I allowed my sons and grandson to convince me to play golf this past Wednesday. I have only played once in my entire life and did not enjoy it at all. But I couldn’t say “No” to a chance of spending time with my boys. I knew I had made a mistake when it took us one hour to play the first hole, a par 5. I might not be the smartest man in the world but I know that one hour times 18 holes equals 18 hours. We managed to finish in about 5 hours with me not playing the last six holes. At 65, my knees couldn’t handle it anymore. This reminded me of a story I heard about a preacher who decided to skip church one Sunday morning to play a round of golf.
Every Sunday on his way to the church building he’d drive by a golf course----and during warm weather he’d often see church members playing golf. It wouldn’t have bothered him so much if they’d both play golf and come to church. But that’s not what happened. No, they’d go golfing and skip worship. One Saturday evening he decided he’d show those church skipping golfers....if they could do it, so could he.
So he called in sick and said they’d have to find a fill in person for the morning service. Then the next morning before dawn he threw his golf clubs in his car and he headed for a remote golf course more than an hour away. He figured no one there would know him. By the time he arrived, the sun was up and it looked as if it was going to be a beautiful morning. He paid to play and alone he went to the first tee.
Now an angel had been watching this preacher and was asking God what he was going to do with this man who had lied about being sick and was now preparing to hit his first shot. God said just watch. The angel was thinking "Oh man this guy’s gonna get it. I can just picture God zapping him with a bolt of lightning at the peak of his backswing."
But there was no bolt of lightning, no earthquake, no rain---just a perfect shot---a hole in one in fact! In fact all 18 holes were a hole in one.
The angel couldn’t believe it---what? How? “But, but God” the angel blurted out, “How could you let him have a perfect game? I thought you were going to punish this man?”
God said “I am---who’s he gonna tell?”
Today we will study the next ancestor of Jesus. He is the fourth born son of Jacob. His name is Judah. Although Jacob is still alive and most of the rest of Genesis is centered on Joseph, his 11th born son, Judah is the blood line that Jesus will come through.
Little brother Joseph had started having prophetic dreams that one day his brothers and even his father would bow before him. Their feelings toward Joseph were already strong.
Genesis 37:3-4 “Jacob loved Joseph more than any of his other children because Joseph had been born to him in his old age. So one day Jacob had a special gift made for Joseph—a beautiful robe. But his brothers hated Joseph because their father loved him more than the rest of them. They couldn’t say a kind word to him.”
If you remember from last week, Jacob had placed his family in stages to be slaughtered if Esau chose to do so. All of these brothers were placed in front of Joseph, sending them a clear message to them which one dad favored.
The day came when Joseph was sent into the fields wearing his brightly colored coat to deliver lunch to his brothers. When they saw approaching a plot was launched to kill him and blame it on a wild animal. The eldest son, Rueben, intervened and suggested that they simply throw him into a dried up well. Rueben had planned to return for him. But Rueben left and the scheming side of Judah was revealed.
There was a caravan of traitors headed for Egypt.
Genesis 37:26-27 “Judah said to his brothers, ‘What will we gain by killing our brother? We’d have to cover up the crime. Instead of hurting him, let’s sell him to those Ishmaelite traders. After all, he is our brother—our own flesh and blood!’ And his brothers agreed.” Judah was essentially choosing the lesser of two evils. He never expected to Joseph to survive as a slave.
When Reuben returned he discovered what had taken place. He went into great mourning over what taken place. They dipped Joseph’s robe into goat’s blood to make it appear that Joseph had been attacked and killed by a wild animal. They presented this evidence to Jacob.
Genesis 37:34-35 “Then Jacob tore his clothes and dressed himself in burlap. He mourned deeply for his son for a long time. His family all tried to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted. ‘I will go to my grave mourning for my son,’ he would say, and then he would weep.”
Judah is unable to remain with his brothers so he leaves the safety of being in the land of God’s promise. It seems that this entire family carried some sort of family trait. He went to stay in the household of an acquaintance named Hirah. It would be in this setting that one of the raciest and most uncomfortable stories would develop.
He meets and marries a Canaanite woman. This, of course, was the very thing that Abraham and Isaac had tried to guard against. She bore him three sons, Er, Onan, and Shelah.
Er married a Canaanite woman named Tamar. The Bible says that Er was exceedingly wicked in the Lord’s sight so God put him to death.
Onan now had the responsibility of being intimate with his sister-in-law. According to their customs when a brother dies and leaves no one to carry on the family lineage then a brother must impregnate his brother’s wife to insure that his lineage would continue.
But Onan is a schemer as was his father Judah and his grandfather Jacob. He realized that the child would not legally be his but rather Er’s. Therefore this offspring would become an heir to all of Er’s possessions. No offspring meant that Er’s possessions would be split between himself and his living brother. So he devises a scheme.
Genesis 38:9 “But Onan was not willing to have a child who would not be his own heir. So whenever he had intercourse with his brother’s wife, he spilled the semen on the ground. This prevented her from having a child who would belong to his brother.”
He practiced a form of birth control that is still in practice today. God’s reaction to this birth control method?
Genesis 38:10 “But the Lord considered it evil for Onan to deny a child to his dead brother. So the Lord took Onan’s life, too.”
These verses have been manipulated to insinuate that God is against birth control. Or that male sexual experimentation is sinful. These particular verses are not an argument for either. It was Onan’s responsibility to bring a child into the world that would be the next in the lineage after Judah. His refusal was contrary to God’s desire. So, it cost him his life.
Judah now had only one son left, Shelah. Tamar seemed to be a black widow to his sons so he “suggested” that she return to her father’s house until Shelah got a bit older and more responsible. His plan was to banish her forever.
Sometime had past and Tamar realized that Judah would never send for her to give to Shelah for a bride. That’s when she heard that Judah was coming to her village. Now she became the schemer.
Posing as a prostitute, she invited Judah to enter into her tent. Judah had no form of payment so he offered her his seal and the cord it was attached to plus his staff. She could keep them until he returned with a young goat for payment. She agreed and he was intimate with her. When he sent the goat back as payment, Tamar had left. She took with her the seal, the cord, and the staff. Soon some disturbing news reached Judah’s ear.
Genesis 38:24 “About three months later, Judah was told, ‘Tamar, your daughter-in-law, has acted like a prostitute. And now, because of this, she’s pregnant.’
‘Bring her out, and let her be burned!’ Judah demanded.”
Tamar had brought shame to his family. Although a widow of two of his sons, she was still considered a married woman according to tradition. After all she was pledged to Shelah although he had no intent of letting her marry him. His encounter with a prostitute was not sinful to him. Her acting as a prostitute was worthy of a cruel death.
As she was being brought to him she sent ahead three items and a message, “I am pregnant by the man who owns these three.” When Judah saw them he realized that he had been intimate with his daughter-in-law.
Genesis 38:26 “Judah recognized them immediately and said, ‘She is more righteous than I am, because I didn’t arrange for her to marry my son Shelah.’ And Judah never slept with Tamar again.”
Judah took responsibility for Tamar’s actions. He realized that he forced her hand into doing this unseemly deed.
This seems to be a strange story. It’s placed between Joseph’s captivity and Joseph’s life in Egypt. This story seems to be a lead in into the faithfulness and purity of Joseph. But what can we learn from this portion of Judah’s life?
We learn once again about God’s faithfulness. Judah is a poor example of a follower of God. He plots his brother’s death. He sells him into slavery. He lies to his father. He refuses to follow God’s guide lines by marrying a Canaanite and disrupting God’s plans for the Holy lineage. Yet, half the nation would bare his name one day. Jesus would carry his name as a Lion.
Judah would lead Tamar into a desperate action. Although it may seem to us that she sinned, she actually grasped her rights to carry on the lineage of Er. She also secured her name to be written in the Holy lineage of Jesus, one of only four other women.
Matthew 1:3 “Judah was the father of Perez and Zerah (whose mother was Tamar)…..”
Tamar, like Rachel, had twins in her womb. Like Rachel, they would be striving to be born first. Remember, Jacob was born grasping the heel of his brother Esau, attempting to pull him back in and claim the privileges of the first born. We see this battle once again taking place in the birth of Tamar’s children.
Genesis 38:28-30 “While she was in labor, one of the babies reached out his hand. The midwife grabbed it and tied a scarlet string around the child’s wrist, announcing, “This one came out first.” But then he pulled back his hand, and out came his brother! “What!” the midwife exclaimed. “How did you break out first?” So he was named Perez. Then the baby with the scarlet string on his wrist was born, and he was named Zerah.
Zerah was about to be born breach. As his hand came out the midwife was able to “tag” him as the first born. But he entered back into the womb, possibly turning to be born. This gave Perez the opportunity to actually be born first. This incident was the first recorded battle over who was the actual first born and heir to the rights as that first born. There is no record of how that dispute was settled. But we know that Perez would be in the lineage of Jesus. And both would be listed in Matthews’s genealogy of Jesus.
Here again we see a prophetic message in the historical record of this birth. Zerah represented the nation of Israel. His name meant scarlet. Israel would always be under the protection of God but it would require the scarlet blood of sacrifice. Like the first born their hands would be bound by that scarlet string.
But one day the Messiah would come and the church would break out. The church would establish a relationship with God that no longer requires the wearing of the scarlet string. The sacrifice was paid in full.
Jesus said this of the church. Matthew 11:12 “And from the time John the Baptist began preaching until now, the Kingdom of Heaven has been forcefully advancing, and violent people are attacking it.”
Like Perez, the church broke out with force. The church began to be the driving force in bringing people to a relationship with God. Although both the Jews and the Christians worship the one true God, it is the Christians that have advanced the Kingdom of God. Without the scarlet string to bind us, we have the ability to offer grace and mercy to a world much in need of it.
Next week we will study what happens when Judah comes face to face with his brother Joseph.
