Concealed Corruption

It’s the book of Genesis. Be looking at Genesis chapter 38. If you don’t have a Bible, you can use the Pew Bible in front of you. If you don’t own a Bible, we would love for you to just be able to keep that Bible. Consider that a gift from us to you. We would love for you to have a copy of God’s Word that you can have and you can read. We’ve been continuing our series through the book of Genesis. And now we’re looking at what many people consider to be the darkest chapter in all of the Bible. In terms of narratives next to the crucifixion, this may be the most harrowing tale that we see exist in human society. And yet, as we look at this passage, I’m confident that as we look at the sheer depravity of the depths of sin, we’ll also be able to see glimmers of God’s grace.

So, we’ll be looking at Genesis chapter 38. There’s really no way to start a sermon like this except to just read everything that happens. So, I’ll be reading from verse one all the way down to the end of the chapter. Genesis chapter 38, and it says this:

At that time Judah left his brothers and settled near an Adullamite named Hirah. There Judah saw the daughter of a Canaanite named Shua; he took her as a wife and slept with her. She conceived and gave birth to a son, and he named him Er. She conceived again, gave birth to a son, and named him Onan. She gave birth to another son and named him Shelah. It was at Chezib that she gave birth to him. Judah got a wife for Er, his firstborn, and her name was Tamar. Now Er, Judah’s firstborn, was evil in the Lord’s sight, and the Lord put him to death. Then Judah said to Onan, “Sleep with your brother’s wife. Perform your duty as her brother-in-law and produce offspring for your brother.” But Onan knew that the offspring would not be his, so whenever he slept with his brother’s wife, he released his semen on the ground so that he would not produce offspring for his brother. What he did was evil in the Lord’s sight, so he put him to death also. Then Judah said to his daughter-in-law Tamar, “Remain a widow in your father’s house until my son Shelah grows up.” For he thought, “He might die too, like his brothers.” So Tamar went to live in her father’s house. After a long time Judah’s wife, the daughter of Shua, died. When Judah had finished mourning, he and his friend Hirah the Adullamite went up to Timnah to his sheepshearers. Tamar was told, “Your father-in-law is going up to Timnah to shear his sheep.” So she took off her widow’s clothes, veiled her face, covered herself, and sat at the entrance to Enaim, which is on the way to Timnah. For she saw that, though Shelah had grown up, she had not been given to him as a wife. When Judah saw her, he thought she was a prostitute, for she had covered her face. He went over to her and said, “Come, let me sleep with you,” for he did not know that she was his daughter-in-law. She said, “What will you give me for sleeping with me?” “I will send you a young goat from my flock,” he replied. But she said, “Only if you leave something with me until you send it.” “What should I give you?” he asked. She answered, “Your signet ring, your cord, and the staff in your hand.” So he gave them to her and slept with her, and she became pregnant by him. She got up and left, then removed her veil and put her widow’s clothes back on. When Judah sent the young goat by his friend the Adullamite in order to get back the items he had left with the woman, he could not find her. He asked the men of the place, “Where is the cult prostitute who was beside the road at Enaim?” “There has been no cult prostitute here,” they answered. So the Adullamite returned to Judah, saying, “I couldn’t find her, and besides, the men of the place said, ‘There has been no cult prostitute here.’” Judah replied, “Let her keep the items for herself; otherwise we will become a laughingstock. After all, I did send this young goat, but you couldn’t find her.” About three months later Judah was told, “Your daughter-in-law, Tamar, has been acting like a prostitute, and now she is pregnant.” “Bring her out,” Judah said, “and let her be burned to death!” As she was being brought out, she sent her father-in-law this message: “I am pregnant by the man to whom these items belong.” And she added, “Examine them. Whose signet ring, cord, and staff are these?” Judah recognized them and said, “She is more in the right than I, since I did not give her to my son Shelah.” And he did not know her intimately again. When the time came for her to give birth, there were twins in her womb. As she was giving birth, one of them put out his hand, and the midwife took it and tied a scarlet thread around it, announcing, “This one came out first.” But then he pulled his hand back, out came his brother, and she said, “What a breakout you have made for yourself!” So he was named Perez. Then his brother, who had the scarlet thread tied to his hand, came out, and was named Zerah.

— Genesis 38:1-30 (CSB)

Let’s pray. Lord, we do pray that as we think about this dark story that we would be able to see your grace and the way that you’re able to take even the most broken things to speak about your majesty. In order to do that, we need your help. So, we ask that you would help us now in Jesus’ name. Amen.

A Rated R World

Why in the world is this story in the Bible? You wonder that as you go through your Bible reading plans and you hit Genesis 38 and it just seems absolutely grotesque. Sometimes we read stories like this that are so corrupt, so wicked, so evil, so messy that we’d be surprised to see it in a holy God’s Word. And you may be tempted to ask, "Why is this here? Why spend the next 40 minutes thinking about such a terrible story like this?"

But I don’t think stories like what you see here in Genesis 38 are here because God’s Word itself is grotesque. This is certainly a rated R story. But I think the reason why stories like this are so explicit and corrupt is because we live in a rated R world. If you look out and you hear about scandals on the news, you hear about things like the Epstein files, it’s not that Genesis 38 questions God’s control as much as it rightly describes the corrupt world that you and I live in.

You know, when we talk about our past, we reflect about our own life, we tend to gloss over details. We tend to cover up the messier, more complicated, regrettable parts of our life. And yet, we know if you live in this world long enough, life is not PG-rated. It often looks more like Genesis 38 than it does Genesis 1—looks like more darkness than it does light. And in these stark descriptions of the darkness of this broken world, Genesis 38 exposes the darkness of our own hearts and points us toward true redemption.

So here’s the main idea for us this morning: God preserves His promise through His perplexing providence. God preserves His promise through His perplexing providence. We’re going to look at the three major stages of the story and unpack exactly how God achieves this. First by looking at condemnation, then looking at the cover-up, and then lastly, the confrontation. Condemnation, cover-up, confrontation.

Last week, we saw Joseph get sold into slavery at the hands of his brothers, led by his brother Judah. This week, we see Judah descend even further into darkness until it all comes to a head with a confrontation from an unlikely victim.

Condemnation: The Sins of Judah and His Sons

Starting with point number one: condemnation. Look again at verse one. At that time, Judah left his brothers and settled near an Adullamite named Hirah. There Judah saw the daughter of a Canaanite named Shua. He took her as a wife and slept with her. She conceived and gave birth to a son and he named him Er. She conceived again, gave birth to a son and named him Onan. She gave birth to another son and named him Shelah. It was at Chezib that she gave birth to him.

The camera cuts from Joseph as a slave in Egypt to Judah as a Canaanite. Judah, as we know from the last chapter, is not a great guy. He’s the one who suggests to his brothers to sell Joseph into slavery. And this corruption goes beyond one single act of evil. In fact, it seems like Judah has dedicated his entire life to living like one of the pagans. As we know from the very beginning of this chapter, Judah moves to live with the Canaanites. He leaves his dad’s house. He leaves his dad’s land. He seems totally content to live with pagan people. It says here that he lives next to an Adullamite—a city in Canaan—and he marries a Canaanite. And in just two verses, Judah unravels any semblance of the Abrahamic promise in his life.

Is there anyone in Genesis so far who goes to settle near pagan people instead of being with the people of Abraham? Lot, right? Lot does that. Do you know who married a Canaanite woman instead of someone that comes from Abraham’s family? Esau. In other words, Judah is not a good guy. If you read through the book of Genesis, you realize that Judah is mirroring all of the patterns of the worst people that you see in the book of Genesis. It’s not exactly the kind of behavior that you would consider from someone who’s part of the line of the promise.

But it goes deeper than that. It says that Judah saw the daughter of a Canaanite and he took her. He saw and he took. Does that remind you of anything? Whether it’s the fruit of the garden or a woman of Canaan, to see something and to be moved by your own sinful desires and take it is never good. It seems like the sins of the father then pass on to the sons. You can see that in verse six: Judah got a wife for Er, his firstborn, and her name was Tamar. Now Er, Judah’s firstborn, was evil in the Lord’s sight, and the Lord put him to death.

Then Judah said to Onan, "Sleep with your brother’s wife. Perform your duty as her brother-in-law and produce offspring for your brother." But Onan knew that the offspring would not be his. So whenever he slept with his brother’s wife, he released his semen on the ground so that he would not produce offspring for his brother. What he did was evil in the Lord’s sight. So he put him to death also.

Er, the firstborn, is not much better. We don’t actually know much about him. But we know that he does evil in the Lord’s sight. In fact, his name is literally that word "evil" backwards. So Er does evil in the Lord’s sight. And because he did evil, God strikes him dead.

And then it leads to this bizarre conversation between Judah and his second son, Onan. I mean, you have this weird conversation where this father-in-law seems to be telling one of your brothers-in-law to go and sleep with you so you can produce offspring. It may seem especially bizarre in our modern age—just otherworldly kind of thinking. But the reason why Onan is supposed to sleep with Tamar isn’t because of some kind of twisted line of reasoning, because Moses, who wrote Genesis 38, also wrote Deuteronomy 25, which addresses exactly a situation like this.

So I want you to turn in your Bible to the fifth book in your Bible, to Deuteronomy chapter 25. Deuteronomy chapter 25. This is how Moses at Mount Sinai is commanding the Israelite people to behave whenever you encounter a situation like what happens here in Genesis 38. Deuteronomy 25:5 says:

“When brothers live on the same property and one of them dies without a son, the wife of the dead man may not marry a stranger outside the family. Her brother-in-law is to take her as his wife, have sexual relations with her, and perform the duty of a brother-in-law for her. The first son she bears will carry on the name of the dead brother, so his name will not be blotted out from Israel. But if the man doesn’t want to marry his sister-in-law, she is to go to the elders at the city gate and say, ‘My brother-in-law refuses to preserve his brother’s name in Israel. He isn’t willing to perform the duty of a brother-in-law for me.’ The elders of his city will summon him and speak with him. If he persists and says, ‘I don’t want to marry her,’ then his sister-in-law will go up to him in the sight of the elders, remove his sandal from his foot, and spit in his face. Then she will declare, ‘This is what is done to a man who will not build up his brother’s house.’ And his family name in Israel will be ‘The house of the man whose sandal was removed.’

— Deuteronomy 25:5-10 (CSB)

There’s a clear obligation here because the reason why you need to produce offspring at the time isn’t just about having a family where you can live together. It’s about the preservation of your inheritance, of your legacy, of your land. It seems that Judah understands this responsibility when he tells his son Onan to perform his duty by producing a son for Tamar. In other words, he is telling Onan to care for his brother’s family, to be able to produce offspring that’s able to provide for Tamar, but also that would be able to preserve that line and preserve his possessions.

And yet, just like his dad, Onan doesn’t give a rip for his brother at all. He doesn’t provide for him. As corruption goes deeper, Deuteronomy 25 outlines specifically what that denial is supposed to look like. If you choose to say no, then the woman is to practice her agency by going to the city gate, the town square of the time, and by publicly announcing to everyone around them her brother-in-law’s unwillingness to care for her, and upon confirmation, to take his sandal and spit in his face. This is a permanent mark of shame for someone who refuses to look out for his family.

But Onan doesn’t do that. Instead, he does something even more despicable. He sleeps with her, but he spills his seed on the ground so that he doesn’t produce children. In other words, what Onan is trying to do is not just take the pleasures of sexual sin, but he is deliberately trying to cover up any attempt for him to be able to pursue his own selfishness. He is trying to obtain all of his family’s legacy for himself instead of his brother. And as he tries to hide his sin, as he tries to cover it up, he takes advantage of his sister-in-law, Tamar. And God, in response, puts him to death.

Can you see just how much God cares about justice? We all would say that we want to see evil rightly punished. And in the Bible, what we see is that all evil—whether it’s done in public in front of everyone with a spit and a sandal, or whether or not it’s done in private where only two parties know—everything is seen by a holy God. And this God cares. He cares about Tamar enough to judge Onan for his sin. He cares about those who are abandoned, whether it’s Hagar in the wilderness or Tamar in the wilderness of a home that does not care for her. Because for you not to provide for your own family, according to 1 Timothy 5, makes you worse than an unbeliever or an infidel. It doesn’t matter if you masked it with a law of Corban or whether or not you're simply unwilling to give your parents money. If you don’t provide for those who need your help that are in your family, God hates it.

But Judah isn’t concerned about his sons' sins. He’s only concerned about his own legacy. You see that in verse 11. Then Judah said to his daughter-in-law Tamar, "Remain a widow in your father’s house until my son Shelah grows up," for he thought, "He might die too, like his brothers." So Tamar went to live in her father’s house. He sees that Tamar was with Er and Er died, and then Tamar was with Onan and Onan died, and so he concludes the problem is Tamar.

It is a tragedy to see victims of sin be perceived as the cause for its consequences. Whether you blame your spouse for not giving you the time and attention that you feel like you deserve, or whether you blame others for driving you to a place of desperation and that’s why you did your act of wickedness—evil is content to cover up your own evil by pointing out the supposed evil of other people. I mean, what a tragedy. Judah conceals his intention by delaying what’s right, by taking what he knows he should do and pushing it off and punting it for later. And by delaying what is right, Judah disobeys God because delayed obedience is disobedience. And Tamar listens to her father-in-law for years until it becomes clear that nothing is going to happen. So Tamar decides to take matters into her own hands.

Cover-Up: Compromise and Hypocrisy

This brings us to point number two: cover-up. Look at verse 12. After a long time, Judah’s wife, the daughter of Shua, died. When Judah had finished mourning, he and his friend Hirah the Adullamite went up to Timnah to his sheepshearers. Tamar was told, "Your father-in-law is going up to Timnah to shear his sheep." So she took off her widow’s clothes, veiled her face, covered herself, and sat at the entrance to Enaim, which is on the way to Timnah. For she saw that though Shelah had grown up, she had not been given to him as a wife.

When Judah saw her, he thought she was a prostitute, for she had covered her face. He went over to her and said, "Come, let me sleep with you," for he did not know that she was his daughter-in-law. She said, "What will you give me for sleeping with me?" "I will send you a young goat from my flock," he replied. But she said, "Only if you leave something with me until you send it." "What shall I give you?" he asked. She answered, "Your signet ring, your cord, and the staff in your hand." So he gave them to her and slept with her, and she became pregnant by him. She got up and left, then removed her veil and put her widow’s clothes back on.

It’s clear to Tamar that no one is going to take care of her. Shelah is now a grown man and she still hasn’t been given to him. So, she goes, she veils her face, and she goes to Enaim. And just like before, Judah sees this supposed prostitute and then he goes in to take her.

And what Judah does in soliciting prostitution may seem even more grotesque than his sons. I mean, how does Judah go from being the son of Israel—being part of this chosen line of God’s people—to now actively pursuing sexual immorality? The clues are clear in verse 12. Notice the way that it talks. It says after his mourning, Judah goes with his friend Hirah the Adullamite. In verse one, he lives close to Hirah; now, compounded with years, by the time we get to verse 12, he is now buds with Hirah the Adullamite. We talked before about how proximity to promiscuity leads to sin, and how Judah slips into the same pattern as Lot. He goes from being close to sin to then joining sin, because compromise compounded with time leads to corruption. That’s what happens.

Maturity is not marked by how close you can get to sin without falling into it. And Judah ends up in terrible situations where he’s willing to forego all of his morality by sleeping with a prostitute. And listen, I know that most people that end up in terrible, embarrassing situations—when I’ve sat down with people that have made absolute wrecks of their lives—they will always tell me that they never envisioned that their life would end up that way. It is rarely an overnight decision where people look at their life and decide to throw it all away. And when you break down their stories, that’s exactly what happens: they make a steady trickle of compromises and then compound into corruption that they never imagined themselves to be.

Friends, do not befriend sin. It will corrupt you. There is no amount of brownie points that you get with your Lord and Savior by being as close to sin as possible. And if you yourself are tempted by sin or if you feel its draw in your heart, I just want to encourage you to talk to other people about it. Bring it to the Lord. Bring it to a fellow church member. Warn each other about the need to be sober-minded. It is far better to have an embarrassing conversation now than to be caught making compromises that you never imagined yourself to make. Judah settled, then he saw a Canaanite, and then he solicited a prostitute.

But Tamar asks what she would receive in exchange for her services. And Judah offers her a goat—a pretty expensive thing to give her. But she wants assurance that he wouldn’t just walk away without ever following through. So she asks him for his signet ring, cord, and staff. These are all personal items that you could use to identify a person, especially the signet ring or seal. I actually own a seal exactly like this. In Korean culture, they have seals that have personal identification marks; it acts almost like a signature. You'd use it as a stamp. Other cultures have seals so that when they seal a letter with wax, they would stamp their own personal marker on it. So the person that receives the letter knows that it came from them; they would know that it’s authentic.

What Tamar is taking from Judah is the equivalent of taking someone’s driver’s license or passport—something that’s not duplicatable. It’s a unique, undeniable identifier. And so Judah gives her this IOU and then sleeps with her. And that would be the end of it, except Tamar gets pregnant, and she gets up and she leaves. And while Judah seems content to engage in this shameless act of sin, the next day he seems to be eager to do everything he can to cover it up.

Look at verse 20. When Judah sent the young goat by his friend, the Adullamite, in order to get back the items he had left with the woman, he could not find her. He asked the men of the place, "Where’s the cult prostitute who was beside the road at Enaim?" "There’s been no cult prostitute here," they answered. So the Adullamite returned to Judah, saying, "I couldn’t find her. And besides, the men of the place said, 'There has been no cult prostitute here.'" Judah replied, "Let her keep the items for herself, otherwise we will become a laughingstock. After all, I did send this young goat, but you couldn’t find her."

I’d love to say that Judah didn’t know what his sin would lead to, but it seems like Judah knew exactly how shameful his sin was, because he cares not about the sin that he committed, but he cares about covering up as much of the consequences of that sin as he can. He doesn’t care about the shame of this woman that he just took advantage of. He cares more about the shame that he would experience if other people found out that he had slept with a prostitute. In fact, he’s so ashamed he doesn’t even make the walk of shame back to that area to pay her back; he sends his friend to go make payment for him. Except that when his friend goes, he can’t find her. In fact, the people go, "There is no prostitute here." And Judah has no choice but to let the whole thing go, otherwise he becomes a laughingstock.

See the hypocrisy that occurs in our hearts where we’re willing to embrace sin, but we’re unwilling to embrace its consequences? We’re willing to accept the delight and pleasure that sin offers while trying to avoid the punishment that sin brings. We find ourselves more concerned with getting away with it. That’s exactly what happens with Judah. He ends up having to cower away. He has to submit his will to the fear of a prostitute.

This is a multi-step, multi-layered sin. You have the compromise of location, the marrying of a non-believer, the neglect of his daughter-in-law, and the soliciting of prostitution. It is no wonder that Judah lost his personal identification, because Judah is so lost in his sin, he literally lost himself. And so will you and I if we are more diligent in covering up our sin than confronting the sin that’s actually there.

Hypocrisy will make you focus on what you can get away with instead of what’s truly good. You will maneuver around your spouse instead of giving up yourself for them. You will focus on how you can look busy or look productive in front of your boss instead of actually faithfully serving in your workplace. You will come to church every Sunday and you will fake holiness with raised hands before an almighty God that knows every single thing that you do in private. And hypocrisy will make you so focused on the exterior perception of yourself that before you know it, your soul will be completely hollowed out and empty. It is no wonder that 1 John 1:8 says that if we say we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. There is nobody in this room that is doing good enough. Does that describe you? It certainly described Judah. Instead of acknowledging the fruit of his sin, he ends up diving for the fig leaves—that is, of course, until his sin is exposed.

Confrontation: Exposed and Redeemed

Point three: confrontation. Look at verse 24. About three months later, Judah was told, "Your daughter-in-law Tamar has been acting like a prostitute, and now she is pregnant." "Bring her out," Judah said, "and let her be burned to death."

Three months go by. Tamar’s belly is undeniable; she can’t hide her immorality. And Judah finds out and he is incensed. He calls for her to be brought out and burnt to death, because hypocrisy will minimize your own sins while maximizing the sins of others. It is hard to be merciful towards other people’s sins when you haven’t given the opportunity for true mercy to be shown to yourself. If you haven’t been forgiven much, what would make you want to forgive others? And Judah’s wrath is consistent with how he’s viewed himself in this entire story. Judah is the main character; he gets what he wants. And the moment that someone steps in his way, whether it’s his younger brother or his daughter-in-law, they are to be disposed of. Because Tamar has done something against Judah’s wishes, she must be killed.

Except, as it turns out, Tamar was the one that was doing everything that Judah had asked her to do. You see that in verse 25. As she was being brought out, she sent her father-in-law this message: "I am pregnant by the man to whom these items belong." And she added, "Examine them. Whose signet ring, cord, and staff are these?"

Judah recognized them and said, "She is more in the right than I, since I did not give her to my son Shelah." And he did not know her intimately again.

Judah is confronted with objective proof of his sin. He cannot deny it. That word for examining is the same as what Judah and his brothers asked their dad Jacob to do when they gave him the bloodstained robe of his brother Joseph. And now Tamar is showing him undeniable proof that he was the perpetrator of the heinous sin that caused her to get pregnant. And Judah recognizes his wrongdoing. He recognizes himself as the one who had been acting immorally. Not just that, he recognizes the depth of his wrongdoing—that what he did wrong goes deeper than just committing sexual immorality with his daughter-in-law, but that he had neglected her by not providing for her.

Judah doesn’t double down. He doesn’t seek to cover up the sins that he had committed against Tamar. Because when he was confronted with his sin, he is able to recognize that he is a wicked man. And the same will happen to you. You will stand before a holy God. And when He presents the evidence of your immorality, there will not be a single thing that you can say in defense. You will be utterly exposed in front of His all-knowing eye and His perfect justice.

In fact, Judah is so wicked that in every way that Joseph is a righteous man, Judah is a wicked man. Joseph is sold; Judah was the one who sold him. Joseph flees from sexual sin; Judah pursues it. Joseph provides for many people; Judah neglects his own family. Joseph reveals the truth; Judah hides the truth. And Joseph is gracious, while Judah is vengeful. Judah is an anti-Joseph. This is an anti-gospel story. Judah is the pinnacle of wickedness.

And what’s alarming about a story this dark and this evil is that unlike his wicked son Er or his other wicked son Onan, Judah doesn’t die. God doesn’t strike him dead. Despite the fact that he had committed perhaps the worst evils out of anyone here in this chapter, Judah still has his heart beating. His lungs are still breathing. Because Judah repents. He recognizes his sins. "He did not know her intimately again." He treats Tamar righteously after being confronted with this sin.

But is that enough? I mean, can you look at a story this grotesque, this alarming, and really conclude that just recognizing that you messed up and choosing to do the right thing from this point forward—is that enough to cover up all the mess that you just read about? And more than that, what do you do with Tamar? This poor woman who acted in desperation, who’s been ravaged by evil men and dark providence. What hope exists for her?

Her hope doesn’t lie in something Judah did for her. His apology certainly is not enough to cover up everything that happened to her. But true hope comes in someone that would come from Judah. Look at verse 27. When the time came for her to give birth, there were twins in her womb. As she was giving birth, one of them put out his hand, and the midwife took it and tied a scarlet thread around it, announcing, "This one came out first." But then he pulled his hand back. Out came his brother, and she said, "What a breakout you have made for yourself." So he was named Perez. Then his brother who had the scarlet thread tied to his hand came out and was named Zerah.

The Promise of Redemption: Perez, Ruth, and Jesus

Tamar has two children, and one of them has a scarlet thread tied around his hand. Do you see where I’m going? I hope not, because the thread has nothing to do with the gospel. Let’s try to be careful Bible readers. Just because something’s red doesn’t mean it automatically points to Jesus’s blood. But there is real hope that happens here. And it doesn’t come from the person that has a scarlet thread tied around his hand, but comes from the one who subverted expectations and crossed the breach first. Zerah pulls his hand back. Perez breaks out. And it’s from Perez that the promise of redemption comes.

Turn with me to Genesis 49. I restrained myself from going to Genesis 50 last week, but I couldn’t help myself this week. Go to Genesis 49. This is Jacob at the end of his life blessing his sons. And this is the way that he blesses Judah, this wicked man. Look at verse 10:

The scepter will not depart from Judah or the staff from between his feet until he whose right it is comes and the obedience of the peoples belongs to him. He ties his donkey to a vine, and the colt of his donkey to the choice vine. He washes his clothes in wine and his robes in the blood of grapes. His eyes are darker than wine, and his teeth are whiter than milk.

— Genesis 49:10-12 (CSB)

See this description of what Judah will have—that from the line of Judah, not from Joseph, from Judah would come a king where the obedience of all the peoples would come to him. Even if Joseph is the main focus of this entire section of the book of Genesis, he isn’t the one from whom ultimate redemption would come. There would be a breakout from the line of Judah. And Judah, and in particular his kids from this particular mess of Genesis 38, will become the ongoing, repeated pattern of God’s promises that ripple all throughout the Bible.

You will see Judah, you will see Tamar in particular, and you will see Perez show up all over the Old Testament. Turn your Bible to Ruth chapter 4. Ruth is right after the book of Judges. Ruth chapter 4. Look at the very end of chapter 4 there, from verse 17, after the story. Ruth and Naomi are two widows. They feel like they have no hope in life. Boaz comes and redeems them. Boaz gets married to Ruth and they have a son. And the neighbor women said, "A son has been born to Naomi." And they named him Obed. He was the father of Jesse, and the father of David.

This minuscule story about two widows in Israel then blows up at the end of the chapter to turn out to be about the greatest figure that exists in Old Testament history with the kingdom of Israel. And then the author of Ruth decides to give a genealogy to show where David came from. And notice where they start in verse 18: "Now these are the family records of Perez." Isn’t that interesting? They start with Perez, not Judah. Starts with Perez because the author of Ruth is pointing back to Genesis 38 and showing that for all of the calamity and terror that Tamar went through, God would still provide her a redeemer. In fact, if you understand the book of Ruth—we're going to read through the book of Ruth tonight in our evening service—the entire book of Ruth is an answer to what God was doing in Genesis 38.

But it goes deeper than that. Go to Matthew chapter 1. Matthew chapter 1. This is the very beginning of the first gospel regarding Jesus Christ in our New Testament. In chapter 1, Matthew begins with a genealogy, a list of names that you might have been tempted to skip in your Bible reading. But I just want you to observe—look at the list of names in this genealogy. There are four women that are mentioned in the genealogy of Jesus. Do you notice who they are?

The first is Tamar, who veiled herself as a prostitute. Then you have Rahab, who was literally a prostitute in Jericho. Then you have Ruth, a widow who was sent to a man at night. And then you have Bathsheba, who was brought, despite the fact that she was married, to go sleep with the king of her nation. All four stories involve dark sins, and all four women are used in God’s master plan to lead to the Savior of the universe.

And Matthew isn’t naming these women to try to gloss over the darkness of their stories. Notice in verse three in Matthew 1, he explicitly references Judah fathering Perez and Zerah. He is deliberately telling the readers of this gospel: "Remember Genesis 38." If your stories feel like Tamar’s, then the gospel is for you. Matthew specifically recalls these dark providences because that is what life in a sinful world brings.

There is no use in trying to cover up the reality of living in this broken world. Life will be rated R over and over again. You will be confronted with some grotesque, despicable sins in your life. You will have to face some of the darkest aspects of immorality as you live in this broken world. And yet, God used every sin-stained thread in history to lead to the Savior of the whole earth.

The true answer to Judah’s sin, to Rahab’s prostitution, to Ruth’s poverty, and Bathsheba’s scandal isn’t a denial of their sin. It comes from true redemption for sin—that the only true answer to sin wouldn’t come from concealing corruption, but the consequences of sin being poured out on Jesus Christ. Jesus on the cross bore the sins of Judah. He bore the sins of Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, David, and Bathsheba on His shoulders. He paid the penalty of sin for everyone who would believe in Him. He drank the cup of God’s wrath in full. He was treated as though he had done evil in the Lord’s sight—despite having no sin in Him—and God struck Him dead, and He rose from the dead three days later, declaring that the greatest consequence of sin and death is no match for God’s mercy.

If you’re here this morning and you feel like your life is a mess, if you look at the highlight reel of your life and all the things that you’ve done and you tell me, "John, Genesis 38 doesn’t even begin to touch half of everything," I have good news for you. Jesus doesn’t need you to try to deny the darkness that happened in your life or try to get you to lie about all of the evil things that you did. What He offers you this morning is true hope—a light that can pierce even the darkest parts of your heart and give you true life, true forgiveness by addressing the root issue that’s in all of our hearts and all of our circumstances, which is our sin.

And that begins by recognizing, just like Judah did, dropping the hypocritical facade of having it all together, and then taking all of the corruption that we have in our hearts and bringing it to the cross where Jesus takes the worst of your sin and exchanges it for His righteousness, for His grace. And that grace transforms us in such a way that we pursue Christ with all of our lives. This becomes the hinge point in Judah’s story. You will see Judah come up again in Genesis 44, and he will read like he’s a completely different man. And the difference in Judah is not his acts to try to redeem himself. The difference in Judah is his repentant heart.

Friends, God’s grace is great enough that we don’t need to cower away from Jesus out of fear of His condemnation. We don’t need to cover up our sins for the sake of saving face. We can face the depraved depths of our sin because the darkness and the deepest depths of your sin reveal the sheer magnitude of God’s mercy.

And for those of us whose stories are stained with sorrow like Tamar—where you look at the events of your life and you just say, "I have no idea what God’s doing. I have no idea how this all works together"—friend, if God is able to use tragedies like this to display the wonders of His grace and cosmic redemption, how could He not do the same with you? How could He not do the same for your brokenness, for your tragedies, for the stuff that you simply can't make sense of? If you have a Savior who is willing to embrace suffering Himself and emerge victorious over the grave, will He not be able to take your tragedies and weave them into the tapestry of His glory and His grace?

If God can make something of Tamar, He can do something with you. He can make something of your life. And when your race is complete and you stand before your holy God, you won’t have to account for your regrets or your despicable actions or our wretched hearts. We'll be able to say with our hearts sprinkled clean with the blood of our Savior, as our holy God says the only reason I was here isn't because of anything I did, but because of Christ in me.

Let’s pray. Lord, we do pray for all of us. We pray for those who are hiding in sin that they will be drawn by the warm promise of the gospel to be able to expose their hearts for what truly exists and to be able to bring them to a gracious Savior. And Lord, we do pray for those who have experienced unspeakable tragedy. Lord, be with us, we pray, and lead us safely home. We pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.