Character Creates Consequences

[0:00] All right. Let's see what this title is. Character creates consequences.

[0:11] That's right. Character creates consequences.! I'll make some introductory comments.

[0:32] We're in Genesis chapter 9, beloved. Genesis chapter 9. And instead of taking the entire chapter in that one swath last time, I wanted to stop and spend a little bit more time on verses 18 down through the end of what we call chapter 9 because of what is being given to the Hebrew people in the way of foundations here.

[0:54] And we'll talk more about that in just a moment. So beginning in verse 18 of chapter 9, Now the sons of Noah who came out of the ark were Shem and Ham and Japheth.

[1:06] And Ham was the father of Canaan. These three were the sons of Noah, and from these the whole earth was populated.

[1:18] Then Noah began farming and planted a vineyard. He drank of the wine and became drunk. He uncovered himself inside his tent. Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father and told his two brothers outside.

[1:36] But Shem and Japheth took a garment and laid it upon both their shoulders and walked backward and covered the nakedness of their father. And their faces were turned away so that they did not see their father's nakedness.

[1:50] Now when Noah awoke from his wine, his drunkenness, he knew what his youngest son, Ham, had done to him. So he said, Cursed be Canaan, a servant of servants, he shall be to his brothers.

[2:08] Noah also said, Blessed be the Lord, the God of Shem, and let Canaan be his servant. May God enlarge Japheth and let him dwell in the tents of Shem and let Canaan be his servant.

[2:26] Noah lived 350 years after the flood. So all the days of Noah were 950 years and he died.

[2:37] This is one of those rather enigmatic passages in the scripture that you kind of read as you move through the narrative and you wonder, what in the world does that have to do with anything?

[2:48] But this is important when we understand the context that it was written in and the original readers that it was written for. And then we can bring it over into today.

[2:59] Now, let me make some comments as we kind of set the stage for what's going on here. God has been dealing with mankind's weaknesses and wickedness since he made the first two human beings.

[3:13] So God's been dealing with this for a long time in human terms. Right from the very beginning. In all of our boasting and all of our self-favoring, there's one thing mankind, people, cannot do by any measure of self-effort.

[3:29] Now, there are many things spiritually that we can't do for ourselves, but I want to highlight one particular thing from this passage. That one thing is this. We cannot and will not bow our hearts to God and to His authority.

[3:45] On our own, we will never do that. On our own, we don't even want to do that. We have no desire to do that. In fact, the opposite is true. We are self-favoring, prideful people.

[3:58] And all of us should have some measure of testimony about that prior to our salvation. Even after we're saved, isn't it a struggle to battle your pride and your self-favoring attitudes?

[4:12] I'm not the only one in here suffering with that, am I? Okay. Don't let me be up here all by myself. We can't bow to Jesus' authority on our own.

[4:23] But in God's blessed mercy, He gave sinful people His priceless gift of His sinless Son. Now, in turn for that gift, in bitter hatred, every person is guilty of rejecting God's precious gift of Jesus.

[4:40] Every single one of us. And we are hardwired that way out of the womb. Pride works in the sinful heart and wins over the sinful soul.

[4:52] So we have to have something outside of ourselves far greater than what it is that is dominating us in that pride of our soul to overcome that for us, right?

[5:03] We have to have a power greater than us and greater than what has overwhelmed us. And that is why we look to God, to Christ. If our hearts are ever to seek after God, if our hearts are ever to submit to God so that we can believe on Jesus and receive His forgiveness for our sins, God must find us.

[5:28] and God must give us all we need to bow our hearts to Him in faith. I just gave you the doctrines of grace study in three and a half minutes.

[5:40] No small thing. No glory to me. This is how the Scripture teaches salvation. Apart from the glory of Jesus working to find us and deliver us, we would never seek the Lord.

[5:55] We just keep running down our road of self and pride and greed and lust. The original Hebrew readers of our passage this morning are on the brink of war with the nations of the promised land and there are many.

[6:13] But particularly the Canaanites. The Canaanites are standing in the way of God's gift of this promised land to Israel and without God, just as in our spiritual salvation, without God, the Hebrews won't prevail over any of these enemies.

[6:30] And there'll be examples of that as we move through. As Israel trusts the Lord, God blesses them and they conquer and they move forward. As Israel trusts in themselves and looks to themselves and that pride, then they begin to lose and the people prevail over them and it's back and forth.

[6:47] What needs to happen in terms of our context for today, these people need to trust and obey God. These people who are standing on the edge of the Jordan River ready to cross over into the promised land and conquer the peoples of that land so that they can receive this gift from the Lord.

[7:05] And Moses is writing this to give them the history and background to bolster them and to send them forward in this commission. Take the land that I am giving into your hands.

[7:15] You are my instrument of justice against these wicked pagan people. And they're so wicked I couldn't even, based on what we read in history, I can't even begin to tell you how wicked.

[7:31] I'll give you a couple of examples in a moment but still, these people are beyond belief. Faith and obedience toward God will bring His blessings on the Hebrews and their offspring.

[7:46] Disobedience will bring cursing, suffering, and death to them and to their offspring. That's the way it works. When we follow sin and follow self, we reap the consequences of sin and self.

[7:58] When we follow the Savior, we reap the blessings of following the Savior and giving our life to Him. That's just not rocket science, is it? Now, Noah and his three sons in this passage show us that character creates consequences.

[8:15] consequences. You live out of your character. You live out of who you are no matter what your mouth says or what you think you want to believe about yourself.

[8:26] You live out of who you are in any given moment. Character creates consequences and the choices that you make out of who you are, whether that who you are is I belong to the Lord Jesus and I'm seeking to honor Him and be obedient to Him and submit to Him or I don't believe in God.

[8:51] I don't believe in giving my life to God. I'm not going to have anything to do with the Lord. I'm going to do what I want to do. Basically, the man upstairs understands. Plenty of people live like that. You're going to live with the consequences of either of those.

[9:05] This is what we're looking at as they show us character has consequences and creates consequences in our walk with the Lord. Now, God's people need this message from Moses.

[9:17] They need to see the historical basis for what God's commanding them to do to go in and kill all these people. I mean, I want you to understand that God is saying go in and leave none alive.

[9:29] This is a no prisoners policy. Now, let me ask you from what you've already read ahead and know. Did Israel fulfill this command to wipe the land clean of these people?

[9:41] And where are we today? You are seeing the consequences today. You are, I am, and they did at that time.

[9:54] Wipe out the Canaanite as a people. Wipe out all who stand before you because those who stand against you stand against me, says the Lord.

[10:05] Now, here's the beginning of Canaan as a people. And these people hate authority. These people consequently choose to worship war.

[10:22] Now, I want you to listen to what this sounds like. These are people who worship war, death, and bloodshed. They worship the false god of Baal.

[10:36] They are a people who burn their children alive on the altars of this false god. They would build giant altars with outstretched arms and they would heat the inside of the altars until those arms glowed red and then they would throw their children on them.

[10:57] This is who is waiting on the other side of the Jordan River. These are bloodthirsty people. Deceived.

[11:09] Wicked to the core. These are a people whose worship is so lewd and so fraught with orgiastic sin that God told the Hebrews to leave none of them alive across the entire land.

[11:26] So our passage sets the stage for what's coming. And we're going to look through the consequences of sin.

[11:37] We're going to work through those consequences. And all of that is seen through human disobedience. But then there's another side to it just like there's another side to the flood which is the ark.

[11:52] There is the side of disobedience and the consequences that come with that. There's a side where obedience brings blessing. The consequences of blessing. And we'll see that together as well.

[12:05] Now remember this isn't like working through the book of James or one of the other letters of the New Testament where you have line upon line and principle form and it's easy to kind of outline.

[12:18] These are stories. So they don't lend themselves well to these principled points that go down through. But what I'll do is break them down in terms of what's being shown to us in the way of these characters and what's happening in their lives.

[12:32] Real people real circumstances and what is this teaching us and what did the original readers need to understand because that's the meaning of the passage. Alright?

[12:43] So the first thing that we're going to look at in terms of verses 18-19 right around in there will be the inhabitants and inheritors of God's earth.

[12:55] 18 and 19. Now the sons of Noah who came out of the ark were Shem and 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.

[13:13] So what we're dealing with this morning is the inhabitants to begin with. the inhabitants. That is the sons of Noah. They're being highlighted and set apart. When the Bible tells us the sons of Noah it establishes then the direct connection of Noah's walk with God to the blessings of God on his family line.

[13:36] As the character of Noah goes much of the way of his following ancestors will go because they're being blessed by his character before the Lord.

[13:47] as God blesses Noah they are in line to receive the goodness and the drippings if you will of that blessing. It's the same in your life. Your kids will either be blessed or they will suffer based on the consequences of what you do with your character and how you live your life.

[14:06] The people around you will either be blessed by your walk with the Lord or the people around you will be not blessed by you choosing to sin and live in selfishness or greed or pride right?

[14:19] So this is what we're seeing. Here are the sons of Noah. God blessed Noah with only these three sons. Very important. These sons would carry God's blessings to future generations of God's people.

[14:35] Remember that we're still dealing with the Bible showing us this godly line of people from where the Messiah will come and this ungodly line everybody else and how Satan is using the ungodly line to war against God's plan to bring the Messiah the deliverer in the godly line.

[14:54] What Satan wants to do to corrupt that and fight against it. You've got to see the bigger picture here behind the scenes of what's happening. So these sons will carry the blessings into the future.

[15:07] Notice the next phrase sons of Noah who came out of the ark. Nothing's wasted in the Bible. This is equal or tantamount to saying this who were saved by God.

[15:19] They came out of the ark means they were saved by God. Beautiful. In other words here's the deal God chose. That's as plain as day.

[15:31] God chose. These three sons stepped off the ark. There were a whole bunch of other sons that perished. But these three sons stepped off the ark. Why? Because they are tied to the godly character of their father, Noah.

[15:46] And God has chosen to bless this family. Many other families didn't make it, did they? So you got to see this and ask yourself.

[15:56] God chose to bring these men to salvation with Noah. The ark was God's instrument depicting this deliverance from sin and death.

[16:08] Just as the cross depicts and is important as a symbol for us in our salvation, what happened on this cross is all about salvation.

[16:19] The ark depicts what was all about God's choice to save in that day. And in that time it wasn't a cross, it was an ark. It wasn't Jesus, it was Noah.

[16:32] And this is what we're seeing. In addition to that, we're seeing those who will then choose to follow in the character of Almighty God and believe Him and trust Him and those who will not.

[16:46] And that back and forth is through the rest of Scripture. Everybody writes about it, Paul writes about it, it's throughout. Notice also, the Bible goes on to say, the sons of Noah who came out of the ark, look, Shem and Ham and Japheth.

[17:05] Three names mentioned by name because they were the only three sons Noah ever had. The Bible is making a big deal of this.

[17:15] They were historically real people, they were living by faith in God. And then we have this next disclaimer. Again, go phrase by phrase with me and realize nothing is wasted here.

[17:27] What's the next disclaimer that we see? Does it say anything further about Shem or Japheth in any specific way? Who's singled out next? Ham. What does it say?

[17:38] And Ham was the father of Canaan. Now, why in the world is that important? Why single out Ham? Why tell us that? He tells us that actually two times, doesn't he?

[17:50] In verse 18, Ham was the father of Canaan, and then up in 22, Ham the father of Canaan. Do you see anywhere else where it's saying anything about Shem or Japheth? Shem, the whatever.

[18:01] Japheth, the whatever. No. Ham is being singled out. Canaan, Canaan as an individual, as a person, was Ham's fourth and youngest son.

[18:19] And so you can see in terms of a time stamp that some time has gone by since they left the ark. There's been enough time to plant a vineyard and grow it and I think things were growing a lot quicker then just because of the climate of the earth and what God had done in the way of helping people to multiply, helping animals to multiply, plants, vegetation, everything is like sped up.

[18:40] It's on speed dial, if you will, moving forward. And so now we have Ham and he's had the youngest son of Noah has had four sons and Canaan is his youngest son.

[18:54] So see, we've got generations going on already now. Well, God singles out Ham. Question, why? Why do the Hebrew people need Ham singled out for them in this moment?

[19:07] Alright, we're going to deal with that. God's going to choose to relate differently to Ham than he will to Shem and Japheth, the other two sons. We know from reading ahead because we just read the passage together, we know that the difference is not a good one, right?

[19:24] It's not a good one, okay. So we've looked at a little bit about the inhabitants as the scripture brings them out to us in this passage. We have Noah and we have his three sons and we have one of his sons being singled out in a way that tells us this is not a good thing for him to be singled out.

[19:41] Then we have this, we have the inheritors. Verse 19 tells us that from these three men, what does it say? The whole earth was populated.

[19:54] And I just want to point out to you that the word populated there from the New American Standard, populated, means scattered. It's the same word that we used in verse 7. Scattered.

[20:05] The whole world was scattered. At least that's the plan. So all human beings can trace their ancestry back to these three men, period.

[20:19] Noah's sons are going to be those human beings whom God uses to repopulate the earth. You see, we all come from one people. We're one race in that sense.

[20:32] I also believe the Bible is teaching that all people fall into the categories of relationship to God that are analogous or that correspond to these three men.

[20:44] I want to tell you what I mean by that. Here's what I mean. Some people will go the way of Ham and some will go the way of Shem and Japheth. In relationship to God and in relationship to each other.

[20:58] We'll see this borne out. So I believe we see here the beginnings of how God will continue His blessings on a particular people, a particular people of His own choosing to fulfill His promise of bringing a Redeemer into the world.

[21:17] You've got to be with me in this and see this. What we're seeing here isn't just the sin of Ham. What's being emphasized here is God in this sin preserving a godly line through all of this as Satan seeks to thwart it so that he can bring his Redeemer into the world as he promised.

[21:37] He will keep his promise. And I want to develop these biblical ideas with you. So likely several decades have passed since the ark landed given what I told you just a few minutes ago about Ham and his sons.

[21:50] Now why is this incident with Noah communicated in scripture? Think about that. Why do we need to know that Noah got drunk and naked and this situation happened with I mean I don't want to think about that.

[22:06] I don't want that picture in my head. So why does the Bible tell us this? Why is it important for the people of Israel to know this? they're getting ready to go to war and they get this?

[22:19] How is this helpful? Well it's obviously significant for the original readers to understand what took place here between Noah and his three sons but especially with him.

[22:31] Especially with him. So what's the Holy Spirit's point intended for the original readers here? What point is the Holy Spirit making for his original readers? And then we'll ask this.

[22:41] How is God's point in all of this significant for us today? How do we bring that over into today? This is the work that we do in Bible study in the teaching and preaching of God's word. Alright so let's move from the inhabitants and inheritors and let's talk about the iniquity of one.

[23:00] That's where we go next. The iniquity of one and that would be Ham beginning in verse 20 when Noah began farming and planted a vineyard and then we're told that unfortunately Noah used the wine in its fermented state to get drunk.

[23:18] And there's a lot that's not said here but we're told that and that he uncovered himself inside his tent. Now notice that he uncovered himself. Nobody uncovered him. He did this to himself and he's inside his tent and then it tells us that Ham the father of Canaan another designation came in and saw the nakedness of his father and then he went out and he told his brothers outside.

[23:46] Now look here's what I want you to notice. I'm going to tell you now that the focal point of this section of scripture hinges on the idea of verses 18 and 22.

[23:59] And Ham was the father of Canaan and Ham the father of Canaan. But before we can develop this idea you need to deal with I need to deal with what scripture is emphasizing in verses 20 and 21.

[24:14] What does it tell us? These verses give us the precipitating event for Ham's sin. What happened? What was going on? The situation is clear enough but the question comes what are we to do with Noah getting drunk?

[24:28] Here's another question. I mean after all is this sin? Is this sin? Shouldn't it be? Isn't it okay for him to do this in the privacy? If he wants to get drunk in the privacy of his own tent and get naked, all right go for it.

[24:42] You know, not necessarily something I'd do but that's okay. Is it? Is the Lord okay with this? Well the scripture has some pointed things to say about God's counsel in our relationship to intoxicating drink.

[24:58] It does. But now listen I want to say something to you about this. Let me give you some caveats so that you understand when we come to the scripture and we do studies like this we want to be very careful about how we approach it.

[25:11] So I want to put this up there as well. The Bible does express that wine can make the heart glad. You see that reference in Psalm 104. It also says that it can be used for medicinal purposes.

[25:23] Paul telling Timothy to take some for his stomach problems. Then we have Jesus himself turning water into wine for his guests at a wedding. So you know if wine was bad even fermented wine was bad in that sense you know it's fermented.

[25:37] Jesus never would have done that. He just said you know hands off. Now remember Jesus took a Nazarite vow so could Jesus drink it? No. He was not allowed to drink it because he was under a Nazarite vow right?

[25:49] They won't have any of the grape touch their lips kind of thing. But nevertheless we've got these three ways in scripture that wine's fine. Intoxicating drink is fine in that sense.

[26:04] But now notice this section of scripture is not not extolling the proper use of strong drink. Nor is it primarily a treatise against drunkenness.

[26:18] So this is not the passage that you want to turn to if you're dealing with someone who struggles with alcohol or intoxicating drink of some kind and read this to them and say here you go. There are other passages you can do that with.

[26:30] You can tell them this story and say you know look there's a lot of bad stuff that happened as a result of this. But there are better passages you can use because that's not the primary point of this passage. It does describe dangers inherent in abusing alcohol of any kind.

[26:47] But consider the text and carefully ask this question as you study this with me. Is the focus Noah's drunkenness or Ham's sin? The focus.

[27:00] Both are mentioned but one seems to take focus. Do you find, let me ask you this, do you find any way in this passage where Noah seems to be rebuked by the Lord?

[27:12] Nope. But you do see a rebuke in this passage don't you? And who's being rebuked? Ham. Now again where's the focus? You see? Where's the focus of this passage?

[27:28] We consider the text and we ask who's being highlighted. The issue seems to be more of how the brothers respond to Noah and what Noah does.

[27:45] It seems to be more on them, the three of them, and how they handle what their dad does. Now saying that, listen, let's ask the question here, what if Noah hadn't gotten drunk?

[27:59] What if this hadn't happened like this? What if Noah had remained in control of his faculties? Now look, clearly the Bible links Noah's drunkenness with his nakedness.

[28:11] We've got two issues here. Consequently with Ham's sin. Now we have three issues. We have drunkenness, nakedness, and then we have the sin of someone else who got involved in all of that.

[28:24] And even though we've yet to define Ham's sin, we know, we know that it brought about a curse on Ham's son, Canaan, and his descendants. Well, that doesn't seem fair.

[28:35] What a mess. Let's just say amen and we'll just not deal with this. This is too hard. No. But this is a mess, isn't it? Ah, we got sin, we got cursing, we got generational stuff going on.

[28:51] How are we going to sort all that out? Ask Greg at the end of the service, he'll tell you the whole deal. No. I won't throw that off on my brother. What are we going to do with all of this?

[29:05] Well, look, here's what we're going to do real quickly and then I'm going to move on because I don't want to treat this lightly. We can say several important things about Noah's drunkenness, which are instructive for us.

[29:16] All right, we can do that. Now, I want you to know as I put these up here, we do not take a stance here that says drinking an alcoholic beverage is automatically sinful.

[29:29] Now, Greg and I have elected not to do that on the whole. On the whole, I can't stand the taste of it and some of you know that. So God's blessed me in the way that I look at wine and I go, oh my goodness, that looks so good.

[29:45] Man, that looks refreshing. And then you sip it and go, oh gosh, oh my goodness. I can't get it. And other people are at the table and they're sipping it looking at me trying to keep back, you know, like I just sucked the lemon.

[29:58] And they're sipping it going, mmm, mmm. And I'm thinking, yeah, that's not a taste I want to acquire. It's like smoking a cigarette. And you do that for months until you get used to it and you just want to tell yourself, what are you doing?

[30:11] Your body's trying to tell you this is not good. That's kind of how I am. All right, all right. All of that to say, I'm not anti-alcohol, I'm anti- drunkenness and I'm anti- you doing things in your life that remove the inhibitions that you should have as you seek to honor Jesus.

[30:30] If it's going to make you less likely to be in control of honoring Jesus, why do you want to do it? Don't do that. Don't do that. All right, so here's the first one.

[30:42] This is the first thing we can say about Noah's drunkenness that becomes instructive for us. It was wrong. It was sinful for Noah to get drunk. How do we know that? All drunkenness is dishonoring to God, period. The Bible tells us that we are not to be intoxicated because that's an issue of self-control.

[30:59] It also shows us the human weakness in a godly man. And that further shows us every person's need for God's sustaining grace so that we can effectively put off the sin of our hearts for God's honor and glory.

[31:13] See? Maintaining a self-control so that we can honor the Lord Jesus. Saying no to certain things and yes to other things that help us honor Christ. That's what we want to be about.

[31:26] Number three, it reinforces God's teaching that personal sin is not private sin. What do I mean? It's not private in its effect on us and those who relate to us.

[31:39] Think about it this way. There's no such thing as private sin or secret sin as something limited to harming only me. Do you understand why? Because it doesn't just harm only you.

[31:51] It sucks you into yourself and takes you out of the spiritual readiness to be a blessing to other people because you're all focused on you. Even though you think it's a private sin, it's having a public effect on those closest to you because now your spirit's not ready to be used by the Lord in a sensitive way to minister to those people.

[32:12] You're an unrepentant sin. You're all focused on you, you see? So in that sense, there's no such thing as private or secret sin. In the other sense, it's not secret because there is one person who sees it all and he won't forget.

[32:27] Right. Okay. And then finally, is there a number four? Yep. Number four, your unrepentant sin, the sin we just talked about, negatively impacts you and you carry those negative effects with you into your relationships.

[32:42] Very akin to number three. All right. Now, more specifically, what was the iniquity of the one? What was the iniquity of Ham? His sin was revealed in two actions that are recorded for us very succinctly in verse 22.

[32:59] Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father and number two, told his brothers outside. So first, we got to deal with the first one.

[33:09] Ham saw the nakedness of his father. All right. Now, what do we do with this? Well, Noah was naked from a lack of self-control. Okay. But even if Noah hadn't gotten drunk, that would not have changed the contempt or dishonor Ham was harboring in his heart.

[33:28] And we're going to see that. So what was wrong? What was specifically wrong with what Ham did? After all, we could say this. Is it Ham's fault that his daddy got drunk and exposed himself in his tent and Ham happened to walk in on it?

[33:45] I mean, come on, give the guy a break. That's not his fault. Oh. And yet, who receives the rebuke? And so which one of us is going to point to heaven and say, God, I think you messed up on this one.

[33:56] Not me. Well, we know the Lord didn't mess up. So there's another way we need to understand this. Ham entered the tent and shamefully looked or stared at, took a long look at his father's nakedness.

[34:16] In other words, Ham's actions were not unintentional. They were deliberate. Telling us this is an outward act with an inward motive.

[34:28] That's the case for everything we do. All of our behavior is motivated by some inward desire. And so our behavioral sins emanate from an inward desire to sin in that way or we wouldn't do it.

[34:43] We wouldn't speak it. This is what's going on. We can take the behavioral iniquity that the Bible tells us this is. Ham is doing something wrong in the sight of God.

[34:54] We have to say, okay, what is that wrong? And given the fact that he's behaving in a wrong way, we can come over here and say there's something evil or wicked going on in his heart that gave birth to that sin.

[35:05] You with me? All right. So far, so good. We're working here. That's what's going on. And so we listen. The reason that I'm doing this is because when you study this out, if you were to read commentators from different places, there's all kinds of weirdness that people are saying about this passage.

[35:23] And it's unfortunate. It just confuses the issue. When we dig down into this and let the scripture speak as to how it's written, it's just not all that.

[35:33] This is not one of those super complicated passages. We've seen a couple of those so far. I don't think this is one of those. But what is going on here? Well, again, an outward behavior of sin is pointing to an inward desire or issue of sin in the heart.

[35:50] Here's what one commentator said. I thought it was very helpful. Jonathan Sarfati, a guy that I have consulted throughout the studies that I've done so far, says this.

[36:00] The Hebrew word for saw, as it's depicted here in the New American Standard, saw, means that Ham looked at his dad in the sense of violating a boundary.

[36:12] Violating a boundary. Now, Sarfati goes on to explain. The same word is used in 1 Samuel, chapter 6, verse 19, when God killed 70 people because what?

[36:29] They looked upon the ark of the Lord. In other words, they looked upon the ark in a way that violated what God said. Their looking was in violation to the Lord.

[36:41] And so God killed him. That's the 1 Samuel reference. So what this means is it means that Ham knew he was violating God's law toward his dad.

[36:53] So see, there's culpability now. Now the Bible has helped us by digging down into some of the verbiage and looking at what the meaning is being brought out in terms of the context.

[37:04] We can understand that the Bible is telling us in clear ways what we have to work at, the original readers would have immediately picked up on. They would have immediately grasped that this was some kind of looking that violated a standard that God had.

[37:20] And so this is his sin. This is his sin. And we're going to expand on that a little bit. It violated God's design for spiritual authority in the family.

[37:35] So this is a way that Ham is violating his father's headship in his family. Instead of honoring him, he's dishonoring. It's a direct violation of the spirit and intent of the fifth commandment.

[37:48] For children to honor their father and their mother and not dishonor them. Now what I'm saying is it was God's design for authority, respect, and honor which Ham was violating in his sin against Noah.

[38:02] So this isn't just that Ham walked in and saw his father in a condition that was embarrassing or a little bit shameful. This is a man who walked in and saw his father in a condition that should have moved his heart to compassion, that should have brought his heart to pray for his dad, believe the best about his dad, be broken hearted for his dad, cry for his dad, and then make every effort to do something about that for his dad.

[38:31] Who's just showing weakness. Here's a godly faithful man who's come through literally decades of fighting against sin and being mocked and staying faithful and doing something incredible in the grace of God.

[38:48] This is a courageous man. Noah's a courageous, he's a great character study. Standing against the entire world to be faithful to God and then coming through the ark.

[38:59] And now decades later we see this one incident in his life when he's demonstrating some weakness and you would think that would elicit some compassion from his sons who would look up to this dad and think, oh I'm so proud of my dad.

[39:12] Nope, not Ham. Not Ham. You're talking about Shem and Japheth now. But not Ham. So what's going on? Well, it comes out in this next one.

[39:26] Ham's second sinful action. His second sinful action. What does it say? He told his two brothers outside.

[39:39] So to add insult to injury, Ham leaves the tent and then he begins to verbally denigrate and degrade and disgrace his father to his brothers.

[39:49] He tried to bring his two. So he's out there, if you picture it, he's out there with this mocking kind of shameful, joking kind of demeanor. Hey guys, you're not going to believe what's going on in that tent.

[40:02] I mean, come on dad. For real? That kind of a terrible attitude. Just a condescending, prideful, shameful attitude. And so he's trying to bring his brothers in on that.

[40:15] I don't know what in the world this guy's thinking that his brothers would get involved, but they didn't, thank the Lord. Thank the Lord. Ham seems to take, listen now, he seems to take personal pleasure in telling his brothers about Noah's moment of weakness and failure.

[40:33] He's not broken hearted. So Ham appears to revel in running down his dad. It makes him feel superior.

[40:44] It makes him feel triumphant. So inwardly, let me put this up here for you. Inwardly, inwardly in his heart, Ham is mocking and demeaning his dad in his heart.

[40:59] His behavioral sins point to his heart's condition and attitude toward Noah, but also toward the Lord. Toward the Lord, because it's God's standard that he's violating here.

[41:12] So Ham was exposing his inner contempt. He's exposing, in an outward way, the dishonor that he's holding in his heart. Now, the Bible doesn't tell us how this happened, but we can kind of speculate, because you see this today.

[41:27] You see this today. All of this is underscored by the fact that his brothers, his brothers, also knew it was wrong. They knew it was wrong. See?

[41:38] So did Ham. But in obedience and faithfulness, his brothers took pains, what? Not to repeat Ham's sin toward Noah and the Lord. They didn't want any part of that, did they?

[41:50] Praise the Lord. Now look, we don't have to look hard for a bottom line issue behind all of this. God is revealing to us and to Moses' readers that Ham harbored a secret resentment toward God, toward God, by way of Noah's authority.

[42:13] What's Ham chafing under here? Authority. Authority. Ham was shameless. Ham was proud. Ham is being presumptuous toward his dad.

[42:30] And Ham's behavior toward his father and his brothers foreshadows the ways the Canaanites are going to act in their relationship to the Israelites because the Canaanites are going to labor to tempt and taunt and turn Israel away from the Lord.

[42:46] Just like Ham tried to do with his brothers. Now if you were to ask me, Jeff, was Ham saved? I don't know.

[42:58] You know, there's a part of me that wants to believe that when he got on the ark he was saved, but he didn't have to be saved for God to physically save his life, did he? So I don't know I'm going to leave that up to you.

[43:09] The Scripture isn't as explicit on that issue. If he's not saved, he is in some bad way right now, isn't he? If he is saved and he's doing what he's doing, this is still, this is, ah, it kind of makes it even worse.

[43:25] You kind of expect this kind of thing from unbelievers. So if you press me really hard, I'm going to lean toward probably not. What do you think? He's certainly not acting like a believer, is he?

[43:38] But we can show weakness in our believing, can't we? We can show weakness. Noah is showing weakness, but Noah loves the Lord and we know that because he's in the hall of faith. In Hebrews.

[43:50] So I don't know. Ham didn't make the hall of faith, but lots of other people didn't either. All I'm trying to tell you here is make the issue of what I think the text is bringing out for us, that in Ham's case, he has this secret resentment against his dad.

[44:07] What is going on? I believe that he has this resentment against his dad because his dad's a godly man. And I think Ham just struggles with sin in his life and as he looks at his dad, instead of being super proud of his dad, his dad is a constant reminder of his own failure.

[44:23] You got people like that in your life? Canaan as a nation is this type of antagonist in the life of the Israelites even to this day.

[44:35] Folks, here's the deal. Sin always has consequences and in this case, Ham's sin brought a curse, a curse, from Noah on Ham's youngest son, Canaan. And all of those born in the direct line of Canaan now would bear the weight of this curse.

[44:49] And that brings us to this emphasis from the Bible. It's the indictment of many. The indictment of many. But Shem, Ham, and Japheth took a garment. They laid it upon both their shoulders.

[45:00] They walked backward and covered the nakedness of their father and their faces were turned away so that they didn't see their father's nakedness. Now there's faithfulness for you. Those are some broken hearted sons.

[45:12] Alright? When Noah awoke from his wine he knew what his youngest son had done so he said, you know what? Curse be Canaan now. Curse be Canaan. Your youngest. My youngest did this to me. Ham, your youngest is now going to follow in the character that you've displayed here.

[45:29] A servant of servants he shall be to his brothers. Then he said, Blessed be the Lord, the God of Shem and let Canaan be his servant. And may God enlarge Japheth and let him dwell in the tents of his brother Shem and let Canaan be his servant.

[45:46] Look, when Noah became sober he somehow knew what Ham had done. I don't have time to even speculate about that. It just says that that's what happened. Noah discerned the wickedness of Ham's heart in the process but he didn't curse Ham.

[46:01] Isn't that interesting? He doesn't curse Ham. Noah cursed all the descendants of Ham's youngest son. Now I need to say something about that. I believe this is a prophetic declaration of what is to come.

[46:14] I'm not the only one who thinks that. I think several commentators pointed out this is a prophetic declaration. This curse is something that's going out in a prophetic way.

[46:26] He is foretelling, foretelling what's going to happen. Noah, as he speaks this into his life. So Noah allowed the punishment to fit the nature of the crime. I want to explain this carefully.

[46:38] Ham's sin was against God's design for family. Therefore, Ham's family line would feel the weight of this curse. It's very similar to what Adam and Eve did in their sin.

[46:52] They sinned against their own marriage. The authority that God had designed to be a blessing in their marriage, they sinned against that. And so God said, now you know what's going to happen? We're going to do this thing in a way where you're going to live under a curse that causes the woman to want to throw off your authority and is going to cause the husband to use his authority to lord it over the woman.

[47:13] And there's going to be this competitive battle in that. And the only thing that's going to fix it is the goodness and redemption of Jesus Christ to take you from competitors to being complementers and completers.

[47:24] And it's the power of the gospel that will do that. It's the same thing here. Can Canaanites be saved if they turn to God in faith they can. But the family line is going to suffer the weight of this.

[47:37] Canaan's descendants again, they're going to come to preserve and act out in the wickedness of people who will war against Israel and against Israel conquering the promised land.

[47:49] Now I want to just say this real quickly. Ezekiel 18, don't turn there, but just mark it in your notes. Ezekiel 18 is where God lays out this truth.

[48:00] And so we know that this is not what's happening here in this passage, what I'm about to say. God does not, not, not punish a man's children for the sins of their father.

[48:13] You've heard this? Generational sin? No. Ezekiel 18 debunks that. This is what it says. Quote, the soul who sins will die.

[48:26] Not the souls of those who come after him will bear the punishment of the one who sinned. No. No. The soul who sins will die.

[48:37] So this is an emphasis on individual responsibility. Here's what I'm saying. Ham's ancestors would bear both the character and the consequences of Ham's lifestyle of disobedience.

[48:50] Character creates consequences. And so what he's saying is Ham, you are displaying this character and this behavioral pattern in your life and your kids are going to pick up on that and their ancestors are going to pick up on that and there are going to be consequences for making those kinds of choices from your character.

[49:10] And it's going to be prophetically, it's going to be depicted in the way that they choose to live their lives before the Lord. They're going to choose rebellion. So it's a prophecy.

[49:21] And it's all going to be based in the same character you've displayed. In other words, what we're saying is Ham didn't cause this any more than my dad and his sin causes me to sin.

[49:35] I can't blame that on my dad. Oh, we do. But that's not biblically right. Right? When you guys sin, you sin. So my son can't come to me when he sins and say, Dad?

[49:50] I'm going to go, Jared? That's my son's name. Right? Don't throw that off on me, boy. Now, will my son suffer consequences living in my home and relating to me if I choose to live in disobedience to God?

[50:08] Will there be consequences that my son will receive in a relationship with me if I'm living against God? Yes. Absolutely. Will there be consequences if I'm obeying God and seeking to be a blessing to God and honoring God?

[50:23] Will his relationship with me bear different consequences then? As he relates to me, that's all we're saying. We are not saying that God is in some unfair way taking Ham's sin and making his sons and others pay for Ham's sins.

[50:40] that's not consistent with Scripture. They will reap consequences from the character that's being exposed here. It's a character of rebellion, self, greed, pride.

[50:53] And he's saying prophetically that kind of character is what's going to characterize the people of Canaan. And sure enough, that's exactly what happened. So this can all be traced back to this time.

[51:08] When you look at the word cursed, cursed is used in the same sense as with the serpent in 3.14 and with Cain in Genesis 4.11.

[51:19] So the Bible is emphasizing the line of the seed of the serpent. And that line remains intact after the flood. That's the point. This line of evil, this line of wickedness and self and sin and fighting against God and His will, that is thoroughly intact.

[51:39] It's another way that I step back and look at it and go, oh gosh, I just don't know that this guy is saved, you know. I don't know that he's in the line. It sure doesn't seem like it.

[51:51] So the battle lines are drawn between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent. They're still in place. Just like with Adam and Eve's sin, we see the same spiritual principle of the sins of one affecting the lives of many.

[52:04] The iniquity of one and the indictment of many. Now folks, look, you have a choice. You have a legacy to hand down. And that legacy stands on the shoulders of the character that you pursue and develop in your relationship with Almighty God.

[52:22] That will either be increasingly the character of Jesus being built in your life as you become more and more like Him. Sanctification. Becoming more and more like the character of Jesus in the way you speak, the way you think, the way you prioritize, the way you live and act, or it won't.

[52:41] And the people around you will pay the price either of your disobedience or they will reap the blessings of your obedience. And our kids will be first in line.

[52:55] First in line. There's no guarantee that they'll follow the Lord because that's up to God. But while they're with you, you're trying to offer this blessing. Keep in mind God's gracious inverse of this spiritual reality.

[53:10] The condemnation of one and the justification of many. Amen? The condemnation of one for the justification of many. Oh, this is a beautiful thing. So let's look at this last little bit here.

[53:23] The integrity of some. Shem, Ham, and Japheth, they don't share in Ham's sin to take advantage of and mock their dad, do they? They don't do that.

[53:34] Instead, they take great effort to protect the dignity and the authority of their dad, particularly in a moment of weakness. So this doesn't cause Shem and Japheth to look down on their dad and despise their dad and step back with utter disappointment and say, Oh, dad, how could you?

[53:53] We look up to you. These two men, they quickly devise a plan to cover their father without compromising him or themselves. So what is this?

[54:04] Their response tells us so much about their hearts for the Lord, not just for their dad. They could have just stayed outside the tent after Ham told them.

[54:15] They could have just said, Yeah, well, we're not touching that. He'll sleep it off and wake up and we're not. No. What did they do? Look, this is what godly men do. They couldn't bear to allow their dad to remain in that state even in the privacy of his own tent.

[54:31] Folks, that's respect, concern, compassion, and integrity. Integrity moved these two godly men to take godly action. They couldn't stand back knowing that that wrong is going on and not try to do something to make it right.

[54:46] So there's something else even more evident about God's work in the hearts of Shem and Japheth. Here it is. It's beautiful. They were forgiving toward Noah and his sons. They were forgiving.

[54:58] They forgave their dad as his sons. And that meant something. Dad, I know you're weak. Dad, I know you sin.

[55:09] Dad, I know you make mistakes. Dad, I know that sometimes you mess up. But you know what I've seen, Dad? I've seen it break your heart. I've seen you repent. I've seen you weep over your sin.

[55:21] I see you lead and try to follow Jesus. And you know what, Dad? I'm just going to choose to believe the best about you. Isn't this what we do with each other? I choose to believe the best.

[55:32] And who am I to throw stones at you, Dad? Because I have all that in my life too. I'll never forget. I can't tell you the story now because I've got to move on. I'll never forget the moment I had like that with my dad.

[55:45] When I sat down with my dad and I made that speech to my dad. And the tears. the way that it just he needed to hear that from his son.

[55:57] And it changed our relationship from that time on. And then a little bit later from that my dad got saved. Not because of me but because of what God was doing in his heart.

[56:09] He carried a lot of regret. So these guys, these two brothers made right on a wrong that was within their hearts and power to make right.

[56:19] even though the wrong that they were literally covering was not of their own doing. They were compelled by their godly heart to do it. So for their obedience, for their obedience, Shem and Japheth are blessed.

[56:32] They're rewarded. They're rewarded by their own dad. And what does he say? I bless the Lord. Did you notice that?

[56:44] What does he say? Verse 26. Blessed be the Lord. The God of Shem. And let Canaan be his servant. May God enlarge Japheth.

[56:54] This is wonderful. Because you've chosen to follow the Lord. Your ancestors will know blessing in this character of submission to truth and submission to God.

[57:07] These are the consequences of God's blessing for obedience to his truth. Wonderful. Finally, just a couple comments and we're done.

[57:18] the inheritance of many. Blessed be the Lord, the God of Shem. And let Canaan be his servant. May God enlarge Japheth and let him dwell in the tents of Shem and let Canaan be his servant.

[57:33] Shem's blessing is that he can and he will know the God of grace and mercy, the God of his father Noah. In verse 27, as far as Japheth goes, Japheth is rewarded with the pledge that God will inhabit Japheth's tent as well.

[57:52] I will be with you is the statement for these two men. God will be with you. Why? Because you have chosen to be with the Lord. You have responded to God in faithfulness.

[58:06] And I will dwell with you. On the other hand, the curse of verse 25 is repeated on Ham's sons' descendants. So here's one great lesson, folks. Take this away.

[58:17] There are earthly as well as eternal consequences for those who are faithful to God and for those who are not. And it is not time to play around with that.

[58:29] I can't do it as I close. I can't do it. But I wish I could tell you some stories from the past two months of my life. Yeah.

[58:40] The past two months of my life. Of people that I have dealt with or am currently dealing with. And the tragedy that has befallen these people because they've chosen to be disobedient to God.

[58:54] And it is heart-rending. Heart-rending. Now, for those of you sitting in this moment, I'm not talking about anybody in this room.

[59:08] Okay? These are people outside of this room. There are consequences for people who choose not to be faithful to God.

[59:19] Character creates consequences for your life. Your character will either be increasingly becoming more and more like Jesus by the power of His grace or it won't.

[59:32] You have to decide which road you want to walk, which path you want to take. Will you follow Jesus or will you follow self? That's it.

[59:43] Choose one and you have life. Choose the other. You have suffering and death and the people around you will feel the weight of it. That's how the Bible leaves Noah in his situation with his sons.

[59:56] I mean, it's not all bad. The man lived 950 years with the Lord. So he had a lot more life after this with God before the Lord took him and he was a faithful man. Well, let's pray together.

[60:09] Father, thank you for these extra moments we've had to take the table and to expound on this situation with Noah, your servant. I thank you, Almighty God, that we can glean from his life the reality, the truth that character not only has consequences, it creates them.

[60:29] And so I pray that you will help us to seek the character of Jesus for our own lives, that we will become more and more like you as we give ourselves to your word, your truth. I pray you'll help us to fight laziness, apathy, greed, pride, and just the distraction of building our lives around habits that keep us constantly busy with other things.

[60:52] Help more and more of our lives to reflect that all that we are seeking to do, we do for the glory of Jesus. It's in his name we pray. Amen.