Let me read the first 14 verses
to you, Ezekiel, and we'll go to chapter 16. Again, the Word of the Lord came
unto me, saying, Son of man, cause Jerusalem to know her abominations,
cause her to know disgusting she is, how loathsome she is
in her sinfulness. And say, thus saith the Lord
God unto Jerusalem, thy birth and thy nativity is of the land
of Canaan. That's the land of adultery. Thy father was an Amorite and
thy mother an Hittite. As for thy nativity and the day
that thou was born, thy navel was not cut, neither was thou
washed in water to supple thee. Thou was not salted at all, nor
were you swaddled at all. None I pitted thee to do any
of these unto thee, to have compassion upon thee, but thou was cast
out in the open field. to the loathing of thy person
in the day that thou wast born. And when I passed by thee, and
saw thee polluted in thine own blood, I said unto thee, when
thou wast in thy blood, live. Yea, I said unto thee, when thou
wast in thy blood, live. I have caused thee to multiply
as the bud of the field, and thou hast increased and waxen
great, and thou art come to excellent ornaments. Thy breasts are fashioned,
and thine hair is grown, whereas thou wast naked and bare. Now when I pass by thee, and
looked upon thee, behold thy time was the time of love. And I, I spread my skirt over
thee, I covered thy nakedness. Yea, I swear unto thee, and entered
into a covenant with thee, saith the Lord God, and thou becamest
mine. Then washed I thee with water,
yea, I throughly washed away thy blood from thee, and I anointed
thee with oil. Here, he's already presented
the covering in verse eight, due to a covenant. Verse nine,
there's the cleansing. There's the anointment, there's
the consecration. In verse, here we get to verse
10, here's the clothing. I clothed thee also with broidered
work, and I shod thee with badger skin, and I girded thee about
with fine linen, I covered thee with silk. I decked thee also
with ornaments, I put bracelets upon thy hands, and a chain on
thy neck. And then in verse, Verse 12,
he's crowned them with a crown. He's crowned them with a crown.
I put a jewel on thy forehead, and earrings in thine ears, and
a beautiful crown upon thine head. Thus wast thou decked with
gold and silver, and thy raiment was of fine linen and silk, embroidered
work. Thou didst eat fine flour and
honey and oil, and thou wast exceeding beautiful, and thou
didst prosper into a kingdom. And then in verse 14, here's
their comeliness. Thy renown went forth among the heathen
for thy beauty, for it was perfect through my comeliness which I
have put on thee, saith the Lord God." This is what God does for
his people in the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, let's bow together. Oh, our gracious God, how wonderful
is this salvation that you give to unworthy sinners. You found
us in a state of utter neediness, of nakedness, in our rotten and
sinful, shameful condition. There was nothing that we could
do to help ourselves. Lord, you came to our rescue.
You found us. You washed us. You robed us. You've anointed us. And we're
made beautiful through the very righteousness of Christ Jesus.
Lord, how can we not be filled with thanksgiving? How can we
not be joyful in thee tonight? Oh, how glorious is our great
and sovereign saving God. to do such wonderful things for
those of us who are by nature fallen sons and daughters of
Adam. We're so grateful. You've given
to us a saving interest in Christ Jesus. You've blessed us with
faith. We've reached out in our neediness
to the Lord Jesus. that Savior who has all that
we need and is all that we need for salvation, for everlasting
life. And we're thankful that we are,
according to the scriptures, we're made complete in the Lord
Jesus Christ. Thank you for His bloody death
that satisfied your justice, that washed away all of our sins,
that death that brought in for us everlasting righteousness.
And we wear the name of renown. We're the people of God. And
we have gathered together tonight, Lord, a few of your saints, to
worship, to open the book that you have given to us, to see
what you have to say to us again. of our mighty and glorious Savior,
and of that which you have done and you are doing and you shall
yet do for your people. Bless the sick ones of our congregation. We ask for strength for them
and encouragement for their hearts. We're thankful for some good
news of recovery of some. And we pray, Lord, that you'll
continue to minister healing, if you will, to those of our
group who are in need of your healing mercies. And Lord, if
you're not pleased to grant healing, we ask that you'd grant encouragement
that you would grant them to have a strong faith and reliance
upon Christ and upon the fact that our great God knows exactly
what we all stand in need of. And all things are being worked
according to your will in each of our lives and all things will
work together for good to those who are your people. to those
who are beloved of the Lord, to those who are called according
to your purpose of grace. As we meet tonight, I pray that
you will show us again our Lord Jesus and teach us from the scriptures
of our standing in Him. And once again, remind us of
your everlasting covenant love for your children. Bless these
who are gathered and those who are watching and I pray that
in all things our great God will have all of the glory and the
honor and that you'll do us good, that you'll teach us and that
you'll lift up our spirits, that you'll fill us with joy in Christ
Jesus. Lord, rebuke us if we need rebuking. Lord, humble us if we need to
be if we need to be humbled. Encourage us if we need to be
encouraged. Do that for us which would be
best for us. If it is painful to the flesh,
that's okay. We want to grow in grace and
in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. And we bow to your
will in all things and ask for grace in time of our need. So be with us tonight, and thank
you for the privilege of meeting together. These things we ask
in the name of our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, and for His
sake. Amen. Well, I had announced this past
Lord's Day that I was going to be speaking from Hebrews chapter
11. I'll have to take that statement
back. I'm not going to be speaking from Hebrews 11 tonight. I'm going to Genesis chapter
9. Maybe if God leads me to, I'll
speak from Hebrews 11, the faith of Noah this coming Lord's Day. But this evening I want to go
a little different direction. Here to the end of Genesis, the
ninth chapter, and just talk to you for a little bit about
Noah and his sons. Noah and his sons. As you well know, when we, in
Genesis chapter eight, God has sent the flood and finally it's
over. The judgment of God is over.
The wrath of God has fallen, and He has taken vengeance upon
those who are rebels against Him. He has washed away millions
upon millions of people, washed them in everlasting perdition,
and He has preserved within the ark those who are His people. He has preserved within the ark
His preacher, He is preserved within the ark, his truth, and
he is preserved within the ark, the very promise of the seed
of the woman. As the flood ends and the ark
rests on dry ground, after a proper waiting period, Eight people
leave that ark. The same people who entered into
the ark about a year before this, they walk out a year later. It's the beginning, a new beginning
for the earth. It's a new beginning for them,
for this family of eight souls. A new day has dawned. And I'm sure that these people
were And within their own hearts they
were determined to live right and do right because they don't
want anything like this to ever happen again. It's an awful thing
to disobey God. And the reason for the flood
is because of disobedience against the truth of God. And these eight
souls who come out of the ark, they don't want to see any kind
of devastation like this again. Because when they exit the ark,
all they see is signs of death. Signs of death. There's no life
as they go out there. There's nobody to welcome them.
Everybody's dead. Animals out there, all of the
animals that are alive are in the ark, and they'll be released,
of course. And these who were within the
ark, I'm sure that they purposed in their own souls and in their
own hearts, listen, we don't want this to ever happen again.
We've got to maintain the worship of God. We've got to maintain
the truth. And so they go forth out of the
ark. And it's a happy day. It's a
glorious day for these eight souls. But what they didn't factor in
was this. In addition to Noah and his wife
and his three sons and three daughters-in-law and all of the
animals, there was something else in the ark that was still
sin. It was in the ark. It was within
each of these people. And in a sense, it was a new
earth. It was a new earth. But it was
the same old humanity. That hadn't changed. The problem
has not gone away. It was a new day. But there was
still the exact same old nature that got this earth in a mess
to begin with. When each of these people walked
off the ark, wickedness was within them and walked out with them. They brought the contamination
back out with them. Because God had said that the
imagination of man's heart was only evil continually. He said
that before the flood and he says that after the flood. And
after the flood, he says, even from his youth. Now as I go into this tonight,
Noah and his sons, I'm gonna go about this message which will
begin at verse 18 of chapter nine and go through the end of
the chapter. I wanna go about kind of bringing
an expository message on this by asking five questions. And
here's the first question of the five. Who were the sons of
Noah? Well, look at verses 18 and 19
of Genesis 9. And the sons of Noah that went
forth of the ark were, they were Shem and Ham and Japheth, and
Ham is the father of Canaan. These are the three sons of Noah,
and of them was the whole earth overspread. In other words, all
of the people who live today and who have lived ever since
they came forth out of the ark, we all trace our lineage back
to these three men, and then back to their father Noah, and
of course before that, back to Adam. The first one of these men, his
name is Shem. Which means, it's an unusual
meaning to his name because it just means name. That's what
shem means, it means name. But a rather larger definition
of his name is, he's a name of renown. He has a name of renown. He doesn't just have an ordinary
name, he has a name of renown. Now you remember it was said
of the offspring of the mixed race, that they were men of renown. Go back over to chapter six and
let me show you that. Chapter six and verse four. There
were giants in the earth in those days, and these are the offspring
of the daughters of men, or the sons of God, and the daughters
of men. That is a mixture of believers and unbelievers. The
result were giants in the earth in those days, and also after
that, when the sons of God, they came into the daughters of men,
they bared children to them, He says, the same became mighty
men which were of old, men of renown. Men of renown. Men who were special. Men who
gathered a name to themselves. Men who were unusual. Men who
were well known. But Noah, being a child of God,
and led by the Spirit of the Lord, He names this boy, who
was not his oldest, but he names this boy, he names him Sheolam,
which means a name of renown. He is the one who is a name of
renown. Not the offspring of the believers
and the unbelievers, that is the corrupt ones. They weren't
men of renown. That is, they weren't men of
renown before God. But this man is a man of renown
before God. He is special because he's been
made special by God. He's known of the Lord. He's
one of the Lord's children. He's not the oldest of Noah's
sons, but he is the first name. He's special by grace. He's special
by God's determination. Oh, how privileged and how very,
very special are those who belong to God. Like us tonight, you
know, we're people of renown. Well, Jim, why would you say
that? Because we're the children of
God. I know there are people in the world who have a much
better In the eyes of the world, they have much more important
names. They're much more important people.
They're men of renown. They're men of specialty. They're big men. They're well-known
men. They're powerful men and women
in the world. But we're the children of God.
We're the shims of God. We have the names of renown.
Now are we the sons of God. It does not yet appear what we
shall be, but we know that when He shall appear, we shall be
like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. This man Shem, he has a name
of renown. And one of His offspring, and
we looked at this past Lord's Day evening as we went to the
book of Luke chapter 3. One of His offspring, way down
the line, hundreds of years in the future from this, is the
Lord Jesus. The Lord Jesus. Here is Shem. He's a man of renown. And wait! There's going to come one after
Him who has the name that is above every name. It's the name
of the Lord Jesus. It's the name that God gave Him.
This name was assigned to Him even before He was born. And
the angel of God said, you call His name Jesus? He said that
to Mary and he said it to Joseph, for he shall save his people
from their sins. This is the name which is above
every name. He has the name of renown. So this man Shem, he has a very
special name. A very special name. And by the
way, from this man Shem came the Jewish people. He's the father
of the Jewish people. That is, they will come through
him. Of course, they're not called Jews now. That's not until Abraham
comes. But he is in, Abraham is in the
lineage of Shem. If you'll remember, as we read
there in Luke chapter three this past Sunday evening, the name
of Shem in the New Testament is called Sem. You remember that? S-E-M. Which is, you know what
we get from that? Semitic. We talk about people
who are anti-Semitic. What does that mean? They're
against the Jews. The Semitic people, they came from Shem. Okay? Well then, there's Japheth,
who apparently was the oldest according to Genesis chapter
10 and verse 21. And Japheth's name means opened. Opened. And we believe, and I
think it's very obvious that the Spirit of God taught Noah,
gave to Noah the names of these three sons, and their names are
significant. Opened. And it's generally believed,
and I have no question about this in my own mind, that he
was a believer also, as was Shem. He's a believer also. Because
his name means open. The Lord opened his heart. The
Lord opened his mind, which is what the Lord has to do concerning
spiritual things, just like in Luke chapter 24, when the Lord
opened the minds and the understanding of the disciples on the road
to Emmaus, and then He opened the minds and the hearts of His
own disciples. It's like the Lord opened the
heart of Lydia. so that she attended to the things
that were spoken by the Apostle Paul. He spoke to her of Christ
Jesus. He spoke to her of redemption.
He spoke to her of righteousness. He spoke to her of the necessity
of a bloody sacrifice. And the Spirit of God opened
her heart and she received the things that she heard with her
ears. And this is the meaning of the
name of Japheth. His name means opened. Opened. Thank God for opening grace. There's a wonderful verse found
in Ezekiel 37, 13. I was reading it today. The Lord
said, and ye shall know that I am the Lord. Well, when will
we know that? He says, when I have opened your
graves. When I've opened your graves
and brought you up out of the graves, He has to open our graves
because we're dead in trespasses and sins. And we will only know
that He is the Lord. He is Jehovah who saves when
He opens up our graves and brings us to life in the Lord Jesus. And of course, Isaiah quotes
the father as saying concerning the son of God who would come
in Isaiah 42 in verse seven, he would come to open the blind
eyes and to bring the prisoners from the prison and them that
sit in darkness out of the prison house. The Lord must open the
eyes to the heart so that we'll see the gospel. Now, Japheth,
He became the father of the Gentiles. Okay? He becomes the father of
the Gentiles. The Gentiles come through Japheth. And then thirdly, there is this
man whose name is Ham. Apparently, the youngest. His name means burnt, or hot,
or black. All men are by nature, they're
hot to sin, black with foulness, and black with wickedness. And
his offspring are the black race and those who are of color. Now, let me just kind of insert
something right here. Don't fall into the air of thinking
less of that race. Because, I'll tell you, the Apostle
Paul said on Mars Hill in Athens that God hath made of one blood
all nations of men for to dwell on the face of the earth. We're
all of one blood. So it doesn't matter what the
race is. We're all of one blood. God made Adam. And through him
all men came forth, and when God killed all but eight souls,
all men would have to come from Noah and his three sons. Now,
in the text of all the grandsons of Noah, only one grandson is
mentioned in this chapter. And that is certainly notable. His name is Canaan. Look again
here and go back to chapter nine. Verse 18, the sons of Noah that
went forth of the ark were Shem and Ham and Japheth, and Ham
is the father of Canaan. You get over into, a little deeper
into Genesis, in fact, Genesis chapter 10, you'll find that
many of Noah's grandsons are named, including the first four
sons of Ham. Look at chapter 10 and verse
6, and the sons of Ham, Cush, Mizraim, Futh, and Canaan. There, Canaan is mentioned. But here, the Lord's Spirit leads
Moses to right of Canaan, right here following the three sons
of Noah. We know that Canaan's name means
one who is low, one who is brought into subjection. That's what Canaan means. One
who is low, one who is brought into subjection. And that is
prophetic because if you look at chapter 9 and verses 25 and
26, And he said, that is, Noah said,
excuse me, verse 25, and Noah said, cursed be Canaan, a servant
of servants, shall he be unto his brethren. And he said, blessed
be the Lord God of Shem, and Canaan shall be his servant. Verse 27, God shall enlarge Japheth,
and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem, Canaan shall be his
servant. So in Ham naming his son Canaan,
this was a prophetic thing, predicting what would happen to Canaan and
his seed after him, they would become servants. Now, they inhabited
many of the lands, that is, Canaan and his offspring, they inhabited
many of the lands, including the land that God would give
Israel. The land of promise. But that
land of promise, most of the time in the Old Testament, we
know the name of it. The land of Canaan, right? That's what it's always called.
Most of the time it's called that. The land of Canaan. The land of Canaan. Now, who
wrote the Pentateuch? Well, Moses did. Right, we're
all agreed, that's a historical fact. He wrote the first five
books of the Bible, and most agree that he wrote the first
five books of the Bible during the 40 years of wandering, of
the Israelites wandering out in the wilderness. most likely
finishing it just before God takes him within sight of the
land of Canaan, of the promised land, and of course he couldn't
go in. God prohibited him from going in. But before he passed
away, before he left them, he said to Israel, he said to Joshua
and to the rest of Israel, when you get into that land of promise,
kill all the Canaanites. They must be destroyed. Now remember who Canaan was. He was one of the grandsons of
Noah. Noah, Ham and Canaan and then
his offspring. Because his offspring, they became
the enemies of Shem. And you can get over into chapter
10 and read through these different names. And the names are significant
because all of his posterity and those nations that came forth
from him, they all hated the people of God. They were the
enemies of God right from the get-go. No wonder then that Noah
pronounced a curse upon Canaan. And he pronounced that curse
by the leadership of the Lord. Cursed be Canaan. Why should
Canaan be cursed? Because he is in opposition to
the people of God. He's in opposition to Shem. He's in opposition to Japheth. He's in opposition to Jehovah. He hates the things of God. And
his posterity will vent their fury and their anger and their
wrath on all the seed of Shem and Japheth. And so Moses, he
tells them, he tells the Israelites, They've got to cross over the
Jordan River. Before they get that far, He
warns them of the Canaanites and He says, when you get into
the land of promise, you must destroy the Canaanites and all
those other ites that you'll find in the land of promise. And I'm sure that they If I had been one of them, I
would be wondering, why should we do that? Boy, that's cruel. You're saying, wipe out a whole
bunch of people? Just kill them all? Kill the
children? Don't you think that's too severe? Well, before Moses left, he gave
the Pentateuch to them, undoubtedly to Joshua, who read the scriptures
to the Israelites. And they read about this. That's
when they received it, you see? That's when they received the
Word of God. After Moses, inspired by the
Holy Spirit, finishes writing these first five books of the
Bible, and also some of the book of Psalms, and some say Job,
We won't even get into that discussion tonight. But for sure, these
first five books of the Bible, they began to read them. No doubt
Joshua began to read to the people. And they read about what Noah
said, Cursed be Canaan. He's a servant. He's to be a
servant of Shem. He's to be a servant of Japheth. He's the lowest of the low. And they begin to understand
why they must be exterminated. They're under the curse of God.
They're under the curse of God. You see, the Canaanites became
ruthless people. These descendants of Canaan. And God says, kill them all.
Kill them all. All right. So we'll go that far. Now here's the second question,
because I gotta move on. What were the sins of Noah and
Ham? So we'll go back to chapter nine,
and let me just keep on reading now. Look at verse 20. And Noah
began to be a husbandman. He began to be a farmer. By the
way, a lot of parallels between Noah and Adam. Might bring that out this Lord's
Day. Adam was a husbandman. He was
a farmer. Till the ground, God told him.
Take care of all the earth, the gardens and so forth. So Noah
began to be a husbandman. He planted a vineyard, nothing
wrong with that. And he drank of the wine and
was drunken. And he was uncovered within his
tent. What was Noah's sin? Well, he
got drunk. He got drunk. And his drunkenness
and his drunken stupor led him to strip off his clothes and
he brought shame to himself. Now Noah, he was a sinner all
of his life. I mentioned this to Nancy Sunday
night. I thought, you know, Noah, he
was just like all the men of the Bible. He was a sinner. Yeah,
he's a sinner saved by grace. We're thankful for that. His
name means rest or one who rests. He rested in the Lord. He's washed
in the blood of the Lord Jesus. He's robed in His righteousness.
God says that Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. He was
a just man and perfect in his generation. And God said in Genesis
chapter 7, Come thou into the ark, for I have found thee righteous
before me. He's a righteous man, but he's
still a sinner. just like all of us are still
sinners. We're righteous, we're justified
by the righteousness of the Lord Jesus that has been freely imputed
to us, and we're washed in the blood of the Lamb of God. All
of our sins are forgiven, but in ourselves, we're still polluted
people, we're still sinful people. And that was the case with Noah. Of the thousands and thousands
of the sins of Noah, And this is what I was mentioning to Nancy.
I said, this is the only one that's pointed out. Isn't that
interesting? You know, hey, you live what,
950 years. You've done millions of sins. And God pulls out one. Just one
illustration. He could have pulled out any
he wanted to, but this was the one that God the Spirit led Moses
to write about. And, you know, as we think about
it, well, drunkenness is bad, but it didn't hurt anybody. There
are some sins that have far worse consequences, and you're correct
in that. See, all sins are evil, right? Every sin is evil, but every
sin doesn't bring about the same result or consequence. There
are some sins that have no effect upon anybody else. It only affects
the one who sins. And I think lots of people, as they evaluate their own life,
they think something like this, if I can just avoid the big sins,
the real big ones, I'll be okay. And you say, well, drunkenness
ain't exactly a big sin because it's been millions and millions
and millions of people who have got drunk. But I think, and this is just
my two cents worth. It's my opinion. I think the
Lord put this in there lest we think that there are any little
sins. Every sin is an offense against
God. And every sin demands a just
recompense of reward. And it doesn't matter what it
is. And we may think little of it. And we may even make light
of it, of drunkenness. I was asking Nancy, I couldn't
remember, I said, who was that drunk on Andy Griffiths? She
said, Otis. And when Otis came on, it was a funny thing, right?
It was a laughing matter. Dean Martin, you know, he'd come
on and act like he was drunk and several other people. But
it really isn't anything to laugh about. Because this sure caused some
trouble for Brother Noah. It was just drunkenness. Drunkenness
was wrong back then, it's wrong now. You know, somebody drinks
a little bit too much gets, I'm just a little tipsy, and people
laugh. Well, it's still sin. Nothing
to laugh about. And drunkenness, like every other
sin, Like every other sin of Noah, this sin of drunkenness,
you know what it took to satisfy God's justice? The death of the
Lord Jesus Christ. So it's nothing to laugh about. Nothing at all. And as a result
of getting drunk, he just stripped himself of all of his clothing.
And that's the thing about drunkenness, it can lead to other things. Proverbs says wine is a mocker. And to drink to excess is destructive. And it causes people to, oftentimes,
to lose their inhibitions. That's why Habakkuk 2.15 says,
Woe unto him that giveth his neighbor drink, that putteth
the bottle to him, and makest him drunk, and also that thou
mayest look on their nakedness. Drunkenness is wrong, it's sinful. Moderation is the rule. That's
the rule. Drunkenness got locked in trouble. And two daughters, after God
burned down the cities of Sodom to more than the plains, his
two daughters, they talked among themselves, said, where are we
going to find a man? so we can have children. One
of them said, I'm going to get dad drunk. I'll go lie with him. She did. Well, he got drunk. He didn't know what he was doing.
And then that girl, she went and told her sister, said, I
got dad drunk last night. I'll lay with him. And she said,
well, I'll do the same thing. Drunkenness. Drunkenness. It's wrong. and it's sinful. Now, there are lots of theories
as we get over to the nakedness of Noah. That is, what if anything else
is meant by his nakedness? It says that Ham, the father,
if you'll look at verse 22, Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the
nakedness of his father and he told his two brethren without
What is this to see the nakedness of it? Well, you can read Leviticus
chapter 18, and Israel is repeatedly warned not to uncover the nakedness
of anyone. And included in that list is
to uncover the nakedness of a person meant to discover that they were
having an illicit affair. But that is not mentioned here.
And I won't go any further than the Bible goes on this. All we
know for certain is that Noah got drunk, he took off his clothes,
and he disgraced himself. We don't need to take the foolishness of Noah
or the immodesty of Noah and turn it into some sort of fornication
or some sinful sexual act either by himself or with another person
other than his wife. It just isn't mentioned here.
He embarrassed himself and he wasn't even aware of what he
was doing. He lost control. It's another danger of drunkenness. You see, nakedness. Before the fall, Adam
and Eve were naked and there was no shame. But after the fall,
recognizing their nakedness, they were ashamed. and they sought
covering. And men and women who have any
degree of morality ever since have worn clothes. I know that nudists, pornographers, exhibitionists,
they say that nakedness is a virtue. It's just getting back to nature.
Well, let me tell you something. People who are civilized wear
clothes. And they dress modestly. Immodesty is wrong. Well, what is the sin of this
son, Ham? What is his sin? He came in and
he saw his father in this state, in his nakedness, and instead
of covering up his father, Instead of hiding that shame. Instead
of coming in and saying, oh dad, what in the world are you doing?
And covering it up. And then not saying anything
about it. You see, the scripture says that
true love hides a multitude of transgressions. That's what it
says. But instead of doing that, in fact, the word here in verse
22, the word saw means to look upon with some degree of delight.
He kind of got a kick out of this. To see his father lose control. He'd never seen anything like
this before and he got some awful delight in it. And rather than
covering up his father, rather than honoring his father, Scripture
says, honor your mother and your father that your days may be
long upon the earth. That's what it says in the law. Instead of doing that, he just
leaves his dad and he goes out and he tells his brother, you'll
never guess how I found dad. He's in there stone drunk and
naked. Y'all go in there and look at
him. See, that's what he had done. Ham, this is his sin. He did not attend to his father. He didn't show him any respect.
But rather he goes out and he tells his two brethren, but look
at verse 23, and Shem and Japheth, they took a garment. They laid
it upon both their shoulders and they go backward. They covered
the nakedness of their father and their faces were backward
and they saw not their father's nakedness. They covered him over. And I think of Genesis in the
third chapter when Adam and Eve had tried to cover their own
nakedness and God says to them, in effect, your covering will
not do. I'll cover you. And He killed
animals, and He skinned them, and He covered our fallen parents
with garments that would really cover them. And I read to you
from Ezekiel chapter 16, the Lord said of His people who were
as babes who were cast out to their loathing, in their nakedness. The Lord said, I pass by you,
and it was a time of love. And I said, till you live, and
I spread my skirt over your nakedness. That is the righteousness of
Christ Jesus. And I believe here in this act. of both Shem and Japheth in covering
up the nakedness of their father is a wonderful picture of what
the Savior does for us. We have brought shame on ourselves. We have brought disgrace upon
ourselves in our fall. We're naked before God. And our
Lord Jesus comes to the rescue. And He covers us over. so that
our shame is not seen. We're made the righteousness
of God in Jesus Christ. Well, verse 24. And I've already answered my
third question by the way. What did Shem and Japheth do?
They covered up their dad. They covered him up. And here's the fourth question.
Then what did Noah do? Verse 24, and Noah awoke from
his wine, and he knew what his younger son had done unto him.
How did he know? That's a good question. How did
he know? I would say he knew because,
what am I covered with? This is not my cover. And I would
think he'd called his sons in and said, hey boys, Does this
covering belong to y'all? Yeah, Dad. Well, how come it's
over me now? And they told him the whole story.
The whole story. And we get down to verse 25.
And he said, let's just stop right there. You know, we started
learning about Noah way back over here in chapter 6 and verse
8. He hasn't said a word. until
right now. It's interesting, isn't it? This
is his first word that he speaks. And he has words of cursing and
words of blessing. That's all Noah's got to say. Nine hundred and fifty some years,
and this is all that's recorded, that Noah said words of cursing,
words of blessing. And he said, Cursed be Canaan. The servant of servants shall
he be unto his brethren. Cursing. He curses Canaan. Now, why not curse Ham? That's the
question. Well, I've got the answer. He can't curse Ham. The reason
is because Ham's been blessed. You can't curse somebody that
God has blessed. How do you know God blessed him?
Well, look at chapter 9 and verse 1. And God blessed Noah and his
sons. You can't curse somebody God
has blessed. God has blessed Noah and his
three sons. Moreover, God made with Noah
and his three sons a covenant. Look at verse eight. And God
spake unto Noah and to his sons with him, saying, and I behold,
I will establish my covenant with you, all four of you, on
behalf of the generations that will follow. So Ham has been blessed. Ham
has been blessed. That leads me to say this. That
means either at that point or later, Ham is a believer or he's
going to be a believer. That's the only conclusion you
can draw. Listen, if you've been blessed of God, who's been blessed
of God? All of his people. We're blessed
with every spiritual blessing in heavenly places in Christ
Jesus. If God blessed Ham, that means
that he was at that time a believer or he would become a believer.
Now, we know that the sins of the fathers are passed on to
the children, right? Scripture teaches that. Well,
you mean Ham? A child of God? And he sinned,
but the results of his sin passed on to Canaan? Isn't that what
happened with David? It's exactly what happened with
David. Nathan said to David, evil is
not going to depart from your family as a result of what you
did. That was the curse of God. on
Absalom and others in David's family as well. The sin of the
fathers and the consequences of those sins are often passed
along to the children. But you might ask this, and forgive
me for going a little long tonight, but I would really like to finish
this. You might ask this, well, why
not curse one of the other sons of Ham? or it read to you, had
four sons. Why curse Canaan? Well, my thought on that would
be apparently the other three sons of Ham were converted or
would be converted and therefore they couldn't be cursed either.
That's the only thing that makes sense to me. Does that make sense
to you? Perhaps this is just a sovereign
act of God who determined the future of all four sons of Ham
and the future of Canaan would be for his posterity to set themselves
against the chosen people of God and bear his wrath. He cursed
Canaan. But look, the next thing he did
in verse 26, he pronounced a blessing It's amazing to me how many of
the commentators miss this. Because they'll say, God blessed,
He blessed Canaan, or He cursed Canaan, excuse me, and He blessed
Shem. No. He blessed the Lord God of
Shem. That's what it says. He blessed
the Lord God of Shem. He worshipped God. The Lord God,
Jehovah who saves. He blessed him. And then he said
in Canaan, she'll be his servant. And in verse 27, here is a wonderful
prophecy. And this is what Noah continues
to say. God, and that means the Almighty
One, he shall enlarge Japheth, And he shall dwell in the tents
of Shem. He shall dwell in the tents of
Shem. Here you have the Gentiles and
the Jews becoming one people. In who? In Christ Jesus. Ephesians. The second chapter
teaches that. The partition is broken down
and we're one in the Lord Jesus Christ. We're one family in Him
and Canaan shall be His servant. And then the last thing quickly,
what happened to Noah? Well, Noah lived after the flood
350 years. 350 years. Did you know his life extended beyond the early days
of Abraham? He was alive in the early days
of Abraham. I wonder if they talked. I wonder
if they fellowshiped. I wonder what Noah had to say
to brother Abraham. All the days of Noah were 950
years. But watch this. Oh, he's a child of God. Oh yeah. But he died. He died. And note this. And this is another
thing I was thinking about today. This section begins with Noah's
sin. It's only fitting it ends with
his death. Because sin when it is finished, bringing forth death. Death. And for you history majors, the historians back in those
days say that Noah's funeral was preached by Melchizedek, who met Abraham himself. I don't know how true that is,
there's no biblical basis for that, but that's what the Arab
historians say, that Noah's funeral was presided over by Melchizedek. Thank God he's covered us in
the righteousness of Christ Jesus. We've just disgraced ourselves,
but God is full of grace. to the fallen. And He's made
us to be men and women of renown because our Savior is the man
of renown. He has the name that is most
precious to God and most precious to us. So we'll sing that song
as our last hymn