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Advent Productions

Benjamin Ng

The Genealogy of Jesus

Lord, thank you so much for bringing us to the end of this year, this last Sabbath.

Thank you, Lord, for your watch care over every single 1 of us.

Thank you, Father, for providing and sustaining for each of us.

And Lord, as we're about to open your word to study, just ask for your Holy Spirit to please lead and guide us, to show us and illumine our hearts and minds that even in this last divine service, this last message for this year, that you would leave with us a message that would bring us fresh into the following year of 2022.

And so Lord, we just ask for a blessing, we ask for your Holy Spirit, we ask that you would guide us, we pray, In Jesus' name we pray and ask.

So the title of my message this morning is The Genealogy of Jesus.

And you know, specifically the 1 in Matthew.

There are actually 2, 1 found in Luke and 1 found in Matthew and we're concerned with the 1 in Matthew but you know many people they do ask, hey when you actually compare it starts off, I mean not starts off, when you compare these 2 genealogies, they are actually very different.

They don't have the same people listed there.

It seems like Jesus is from, I mean, maybe someone got it mixed up, right?

But what you will find is 1 is the family tree of Joseph and the other is the family tree of Mary.

And so, you know, we're interested in the 1 that's found in Matthew this morning and it's a very interesting list of people.

And what's interesting also about genealogies, and you see this starting all the way from Genesis, this person beget this person, this person beget this person, it always points out the male, the man, okay?

The gender male, and they are mentioned normally in the genealogies and that's tradition You know, but in the genealogy that's found in the book of Matthew What you're gonna find is that there are actually 5 women Mentioned there And it's weird that it would talk about women and mention their names because it is not tradition.

It is not the usual case to mention the woman's name in the genealogy.

And so that's what we're going to look at, really, the 5 women that are mentioned in the genealogy of Jesus.

And you're going to find that a very interesting lesson is going to come through.

So let's start with our first text here in Matthew chapter 1, which is where the genealogy begins in verse 1, but we're going to look at verse 3.

And Judas begat Phares and Zara of Tamar, and Phares begat Esrom and Esrom begat Amran.

So do you see there that name Tema, T-H-A-M-A-R?

And she is actually found in Genesis chapter 38.

The whole chapter is dedicated to the story about Tema and her name is actually not spelled with a TH in the Old Testament.

Of course, Judah is where Jesus came through.

He's from the Lion of the tribe of Judah.

And so, you know, it talks about Judah and his family and he has 3 sons.

And Ur is the 1 that actually marries Tamar.

If you have the time, I want to encourage you to read that.

And you know, it's a very good, I mean Genesis really is a whole book of stories.

But Ur, he ends up marrying Tema, but Ur is a wicked man.

So wicked that God takes him into his own hands and he kills him.

You know, even though Judah seemed like he was a kind of a man-to-be, a good man, his son was wicked.

And so the next son then has to stand in to marry Tehmar so that he can bring up seed for his oldest brother, for his brother who passed away.

This was the custom in those days and you know Onan, that's his brother, okay, the Er was killed and Onan comes in and as he is there, I mean as he marries Temah, he is also a wicked man as well and God also takes it into his own hands and kills him as well.

This is not a good family background already that we see here.

Shele is the youngest, the only remaining son left.

But at this point, when God kills Onan, Shele is still too young to get married to Tema.

So Judah says, okay just wait, let Shella grow up and when he is of marriageable age, when he is grown up, I will give him to you so that you can have a husband and have seed for her who she married at the very beginning.

Obviously he must have pinpointed her as the bad luck so to speak.

She is the 1 that brought all this wickedness into our house.

She's the reason why my other 2 sons were killed.

And that was what Judah must have been thinking because when Shelah eventually did grow up, Tamar saw that he was a full-grown man already, but Judah did not give Shelah to her to be her husband.

She was back at the father's house already, her father's house, and not living with Judah anymore.

And this is all chronicled in, written down in Genesis chapter 38.

She goes out and dresses herself up as a harlot and sits by the roadside and waits for Judah to walk by and she entices him and he ends up sleeping with her.

Yes, he ends up going into her because he sees that she's a harlot and what happens?

Of course, the cost of sleeping with a harlot, it wasn't free, it wasn't just like she was doing it for fun, no.

She was also, harlots try to earn their living as well.

And at that time, when Judah came into her, he did not have any money, he did not have anything, so she's like, look, if you wanna sleep with me, it's gonna cost what?

And so of course he didn't have that with her, so he says, look, take my staff, take my signet ring, which is like my signature, and the seal and a bracelet, and keep it until I come back.

And of course when he came back, after he slept with her, she was already gone and nowhere to be found.

So she never ended up doing this for money, she just wanted revenge against Judah.

Few months later, of course you can't hide it because the tummy is there, but few months later Tema is found pregnant and Judah comes out and is very angry and he says she needs to be burnt, she needs to be punished, she needs to be killed because she was a harlot.

Just as he is denouncing her, she goes and pulls out his staff, his bracelet, and his ring, and shows his belongings that he was the 1 that slept with her.

Just as guilty as she was, even though Tema had played the harlot, Judah was just as bad.

This is the great-great-great-great, however many greats, grandmother of Jesus.

This was not really someone you want to be publicized, to be put front and center in your family tree.

This is the sort of person you want to remain anonymous, make it quiet and hush-hush, sweep it under the mat, right?

But remember, this is the family tree of Jesus.

This is the genealogy of Jesus and we are not off to a good start.

The father of his sons slept with the daughter-in-law.

Of course he didn't know it, he didn't do it on purpose, but even then he should not have been sleeping with a harlot.

But this is the super great grandfather and grandmother of Jesus.

Well, let's have a look at the second 1, shall we?

The Bible says, And Salmon begat booze of Rahab.

Salmon begat booze of Rahab and that is Rahab.

Well, let's go over to Joshua 2, verse 1.

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The Genealogy of Jesus

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