Where is God in Your Sin? Genesis 38; Remsen Bible Fellowship; 05/17/2026 Introduction Where is God in your sin? Is God at work through your sinful actions? If so, does that excuse your sinful actions? In a world full of sin, full of wickedness, it may not be very comfortable to think about your own sin—it’s much more comfortable to think about the sin over there. But your sin has too many consequences to ignore, and you need to know whether God can be at work in the midst of it. So again I ask, where is God in your sin? In our text this morning, it is going to feel as if Moses, the author, takes a hard left turn. Where Kade finished up last week, at the end of chapter 37, Joseph’s brothers had just sold him into slavery. He came, at their father Jacob’s bidding, and they rejected his authority as the Father’s representative. They planned to kill him initially, until Rueben intervened. He convinced them to throw him in a pit, rather than actively shed his blood. Then the fourth oldest, Judah, came up with another plan—seeing a group of Ishmaelite traders, he suggested that they save themselves the blood guilt of murder, and add to their fortunes the profit of slave-trading—“let’s ship him off with the caravan!” And so they did. But now Moses diverts our attention away from Joseph and his saga, and focuses our attention on that enterprising older brother—Judah. The early parts of this story are concerning, the middle is disturbing, but the conclusion has a hint of hope. v1-5, Judah turns away Genesis 38:1-5, 1 It happened at that time that Judah went down from his brothers and turned aside to a certain Adullamite, whose name was Hirah. 2 There Judah saw the daughter of a certain Canaanite whose name was Shua. He took her and went in to her, 3 and she conceived and bore a son, and he called his name Er. 4 She conceived again and bore a son, and she called his name Onan. 5 Yet again she bore a son, and she called his name Shelah. Judah was in Chezib when she bore him. The first concerning detail we meet in this sub-story is the very first sentence—Judah went down from his brothers. We are meant, throughout this story, to see contrasts between Joseph the righteous and beloved son, and Judah. Where Joseph had gone out to his brothers in Shechem, and had followed them to Dothan, only to be rejected and sold, Judah (by contrast) voluntarily turns aside from them. He leaves, but further, he leaves and attaches himself to this man named Hirah. We know nothing about Hirah other than what we find in this chapter. What the text tells us is that he is an Adullamite, which places him as a member of the broader group of the Canannites. For Judah to turn away from the sons of Israel and align himself with the people of Canaan—who were under God’s curse, beginning in Genesis 9:25—was not a move of wisdom and obedience. Judah further compounds this sin by taking to himself a Canaanite wife, the daughter of Shua. We never learn her name. But she bore him three sons, Er, Onan, and Shelah. Each of the three sons plays an important role in the story, but not for good reasons. Judah has turned away from God and the people of God, and the consequences for those in his household will be grave. v6-11 Judah’s Fatherly Failure Genesis 38:6-11, 6 And Judah took a wife for Er his firstborn, and her name was Tamar. 7 But Er, Judah’s firstborn, was wicked in the sight of the LORD, and the LORD put him to death. 8 Then Judah said to Onan, “Go in to your brother’s wife and perform the duty of a brother-in-law to her, and raise up offspring for your brother.” 9 But Onan knew that the offspring would not be his. So whenever he went in to his brother’s wife he would waste the semen on the ground, so as not to give offspring to his brother. 10 And what he did was wicked in the sight of the LORD, and he put him to death also. 11 Then Judah said to Tamar his daughter-in-law, “Remain a widow in your father’s house, till Shelah my son grows up”—for he feared that he would die, like his brothers. So Tamar went and remained in her father’s house. In verse six we are told that Judah takes a wife for his son Er. We don’t know how long their marriage lasts, but it’s not long enough to produce any children. Then, on account of Er’s wickedness—which is unspecified, but given the things God is allowing to happen in Genesis, must but pretty darn bad—God strikes Er dead. So then Judah gives an instruction to Onan, the middle brother, which strikes our modern ears as strange beyond belief. He is instructed to father a child with Tamar, in order to “raise up offspring for his brother.” Obviously we don’t have a structure like this today, but in the ancient near east it was a known practice, commonly referred to as “Levirate marriage.” In the book of Deuteronomy the regulations around this for Israel were codified, and I think it’s worth reading here to understand the duties involved and the purpose of this arrangement. Deuteronomy 25:5-10, 5 “If brothers dwell together, and one of them dies and has no son, the wife of the dead man shall not be married outside the family to a stranger. Her husband’s brother shall go in to her and take her as his wife and perform the duty of a husband’s brother to her. 6 And the first son whom she bears shall succeed to the name of his dead brother, that his name may not be blotted out of Israel. 7 And if the man does not wish to take his brother’s wife, then his brother’s wife shall go up to the gate to the elders and say, ‘My husband’s brother refuses to perpetuate his brother’s name in Israel; he will not perform the duty of a husband’s brother to me.’ 8 Then the elders of his city shall call him and speak to him, and if he persists, saying, ‘I do not wish to take her,’ 9 then his brother’s wife shall go up to him in the presence of the elders and pull his sandal off his foot and spit in his face. And she shall answer and say, ‘So shall it be done to the man who does not build up his brother’s house.’ 10 And the name of his house shall be called in Israel, ‘The house of him who had his sandal pulled off.’ So, what we see in this passage is that Levirate marriage functioned to continue the name and legacy of the brother who had died. By taking the widowed sister into his house, the living brother would be providing for her and protecting her from being in the undesirable position of a single woman whose marriageability had been compromised. Especially if her father were no longer living, this would be vital. It also is protection of her inheritance rights. She would have married into the family knowing the birth position of her husband, and knowing what she could expect if he were to die after his own father had died, as of course would normally happen. But if her husband died and they had no heir, she would be cut off from that inheritance. So in Tamar’s case, she had married the oldest son, Er, who would be in line to inherit a double portion of Judah’s estate. Without a male heir, though, she is cut off. So the idea of the Levirate arrangement is that Onan would father a child who would be considered as Er’s son, and would then have the inheritance rights which had belonged to Er. This creates a conflict of interest, as you may have picked up. “He knew that the offspring would not be his” (v9). By fathering a child for his older brother, Onan would be reducing his own inheritance. This sort of scenario is imagined in Deuteronomy 25, where a brother might refuse this duty. But in those cases, what the law would prescribe is for the man to be publicly exhorted to do his duty, even if it was financially costly to him—and publicly humiliated if he still refused. That gives us some context for understanding Onan’s sin. He did not publicly refuse to fulfill his Levirate obligation. He wanted the physical pleasure and benefits of having another wife. But he refused to provide an heir for his brother, refused to give Tamar the security she had the right to expect through having a son. He wanted the pleasures of sex without the attendant responsibility. He wanted to fulfill his lusts without experiencing any consequences. Friends, this is a great temptation in our own day. What is the promise of pornography or of AI boyfriends or girlfriends or romance novels but that of pleasure and connection satisfaction without any of the risk of rejection or heartbreak or financial provision or—God forbid—pregnancy and children? Onan refused God’s design, he refused responsibility, he refused righteousness. And God dealt severely with him: “the Lord put him to death also” (v10). Friends, God still takes this topic just as seriously: in Revelation 21:8, we read a rather sobering list: “as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.” Friends, we live in a sexually loose and licentious day—and the consequences are horrific. God still judges this form of disobedience, and we dare not take it lightly. That’s a warning Judah needed, too. v12-23 Judah’s (ironic) Blindness Genesis 38:12-23, 12 In the course of time the wife of Judah, Shua’s daughter, died. When Judah was comforted, he went up to Timnah to his sheepshearers, he and his friend Hirah the Adullamite. 13 And when Tamar was told, “Your father-in-law is going up to Timnah to shear his sheep,” 14 she took off her widow’s garments and covered herself with a veil, wrapping herself up, and sat at the entrance to Enaim, which is on the road to Timnah. For she saw that Shelah was grown up, and she had not been given to him in marriage. 15 When Judah saw her, he thought she was a prostitute, for she had covered her face. 16 He turned to her at the roadside and said,
