Episode Details

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 p