Noah's Sin and Canaan's Curse

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Preacher: Ross Macdonald Scripture: Genesis 9:18-29

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I'm sure some of you are thankful that we weren't reciting chapter 10 this morning that ought to be very entertaining next week this morning we hope to continue on in Genesis chapter 9 and we want to keep in mind what we considered last week in the first part of chapter 9 we considered
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Noah coming off of the ark and building an altar to the Lord and we talked a couple weeks ago about the priority of worship in the life of God's people and then we connected that to all of God's promises he makes a covenant with Noah and through Noah he makes a covenant with humanity and not just humanity but everything that has breath everything that has life he makes a covenant with the earth makes a covenant that he will preserve the earth and sustain the earth that he will make the earth fruitful he will not again send a flood and destroy his good creation even though that good creation has been corrupted by sin and so we saw this common grace and how that common grace is the is the outflow of the sacrifice and we talked about how
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God's grace is always a result of the sacrifice of his son our Savior Jesus Christ and his sacrifice is so rich so vast that the overflow of that great redemption which he brings to his people affects the whole cosmos and grace is given in that sense to all and it's all flowing from the sacrifice of the blessed son we talked about the covenantal sign of the rainbow arcing over this continued sinfulness of humanity whether humanity acknowledges it or not they have a sign that God is showing mercy to them whether they see that whether they're thankful for it whether they spurn, spit, mock it,
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God is showing mercy to a sinful world because of the sacrifice that comes out of this great scene in Genesis chapter 9, seed time, harvest, winter, spring, all these things carry on, sons and daughters are born, families expand, soil is tilled, barns are filled, all of this is the overflow of God giving grace to the world so that's the context as we move to Genesis 9 beginning in verse 18 now the sons of Noah who went out of the ark were
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Shem, Ham and Japheth and Ham was the father of Canaan these three were the sons of Noah and from these the whole earth was populated now something that stands out to us right away in verse 18 is this little mention of Canaan we've seen multiple times already
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Noah and his sons Shem, Ham and Japheth we talked about Shem not actually being the firstborn and yet having this place of honor in the way that he's mentioned as almost being the firstborn he's the favored one of the
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Lord that's already foretasting where the book of Genesis is going but we have this little mention
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Ham was the father of Canaan Ham was the father of Canaan well that information could have waited to the next chapter we're going to see that Ham is the father of Canaan in chapter 10 in the table of nations so the question is why does
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Moses mention it here the appearance of this name Canaan in verse 18 flags the importance of Canaan to what follows and that's going to ultimately foreshadow all the way through Genesis into Joshua into the book of the conquests when
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God's people make a conquest of the Canaanite territory it anticipates the sin of Ham carrying through Canaan down through Canaan's posterity down into the
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Canaanites but let's take a big step back before we consider that we see this common humanity right from Noah's sons the whole earth is populated so we have the common humanity that comes through Noah's descent the whole earth is populated and that's giving us a step forward into the redemptive promise of God because this word populated it's literally the whole earth was scattered from the descendants of Shem Ham and Japheth and that word that action of scattering is very important as we move through chapter 10 into chapter 11 where the nations will literally be scattered over the face of the earth their language will be divided and this is another huge step of God dividing out his people from among the masses of humanity he's singling out a people a line we've seen that from the very beginning from the very beginning in Genesis 4
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God has been singling out the seed through which the promise will be fulfilled but before we see that promise which flows out of God's grace we've also seen this great picture of salvation coming through judgment we've seen that again and again and again and we see it here we find
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God's grace flowing through the failure of man and that failure begins in verse 20 with Noah's sin.
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Noah began to be a farmer we read and he planted a vineyard and he drank of the wine and was drunk and he became uncovered in his tent.
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One careless decision can ruin the reputation of a godly man. One careless decision.
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One day. One action. This happens to be recorded in Scripture for all of human posterity and it was one decision on one day.
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One action. A blight, a stain upon this righteous prophet of the ancient world.
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This wise herald who preached the righteousness of God in this day is reduced to a babbler and a fool.
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A laughing stock. Henry Law says the glory of the ancient world, Noah, the firstfruits unto
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God of a whole new creation is dishonored here as the first drunkard. We don't know why
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Noah has this lapse of judgment. Based on what we've read about Noah, it seems strikingly uncharacteristic, doesn't it?
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But he has this decision, this slip, this sin.
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We shouldn't assume it was a careless mistake. We also shouldn't assume that it was willful rebellion.
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What we know for sure is it was sin before the Lord. Keep in mind, the whole world had perished outside of the ark.
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Everything that Noah knew, everything that his sons and his sons' wives knew had been completely wiped clean off the face of the earth.
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That's traumatic, isn't it? Some of us were watching that video last
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Sunday night, and you remember they went to see some of the Syrian refugees, and they talked about this teenage girl, how for close to a year she wouldn't come out of the dark corner of the room.
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She was just too shell -shocked, being stripped away from everything she knew, put in this little apartment tenement in a completely new city, in a new place, being dependent upon the alms of Christians.
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That's traumatic. Everything you knew has been wiped away, but there's still some stability, some semblance of normalcy.
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Noah didn't have anything. Everything had been completely wiped clean. You can imagine he would be haunted by the memories, by the realization, by the terror of the flood.
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And perhaps this is why he allowed this to happen. Perhaps, like many suffering from really traumatic episodes, they turn to a substance to try to numb themselves to the pain.
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We can't say. All we can say with certainty is that Noah sinned before the
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Lord. He became drunk. He uncovered himself in his tent. He took the good gift of wine, and he used it against God's good design for wine.
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He was not marrying his heart. As God gave wine and the fruit of the vine to do, he reduces himself to a fool.
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And here, therefore, the other truth is displayed, that wine is a mocker, and it mocks
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Noah, makes a mockery of Noah. Wine is a mocker to those who do not use it as God intended it to be used.
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Now, to our minds, we consider what was revealed to Noah and what he endured. He endured the flood of God's wrath.
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He witnessed the arc of God's salvation. And we come to Genesis 9 and verse 20 and we're tempted to think, if I had been
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Noah, if God had ever just revealed something to me, if he ever came to me and spoke to me in the way that he spoke to Noah, and I witnessed animals two by two from across the lands pouring into this vessel that God helped me build.
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And then I witnessed him sealing me in and then seven days before the heavens erupted.
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And then how he so gently over time floated me on to this Ararat range. And I came out and worshipped him.
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And he made this covenant with me and gave me this covenantal sign. If I experienced any part of that,
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I would never sin like this. We're tempted to think that, aren't we?
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How could you experience the power of God so vividly, so personally, so powerfully, and then just drink yourself drunk?
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How could you do that? We're tempted to ask that question. After all,
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Noah found grace in the eyes of God. He was declared to be the only one upright in his generation.
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And what do we see? What do we see? I think we see that even the best of God's saints are capable of horrendous sin.
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Even the best of God's saints are capable of horrendous sin. And it's not hard when we hear of that in regard to false teachers.
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Of course, they're not the best of God's saints. They're not God's saints. They're anti -saints. It's not hard for us to hear of the falls, the moral failures, the collapses, the exposure of the hypocrisy and corruption of false teachers and health and wealth wolves.
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But when we hear of a genuine Christian, when we hear of someone that was prominent, someone that was used mightily, someone whose teachings we profit from, someone whom we used to YouTube binge, we wanted to get anything we could from them.
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And then we read of their failure, of their shame. I think most recently of Ravi Zacharias.
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How many of you, like me, listen to him stand up for Christ on university campuses or debates with atheists?
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You celebrate when this saint goes home to be with the Lord. And then out come these bones from the closet.
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Out come these rumors and these failures and these sins. There was a minister in northern
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Scotland. He was a very popular speaker at Reformed conferences. I have a number of his books on my shelves.
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He wrote tremendous books, was a blessing to many. He spoke at the Bolton Conference. I met many years ago.
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Many pastors in this area had a personal friendship with him. I remember going over a pastor at Upton OPC for dinner on a
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Sunday night. And he had a friend that was visiting from the Midwest. And I had just come to hear about some of this news.
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And I didn't realize this man from the Midwest had been very, very close, had spent much time with him and his family. So as I mentioned, have you heard about this man and this pastor's wife being to burst out in tears and they began to console and hug each other.
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This man had been living in the midst of multiple affairs. When that all unraveled and it became exposed, he couldn't cope with the shame.
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And so he just took his own life. Even the best of God's saints are capable of horrendous sin.
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So what do we take away from this? Brothers and sisters, growth in the Christian life does not make you a holy angel.
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Growth in the Christian life will not make you sinless. Of course, you will be increasingly strengthened in your walk with the
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Lord. You'll be increasingly conformed. It may not always look like conformity to you, but that's actually what's taking place from one degree of glory to the next.
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You are being transformed by the Spirit of God into conformity with your Savior. As you look to him and lean upon him, you are receiving from him the grace of that union, the grace that flows from his person, his work, his spirit.
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And that leads you to increasingly resist sin. It leads you to become increasingly wise to Satan's devices, sometimes just from the hard experience.
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You've been trapped before. You've been in situations where you see how the enemies got you cornered.
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You're wiser the next time. Not stronger, but wiser. I won't be in these situations. I'll put guards.
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I'll be more accountable. This is what growth in the Christian life looks like. It's the cultivating of a consistency of the means of grace.
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You read more than you used to. You see the importance of it. You're convicted because you don't pray as you ought, and you've been brought in your life to see the importance of prayer.
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You realize now how important being in a body is and the fellowship that you need because the Christian life can't be lived alone.
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But what I'm saying is growth in the Christian life does not make you a holy angel.
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Spiritual maturity more often looks like becoming humble in regard to sin rather than becoming invulnerable to it.
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You see, Christians that are mature have been humbled to the power and presence of sin in their lives, not invulnerable.
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Christians who act as though they've become invulnerable show their immaturity, their lack of experience, their self -confidence.
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Spiritual maturity is shown in being humble about your sin, not invulnerable to your sin.
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And we certainly see that here in Genesis 9, don't we? Somehow we're tempted to think that if we walked with the
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Lord long enough, we would no longer struggle with certain sins. If I just walk with the Lord five more years,
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I'll finally become immune to this temptation. I'll be able to put the cruise control on in my spiritual walk.
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I can claim the victory over these certain areas and besetting sins. The enemy will somehow within five years' time give up prowling around as a ravenous lion seeking whom he may devour.
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Temptation will begin to defect and glance off me. In fact, I'll hardly have to put on my Ephesians 6 armor anymore.
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I've just been doing this long enough. I know what to expect and I don't really have to fight, strive, resist, strain in order to be holy.
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I would say to you, please look at Noah more carefully. All the adrenaline of God's judgment and salvation has worn away and here he is in a new world and he's pouring himself into the soil trying to put together the shamble of a new life with a family that we'll see has all sorts of defects and problems and just in one day he turns to the bottle just like that, just like that.
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Brothers and sisters, it's so easy to maintain zeal when you have powerful moments of God's presence in your life and I hope you've all in your own way, in your own time experienced that.
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You've seen God move in a powerful way. Maybe it was just the initial reception of salvation and how that just flooded your soul with fire.
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How you were walking 10 ,000 feet above the earth. When you read about being seated where Christ is in the heavenly places, you shouted amen.
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I know exactly what Paul's describing there. I know what that feels like. I know what that is. I'm doing that now.
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It's easy to maintain zeal when you have these powerful moments, these powerful transitions, these powerful tension points in your life.
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But when that season passes, when those changes have finally settled, when that new challenge is finally passed, how much easier it is to lose your first love and you inevitably give far more energy and attention and thought to the vineyard than to the altar, inevitably.
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We often talk about zeal as being fire for the Lord, right? Or fire from the Lord even. We talk about, oh, that's a fiery brother.
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He's very zealous. It's a fire from the Lord and it is like a fire. Zeal is like a fire. Zeal for your house has consumed me.
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Right, Jeremiah? I have a fire in my bones. I have to declare this utterance from the Lord. But what kind of fire is it normally in the
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Christian life? What kind of fire is it? I was reminded of this last night as I was sitting on my recliner.
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It's a lot like a flame log. That's what our zeal is like. It burns bright, burns hot.
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It's really nice when it's going, but it only lasts about three hours, three hours with an asterisk, three hours in ideally perfect conditions, two and a half tops.
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Our zeal is more like a door flame log, isn't it? Inevitably, we know it's going to smolder.
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It's going to smoke itself down to a conclusion. Our zeal is going to drop like the arms of Moses. The problem is we're very slow to expect this.
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And so when it happens, we're very quickly paralyzed by discouragement. It's very rare to find a younger
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Christian who has learned these lessons in this way. They've learned the hard road of persevering with the
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Lord. It's rare to see young Christians in that. Young Christians coast on where they are in God's grace and in regard to their zeal.
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They haven't been tested. They haven't been tried. They haven't been through the valleys yet. They have a few experiences of zeal, but they never think beyond it.
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They think what I've, what I've been led to do, where I'm at now, this will always be this kind of power, this kind of desire, these kinds of insights, this kind of discipline.
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I'll always be able to have this. I'm going to keep pressing forward and upward. And as you do that, of course, the ivory tower begins to throw you into the air.
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And you look at all these languishing Christians around you. How pitiful. 25 years with the
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Lord. Look what he's struggling with. Too bad he doesn't have my kind of zeal. Only these brothers and sisters had my kind of discipline.
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They easily look down on fellow believers who are less disciplined, less urgent, less desirous, but more proven, more proven.
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It's like newlyweds. This is always the case with newlyweds. There has never been a newlywed couple that honestly thinks they're going to need help at some point in their marriage.
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Just go through them. Oh yeah. Only really good Calvinist newlyweds realize. Yep. I know how my heart works.
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I know that we're going to need this, but generally speaking, newlyweds think if you want us to do, pray, Kano, we'll do it.
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We're really not going to need it. We've been observing the marriages around us and we see all the things that we're going to avoid.
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We're going to have the happiest, the most blessed, the most fruitful marriage that this world has ever witnessed.
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We will never be at odds. We'll never have a disagreement. She knows her roles. I know my roles.
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We are going to be compatible and harmonious, and we will be the beacon, the lighthouse of a good marriage to the world.
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And then about a year in or seven months, that Dura flame log wears out, doesn't it?
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And the first spat erupts and you quickly begin to realize marriage is not as easy as you thought it would be.
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And that relationships do need to be repaired. And there is a place for counsel and accountability. And you realize how important that covenantal commitment was.
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Then you feel really bad. How could I have looked down on these marriages that, you know, they seemed a little less passionate and maybe
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I could see some things that we wanted differently. But now I realize they have a love and a commitment that's been proven over time that I don't have.
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And I better be very slow to speak because I haven't been married for seven years, 33 years.
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It's just like that in the Christian life, isn't it? And so we come to Genesis 9 20 and we say, look at Noah very carefully.
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Look at Noah very carefully. This is why scripture warns against novices taking positions of authority in the church for this very reason.
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They shoot up fast, they burn bright and hot, but they haven't been proven. Let them be tested first.
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Let them be tested first. Wisdom teaches us to be humble and charitable. The path is hard and our spirits languish.
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And because we become humbled as we continue to walk with the Lord, we do become more charitable.
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We don't pronounce with as much authority whether someone is in the kingdom or out of it. Scripture calls for those who are spiritual to restore a brother caught in a sin.
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Why are they gentle and meek? Why are they spiritual in that way? They have the experience of being caught in sin.
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And so they're charitable. They're humble about it. They've been made meek by awareness of what sin is and what sin does by the presence of sin in their own life.
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Of course, they're going to be gentle to a brother caught in sin. They've been brothers caught in sin before. And so what happens is you recognize how hard the path is and how
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God moves in his people by seasons and that he allows different seasons to take place at different times in different people's lives so that in the coming together, there's a bearing up with those who are struggling, that there's an encouragement from those who've been given zeal from the
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Lord to those who are entering into a season of perhaps wandering, whether due to their sin or just due to God's providence unfolding in their life.
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God desires to make his people more humble, more dependent, more dependent upon his grace, and less dependent upon themselves.
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And so naturally, over time, Christians build respect for those who have fought the good fight over a long period of time, over the long haul.
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Less and less do you think you're standing as you press on in the Christian life. You realize the Corinthians 10, 12, let him who thinks he stands take heed, lest he fall.
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It's one of the greatest problems in our walks is that we often think we're standing and we're not taking heed.
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And that's what Genesis 9, 20 has to say to us. Take heed. Look at Noah very carefully.
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Another lesson we can learn here is that one of the more dangerous times in our walks is just after some wonderful victory, some great blessing, some powerful experience of God at work, some experience of having done something for God, really taking a step forward in faith.
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In these moments, the enemy loves to bait and be patient and go for the jugular, because that's when our pride is at its highest and our feet feel very sure.
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And we're thinking nothing could cause me to stumble and fall. And I'm sure many of us know from very sad experience just how fast you can fall from that height of blessing to that depth of sin in a minute, in a day, just like Noah.
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And so look at these transitional times right in your life. See them as fought with with danger spiritually, as potential for ambush when we're downtrodden, when we're downtrodden and discouraged in our souls.
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We're wishing for tears because we're so cold hearted, we don't even have tears. We can actually find an encouragement here.
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The Lord will not allow us to wither. The season will change. This trial will pass.
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You shall again enter his courts with praise. It's an encouragement. In a room this size, there must be some brother, some sister that's just languishing.
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They're here simply because they should be here. They're just going through the motions. That's an encouragement from the
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Lord. If you belong to him, this trial will pass. Keep looking to him.
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You've done the right thing in coming today. You've done the right thing to go through the motions, if that's how it feels.
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You've come to the altar, even though your heart's far from it. You've come to the right place. You're using the means of grace.
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You can find an encouragement. You will again enter his courts with praise. But also there's this warning, isn't there?
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If there's an encouragement on the one hand, there's a warning. When you're bursting with spiritual vitality and you have the fire of the
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Lord working through your bones and you wish, your prayer is, if only there were more minutes of the day that I could do more for my
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Savior and my God, I am pressing forward in strength. You find this warning. Look to Noah very carefully.
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Beware of your self -confidence. This season shall change. This blessing shall pass.
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You shall again be tried. You shall again be brought to see what your walk looks like when it's not being filled with the
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Spirit. Another lesson we can learn from Noah here is our souls are kept close to the
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Lord when the world is pressing against us. Certainly that had something to do with it. Noah was living in a hostile world, wasn't he?
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He was a lot like Lot who vexed his righteous soul day by day living in a city of sin. When you have that kind of opposition, that kind of pressure, it has a sanctifying effect on you.
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Noah knew what God's judgment was going to be and that gave him a sanctified vision for what his life had to be about.
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But when all that passed away, when that pressure and that hostility, when that opposition was gone and he was no longer surrounded by wickedness, it was hard for Noah to live righteously.
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When the world was removed and there was almost no opposition, he very quickly fell into sin.
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And there's a lesson there for us as well. When the pressure is off, we fold. When the eyes stop watching us, we play the hypocrite.
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Without opposition, our guard comes down. We often ask the
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Lord to forgive us, to forgive American Christians for being lazy, for being seekers of comfort rather than seekers of the kingdom.
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Why do you think that is? Because we're just oblivious to so much of the opposition and hostility compared to brothers and sisters in Riyadh or Beijing.
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I mean, I have classmates from some of these places. I can see the effect of opposition.
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I can see the effect of that antagonism, of that persecution. It is very sanctifying.
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It does press your walk to the Lord. It does force you to look at everything in your life in this position of, will
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I walk in faith or will I deny my Savior? We just don't often come to those pressure points, do we, in our walks.
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Matthew Henry, I think he says it so brilliantly, Noah lived soberly when he was surrounded by drunkenness.
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But he became a drunk when he was surrounded by sobriety. God uses opposition in the
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Christian's life. Be very careful that you don't try to plan and plot your life to have the least path of resistance.
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It may be that you're planning and plotting your life to be the most unsanctified. God uses opposition.
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He uses opposition in the lives of his people, and we certainly can see that here in Genesis 9. But as we said, the banner of Genesis 9, 20 and 21 is that one careless decision can destroy the reputation of a godly man.
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This episode is recorded as the only event between Noah building an ark and Noah dying.
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In a sense, covering 350 years, this drunken day of naked shame and foolishness is
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Noah's obituary. But Noah's sin is not the point.
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It's not the reason that this is recorded. It's not the one noteworthy feature of the 350 years off of the ark, as though every other day for those 350 years was remarkably sanctified.
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This was just a one -off. No, most of us have been
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Christians long enough, even over many decades of walking with Christ. We continue to mourn just how much sin remains in our lives.
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Sins we're still committing that last year we thought we would not still be committing, or even years ago thought we wouldn't commit.
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Sins of commission, sins of omission, sins which carry baggage, sins which scar us, memories that haunt us, things that plague us still, where we are versus where we thought we would be.
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And yet, for all of these reasons, we've been brought to see that the truth of our sin, the reality of our sin, is also right next to the glorious truth of God's grace, the glorious reality of our salvation.
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We've been brought to see through these decades of failure, through these long, hard, stumbling seasons, even when we're stumbling out of the tent naked in our shame, that our only hope is in the mercy of God and the deliverance of Christ, not our faithfulness.
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His mercy, right? And this is something that the mature Christian knows. And so his worship is what grows.
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His worship is what is increasing, not his self -confidence, not his condescension or judgment upon brothers and sisters.
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It's his worship, his thankfulness, his joy from the Lord that his sins are covered, his sins are blotted out and remembered no more.
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That's what maturity in the Christian life looks like. John Gill, the great
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Baptist, he summarizes this. We see that the best of men are not exempted from sin and they're not secure from falling.
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That even though Noah was a perfect man, a just man in his generation, right? Yet he was not without sin.
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And that though he was a righteous man, it was not the righteousness of works. It was the righteousness of faith.
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We've seen what Hebrews 11 has to say about Noah's righteousness. We've seen what
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Ezekiel 14 says about Noah, along with Daniel and Job, that these were essentially the most righteous men who walked the face of the earth up to that time.
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And so again, we ask the question, why include this episode? Why have this shameful event, this one day in the 350 years of Noah's life off of the ark?
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Why? Well, the short answer, the larger answer is that it's the story of the fall being continued.
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It's the story of the spread of sin being continued and not just continued, but actually mirrored.
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So at the largest level now, again, just a footnote here, the whole point of the story is about Canaan.
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We'll see that next. That's when you ask, why is this event here? The answer is Canaan. We've already been alerted to that in verse 18.
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But I'm saying, let's even take a step behind that and see the larger picture of Genesis. What's going on?
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Or remember the parallels we've already seen between Adam and Noah. Adam was this head of humanity, the parent of human beings.
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And God put him in a garden, lush like a vineyard. And then he sinned.
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And when he sinned, he knew that he was naked. And here is Noah. Noah is the head of humanity, the common father of all people.
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And he's in a vineyard, a lush vineyard that God has made fruitful, just like Eden.
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And he sins. And when he sins, he knows that he's naked. Instead of Noah, as a second
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Adam, expanding the glorious redemption of God, expanding
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God's Edenic presence on the earth, filling the earth with images of God made in his righteousness.
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We see Noah continuing the effects of the fall. Noah spreading, not a righteous, but a rebellious people through the face of the earth.
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Noah, not as the promised seed, but as one who needs the promised seed.
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And so then Noah is not the ultimate rest from the curse, is he? Noah is not the ultimate rest of the curse, but from Noah will come that rest.
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From Noah will come that promised seed. 350 years of life after the flood, 100 over 127 ,000 days in the sin of one of those days is recorded here as an epitaph for Noah.
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If that is not the continuing story of sin, I don't know what could be. And then what do we read?
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It's what we read in Genesis five, and he died. That's the continuing story of sin.
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Death, death has still come to this post -flood world, though God is showing mercy.
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Sin has not been dealt with. Ultimately, there is still death. He died. The book of Genesis begins with man put in the garden of God with this great blessing.
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But what happens as a result of Genesis three and carries through the whole rest of the biblical storyline, even to this day, even to this very morning?
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The curse of sin. Genesis itself ends. It begins with man put in a luscious garden.
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Where does it end? Joseph's body rotting in a coffin in Egypt. It's a story of sin.
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And yet it's a story of grace. Before we get to that grace, let's come to the focal point, right?
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Canaan. Canaan is the focal point of this passage here in Genesis nine. Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father and told his two brothers outside.
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But Shem and Japheth took a garment, laid it on both their shoulders and went backward and covered the nakedness of their father.
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Their faces were turned away and they did not see their father's nakedness. So Noah awoke from his wine and he knew what his younger son had done to him.
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Now, what is going on here? It's not immediately clear. If we do a simple surface reading, it would seem that the issue is about Ham sinfully dishonoring
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Noah. Ham is sinfully dishonoring Noah, scoffing, mocking, maybe participating in the shame of Noah's sin.
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So Noah is in this sinfully drunken state. And the way that Ham sees this nakedness is the issue.
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It's not just this incidental opening of the tent and whoa, and he saw it. And that's the issue. This is not incidental.
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It's not some whoops moment. It's not something that you blush or they kind of laugh about later on. It's very intentional.
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You could better translate the verb here as he gazed. He intently watched. He stared at his father's nakedness.
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And so there's perhaps some real perversion going on within that. There's definitely overtones of gossip and mockery.
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He goes and tells his brothers about it, but they're not joining in in that kind of ridicule. They're not going to dishonor their father in that way.
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And we see the contrast between Ham and Japheth and Sham, how these two brothers will not even look.
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They'll enter in backwards so as to preserve Noah's dignity and honor. Clearly, that's the contrast.
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These offspring cover their father's shame where Ham dishonors, puts into an open shame.
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Now, if we take that surface reading, which I think is the wisest course, it's hard for us to understand or appreciate why this is such a big deal.
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Why is nakedness such an abomination to the ancient Near Eastern mind? And it is.
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Well, we have to keep in mind that Ham is not a little boy wandering and maybe oblivious to where he is.
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He's 100 years old, over 100 years old by this time, and he's intentionally gazing and then telling, perhaps very flippantly or scornfully telling this to his brothers.
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And we have to keep in mind that the only other glimpse we have of nakedness so far in the
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Genesis account is Adam's nakedness after the fall. And that's a nakedness of shame, isn't it?
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They knew that they were naked and they sought to cover themselves. There's a shamefulness there.
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Nakedness becomes a very basic way of talking about guilt. There's guilt attached to nakedness because you're vulnerable, you're exposed.
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And so that's what's taking place here. In cultural terms, in ways that the West certainly has defied, there's this association of shame and guilt, a removal of honor, removal of dignity with nakedness, to be exposed, to be unprotected.
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It's interesting that as we move forward in the biblical storyline, when you get to Israel being dragged out of the land into exile, that often the language used of that experience of being in exile is one of nudity, one of nakedness and shame.
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And so again, we see this idea here. You can read that in Habakkuk 3 or Lamentations. The idea, again, is that Ham's sin is dishonoring.
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It's disdain toward Noah. No sense of shame, but actually adding shame to his father.
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And remember that Noah was not just a father to Ham.
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He was typically a savior to him, right? It was because of Noah's righteousness and his labor and toil over 120 years that Ham's even breathing.
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It was because of Noah's righteousness that Noah's family was saved. And we certainly see, as the
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Old Testament continues forward, this idea of honoring one's parents. Not only is it codified in the fifth commandment, but it's actually brutally enforced in the
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Mosaic economy, including a death penalty where there's an abject dishonoring or a shame that's brought upon a parent's household.
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And so certainly we can understand why this is so significant, why this warrants such a strong reaction from Noah.
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Calvin puts it this way, it's probable that he perversely insulted his father for the purpose of also sinning like his father.
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We see many in this day who pry into the faults of holy men in order that without shame they can give themselves over to all manner of sin.
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They even make the faults of other men an occasion of hardening themselves against God. You see, so maybe something like that is going on.
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Even though Ham had witnessed the horrors of God's judgment upon a wicked world, the horrors of that flood, he has almost no shame, no regard toward the
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Lord. And so he adds on to this scorn and he's hardened toward the Lord. He perhaps is using his father's sinful state to justify his own sinfulness.
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Now that's a surface reading. There is another view, a debated view, and it goes back to antiquity.
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We find it among a lot of Jewish commentators all the way back thousands of years ago. It's in the Jerusalem Talmud.
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We find it in the early church. And it's a view that Ham's sinful act was not merely dishonoring his father.
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It was actually something more perverse, more debauched. And that's because we do have an idiom in Hebrew of seeing one's nakedness.
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We find this in Leviticus 18. More specifically, it's often uncovering one's nakedness.
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But here we have seeing his father's nakedness, and that could be that could be a euphemism for some sort of perverted acts, some action, some assault, something very degraded.
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And so that's that's a possibility here. We naturally look at that and say, well, that would seem to warrant
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Noah's response. John Gill, for instance. And remember, John Gill is writing in the 1700s.
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He's a Baptist, a noted Hebrew scholar. And he writes, some of the Jewish rabbis say that Canaan first saw it.
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So Ham's son, Canaan, sees this and goes and tells his father. And some say that he or Ham committed an unnatural crime with him.
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You can understand what's behind unnatural crime. Others say that he castrated him.
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And hence it is supposed in later mythology comes Jupiter castrating Saturn or Cronus castrating
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Uranus. The idea is mythology and false religions often have some kernel of truth and true events that happened.
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What Noah's younger son did to him besides looking on him, we're not told. Yet it brought a curse upon Canaan.
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And one would think it would be more than bare sight. It is expressly said there was something done.
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Right. He knew what his younger son had done to him. But done what is not said.
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And so since we can't pry into it further than that, it seems to me to be wisest to just take the surface reading and associate that nakedness of shame and guilt.
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But I do grant you can make a very strong case that something more than just seeing nakedness took place in that tent.
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Now, the nakedness brings an important theological point, especially when we return to this parallel that we've seen between Adam and Noah, these two heads of humanity that are in these lush vineyards when they fall and then are aware of their nakedness in the need of covering with Adam.
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You remember after his sin, God makes a covering for him. And that's one of the first displays of the gospel promise that God himself will provide a covering for his people.
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Well, here we are with Noah. He's in his guilt and in his shame. He's in this naked, exposed state and he's completely helpless.
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He cannot cover himself. And what do we have? We have Noah being covered by his offspring.
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Noah being covered by his offspring. Doesn't that point us all the way forward to Christ? That Noah's offspring would be the very means of his covering.
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The son of Adam, the son of promise, David's son, yet David's Lord. It would be the offspring of Noah through Shem that would actually become the covering for Noah's sin.
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And certainly that corresponds to what we see. I think there's some significance to the scripture that says
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Christ was put to an open shame. Romans always crucified their victims naked because that was putting them to an open shame.
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They wanted you to be mocked, scorned. They wanted you to be exposed in all contempt.
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Now, thankfully, modest Christian artists throughout the centuries have not put
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Christ to an abject shame. They've been rather artful about anatomy and loincloths. But what
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I'm saying is that Christ was put to an open shame. And this is a very important theological point.
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He was utterly exposed when he took on our sin. He was utterly, as it were, clothed in our guilt.
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And to be clothed in our guilt is to be naked before the wrath of God. And in that very act of being stripped bare upon the cross and being completely absorbed by the wrath of God, he becomes a covering for his people.
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He closed their shame. He takes away their guilt. He becomes for them a glory and a covering.
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We are now clothed in Christ. It's a beautiful theology here of clothing in the scriptures.
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Well, what are some applications that flow from this? The first application between Noah's sin and Ham's sin is two wrongs don't make a right.
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Two wrongs don't make a right. And we see behind that, sin always spurs on sin, doesn't it? Sin is like a chain reaction.
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You know this in your households, don't you? In your marriage relationship, among your kids. When there's sin, rarely is that sin self -contained.
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Children, let's sit around and pray for your mother. She's in a sin right now. God, is that normally how reactions take place in your home?
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No. Normally there's a sin and there's a counter sin, right? It becomes like this boxing match of sin.
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And it's only until that pass is by that you come together and you say, let's both ask the
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Lord for forgiveness. In that episode, so often, we're so angry. She's going to come to me and she's going to repent.
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And what happens when the Lord finally brings us to the end of that? We say, no, no, no.
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I'm sorry. I'm the one that needs to repent. I'm the one that needs to ask for forgiveness. Two wrongs don't make a right.
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Sin spurs on sin. Sin is like a chain reaction. We see this in a home. We see this in a church.
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One person's sin leads the next person to sin. People who witness that sin have a false sense that they can now sin like that, too.
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It's okay to sin like that. Sin always has this kind of net effect. This collateral damage, so to speak.
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And it's especially true when we're sinned against, isn't it? We're especially prone to sin when we're sinned against.
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Part of our wonder at the perfection of our Savior is that when He was reviled, He reviled none.
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He was silent like a sheep before its slaughterers. It's something that we aspire to be.
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To be like Christ in that way. To know what it's like to receive injuries. To receive persecution.
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To receive scorn and mockery and dishonor. And to not return it. To bear it.
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Another point of application, though we can't say with any certainty what Ham really did in that tent, we know that it definitely was at least dishonoring his father, wasn't it?
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We're reminded of the importance of the fifth commandment. We're reminded that, as Paul says, this is the first commandment given with a promise.
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This is a very important commandment, and one that the Lord attaches a promise to. So that it will be something that's sought after and lived out among His people.
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We see here an emphasis on reverence for parents. And in the context, even 100 -year -old children ought to have this kind of reverence for their parents.
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Ligon Duncan says, a parent's authority does not come from their experience. A parent's authority does not come from the fact that they've provided for you.
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A parent's authority comes from God Himself. And that's why you honor your parents.
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You don't honor your parents because they've been perfect. You don't honor your parents only when they're walking perfectly and uprightly and are model parents.
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You honor your parents because they're your parents from God. And God said honor your parents. When you honor your parents, you honor
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God. When you honor authority that's put over you, you honor God. And so we see that there's this disrespect or dishonor to a parent that is displeasing to God.
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And it brings consequences. And that brings us to our last verses. We see the real consequences of this dishonor, of this sin.
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We see a curse upon Canaan. In Genesis 9, 25, then
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He said, Cursed be Canaan, a servant of servants he shall be to his brethren.
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Calvin says, it might seem to some that Noah ought to have mourned over his sin, right? Hey, it wasn't just him, right?
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He was a drunken fool. Shouldn't there be some repentance? Why in the world does all of a sudden he just snap to judgment?
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Is this part of just wrath and anger and rage on Noah's part? But he says, no, no, no.
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Moses does not here relate the reproaches uttered by Noah in some rage or anger.
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Rather, he's showing him speaking in a spirit of prophecy. Noah here is prophesying.
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And we will see that again and again with the patriarchs. Where their blessing is actually a prophecy. Where their cursing is actually a prophecy.
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And so we ought not to doubt that this holy man was truly humbled. He was truly humbled by his sin.
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And yet, having asked forgiveness from the Lord, having received pardon, his condemnation being removed, he proceeds to prophesy as he had prophesied.
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And he mentions the Canaanites by name, because this people would be cursed above all others.
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And hence we see that this judgment is not from Noah in anger, but actually from the Lord. And that the whole event was to bring forth this prophecy from God.
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What would certainly be true of the Canaanites, Noah couldn't know by human means, right?
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How could he know that this would be the destiny? Unless it was revealed to him by the Lord. And so, Calvin says, the spirit directed his tongue.
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So this is a prophecy. A prophecy of curse upon Canaan. We don't know if Canaan was involved in Ham's sin or not.
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It doesn't seem to me there to be any indication of that at all. Ham dishonors his father. Ham sins.
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Ham perhaps does more than see and dishonor his father. And yet, when Noah comes to his realization, he says, cursed be
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Canaan. Now remember that Canaan is here not just the individual man, but actually the lineage of Canaan.
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The lineage of Canaan. That's what's being cursed. And we'll see that prophecy as we move through Scripture being fulfilled.
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When Israel's brought out of Egypt in the Exodus and they make a conquest into Canaan, God is literally fulfilling this curse.
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There'll be slaves. In fact, this curse of Canaan is very fitting also.
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If the sin is of a son dishonoring, putting his father to an open shame, what is this curse?
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But a father seeing his son being put to an open shame. Do you see? There's this justice here in the curse.
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Ham, you have dishonored your father, and so as a father, I will dishonor you through your son. There's this retribution, this equality that takes place in the curse.
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Cursed be Canaan. A servant of servants he shall be to his brethren. Canaan's going to be not just a servant, but a servant of servants.
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A slave of slaves. In other words, in this context of cursing, the most abject of slaves.
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The most degraded of slaves. This is part of the curse. This isn't a sign. This is a rabbit, but I'm tickled by it, so I have to share it.
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In the Reformation, you know the persecution that the Catholic Church was bringing against the
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Protestants. And you have, of course, at the very head of that persecution, the
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Pope. The Pope, which the Reformers unanimously saw as the Antichrist. And the
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Pope is issuing these edicts, and raising these armies, and issuing papal bulls, and whenever the
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Pope issued a papal bull, he always attached as his title, Servus Servorum Dei.
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Servant of Servants to God. Servant of Servants to God. So Calvin says this in his commentary.
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Because the Pope so earnestly maintains that he sometimes utters prophecies, lest we should refuse him everything.
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He's saying, like, we don't give the Pope anything. But lest we're charged with not giving him anything. I don't deny that the title which he adorns himself was actually dictated by the
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Spirit of God. Let him be a Servant of Servants, in the sense that Canaan was. That's just a great 16th century put -down.
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That's a shot fired. The Pope, you're just like Canaan. A Servant of Servants, cursed.
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Noah delivers a prophecy about the Canaanites, these descendants of him. Noah's curse on Canaan represents
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God's sentence on the Canaanites. And that's the significance here. The Canaanites go on to have this same complete moral abandon.
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This shaming, scoffing, mockery. They become sexually aberrant. They have these abominable practices, offering their children to false gods.
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And so the seed of Ham's sin grows into a full harvest in the Canaanites. And we'll see in Genesis 15, the iniquity of the
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Amorites is not yet full. God is building and waxing this up to the conquest narrative.
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When we get there, we see that God hardens their hearts, so that they cannot make a treaty with Israel. So assured is their destruction.
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And it's all flowing out of this curse. As for Noah, nothing else is recorded about his life.
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It's really kind of sad, isn't it? It's like you can imagine being at his funeral service.
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Does anyone have some memories they'd like to share? A few kind words about our dearly departed. And everyone's pretty silent.
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And one person comes up and says, remember that day he got drunk and was naked? And that's the only thing that was ever shared.
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That's essentially what we're looking at in Genesis 9. We can read behind that and think of all of the remaining years from this day forward.
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Noah had to live with this guilt, didn't he? That a result of his failure, as a result of his sin, his grandson and all of his grandson's descendants would be cursed.
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That's a lot of guilt to live with. That's a lot of guilt to live with. And yet God gives grace.
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And so as much as that would have been a discouragement to Noah, look at the encouragement that comes. God doesn't just curse the line of Ham.
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He blesses the line of Shem. Against the sad vision of Canaan, God continues forward this great promise that He began in Genesis 3.
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I'm going to bring a seed that will crush the serpent, that will undo the effects of the fall.
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And He blesses Shem. This blessing of Shem is done in the name of the Lord, the covenantal name of the
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Lord, Yahweh. And so there's this blessedness to Shem's relationship to God.
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Shem is being singled out as the chosen line through which God is going to work. We of course know that Shem becomes the progenitor of Israel.
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And that is the chosen line through which God works in the world. And so we have the seed of Adam being singled out between Seth and not
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Cain. And here we come to know of Noah's offspring as a new head of humanity. It's through the line of Shem, not through the line of Japheth or Ham.
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And yet God's grace is so rich, God's grace is so vast that there's an overflow of grace even to Japheth.
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God is singling out Shem, the Semitic line, and yet there's an overflow of that blessing that will fall upon Japheth.
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Now here it's really interesting that Japheth there's some wordplay going on with his name.
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You could repoint the Hebrew for Japheth and it would become the verb to enlarge, to enlarge oneself or to become enlarged.
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And so the blessing is may Japheth be enlarged, right? May he become so enlarged that he dwells in the tents of Shem.
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So the picture is that over time there's such a burgeoning vitality to the line of Japheth that eventually they actually have to kind of take shelter in the common house, in the common tent of Shem.
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They overlap with God's redemptive promise given through Shem. And all of this is pointing us forward to where we are not only in the
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New Testament, but where we are here this morning as a bunch of Gentiles gathered worshiping our Savior.
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Two thousand years have gone by and we've seen that the descendants of Japheth, the
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Gentiles, are now being gathered into the tents of Shem.
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In other words we once were cut off. We were once foreigners, strangers, but now we've been brought near.
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We are literally walking into the fulfillment of this blessing upon Japheth. Calvin says
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God by a new adoption has formed a people out of these two who were separated. Two lines and they were separated.
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And he's brought them into a union and this is done by the gentle voice of God which is uttered in the
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Gospel. And this prophecy is still today receiving its fulfillment since God invites the scattered sheep to join
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His flock and collects on every side, on every corner of the world, those who will sit with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom.
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He's gathering sons from afar, bringing them from afar, bringing them near.
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Remember that you, once Gentiles in the flesh, aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, strangers from the covenants of promise, you're of Japheth.
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This promise doesn't pertain to you. These covenants aren't yours. You're outside of this.
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You're strangers, foreigners. You're not of the promise. And yet now you are. Now you're no longer strangers.
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Now you're no longer foreigners. Now you're no longer aliens. You were once not a people. Now you are.
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You were once outside of the covenant of promise. Now you've received it. And to such a degree that it was always meant to be this way.
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You're no longer Ephesians 2 19, strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God.
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That is the tent of Shem. Having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone.
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So now Colossians 3 11, there's neither Greek nor Jews, circumcised nor uncircumcised, barbarian,
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Scythian, slave nor free. Christ is all and in all. Again, we're reminded that God is answering all the problems of sin, including humanity's alienation among tribal entities, including the separation of nations.
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That's all being answered by the cross of Christ. Noah cursed
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Canaan. Noah cursed Canaan. And he was completely helpless to turn that back.
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He couldn't turn Canaan's heart. He couldn't become Canaan's repentance.
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He couldn't mediate between himself and the Lord and Canaan. And yet here comes one.
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Here comes a mediator. Here comes one who's mighty to save. Here comes one who breaks the cycle of sin.
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Here comes one who restores the curse, returns beauty for ashes. Do you see? What a glorious picture we have.
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This final picture as we come toward a close, this final picture of the glorious grace of God in Christ.
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The Canaanites, if you couldn't tell, the Canaanites are the paradigm. They are the epitome of dysfunction and abomination.
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They are the height of sinful vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, cursed by the prophecy of Noah.
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And yet God's grace reaches even down into Canaan. And we find this woman who has favor in the sight of God.
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And she's a prostitute. She's a prostitute on the edge of Jericho.
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And Israel is marching forward in their strength. They've come to wipe
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Jericho clean off the map, to extinguish this blight on the earth as God had prophesied and prepared for them to do centuries prior.
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And yet here's this prostitute named Rahab and she finds favor in the sight of God. And we read in Hebrews 11 that this prostitute named
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Rahab, she's in this great gallery of faith. By faith the harlot
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Rahab did not perish with those who did not believe. And what a picture of God's grace, even in the midst of this curse.
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Grace reaches and plucks someone so unlikely. Not the most righteous, the most noble, wise man living in Jericho at the time.
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Someone who was practically a Jewish proselyte. An idol -worshiping prostitute.
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God's grace finds her, saves her, brings her into His kingdom. Despite the doom of her culture, the doom of this curse, the doom of her city, the doom of her sins,
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God's grace finds her. And so much more than that.
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So much, much more than that. How rich is God's grace in this way? Speaking of curse and blessing.
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In very familiar language to what we've already seen in Genesis 5. Familiar language to what we'll see next week.
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We turn to Matthew 1. We read the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ.
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The son of David. The son of Abraham. Jesus Christ's book.
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Jesus Christ, the Savior. The serpent -crushing promised seed. Jesus Christ, His genealogy.
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The son of Abraham who begot Isaac. Isaac begot
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Jacob. Jacob begot Judah. Judah begot
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Perez. And Zerah by Tamar. Perez begot Hezron.
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And Hezron begot Ram. Ram begot Amenadab. Amenadab begot Nashon. Nashon begot
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Salmon. Salmon begot Boaz by Rahab.
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Jesus Christ has Canaanite blood in His veins. Such is the way that God brings a blessing out of the curse.
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Such is the way that there can be an oracle of judgment and doom upon a whole people, and yet His grace will find the most unlikely and bring them near.
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And though they were a pagan -worshipping, perhaps child -sacrificing prostitute, they're brought near by such grace that they're given the unique honor to be a direct antecedent to the
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Savior, to be a blessed woman among many. There are righteous women that could never imagine having that kind of privilege and honor.
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God's grace is astounding. The Canaanite harlot is saved by grace, and such grace that she becomes the line of promise rather than the line of curse.
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She brings forth from the fruit of her loins God in the flesh.
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We were not of His line, brothers and sisters. We were not of His people. We were Canaanite harlots, so to speak.
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We had not received mercy. We had no claim to mercy. We did not deserve mercy. We deserved wrath.
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But you're a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation,
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His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of that darkness into His marvelous light, who were once not a people, but now are the people of God, who had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy.
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Let's pray. Father, we thank
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You for Your grace. Lord, what a beautiful display of the way that even in the midst of curse,
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Lord, Your grace is so rich, so free. Lord, You save the chief of sinners.
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You save those who have no claim. You save those who it could not be said of them they were righteous in their age, that they were just or perfect.
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It could only be said that they were sinners, wicked sinners. And yet Your grace brings them near.
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It clothes them. It clothes them out of their nakedness and shame at the very cost of Your own
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Son being exposed, being put to open shame. It doesn't clothe them haggardly or incompletely.
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It fully covers them with glory and honor. You crown us. You prepare a feast for us.
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You call us into a kingdom of joy and beauty everlasting. And all we do is put our hands up to receive it from the very faith that You've given us.
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You have opened our eyes. You've given us hearts of flesh rather than hearts of stone. You breathed upon our corpses when we were dead in sin and trespass.
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You brought us to life. You gave us a spirit. You gave us a new birth. You gave us eyes to behold
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You, ears to hear Your living words, hearts to draw near to You with affection, feet that desire to follow
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You, hands that desire to hold on to You. Forgive us,
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Lord, that we're often cold -hearted. Forgive us when we walk in self -confidence, when we look down at other believers, other brothers and sisters, instead of looking at this example of Noah and realizing just how dependent upon Your grace we are, being filled with humility rather than pride, dependence rather than boasting, charity rather than condescension.
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Forgive us, Lord, when Your Scripture comes to us and says, who are You to judge a brother?
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Help us, Lord, to understand our position before You and all of that conviction that comes from that,
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Lord, but also our position before You in Christ with all of the joy that comes from that.
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Help us to reflect on these things, Lord, as we continue to worship You this morning. We ask in Your Son's name.