Apply Within

Guest (Male): If you're out in the parking lot and you're fighting and I come in there and I will break it up. And I'm saying you guys quit it, this is wrong. You're judging me. Yeah, I am, but I'm not judging your motive. I'm not judging to condemnation. I don't know what's going on in your heart. It's none of my business, but you will not fight right here.

I'm not judging you to condemnation, but I'm judging for identification. That language isn't going to work around the kids, you'll just hold that language or get off the property.

Welcome to Apply Within, a verse-by-verse study of the Word of God with Pastor Bob Davis of North Country Chapel. We invite you to join with us as we, by the power of God's Holy Spirit, apply His Word within our own hearts as we study line upon line, precept upon precept, verse by verse through the Bible. Our study of Genesis continues in chapter 38 as Tamar attempts to get Judah to give her what he has promised. Here's Pastor Bob.

Bob Davis: So in chapter 38, people say, "Why is chapter 38 here?" We go from Joseph, boom, all of a sudden we're back to talking about Judah. We're back to talking about the sons of Jacob. Well, in chapter 38, as you'll see in a moment, if I would ever get to it, we're given the beginning of the lineage of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.

In Matthew 1, we're given the lineage of Jesus. In Mary's side of the family, Jesus' mother was Tamar the prostitute and Rahab the prostitute. We call her Granny Ray, the prostitute in Jericho. And Bathsheba, infidelity, adultery, and an adulteress.

The others are Ruth, a Gentile, a Moabitess. Moabites were not welcome in the land of Israel; they had been kicked out. And yet in grace, there's a Moabitess in the family tree of Jesus Christ. So you've got a couple of prostitutes and an adulterous woman, and now you've got Ruth, a Gentile, and finally Mary, a godly virgin.

Do you see the grace? Do you see the mercy? He will accept you, He accepts me, He will accept anyone who calls out to Him. He doesn't push anyone away; anyone who comes to Jesus is welcome.

So let's start. Genesis 38. "It came to pass at that time." What time? Well, now that Joseph's working at Potiphar's house in Egypt, it came to pass at that time Judah went down from his brethren. He moved. He loves his family; he's not going very far, but he moves away from his family.

He turns to a certain Adullamite whose name was Hirah. And Judah saw there a daughter of a certain Canaanite whose name was Shua the Canaanite, and he took that daughter and he went in to her. Now he's married, and he marries a Canaanite girl. She conceived and she bare a son. He called his name Er. In verse 4, she conceived again and bare him another son; she called him Onan. And verse 5, "And yet again she conceived," she bare a son and called his name Shelah. And he was at Chezib when she bare him.

Why out of nowhere do we go from Joseph—we leave our hero in Egypt, we'll get back to him next chapter—but we leave our hero there and we go to Judah? What? Joseph is a type of who? He's a type of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ comes through the lineage of Judah. You'd think that He's God Almighty, so it's going to be a beautiful history of beautiful people, and look what you got here.

The lineage of Judah, the tribe that Jesus Christ, Messiah, will come through. Judah is the one that came up with the idea, if you recall last chapter, of selling his brother into slavery. It was Judah who thought, "Listen, let's not kill the kid. He'll die over there. Okay, he's dead, but we don't want his blood on our hands. But let's get rid of him. Let's literally get rid of him, and he'll die on his own way out in Egypt. We'll never see him again." That was Judah's idea.

And through the lineage of Judah, Messiah will come. That's what you and I call grace. You look back at your life—don't dwell on it or you might get sick—but you look back on your life and you think, "And yet I belong to the Lord now. Completely forgiven, all my sin washed away."

Judah. And through that man Judah and that lineage will come Messiah, Jesus Christ, God Almighty in human flesh. He left his brothers. That doesn't mean he doesn't love his family anymore; he's not real far from them. I think about 15 to 18 miles away, that's all. But he went off on his own. They're all staying together; they're family. But he says, "Let me check it out, check out other stuff." About 15 miles away, he moves over to Adullam. 15 miles, it's northwest of Hebron, where his family is.

Do you remember back how important it was for Abraham that his son Isaac not marry a Canaanite woman? Let me read you the scripture in Genesis 24, verses 3 and 4. Abraham says to his servant Eliezer, "I will make you swear by the Lord, the God of heaven and the God of the earth, that you shall not take a wife to my son of the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I dwell. But you shall go to my own country and to my kindred, my family, and take a wife to my son Isaac."

Do not let my son or any of my sons, don't let them marry a Canaanite woman. They worshipped false gods; they had bizarre religious sexual practices that were a mess that included animals and things, and the diseases were just kind of strange. And Abraham said, "No, swear to me you won't do that."

Now, look at this, though. Even though the family had avoided marrying the people of the land to avoid actually marrying outside the faith, Judah married a Canaanite woman, the daughter of Shua. They had three sons: Er, Onan, and Shelah. Verse 6. Judah took a wife for Er. Well, now Er is old enough, so years have gone by. Poor Joseph, where is he? He's probably in prison right now. We'll get to him coming up next chapter.

Judah took a wife for his firstborn, Er. Her name was Tamar. And Er, Judah's firstborn, was wicked in the sight of the Lord, and he died. His lifestyle was like a Canaanite lifestyle, and he died quickly, early on. And Judah, verse 8, said to Onan, his second son, "Go in to your brother's wife and marry her, and raise up children to your brother."

And Onan knew, verse 9, that the seed would not be his. The firstborn they would have wouldn't even be his child; it was considered his brother's child. And that child would get all the benefits of the firstborn. And even though it would be his child, it wouldn't be his child; it would be considered his brother's. And he doesn't like that.

So Onan knew that the seed should not be his, and it came to pass when he went in to 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, so he was killed, too. That's two out of three.

And verse 11, Judah said to Tamar, his daughter-in-law, "Remain a widow at your father's house." She's free to remarry according to the laws of the Canaanites. He says, "But go home and live with your father again till Shelah, my son, is old enough, be grown." For he said, "Lest peradventure he die also, as his brothers did." And Tamar went and dwelt in her father's house. She trusted Judah.

Well, it was the custom at that time for a brother or a near relative to marry the widow and raise children for the one who died. If they didn't have any children, raise children for them so the children would be considered Er's children, at least the firstborn. So Jacob gave Tamar to his second son, Onan.

But Onan basically said in his heart, "No, I'm not going to do this. No, my kids, I want them to be mine. I don't want them to be my brother's kids, that's dopey." So Onan refused to have children with Tamar because the first child born would be the legal heir of his older brother, and he'll run the show kind of thing.

And I think poor Tamar, so far the only honest one in the crowd is her, and she hasn't done anything except just married this guy. Now she's married another guy. Now they're dead. She really doesn't have many options here. Judah says to her, "Shelah, my youngest, he's too little to be married. Go back to your father's house. When he's old enough, I'll send for you."

She didn't have to do that. She was free to go, but she thought it's the right thing to do. Now she's been married twice. Now she's a widow the second time. Women in those days didn't work. The workers, the working women, were prostitutes. And it looks like Tamar was a nice enough girl; she wasn't about to do that.

So in shame and humiliation, she went back and lived with her father again. Why? So she wouldn't be homeless, so she wouldn't starve to death. She can't go out and make her own living; women didn't do that, unless she's going to prostitute. Judah, we're told here in these verses we read all the way through verse 11, has no intention of letting his youngest son marry Tamar.

Jacob figures there's nothing wrong with my boys; there's something weird about that girl. She married both of them, and they're dead. I'm not giving her my youngest son; he'll be dead, too. So he thinks this is all Tamar's fault. And Christian, isn't that exactly the way the world thinks? Isn't that exactly the way we think?

"Couldn't be my sin that's causing this; got to be yours." The Bible says that it was both of those sons' sins that destroyed them, not Tamar's, their own. Now Judah should be paying attention. He shouldn't have had his son marry outside of the faith, to be unequally yoked. He shouldn't have done it. But it was his idea. Just mingle around, just be nice with everybody.

Judah—I keep saying Jacob sometimes, too, but it's Judah that started this problem. It's his two sons that sinned before the Lord willingly, causing their own deaths. So I think what we do here, everyone, is we go before the Lord and say, "Through my fault, through my fault."

Like the tax collector Jesus talked about, he fell down before the Lord and said, "Have mercy on me, sinner that I am." He could point to this guy's sins and that girl's sins and those people's, but the thing is we want to bring our hearts, our own hearts to the Lord.

In the process of time, as time went on, the daughter of Shua, Judah's wife, died. Now Judah is a single man again. Judah was comforted, and then he went up to the sheep shearers to Timnath, a city, he and his friends, Hirah the Adullamite. And it was told to Tamar, saying, "Behold, your father-in-law is headed to Timna to where they're shearing the sheep."

And she put her widow's garments off of her. She covered herself with a veil, her face, and wrapped herself and sat in the open place which is by the road that goes to Timna. For she saw that Shelah was grown and she was not given him as his wife. She says, "Wait a minute, that kid's old enough now. I've waited. I did what you asked me, and I've waited. You're ripping me off here."

So when Judah saw her—remember now she's dressed up like a prostitute—they'd sit by the side of the road, they would cover their faces with a veil, you couldn't tell who they were. But she's dressed in the old prostitute clothes, so you couldn't miss what she was. When Judah saw her, he was pretty sure she was a prostitute.

Verse 16 says he turned under her by the way and he said, "Go to, I pray thee, let me come in unto you." For he did not know it was his daughter-in-law. And she said, "How much will you give me? What will you pay that you may come in to me?" He said, "I will give you, I'll send to you a young goat from the flock." And she said, "Deal." I'm paraphrasing. "Deal."

"But you don't have a young goat right with you here; I'm looking at you, there's no goat. So give me a pledge until you send it. Give me something to hold onto so I'll know you're going to come through with this goat, this baby goat." He said, "What pledge shall I give you?"

Verse 18. She said, "Thy signet," that would be a ring, "the bracelets," and the ring would have a cord with it to hold it around his neck usually, "the bracelets, and your staff, your walking stick, what you got in your hand there." And he gave it to her, gave them to her, and he came in to her, and she conceived by him. He doesn't know that yet.

She arose and she went away. She took off the prostitute clothes, put on her widowhood garments, and went on home. And Judah sent the baby goat by the hand of his friend, the Adullamite, to receive his pledge from the woman's hand, but he could not find her. Then the friend asked the men about that place, "Where's the prostitute that was openly by the wayside that was sitting by the road yesterday?"

And they said, "There was no harlot in this place." He returned to Judah and said, "I can't find her. And also the men of the place said there is no harlots that ever sit there on that road." And Judah said, "Well, let her take it to her, lest we be embarrassed. Behold, I sent the young goat, and you didn't find her." In other words, "I tried to pay what I owed, you're a witness, but couldn't find her."

Verse 24. The family that Jesus comes from. It came to pass around three months after, it was told Judah, saying, "Tamar, your daughter-in-law, has played the prostitute. We heard this, she is with child by whoredom. She's pregnant." And Judah said, "Bring her forth and let her be burnt alive."

When she was brought forth, she sent to her father-in-law a note, a message saying, "By the man whose these are, I am with child, I'm pregnant. And this is the man, the one that owns these things, that's the man that did this." And she said, "Discern, I pray, whose they are, the signet, the bracelets, and the walking staff."

And Judah acknowledged them and said, "She hath been more righteous than I because that I gave her not to Shelah my son." And he knew her again no more. He's saying, "I'm guilty." You know what he was doing? He was acting like all the heathen around him. It's easy to fall into. You begin to act like and speak like and think like the crowd that you run with.

You say, "Well, I'm a Christian." Well, listen, it's easy to become a Christian liar, a Christian gossiper, a Christian—you fill in the blank. We're sinners that are saved by grace, but if you're running with people that are judgmental, looking down on everybody, you're going to catch yourself—or maybe you won't, someone might point it out to you—you're a little bit more judgmental, you want to lighten up here.

You want to read your Bible and see what it says about that, like in Matthew chapter 7, you want to take a look. Be careful. We're all capable of it. 2 Corinthians 6:14-18: "Do not be unequally yoked together, Christian, with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with unrighteousness?" It's a rhetorical question. None. "What communion has light with darkness?" None, it's impossible; you can have one or the other, you can't have both in the same place.

"What concord hath Christ with Belial, the devil? Or what part hath he that believes with an infidel? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols?" The answer to all these is none, none, none. "For you are the temple of the living God. And God has said, 'I will dwell in them and walk in them, and I will be their God and they shall be my people.' Wherefore," because of that, "come out from among them and be ye separate."

That's what He's saying to Judah; that's what Judah should be learning here. Get out of this situation, get back to where you belong. "Come out from among them and be ye separate," saith the Lord, "and touch not the unclean thing and I will receive you." Run to Jesus, everybody. "And I will be a Father to you, and you shall be my sons and daughters," saith the Lord. He hasn't changed anything since Genesis 38 when we're reading in 2 Corinthians 6. Nothing's changed.

None of that should have happened, and every bit of it did. Let's end the chapter. It came to pass in the time of her labor, travail, behold, twins were in her womb. She's having twins. Their father is Judah. It came to pass as she travailed, as she was in labor, one put out his hand, just a little hand pokes out.

And the midwife took and bound upon his hand a scarlet thread, saying, "This one came out first." So she's expecting—you want to mark the firstborn because that's important, the firstborn takes the authority when they're older. So the firstborn, she goes, "This came out first." Then it came to pass as he drew his hand back in, verse 29, "And behold, his brother came out" first.

And they said, "How hast thou broken forth? This breach be upon thee." Therefore they named him Perez. And afterwards the one that had the little scarlet thread, he came out next. They called him Zerah. Perez and Zerah, twins. The Messianic lineage, remember through Judah, everyone, came through Perez.

Who was his mother? Tamar, who prostituted herself out. And she got pregnant from her father-in-law, Judah, having no idea what he was doing. And through that lineage comes King David, and through that lineage comes Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, through the lineage of Perez.

Isn't it amazing that the Lord Jesus Christ, according to the flesh, would willingly come through the line of Judah and Tamar, knowingly and willingly come through? Way back there, Tamar, what was she? Well, she just kind of got ripped off and pretty much she was a widow and a prostitute, that's her reputation there all the way down to Jesus Christ through His mother Mary.

Jesus Christ, according to the flesh, would come through the lineage of Judah and Tamar. When Jesus became flesh, He came through the sinful line of Judah, who wanted to murder his own brother and then sold his own brother into slavery. Of Tamar, who played a prostitute just because she was getting cheated and left out of the family.

He came through a sinful line, but He had no sin. He was made sin for us. Jesus did all this for us, He who knew no sin became sin for us. That's how He got here. 2 Corinthians chapter 5, verse 21: "For He," God, "made Him," Jesus Christ, "to be sin for us, Jesus who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in and through Jesus."

And God doesn't hide the fact. You're going to find that King David will have some of his own issues, and then one of his sons is absolutely crazy. Solomon will have 700 wives and 300 concubines for a total of 1,000 wives. And God said, "Don't do that. Don't build wives unto yourselves and horses," and he did.

And God used each and every one. You say, "What is wrong with God?" He knew all that. Yeah, God is full of grace. God is full of mercy. If you can realize that you are a sinner—you probably don't know in your lineage what kind of things went on—a lot of stinking, rotten attitudes in my family.

And then God comes along and He calls you and He calls me, and we hear the call and we surrender our hearts and He uses us, and it brings Him glory for all eternity. And it's not us and our sparkling background, it's Jesus Christ and Him crucified and risen from the dead.

So don't get too high up on anybody's horse, stay down low and realize that we're saved by grace through faith. That He will use any one of us for His purposes, and we'll say we don't deserve it, and we are absolutely right. You'll never deserve it. We'll never pay it back in any way. It is grace, grace upon grace.

Guest (Male): Thank you for listening to Apply Within with Pastor Bob Davis. Apply Within is a radio outreach ministry of North Country Chapel. Our Sunday morning Bible studies are at 9:00 and 11:00 AM. We also have a Friday evening Bible study at 7:00 PM and a Monday evening Bible study at 7:00 PM. You can download today's message in its entirety at NorthCountryChapel.com/studies. That's NorthCountryChapel.com/studies.

If you would like a copy of today's message, write to us and ask for the message with today's date. The address is Apply Within, 2281 West Seltice, Post Falls, Idaho 83854, or call us at 1-800-572-8851. That number again: 1-800-572-8851. Our mobile app is available for iPhone and Android. Download it to listen to full-length studies, watch the live stream of our services, or to find out more about church events.

If you have been blessed by the teaching or have prayer requests that you would like to share with us, write, email, or call us as well. Please join with us every Monday through Friday as we study together verse by verse on Apply Within, sponsored by North Country Chapel. God bless you.