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Good morning. Welcome to English Service at WCEC. I know there's a holiday coming up, so a lot of things probably planned or stress you out. That's at least for me. Think about the holidays and the food, the gathering. So there are many things that we we have in store to thank for, and particularly to our Lord, which is the control of everything that we have. And we had a very successful congregation meeting last weekend, so we have a host of new and old servants, faithful servants for the church. So we're thankful for that. And And today, Paul is going to bring back to the chapter we talk about Genesis. So this is a very special story about Judas. We all read about whole story from beginning to end, from the wicked to the trumpet in end, right? So it's a process of restoration that God has the power to do it. And as I was preparing for this, session, I was reading one of the commentary, which I think really resonated with me, is that Judah had the idea to sell Joseph to slavery. And he had to present himself in the end before Joseph to offer himself as slave to him in order to save Benjamin in the story of Egypt. So it's a whole circle, right? And it's really speaking to the power that God is in play, you know. Let's— however we are done, however we feel stressed and not worth, God's mercy, God has the plan for us. So in this season of thankfulness, let's pray that God will continue to walk with us. So, let's pray. Lord, we thank you for the successful congressional meeting, that you have chosen a group of faithful brothers and sisters to serve you in the church. We pray that you will continue to help us remember you are the one in charge, the one with the power to restore our soul, to redeem our sins, the hypocrisy, the self-righteousness, and anything that is wicked in your eyes. As you have told in the story of Judas, we pray that you will continue to work within us and live along us so that we might live out the promise that you have, uh, give us. Uh, thank you everything that you have shown in the story of Judas. In Jesus' name, amen.

Uh, let's stand together and praise God. Splendor the King. The splendor of the King, clothed in majesty. Let all the earth rejoice, all the earth rejoice. He wraps himself in light, and darkness tries to hide and trembles at his voice, and trembles at his voice. How great is our God! And sing with me, how great is our God! And all will see how great, how great is our God! H2H, he stand. And time is in his hands, beginning and the end, beginning and the end. The God in three in one. Father, Spirit, Son, the Lion and the Lamb, the Lion and the Lamb. How great is our God. Sing with me, how great is our God. See how great, how great is our God. Name above all names, worthy of all praise. My heart will sing How great is our God, name above all names, worthy of all praise. My heart will sing how great is our God. How great is our God. Sing with me, how great is our God. And all will see how great, how great is our God. My Jesus, my Savior, Lord, there is none like you. All of my days I want to praise the wonders of your mighty love. My comfort, my shelter, tower, a refuge and strength. Let every breath, all that I am, never cease to worship you. Shout to the Lord, all the earth, let us sing. Power and majesty I sing praise to the King. Mountains bow down and the seas will roar at the sound of your name. I sing for joy at the work of your hands. Forever I'll love you, forever I'll stand. Nothing compares to the promise I have in you. My Jesus, my Savior, Lord, there is none like you. All of my days I want to praise the wonders of your mighty love. My comfort, my shelter, tower of refuge and strength. That every breath, all that I am, never cease to worship you. Shout to the Lord, all the earth, let us sing your power and majesty. Praise to the King. Mountains bow down and the seas will roar at the sound of your name. I sing for joy at the work of your hands. Forever I'll love you, forever I'll stand. Nothing compares to the promise I have in you. I cast my mind to Calvary where Jesus bled and died for me. I see his wounds, his hands, his feet, my Savior on that cursed tree. His body bound and drenched in tears. They laid him down in Joseph's tomb, the entrance sealed by heavy stone. Messiah still and all above. Oh, praise the name of the Lord our God. Oh, praise his name forevermore. For endless days we will sing your praise, O Lord, O Lord our God. Then on the third and break of dawn, the Son of Heaven rose again. O, terrible death, where is your sting? The angels roar. For Christ the King. Oh, praise the name of the Lord our God. Oh, praise his name forevermore. We will sing your praise, O Lord, O Lord our God. He shall return and robes the white. The blazing sun shall pierce the night. And I will rise among the saints, my gaze transfixed on Jesus' face. Oh, praise the name of the Lord our God. Oh, praise his name forevermore. For endless days we will sing your praise, O Lord, O Lord our God. O Lord, O Lord our God. Oh Lord, oh Lord, our God. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for offering your Son to save us from our sin. He gave up his life He suffered the pain that we deserve, and he shed his blood for us. And that's why we offer our thanks to you and all of our praise to you. And we just cry out, um, hallelujah, for you, for you live. Thank you, Lord. In Jesus' name I pray, amen.

Good morning, everyone. So I'm going to share a little bit about my life and my path to Christ. And it's certainly been a very long path. I don't have any of those, you know, stark moments of clear understanding or traumatic events that has changed my life. It was a very long and just like me manual process. But I was born here in Delaware and my family is Christian. So I was raised in a Christian church. For a period of my time, I lived in the house I own today, which is my grandmother's house, and we attended a old Old Wesleyan Church in downtown Wilmington. And as a child, there were things that I remembered about that church that was very endearing. It was a very old church with oaken pews, you know, not very much comfort. Fit maybe, you know, 40 or 50 people. The congregation was rather old. And the fun part about that, though, as a child, was we got to ring this really old church bell. And so, you know, when it was time for the service to get started, I would go out with one of either the elders or deacons and they would pull down the rope because as children, we couldn't reach it. You had to bring it down. And you'd have to have a few children pull this bell and it would lift you up. So you would pull on the bell and like 2 or 3 children would get lifted up by the bell. And so it was a fun time. And we remember times we're going into the basement for Sunday school. A lot of times though where if they didn't have Sunday school and you had to sit in the pews, it was rather boring as a child. Very traditional service where you got up and sang in just voice, no musical instruments. You sat down, you listened to a message, and then, you know, there was an opportunity then you would split off and you would go down to Sunday school. But after that period when my parents had moved to Pennsylvania, I lived the rest of my life in Pennsylvania, Um, they had struggled with a lot of different churches, and that impacted me for the rest of my life. And so we ran into problems in different denominations because as a child I didn't understand what Christ's message was. And when you see a church try and live out Christ, it's not always right. And unfortunately, as a growing youth when you hear one thing and you see another action, you become jaded, you become cynical, and you become that very fast. And so before I was a teenager, I was already being steered away from church, from Christian church. And so as I was growing up, by the time I got into high school, my parents did not go regularly, and so I did not go regularly. And I didn't go regularly, of course, at all. I didn't go at all during my college years. The problems that I saw were pretty common, and they're unfortunately nothing that's new today. But you would have gossip. You would have people telling you you don't belong. You would have people criticizing your sin as opposed to others in the church and therefore ostracizing you. And when people do that to your parents, you take it personally as well, and you feel like, okay, this is not the place for you. So since my, you know, end of high school, college years, all the way up until I got married, I was seeking for truth that I couldn't find with people. And That's, as I understand now, the way it is. Unfortunately, we don't live in truth. We understand this as Christians, but as unbelievers, we believe in relativism. We believe that truth doesn't exist. Um, but I had a heart to seek for it anyway, and it may have been from my childhood time at church. So as I was seeking, I I did look and read a whole lot of different things and none of it made any sense and none of it actually was any lasting. I looked at all the suffering, all the pain in the world and I kept questioning, what does that mean? Why is there no solution? It wasn't until after I got married and I had my first, my two kids that I started to realize I needed to be a little bit more earnest about the seeking. And my wife started coming here to this church. And through a few of her own experiences, she began to accept. And when she started to ask me to join her to come, I felt it was probably the best thing to do so I could, you know, at least be able to see my kids grow up in a better way. But at that time, I remembered and learned a lot of different things that I heard before, but I never really accepted. And that was my rebelliousness telling me that I needed to believe in people's actions and not believe in the word of God. And so as I started reading the Bible more and coming to the church here more, you know, my heart started to change and I started to realizing, you know, how we're all broken and how I needed to trust in God and trust in his word and not in the actions of the church and the, and the people that would be around. I learned how faulty I was, but I also learned how I had to forgive others for all of their faults as well. And all of this was something that you know, started to happen simply because I wanted to see something better in the world. And it really started when I wanted to see something better in my family. So you realize early on you have no control. You realize that there is absolutely no way for you to do and make something good lasting. But when you have a family, you still put forth the effort. And so that's when I began to realize this is where it starts. This is where I have to show an example of living a Christlike life in the family. And that then grows out into the church and into the world. And it has to come through Christ in your heart because I could not, I myself could not find any solutions. So in the end, it was me wanting to recommit myself to service to God. It was me understanding that the Bible itself is true and that that truth I have to live out. It was me realizing that we all will fail each other, but God has not failed me. Regardless for my rebellion, regardless of all of my rejection, He is still committed to making me one of his. And so if I can at least provide examples of how he's done that to me, to others, then I'm doing what he asked me to do. I've realized that the Bible is God's will for me, and that is my starting point. And that's where I am today, continuing to try and live out his will in the Bible because I don't have the right answers myself. So thank you.

Okay, today's, uh, scripture reading, Genesis, uh, 49 8 to 12. Judah, your brothers will praise you. You will grasp your enemies by the neck. All your relatives will bow before you. Judah, my son, is a young lion that has finished eating its prey. Like a lion, he crouches and lies down. Like a lioness, who dares to rouse him? The scepter will not depart from Judah, nor the ruler's staff from his descendants, until the coming of the one to whom it belongs, the one whom all nations will honor. He ties his foal to a grapevine, the colt of his donkey to a choice wine. He washes his clothes in wine, his loaves in the blood of grapes. His eyes are darker than wine and his teeth are whiter than milk.

Thank you.

Good morning. Let's take 2 minutes to stand up and greet everybody. Well, good morning. This is the last in our series of Blueprints from Genesis. Noah— we missed Noah. Did you notice that? Next week— we rescheduled because we had a guest speaker, so we will get Noah next week. Now we are going to look at the blessing being passed now from Jacob to his 12 sons. And I just wanted to remind everybody, what is this blessing? Because it sounds kind of like, is it like Christmas gift? And I wanted to remind us from looking back at when the blessing was given from God to Abraham. He says, "All the families on the earth will be blessed through you. Your descendants will be as many as the stars in the sky." And as we've seen it over these weeks, we see the blessing is actually a mission. It's a responsibility and it's a privilege. So it's a big deal. And in the end, this is how God is going to remake the world in His image. And ultimately, it will end up in the blessing that His Son, Jesus Christ, will bring through the whole world. And as you know, Jesus is descended from Abraham. So this is the moment that we just read— Frank just read the scripture where Jacob now— you have Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Remember when Abraham blessed his son Isaac, Isaac blessed his son Jacob, and they picked between the older son and the younger son, older son and the younger son. And here is the moment. We have 12 sons now in this family. Who's going to get the blessing? And I imagine they've been in great suspense because it's quite a complicated family, as we say in Chinese, han fu za. Because he has 2 wives, and each wife also has a, like, a servant maid, so he's really got 4, basically 4 wives and this whole bunch of sons, and they're all having these crazy relationships. So who is going to be the next one in line designated to rule this clan? That is everyone in suspense. So, as you know, just skipping to the end of the chapter, it says, "When Jacob finished," commanding his sons, he drew up his feet into the bed and breathed his last. So I don't know if you've ever been on someone's deathbed before, but it's a very emotionally charged moment. Everybody is very much aware that something is unusual is happening. This man is about to die. And he's, just for your information, he's 147 years old. Years old according to the internet. I didn't go looking it up in the— 147. So imagine, you know, the feeling that everyone's gathered around. I was looking for a picture to try to show it to you. I think, you know, it's better to just think of it in our imagination because the artwork I found wasn't really that good. And so Jacob begins, "Gather yourselves together. Listen, O sons of Jacob." to Israel your father. My own granddad, I share his name because I was the first— well, anyway, my granddad shares my name. I got his name. And when he was dead, when he was dying, he was about 97 years old, there was a moment kind of like this that's just brought to mind where we had about 6 of the 8 grandkids around the couch. And he started this prayer and he raised his voice And he raised his arms and all of the grandkids— I was the only one that's Christian— they're all just like kind of watching. And when he's finished, my cousin, he said, "Well, thank you, Papu." He called him Papu. "For your prayer." Because that was what it was. It was kind of like this blessing. So you can even imagine his voice, "Gather yourselves together." And in this first verse, or the first thing he says, we see another one of those blueprints, and that is to listen, to listen to Israel, your father. Now, he's Jacob and he's Israel. Remember, he has two names. He was born Jacob. God gave him the name Israel. So he's saying, basically saying, now listen, because what Jacob is about to say is spiritually charged. It's inspired. And it says in Hebrews, he spoke by faith. So this listening is a theme that you see repeated in the Jews to this day, thousands of years later. Every day they repeat this thing called the Shema. Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one. Hear, O Israel. And when the scribes were questioning— were with Jesus, they asked him, which commandment is the most important of all? And if you look in the Mark version of this incident, Jesus answered, "The most important is, 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one, and you shall love the Lord with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.'" And he goes on to put in those two, the two principles on which everything else is based. But it starts out with "hear," and we know that faith comes by hearing. So this is the first blueprint we find here. But then he goes on in the next— again, this is now— I guess that's the wrong verse number there. He says at the end of this passage, he says, "These are the 12 tribes of Israel. This is what their father said to them as he blessed them, blessing each with the blessing suitable for him." So I skipped to the end. That's an incorrect verse marking there. He's basically saying it's not just for one of you. It's for all of you. So in the past, Ishmael is excluded, Isaac is blessed, and then Esau excluded and Jacob is blessed. But this time, all 12, all 12 are going to get a blessing. So no one is cut out, but there will be one special blessing that we'll see in a minute. But all of them will get blessings that are suitable for them. And I'm calling this a blueprint because this is establishing not just a family, but a whole nation. Is going to come from this family. And these blessings are given not just to these individuals, but for all the 12 clans that will become larger and larger until they grow up into an entire nation, like a federation. And this is an important blueprint because— and this is where we see it on the breastplate of the high priest. It's showing like a picture of how our nation isn't just one, like one flag. It's made up of all of these component parts. It's kind of like in the colonies, 13 colonies of the United States, when you have these 13 that made up the original nation. Each one of them has a distinct personality. They're not identical to each other, but they're aligned. They're united. They're like different textures, different colors. But they're all in one group. Now, these 12 tribes are remembered even in the book of Revelation when it's talking about the New Jerusalem, the holy city of Jerusalem. On the gates, the names of the 12 tribes of the sons of Israel were inscribed. But then it goes on to say, "On the wall of the city were 12 foundations, on them were the 12 names of the 12 apostles of the Lamb." And so the Bible's making a parallel. So that's why calling it a blueprint between the 12 tribes of Israel that started out as clans. They started as individual sons, became 12 tribes. Now there's 12 apostles in the New Testament, and out of them came the 12— well, I'm speculating. This is somewhat speculative. You can't look this up in the Bible, but I see these are like denominations. I see this relationship between the tribes are like the relationship between denominations within the church today. You could apply it to individuals, but also in separate churches. A church down the street this direction, then there's two more churches down the street in that direction, then there's a couple more over there. And we don't visit each other very often, do we? And if you did, you probably might not like it very much because you wouldn't recognize the music and they dress funny or for whatever reason. And yet we're aligned in a lot of ways. And so we can think of each other, these other denominations, as part of the same team. Remember The Lego Movie? Everything is awesome when you're part of a team. Now, if you ever have a chance to go to Israel, I want you to visit the Chagall windows. Marc Chagall is a famous artist from the last century. At this one synagogue in this town that's not too far from Jerusalem. They have built these beautiful— there's 12 altogether, and they make along the 4 walls of this synagogue, and the light shines in. It's really spectacular. And so I'm going to use this artwork to now go through the other blessings that were given to the 11 sons before we come back to Judah that Frank read a moment ago. And we'll see that The blessings are very— most of them, they're very brief and they're very poetic. They're not specific. They're not intended to convey a lot of information. They're just kind of painting a picture. And the first 7 I will share are the kind of minor ones, the less important ones, the less significant ones, and therefore the verses are rather short. And I've even edited them down a tiny bit. And it goes like this: Zebulun shall dwell at the shore of the sea; he shall become a haven for ships. Issachar is a strong donkey; he saw that the land was pleasant, so he bowed his shoulder to bear and became a servant. Dan shall judge his people as one of the tribes of Israel; Dan shall be A serpent in the way that bites the horse's heels. Raiders shall raid Gad, but he shall raid at their heels. There's things to talk about, but I don't want to take any time away from the important ones. Asher's food shall be rich, and he shall yield royal delicacies. Naphtali is a doe that lets— that let loose— excuse me. "Naftali is a doe let loose that bears beautiful fawns." You like those paintings? This is a nice one. "Benjamin is a ravenous wolf, in the morning devouring the prey and at evening dividing the spoil." And so those are the 7 relatively minor ones that we've gotten out of the way. Now, the firstborn. When it gets to Reuben, you think, Reuben, he's the firstborn. Is he— you know, he's the one you'd expect would get the main birthright. If you have the birthright even among the 12, that means you're going to kind of be the leader of the clan and you'll get extra property. It's a big deal. But He says this, "Reuben, you are my firstborn. Unstable as water, you shall not have preeminence." because you went up to your father's bed, then you defiled it. Reuben had taken one of his concubines, and that was a sign of lust, and this— therefore, he was not going to be selected to receive the blessing. And then he goes on to son number 2 and number 3, and he lumps them together because Simeon and Levi are brothers, it says. Weapons of violence are their swords. Be not joined to their company, for in their anger they killed men and oxen. Cursed be their anger! I will divide them in Jacob and scatter them in Israel. And indeed, if you look at the maps of the tribes of Israel and you look for Levi, where is it? Where is Levi's land? Does anybody know who— where is Levi? He has no land. He has cities. They gave him 6 cities, and of course, then the Levites are eating out of the temple and so on. But he has— he's around, but he's scattered. And similarly, Simeon, the tribe of Simeon is kind of swallowed up inside of Judah, and so you don't see it on the maps. So they were scattered. But this— what is this about weapons of violence are in their swords? Does anyone know how violent Simeon and Levi was? There's a very short and crazy story. In Shechem, that was a few chapters prior where when Jacob and his family were near this town now called Shechem or later is called in the middle of Samaria, there was an incident where one of the son of the mayor, I guess, or the king of Samaria had taken Dinah, their sister, and raped her. And so it caused obviously a big, big Hullaboo, but hubbaloo, hullabaloo, hullabaloo. What language is hullabaloo? That was a problem, right? And so the King of Shechem— excuse me, the king is called— the King of Samaria came to Jacob and said, we're sorry. We want to marry Dinah. We're going to marry her. And so everything's going to be OK, and we'll become friends, and we'll join forces. We'll be allies. And Jacob's family said, "Only if you agree to be circumcised." They'll never agree to be circumcised, right? So they know that that's a safe bet. But then the Sumerians said, "Okay, sure, we'll all get circumcised." And like, uh-oh, now what are we going to do? So all the men got circumcised, and it says, "Three days later, when their wounds were still sore, two of Jacob's sons, Simeon and Levi, who were Dinah's full brothers, took their swords, entered the town without opposition, because the men were all in bed. So then they slaughtered every male there and took Dinah back from Shechem's house and returned to their camp. So this was the legacy, and you can read more about it yourself. And so, Sim— excuse me, Reuben, because he had been this lust incident, and now Simeon and Levi because of these violence incidents were disqualified from receiving the blessing. So who's left? Well, number 4, right? So number 1, 2, and 3 are out. Go to number 4. But before we get there, there is one other candidate to receive the blessing, and that is Joseph. Remember, Joseph was the one who was carried into Egypt. Joseph is the one that was second to Pharaoh, the one who masterminded this amazing effort to get all this grain collected in the he fed the entire known world through those 7 years of famine. And he is obviously— and he also is his dad's favorite, remember? And he also is the firstborn of Rachel. So he— just now we've been going through number 1, number 2, number 3, firstborn of Leah. But Joseph is firstborn of Rachel, so maybe he'll get the blessing. And so here Jacob goes with Joseph, saying, Joseph is He is a fruitful bough by a spring, his branches run over the wall. The archers bitterly attacked him, yet his arms were made agile by the hands of the Mighty One. The Almighty will bless you with blessings of heaven above, the blessings of your Father Mighty. May they be on the head of Joseph, who was set apart from his brothers. So Jacob is giving it his best. Shot. And if you look, you see I have a lot of clauses I've left out. The number of words given to Joseph is quite a long batch, but it doesn't have the key piece, which is the lineage that's going to lead to the Messiah. So finally, we are going to get to Judah. And why is Judah somehow given preference over Joseph. And so here, here it is. We just read this part. Judah, your brother shall praise you. Your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies. Now the word Judah actually means praise, so it's kind of a play on words here. Your brothers will praise you. Your father's son shall bow down before you. Judah is a lion's cub. From the prey, my son, you have gone up. He stooped down, he crouched as a lion and as a lioness. Who dares rouse him? And again, we see this poetry. And just now, I don't know if you were here when Frank was introducing, beginning the service, he reminded us of how Judah was the one brother who was willing to put himself in jail in order to allow the father and Benjamin time to bring Benjamin down from Israel. So in other words, Judah had been willing to sacrifice himself or to die to self, so to speak. And if we had time, that would be another part of the story or perhaps another blueprint, but we don't. So we're going to get to the— finally, the cherry on top of the whole big banana split here is right in this verse. And it says, "The scepter will not depart from Judah, nor the ruler's staff from his descendants until the coming of the one to whom it belongs, the one whom all nations will honor." So this again, just like the other last few blessings referring back to an incident in the lives of these sons, this is referring back to Judah's children. Now Judah has two very unusual sons, and that we're gonna have to look at this story a little deeper to pull out the interesting part of it. But let's just notice that he says, you will be the king. The scepter is the symbol of rulership, and he's saying this king is coming from you, Judah. Your family, your clan will be in charge until There's going to be someday when you're not in charge anymore. There's someone coming. He's the one that deserves it and he's the one to whom it belongs and the one whom all nations will honor. And we're going to see that that is indeed looking forward to the Christ, the Messiah. So this is what they call messianic prophecy. But before we get there, I want to do— to look at the family of Judah and how unusual his sons are. Because Judah married Shua, had 3 sons, Er, Onan, and Shelah. And Er married Tamar. So these are the— this is the whole family at the moment. And it looks like they got a lot of opportunity for a lot of descendants, right? 3 sons and they're going to have lots of babies. But Er was a wicked man in the Lord's sight, so the Lord took his life. And then something weird happened. Her husband's brother— so there was a rule or there was a custom in those days It goes like this. Her husband's brother— this is stated as a law or a tradition. Her husband's brother shall take her as his wife. So if someone died, if one man died and he has a brother, the husband's brother shall take her as his wife. The second son should take Tamar as his wife. The first son whom she bears to the second brother shall take the name of the dead brother. So that his name will not be blotted out of Israel. So this is called Levirate marriage. It became codified in the law later when Moses wrote down the law. And so therefore, Tamar is taken out of the house of Er and now given to Onan so she could still bear his children and given the name Er. But something goes wrong. Onan knew that the seed should not be his, and it came to pass when he went in unto his brother's wife, that he spilled it on the ground, lest he should give seed to his brother. I'm sorry, did you see the R rating on the door before you came in today? PG-13, that's the message today. You don't get this very much in church because we kind of stay away from it. But basically what's going on is Onan doesn't want to have a baby. So he's wanting to make sure that the way babies are made isn't going to be made. That day. And so he didn't have a child. But the Lord considered it evil for Onan to deny a child to his dead brother. So the Lord took Onan's life too. Now Onan's dead. So here we've got a problem. Now what's going to happen? Are you going to give him to the third son? That would be the thing to do, right, according to the custom. Then Judah said to Tamar his daughter-in-law, 'Go back to your parents' home until Shelah is old enough to marry you.' But Judah didn't really intend to do this because he was afraid. 'My first son died when he was married to this one. My second son died being married to this one. She's bad luck, right? I don't want my third son to die being married to her, so I'll find an excuse later.' So he indirectly— he doesn't come right out, you know, he's not like, American style, we just blurt out the whole thing, saying, "I'm worried you're going to be bad luck for my third son." No, just go back to your parents and we'll talk about it later. So this is his intent and this is the question that's going to come up. Well, then later Shua died and Tamar saw that Shelah was grown up, but she had not been given to him in marriage. And so now, can you see the problem? I've used the colors to try to point out. So in Judah's whole line of descendants, there's only one blue left and only one pink left. In other words, this is— he's the Messianic line, right? Of course, it hasn't been prophesied yet at this moment, but God knows that this is the family that's going to bring the Messiah. But now they're all gone. Well, there's still Shelah, but he's been denied. To Tamar because of— even though he's still alive, he's been denied because of the fear of Judah to give her. So then this is when the weird stuff happens. Someone told Tamar, "Look, your father-in-law is going up to Timnah," which is a go-down-the-road not far from her village. Now Tamar is determined to have a child. She wants to be a mother. She probably doesn't know anything about Messiah. But she wants to be a mother, so she took off her widow's garments, covered herself with a veil, and sat along the road, the very road that she knew Judah was going to pass by. And when Judah saw her, he thought she was a prostitute, for she had covered her face. He turned to her at the roadside and said, 'Come, let me come into you,' for he did not know that she was his daughter-in-law. She said, "What will you give me?" And he answered, "I will send you a young goat from the flock." Now, Frank, didn't you just praise Judah saying how wonderful he was and how he died to self and he proved himself to be the best of all the brothers? And now we have this new blueprint which is you should all go looking for prostitutes along the road and follow the example of Judah, right?

No.

That's not it, is it? And yet, because his wife had already died, I don't know if Judah made a practice of doing this. I don't think so. I think he was walking down the road. I think God actually wanted him to go into his daughter-in-law. And so I'm just thinking God must have like, psh, psh, kind of whispered in Judah's ear and had him to kind of pause and take another look at this girl. And it occurred to him, hey, maybe I should stop here for a little while. 'What will you give me? A young goat from the flock,' he says. And she said, 'If you give me a pledge.' She didn't trust him to give— bring a flock, something from the flock later. 'What can you give me now as a pledge, as collateral, so that you'll give me the young kid from the goat later? What can you give me now?' He says, 'What pledge shall I give you?' She replied, How about your signet, that is your ring, your ring that has like a seal on it that you use to seal documents, your signet and your cord and the staff that is in your hand. You can give me those. When you bring the goat, I'll give them back to you. That's the idea. So she gave them to her, and he went into her, and can you believe it? She was ovulating. You see how this is like Providence is orchestrating all of these events. She conceived by him. And when Judah— this is a few days later or whenever later— sent the young goat by his friend to take back the pledge from the woman, he couldn't find her. And Judah said, "Oh, well, let her keep the things as her own. We might be laughed at." Can you imagine if he started searching through all the village going from home to home like looking for this— 'Who is this woman that's got my staff and my signet ring? I'll just forget it. I don't need them. Otherwise, we'll be laughed at.' He was afraid to be embarrassed. Can you believe it? He didn't want to be embarrassed. He would rather just give up his rod, his staff. I think it's almost like reminds me of Esau when he didn't care about the blessing. He just A bowl of soup, he was willing to give it up. And in this case, it's just give it up for almost nothing, just to spare himself embarrassment. Well, about 3 months later, Judah was told, "Tamar, your daughter-in-law has been immoral. Moreover, she's pregnant by her immorality." Judah said, "Burn her! Bring her out and let her be burned." And you can see them getting the fire ready in this drawing. And I guess that was the punishment for adultery at the time. But you can see Judah is not being very charitable, is he? In fact, we know now That's like the Messiah in her belly. That's the Christ line that he's about to burn. And as she was being brought out, she sent word to her father-in-law, "By the man to whom these belong, I am pregnant." And she said, "Please identify whose these are. Whose are they?" the signet and the cord and the staff. And Judah identified them and he said— that moment he must have just— what a shock! Can you believe it? It's like the shock of Isaac when he realized that he had blessed the wrong son. Here's this shock of Judah recognizing that that was his child he was about to burn and that whole prostitute had been his daughter-in-law all along. And he said, "She is more righteous than I because I did not give her to Shelah, my son." So that is this story, and we see how these— and she ends up having twins. So this again is going to be now the Christ line. So we saw Judah, the other two sons have died, the one son's not available, and so suddenly this daughter-in-law Tamar ends up pregnant. And it's as if it came in through a parachute. And so the parachute is like a symbol of this new blueprint which I'm calling supernatural intervention. It's like this supernatural thing that Judah didn't mean to have it happen. Happen that way, nobody really meant it to happen, but it happened. Where Tamar was now pregnant with the Christ line in this way that was not anybody's idea in the first place. So that's why I'm calling it a supernatural intervention. Now I wonder, and like I put here the quote from Genesis 3, and Genesis 3:15 is often quoted as the first messianic prophecy where Adam and Eve have just eaten the fruit. God says, "I'm going to kick you out of the garden, but I'm also going to curse the snake." And to the snake, the serpent, he says, "I will put hostility between you, snake, and the woman, between your serpent seed and her seed. He will strike your head, you will strike his heel." And this so-called her seed, her seed, is going to be the Messiah. And this, her seed, kind of comes back now when Tamar shows up pregnant. She's gotten pregnant out of nowhere. Nobody knows where it came from. Of course, he finds out in the end that it was his all along. But this is— the reason I mention this is I'm thinking that this parachute idea must have— may have occurred to Joseph. Remember Mary and Joseph, where Mary got pregnant? So this whole incident kind of reminds me of when Joseph found out his wife Mary, or betrothed to be married to Mary, was pregnant. Remember? And Joseph found out Mary's pregnant. It's kind of like Judah finding out Tamar's present, uh, going to be pregnant. And you would have been, would have thought Joseph would have criticized or wanted to punish Mary, but he was willing to let her go privately until the angel showed up. And the angel said, don't worry, this is all of God. Now most husbands say, yeah, right. Right? I mean, would you just take any old angel's word for it that Mary got pregnant through some supernatural means? Come on, angel. But I imagine— I'm just making this up— that maybe he thought back to this story and that Joseph thought, well, if Tamar can get pregnant like that, maybe Mary could get pregnant like that too. And what's beautiful about this image of the— okay, so this is the messianic supernatural intervention that's going to take over from the line of Judah. So the line of Judah basically is going to come to an end when the one to whom it belongs comes, the Messiah comes. He's going to take over. It's going to be like a whole new tribe, and that's going to be a supernatural event. Now, it also reminds me of this record where Jesus and the Pharisees— as you know, towards the end of his life, the last week, there's this dialogue between Pharisees, Jesus, Pharisees, Jesus. And Jesus asked them a question once, saying, what do you think about the Messiah? Whose son is he? And they replied, well, he's the son of David. Everybody knows that. Then Jesus asked them, then why does David, speaking under the inspiration of the Spirit, in Psalm 110, call the Messiah my Lord if that's true. For David said, the Lord said to my Lord, sit in the place of honor at my right hand until I humble your enemies beneath your feet. So here's the question. Since David called the Messiah my Lord, how can the Messiah also be his son? Or another way of saying it is, how could your son be your Lord? Doesn't make sense, right? And no one could answer him. But this parachute answers it. And the answer is that he's both his son and his Lord. So he's like half— he's like fully God and fully man. So he's, as a man, he's the son of David. But as the Son of God, he's the Lord of David. OK, so that's it. We're done. These are the three blueprints. That we've learned today. That we should hear, that faith comes by hearing, and that we should work together as a team with us Christians in our denomination or even other denominations. And thirdly, that we should expect there are going to be supernatural interventions in life from time to time. Now, I want to take a moment to prove to you that these are not just silly ideas from a text from 4,000 years ago, but these are actual realities in our life and in our church today. And the way I'm gonna prove it is I'm going to give you a little time to reflect. The proof is in you, because I have a hunch that all of you have experienced all of these things already in your lives. And so I want— just take a moment now to remember a time When you heard something that looking back on it, you think, "Wow, that must have been God's voice." It obviously wasn't, you know, a big voice speaking out of the sky speaking your name, or maybe it was, probably wasn't. But maybe it was what somebody else said, or maybe something you read that gave you this thought and you thought, "Whoa, that's something." very significant and impactful. So just take a moment to remember one of those or two of those times when you heard something that you now think was from God. Now, this second one is about this teamwork that I was describing, and I want us to reflect for a minute of a time in your lives that other Christians or other people in the body of Christ, that you saw them or you were able to work with them or they helped you or you helped them or there was some— kind of chemistry between others where you saw the fruit, where people were working together even if they weren't necessarily in the same church? Have you seen things going on like this in your life? Try to remember now. Take a moment. I wish we'd have enough time to hear some of the recollections and reflections that you've just brought back to mind in the last two slides. And the last one here is, have you experienced Divine favor in your lives? I surely hope that you'll be able to remember some of these. And if not, maybe I need to give you longer to think about it. A time, maybe at the time you thought it was luck or maybe someone around you said, "Oh, you got lucky today." But now that you understand what you do, looking back on it, you really realize that that timing or that connection was so amazing and so impactful in your life, you can recognize it as God's providence working for you. Just remember those now. Again, I hope we have opportunity to share with each other some of our recollections in these three ways. And I think also this parachuter, it kind of reminds me of like when the Lord is coming back someday, you know, maybe it'll be on a parachute. You know, it doesn't say how he's going to come down because maybe he'll have a chariot or maybe it will be a parachute. Anyway, we know that there's history is leading to an ultimate consummation, and it will also be through supernatural intervention. And even when we pass away, there will be a time when we, when we are in the air. So that's it. We have gone through and we have this whole inventory of blueprints from just from the book of Genesis. And maybe next year we'll go into Exodus where they have more blueprints, and we won't take time to review all these, but if you Go back to our YouTube channel, you'll be able to find it all the way from when God said, "Let there be light," and it's just like lightning coming out of the storm cloud, all the way to the parachute through many important ideas and principles that are part of our lives every day. So let me finish with a prayer. Father, your word is so, so rich. It takes a full lifetime to absorb, and every time we read these stories, we see something new. Especially want to pray for all of the accumulated experience in this room, all the different individuals like those precious stones that were on the breastplate of the high priest, each of us with a unique name the different properties, character qualities, and for all the reflections that we just made, the times in our lives when through all the noise and all of the times we seem to shut it out, and yet your voice came through and we heard. And for the chances we've had past and future to see how you work through groups, through families, small groups, churches, federations of churches to accomplish your will so that no one can boast because we realize it's It's the way you've designed things that we can just do our part. And finally, Father, I pray for those ways that you intervene from time to time. I ask that we can recognize what you're doing, where you're doing it. Sometimes we're blind to it or might call it luck or not, not notice. But Father, I pray that we do notice so that we can thank you. So that we can praise you and so that we can have confidence in you going forward, knowing that you have brought us to this day. You will bring us through today and tomorrow. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.

Let's stand together. My Jesus, my Savior, Lord, there is none like you. All the mighty I want to praise the wonders of your mighty love. My comfort, my shelter, tower of refuge and strength. That every breath, all that I am, never cease to worship you. Shout to the Lord, all the earth, and let us sing power and majesty Mighty praise to the King. Mountains bow down and the seas will roar at the sound of your name. I sing for joy at the work of your hands. Forever I'll I'll love you forever, I'll stand. Nothing compares to the promise I have in you. My Jesus, my Savior, Lord, there is There's none like you. All of my days I want to praise the wonders of your mighty love. My comfort, my shelter, Tower of refuge and strength, let every breath, all that I am, never cease to worship you. Shout to the Lord, all the earth, let the Sing power and majesty, praise to the King. Mountains bow down and the seas will roar at the sound of your name. I sing for joy at the work of your Forever I'll love you. Forever I'll stand. Nothing compares to the promise I have in you. You can be seated.

Alright, so now it's time for announcements. If you need any details in these announcements, please go to our website at the EMWCA website. Dec.church. Next slide. Any new visitors today? Okay, next slide please. All right, so apologize for the small print. Um, our opportunities are the next coming, uh, weekend will be our Black Friday celebration, our Thanksgiving celebration on Friday. Um, we are coordinating still the food and We have everything, uh, for that that we need. Okay. Um, EM prayer circles are on the first and third Wednesdays at 7 PM, either in the lounge or on Zoom. Please see Minister Condrell for any details. The blood drive is on December 14th. Please register down in the lobby. And the new baptism and member transfer day is coming up on December 8th. So please, if you have an op— if you want to become a member, or if you have an interest in getting baptism, please let us know. All right, next slide. Uh, Christmas Operation— Operation Christmas Child is ending today for turning in your box. So if you have a box, please bring it to the lobby along with the payment to go with that. And you still can continue to donate if you like to go onto the website. All right. Now we'd like to bring up someone to talk about the congregation vote as we have a correction to make. Thanks, Dwayne.

And okay, good morning. All right. I'm here on behalf of the Church Board and I'm here to try to present the voting result from last Sunday's congressional meeting. During that meeting, we shared the preliminary result of the vote, and however, shortly after, we are informed some errors in the initial ballot counting. To ensure the accuracy of the results, those are involved did the recount, and I'm now here to share the correct the voting result with you. You can see that, so basically that the first items for Pastor Lu and the, there were 9 votes voted no, okay? And we know that the required approval percentage is 50%, 50% for all the term renew, renew term. And we are Still, they passed it, but just, I'm here just to correct, give you the correct result for voting no. And also for Minister Zhao's renew 3 terms, there are 3 votes, okay, there's no vote. And also for ordination, there's 8 votes, okay, voted no. 8 people are voting no. And there's, for the bylaw, Bylaw amendment, we have 35 people voted no, so the— it's 89% in the final approval rating. Okay, and the last two is the new Candace Deacon. Is there's, uh, one vote, vote no, and also for two is invalid. And the last one is the budget, budget approval is there's one person voted no and the 3 invalid notes. So board understand that the human error in counting the ballots can happen, okay, there. But we are fully committed to addressing any issues promptly and ensure the accuracy and the transparency in our church's process, okay. And the church board also acknowledged there's portion of the votes were in opposition for the voting items. As a congregation, I ensure the— we very value the unity and the transparency. We will assure you that the board is dedicated to improve our communication with all of you moving forward. And this matter, and people are voting no, we will be including our future board meeting discussion to ensure your voice are heard. Okay. And also that If you have any concerns or feedback regarding the results, please don't hesitate to reach out to me or Pastor— Minister Condrell or any of the elders. Thank you for your attention and for your continued support as we work together for the good of our WCC's church growth. Okay? Thank you very much.

Please rise for the doxology. Praise Him, all creatures here below.

Praise Him above the heavens. Praise God in mercy and in holiness. Remain standing for the benediction, but I also wanted to say thank you. That was Richard Zhang, our chairman of our— the whole church, by the way, who just shared the results. He does a lot of work behind the scenes, so I'm glad he gets to be in front now for a brief moment at least. And it's reminded me of how it seems like the Chinese students like to get perfect score on their SATs, P, right? And so, you know, any church that got 99%, 89%, 95%, that would be awesome. We'd be so happy. But, you know, we want to get perfect, so we're going to keep working on perfect. But in the meantime, let me give my benediction from Hebrews chapter 13. And now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead Lord Jesus equip give you with all you need for doing his will. May he who became the great shepherd of the sheep by an everlasting agreement between God and you, signed with his blood, may it produce in you through the power of Christ all that is pleasing to him. To him be glory forever and ever. Amen. Thank you for coming. that we actually feel in our family that we can't—

we realize that we're part of this one even bigger company.

It's a combined company for the company, kind of, that's built on top of us together. Even though this one company is located in a different part of the world, it's still a part of the bigger company. And I realized that this is like a business network. You can change people, change the world, and just basically change the world. So it's not about