Editorial
January/February, 1982
Volume 17, Number 1
No one is basically a good person apart from Jesus Christ. Everyone in the human family has a heart that is deceitful and utterly corrupt (Jeremiah 17:9). Isaiah says, “All we like sheep have gone astray” (Isaiah 53:6). This is true because man has a disease called sin and his whole nature is affected.
Many people through the years have tried desperately to alter the definition of sin. They say times have changed. In the past few decades a great change has taken place in the attitude toward sin. In our day, in the minds of many, sin has lost its stigma and its awfulness. Gregory Mantle says:
“Man calls it an accident; God calls it an abomination.
Man calls it a blunder;God calls it blindness.
Man calls it an infirmity; God calls it an iniquity.
Man calls it a liberty; God calls it a lawlessness.
Man calls it a relapse; God calls it a rebellion.
Man calls it a weakness; God calls it a wickedness.”
Man’s greatest problem is sin. It prevents him from realizing the full potential for which he was created, and unconfessed, it condemns him to an eternity without God. Sin is fundamentally the outcome of a person’s rebellion against God’s creative authority over him. And sin has tragic results.
It separates from God. It cuts us off from heaven. It draws the wrath of God. It spreads corruption through one’s whole life and into the society in which we live. As we feel the presence of sin, and sense its power, and realize its eternal penalty, all of us need to confess our sins, and let Jesus Christ increasingly bring cleansing and victory.
The Ultimate Outcome of Sin
by Paul W. Brubaker
Our lesson today is a study of Genesis 38. The writer of Genesis begins the thirty-seventh chapter by telling about the boyhood days of Joseph, about the love which the father Jacob poured out on his son, and the hatred which Joseph encountered from his brothers, about his being thrown into a pit, and finally about his sale to the Ishmaelites who were going to Egypt. And then the writer interrupts the record of Joseph’s life by telling us in the thirty-eighth chapter about one of Joseph’s brothers. The name of this brother was Judah, the fourth-born son of Leah, and thus not the oldest son-the honored son-but it was through the tribe of this son that the Messianic line came (as we shall see later). We want to notice some very serious mistakes which Judah made in his plunge downward into the depths of sin.
1. JUDAH ESTABLISHED A FOOLISH FRIENDSHIP WITH A PAGAN MAN
Genesis 38:1 says: “And it came to pass at that time, that Judah went down from his brethren, and turned in to a certain Adullamite, whose name was Hirah.” Here Judah made the first mistake in a series of sinful events. He made a foolish friendship with a pagan man. Judah was a direct descendant of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and these were God’s chosen people, who were not to intermingle with the ungodly heathen tribes. Nevertheless, Judah became a “bosom-buddy” with the pagan man, Hirah. We pause here long enough to say this: Be careful when you are making friends. Make wise choices, and don’t just fall for everybody who comes down the road.
Over thirty-seven hundred years have come and gone since the time of Judah, but think of the multitudes of people since that time who have made a mess of their lives, and have gone down into the depths of sin, simply because they associated with the wrong crowd.
2. JUDAH ENTERED INTO A MARRIAGE RELATIONSHIP WITH A GODLESS WOMAN
Judah’s second mistake is found in Genesis 38:2. It says, “And Judah saw there a daughter of a certain Canaanite, whose name was Shuah; and he took her, and went in unto her.” Not only did Judah make friends with the pagan Canaanites, but he married one! Now it was the custom in those days for parents to select the marriage partners for their children. But not Judah! Oh no! He saw this beautiful pagan girlthe daughter of Shuah–and he wanted her! Never once did he stop to consider what his parents might think, or what God had told His people about marrying into pagan tribes. Instead, lust filled his eyes and his heart, and he made a rash decision to marry the girl. He wanted her for his own. And he got her.
The entire Bible teaches the principle of not being unequally yoked together.” God has always upheld the principle that both marriage partners need to be God-fearing people. The account of Judah here in the thirty-eighth chapter of Genesis doesn’t sound too much different from the multitudes of sad, sad tales which have been told over the years, simply because one marriage partner was a Christian, and the other was not. God doesn’t look with favor on a home that is unequally yoked. He didn’t in the case of Judah, and He doesn’t today. Think of how many heartaches and separations and divorces could be spared if only young people could see beyond the outward appeal of the opposite sex. If they would desire beyond anything else that their mate first of all be a Christian, our divorce courts would have to go out of business.
Marrying a pagan girl was Judah’s second step down the ladder into the cesspool of sin. Do you think God blessed the marriage of Judah and his pagan wife? Indeed not! Three sons came as a result of this union, and their names are listed in verses 3-5. Their names were Er, Onan, and Shelah. Verse 6 says: “And Judah took a wife for Er his firstborn, whose name was Tamar.” Verse 7 continues: “And Er, Judah’s firstborn, was wicked in the sight of the Lord; and the Lord slew him.”
You know, sometimes we get the idea that judgment is always at some future date. While it is true that there is an ultimate judgment awaiting, yet there is judgment now. This truth is revealed in John 3:36: “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life; and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth (present tense) on him.”
Do you think God is going to overlook the sin and wickedness of man today? One who thinks so apparently doesn’t understand a great deal about the nature of God. While God is a God of love and mercy, He’s also a God of justice and judgment. And God means business when He says that whatsoever we sow, we are going to reap. Ecclesiastes 12:14 says: “For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.”
Judah’s oldest son, Er, was evil in the sight of the Lord, and so God slew him. God brought judgment on this family because of sin! Because of Er’s death, this left his wife, Tamar, a widow. The law (if a husband and wife were without children) was for the deceased husband’s brother to marry the widow, and raise up seed, and thus carry on the family name. However, when God slew Er, and Tamar became a widow, Judah gave his second son, Onan to Tamar. But verse 9 of Genesis 38 says: “And Onan knew that the seed should not be his.” In other words, if a son was born as a result of the union of these two people, that son would bear the name of the first husband, and not the second husband. And evidently Onan didn’t want that. So what did he do? The latter part of verse 9 says that he spilled his own sperm on the floor lest that he should give seed to his brother. Verse 10 continues: “And the thing which he did displeased the Lord: wherefore He slew him also.”
Here Judah reaped the second phase of his pay-day. God slew his second son, Onan. God always punishes sin. . maybe not right away, but nevertheless, He remembers. And judgment will come sooner or later. 1 Timothy 5:24 says: “Some men’s sins are open beforehand, going before to judgment; and some men they follow after.” (The Amplified New Testament elaborates on the verse by saying: “The sins of some men are conspicuous-openly evident to all eyesgoing before them to the judgment (seat) and proclaiming their sentence in advance; but the sins of others appear laterfollowing the offender to the bar of judgment and coming into view there”).
One would think that after having reaped the death of two sons, Judah would have repented of his sins and returned to God. But he wasn’t finished sinning! And so we see the third step Judah took down the ladder into the cesspool of sin.
3. JUDAH MADE A PROMISE WHICH HE NEVER INTENDED TO KEEP
We will call the third error the sin of a broken promise. After God slew Er and Onan, it would have been natural for the youngest son, Shelah, to take Tamar to wife. But Shelah was evidently too young to marry. So Judah told Tamar his daughter-in-law to go back to her father’s house and remain a widow until Shelah was old enough to marry. So here was the promise: “Tamar, my daughter-in-law, as soon as Shelah is old enough to marry, I’ll release him to you so that seed may be raised up and the family name may be perpetuated.” Do you think Judah meant to keep that promise? No indeed! Why should he? He had already lost two sons trying to perpetuate the family name, and he wasn’t about to lose the third so n.
So Tamar went home to live with her parents. In the process of time, Judah’s wife died, and after a period of mourning, Judah’s pagan friend Hirah again enters the picture. It was the time of the year when they took their sheep to the shearers, and of course, this was a time of great merriment and feasting. And so Judah and Hirah started out together to go to Timnath. Now, by the time Judah’s wife died, and he started on his way to Timnath, Shelah was a grown man, and should have been given to Tamar. And Tamar was fully expecting that Judah would give Shelah to her. But when she saw that she was being cheated, she took matters into her own hands.
She got wind that her father-in-law, Judah, was going to Timnath to shear his sheep. So she laid aside her widow’s clothing, and disguised herself as a public prostitute. She covered her face with a veil, and sat by the wayside as Judah and Hirah were on their way to Timnath. Perhaps she was expecting that Shelah would be along with his father, and maybe she could entice him. But Shelah wasn’t along, and so as Judah and Hirah were traveling that way, she thought. . . “Ah-ha, here’s my chance!” Now, Judah didn’t know that the disguised prostitute was his own daughter-in-law. And so when she sat by the wayside, Judah saw her… he lusted after her… he wanted her.
4. JUDAH COMMITTED ADULTERY WITH HIS DAUGHTER-IN LAW
Now Judah made his fourth mistake. He succumbed to the lust of the flesh. He went in unto her and had sexual relations with tier. We would call that fornication (the illicit sexual relations among the unmarried). But it was more than that. It was incest (the illicit sexual relations among family members). I guess Judah thought: “Oh, who will ever know? I’m far enough away from home that nobody will ever find out.” But God was watching. Again, the truth of Numbers 32:23 is revealed: “Be sure your sin will find you out.”
Friends, you may think that nobody knows about the secret sins in your life, but Luke 12:2-3 says: “For there is nothing covered, that shall riot be revealed; neither hid, that shall riot be known. Therefore whatsoever ye have spoken in darkness shall be heard in the light; and that which ye have spoken in the ear in closets shall be proclaimed upon the housetops.” Galatians 6:7 very clearly states: “Be riot deceived; God is riot mocked: For whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” You may think you are doing a pretty good job of covering the secret sins in your life. But remember one thing–those sins aren’t always going to be a secret. If your sins are not found out in this life, and are riot confessed now, they are going to be revealed on the Day of Judgment before Almighty God. Never forget that. God didn’t overlook Judah’s sins, and He won’t overlook ours.
5. JUDAH WAS TOO MUCH CONCERNED ABOUT COVERING HIS SINS
Judah’s final stage of pay-day (described in the 38th chapter of Genesis) came when he went back home after his “fling” with the disguised prostitute. You see, before he committed the act of fornication and incest with his daughter-in-law, she had asked… “What are you going to give me for all this?” Said Judah, “Oh, how ’bout a young goat from my flock?” “Fine, fine! But what are you going to give me as a pledge until that arrives?” “Well, what do you want?” “Listen,” said the prostitute, “I’ll take your signet and your shepherd’s staff.” So Judah gave these articles until the young goat was to be delivered. Thus Judah went home after the sheep-shearing and fully planned to send a young goat in payment for the sexual relations he had had with the prostitute. He sent Hirah, his pagan friend, to deliver the kid. But the harlot was not to he found. Strange! So Hirah came home with the report that he had been unsuccessful. “Well,” said Judah, “let’s not go to any great length to find tier. After all, if we make too much fuss about it, we may be found out, and thus be shamed.” You see, Judah wasn’t concerned about the sins which he had committed, but only about the shame it would bring if lie were found out!
Verse 24 says that about three months after all this happened, Judah got wind that his daughter-in-law had played the part of a public prostitute, and was pregnant as a result. Judah was furious! “Bring that girl here!” he demanded, “and let her be burned!” (Not burned to death, but as the ancient custom was, burned in the cheek or forehead, thus signifying to the world that she was a harlot). “Why, what does she mean by all this? Who does she think she is? A member of my family pregnant as a result of harlotry! It’s a disgrace! It’s a shame! Bring her here, and let her suffer the consequences!”
Verse 25 continues: “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.” Sometimes folks talk about being caught in one’s own trap. You talk about being backed into a corner. You talk about coming to the end of the rope. Judah here is a classic example. And once again the truth of Numbers 32:23 is brought to light: “Be sure your sins will find you out.” Judah thought nobody ever knew. And who would find out? But you see, the tokens which he had pledged to the prostitute were a stark evidence against him, and he had to declare in verse 26. . . “She hath been more righteous than I.”
Sir Walter Scott, the famous Scottish poet and novelist, wrote these lines many years ago: “Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive ” And there’s a lot of truth to that. Judah had gone deep into the cesspool of sin, and had experienced the payday of judgment time and again. But when he came to the end of the rope, he realized the terrible sins which he had committed and he confessed them. And you know, God honored that confession, and God’s promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was fulfilled through the family line of Jacob’s son, Judah (about whom we have been studying).
If you will turn to Matthew 1, where the Gospel writer records the genealogy from Abraham to Christ, you will notice, beginning at verse 1 : “The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. Abraham begat Isaac; and Isaac begat Jacob; and Jacob begat Judah and his brethren; And Judah begat Phares and Zara of Tamar.” And so on down to verse 16 where it says: “And Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary, of who was born Jesus, who is called Christ.”
And so, you see, even though Judah committed some very terrible sins, yet upon the confession of those sins, God forgave him, and he became the channel through which God fulfilled His plan and purposes. And God can do the same for each of us today, if we will but fall before his throne and say: “Lord, I have sinned. I have sinned grievously. I’m sorry for those sins and I’m confessing them just now, because I want to experience the peace and forgiveness which You alone can give.” I John 1:9 says that if we “confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
Let us remember that the final outcome of sin is death (see Romans 6:23) but upon the confession of our sins, let us also rest in the promise of Psalm 103:12 which says, “As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us.”