380: Jared Schipper - Life's Hard Lessons

Automatically transcribed. Accuracy is good but not perfect, and words are sometimes wrong. Trust the audio over the text.

1. 0:03

   Welcome to Good Christophian Talks. Thank you for joining us this week on this podcast. We select one talk a week to help us get the Bible in our Daily News feed. Each week we post a talk that we previewed from suggestions sent in by listeners from around the world. Then we record a short intro beforehand as a personalized recommendation to you on why we are sharing the talk. And now let’s talk more about this week’s talk. Howdy.

2. 0:34

   This week’s class is entitled Learning Life’s Hard Lessons, delivered by Brother Jared Shipper from his series about Judah given at the Sydney CYC in 2025. Right off the bat, this is a class that you want to listen to the whole thing, and ideally in one sitting. The reason being is that Brother Jared provides a very good exposition and walkthrough of Genesis 38, providing in little Nuggets of exhortation here and there, but it all culminates in a super powerful and emotional full circle between Judah, his father Jacob, and the rest of the family of Israel.

3. 1:20

   A concept you may pick up on in this class is that of irony. Brother Jared points out that almost everything that happens to Judah when he’s away from home is so sadly ironic when comparing what happened in Genesis 37. And it can’t help but cause an appreciation for how God employs irony in all our lives as a mechanism to humble and shape us. Which is something that I had at least never thought of before, that God would use something so conceptual to really ’cause us to think about our actions.

4. 2:03

   The entire Five Class series will be on the extended podcast, and we’d recommend giving them a listen, especially if you’re someone that struggles with God’s forgiveness. We all feel horrible over the things that we’ve done, and it may feel that there’s no way God could forgive us. But seeing the fall and rise of Judah, seeing the heart of stone made the heart of flesh, gives all of us confidence that there truly is nothing, no sin we could commit that will separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

5. 2:48

   So here is Brother Jared Shipper learning life’s hard lessons. All right, awkward chapter. Sorry, more of the awkwardness. I apologise again, but it’s real. It’s God’s family, and there’s some real stuff in this that we need to think about. We came to this point where Judah feels like he’s got to leave the family home.

6. 3:13

   And I want you to think for a second what drove Judah to that point, how he felt when he’s leaving the family home, because no doubt Judah thought he was being big, brave, bold, coming out on his own, not hanging around with that stupid family that keep moaning about the past and all the dumb things that are going on. Bitterness, usual resentment that builds up. And that’s the perspective.

7. 3:39

   So he’s going out to find himself. He’s going out on a journey in life to explore who he is. Can you, can you feel that? Do you hear people talk like that? If you hear people say that today, they’re going out to find who they are. They’re going on some journey of self discovery.

8. 3:57

   They’re going to find themselves out there in the world. And so they pack up their little bag of bitterness and they go out there looking for themselves somewhere out in the world. And guess what? They find themselves out there in the world because there’s lots of people out there in the world that have that same bag of bitterness and they can share their bitterness and have a little bitterness party.

9. 4:21

   It doesn’t fix the problems. And that’s what we’re going to see in this chapter, is that all these motives and resentment that built up in Judah’s life was actually not making him think straight. It was actually making him make dumb decisions. That’s what was driving him.

10. 4:46

    So he’s going to go out there just like the prodigal son, but eventually he’s going to find himself back in his father’s house because it’s just the best place. That’s the ecclesia, that’s the youth group. It’s just the best place to be. And hopefully you’ll come to see that too in your life as you realize just how much we have here. Such a cool group of people to go and spend a long weekend with.

11. 5:17

    Just think about the people at work, uni, what are they doing this weekend? They might be doing something exciting on their own or with a couple of friends. You got like 250 other people, good experiences. We have so much, but Judy’s going to play the victim card. Let’s read carefully. We’re going to spend our whole time this study in one chapter. That’s good.

12. 5:40

    Be a bit easier to work through the story. So let’s have a read of chapter 38, the first few verses, grab a pencil because there’s that little phrase at that time. What time? Oh, the time, you know, where all that stuff happened to Joseph, Complete contrast, complete opposite. And you don’t appreciate Joseph without understanding where Judah’s going because at that time, Judah left his brothers and he turned into an adulimite man whose name was Hira. And Judah saw there.

13. 6:18

    Oh, I missed a few things I meant to talk about. Sorry. You have this graphic here which positions Judah at being in now in his late 20s. So he’s made some dumb decisions in his late 20s. You may not be at that point yet, but it’s important for you to think about the decisions you’re making now and the way you’re perceiving what’s happening in your family now and the way you’re framing your understanding and the way you’re choosing to look at life because that’s what’s happened in Judah’s life. He’s a grown man by the time Joseph comes along, and all this resentment starts to build over time. But he’s now going out in his early adult years to form his own life.

14. 7:14

    So let’s read again this. Well, we read verse one, verse 2. Judah saw the daughter of a Canaanite man named Shua. Judah acquired her as a wife and had marital relations with her. I’m reading from the NET by the way. She became pregnant and had a son. Judah named him, ER, she became pregnant again, had another son, and she called him Onan.

15. 7:48

    Then she had yet another son, whom she named Sheila, and she gave birth to him while Judah was in key. Zip. All right, What do you make of that? You’d probably read that and go, yeah, well, that’s just a story. There’s some really weird things in those verses. There’s some hidden names. There’s some names that we’re told that we don’t need to know.

16. 8:18

    That’s really weird. Read carefully. What is in those first 5 verses? Ask yourself the question, What am I told that I don’t need to know?

17. 8:30

    And what am I not told that I probably should know? I’ll give you a hint. What was Judah’s wife’s name? Oh, we don’t know. Some translations actually get it wrong. So if you are seeing that where it says that her name was sure, that is not her name. We can find that out later by looking in one of the later verses. It’s not her name.

18. 8:52

    Let me highlight it to you this way. It came to pass at that time that Judah went down from his brethren and he got distracted or turned into a certain a Dulomite. Oh, whose name was and it means a noble family. Let’s keep going. I’ll explain this thing. Judas saw there a no name of a certain Canaanite whose name was and it means wealth.

19. 9:23

    And he took her and went into her and she had a child. Now let’s just deal with verse one and two because it gets too far down. It came to past. The Judah went down and he turned to a certain Adalamite. Why are we told that phrase a certain Adalamite? Why is where he comes from more important than his actual name?

20. 9:39

    His name is Hara. A dullam means justice, and he’s from a noble family. We’ll just think about the irony of this and we’re going to see this chapter is full of irony, and that’s the way God works. We’re going to look at that at the end. All right? I just want you to see this irony.

21. 10:00

    Judah goes away because he’s running away from his special family, chosen family that’s been given privilege and blessings by God, and he joins another noble family. Why? I’m going to suggest to you because he wants a bit of justice in your life because he thinks he’s totally unfairly treated at his house and it’s not fair. So I’m going somewhere else.

22. 10:22

    And I think that’s why we’re given these details. Judas sees there a woman, I’m not even told her name of a certain Canaanite whose name was Shua, which means wealthy, and he took her and went in done to her. Let’s break down that verse. What motivated Judah to sell his brother money. This man sounds like he has money, doesn’t even know the name of the girl, not even told.

23. 11:04

    We told Tamer’s name later, so it’s not as though we can’t know the names of the females. Well, we told her name because the focus is that Judas saw and he took and he went into her.

24. 11:22

    Do you hear a bell ringing in the back of your mind of hearing that language before? Who looked at something, saw it, took it and acted on it. Don’t be scared. There’s only 200 people in the audience. It’s OK. Shout out, Eve. Wonderful. Thank you. Aiken. Awesome. This is really good. I should ask my questions.

25. 11:41

    Who else? David and Bathsheba. Excellent. Maybe you guys have done a study on this. Do people know this story already? That’s awesome. If sore she took. She hates. There’s the principle. Looked and thought looks good. Gina looked at her. Thought looks hot. Took her. Guess what? That’s exactly the same process as what Shechem did with Dinah, and he got angry. He did it, he repeated it, same process, and we’re going to see these things come out in his life. It’s only highlighted by the fact that her name doesn’t even matter in the whole chapter.

26. 12:30

    What matters is he wants to be associated with another special family that has wealth. Now, you’re not think I’m making too much of it. Just remember, what was the whole point of chapter 29 and chapter 30 in the way that his family was introduced? It was all about the meaning of names, right? And we’re told it was.

27. 12:53

    The Bible tells us, look at the meaning of these names. So when we come to this chapter, we’ve got to do the same thing because it’s still Genesis, same story. All right, am I reading too much? Let’s have a look at verse 3, verse four and five. She no name conceived and bear a son And oh, he called his first born son, first born son’s name. Uh, Judah was, Oh, you assume he was there because he named the child, which is different to the way he was born because mum named him dad.

28. 13:26

    Didn’t Jacob only named one boy? You know, of all twelve of his sons, she nameless names her son. Sorry. Uh, she conceived again and bear a son and oh, she calls him this time Sheila. What does that mean to us? Well, what should we take away from that? Let’s hold on that verse 5.

29. 13:57

    She has another child and bear a son, and she calls his name Sheila. And Judah was in Kizib, or a place that means denial and lies when she gave birth.

30. 14:20

    Oh, so Judah’s too busy living a life of denial, lying about what he’s really up to, to be at his third son’s birth. Can you see a downward spiral going on here? He was there for the beginning, all excited, and called him that means awake. Let’s put in today’s language. I’m living, I’m enjoying life, I can do my own thing now because he’s just gone free from the family and he’s got his first boy now and he’s living life the way he wants to live it.

31. 15:05

    I’ve forgotten what Sheila is. I’m coming to check mental blank and I can’t see it. Sheila’s an interesting name, but not quite as strong. The last one is Sheila. Why does she call his name Sheila?

32. 15:26

    It’s just like his mum was full of bitterness, wanting attention. She calls his name Sheila, which I’m checking because I’m just having a mental blank sorry this morning. Sheila means request requesting. What do you think? A woman who has no name, was important, became less important, and is so unimportant that she’s bearing her son as Judah’s off, doing his own thing. Busy, maybe business, maybe whatever. We’ll talk about that later.

33. 16:03

    What do you think she’s requesting? Bit the same as Leah. Bit of time, attention, appreciation, validation. That’s just the first 5 verses of this story of Judah living the way Judah wants to live.

34. 16:26

    What’s he doing? He’s repeating his dad’s mistakes. He’s repeating history. Dad was never around for Judah. Too busy out there with the sheep. And so we see here the same story. We’re seeing a repeat of the reality of the way he grew up and consequences. Well, the way we’re brought up has consequences on us.

35. 16:53

    It has an impact on us. And we have to think about that. Let’s look at the way Judah’s bringing up his children. We’ll have a look at verse 6-7 and eight. What are we told? Judah required a wife for, ER, his first born. Her name’s Tamar. But ER, Judah’s first born was so evil in the Lord’s sight that God actually had to step in and kill him.

36. 17:26

    That’s how bad he was. In fact, no, the next one went down the same process. He was asked to man up and be responsible for life, and God killed him too. Just grasp that. Two sons that are so bad that God has to abruptly intervene in the situation and kill them. That’s wow on the scale of God doesn’t interrupt very often.

37. 17:48

    We’re talking Coradathan and Byram kind of stuff. God kills those two boys. Do we see any evidence of Judah trying to teach them about the godly life of the promises that were given to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob? I’m not seeing anything in this chapter about that. All right, verse 11. The reality is Judah is so blind to the reality of his son’s evil that he blames this poor woman, Tamar, and makes her the scapegoat as if she’s jinxed and she’s the problem why the boys keep dying.

38. 18:29

    That’s where this man’s at. He can’t look honestly at the situation to make an honest decision knowing that God works in his life. Those boys are so focused on everything that Judah has taught them about living life the way they want to live life, that God’s killed them. How do we know that? We’re actually told what, uh does wrong. We’re told what Sheila does.

39. 18:56

    We’re told the way he behaves. All right. All he was focused on was self gratification and completely unwilling to give us stuff about anyone else but himself.

40. 19:10

    He wasn’t willing to give his brother a family, but he’d take advantage of her. Not once, not twice. It says whenever he went into her, that’s repeat behaviour. Where did these boys learn that from?

41. 19:37

    We could continue on with the story, but I don’t want to get into too much detail about it. If we were to flick down then to verse 12 and 13, we see that Judah’s wife passes away. Suddenly she’s off the scenes. This is the person that he did actually at some point love. Does he distract himself in verse 12 with business? Is that what he’s doing?

42. 20:05

    Verse 12 says after some time. Judah’s After some time, Judah’s wife, the daughter of Shua, died. See how we get the emphasis on Shua again. After Judah was consoled, he left for Timnath to visit his ship Shearer. So he went and made himself busy with work along with his friend of his higher of the Dalamite.

43. 20:32

    He’s one of those friends that’ll do anything. Got no shame. Just you know, we’ll do whatever you ask him to do. There’s people like that out there that facilitate bad decisions in our life. Don’t be fooled by them, they’re not actually good friends. It’s interesting that Hara isn’t a part of Judah’s life later.

44. 20:48

    He’s only there when Judah needs The Dirty work to be done. Just an interesting detail of this chapter. It’s interesting that Tamar was told that Judah, her father-in-law, is going to Tinnath to shear the sheep. Why would she care? Well, she cares because in verses 8 or 9 and 10 she’s been promised that she would have.

45. 21:15

    Oh sorry, verse 11 Judah has promised his daughter-in-law, Tamar, that she can have Sheila when he grows up. Now, when you read the story, you can only assume that there wasn’t that long a gap because that’s quite quick in the way we’re told. So you can assume that that story didn’t buy Judah too much time to say that Tamar could have Sheila when he grows up. And in verse 8, we’re told his real motive, not that he actually said it.

46. 21:45

    He thought he was planning. He was thinking, heck, I don’t want my third son to hang around with her. So Tamar goes back to picture this, her father’s house and lives there like a widow. Why did she stay in Judah’s house? If Judah’s going to provide for her and she’s going to remain connected with Judah’s family as she does for the rest of the book of Genesis, why does Judah send the home? Clearly doesn’t want to have a bar of her. He’s got no time for her, just like his son had no time for her either.

47. 22:27

    You see the way they were behaving, we can go into more detail, but it’s simply a careless for anybody else, a self fulfilling, self satisfying behaviour. All right, verse 13 Tamas told, Look, your father in law’s going to Timnah to shear his sheep. So she removed her widow clothes, which is the way she’s been living faithfully, and she covers herself with a veil, which makes her look like the prostitute that she’s going to play.

48. 23:06

    That’s not a normal behaviour. She wraps herself in that veil and she sat in an open path at the entrance to and I am maybe your translation says, but basically what it says is she sat in an open way on the way to Timnath. So she sat in a place that she knew that Judah would pass through. She did this, we’re told, because she saw that she had not been given Sheila as a wife, even though he’s now grown up. Think about that story.

49. 23:44

    Think about what we’re not told in that story. What makes a woman who’s gone to live in her father’s house as a widow and faithfully doing that, waiting for the next son to grow up? What makes her change all of her clothes and all of her behaviour and go and sits in an open way that Judah’s going to pass through as he goes up to his destination? The fact is, she knows Judah’s personality. She knows the way Judah behaves in the dark. Judah has a reputation because she knows that all she has to do is sit in an open place and Judah will pick her up. She doesn’t have to harass him, she doesn’t have to chase him. She just knows if I sit in an open path, Judah will find me and he’ll take me in.

50. 24:38

    She’s that confident. This is not her way of life. After this event, she goes straight back home, changes back into her widow clothes. That’s her behaviour, that’s her. She’s a truthful person, but she’s so clear in her understanding of the type of man that Judah is and the reputation that he’s created.

51. 25:01

    It’s like 99% confident that Judah will do what Judah does. That’s quite a reputation. And it was somebody else that told her that’s what her dad’s doing or her father in law’s doing. So you wonder what they thought too. Are we filling out the picture? Are you getting an idea of what Judah’s known for, what his personality is, what his reputation is, and what he’s getting up to? All right, verse 16 then.

52. 25:41

    Well, verse 15, Judah saw her. He just made the assumption that she was a prostitute because she covered her face. So verse 16, he turned aside to her along the road and said, I want to come in to you because he had no idea that she was his daughter-in-law. I’ll put it up here on the screen. Her response is, what will you give me? That’s incredibly ironic when you think about it, because if only Judah had given her what Judah should have given her, the whole problem would have gone away. If Judah had given her the son that he’d promised to her, she would have been happy and this event wouldn’t have happened. You see that?

53. 26:38

    And he says, ah, I’ll send you a young goat from the flock. And she says, no, I want a down payment. I want proof because I don’t trust you. Give me a pledge. Prove it. Prove it that you’re a trustworthy person. Because clearly he wasn’t a trustworthy person that she had to demand a pledge from him. And he’s good with that because he knows what that means, because he’s used to it.

54. 27:08

    He says, all right, what sort of pledge do you want? I don’t care. That’s life, She replies and says, I want your seal. I want your cord and the staff in your hand, and we might understand that. So it’s saying I want your ring, I want your mobile phone and I want your wallet. That means that Tamer now owns Judah’s identity. Just think about that.

55. 27:43

    You can identify a person by their phone, by their wallets, or as they used a seal in those days, or a ring. She owns his personality, his identity. He’s happy to give it. I want you to take particular notice of this word pledge. She asks for a pledge and he’s quite happy to give a pledge. This is a man who’s quite happy to sell his identity to a prostitute.

56. 28:11

    And that’s where he’s at in a couple of chapters time, he’s going to give a pledge to his dad for completely the opposite thing. He’s going to pledge his dad his life for his brother’s life. And that’s the shift that we’re going to see. But that’s the irony of this story. You know, The funny thing is, as people, when we make dumb decisions in life, we don’t realize how dumb the decisions are.

57. 28:45

    Everyone around us can see us and we’re getting a reputation, but we’re so obsessed because of our bitterness with the decisions that we’re making. We can’t see the fool that we’re making of ourselves. Just remember that if you go through a phase of wanting to make some dumb decisions, listen when your friends say things to you because you probably don’t realize the way you’re being perceived and seen and understood. Well, that’s where Jude is at.

58. 29:20

    He has these reputation and he’s willing to barter his identity for a one night stand. There’s no commitment to this man, but heck, it’s going to change in a matter of a couple of chapters. How? Why? What is it that changes Judah?

59. 29:47

    And that’s what I want you to really get your head around from this study is that what God changes in Judah is what the same thing that he does in your life and my life. And he brings ironic situations to bring the reality of our decisions back on ourselves. And if we’re honest with ourselves, we see the way he’s working.

60. 30:08

    Have a look at it. Judah has a level of conscience. He always does, always has, right? He was a little bit uncomfortable with killing his brother. Let’s just tell him it’s not. I don’t get bottom of fingers, right? Judah says to his daughter Tamar, grow up in your father’s house because he thought he didn’t want Sheila to die like his brothers. Sorry, that was actually for something different. Verse 23.

61. 30:33

    I was meant to make a different point. We’re running out of time. Verse 23, Judah said. Let her keep these things for herself, otherwise we’ll appear to be dishonest. What does that show us? Shows us a man who’s more worried about the way he appears, the way he thinks he appears, than the facts are that he does or doesn’t get the goat back to Tamar.

62. 30:56

    But I want you to appreciate this. In verse 24, after three months, Judah was told, Now if you ever do a study of Jacob, just take notice of how many things Jacob is told but doesn’t hear about. It’s things like Reuben taking advantage of Bill Hart. It’s like what happened to Dinah. It’s like his family of Laban who hates him and he’s told they had Jacob hears lots of things, never sees it. And this is what’s happening to Judah. Judah hears, he’s told that your daughter-in-law, Tamar, has become a prostitute and as a result, she’s now pregnant. And what does Judah do?

63. 31:33

    The other hypocrite just says, well, bring her out, let her be burnt. How hypocritical is that? He’s the other half of that, but he’s calling for her to be brought out and burnt. Did he even ask a question? Did he give her a trial, a fair, open opportunity to say how she got to this situation? Nothing.

64. 31:59

    Why? Because Judy’s looking at the situation going good, I’m done. I never wanted her to marry Sheila anyway. I want her out of my life. So if I can burn her for this, great.

65. 32:15

    Nothing’s changed in this man so far, has it? But see how these things are all coming together and they’re coming to 1 enormous climactic moment in his life. He’s told her to go back and live in your father’s house, but he’s the one that can call the shots and say bring her out of her father’s house and we’re going to burn it.

66. 32:38

    It was a priest’s daughter that would be burnt, was the custom at the time. So he thinks that he’s a priestly family because he’s associated with a noble family. Remember, Dom Harm, not Jacob where he should be. There’s again the irony. He brings her out and says, let’s burn it. Now I want you to think about this situation, just really grasp what this moment would have been like. You imagine everyone’s gathered around and there’s Jacob’s family here, there’s Tamar’s family here, and there’s the locals from the town.

67. 33:16

    I can prove they’re all there, but just believe me, there’s a whole group of people because they are bringing her out. What for? To burn it. You imagine they’re stocking the fire, the fire big enough to burn someone. Just feel the drama of this moment. And she sends a word. She sends a servant off with a message to her father-in-law, and the message is this, I’m pregnant by the man to whom these belong. As she’s walking out to be burnt, the servant is taking the message to Judah.

68. 34:11

    Oh, Can you imagine Judah in that crowd? Where’s he sitting on the high and mighty throne, deciding her future, giving her verdict without a voice, without an opportunity to speak for herself, and sitting up there calling the shots? She’s just ripped the carpet out from under his feet. More than that, that’s the message that was sent. And Judah’s drawer would just drop. Then says then there’s always a break. Every translation has a break here. So she sent one message saying this to Judah. And then she stands there in front of all these people and she goes, I want you to identify whose seal, cord and staff this is.

69. 35:11

    She says that publicly to who? To the guy that wishes he could fall through the cracks in the seat, that he’s on his high, mighty pedestal. But she says, identify. Do you know what that word means? Not that I mean to Hebrew words in particular, but that is the exact phrase that Judas said to his dad as he carried a coat into his dad and said, dad, do you think it’s your favorite boy’s coat? Can you identify the coat for me? And here he is exposed with exactly the same behaviour, caught in that situation.

70. 36:02

    This is the way God worked. God gives us opportunity to learn from our mistakes. Now I want you to think about this. Judah has a choice how to respond. He could deny that and push ahead with the burning. Or he could face up to the facts with all that public humiliation and goes, Yep, I’m wrong.

71. 36:42

    Those words don’t come easily. And he said every bit of it. She is more righteous than me. He owned it. He called it what it is. They were both involved in this. No, she’s more righteous than he was. And in that publicly embarrassing moment where he thought he was on his high and mighty throne, he’s been pulled right down to the ground. And she’s been shown to be the righteous party who simply wanted what his word to be because he promised a child to her and he was playing games and not giving her his third son. And she just wanted what was rightfully hers and she stuck to it.

72. 37:45

    He was the guy that was being unrighteous. Can you feel that? Just imagine the moment for Judah, not only realizing that first statement that he’s about to be exposed, but because he doesn’t act, she takes to that next level and says identify it. And we have proof that Judah has struggling in his mind what he did to his dad.

73. 38:23

    He knows that we’re going to see that in the next study. It’s playing in his mind. It’s affecting him. And I think this moment had dramatic impact on Judah. His conscience is just screaming at him.

74. 38:41

    Remember, this is the guy that was hypocritical about we might appear to have not delivered the goat to Tamer. How’s he appearing now? It’s a huge lesson here. I want to make this point really clearly.

75. 39:00

    When we get confronted with something we’ve done wrong and we all do it, we all do things wrong, own it, face up, call it what it is. Because if Judah tried to lie in that situation, what do you think that whole crowd of people would have been thinking? They know what happened. They know that signet, that staff, that seal the cord, they know his identity is in her hands.

76. 39:35

    They know the truth of the situation. They know his reputation. He’s a fool to think he could lie. And so are we when we try to pull the wool over our brothers and sisters of Rally People and act as if we don’t do something or haven’t done something when we’ve been caught out for it. So there’s a really important lesson to learn. Own up.

77. 40:00

    To your situation, face up to what it is now. I want to pull all that story together. What is Judah being taught? It’s one word and it’s empathy. Just appreciate someone else’s position for a minute of your life, Judah. Just grasp this.

78. 40:29

    Life has taken Judah down a path that led him to appreciate, and I say appreciate in an incredible way, his father’s story. Just think, what’s it like Judah to have lost a grown son or two actually? Because at this point, Jacob has lost a 17 year old son and he’s about to lose another son. Judah’s lost two grown sons killed by God. What’s it like, Judah, to be protecting yours youngest son? Because that’s what you’re angry at your dad about protecting Joseph?

79. 41:20

    Yeah. What’s it like to lose the wife that you live love and they’d be left with this woman, Tamar, that you never actually did love, but now you’ve got to live with her? That’s more than that. What’s it like to have children that you didn’t want to have?

80. 41:52

    Because Judo now has two twins about to be born. He doesn’t know that quite yet. That’s the final piece that will fit into this puzzle. What’s it like to be tricked by a veil that was over Tamar’s eyes? Bit like the coat that you gave to your dad. A bit like the coat that your dad tricked your dad’s dad with.

81. 42:27

    Just stop and think about that for a minute and discern whether you’re an honest, truthful man. Identify this code and in that moment Judah is taught the value of family, of relationships, of all the things that he despised and was bitter about and all got turned around and put back on his head.

82. 43:11

    But the most encouraging thing is that is what is going to rebuild him. And in trials, we think that that breaks us, we give up. And we think, I can’t recover from this. And Judah’s standing up there calling the shots on her. He’s now embarrassed. He could go out and go, I can’t recover.

83. 43:29

    I’m past it. That is what is going to rebuild Judah and change him. Those very experiences. And that’s what I want you to grasp in your life, too. The mistakes are learning, opportunities to become a better person, to grow. I very much hope you don’t have to go to the moral despair of where Judah is brought, but that’s how we learnt. I want to put it this way.

84. 44:03

    The meals of God’s Providence and the way God works in our life is through Providence. And Providence grinds through our life very, very slowly. And this wheel has turned over 20 something years. But what it does is it grinds incredibly precise because it’s God’s meal. God knows exactly what he’s doing in our life.

85. 44:36

    The precision is incredible. It’s ironic, isn’t it? It’s the way God works. Just think about this man. Same problem. And God ended his life in a prison without his eyes, doing the job that was normally allocated to the ladies so that he could learn truthfulness.

86. 45:12

    That’s a huge lesson to learn. It’s called irony. Irony is the kind of thing, let’s define it for a second. It’s like irony is like when the ambulance runs over and kills you. You know, the one that was coming to help you ambulance. I’ll use that as an analogy. Maybe irony is when the fire engine burns up or the fire station burns up. See how there’s a similarity in it? It’s like us drawing a tree on a piece of paper. That’s irony.

87. 45:50

    Irony happens in your life too, and God controls it. He allows it to occur by our own dumb decisions that we are being forced to have to own, man up to and face the consequences of.

88. 46:22

    And that’s what makes a man a man or a woman a woman. We’re picking on men in this story face up to the truth of the situation because our day is coming. Jesus says to us the judgement that you judge on other people, bring her out and burn her. That’s how you’ll be judged.

89. 46:49

    The measure that you meet on people is the way it’ll be measured to you. Again at the judgement seat. And young people, don’t be fooled. God is not mocked. What you sow in your life, you’re right. Thank you for listening to the Good Christadelphian Talks podcast. We hope this talk helped you in your walk and brightened your day. If you would like to hear more, please subscribe for new episodes.

90. 47:32

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91. 48:15

    God bless and talk to you next week.