WWUTT 1005 Q&A Cup of God's Warth, End Times Views, Ham's Sin, and Sanctification?

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Did Christ drink from a cup of our sin or God's wrath? What was

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Ham's sin when he saw his father's nakedness? And how do we know when to take that next step in our sanctification?

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The answers to these questions, when we understand the text. This is

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When We Understand The Text, celebrating four years and over a thousand episodes broadcasting online.

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You can support this ministry by letting your friends know about the great Bible teaching we offer here five days a week.

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Visit our website at www .tt .com. Here once again is Pastor Gabe.

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Thank you, Becky. You're welcome. Hey, babe. Hey, what? Happy anniversary. Happy anniversary. Our anniversary, our wedding anniversary is on August 1st, and it was on the night of July 31st, about 15 minutes to midnight, just like two days ago.

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I'm talking. Okay, yeah. Becky and I looked at each other. Oh, yes. And went, oh, hey. Hey. Happy anniversary.

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Guess what tomorrow is? In like half an hour. I even had planned exactly what

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I was going to do, and then somehow the week happened. Oh, I know. It just totally slipped by.

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Yeah. Neither one of us remembered. Nope. We were like, oh, hey. Nope. I had plans too. Yep. I mean, I don't remember what they are now, but I did have plans.

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And then I had plans Thursday, thanks to Sonya, because she kind of helped. She saved the day. Yep. To get the kids together so I could take you out.

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And then that didn't work out either. Yep. Nope. Nope. I got to spoil things. I make things complicated.

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So Friday. Today. Yes. Today's the day. Today's the day. We're going to do something celebratory for our anniversary.

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And then again tomorrow, because we're doing the classic baseball thing.

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Yes. I'm taking Becky out today, and then she's taking me out tomorrow. That's right.

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So that's how. Baseball game. Right. Here we go. Yeah. Hey, I wanted to mention something.

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We got through our thousandth episode last week, and I meant to give a shout out to our top fans on Facebook.

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Oh, hey. Did you know that Facebook now has like a little badge, a little diamond or something like that now?

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They'll put next to a person's name if they're a top fan of that page. Interesting.

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So they like or share or comment the most of people that will visit the page. So who are they?

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Well, I don't know. Oh. I thought you had a... When I go on the page, you'll see people comment, it'll have a diamond next to their name and say that they're a top fan.

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It doesn't give me a list of who they are. Why not? Come on, Facebook. I know. If I knew,

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I'd say, hey, shout out to so and so from Timbuktu. Thank you for being a top fan.

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But yeah. So just to give you a shout out to our Facebook fans. Thank you so much. Thank you.

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For listening through Facebook or sharing the videos or the memes that will get shared there or anything else, we appreciate even you following us on Facebook.

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Oh, yeah, definitely. Facebook .com slash WWUTT videos. Congratulations again to all of our winners in our

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Christmas in July giveaway, especially Rebecca from Harrisonburg, Virginia, who was the grand prize winner last week.

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All of the prizes are being mailed this next week. Yay. So if any of you are sitting around going, why haven't

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I gotten my prize? They haven't gone out yet. I was waiting to do all of that at once. So that's coming up next week.

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And then Becky even threw in... In case we needed a bigger box. Yeah. Becky even threw in the painting at the very end.

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But I'm probably going to have to mail all of Rebecca's stuff together in one box and then do your painting separate.

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Oh, so it doesn't get damaged. Yeah, nothing happens to the painting. That's probably what I'm going to have to do. So Rebecca, you'll get all your stuff before you get

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Rebecca's painting. All righty. Rebecca's paint. Anyway.

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Rebecca's getting Rebecca's painting. Yeah. Yes. First email that I have to share here comes from Amy in Ohio.

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Thank you so much for your ministry. I've been listening to your podcast for a year or two now.

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Oh, wonderful. And have been really enjoying them. As someone who God saved out of the prosperity gospel,

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I particularly appreciate all of the what what episodes that take all of the old paradigms that I have and realign them with the truth.

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Thank you so much for all that you do and keep up the good work. You know, it's really how our first video started, too, is taking the regular stuff that you've always heard your whole life.

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Yes. That the Bible doesn't actually say. Right. Right. There was. Oh, man,

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I can't tell you how many that I heard growing up. Now I'm like, I can't believe that I had no clue.

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Yeah. And even so many. Yeah. I remember President Obama saying, you know, the good book says don't throw stones in glass houses.

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Yeah. Yeah. That's not in the Bible. So you hear it all the time.

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You hear people trying to say, well, the good book says or the Bible says stuff that the Bible doesn't actually say.

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And then his chief, his White House chief of staff. I don't remember who this was, but even he said in front of the media, well,

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Obama believes as the Bible says that God helps those who help themselves.

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No, no, no, no. So that was one of the earliest. What videos? And that came shortly after that press conference.

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I still remember that. But appreciate it, Amy. Again, this being Friday, we take questions from the listeners and you can submit questions to when we understand the text at Gmail dot com.

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Next comment from Grand Rapids, Wisconsin. Oh, not

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Grand Rapids, Michigan. Right. I was thinking Michigan. Grand Rapids. W .I. Not. M .I.

05:48

OK. Dear what? Thank you for your podcast. I didn't start listening until somewhere around the four hundreds.

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I've tried to go back and listen to some of your earliest episodes, but they aren't there. Is there a reason why you've scrubbed episodes before your one hundredth episode?

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Well, here would be my here's my guess. I think you're listening on iTunes.

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Oh, OK. Because when I started the program through Podbean, Podbean did alert me to the fact that once you get past 500 episodes, it starts knocking off the earliest episodes off of iTunes.

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So iTunes won't archive them all. I don't know why, but they are still on Podbean.

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So if you go to WWUTT dot Podbean dot com, you can go all the way back to episode zero zero one.

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Right. And it's there. Isn't iTunes like no more? No, they still have their podcast.

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Oh, OK. I didn't know that. I don't remember. I remember reading something funny about that. So iTunes made the announcement that they weren't going to or Apple did.

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Apple made the announcement they weren't going to do iTunes anymore. But there was a catch to that. Like somehow it still exists on PC.

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I know they still do podcasts. You can still get all your podcasts through iTunes. Oh, that's cool. Yeah. So I don't know.

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So they're iTunes without officially being iTunes. I guess. I don't know. I'm not an Apple user.

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I don't have any idea. Yeah. Whoever knows, shoot me an email and you can clarify. Yeah, definitely.

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What all that means. Now, through Podbean, we have been told that we have over one point two million downloads of the broadcast.

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But this is shared through other podcast sites. Right. Like Facebook, like we had just mentioned.

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Facebook and Facebook. If somebody listens to the broadcast through Facebook, it doesn't add to our

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Podbean counter. Right. We could get 500 listens on Facebook and it doesn't add 500 listens to the

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Podbean counter. So when I say over one point two million listens, that's really only from the

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Podbean perspective. The one source. Yeah. It could be more than that. I don't know. I just don't have any idea. That's okay.

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Whenever we do the conferences and somebody will come up and say, hey, I watch what videos? Every once in a while we'll get asked, how many views do you actually have?

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And at one point I was able to say, but now I have to say, I don't know. I really have no idea. We have no clue.

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Through YouTube, we have over four million views, but the videos have been shared through a lot of different mediums.

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Wretched plays them. Yeah. And Wretched, when they play one, they'll get 20 ,000 views, even though the video might get 5 ,000 views.

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Right. So more people saw it through Wretched than saw it through our channel, but I just can't keep up with that.

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I can't keep track all of that. Yeah. So I really don't know. It's just the blessing of God to be able to do this, and I really don't mind people ripping the videos off of YouTube and sharing them on their own medium.

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I'm glad people watch them. It's a blessing to me that people watch the stuff, and I never imagined doing this that we would get to where we are.

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Oh, definitely not. No. That was not the intent. The intent was just for our church. Yeah, it really was.

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We were just doing this for our church. And recently even, I've come back to a reminder of that, if I remember why you started doing this and who this was for.

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Right. And I think it's a good thing that we don't know how many listeners and viewers and everything that we have, like a specific number, just to keep us humble.

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Yeah. So I'm okay with that. Yes, exactly. Yeah. Coming back to this being, the intention of this being small church ministry, reaching out to people with the gospel, good, solid

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Bible teaching, adding something extra in addition to the church service that we have on Sunday and the

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Bible studies we might have during the week, but something that's 20 minutes a day. People can grab and listen to Bible study.

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Yeah. With the Friday episode, we make it an hour, so you can catch half an hour on Friday and half an hour on Saturday.

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That's right. How's that? Gets you through the week. You can tell even, by the way, I started the numbering system of the episodes,

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I just started with three digits. Yeah. I really did not think I was ever going to do a thousand episodes of this.

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I did not think I was going to do that. But yeah. But you love it. I do. I do.

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You do love it. I do enjoy this. So by the grace of God, and we thank you so much for listening. Thank you, Shane. Next question.

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This comes from Biscayne. Okay. Now we're actually getting into - Questions. We'll get to some Bible answering questions here.

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Theological questions. Hi, Gabe. I have heard you say that the cup that Jesus is talking about is the cup of God's wrath.

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So when Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, Lord let this cup pass from me, not as I will, but as you will.

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And then this past week on the podcast, I even made reference to Psalm 75, 8, for in the hand of the

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Lord, there is a cup with foaming wine, well mixed, and he pours out from it and all the wicked of the earth shall drain it down to the dregs.

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And that's the cup that Jesus was so anxious about having to drink when he was praying in the

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Garden of Gethsemane the way that he was. In light of this, I have a question about Mark 10, 35 through 40.

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Jesus says that James and John will indeed drink of the cup that Jesus drinks from.

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Does this mean that they drank of God's wrath also, or does this mean that perhaps the cup isn't actually a cup of wrath, but instead simply a cup of suffering?

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If this is the case, I assume you will ask why did Jesus agonize over the thought of going to the cross, to which

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I would suggest it had to do with him who knew no sin becoming sin for us.

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Jesus wasn't afraid of the physical suffering, but instead he was agonizing over the thought of becoming sin.

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Of course, that's a reference from 2 Corinthians 5, 21. He became sin who knew no sin that we might become the righteousness of God.

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I assume you disagree with me, and I would love it if you could point out where I went wrong. Thank you for everything, and keep up the great work,

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Biscayne. Well, if you want to say that what Jesus dreaded was becoming sin, you're going to have to contend with Matthew 26, 39, where Jesus' prayer is very specifically, my father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me, nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.

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And he prays this again, my father, if this cannot pass, unless I drink it, your will be done.

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And he prays that a third time, so three times, and this is, again, as I had pointed out in reference to God's wrath, not in becoming sin.

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In the end, at the final judgment, what is God going to do with sinners? He will pour out his wrath upon them.

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And so Christ became a propitiation for our sins by drinking the cup of God's wrath.

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So that having been said, Biscayne nevertheless brings up an interesting question related to this conversation between Jesus and James and John in Mark chapter 10.

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Starting in verse 35, James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came up to him and said to him, teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.

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It's already a pretty bold request. Yeah, definitely. But Jesus says, whatever you ask in my name,

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I will give to you. So they're just taking him at his word. Okay. And he said to them, what do you want me to do for you?

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Verse 37. They said to him, grant us to sit one at your right hand and one at your left in glory.

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Jesus said to them, you do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink or to be baptized with the baptism with which

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I am baptized? And they said to him, we are able. And Jesus said to them, the cup that I drink, you will drink.

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And with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized. But to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to grant.

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But it is for those for whom it has been prepared. And when the 10 heard it, they began to become indignant at James and John.

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And Jesus called them to him and said to them, you know that those who are considered rulers of the

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Gentiles lorded over them and their great ones exercise authority over them. But it shall not be so among you.

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But whoever would be great among you must be your servant. And whoever would be first among you must be slave of all.

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For even the son of man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.

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Now that's important. Verse 45, because that's going to be the difference between the cup that Jesus drinks and the cup that he told even

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James and John that they will get to drink. Jesus came to give his life as a ransom for many.

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The disciples though they may drink the cup of Christ as he said they would, are they giving their lives as a ransom for many?

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No. So here's the understanding here. We who follow Jesus, we have all received his baptism.

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As it says in Romans 6, 3 through 4, do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death.

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We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the father, we too might walk in newness of life.

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Now we know that this baptism that we have received is not exactly Christ's because we're not going to the grave.

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We're not physically suffering and dying the way that he did, nor do we have the authority over death ourselves the way that he did.

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We will be raised from the dead, but it's by the power of Christ in us. It's not because we in and of ourselves have that power as Christ did.

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We are certainly not a holy one that is unworthy of death.

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We are worthy of death because we have sinned and the wages of sin is death, Romans 6, 23. But we -

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That's what we deserve. That's right. But in Christ, we're more than conquerors through him who loved us. And so we have victory over the grave, but that victory is in Jesus.

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We die to our sin and live in his righteousness by faith. And in this, we have received his baptism.

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That's the spiritual daily exercise of having received the baptism of Christ. So likewise, the cup that Jesus told

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James and John that they would drink from is not exactly Christ's cup in the sense that James and John would not drink the cup of God's wrath.

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Right. They would experience suffering in the body for the gospel as Christ did.

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Now remember, Jesus is talking here to James and John. John was not martyred.

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James was, but John was not martyred. I forgot about that. Yeah. James was killed with the sword.

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John was the only disciple to live to old age. Oh, yeah. He lived quite a while. Right. He would still suffer for the gospel, but he just wasn't a martyr for the gospel.

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But their suffering in light of Christ's suffering would be for their own sanctification.

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Whereas Christ's suffering was for the propitiation of sins. Our suffering is for sanctification.

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Because Christ suffered, he has sanctified suffering. Right. And so, therefore, when we suffer, we share in the sufferings of Christ, is the way that Paul put it.

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Right. And this is to make us more into the image of Christ. And suffering's not like, I'm uncomfortable.

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Suffering is like, how do you explain suffering in today's world? Taking up your cross daily is where it starts.

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Yeah. So you give up yourself and you take up your cross daily and you follow after Christ. You're dying to yourself and living for Christ.

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That's absolutely where it starts. Not entertaining the passions of my flesh, but having a renewed heart that is reoriented in the direction of God.

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I am pursuing godliness and I want to grow to be more like God and become more like my

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Savior Christ in my conduct, in my character, in the pursuit of holiness, in love for God, in love for my brothers and sisters in the

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Lord, in love for others and sharing the gospel. So in these ways, we grow in holiness.

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We're growing in sanctification. Right. But I mean, like persecution,

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I guess? Well, yeah. Then in sharing the gospel, then we're going to have persecution. And even not in that, but just in the fact that we want to live lives of godliness.

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People are going to hate us for that. Just for that. I mean, how many times have we seen in the news that people have to apologize or take into court over something as ridiculous as,

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I have the right to not serve this customer? Oh, no, you do not. Right. Because they want to live their

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Christian ethic and the world's not going to let us do that. Right. They're going to find ways to try to make us like the world.

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You can't be like God. You can't be of this other kingdom. You have to be like us.

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Right. And so they're going to try to, right, take away the freedoms and the rights that we have, at least in the

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United States of America, to be able to exercise our religion in freedom. Right. Some places already have that.

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Even in the United States. Because just as you mentioned, somebody tries to do what they believe is right according to what

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God has said in his word, and yet the world's going to come after you for that. Just because you... Yeah.

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Floods of people. It's getting worse and worse. It's crazy. And it will progressively get worse. That's the...

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So just prepare. But we share in Christ's sufferings when we go through these things. And again, it doesn't even have to be because you preach the gospel and the world hated you for that, because Paul said to Timothy, those who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted just for wanting to live godliness.

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So there's suffering in that as well. So if the world is loving what you're doing and is accepting what you're doing, then you might want to double check if you're doing it right and according to the

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Bible. Yeah. Not in every circumstance. That's certainly the case. Not every. But yeah. Just be sure you're on the biblical path, not just what's popular.

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Dr. Martin Lloyd -Jones said that the church is supposed to look different than the rest of the world, and because we look different, we're going to attract the world.

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Now I don't remember the context of that statement when he made it. But let me kind of try to fill in a little bit for Dr.

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Jones, if I can. Lloyd -Jones. Okay. Lloyd -Jones. Yes. The attraction that the world, you know, when the church behaves a certain way and it's going to attract the attention of the world, that doesn't necessarily mean the world is going to go, well, that's awesome.

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I want to go in there and have what they have. Right. The attraction might be hate.

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Might be they're looking at what we're doing and they're going, well, I hate that. Right. Because that's contrary to what

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I want to do. It makes them offended because in pursuing righteousness, they begin to realize their sinfulness.

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And so to try to validate or justify their actions and their worldview, they're going to try to destroy the church so that I don't feel guilty for the thing that I'm doing.

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Leave me in the dark. That's right. Let me be in the dark. And we talked about that yesterday in Psalm 36, too,

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I think was where we were talking about that. Anyway, back to the question. Okay. So this got off.

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Sorry. You rabbit trails. Did we cover, though, the suffering thing? Because you did raise that question.

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I just want to make sure we got all that taken care of. I think so. Yeah. Okay. So it begins with taking up your cross daily and following after Christ.

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But then there's going to be people will hate you. You'll lose friends. You'll lose family members. Jesus said that was going to be the case.

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In fact, we're reading out of Mark 10 here. And he even says, truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands with persecutions.

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He adds in that caveat and in the age to come eternal life.

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But many who are first will be last and the last first. So even in this life, we will gain more than what we lose.

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And this is in the sense that when we become part of the body of Christ, though, we may have relatives who on earth will hate us because of the gospel that we love and believe and want to grow in.

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Right. We will gain all that many more family members in the family of God, in the churches that we're a part of in the

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Christian brothers and sisters in the Lord that we have. Oh, amen. Yeah. So even here in Mark 10,

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Jesus is making those kinds of comments about suffering. But Christ's suffering was for the propitiation of our sins and to sanctify the suffering of all who follow him.

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So in following Christ, we suffer as Christ suffered. But it's not the same kind of suffering in the sense that our suffering is not for the propitiation of sins, but it is for our sanctification.

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Both Christ's suffering and our suffering are for the glory of God. Amen. I hope this was helpful.

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I hope that despite all of our rabbit trails in there, we were able to answer that.

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But the cup that Jesus specifically was talking about, the cup that he was going to drink from is the cup of God's wrath.

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That was what he dreaded and asked God to take from him. But nevertheless, he endured the cross for the glory of God, as it also says in Hebrews chapter 12.

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Right. And that's the distinct difference between the cup that Jesus drank and the cup that the apostles drank.

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Right. For the propitiation of sins. Yes. Christ was for the propitiation of sins. Ours is for the sanctification of ourselves.

24:10

Summed up. Alrighty. Nithin says, Pastor Gabe, there was one or more books that you recommended on echatology.

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Come again? That's where I was going with that. Awesome. There was one or more books you recommended on eschatology.

24:27

Can you tell me the names of them again? Thank you for all that you do. Well, my recommendations on books about eschatology might change about every six months.

24:38

Yeah. I'd say that's pretty accurate. Yeah. I don't remember what I recommended at first, but I can give you three recommendations here.

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The first recommendation is a recommendation that I've been making for a few years now.

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There is a pamphlet, it's very short, from Dr. Timothy Paul Jones. You can download it either for your

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Kindle, or you can order it off of Amazon in the mail, so you can get the pamphlet in the mail.

25:05

I like to have things like that, and I also like to read things on my Kindle. Just whichever you like.

25:11

Take your pick. It's called Four Views of the End Times. Four is in the number four? Four. Okay.

25:17

Number four. Four Views of the End Times. You hold up numbers, but you still say four. Yeah. Of all the times

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I get on you about, they can't see you, Becky. They can't see your four fingers held up, waving in the air.

25:30

They can't see you smiling and nodding. Although your general disposition is usually happy, and they can imagine you that way.

25:39

Just imagine me smiling and nodding over here. So yeah, Four Views of the

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End Times is the name of it. Now, you'll notice reading the pamphlet that Dr. Jones, I feel like I just made an

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Indiana Jones reference, Dr. Jones! You'll notice that he has a kind of a pre -millennial, a historic pre -millennial view of the end times.

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Okay. But nevertheless, even though he does take that perspective, I still think it's a great pamphlet for laying out the four views and what they believe or don't believe.

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The four main views being dispensational pre -millennialism, historic pre -millennialism, amillennialism, and post -millennialism.

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So if you don't know what these mean, check out that pamphlet. Get the pamphlet. And he even has like a grid on there where it's like, this one believes this, but this view doesn't believe that, you know, things like that.

26:34

Oh, that's neat. Yeah. So that one's really good. I need to see that. Yep. I need the visual. Well, that's on our Kindle. So if you want to just grab one of our

26:40

Kindles. Okay, sweet. Yep. It's on there. I had already downloaded it. Another book that I recommend is

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R .C. Sproul's The Last Days According to Jesus. And Sproul does a great job in that book as well, going through various views of the end times.

26:55

Okay. But of course, he is approaching it from a more exegetical standpoint, because he's going to be going through the words of Christ and what he said about the end.

27:05

Oh, got it. So The Last Days According to Jesus, R .C. Sproul. And the last one is a book I started recommending last year.

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It's from Keith Matheson, Dispensationalism, Rightly Dividing the People of God. And even though Keith Matheson is giving a response to the end times view known as dispensationalism, he nevertheless does lay out in the book other views on the end times.

27:31

That's nice. Now, my views on the end times might change every once in a while.

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It just kind of depends on the season that you get a hold of me and ask, hey, what is your eschatology anyway?

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Yeah. I can tell you what I'm not. Okay. I'm not a dispensationalist, and I'm not a full preterist.

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Okay. And if you don't know what those things mean... Get the pamphlet. That's right. I need that pamphlet.

27:57

Go get the pamphlet. There's been times where I've said I'm amillennial by default. Okay. Because it's just the viewpoint that I have the least number of problems with.

28:06

Oh, okay. All right. It just kind of depends. And as far as eschatology goes, you explain this to me every single time we talk about it, and I still can't remember which is what and what's where and everything.

28:20

So I'm, yeah, get the pamphlet. Pamphlet will help you. I think that's really the most concise and yet thorough layout of the four views of end times.

28:34

That's awesome. And I don't think you'll be reading that even coming to the end of the pamphlet, picking one. Okay. But it just gives you a good educational kind of overview.

28:42

Yeah. Where people are coming from. Right. Whenever they say they're this, that, or the other. Right. These next three questions

28:48

I got, I hope I'm able to get through all three of these, because we didn't get to these questions last week. Oh, these are those questions.

28:55

These are the three questions we were not able to get to because we ran out of time in our 1 ,000th episode.

29:01

Boop, boop. Now here we are at these three again and at about just, it's almost exactly the same time marker that we had to cut it off last week too.

29:08

Oh yeah. But we had extra at the end. At the outtakes. Yeah, the outtakes. We left it for our 1 ,000th episode bloopers, blooper reel.

29:18

This first question comes from Mike. Dear what? Thank you so much for your videos and podcasts. My daughters love the

29:24

Friday Q &A with Becky. Aw, hi. Everybody loves the

29:30

Q &A with Becky. Aw. I lost my spot. I have questions.

29:35

I have questions. I do. Like, where did I leave off? Yes. I have questions about Genesis 9, 20 through 27.

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What did Ham do when he uncovered Noah's nakedness, his father's nakedness?

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And why was Canaan cursed instead of Ham? Okay, let's go to this. Genesis 9, starting in verse ...

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I'm going to start in verse 18. The sons of Noah who went forth from the ark were

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Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Ham was the father of Canaan. These three were the sons of Noah, and from these the people of the whole earth were dispersed.

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Noah began to be a man of the soil, and he planted a vineyard. He drank of the wine and became so smashed that he fell out of his clothes and collapsed naked in his tent.

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Yeah, I'm sure the Bible says that. That's the Greek. I'm sorry, the

30:30

Hebrew. I was reading the Septuagint there. Right, right, right.

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And verse 22, and Ham ... Ham, that's me. I'm such a ham.

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Ham. Hamming it up. The father of Canaan saw the nakedness of his father and told his two brothers outside.

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Okay, just so you get what the Bible actually says and not Gabe hamming it up. He drank of the wine and became drunk and lay uncovered in his tent.

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That's Noah's condition. Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father and told his two brothers outside.

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Then Shem and Japheth took a garment, laid it on both their shoulders, and walked backward and covered the nakedness of their father.

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Their faces were turned backward, and they did not see their father's nakedness.

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When Noah awoke from his wine and knew what his youngest son had done to him, he said,

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Cursed be Canaan, a servant of servants, shall he be to his brothers. He also said,

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Blessed be the Lord, the God of Shem, and let Canaan be his servant. May God enlarge

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Japheth, and let him dwell in the tents of Shem, and let Canaan be his servant. After the flood,

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Noah lived 350 years. All the days of Noah were 950 years, and he died.

31:51

Wow. So, question coming from Mike here. What did

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Ham do when he uncovered his nakedness, and why was Canaan cursed instead of Ham?

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Well, one of the kind of popular ways to interpret this passage. In fact, this is becoming an increasingly popular understanding of this particular story in Genesis chapter 9.

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All right. Is to go to Leviticus 18. And in Leviticus 18, verse 8, it says,

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You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father's wife. It is your father's nakedness.

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And so they will take this passage, and they will interpret Genesis 9 according to this, and make the assumption that what

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Ham did was he went and slept with his mother. And the statement that Ham saw the nakedness of his father is an idiom.

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It's an idiom for having slept with his own mother. And that's because, again, what we have in Leviticus 18, starting in verse 6,

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None of you shall approach any one of his close relatives to uncover nakedness. I am the

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Lord. You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father, which is the nakedness of your mother.

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She is your mother. You shall not uncover her nakedness. You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father's wife.

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It is your father's nakedness. You shall not uncover the nakedness of your sister, your father's daughter, or your mother's daughter, whether brought up in the family or in another home.

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You shall not uncover the nakedness of your son's daughter or of your daughter's daughter, for their nakedness is your own nakedness, etc.,

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etc. You get the point here? So the point being that this is an idiom for having slept with these individuals, and the idiom being used is uncover the nakedness of.

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So therefore, taking what is said in Leviticus 18 and applying it to Genesis 9, we have this shocking tabloid -level sin of, oh my goodness, it was incest,

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Ham slept with his mother. Right. And there's a video, there's actually a couple of videos on YouTube that are very, very popular.

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They have over a million views each. What? One of them is this gal going, you're going to vomit when you find out what

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Ham's sin was. You know, it's just shocking clickbait titles. Oh yeah, definitely. And that's why there's over a million views to this thing.

34:21

That would be clickbait. So what exactly was Ham's sin? Well, first of all, let me demonstrate to you that this is not what these teachers are saying, that it was

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Ham slept with his mother. Go again. It was not that Ham slept with his mother. What did

34:34

I say? You kind of made it sound like Ham did sleep with his mother.

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Ham did not sleep with his mother. There we go. There was not a sex act involved in this story.

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But nevertheless, despite saying that, what I want to demonstrate here is that Ham did still indeed sin.

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Well, yes, of course. And it was a serious sin. But what exactly was the sin?

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Verse 22, Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father and told his two brothers outside.

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So first of all, in verse 22, it says he saw the nakedness of his father.

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What did it say in Leviticus 18 about the nakedness of your father?

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It says you shall not uncover. Ham didn't uncover the nakedness of his father.

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So it's not the same thing. He saw the nakedness of his father. Furthermore, you look not just at what it says in verse 22, but also what it says in verse 23.

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Then Shem and Japheth took a garment, laid it on both of their shoulders, and walked backward and covered the nakedness of their father.

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Their faces were turned backward, and they did not see their father's nakedness.

35:50

Right. So this had to be that they were covering up their father in the buff. Right. If you were trying to add an idiom here, then how could you possibly translate 23 the same way that you would see it?

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That would be really awkward. It would be complicated to see the idiom in 22 and then apply it to 23.

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It wouldn't work out that way. So that's exactly what we have written in the story literally is exactly what happened.

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Noah got smashed drunk, came out of his clothes, fell in his tent naked. Ham came in, saw him naked, went and told his brothers outside.

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So what happened with Ham here is that he did not cover his father's shame.

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Noah acted shamefully. I mean, it really was terrible for Noah to get drunk, so drunk that he was beyond his own faculties, and he ends up coming out of his clothes.

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This is demonstrating right after the earth having been cleansed by the floodwaters.

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Oh, yeah. It's showing that the wickedness of men is still there. Yeah. Though Noah was regarded as a righteous man and God spared

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Noah and his wife and his three sons and their wives, eight people on an ark, this salvation happened because God is good, not because Noah and his sons were good.

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Right. They weren't perfect. Right. The corruption of the world is still there. Right. So Noah drinks too much.

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He enjoys the blessing of God too much. Instead of in moderation, it was to the point of drunkenness and even drunkenness to shaming himself.

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Debauchery. Right. He just made a fool of himself and in his shame fell naked in his tent.

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Ham comes in and sees his shame. What Ham should have done was exactly what Shem and Japheth did, but Ham didn't do that.

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Right. He went out and told his brothers outside and Shem and Japheth just did not share his amusement.

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And they did right where Ham did foolishly. Right. So Ham's sin was that he dishonored his father.

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A foreshadowing of a command that's going to come at Mount Sinai in Exodus chapter 20, where it says the fifth commandment.

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The Lord God says, honor your father and your mother so that it may go well with you in the land that the

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Lord your God is giving to you. And you may live long in that land. Why is it then that Noah wakes up and curses

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Canaan instead of Ham? The curse was prophetic, not prescriptive.

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What ends up happening to Canaan? The Canaanites inhabit the promised land. And this is the people that God punishes through the

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Israelites when he gives that land to the Israelites, the descendants of Shem.

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Cursed be Canaan, a servant of servants will he be to his brothers. Well, some of those Canaanites, most of them were put to the sword.

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Others were enslaved and they became slaves and servants to the Israelites.

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So that's what happens to the Canaanites. The land that they had is taken from them because Ham dishonored his father.

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Furthermore, there's something else prophetic about this story. From the line of Shem would come a savior, our

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Lord Jesus Christ, who covers our shame. As Shem and Japheth covered the shame of their father, so our

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Lord Christ covers our shame with his righteousness. We have all done shamefully in the eyes of God.

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And it is by faith in Christ our sins are forgiven and he clothes us in righteous garments.

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And covers our nakedness and our shame and we stand before God wholly. Amen. That's the meaning of this story.

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That's how we come to understand it. And there's Ham's sin and the reason for the curse. Beware any of those

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YouTube videos that tell you otherwise. On that note, my next YouTube video is on this exact subject.

39:59

Thank you for your question, Mike. Okay, question number eight of the questions that we didn't do last week.

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Yes. Hello, Pastor Gabe and Becky. My name is Carl from Ohio. I have a question about marriage.

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A family member of my pastor that is also a member of our church suddenly stopped coming a few months ago.

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Then we found out that she got married to a nonbeliever. This was an ongoing thing. And she was one step from being kicked out of the church disciplined because of her relationship with this man.

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Now I'm being told she's going to repent and be welcomed back. My question is, how can she repent from getting married to a nonbeliever?

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She knows what God's word teaches and she knew what she was doing. Should she be welcome back to the church?

40:43

Thank you for your time and keep up the great work. P .S. I love tornadoes too. Awesome. I love tornadoes in moderation.

40:51

Yeah, no joke. I like them far away. From a distance. In the middle of the country. Yeah, that's right.

40:56

And I love them when they don't hit, you know, anybody's homes. That's what I'm saying. In the middle of the country.

41:01

Yeah, that's right. Middle of nowhere. Nowhere. And in Kansas, we really get far more tornadoes than sometimes we even hear reported about.

41:12

Right, because nobody's there to see it. It just opens up in a country somewhere, a countryside somewhere. It doesn't ever hit anything.

41:18

And it could even be somewhere on the level of like an F3 or an F4 tornado. But they rate the, they give the rating to the tornado based on what it hits.

41:29

Right. Isn't it E? Yeah, it's EF3, EF4. Oh, okay.

41:35

That means enhanced Fujita scale. Oh, okay. But I hate throwing the extra syllable in there, so I still call it

41:41

F3 and F4. Just check it. What was I saying? Oh, yeah.

41:46

So, they'll rate the tornado based on wind speed. Uh -huh. And then also the damage path.

41:52

Right. So, if it never hits anything. You can't really tell. They just have to go on wind speed. And so, sometimes it might get like an

41:57

F1 or an F2 rating when it probably deserves an F3 or an F4. Right. But if it's just out in the middle of the country and it doesn't ever hit anything.

42:05

Yeah. Yeah. Most tornadoes are F0, F1. They're pretty low. Yeah. Pretty low rating tornadoes.

42:12

That was not Carl's question. Anyway. No, it wasn't. Carl, I would simply tell you in this particular situation that you trust the decision of your leadership.

42:24

That's what I was going to say. Yeah. Uh -huh. I would say that you listen to your pastor and you follow their instruction.

42:33

Yeah. And there's probably going to be some interviews and some things going on behind closed doors.

42:38

Oh, definitely. Right. That you're not going to be privy to some of that information. Uh -huh. And your insistence on wanting to know some of that information, got to be careful with that.

42:47

There can be some noble reasons why you would want to know why are we doing it this way.

42:53

Uh -huh. Especially as the church. I think a church does have, it should be the responsibility of the leadership of the church to inform them about things that are going on.

43:03

Right. So that they can help stop gossip or any kind of slander or rumor or anything like that.

43:10

Right. So letting the church in on these kinds of things so that they know, yes, she had sinned, but she has repented of that.

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We've talked with her and we believe her. And so we're going to welcome her back into the congregation. And that's really the advice that I would give you here in this situation.

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That you listen to your church leaders and that you trust that the decision that they've made has been in their wisdom as those who have been called to shepherd the flock of God.

43:33

Uh -huh. But thank you for your question. Yeah. That is an interesting situation. I mean, there's also the possibility that being a family member, that he might be higher hopes, have high hopes that she is truly repentant.

43:48

Yeah. And just giving her the benefit of the doubt. So even if a time comes down the road where she proves to not regret that decision or not regret.

44:01

No, you're right. Oh, okay. Yeah. So it's not something that I would recommend saying, oh, I told you, you know.

44:07

Yeah, don't get into that. But just have remorse that it wasn't true at that point.

44:14

Yeah. In John 7, Jesus said, do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment.

44:19

Uh -huh. So there are occasions in which I think that we have enough information that we can judge the heart of a person.

44:25

Right. Like a continued pattern of behavior, for example. Yes. But in an occasion in which you've confronted somebody over their sin and they've repented and said,

44:33

I'm sorry. Uh -huh. I think that you have to accept that. Yeah. And then over time, it will be demonstrated whether or not their apology was genuine or not.

44:41

Right. But be gracious in this. Right. Show grace in this situation. Don't be the scrutinizing blamer.

44:48

Right. You know, the accuser of the brethren is Satan. Uh -huh. And we don't need to be accusers of one another.

44:55

We need to be welcoming and gracious with each other. Exactly. Last question, and this is one of the questions that we didn't get to last week from Micah in Texas.

45:04

Dear Gabe and Becky, howdy. Hello. That's a good Texas greeting right there. Yeah. I discovered your podcast through my friend

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Alex Humphrey, co -host of The Rugged Marriage. Oh. During my first semester of college in 2016,

45:17

I had been a Christian for only about a year. And even though I grew up in a Reformed Baptist church,

45:23

I knew very little about theology. Your podcast, along with the faithful preaching of R .C.

45:28

Sproul, John MacArthur, and John Piper, lit a fire of passion in me for theology that I still carry today.

45:35

As so many others have said, thank you for holding God's word to the highest authority in everything that you do.

45:41

Your teaching found me when I needed it the most and continues to be an immense blessing.

45:47

Aw. Thank you so much, Micah. You brought tears to my wife's eyes. Yep. She, you can't see that, but you know, it's one of those things she has to communicate.

45:57

Nope. My question today is in regards to how

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Christians are to love God daily and pursue sanctification. As a 22 -year -old single college student,

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I am constantly busy in my routine of school, work, and church involvement. By God's grace,

46:17

I have experienced great freedom from sin and by the reading of his word and as a byproduct of a consistent daily routine.

46:24

However, sometimes my love for God through regular obedience, prayer, and scripture just doesn't seem like enough.

46:32

I have always been a down -to -earth, relatively unemotional individual and have described my love for the

46:38

Lord as a quiet, resting confidence. However, this general lack of emotion has caused some concern in me.

46:45

I feel like I should be putting myself out there more for Christ, but I don't know what that should look like.

46:51

If you could call sanctification as a series of stages, I would say that I feel ready for the next stage, but I don't know how to pursue that or what it would look like.

47:00

I would appreciate any advice that you two might have or even examples of this in your own life.

47:07

Thank you, Micah from Texas. Okay, let me give you six. I'm going to give you six points here.

47:13

All right. And I've divided this into three categories. Okay. And it's love for God, love for people, and love for holiness.

47:19

Okay. Okay. Now, this is not a comprehensive list. It's just six pieces of advice. You might even think of some other things that you could add to this.

47:28

But here is a general response to your question. So, number one, love for God. Be regular in the word of God.

47:36

That's number one. Number two, be regular in prayer. It sounds like you pretty well are.

47:41

Right. And that's what I get from his email as well. Right. That he's regular in the word of God and regular in prayer.

47:47

I say that to you, though, because as you're talking about wanting to go to the next step, don't ever think that you're going to be graduating from that.

47:54

Oh, definitely. That has to be regular. Time in God's word, time in prayer.

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Keep up with those things. Because you're actually, as you're growing in sanctification, you're even growing in how you read

48:06

God's word and what you see from the word of God. And as a result, even your prayer life is maturing in your submission unto

48:14

God and taking every thought captive and making it obedient to Christ.

48:20

That at its most basic level happens with prayer. Right. And so, you continually have to be in those things as you mature in the faith.

48:28

So, that's the first two pieces of advice in the first category. Second category, love for people.

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And here's advice three and four. Number three, find ways of exercising generosity toward others.

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Number four, help someone else solve a conflict and or find an answer to some sort of problem or difficulty or question that they may have related to theology, relationship with God.

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As we mature, we have a responsibility to look out for those who are less mature.

49:00

Right. You see that in Romans 15 1, 1 through 7, really, that whole section right there.

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Also in Titus chapter 2, where it talks about how the older men are supposed to help mentor the younger men in the church.

49:14

So, if you see yourself as a maturing individual, even at the age of 22, it sounds like that you have a pretty good growth and maturity that you can be reaching out to some other younger men in your church.

49:27

And really young men, teenage guys. They can help out in teaching, you know, a Bible study or something like that.

49:33

But you're helping someone find some answers to questions they may have or a conflict they've got or some sort of problem they're wrestling with and need to find a biblical solution to.

49:47

Right. Help somebody with that. It doesn't mean that you have to be a professional counselor. You don't have to be a qualified elder.

49:54

Right. This is just brothers in the Lord helping one another out. And that number three, that first piece of advice there in that category, find ways of exercising generosity toward others.

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I don't know what this looks like in your life. I'm not sure what kind of standing you have in your church or the kind of job that you do for your work, where you're at in school.

50:14

But look for ways that you can show charity to somebody else. And there's going to be anonymous charity that you do, things that you do you don't want any recognition for or believe that anybody's going to pay you back.

50:27

Right. And then there's also going to be generosity that you do that there is going to be some recognition for that.

50:35

Somebody's going to recognize that you did do this for somebody else. And I think that we should be doing acts of charity that way.

50:41

So there's anonymous giving, but then there's the kind of giving that you do where it's going to have to be personable.

50:47

You're showing somebody loves you. Right. Somebody's reaching out to you and caring for you.

50:52

Right. Because this is part of our sanctification. We grow in love for God. We grow in love for people.

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So you're going to be looking for ways that you're stepping out and helping someone else. And whether or not a person is blessed or maybe they don't give you thanks for helping them, whatever you do, you do it to the glory of God.

51:13

Amen. You are serving the Lord Christ first. And then the third category, love for holiness.

51:18

And so the last two pieces of advice, five and six, they're really idioms.

51:24

Okay. But nevertheless, I think are helpful for you in this pursuit of sanctification here.

51:30

Number five, don't try to reinvent the wheel. Ah, yes. That one's important. Yeah, especially as you're trying to look for something emotional.

51:39

I'm actually with you, Micah. I'm not really a very emotional guy when it comes to my sanctification.

51:47

You can hear me get emotional in the podcast or from the pulpit, but in my everyday run of life,

51:56

I just kind of try to have that steady pace, just like you were talking about, a quiet resting confidence.

52:02

Yes. And that's okay. You don't have to reinvent the wheel to believe that I have to be experiencing some sort of emotional ride.

52:12

That seems to be today's outlook. Pursuit. Pursuit.

52:17

Yeah, somebody's trying to get an emotional experience. Right. And, I mean, it's everywhere that people are trying to be emotional or get you emotional about what they're saying about the

52:29

Bible. Yeah. And, I mean, yeah, sure, to an extent, but not every single thing is supposed to be, you know, bawling at church every week, you know.

52:39

Or running around the sanctuary. If you're being sanctified, then, yeah, it's going to hit home a few times.

52:45

But really, it's… It doesn't have to be every time. It does not. Yeah. And that's okay.

52:50

As long as you're hungry to learn more. Right. I think that's emotional enough.

52:57

The person who wants to get emotional all the time with their sanctification really concerns me. Yeah. Because I'm worried about…

53:03

I'm concerned about whether or not you're just chasing an emotion or do you truly love

53:09

God. Right. Now, I don't want to be judgmental about that, because, again, judge with right judgment. Right. And be gracious.

53:14

Yes. But don't be chasing emotions or feelings. See, if you feel like, I'm not getting anywhere with this, so I need to take it to another level in order to maybe arouse some sort of emotion or something like that, the risk that you run is kind of what happened with the

53:31

Higher Life Movement or what's called the Keswick Conventions that were actually just held in Keswick just a few days ago, as a matter of fact.

53:39

So, the Higher Life Movement is this idea that Bible study and prayer really are not enough. Oh, okay.

53:45

The Higher Life Movement takes you into kind of a next level of your sanctification that is beyond what would otherwise be a subpar

53:57

Christian experience. So, that's what they're claiming to do. That's what the Higher Life Movement is claiming to achieve.

54:03

Okay. And Sarah Young got caught up in exactly this, and this is where Jesus Calling came from.

54:09

Gotcha. And she says that in the introduction to her book. She says that prayer and Bible study just weren't enough for her anymore.

54:16

So, she started this meditative thing of writing and believing that Jesus was actually controlling her writing, and that's where the book

54:24

Jesus Calling came from. Automatic writing, which is a pagan practice. It isn't godly at all.

54:29

So, be careful as you're looking for another move in your sanctification that you're not chasing after an emotional experience.

54:38

Right. Because that's when you get into some of these false teachings that have developed from people who were actually asking those exact same questions and believing that they needed to have some sort of emotional jump in their pursuit of holiness.

54:51

So, that's number five. Don't try to reinvent the wheel. You're not looking for something beyond what the

54:57

Lord has already laid out for us in Scripture. And number six, again, this is another idiom, but slow and steady wins the race.

55:05

Yeah. And we are running a race. We are. The apostle Paul said to Timothy, at the end of 2

55:11

Timothy, that I have finished the race. And in Hebrews chapter 12, we are told to put off every sin, anything that entangles, anything that would weigh us down, and run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the author and the perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

55:42

Can I tack on just one little thing? Go for it, yes. Okay. So, also, in my life, whenever a change is coming,

55:52

I get restless. And I start, you know, wondering what can

55:57

I do next? Where can I look? And, you know, if you're just patient, God lays it all out in front of you.

56:04

And the path is just, it's clear, crystal clear of where to go and what to do.

56:10

But if you meddle with it, and you make it all muddy, then it's a little stickier to get out of.

56:15

Right. You try to add my interests and my pursuits into this. Right. What God is laying out for me.

56:23

And, Micah, it's your life. You know exactly how the Lord is going to be working in your life. Yeah. And let that all be from a foundation of regular

56:31

Bible study and prayer. That's right. Let's pray. Yes, let's. Heavenly Father, we thank you for our listeners.

56:37

We thank you for being able to do this program and study your word and talk about theological things.

56:42

I love being able to do this with my wife and share this with our listeners on a regular basis as well.

56:50

Thank you for what we've been able to do. And I pray that we remain faithful to your word and to prayer.

56:57

And we stick with the basics that you have given to us according to your scriptures. What has been spoken to us by your son and laid out by the prophets and the apostles.

57:07

Your word is sufficient for our every need. We don't need anything beyond what you have given to us.

57:14

And we find as we explore it day by day, great truth that we glean from this as we grow in sanctification and in our knowledge of God and shedding off sin and every weight and putting on the righteous robes of Christ.

57:30

I pray for Micah as he is exploring those things about his sanctification and that you would illuminate to him exactly what you would have him do.

57:40

Whether that's helping out a brother or sister in the Lord in his own church or maybe even calling him to ministry somewhere down the road.

57:47

I pray that you would give good godly counsel to this young man's life and that you would lead him daily in the steps that are set before him in Christ Jesus and according to your word.

57:59

I pray that we're all faithful to that day by day and we look to Christ daily, sacrificing, laying down ourselves and presenting ourselves as holy and living sacrifices unto the

58:11

Lord. This is our spiritual act of worship. And we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.

59:21

Hang on. Okay. Oh, you got all that?

59:26

Yep. Yay! This is When We Understand the Text, celebrating four years and over a thousand episodes broadcasting online.

59:35

You can support this ministry by letting your friends know about the great Bible teaching we offer here.

59:41

Do you hear the frog in my throat? You see my... What is this called when you do this?

59:47

Oh, the pigeon head. Do my pigeon head. That is definitely a pigeon head.