray blessings
for your people that you brought into the time of trouble and
trial. We pray for Novi that you'd undertaken her behalf,
that you'd give the doctors and nurses the wisdom to restore
her to health and make her feel better. We pray for Haley that
you continue to strengthen and heal her. Father, we pray for
our brother Cecil, that you'd take him home quickly, deliver
him from this clay prison and this world of sin. Father, bring
him home quickly, we pray. All these things we ask, Father,
in that name which is above every name. In the name of Christ our
Savior, amen. Now our text tonight that I just
read is another one of these stories that we find seemingly
often in the book of Genesis that just make me blush when
I read them. I mean, the things that are discussed
in this chapter are just changing. And the book of Genesis has been
full of those kind of stories. And yet, one more time tonight,
we're gonna see again how God brings good out of evil. He gives
us a picture in this awful sordid tale of how it is God completely
saves sinners from their sin. I wanna know about that, don't
you? Now, I don't know all of the reasons, certainly, that
the Holy Spirit moved Moses to write this story. skipped over
it completely and all of this that happened would have been
hidden from us. But the Holy Spirit moved him to write this. And I'm sure that one of the
reasons that he exposes the wickedness of so many people throughout
the scripture is first of all, for our benefit. So we see our
sin. I mean, the nature of the people
that we read about here, that's our nature. And if we haven't
done the things that's in this chapter, I can tell you why.
God's kept us from it and that's the only reason. This is our
nature. This is our sin. We're just like them. And second,
I'm convinced that the Holy Spirit has moved the writers of scripture
to expose the wickedness of people in this way so that you and I
can see God's glory and how despite of this wickedness, God saves
his people still. He still saves them, even though
they're so wicked, it's just more than we can imagine, hardly.
God still completely saves real genuine sinners from all of their
sins, washes them white as snow. So I've titled the message tonight,
Tamar, A Type of the Redeemed. I have four points that I want
to use to paint this picture. Tamar is a picture of the redeemed. Number one is this, I want us
to see the wickedness. of our sin. Verse seven says,
in Ur, Judas firstborn was wicked in the sight of the Lord, and
the Lord slew him. And we don't know exactly what it was that
Ur did, but most everybody assumes this is some sort of spiritual
wickedness that he did. Because in other places throughout
scripture, it's spiritual wickedness that causes God to immediately
kill a person. I'll give you a few examples.
Nadab and Abihu, Aaron's sons. were killed instantly when they
offered strange incense before the Lord. And the Lord told Moses,
tell Aaron, don't you say a word about it. This was spiritual
wickedness that they did. Uzzah was killed. Remember they
were carrying the cart on the Ark of the Covenant on that cart
and the oxen stumbled. He reached up to keep the Ark
of the Covenant from falling into the mud. but you're not
allowed to touch the ark. You can't touch the ark. You
and I cannot go to God without a mediator. If we do, we'll die.
That's spiritual wickedness. God struck us dead that very
moment. King Uzziah was struck with leprosy.
It took a while apparently for him to die, but he was struck
all over his whole body immediately with leprosy because he went
to offer incense before the Lord. Now that's the job of the high
priest, never the king. He assumed the role of Christ,
the high priest, and God struck him with leprosy for it. So this
must have been some sort of spiritual wickedness. Spiritual wickedness hadn't departed
from the earth like this was only an Old Testament thing.
Spiritual wickedness, idolatry, trying to establish our own righteousness. Trying to be our own high priest.
Trying to represent our own selves to God because we don't think
that we need Christ to be our high priest. That's spiritual
wickedness. Alive and well in it. And that
kind of wickedness deserves instant and eternal damnation. What that
is, is trying to be our own high priest. Saying I don't need Christ
to be saved. I can do this on my own. That's
shaking our fists in the face of almighty God saying I don't
need your son. That's what that is. Now that's the wicked nature
that you and I are born with. And you and I will perish too,
unless God intervenes in grace. And Ur, I'm not picking on him,
because he's far from the only one being wicked in this story,
isn't he? His brother Onan refused to raise up a child to his brother's
name. That was the custom of the day,
you know, if an older brother died and didn't have children,
the younger brother would would marry the woman and the first
child would not be his child, would not be legally seen as
his child, be seen as his brother's. You know why Onan didn't want
to have a child with Tamar? He would take away from his inheritance. He'd have to share it with this
boy or this child, whoever it was, he didn't want to do it.
Just greedy, that's all it was to do, just greedy. And Lord
killed him for it. You and I share the same selfish
nature, don't we? We can understand being selfish.
We've got the same nature. And Judah, I mean, we expect
so much from Judah, don't we? Judah, the lion of the tribe
of Judah. Judah is the one the Messiah
is coming through. We expect so much from Judah. Judah was
wicked too. Look at verse 11. Then said Judah
to Tamar, after his two sons died, his daughter-in-law, remain
a widow at thy father's house, that Shelah, my son, be grown.
For he said, lest perventure, he die also. as his brethren
did. Tamar went and dwelt in her father's
house. It sure seems like Judah lied
to Tamar. He never intended for his third
son to marry this woman, because he didn't want him to die. I
mean, it's not fair and too well for men who marry Tamar, you
know, they end up dying. And Judah seems determined he's
gonna keep his last son as far away from Tamar as he could.
Now, when Tamar was married to Judah's sons, She was barren. Being married to those sons,
try as she might, she wanted children. She desperately wanted
children. I'll show you that in a minute.
But she couldn't give birth to a child. She couldn't conceive
life in her womb being married to Judah's sons. And that's given
to us as a picture of the law. No son of Adam can produce life
by our obedience to the law. We can't establish righteousness
by our obedience to the law. Sandy was telling me about a
that said, well now, God sent Jesus into the world, but he's
not God, he's just an example of how we're supposed to live,
and she and I were talking, I was like, what good did that do us?
We can't live up to the example. We can't be perfect, we can't
do that. Christ came as more than an example, didn't he? Christ came because you and I
can't keep the law. We can never establish righteousness
or life by our obedience to the law. All our efforts at keeping
the law can produce death. That's all it can produce, because
we're guilty. And Judah, he just wasn't gonna have his third son
marry Tamar. So it looked to Tamar like she's
never gonna have a child. And she wanted a child. She wanted
a child more than anything. But her solution to this problem
is evil. read what she did she went and
played the harlot so she could have a child with judah her father-in-law
and she's far from the only one being i mean it amuses me in
scripture when people there talk about adultery they only ever
bring the woman out right she wasn't acting this thing alone
judah was there too judah was was wicked in this thing too
this man went into a harlot and tamar's wicked plan that's a
wicked plan but it worked She conceived a child when she played
the harlot with her father-in-law. Now you know that's still a picture
of the law. There is nothing more wicked than for you and
me to try to establish our own righteousness by obeying the
law ourselves. There's nothing more wicked than
that. There's nothing more wicked than that because trying to establish
my own righteousness means I'm not submitting myself to the
righteousness of Christ. I'm saying I don't need Christ's
righteousness. I can do this on my own. The
father just wasted his time sending his son to this earth because
I don't need him. I can establish my own righteousness.
The father, not only did he waste his time, he's a monster when
he sacrificed his son for sin because I can take care of my
sin problem, my own self, thank you very much. Boy, you see how that draws the
anger of God Almighty? I'll tell you the sin. The damned
men and women, it's not lying, it's not cheating, it's not stealing,
it's not killing, it's not keeping the Sabbath day. The only sin,
the damned men and women, is the sin of self-righteousness.
Unbelief. It's the only sin. If you're
not trying to make your own self-righteous, if you see I can't make myself
righteous, I can't obey the law. I need mercy, I need grace. You
go to God and ask for forgiveness for Christ's sake, you ask for
mercy for Christ's sake, you'll receive it. You surely will.
But if you insist on coming to God in your own righteousness,
your own obedience, your own good works, trusting yourself
rather than trust Christ, you'll perish. That's exactly right. Now when you think of it in that
light, to the believer, now somebody that knows Christ, somebody that
trusts Christ, you by faith you've seen Him. You haven't seen Him
as clearly as you want to, but you've seen Him, haven't you?
And once you've seen Him, you see this, the sin of self-righteousness,
the sin of my self-righteousness, is more embarrassing than anything
in this story we just read. Isn't it? If you've seen Christ,
you see that, don't you? Now all of this is so wicked, Yet
the Lord is merciful anyway. The Lord saves vile, wretched,
guilty sinners. That's the only kind of sinners
he saved. They see themselves as vile and guilty and wretched. And you know why God still saves
those people? Gary, because where sin abounded,
grace did much more abound. That's exactly why. Salvation
is by God's grace and God's grace alone, pure grace. And it has to be that way, because
we're so wicked, the wickedness of sin. Second, I want us to see this.
God's purpose always comes to pass, always. Now it's God's
purpose that the Messiah come through Judah. He hadn't said
that yet, and as far as I know, not till Jacob blesses his sons,
but you and I know at this point, we know this. It was God's purpose
that the Messiah come through Judah. Judah had three sons. Now two of them are dead. He's
afraid the third one's gonna die. It doesn't look too good
for that third one if he marries Tamar, does it? I mean, the track
record here is not good. Well, if none of Judah's sons
had children, how will the Messiah ever come? How's that possible? If he's got to come through Judah,
but Judah doesn't have any sons that are producing sons, how
is this ever going to be possible that the Messiah come through
Judah? It looks to me like Judah's line is getting ready to end
with him, doesn't it? And Judah doesn't have any children,
doesn't have any grandchildren, great children, great, great,
then the Messiah will never come. Well, this is scary. Is God's
purpose going to fail? Is God gonna have to come up
with plan B because Judah messed this whole thing up? Of course
not. Of course not. God always brings
his purpose to us. Always. Now what Judah and Tamar did
is reprehensible. There's no excuse for what they
did. Tamar played the harp. She committed
incest with her father-in-law on purpose for money. Pretty
vile, isn't it? And Judah, Judah, the respected
family man, the respected leader in the community, he goes and
pays a harlot? Jan's grandmother would say,
I mean, it's just vile, isn't it? It's just, it's embarrassing.
And Judah and Tamar, they're responsible. They're responsible
for their sin. They're responsible for what
they did. They committed this sin of their own free will. And just in case you want to
know, this is where free will always leads. Our free will is
only free to act on what our nature is. Our free will will
always do this, sin. I mean, vile and wretched, and
it's their fault. Yet their actions accomplished
God's will. Now I can't fully explain all that. I just know
it's true. I stand amazed how God can do
that. He's done it time and time and
time again. The two most clear examples that
I can think of in scripture are these. Adam in the garden took
that fruit and he ate it, knowing exactly what he was doing. His
eyes were wide open. He did it in open rebellion against
God. It was Adam's free will choice.
See, Adam had a choice to make. Obey God or disobey God. What
was his free will? Disobey God. And Adam was fully
responsible for his sin. Adam suffered the consequences
of his sin. You and I suffer it today, don't
we? But, when Adam sinned, do you
know what he did? He accomplished the eternal will
of God Almighty. even though God's not the author
of sin. When Adam sinned, he opened the
way for salvation by God's grace that's in Christ Jesus. And that
was God's eternal purpose. The second example I think of
is the cross. At the cross, wicked men, Jew
and Gentile alike, did everything their wicked hearts wanted to
do. Now they did what they wanted to do because they chose to do
it. Nobody's forced them into it. Nobody was going through
the Old Testament scripture and say, okay boys, now you gotta
do this, now you gotta do this, now you gotta do this. By their
own free will choice, they did everything exactly like the Old
Testament scripture said they'd do. Now they did what they wanted
to do, and they're responsible for it. But when they did what
they wanted to do, I mean it's the most heinous crime ever committed
on the face of this planet. Yet in that heinous crime, you
know what they did? They accomplish God's eternal purpose to redeem
his people by the sacrifice and death of his son. See, man does
what he wants to do. But when he does, he always accomplishes
God's will. Always. Every event in creation
takes place because that is the eternal will of God. And that's
the only thing that can guarantee the redemption of sinners like
Tamar. Well, here's the third thing. In this story, we see what kind
of people it is that Christ came to save. Now think of Tamar as
in your family tree. After all of this, if you were
Tamar's mother, father, grandmother, grandfather, here's how I bet
you we'd handle this situation. We would just kind of bury her
name. We just won't really talk about
her. We won't really use her name much. And just hopefully
people will soon forget about Tamar. You know, the new cycle
will go around. People will have something else
to think about. As long as we don't keep her name out there,
people will forget about Tamar. And our family won't have to
bear the shame of what she did anymore. That's kind of how we
want to handle it, isn't it? I mean, we just, you know, let's
not use her name out there too much. We don't want to be associated
with her name. You know, she's bringing us all down here. Let's
just hope everybody forgets about old Tamar. You know, the Lord
didn't do that. He did not allow that to happen.
This is so interesting. I never thought about this until
I was looking up Tamar's name throughout scripture. When Boaz
proposed to Ruth, he's getting ready to marry Ruth. You know
what the women of that town said to Boaz and to Ruth? Ruth four, verse 12. Let thy
house be like the house of Phares, whom Tamar bear unto Judah. Now they bring up this at this
glorious event, Boaz, the kinsman redeemer and Ruth. They remembered Tamar. And you
know what they remembered about Tamar? Tamar and her sons were
blessed of God. They said, Boaz and Ruth, we
want you to be blessed of God the same way. You don't deserve
it any more than Tamar did. Our prayer to you is God bless
you because God's gracious. That's what they were saying.
Isn't that wonderful? That just chills up and down
my spine. Tamar was blessed for Christ's
sake. And nobody forgot her sin because
they said she bore this of Judah. They didn't forget her sin. We
shouldn't forget our sin either. Because you know why? Our sin is what magnifies God's
grace. I remember, we remember our sin.
We're ashamed of it. I mean, I don't want to brag
about it, but it's our sin that magnifies God's grace. As awful
as my sin is, God's grace still abounds over it. Still abounds
over it. Oh, my prayer for this sinner
is, God bless me like he blessed Tamar. All throughout scripture, the
Lord does not cover up the sin of his people. In 1 Chronicles
2, and it starts listing the genealogy of Jacob's sons, and
it gets to Judah. Talked about Judah and Tamar,
his daughter-in-law, Baraham, Pharaoh, and Zerah. All the sons
of Judah were five. He had the first three with his
wife and the last two with his daughter-in-law, and scripture
did not cover it up. They exposed his sins. So that,
not just to embarrass Judah, not to try to make us scared
of, you know, oh, well, I won't commit that sin, because we will.
The Lord exposes the sin of his people so that his glory in forgiving
their sin is exposed. And that, here's another one
of those contradictions you can only answer in a believer. Hearing
that will never make a believer say, well, I'm gonna sin more,
that God's grace may abound, that his glory, no, no, no, we're
not gonna say that. What I'm saying is this, our
sin is exposed so that God's glory and forgiveness is exposed. And then, when the Lord Jesus
was born, the Son of God, the Son of God, in human flesh was
born. And they listed his genealogy,
just like they listed genealogy of many of the Old Testament
fathers. The Holy Spirit, included the name Tamar in the genealogy
of the Savior. Now they only, usually only used
the father's names in these genealogies, these Jewish genealogies. But
in the genealogy of our Savior, there's five women listed. And number one is Tamar, who
played the harp. Number two is Rahab, who lived
as a harp. She was a harp. Number three
is Ruth, the idolater. Number four, her name is not
mentioned, but this event is mentioned, Bathsheba, who committed
adultery with David. And then there's Mary, the mother
of our Lord, who was a nobody. My friends, that's who Christ
came to save. You know, if you and I would list our genealogies,
We leave out the names of notorious sinners, and we leave out the
names of nobodies. They're not worth mentioning.
We want to list, in our genealogies, fine, outstanding people who
accomplished great things, but it came time to list the genealogy
of the Savior. He didn't do that. He listed
those who played the harlot, were a harlot, was an idolater,
committed adultery, and a nobody. And you know why he did that? He could have left Tamar's name
out. He could have left this whole sordid affair out of his
genealogy, but he didn't because the Lord is identifying himself
with Tamar. He was numbered with the transgressors. He identified himself with Tamar
because that's who he came to save. And the same thing's true
of the other four women. I hope, you can see yourself
as Tamar. Because if you can, the Lord
Jesus Christ came to save you. He came to have mercy on you. Because he came to save sinners.
Then here's the last thing. Here's a beautiful picture. How
it is that the Lord Jesus Christ saves his people. Now they're
sinners. God's got a purpose to save them.
He came to save them. He came to identify with them
and save them. And here's how he does it. Here's how he takes
them and makes them white as snow. Look at verse 13, we'll
read this again. And it was told Tamar saying,
behold, thy father-in-law goeth up to Timnath to shear sheep.
She put off her widow's garments from off her and covered her
with a veil and wrapped herself and sat in an open place, which
is by the way to Timnath. And she saw that Shelah was grown
and she was not given unto him to wife. And when Judah saw her,
he thought her to be a harlot because she had covered her face.
And he turned unto her by the way and said, go to, I pray thee,
let me come in unto thee. For he knew not that she was
his daughter-in-law. And she said, what wilt thou give me
that thou mayest come in unto me? And he said, I will send
thee a kid from the flock. And she said, what will you give
me as a pledge till thou send it? And he said, what pledge
shall I give thee? And she said, thy signet, by
bracelets and thy staff that is in thine hand. And he gave
it her and came into her and she conceived by him. Now, Judah's
going to pay a kid of his flock, the Tamar. Of course, he didn't
have the kid with him. I mean, he's not leading around
by a leash, you know, it was up there in the field. So he
gave her a pledge. And you know, the deal is when
he gives Tamar the kid, she'll give him the pledge back. Well,
later on, he sends his buddy, you know, to find her to give
her the kid to get his pledge. She's gone. He can't find her.
She kept his pledge. Now, this pledge is very significant. This pledge is the key to understanding
this entire chapter. The pledge that he gave was Judah's
signet. It was his ring. That's what
identified him. They would use their ring to
stamp into the wax or something. That's their seal. He gave her
his ring. Everybody recognized Judah's ring. Then he gave her
his bracelet. And it wasn't actually a bracelet
that would go around his wrist. It was a bracelet or a cord,
a wound cord that went around his neck like a lanyard. That's what he hung the ring
on. He didn't wear the ring actually on his finger. He wore it on
this lanyard. And he gave her the staff that
was in his hand. This is what he used to walk
by as he'd go to and fro. Those three items, That's Judah's
identity. Everybody would recognize those
as Judah's. It would be like us giving somebody
as a pledge, our social security card and our driver's license.
They can take anything they want from us if they had those things,
right? Tamar, she kept the pledge. She kept Judah's identity. She's
got his identity now. She keeps it for three months.
Three months later, look at verse 24. And it came to pass, about
three months after, that it was told Judah, saying, Tamar, thy
daughter-in-law, hath played the harlot. And also, behold,
she is with child by whoredom. And Judah said, bring her forth
and let her be burned. But someone told Judah, Tamar
played the harlot and got pregnant. And Judah said, boys, bring her
out. We're gonna burn her at the stake. We're gonna burn her
alive. He said that knowing he's guilty
of the very same sin. Now, he didn't know it was with
her yet, but knowing he was guilty of the very same sin, he was
gonna preside over burning this woman at the stake. I mean, the
religious hypocrisy of this, and this is why I was mentioning
it earlier. I mean, I've got zero tolerance for religious
hypocrisy. Is there anything worse than
that? I'm telling you, we're a mess.
We're a mess. Unless God keep us from it, we'd
do the same thing Judah did. Scripture talks about that, about
you condemning people for something, and you yourselves are guilty
of the very same thing. That's us. Well, read on, verse 25. In all this mess, now comes the
glory of Christ. When she was brought forth, she
sent to her father-in-law, saying, By the man whose these are, am
I with child. And she said, discern, I pray
thee, whose are these? The signets and the bracelets
and the staff. And Judah acknowledged them and
said, she hath been more righteous than I because that I gave her
not to Shulah, my son, and he knew her again no more. Tamar
is getting ready to be burnt at the stake. How will she spare? Everybody
agreed she needs to be burnt at the stake. How was she spared? It's because she had Judah's
identity. She had his ring, she had his lanyard, and she had
his staff. She identified as Judah. That's how she was spared. Now
that's a picture. I've preached everything I've
preached to get right here. This is so glorious. This is
a picture of how God's elect have been redeemed. by the blood
of the Lord Jesus Christ. You know how it is? It's by the
Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious son of God in human flesh, giving
his people his identity. This is not identity theft. This
is not some forged paperwork like we're using a fake ID. The
Lord Jesus Christ actually gave his people his identity. because He made them what He
is. He made them what He is. Even the Father sees no difference
between the Son and His life because the Son gave them His
identity. You and I, it would be laughable
for us to come in prayer before the throne of God thinking we'd
ever be heard if we didn't have Christ's identity. That the Father
hears us loves us, accepts us exactly as he would his own son,
because we have his identity. That's what accepted in the beloved
means. The Lord Jesus Christ gave his
people his ring. He sealed him. He stamped his
image. He effaced Adam's image and stamped
his image in its place. He made them what he is. That
ring, typically we think of the ring being worn on the hand.
God's people are the works, the work of God's hand. He made them
just like his son. Gave them his identity. And he
gave his people his walk. That's what that staff represents.
Judah used that walking, especially through the pastures and hills
and things, you know, where the sheep were. He used that staff
to walk by. That's his walk. The Lord Jesus
Christ gave his people his walk. And his walk is his conduct.
It's his conduct as a man made under the law. When Christ was
made under the law, what did he do? He obeyed it perfectly. Obeyed it in every jot and every
tittle. And he gave his people that obedience. He gave them
his identity. Since he's the representative
of his people, they did everything he did, because they were in
it when they did it. When Christ obeyed the law, so did you, if
you're in Christ. See, He gave you His identity. He gives His people His righteousness
by making them righteous, giving them His righteousness. Now look
over Psalm 69. I want to show you two scriptures
to show this point. This is not just some sort of doctrine that sovereign gracers
believe. This is what scriptures teach.
At the beginning of the chapter, it says Judah went down. I guess
he got tired of being with his brothers and selling Joseph off
and all the things going on there. He went down to get away from
them. With the Lord Jesus Christ, he
went down, didn't he? He went down when he came to
where his people are. He went down, down, down, down,
down, down, down, down to be made what his people are so that
he could redeem them from their sins. The Lord Jesus Christ took
the sin of his people and made that sin his sin. Christ was punished by his father,
put to death by his father, executed, sacrificed. He wasn't being executed
for somebody else's sin, because that would be unjust. Would it
be unjust for you to be put to death for a murder that somebody
else committed? I mean, we'd scream and yell and jump up and
down, that's unjust. Christ wasn't put to death for
somebody else's sin. He was put to death for his sin,
even though he never committed any sin. You understand that
he never committed any sin, but he made the sin of his people
his sin. And I can show you that even
though he never committed a sin, he said it's his. Psalm 69, verse
five. This is Christ from the cross.
Oh God, thou knowest my foolishness, and my sins are not hid from
thee. He wasn't hanging on the cross
saying, Father, now you know the foolishness of my people.
You know the sin of my people. He called it my foolishness and
my sin. The sin of God's elect became
Christ's. They became his. And you know
what he did in trade? He took the sin of his people
and made it his. put that sin away by his precious
blood, paid the debt with his blood, washed that sin white
as snow in his blood, and he traded his people his righteousness. He made them righteous. He gave
them his identity. He made them righteous. Let me
show you, I quote this all the time. Let's look at 2 Corinthians
5.21. Every once in a while, even though we quote this in
most messages, Seems like I preach anyway. You know, some people say they learn
by hearing and some people learn by doing, some by seeing. Well,
let's make sure we see it this time. 2 Corinthians 5.21. For
he, God the Father, hath made him, and that word to be, you
notice that's in italics. That means that was added by
the translators. That was not in the original. The Apostle
Paul did not write to be. What the apostle Paul wrote was
something more accurate. He hath made him sin. He made
his son sin for us. Him who knew no sin, that we
might be made. Not legal paperwork shuffling,
made the righteousness of God in him. That's how a sinner is
redeemed. It's because we've been given
Christ identity. so that the Father sees no difference. That's how we're righteous. That's
how we're holy. That's how we're accepted. I
like being accepted in Christ a whole lot better than hoping
I can act good enough to be accepted on my own, don't you? To have
the identity of Christ the Savior and not have to come before God
in my identity Best news I've heard. And that's a miracle of
God's grace. All right. Hope that'll be a
blessing to you. Let's bow together. Our Father,
how we thank you for this time that you've given us together
to look into your word, to one more time hear of Christ our
Savior. Father, I pray you bless your word as it's gone forth.
You promised that your word would never return unto you void. Father,
we pray that your purpose this evening, sending your word forward,
is a purpose of redemption. It's a purpose of edifying, comforting,
and strengthening the hearts of your people, and drawing poor
sinners to Christ our Savior. It's in his precious name. For
his sake and his glory, we pray. Amen. All right, John, come lead
us in a closing hymn.