Hold your place there in Genesis
38, and let me just quote something for you here out of Ephesians
chapter 2 by way of introduction. In Ephesians chapter 2, we are
told that we, we, Now, if you want to know who
we is, you're going to have to go back and read Ephesians chapter
1 and the beginning of Ephesians chapter 2. He's talking about
the we that was quickened, though they were dead in trespasses
and sin, quickened together with Christ, given saving faith. This is the we, the one new man,
this man of faith and love and peace and joy. We, this man who's
heard the gospel and been reconciled to God by the cross of Christ,
it's we who have been made fellow citizens with the saints and
of the household of God. We. We. We, he said, are built upon the
foundation of the apostles and prophets. Jesus Christ Himself
being the chief cornerstone. Now, I bring to this congregation
twice a week a study, one from the book of Genesis, which we're
about to turn to and look at this evening, and one from the
book of John, the testimony of God's glorious Christ, that coming
Redeemer of which Genesis foretold and spoke about. And then the
other witness we have is in Genesis, which has to do with the coming
and work which was pictured and foretold in all these events.
And all of the principles established at the appearance and in the
life and death and resurrection of Christ are all foretold and
pictured in the Old Testament and in great detail and design,
which you have to look for. Without that knowledge of that
crucified Christ, this Old Testament is just like what he talks about
over there in 2 Corinthians chapter 4, that veil is still over the
face of Israel in the reading of the Old Testament even unto
this day. Which veil is Christ. And when
a man receives Christ, the veil is taken away. And he begins
to see the glory of the old prophets and of the Old Testament and
of that coming Redeemer. All of these principles are established
and pictured in the Old Testament in great detail and design. Well,
did God command Moses? He said, see to it, when you
build that tabernacle, He said, see to it that you don't vary,
that you don't sway. But you built it exactly according
to the pattern that I showed thee in the map. Now my intention tonight is to
take this story that I just read to you over here in Genesis chapter
38 and to show you from this story of Judah and Tamar, the
story of the Lord Jesus Christ and how His church came to be
established in this world. And I want to remind you before
I do it and remind myself as well, as we go through the Old
Testament and we look at these types and figures and these men
and the accounts of their lives and these things which they did, these things had consequences. Don't you get the idea that they
did these things without consequence? But these things which they did
were They're plainly, when God tells
this story, he tells it in complete candor. He tells you as plainly,
is there anybody in here when I read this story that didn't
know what took place? It's no mystery. God just tells
it flat out like it was. This is what happened. This is
what happened. And as we read these things,
even though these things typified things to come, Being a type
did not justify what these people did. I want you to keep that
in mind as we study these things. It don't make what they did okay.
God records these things with all candor and he leaves nothing
to speculation as far as their guilt to show us that the Christ
who is to come, this is why he doesn't leave any of these things
out. And anybody that will read this story and hear the things
that I'm going to tell you tonight will have no doubt that this
coming Redeemer, this one that was pictured and typified, must
be produced by another seed beside the earthly sons of Abraham,
because they were all equally under sin, every last one of
them, even the man after God's own flesh. Now, the story begins with Judah,
who's not very old. Now, I've got nothing to go on
on the age of these men except Jewish historians and historians
of that age. There's nothing else to go on.
And I'm not even altogether sure that it's all that important.
But according to them, and they all vary in opinion, this man
Judah was about 20 years old, a young man in the Jewish sense
of adulthood. You needed to be 30 years of
age to be considered an adult in that society. But they figured
that he was about 20 years of age, and he left his father's
house. Now, since he was the one who
conspired against Joseph, now you remember in the last study
we left Joseph being sold into slavery down in Egypt and all
of a sudden he just changes the story. And he comes over here
and he inserts this story about Judah. Now the reason he does
this is because you're not going to have a clue what's going on
with Joseph down in Egypt until you understand what went on here
with Judah. Now since he was the one who
conspired against Joseph, And since there was probably a lot
of friction in the house of Jacob after Joseph's disappearance,
Judah leaves his father's house and goes down to the city of
Adullam. An Adullamite was a man who was
a citizen of the city of Adullam. And I'm not going to go through
all this to prove that, so you just take me at my word. And
this city was south of where they were. person leaves geographically
from the south, from the north to go to the south, we call that
going down. You go up north, you go down
south. That's been as long as there's
been people. So when they talk about going
down somewhere, they're talking about going south. But this city was south. But
as a type of Christ, Judah leaves his father's house and he goes
down. Now you think about this. He's
a type of Christ. He goes down to a wicked place
to seek a bride. You see the picture? That's Christ.
That's Christ. Now when Judah gets there, he
turns into a man's house who was from that city whose name
was Hira. A lot of speculation about him,
and I won't even get into that. But then in verse 12, It says that Hiram was Judah's
friend. So more than likely, Judah was
acquainted with this man before. He knew him. He knew where to
go. He knew where he was going when
he left his father's house. He went down to Hiram's house. Now, Hiram was a Gentile. Hiram was a publican and a sinner. But he was a friend of Judah.
As a type of Christ, Christ is a friend to publicans and sinners.
Ain't that what they said about him? He was a friend. All right,
here's the third thing that struck and got my attention. The father
of the bride-to-be, his name was Shula. Now, I didn't get
much out of the old writers about this, but I just took my strong
concordance and opened it up and found the name Shula and
went back to where it first appeared. And it appears back a few verses
back in Genesis chapter 25. Now you remember that after the
death of his beloved Sarah, and at about the age of 140 or 145,
Abraham married another woman whose name was Keturah. And by
this woman Keturah, he had six more sons before his death. The last of those sons born to
Keturah, his name was Shuwa. That was his name, Shuwa. Now,
I've got no other reason, this youngest of these sons of Keturah
being Shuwa, I have no other reason to believe that this was
the father of Judah's bride except the mysterious connection between
the line of the tribe of Judah that will be. and the Gentile
nation, but also as a seed of Abraham. It fits the type. It really does. And that alone
convinces me that this is the same Shewa that was born of Abraham
in his old age that's now the father of the bride of Judah. Paul said he was a minister of
God sent into all nations to fulfill the Word of God and to
make known a mission I preached to you all on this a few weeks
ago. A mystery which had been hid from ages and generations,
but now made known unto the saints, to whom God would make known
what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles,
which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Then are you Abraham's
seed. Ain't that what he says over
in Galatians to those Gentiles? and sons of Abraham. Now, Judah's
bride remains anonymous in this. She's totally anonymous. You
won't find her name anywhere. I went over to the Kings and
Chronicles over there where they give the genealogies and all
this. She ain't mentioned. The only thing it ever says about
her, she was the Canaanite woman or she was the wife of Judah
or she was the mother of these two. But it never gives her name. Her name is totally anonymous. And right off the bat, I looked
at that, and I said, the only way you're going to know this
woman is by her calling. That's the only way you're going
to know her. The only way you're going to know this woman is by
her association to both Shula and Judah. And she's known by
the son she produces, accursed of God, all but one. And before
she dies, she gives three sons to Judah, Ur and Onan and She. Now just bear with me while I
get all these figures straight in your head. Ur signifies a
watchman, being his firstborn, hoping one day that this boy
will be the watchman. He's going to be his heir. He's
going to be the watchman over his family. He's going to be
the priest over that family. Onan means son of sorrows or
man of sorrows. And Sheila is a name derived
from the word, and I thought this was very curious, Shiloh. All three of Judah's natural
sons stand as types of Christ who is the faithful watchman,
the shepherd of the sheep, a man of sorrows and acquainted with
grief, and him of whom Jacob says when he blesses Judah, Just
before his death, he said, the scepter shall not depart from
Judah until Shiloh comes. Now, several years go by, and
his sons come of age, and Judah arranges a marriage for his firstborn
son, Ur. And her name is Tamar. But Ur
was wicked in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord slew him.
I read that to you down there in verse 6. Now, he's a symbol
to me of this world as it relates to the coming Redeemer. And then,
according to their customs, Judah went to Onan and instructed him
to take his brother's wife and raise up children to preserve
his name and preserve his posterity. But Onan wouldn't do it. Now,
to me, he's a picture of natural religion. He's not going to do
it. Why won't he do it? Because he
don't get the credit. Ain't that what he said? This
seed ain't going to be mine. All the credit for this whole
household that I'm going to produce is going to be for her. They're
all going to be running around glorifying her, not me. He wouldn't
do it. And not only wouldn't he do it,
but he didn't do it in secret. He didn't just come to his father
and say, no, wait a minute, this thing ain't right. Or he didn't
go to the judges of the city or to the family and his other
brothers and say, this ain't right. No, he went into the bedchamber
and just did what he did in secret, thinking nobody would know. That's
what religion does. But God knows. And God slew him,
too. Now, basically, that's what Paul
sums up in Romans chapter 3 when he said, what What, did they
profit more than us? Did the Gentiles or did the Jews
profit more than us? No. No, not in no way. Even though they had great advantage
because we before proved that both were under sin. They both
died at the hand of God. He knew that the seed should
not be His. They wouldn't be His sons. They
wouldn't carry on His name and they wouldn't glorify His house.
Now, Judah's third son Evidently, was not quite ready to take upon
himself the duties of a husband, or if he were, he didn't look
the age. Because Judah told Tamar, he
said, now, you're going back to your daddy's house. You live
there as a widow. Soon as Sheila gets old enough,
and it tells you why he told her that, don't it? He said,
lest he die also. Some way in his head, he had
this woman who was a Canaanite, which was forbidden for them
to take for a wife. But he had it in his head that
God had cursed his first two sons over this woman and he wasn't
going to let her have the third one. He's going to preserve him. So he tells her, now when he
gets of age, I'll call for you. But he never calls. He never
calls. Now this whole thing is alluded
to over in Galatians chapter 4 where Paul speaks of the Old
Testament revelation of the church as a child under tutors and governors
until the time appointed by the Father. He pictures as they're
represented in Israel. I understand that natural Israel
is not the church, but the church was represented in natural Israel. And as the church was represented
in her, it was like a child. And it was still under governors
and tutors. That's why the law, that's why
Moses, that's why ceremonies, that's why all of those things. Until the time appointed by the
Father, Galatians 4.4, but when the fullness of time was come,
God sent forth His Son made of a woman, made under the law to
redeem them that were under the law that we might receive the
adoption of sons. And for fear of losing His Son,
And because he is not yet ready for the task, Judah tells Tamar
to go live as a widow. And basically, that's what was
commanded of the Old Testament church to do, wait on Shiloh. That's what they were commanded
to do, and that's what they did. Now, if that wasn't confusing
enough for you, we're just now getting to the difficulties. First of all, Judah ignores his
responsibility to Tamar, and he leaves her in her widowhood.
He just leaves her alone. He just ignores her. He just
acts like she's not even there. And he sees something in this
woman, like I said before, that was certain to bring about the
death of his third son. Let me tell you something. The
bride of Christ demands the death of her husband. She can't be redeemed until he
dies. Salvation is not going to come
to be until her husband dies. Has to die. That's what's being
pictured here. She cannot produce an heir for Judah because God
holds him responsible for the sins of all the children of Israel. Judah stood up for all the brothers
and condemned Joseph and sold him into slavery. And his younger
brother knew what he'd done. And came to him and talked to
him about it. But he did it anyway. He did
it anyway. And I really believe if you go
back and study that pretty close, I think you'll arrive at the
same conclusion that that's why he left his father's house and
that's why he went down here. But now God's holding him responsible
for these things. And his natural sons are all
under the curse. And he will not subject his only
son to what is to him certain death. God's going to kill him.
God's going to kill him. But he can't produce one. And
then, to make things even more complicated, his wife dies down
in verse 12. His first two sons are dead.
He got one alive that he dares not let marry this woman for
fear that God will kill him too. And he can't produce any more
sons because his wife's dead. And now he's at the bottom. And
he's down here among these strangers. And by worldly logic and reason,
Judah's name will die with him. He cannot, by law, allow Sheila
to marry another without first fulfilling the law, what it demands
concerning his daughter-in-law. She can't do it. The law won't
let it. The law won't let it. And he cannot allow them to be
joined unless God kills Sheila, too. And he cannot produce any
more sons because his wife's dead. Now, that's exactly the
picture of the church that she's represented in the Old Testament.
That's where you find her at. She was in a dilemma. She couldn't
produce these sons. She couldn't do it. It was impossible.
It was impossible legally, and it was impossible physically.
Didn't have the ability and didn't have the right. And naturally
speaking, she cannot produce the heirs her father intended
nor people to bear his name. All right. Judas troubled about
his son, Shua, and his daughter-in-law, Tamar. And he's in a dilemma. And he's in mourning over the
death of his bride. And so his friend, Hira, said,
Let's go up to Timnath. Now, you're going to have to
do a little filling in the blanks here, okay? There'd be no reason
to take him up to Timnath to sit in a chair and watch sheep
get sheared. That's not going to cheer him
up. But evidently, at the shearing of the sheep, there was a festival.
Had to be some kind of a festival, just like we have in the fall
up north. There's festivals all over the
place in the fall because they're harvesting crops and bringing
them in. Same was true here during the shearing of the sheep. There
was a festival. There were people gathering together.
There was merrymaking and wine and so on. And his friend Hirose,
I know just the thing to get you out of your slump. Come with
me. We're going to go party. And
so on the way they go, and they're walking down the road, and his
daughter-in-law hears about it. And she's already checked him
out, and he's of age. He's a man now. And there she
sits over there with nothing. Takes him up here. Now, temnath,
or temneh, it means the portion assigned. That's what that means.
That's where he's going. He don't know where he's going.
He thinks he's going to a party. It means the place where the
price is weighed out. Evidently, this was when they
sheared these sheep, and there was trading that went on, and
bartering that went on, and so that's why this place got its
name, Timnit. The place where the price is
weighed out, where things are officially set and recorded. He's on his way up here to Timnit. Harry persuaded him to go up
there to help him get over his troubles. Well, meanwhile, Tamar
heard what was going on and knew full well to the dilemma of Judah
and his son and knew she had, she'd been lied to. And so she
takes off the dress of her widowhood and puts on her party clothes.
And she hides her face in a veil and she watches for him. And
when she sees him coming, just like it says over in Proverbs,
she goes right out in the open and sits down with his veil on
to lure him in. And he takes the bait and he
goes in. And there she sits. His daughter-in-law sits there
as a harlot. And he goes into her and he agrees
to the price, but she demands a pledge from him. And so she
gives it to him. What do you want? Well, I want
your bracelets and I want your ring. It says signet. Each ring
that was given to sons of families of money and wealth and power, they
had a ring that they used to seal. It's called a signet. It
had the family crest in it or this boy's name and the family
crest or whatever. And they sealed stuff with wax,
and they'd take that ring and stick it right down on there
and put that seal in. If it didn't have that seal on
there, it wasn't from the family. Important papers and documents
and all that, it had a seal. She said, I want you sealed,
and I want your bracelets, and I want your staff. He said, I
ain't no problem. As soon as I get home, I'll send
you the goat, and I'll send somebody up, my servant come up, You give
him things that I give you. Give me the pledge back. I give
you the goat and we'll be square. And all which he willingly does. And so he satisfies himself with
this harlot. Goes his way to the festival.
Has a good time. And he comes home feeling pretty
good about himself for about three months. And then it's discovered
that Judah's daughter-in-law was pregnant. And he's like David
when the prophet told him the story about the sheep. He got,
boy, he was hot. He was hot. He was furious. He said, you bring that woman
to me, we're going to burn her. Now that's what was to be done
to the harlot. She was to be brought out and
burnt. Burn them at the stake or on a pile of wood or whatever
it was. They was burnt. It was serious business. And
he was furious. And he said, you bring her here.
So they were on the way to bring her, and she sent something to
him. And before the judgment was carried out, she sent to
Judah the pledge he'd given her, his bracelet, and signet, and
staff. Now you look down here in verse
25. And she said, by the man whose these are, am I with child. And she said to him, discern,
I pray thee, whose are these? The signet, and the bracelet,
and the staff. And there he stands, the judge
of his daughter-in-law, and he said, you're more righteous than
I am. You're more righteous than me. Because that I gave her not
to Sheila, my son. And Judah knew her again, no
more. Now without justifying anything
that Judah or Tamar did, let me tell you what God did. I'm quoting now from the book
of Matthew. The birth of Jesus Christ was
on this wise, when as his mother Mary was a spouse to Joseph. Now, this woman Tamar was a spouse
to Sheila, was she not? You seeing the type here? The
birth of Jesus Christ was on this wife when, as his mother
Mary was a spouse to Joseph, promised to him, pledged to him.
Before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy
Ghost. The Father's seed was in her,
but she was promised to another. And this young Jewish maiden
was by law engaged to be married to Joseph. But before this marriage
took place, she was found pregnant with the seed of her Heavenly
Father, that Judah's heir, Judah's heir
should come into this world, the Lord Jesus Christ. And if
you look back in Matthew chapter 1 at that genealogy, you'll find
Phares and Tamar's name mentioned. in his genealogy. You see that? What a beautiful title. To produce
the promised Redeemer, the seed of Judah himself must be put
into the womb of his fallen daughter. Now I want you to turn with me
to Ruth chapter 4, so you don't think I'm just making all this
stuff up and plying things wherever I want to. Now if you don't know
where Ruth is, you go through the first five books of Moses.
And then you run into a little book there called Joshua, and
then Judges, and then right after that is the book of Ruth. And I want you to think, Pastor,
you're just making a lot out of nothing. Let me show you this
over here in the book of Ruth. And the book of Ruth is the story
of one of Tamar's descendants, another harlot. Another harlot, her name was
Rahab. You know who Rahab's son was?
Boaz, the kinsman redeemer. Now watch this. This kinsman
redeemer, Boaz, redeemed this Moabite woman and married her
to raise up an heir for Mahlon and Elimelech. And when this
redemption had been accomplished and Ruth became his wife, this
is what all the people said about this marriage. Ruth chapter 4,
verse 12. And let thy house be like the
house of Phares, whom Tamar bare unto Judah. Now listen. Of the
seed which the Lord shall give thee of this young woman. Just
like the Lord gave His seed Now they didn't mean to do it. And
they didn't mean it for good. And they didn't mean none of
that stuff for good. And Joseph tells them that. But
he said the Lord did. And that's what this is saying
right here. They knew the story of Tamar and they knew the story
of Judah. But here they understood what
that seed was all about. And this was a very similar situation
here with Boaz the kinsman redeemer and Ruth the Moabitess woman.
And especially, especially since Boaz's mother was the prostitute
Rahab from Jericho. You read those stories. I'm telling
you, as you go through the Old Testament, he just keeps adding
detail after detail after detail. And even the individual acts,
they show the whole. And then what's done among their
children shows the story. And then the overall history
of Israel shows the story until finally you look at it and it's
so dimensional that you look at it and the entire Old Testament
is standing declaring this gospel. And you understand then, you're
convinced and established, which is exactly what Paul says over
in Romans chapter 16, he will establish you by my gospel. And
this mystery is going to be open to you. And you're going to see
it. And you're going to be so convinced of it that you'll believe
it. And you'll rest in it. Because
you see it in every little detail throughout the old prophets.
And you see it exactly. I mean, there just can't be that
much incidental things. It can't be. These things are
all done on purpose. And then over in Galatians, whenever
they're talking about this seed, I know that he's talking about
this seed here in the book of Ruth. He's talking about that
seed that Boaz is going to put in Ruth's womb. But he said,
he saith not unto seeds as of many. He's not talking about
the many seeds here. He's talking about in thy seed,
which is Christ. Now there's four women, not counting
Mary, found mentioned in Matthew's genealogy of Christ. Tamar is
the first. There's only four women. Tamar
is the first. Rahab, the harlot, is the second. Ruth, the Moabitess woman, is
the third. And Bathsheba is the fourth. All four were Gentiles. Three
of the four were known prostitutes, and three of the four were widowed
wives of Jewish husbands. And it doesn't say it. Actually,
I went back to read. I wanted to read and find out
how Rahab and Salman got married. There's nothing in here about
that marriage. You don't find out about it until you read the
genealogies. That's the only place it's recorded.
But they were married, and through them came Boaz, the kinsman redeemer. who was the grandfather of David. Now here's another point of interest.
When Tamar goes into labor, she has twins in her womb. And the
first thing the midwife sees is this little hand. This little
hand comes out of the womb. Now this is significant because
of the law of the firstborn. When you're talking about a man
of wealth and a man of power and authority and position is
very important. It's going to be a legal issue
later on whether or not this is the firstborn because the
firstborn is going to be the heir and the firstborn is going
to be the priest of the family. So this is very important. So
when this midwife sees this hand, she figures this is going to
be the firstborn and she knows there's twins in there so she
takes a little scarlet piece of thread and she ties it around
his little wrist, puts a bow in it or whatever she does with
the scarlet thread. with the little hand goes back in the
womb. And he don't come out first. His brother comes out first.
And then, him. Now, Fabius was the brother and
he's the one mentioned in the genealogy of Christ. These two sons to me represent
the church of Christ as she revealed in both the Old and New Testaments.
Zerah was the first in appearance. You remember in Jacob, he was
one of twins too, Jacob and Esau. But Esau was actually born first. And Jacob had him by the heel.
And God was demonstrating there his election in these twins. And that his elect, this was
a spiritual issue and not one physical. And so he says, the
elder shall serve the young. And he raised up Jacob and caused
Esau, who was the firstborn, to sell him his birthright, gave
him over to his own mind. He was the one willing to do
it, and he does it. So legally, Jacob had all the
rights of the firstborn. But here, this has to do with
the appearance of the two churches. And the first in appearance was
Zerah. And he's the old natural Israel,
carried that carried in her hand the testimony of Christ, the
scarlet thread. That's what's on this hand. This
was a testimony of Israel. She gave witness of the sacrificial
Son to come. To Him, it said, give all the
prophets witness. And Phares is the second in appearance,
but truly the firstborn Son of God, begotten of God by eternal
decree to sit upon His holy hill in Zion. And unlike His brother
who gives evidence of the firstborn, He is the firstborn. He doesn't
just take out His hand. He comes out body and all. He
is the evidence Himself. It says, The Word was made flesh
and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory. The glory is of the
only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. And
He Himself is the evidence. So the holy seed will be a seed
whose presence, when he comes, his presence is going to be perceived
as adultery. That's the first thing that came
to Joseph's mind. And he was an honest man and
he was a loving man, but he was going to have her put away. There
would be no reason to put her away if he didn't think she was
guilty of adultery. And he knew that wasn't his baby.
And so the angel of the Lord came and said, don't you fear
to take her unto you. So this holy seed, when it does
come, it's going to be perceived as adultery. And the holy seed
will, in fact, be put into the womb of the woman by the father
himself. The seed in her womb will be
a shock to all who hear it. And the way it got there, altogether
misunderstood. They're not going to be able
to tell you why this took place. Not going to be able to do it.
Why? Because it's a mystery. You reckon that anybody other
than Judah knew what? There's no way you could explain
that. No way you could. Apart from the gospel of God's
sovereign grace, you cannot explain the events in Genesis chapter
38. Now, you can't do that. But when
you look at this as it compares with the gospel, it's just like
A, B, C, D, E, F, G. It's just right in line. Right
in line. The seed in her womb is going
to be a shock and going to be totally misunderstood. And then
according to Ruth chapter 4, this seed will be a seed put
there by the sovereign intervention of God. This is God's seed. This is God's seed. By a strange
and little known union, This young woman, a true daughter
of Abraham, you remember I showed you that back there with Sheila. She was a true daughter of Abraham,
and to comfort a grieving father, his seed is put into the womb
of a fallen daughter of Abraham to bring forth out of her womb
the promised son of Sheila, which is Shiloh. You reckon Jacob understood
what happened? when Judah finally sat down and
explained to him what happened. And old Jacob went to bless Judah
at the end. He said, the scepter is not going
to depart from you to Ashila, O God, till this son of Shelah
appear. Now this book is a book divinely
inspired of God that testifies time and again of man's cursed
nature and the evil of his ways. And yet, in spite of what he
is and what he does, the absolute power of God overruling all things,
He accomplishes and testifies and pictures and paints exactly
what's going to happen in the fullness of time. And that over
there in Galatians that I read to you a while ago, He said,
And when the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth
His Son. It's my longing and expectation
one day by the grace of God, We'll all sit in wide-eyed wonder
as he takes the things that he's typified in this book and one
at a time shows us just like he did those things when he walked
along the way with those disciples. It said he went back and started
with Moses and showed them those things pertaining to himself.
And they just sat there and drank it in. And then when he got up
there where they were, And He appeared to them as who He was.
And He left them. They looked at each other and
they said, Boy, didn't our hearts burn within us as we walked along
the way? Well, brethren, one of these
days we're going to sit down with Him. And we're going to
know as we are known. And I believe that's one of the
things that the redeemed are going to do in glory, is they're
going to sit and consider these things one event at a time. in
everything that was created, in all the providence of God,
in all the history of Israel, in all the history of the world.
And we're going to see those things in detail. Until then,
we've got the pledge of His Spirit and He lets us look into them.
And Paul said, we look through a glass dimly, but we look through
the glass and we see it. Salvation by the free grace of
God is nowhere proclaimed clearer than the womb of a spiritual
prostitute bearing the holy seed of God. Mary wasn't by law a
prostitute or wasn't under the conviction of being a prostitute,
but she was a prostitute spiritually. We all are. And that's what's
being pictured back there. What these women were physically,
we are spiritually. These relationships they had
physically, we have spiritually. And nowhere is that grace proclaim
more effectual than in the children she produces by that same spiritual
seed. Christ in you, Paul said, the
hope of glory. What's he talking about when
he said Christ in you? He's talking about faith. He's
talking about your hope. He's talking about what you understand
when you see Christ. That's your hope and that hope's
in you. I don't have any hope other than that. Oh, God, don't
take these things from me. Oh, what spiritual blessing these
things are to be able to open this book. I'll tell you, until
my dying day, I'll keep saying this to somebody to listen. You'll
never, as long as you live in this world, perceive what a treasure
this book is and what it uncovers and what God has given you eyes
to see. Millions! I'm talking about literally
millions of people tonight opening this book and seeing nothing
in it except examples and moral lessons and things like that. Very, very few. I bet you can
count them on two hands tonight that's gathered together pointing
out to their people what I've pointed out to you tonight. All
by the Spirit of God. Our Father, take the things that
we've pointed out tonight those things which You've revealed
to our heart and caused us to see them and rejoice in them
and treasure them up. Oh, what a glorious salvation
is the salvation of God. Oh, well might we say with Isaiah,
thy thoughts are not our thoughts, and thy ways as the heavens are
higher than the earth, so are thy ways above our ways. Be with us now as we go to our
homes and go through the rest of the week. Keep us from evil. Keep us from harm. Give us the
strength and the willingness to stand as examples and as witnesses
to this present evil world. And then meet with us again this
weekend, for Christ's sake. Amen.