However, in Genesis 38 we see Judah, as a young 20 yr old, falling for that same old lie… “has God really said?”. “Does it really matter?” “Is it really that important?”. Judah then goes and takes a Canaanite wife and has three sons with her.

How many people – even Christians – fall for the same lie continually?

YES IT DOES MATTER! The details ARE important. You cannot pick and chose which parts of God’s WORD you take! You are fallible, God is not. God’s ways and thoughts are higher than yours! You do not know enough about the eternal consequences of your actions to simply ignore even the smallest detail in God’s Word!

But because God is a God of grace, He steps into the situation and Judah’s ‘corrupted’ offspring are taken out of the way.

Judah (inadvertently) then ends up having a child with his daughter-in-law, also a descendant of Shem (of the same uncorrupted family line that came down to Abraham).

Their son, Pharez, although born out of wedlock, becomes the subject of a remarkable prophecy found in the book of Ruth, which points to David as God’s choice as king of Israel, and as we know, it will later be one of David’s descendants who will not only sit on his throne, but will be the Messiah and Saviour of the World!

…and to think, all of this hinges on the events of Genesis 38!

Just as Isaiah records:  “When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the LORD shall lift up a standard against him”. (Isaiah 59:19)

More from our study in Genesis next week…

Every blessing,

Pastor Barry.

The post Every Detail Matters! first appeared on Calvary Chapel Portsmouth.

But chapter 36 focuses on Esau’s children, and the families he (and his sons) had married in to.

The inhabitants of Mt Seir (aka Edom) were not your average neighbours! They were the descendants of the Nephilim that we read about in Genesis 6:

“And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose. And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years. There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown”. (Gen 6:1-4).

What the critics (and sadly many Christians) simply don’t get is that there was a genetic problem with the potential to wipe out humanity, and at the very least, stop the Seed of the Woman from being born (that, of course, was Satan’s real intention in all of this!). This is the reason our God, who is a God of Love, sent  the flood; and this is the reason Israel destroyed these giant tribes in Canaan, and after what must have been a brief honeymoon period, Esau set about destroying the very people he had unwittingly married into, by now, surely beginning to realise the danger they posed!

Deuteronomy chapter 2 states: “The Emims dwelt therein in times past, a people great, and many, and tall, as the Anakims; Which also were accounted giants, as the Anakims; but the Moabites call them Emims. The Horims also dwelt in Seir beforetime; but the children of Esau succeeded them, when they had destroyed them from before them, and dwelt in their stead; as Israel did unto the land of his possession, which the LORD gave unto them”. (Deut 2:10-12).

Genesis chapter 36 is not just a list of names we have trouble pronouncing, it is a reminder of the covenant God has made with mankind, to send a Saviour to deliver us from this present darkness!

Whoever has ears to hear, let him hear.

Every blessing,

Pastor Barry.

The post The Old Testament’s God of Love! first appeared on Calvary Chapel Portsmouth.