From Failure to Faith - Genesis 38

A sermon from pastor Finley Cutshaw on Genesis 38. This message was preached on Sunday, May 24th in the evening service. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Welcome to the Everyday Faith Podcast from East Sides. This is where faith meets real life, right where you live. Here we dive into honest conversations about where God is moving in our everyday moments, in our homes, our neighborhoods, and our communities. Whether you're listening on your morning commute, walking the dog, or winding down at home, we're glad you're here. Let's explore what everyday faith looks like.

SPEAKER_01 0:35

Open your Bibles tonight to Genesis 38. Genesis 38. And I bet y'all thought I wasn't going to preach tonight, didn't you, after all that we had going on? Well, I'm not going to preach the whole thing because it's 40 verses, and I put you through about 50 verses this morning. And so we'll take a few moments here and do a portion of this tonight. And I want to talk to you about Judah. And of course, he's one of the 12 sons of Jacob. And he is here placed in a in a kind of an awkward place in Scripture, in my opinion, although I believe it's God's inspired word and it's where God wanted it. But it's just kind of an awkward situation. I'll explain why I say that in just a moment. And uh we have here in the text, we started last week with uh Joseph, uh, not last week, but the week before last. We had Joseph, and we really just broke into, I guess, if you will, the first stages of the story of Joseph and all the things that go on there. And then you have all of a sudden Genesis 38. So you got Genesis 37, Joseph, Genesis 38, Judah, and then from there on out it's Joseph. And Judah comes back up later on in the uh in the story of the Old Testament here and uh the beginnings of the tribe of, or I mean the beginnings of the uh people of Israel. But at best, this is an uncomfortable text. It's filled with sinful behavior by one of Jacob's oldest sons. It seems to interrupt the story of Joseph. I believe it's located here to show the sharp contrast between the character of Joseph in comparison to the other sons of Jacob. I think Judah gets the spotlight here, but I think this might be typical of the same kind of behavior of all of Joseph's brothers. Remember, we're talking about uh at least 10 men that, because Benjamin wouldn't have been a part of it, but ten men that decided, hey, let's get together and kill our brother, because he's always talking about these dreams he has, and he's supposedly going to rule over us one day. And then Judah, of course, comes up and says, Well, let's not kill him. Put him in this pit for right now, and we'll decide what to do with him later, thinking that he would come back, or Reuben would come back and deliver him. Reuben came up with the idea, but Judah then said, Hey, let's sell him to those guys. That's the crowd that Joseph was growing up with. And so there's a tremendous contrast. Now, Joseph, however, and Joseph is a tremendous picture of the believer who can do right when surrounded by evil. That's the picture we have of Joseph. And Judah serves to give us a great contrast in that. Now, I believe Judah does change over time, like I believe many people do, and sometimes characters in the Bible, we can see some of that change take place. But there is a great contrast between Judah and Joseph. Judah, I've titled this section, by the way, Judah, a man of praise, with a bit of a question there. And so I don't want you to miss that, and you'll understand why all of that in just a few moments. But he's the fourth son of Jacob and Leah. His name means praise. In fact, his mother named him so in honor to the Lord at the time of his birth. Genesis chapter 29, verse 35. It says this, and she conceived again and bare a son, and she said, Now I will praise the Lord. Therefore she called his name Judah and left bearing. She does have more after this, but she had stopped at that moment. And then, so his name implies praise to the Lord. His older brother Reuben was the oldest son of Jacob. He is the one who his uh uh he is the one who went in to his father's concubine, Bilha. You see that in Genesis 35. Uh, they're just a mess, this family. There were moral problems in this family for sure. Jacob should have dealt with it, but he had some issues in this area himself, having four wives of his own. You know the history there. And then Judah was the one who came up with the ideas I mentioned earlier to sell Joseph into slavery. You can see that in Genesis 37, verse 26 through 27, which we looked at a couple of weeks ago. Now Judah later becomes the spokesman for the family when Jacob sent his sons to buy food down into Egypt, Genesis 43 and 44. When you follow through that, you find Judah is always the guy speaking. It's as if he gets charge of the family and its future. And there's some reasons, I believe, behind that. By the end of Genesis 44, when Joseph threatened to retain Benjamin rather than allow him to go back home to Jacob, Judah offers himself to take the place of Benjamin. So there's been some change in Judah's life. But you're going to hear an account here in Genesis 38 that sounds pretty messy. So now we enter this uncomfortable story, if you will, of some of the life of this man named Judah. Judah chapter, I mean, uh Genesis chapter 38, verse number one, the Bible says, and it came to pass at that time that Judah went down from his brethren and turned into a certain Adulamite, whose name was Hira. This was a friend, a man that became a friend, and evidently Judah decided to move in with this guy. Verse number two, and Judah saw there a daughter of a certain Canaanite, whose name was Shuah, that was her father, and he took her, Shuah's daughter, and went in unto her, and she conceived and bare a son, and he called his name Ur. Verse 4, 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 Sheila. And he was made fun of because his name was Sheila. Is that what your Bible says? No, no, but I can imagine that. Anyway, and he was at Chezeb when she bare him. And Judah took a wife for Ur, his firstborn, whose name was Tamar. Now, some of you are already familiar with the events of this passage, and so you know what's coming. But it's interesting to look at this, and it's kind of like you're hearing the same sort of things you hear about Jacob. He took a wife, she had children, or had a baby, then she had another boy, then she had another boy, et cetera, et cetera. And it's almost like what we're seeing, it's very uh reflective of what we've heard and read in scripture before. But then we start to learn some things about this family. Notice with me here, in verse number uh six, Judah decides it's time for Ur to get a wife. So it says here, 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. When it says he knew this, it's not saying that he knew something that was right or wrong. What it's saying is that he made a decision in his mind not to father children for his brother. This was a custom at this time. It later became part of the law of Moses. But it was already in place in Genesis of this time. And so he knew that the seed should not be his, it says, 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 Sheila, 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. Now, I don't know about you, but if I'm Judah, I'm starting to wonder whether or not I should give another one of my sons to this woman. This is getting to be dangerous, you see. And I think he does sort of lean in that direction. The rest of the story goes on to tell that he does not give her Sheila to be her husband. Verse 12, and in the process of time, the daughter of Shuah, Judah's wife, died. Now he's a widower. And Judah was comforted and went up unto his sheep shearers to Timnath. And you've heard of Timnath before, right? Remember a guy by the name of Samson? Yep. He and his friend Hira, the Adulamite, and it was told Tamar, saying, Behold, thy father-in-law goeth up to Timnath to shear his sheep. And she put her widow's garments off from 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 Sheila was grown, and she was not given unto him to wife. When Judah saw her, he thought her to be an harlot, because she had covered her face. And he turned unto her by the way, and said, Go too, 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, a goat, baby goat. 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. She wanted items that would identify him. And it gave, and he gave it to her and came in unto 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. Now, you see why I said this is an uncomfortable, uncomfortable passage at best. And there's a lot of moral problems in all of this. Now, I'm not going to preach through all of it. I'm going to give you some highlights in just a moment, but I want to finish reading the chapter. He says, And Judah sent the kid, the baby goat, by the hand of his friend, the Adulamite, to receive his pledge from the woman's hand, but he found her not. Then he asked the men of that 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 shamed. 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, hath played the harlot. It's not saying that they knew she was the woman, it's saying that she did something sinful. The word played there has the idea behind it of immoral behavior. She played the harlot, and also, behold, she is with child by whoredom. And Judah said, Bring her forth and let her be burnt. Pretty severe there, right? Now notice verse 25. 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 signet and bracelets and staff. And Judah acknowledged them and said, Now listen, I want you to notice something here. I want you to hear these words, and I want to make a comment. He said, She hath been more righteous than I, because that I gave her not to Sheila, my son, and he knew her again no more. Now, that tells you that mankind is not able to set the standard of righteousness. Because man's man's standard of righteousness is always way too low. He's paying her, in a sense, a compliment. Who sets the standard of righteous behavior? God does. God and his word. We may feel, and here's the problem with society many times. We want to compare ourselves to the person next to us, and we may say, well, they're a little better than me, or I might be a little better than them, but they're not the standard of righteousness. Jesus and his word is the standard of righteousness. All kinds of sin going on here. And here's a guy that says, She's more righteous than me. It's kind of laughable. Look at verse 27. It came to pass in the time of her travail that behold, twins were in her womb. And it came to pass when she travailed that the one put out his hand, and the midwife took and bound up his hand a scarlet, bound upon his hand a scarlet thread, saying, This came out first. And it came to pass, as he drew back his hand, that behold, his brother came out, and he and she said, How hast thou broken forth this breach be upon thee? Therefore his name was called Phares. Now remember that name. And afterward came out his brother that had the scarlet thread upon his hand, and his name was called Zara. Now, real quick, I want to share a couple things with you that I see in the life of Judah and some things about the text here tonight. First of all, I want you to notice this. I believe Judah is fleeing because of guilt. In verse number one, it says, It came to pass at the time that Judah went down from his brethren and turned into a certain Adulamite whose name was Hira. Later on, it calls him his friend. And by the way, that's the first time the word friend is used in the Bible. It's used later on in the same way. In fact, in one place it's used to identify God as the friend of Abraham. And so there is a picture here behind that word friend that means more than simply an acquaintance. It literally means one who has influence over you. And Adulum was a person of Canaan, just like the woman that Judah ended up marrying. And the Canaanites were ungodly people. That's why God drove them out and gave the promised land to the children of Israel. The Canaanites had three major issues in their background, and this is why God destroyed the Canaanite nations before the children of Israel. You hear people all the time say, oh, wow, God is so cruel and mean. Why would He run them out and give that place to the Jews? They're just, it's awful that God would do that. Well, the Canaanites were steeped in idolatry. I don't have time to turn to the passages and show you, but most of you are familiar with this. They were worshiping all kinds of pagan gods and making up their own idols. I mean, all kinds of wickedness. Secondly, involved in that wicked practice of idolatry was child sacrifice. These people were burning their children to appease a God that didn't exist. And they were doing it over and over and over again. It was an awful place. And not only that, immorality was rampant among the Canaanite people. The kind of immorality that you don't even talk about. And you see that influence coming out in the life of Judah here in this context. And so one of the first things that I think we have to think about here is the fact that he's fleeing, and I believe it must be about guilt, but he flees from a family where there's some problems into a place where he's going to get friends who are going to take him deeper into sin. I want you to think about how he must have felt uh concerning this guilt. He had uh helped sell his own brother into slavery, and I think it would have averaged out he probably got about two pieces of silver for what they sold their brother for. And I think that maybe every time he looked at his dad, he helped come up with this lie about let's tell dad that uh, you know, we'll tear the coat up, put some blood on it, and we'll tell dad that some evil beast must have gotten his son. They actually let him come to that conclusion himself, but they hand that coat of many colors to their dad and felt very justified at first. But imagine every time he looked into the face of his dad that he had lied to, now he is filled with guilt every time he looks into his face. And I think it got to be too much for him. Not only that, but the Bible tells us that whenever Joseph was in that pit, he cried out to his brothers. Joseph was pleading with them not to do this. And can you imagine as your brother maybe is being dragged off behind some camels, not on a camel, but his hands tied and being dragged away by his captors now that you just sold him into, and hearing the cries of that young boy. Joseph was 17 years old, and his brothers were all older, and they watched all this happen. So every night, perhaps, whenever Judah would go to bed, I wonder just how many times that he would wake up hearing his brother's screams. I just wonder. And he couldn't take it anymore. Every time he looked in the faces of his brothers, he had to think about the fact, what have we done? So he said, I'm moving out. And he hit the road. But he found friends that took him deeper into sin. Listen, you and I don't have to deal with sin in that same way. We don't have to live in guilt. The Bible tells us we can confess sin and forsake sin and God forgives us. You don't have to carry guilt. You don't have to live with that kind of thing. What Judah should have done was gone to his father and confessed the sin and repented of the sin and handled it the right way. But he didn't do that. He let it drive him away. Now we know that later he comes back, and some of the things that take place are uh do seem to make him look like he did better. But I want you to notice another thing about Judah very quickly. Judah did not win any fatherhood awards. Judah fled, Judah found the wrong friends, and then he didn't win any fatherhood awards. You look at these boys here, uh it he first, the only thing he does is name the first son. And then he leaves the naming of the other two boys to his wife, which J.B. Phillips in his commentary uh just gave the idea that perhaps that meant that he just sort of stepped back and let mama take care of the boys. He was not involved in teaching them about the God that he personally knew, the God that he was associated with through his father Jacob and the covenant promises that went along with that. He wasn't involved in that. He raised them in a pagan land and allowed his wife, who was a Canaanite woman, to do most of that raising, and the result was those boys turned out to be wicked. It's right in the text here. It's unfortunate, but he did not do very well as a father. Then we see Judah's failures. Let me just give you a list of where we see some things that Judah failed in. First of all, his cowardice in defending Joseph. Judah did not defend Joseph when he had an opportunity to say, fellas, we can't do this. Instead, he was part and parcel to the plan to get rid of Joseph. He was complicit in deceiving the father. He was complicit. He helped come up with that lie. Not only that, but he was comfortable in living in a distance from the father's house. When a child of God gets comfortable being away from the father's house, they're headed for danger. And that's exactly what was going on with Judah. And then finally, he was complacent in directing his family. He allowed his wife to handle all of that, uh all of that, I guess, and he was complacent in uh his family leadership as a dad. He wasn't taking responsibility that he should have taken. And that led to Judah's folly. We see it in verses 15 through 23 where he is influenced by this Canaanite uh philosophy and uh world in which he lives. His wife passes away and he goes out and decides to be comforted in an immoral action. And we see Judah's frustration toward the end of the chapter. What does he do? He finds out that his daughter-in-law is with child and he is going to hold moral high ground. Bring her in, have her burnt. He finds out very quickly that he is the father of the child. You think about that. That had to be number one frustrating, but I want you to think about it in these terms. That's what sin's outcome always is. There's two things about it. It came full circle and came right back to him. He went and committed that sin and thought he could just walk away. Remember what he said? Well, just let her keep the signet and the bracelet and all of that, because we don't want to be. Accused of not paying for that. As if he could walk, as think about, as if he could sin and walk away from it and there be no consequence. What happened? It came right back to his doorstep. Not only that, but sin always leaves you empty. I don't think Judah, I think Judah realized he was not heading in the right direction. At some point, he does end up back with the family because he's there with Abraham, or rather with Jacob, when Jacob says, go down and get some food from the Egyptians because they've got food down there. And so there's some kind of restoration, but the real restoration doesn't come until much later. But uh thinking about the sin and how empty it does leave a person and how it does not satisfy James 1, 14 and 15 says this, but every man is tempted when he's drawn away of his own lust and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin, and sin when it is finished, bringeth forth death. Do you notice those words? When lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin. Very strong illustration in Genesis 38 here. And then James adds this warning in verse 16 Do not err, my beloved brethren. Now I've flown through this, so I want to just review it very quickly, and then I want to give you a final thought. We see Judah's flight because of his, I believe because of his guilt. We see his friends, Judah's friend, the Adulamite, which turns out to not be a very good influence on his life. We see Judah's fatherhood and the failure there. We see Judah's failure in several things that we looked at even going back to his time with Joseph, and then we see Judah's folly, that sin that he commits by the wayside, if you will, and then Judah's frustration when he's going to judge someone else for their sin. But then finally, I want you to notice this Judah's future. We hear that name Perez. And we don't have time to really develop all of this, but Perez, when Judah's eldest son, Ur and Onan died under divine judgment, the line of Judah was at risk of termination. Through the highly unconventional union of Judah and Tamar, Perez was born. He legally assumed the status of the primary heir through whom the promise of the Messiah would flow, effectively saving the line of Judah from extinction. It's interesting here when you look at this, because we don't really hear much else about Shela, but Perez's name does come up. Jacob prophesied in Genesis 49, 10 that the scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet until Shiloh come. Who's Shiloh? It's a reference to Christ. Now, I think it's interesting too. And you find God says a lot of good things about Judah there. That prophecy referring to Perez and the line of Judah. Perez is the direct bridge that carried the royal promise from Judah down to King David and ultimately to Jesus Christ. Now, I'm going to read this, and you can write it down in your notes if you want to, but we see this clearly laid out in the book of Ruth and in the book of Matthew. In Ruth chapter 4, verse 17 through 22, it says, And the women, her neighbors, Naomi's neighbors, Ruth was the one that gave birth, but Naomi took care of the baby. You remember that. And the woman, the women, her neighbors gave it a name, saying, There is a son born to Naomi. And they called his name Obed. He is the father of Jesse, the father of David. Now these are the generations of Phares. Perez begat Hezron, and Hezron begat Ram, and Ram begat Aminadab, and Amminadab begat Nashan, and Nashan begat Salmon, and Salmon begat Boaz, and Boaz begat Obed, and Obed begat Jesse, and Jesse begat David. So you have all those begets, but where did we see it start? Perez, this child that came out of this very unusual relationship. But don't stop there. Go to Matthew chapter 1, verse 3 through 6 in the line of Jesus. And again, it starts with Judas. Judas begat Phares. This is Judah. Judas begat Perez and Zara of Tamar. And Pharise begat Ezraim, and Ezraim begat Aram, and Aram begat Amenedab, and Menedab, Nason, Nason, Salmon, Salmon, Boaz, and Re of Rachob, or Rachel, and uh uh or Rahab, rather, and Boaz begat Obed of Ruth, and Obed begat Jesse, and Jesse begat David the king, all the way down until you get to Jesus. And what do we see there? This is a great place to end, by the way. What do we see in that? We see the grace of Almighty God. Here's a man that had made a mess of his life. I mean, you look at that family and you think, My goodness, what good could come out of all of this disaster we read about in Genesis chapter 38? And then God steps in. And that's what grace does. You know, you and I make messes of our lives sometimes. But God is able to step in with his grace and bring something wonderful out of a messed up life. And it all comes down, here it is, to Jesus. That's where Perez points us to. Think about that for just a moment. Judah's failure begets Perez, and Perez points us to Jesus.

SPEAKER_00 28:08

Thanks for joining us for the Everyday Faith Podcast from Eastside. Remember, faith grows not just on Sundays, but in the everyday moments of your life. If today's conversation has encouraged you, share it with someone who might need it. And don't forget to follow and subscribe so you never miss an episode. We'll see you next time, right here, on the Everyday Faith Podcast from Eastside.