If you would, open your Bibles
with me to Psalm 67. Psalm 67. It's hard to find the words to
say how happy I am Joyce Brown is back with us. I know everybody
is. What an answer to prayer. We're very thankful. Very thankful.
Psalm 67. God be merciful unto us. and
bless us, and cause his face to shine upon us, that thy way
may be known upon earth, thy saving health among all nations. Let the people praise thee, O
God, let all the people praise thee. O let the nations be glad
and sing for joy, for thou shalt judge the people righteously
and govern the nations upon earth. Let the people praise thee, O
God, let all the people praise thee. Then shall the earth yield
her increase, and God, even our own God, shall bless us. God
shall bless us, and all the ends of the earth shall fear him.
All right, Sean, you come lead us in our singing, if you would. Okay, if you would, turn to song
number 287. 287. Like a River Glorious. Like a river glorious is God's
perfect peace, over all victorious in its bright increase. Perfect yet it floweth Fuller
every day Perfect yet it groweth Deeper all the way Stayed upon
Jehovah, hearts are fully blessed, Finding as He promised, perfect
peace and rest. Hidden in the hollow of His blessed
hand, Never foe can follow, never traitor stand. Not a surge of worry, not a shade
of care. Not a blast of hurry, touch the
spirit there. State upon Jehovah, hearts are
fully blessed, finding as He promised perfect peace and rest. Every joy or trial falleth from
above, traced upon our dial by the Son of Love. We may trust Him fully, all for
us to do. They who trust Him wholly find
Him wholly true. ? State upon Jehovah ? ? Hearts
are fully blessed ? ? Binding as he promised ? ? Perfect peace
and rest ? Okay, if you would now turn to
song number 351, Near the Cross. Jesus keep me near the cross
There a precious fountain Free to all a healing stream Flows
from Calvary's mountain In the cross, in the cross be my glory
ever, till my raptured soul shall find rest beyond the river. Near the cross a trembling soul,
love and mercy found me, there the bright and morning star sheds
its beams around me. In the cross, in the cross be
my glory ever. Till my raptured soul shall find
rest beyond the river. Near the cross, O Lamb of God,
bring its scenes before me. Help me walk from day to day
with its shadows o'er me. In the cross, in the cross be
my glory ever. Till my raptured soul shall find
rest beyond the river. Near the cross I'll watch and
wait, hoping, trusting, Till I reach the golden strand,
just beyond the river. In the cross, in the cross, be
my glory ever. ? Till my raptured soul shall
find ? ? Rest beyond the river ? If you would, for our scripture
reading, open your Bibles with me to Genesis chapter nine. Genesis chapter nine. We'll begin
our reading in verse 18. And the sons of Noah that went
forth of the ark were Shem, 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. And Noah began to
be in husband and he planted a vineyard And he drank the wine
and was drunken. And he was uncovered within his
tent. And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of
his father and told his two brethren without. And Shem and Japheth
took a garment and laid it upon both their shoulders and went
backward and covered the nakedness of their father. And their faces
were backward and they saw not their father's nakedness. And
Noah awoke from his wine and knew what his younger son had
done unto him. And he 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. God shall enlarge
Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem, and Canaan
shall be his servant. And lo, Noah lived after the
flood 350 years, and all the days of Noah were 950 years,
and he died. Thank God for his word. Let's
bow together in prayer. Our father, which art in heaven,
holy and reverent is your matchless name. Lord, we bow before you
in awe and reverence and worship. And we beg of you that you would
give us a blessing from your word tonight, that you might
be pleased to open your storehouses of grace and reveal yourself
and your glory to your people. Oh, Father, how we beg of you
that you would be gracious to us, that you would be gracious
to this people, that you'd be gracious in saving your people,
gracious in giving life, that you would be gracious in keeping
us and preserving us, that you would be gracious and patient
in teaching us, causing us to learn and grow in your grace,
that we might be help, not a discouragement one to another. Father, in your
time, you may glorify us by your mercy and by your grace. We know
it has to be by your grace because we can't do anything to deserve
the least of thy mercies or thy blessings. Father, I beg of you
that you be merciful tonight. Speak to us through your word.
Comfort and instruct the hearts of your people. Move and in your
mysterious power of your spirit and give life to the dead, we
pray. Father, we thank you for the
many blessings of this life. You have blessed this congregation
so richly. And Father, we're thankful. We
know we haven't deserved any of all these heaping blessings
that you so freely bestowed upon us. It's all because of your
purpose and your grace, and we're thankful. Father, we thank you.
For answering prayer, we thank you for bringing our sister Joyce
back to us. She might worship together with
us. Father, that you would continue to bless and strengthen and be
with her in a mighty way. Father, we continue to pray for
those who still need you. They're in great times of trial
and difficulty. We pray for Barb as she's recovering. You restore her to us quickly.
Novi, as she's awaiting this kidney, Father, that you would
provide. It doesn't take us long, Father,
to see how helpless and hopeless we are. We cast all these cares
at thy feet. You know the care and the desire
of every heart here. And Father, we cast them at thy
feet. We have no one else to turn to but thee. And we pray
for the grace to lovingly, willingly bow to thy will, whatever it
may be in each of these matters. All these things we ask, and
that name which is above every name, In the name of Christ our
Savior, amen. I'd like to start this evening
by asking you a question. Do you know that sinners are
saved by grace? That's the title of this message
tonight. Did you know that sinners are saved by grace? Now I know
that's something that we know, that's a phrase you hear around
here frequently. But I'm asking, do we know it?
Do we really believe that? Do we believe that we're saved
by grace, God's free grace alone? And I want to, I hope we do.
I know, I know we know that. I hope we believe that. And tonight
I'd like to give you several good lessons, things that we
can learn from our text tonight. And I want to preach the gospel
to us and close by making sure that this, this gospel of God's
free grace is applied right to our hearts. right to our hearts. And maybe we can leave here saved,
we can leave here with our hearts comforted, trusting in our God. Now the first lesson that I want
us to learn from our text this evening is this, that by nature,
we are totally depraved. Sin is alive and well in every
believer. And we see an example of that
in Noah, beginning here in verse 18 of Genesis chapter nine. And
the sons of Noah that went forth of the ark 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. And
Noah began to be in husbandmen, and he planted a vineyard, and
he drank of the wine and was drunken, and he was uncovered
within his tent." Now I would like for us to think about Noah's
life up to this point. However it was that Noah lived,
you know, before the flood, Noah has described us as a righteous
man, as a just man, as a man of faith. And there came a day
that God came and told Noah what he was going to do. He was going
to destroy the earth with a flood. And Noah found grace in the eyes
of the Lord. God told Noah that you found grace in my sight.
And because of that, I'm going to deliver you from drowning.
in this flood. I'm going to do that for you
by my grace. He gave him the instructions to build the ark
so that Noah would be delivered from the flood. Almighty God
came and revealed himself to Noah. You think about that, how
wonderful that that is. God brought Noah through the
flood. He brought him off of the ark. And when Noah came off
the ark, God blessed Noah. He blessed him and blessed his
sons. God revealed his covenant of grace to Noah. And God understood
the weakness of human beings, and he gave a token to Noah. He put that rainbow in the sky
as a token to tell Noah, tell Noah, I'll remember my promise
to you, that I won't destroy the earth anymore again with
water, to comfort Noah's heart. Now you gotta remember, in 600
years of Noah's life, he never one time saw it rain. And the
first time he saw it rain, the earth was destroyed. Noah didn't
know it could stop raining. Yeah. You know then what he had
to think the next time he saw it start raining and how gracious
was God to give him that promise that he's not going to destroy
the earth again with the water. And they give him a beautiful token up
there in the sky. He could see God's going to remember
his promise not to destroy the earth again with water. God was
so gracious to him and giving him that covenant and God blessed
him. He came off of the Ark and God,
preserved him and blessed him. And you told him I'm going to
overspread the earth and give people from your sons. And after
all of that, you'd think a person would think that Noah would be
so careful in how he conducted himself and the rest of his life.
He'd be so careful to not ever sin again. You think Noah would
live the rest of his days in constant thanksgiving and constant
faith in God. You'd think Noah would just not
ever think about anything going on in this world. He'd just,
he would just be separate from that and all he'd ever think
about is spiritual matters. He'd just, you'd think that's
what he'd live, wouldn't you? Now I'm confident Noah wanted to
live that way. Every believer does. Don't you
want to live that way? I mean I'm sure you don't get
up in the morning thinking, How can I sin today? You wake up
in the morning thinking, oh, I don't want to sin today. Lord,
help me. I don't want to do something like that today. Noah wanted
to live that way. He sure did. But very soon, Noah
fell into sin. You know why Noah did that? After
all he experienced, after all of God's grace to him, you know
why Noah fell into sin like we just read? Because Noah is a
son of Adam. He got Adam's nature and he can't
do anything else. What is in his flesh? He can't,
the flesh can't do anything but sin. Now Noah is a man of faith. Scripture describes him as a
just man, but there can't be any doubt that Noah and us, you
know, when I'm talking about Noah, please remember I'm talking
here about us. We all receive a totally depraved
nature from Adam's seed. It's the only nature our daddy
has to pass on to us. And even though God saves his
people, they're born again, they have a holy, righteous nature,
that nature of sin will be alive and well in us until this body
dies. And the sin, the action of that
sinful nature is gonna be seen far too often. We hate it, we're
gonna strive against it, but it's a fact of life, isn't it?
That old man's gonna make himself known. All right, here's the
second thing. Our total depravity makes us
completely dependent upon the Lord. Totally depraved people
have to be a totally dependent people, don't they? Since we're
totally depraved and everything that we do is in, that has to
mean We're totally dependent upon the Lord to save us. We
can't do anything to contribute to that work. God has to do all
of the work for us because we can't do one thing for ourselves.
We're totally dependent on the Lord to save us. And after the
Lord saves us, after he reveals himself to us, he sits us down
in a place where the gospels preach. He teaches us by his
word. He blesses us with his word. and we're still totally
dependent upon the Lord to keep us, aren't we? Completely dependent,
completely. I hope we've been delivered from
thinking too hard about what Noah did here, because let me
ask you this. What test can you pass on your
own? What test of faith can you pass
on your own? What sin is it that you can be
tempted with and you'll just overcome it and not fall prey
to it. Name one. There's not one, is there? There's
not one. What good thing is it that you
can do on your own? What good thing is it you can
do to make God happy? Name one. How long can the Lord
leave you alone and you'll keep trusting Christ? If He takes
His finger off of you, how long will you keep trusting? How long
will it be till you fail? Not very long, is it? See, we
fail every one of those tests if we're left to our own strength. That's why we're totally dependent.
We're dependent on the Lord to save us. We're dependent on Him
to keep us. And the only thing a totally
dependent person can do is pray. Lord, help me. Lord, I don't
have the strength. Lord, you do it. And we're to pray at all times
about everything. The believer's to pray about
all things. You think of so many great things
that happen. Of course you pray for those
things. But how often do we just leave
the house to run down to the grocery store or run down to
the hardware store? Did I ask anybody to pray that
I might come back safe? Because I'm telling you, I can't
do that. any more than I can preach. I mean, I spend a lot
of time praying before I can preach. But now, how much time
do I spend before I run down their lows? We're dependent on everything,
everything. Completely, totally depraved
people are totally dependent people. We have to be constantly
in prayer. God help us. God help us in everything. Here's the third thing. The scriptures,
Teach moderation in all things. Now Noah got drunk here and I
told you Sunday about Greek words. I'm no Greek scholar and here's
the newsflash for you. I'm no Hebrew scholar either,
but I know places you can look up words and meanings and things.
And from the meaning of these words, Noah got drunk and he
acted a fool. He acted a fool. The word uncovered.
means that he said that he was uncovered, means it was an intentional
act. He intentionally got drunk. He
was intentionally uncovered. I mean, it sounds like Noah was
just making merry. It sounds like he started running
around naked or something. I mean, you know, this was an
intentional act. Now, we all know that was out
of character, don't we? That's out of character for Noah.
That's out of character for a man who's described as a just man,
an honest man. But he did that. Because he was
under the influence. He just acted out of character.
And I warn all of us, I particularly warn our young people, please
listen to me. Be mighty careful with alcohol. Be mighty, mighty careful with
it. And you young people, don't even touch it. There's laws in
place for what age you can start having those things. Until then,
don't you even touch a drop of it. Just don't touch it. Now
listen, it's not good for you. It's not good for your grown
minds and your grown bodies. We love you all so much. We want
the best for you. Don't derail yourself this way,
OK? Just don't, please don't do that. Please remember that.
And those of us who are aging, when you get of age and you can
go and order these things, these alcoholic drinks and so forth,
use it with moderation. Use it with moderation. I heard
a story the other day about this person. This is the way they
want to live their life. They work all week and Friday
night and Saturday night. They just wanted to go out and
drink and just lay hungover all Saturday and Sunday. Now, anybody
that's ever had a hangover, I can't imagine why you want to do that.
I mean, I just can't imagine. Use things in moderation. You'd
just be happier. And don't use these things to
excess. You'd go out and embarrass yourself.
Just like Noah. Noah embarrassed himself here.
He embarrassed himself in front of his family. He embarrassed
himself in public. And it can just cause you so
much harm. It can put you in very dangerous
situations. That's why I warned my daughters
when they went to college. I've been to college. I know about these things. I'm
telling you. You get into a place where everybody's just, you know,
out of their minds drunk like this, you're putting yourself
in a dangerous situation, just don't do it. Don't do it. Scripture
teaches us moderation of alcohol, and you know what teaches us
moderation, let's remember this, in everything. In everything. Everything in this world is here
for the believer's use. Scripture even describes the
wine, that the Lord gave wine to make the heart of man merry.
But not to act like Noah did. Use everything in moderation.
Everything. Use things for the purpose that
God gave them. And keep them in their place.
And you're going to be a whole lot happier for doing it. And
here's another warning here. This word uncovered also indicates
that this was a one-time This is not something that Noah made
a habit of doing, but he did it this time. And you know, sadly,
sadly, for people that know the stories of scripture and different
things, one of the things Noah is remembered for is getting
drunk and passing out. We began this study of Noah.
You know the scriptures. I'm sure there's two things you
thought of, Noah and the ark and Noah and his vineyard. Two
things you thought of about Noah. Now after Noah got off the ark,
he lived 350 years. That's a long time. That's longer
than this country, this nation has been a nation. And the one
thing we know Noah did in that time was this act. I feel sorry for him. I feel
sorry for him. And I say this to you and to
me. Be careful what you do. You never know what is the thing
is going to be recorded. You'll be remembered for. Don't
let it be this. Act like he got some scenes.
Act like he got some wisdom. All right, here's fourth thing. Love covers a multitude of scenes. Look here at verse 22 and ham,
the father of Canaan saw the nakedness of his father and told
his two brethren without and Shem and Japheth took a garment
and laid it upon both their shoulders and went backward and covered
the nakedness of their father and their faces were backward
and they saw not their father's nakedness. Now we read earlier
about how Ham and Canaan are cursed because of this thing
and Ham's sin here is not just happening to see his father's
nakedness. His sin is exposing it. His sin is exposing it. and telling
everybody about it. You remember nakedness. What
is the first thing that we remember seeing in scripture about nakedness?
It's Adam and Eve. Before the fall, they were naked
and they were not ashamed. The moment Adam ate that fruit,
both of them, both of them. Eve didn't become ashamed when
she ate the fruit. She didn't know she was naked when she ate
the fruit. Eve knew she was naked when Adam ate the fruit, because
he's her federal head. And the moment that Adam ate
that fruit, what does scripture say? They knew they were naked
and were ashamed. Nakedness is a picture of sin,
of the shame of sin. Now Ham saw his father's nakedness
and wanted to expose his father's sin. He went out and told his
brothers about Noah being passed out drunk. He could have kept
that to himself, couldn't he? He could have kept it secret,
but he didn't. He went out and told his brothers that. And here's
what he was doing. He went out and told his brothers,
I want you to come here and look at this old man. He's such a
hypocrite. He calls himself a preacher of
righteousness. He's been preaching to us righteousness. He's been
preaching to us about God's grace and God's mercy. He's been telling
us about this God who's holy and rules over all. We worship
him. I want you to look at this hypocrite. He's down there drunk,
passed out in his tent. He calls himself a man of faith
and he got drunk and ran around naked. Now I want you to just
look what a hypocrite. That's what Ham was saying. And I'm
telling you what Ham should have done. He should have quietly
covered his father, closed the tent door, and let him sleep
it off. And if he wanted to do anything
more than that, if he wanted to talk to his father about it,
he ought to have gone into his tent and closed the door and
talked about it in private. That's exactly what he should
have done. That's what love does. That's what covers a multitude
of sins. And that's what Shem and Japheth
did. They covered their father's sin. They covered his shame. Now,
we need to remember this. You know, I ask you, did you
know that sinners are saved by grace? We're saved by grace.
Well, did you know we're still sinners in this flesh? And all
we do is sin. And from time to time, it's gonna
cause problems. It's gonna hurt somebody. It's
gonna be a shameful thing that we do. And as much as is possible,
as much as is possible, we ought to cover one another's sins.
We ought not be talking about it. We ought not be talking about
it to each other, and just, can you believe what they did? They
said, we ought to cover one another's sins instead of exposing our
brethren. I mean, we don't need to expose
somebody's sin to know they're sinners. Of course, I am too. We all are. And I say that, I
guess in this day and time, this is something I also have to say
this. I hope you know what I'm talking
about. Now, we're not to cover Abuse, a wife being abused, a
child being abused, a crime, you know, we're not to cover
that up. No, sir. I'm talking about just
being a tailbearer and just exposing somebody's sin just to make them
look bad so I look better. Love covers a multitude of sins.
And I tell you we need to take note of this. I think this is
very interesting. When Ham exposed his father's sin, he did, he
exposed Noah's sin, didn't he? He did. But you know what else
he did? He exposed himself. Ham, I'm just assuming, gave
some testimony or whatever that he claimed to believe what his
father was saying. I mean, he's with his father
here. He claimed to believe grace.
He claimed to believe that we're saved because we found grace
in the eyes of the Lord. But really what he believed is
our works can contribute to salvation. That our works make it better
and grace alone is not really enough. That's what he, see when
he exposed Noah's sin and called him a hypocrite. What he really
did is exposed himself. I really don't believe salvation
is by grace alone. Otherwise the sin, you know,
wouldn't be so shameful and cause somebody to lose their salvation
or, You know, and please understand, there's never an excuse to sin. But when a believer sins, it
doesn't make them a hypocrite. You know what makes them? A sinner
saved by grace. A sinner saved by grace. And
if we start gossiping about our brethren and the things that
they've done, how shameful, how awful this is that they've done
that, what we're really doing is we're exposing ourself as
a hypocrite, thinking I'm better than somebody else because of
what I do, what I don't do. instead of God's grace being
all. And I'll go back to what I said in Sunday's message. You
know what your motivation to do this, to cover one another's
sin? I mean, besides the fact you love one another, you ought
to. I mean, you ought to. You and our motivation to cover
one another's sin is Christ is all. In love, that the human mind
cannot comprehend, the Lord Jesus Christ covered the sin of his
elect with his own blood. It's like he chose, I'll die
rather than expose the sin of my elect. I'll die, I'll die
to cover it. Now, you and I, we could cover
one other sin just by not talking about it. When Christ covered
the sin of his people, He covered it with his sin atoning blood.
And he didn't cover it like it's still there, nobody can see it.
With his sin atoning blood, he made that sin not to exist anymore. He died to make sure that happened,
rather than expose the sin of his people, rather than expose
them to the judgment of God. Oh my. Doesn't that message of
salvation, isn't that grace? That the Son of God would die
for the likes of you and me? That He'd die rather than expose
our sin? Oh, that thrills the heart, doesn't it? Well, there
ought to be a reaction to that. I know I can't be just exactly
like my Savior. I can't be as perfect as Him,
but buddy, I sure want to be. That gives me the motivation
to cover somebody else's sin, doesn't it? In my sin, Oh my
goodness, it's the worst imaginable sin. It's the most corrupt, the
most vile, the nature of sin. If the Son of God can cover that
for me, I believe I can cover your little missteps. Your sin
is not really a big deal compared to mine. I believe I can cover
it. I believe I could. That gives me the motivation
to. Now here's the fifth thing. There are repercussions for our
sin. God's forgiven the sin of his people. The blood of Christ
is paid for the sin of his people. But now there's still repercussions
for our sin. Look here, verse 24. And Noah
awoke from his wine and knew what his younger son had done
unto him. And he said, curse 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. God shall enlarge
Japheth and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem And Canaan
shall be his servant. And Noah lived after the flood
350 years and all the days of Noah were 950 years and he died. Now because of his sin, Ham is
cursed. And you'll notice here that specifically
Noah says Canaan is cursed. Canaan is his son, Ham's son,
the next one down the line. All those coming generations,
not even born yet, had no part in any of this. They're cursed
to be a servant because of Ham's sin. They'll all be servants
to the descendants of Shem and Japheth. I wish I could say this while
I'm getting ready to say, as strongly as I feel it, as strongly
as I know it's true. I was reading this this week
and it's just utterly abhorrent to me. That people have taken
this verse, people in the old South and in this country, took
this verse to say that slavery is okay. They say, and how they
know this, maybe they're right, I don't know, maybe they're wrong,
it doesn't really matter, but this is what they say, that Ham's
descendants are from Africa, so it's okay for us to enslave
people of color. I'm telling you what, that makes
me mad. And I hope you don't need me to tell you that's wrong. That's wrong, nothing is more
contrary to grace than racism. Now, if we believe that sin's
in the heart, that the nature is in the heart, it cannot be
the skin color. It cannot be. Nothing could be
more wicked than owning a person and treating them like cattle
just simply based upon their skin color. Brethren, that's
contrary to love. It's contrary to kindness. It's
contrary to the doctrine of the gospel. It's contrary to the
sin and holiness and righteousness being in the old art of the new.
It's contrary to that. And it's just abhorrent to me
how people take scriptures and twist them to their own wicked,
vile ways. It's just vile. Yeah, anyway, I'll go on, but
that's just abhorrent. This curse of Noah on Ham's descendants
is a spiritual curse. It's not an earthly one, not
at all. As a matter of fact, if you look
at the descendants of these three sons, if you look at it in an
earthly way, what you think is Noah was still drunk when he
made this prophecy, because it looks like the opposite. Earthly
speaking, it looks like the opposite of this came true. It didn't,
but that's what it could look like. The descendants of Ham,
became a mighty, mighty people. The Canaanites were a wealthy,
wealthy people. They were a mighty people with
wealth and military power and engineering power. I mean, they
were a mighty people. They built huge kingdoms and
huge walled cities. And you know, when they were
doing that, you know what God's people were doing? You know what
Israel was doing? You know what Shem's descendants were doing? While
the Canaanites were building giant kingdoms Wonders of the
world. You know what Shem's descendants
were doing? They were slaves down in Egypt making bricks without
straw. That's exactly what they were doing. Yet, the Canaanites
were the servants of Israel. They didn't know it, but you
know why they were building all those great cities? You know
why they were building those engineering marvels? You know
why they were having all these plants and vineyards and farms?
You know why they were doing all that? So that Israel could
come and have them for free. They built those not for them,
but for Israel. They were Israel's servants.
Nebuchadnezzar, oh my, he was a great king. I mean, the man
had to be brilliant. I mean, the engineering mind
of this man, the military mind of this man, and he built such
a great kingdom, he strut around saying, nobody built a kingdom
like me. The Jews, what were they to him? They were just another
country of slaves. Every country he conquered, they
became his slaves. But Nebuchadnezzar, the mighty
Nebuchadnezzar, was a servant to God's people. God humbled
Nebuchadnezzar. And Nebuchadnezzar, you know
what he did? He raised Daniel up to second in command in his
empire so he could help Israel. Cyrus was a king who ruled the
entire known world at that time. The entire known world. And Israel
They're just a bunch of slaves to him. I mean, they're just,
that's an insignificant part of his empire. They're just a
speck, you know, in the whole worldwide empire that Cyrus had.
I mean, he was king of the world. And all Cyrus was, was a servant
to God's people. God had somebody read him from
the scrolls about the Jews, and Cyrus, as a servant of Israel,
came and set him free, It sent him back to Jerusalem to rebuild
the temple, gave him the money to do it. And you know, there
is the same thing is true today. There are many rich and powerful
people and few of them are believers. Very few of them are believers,
but you know, that's all right. That's all right. The Lord uses
this world, the goings on of this world, the rulers and powers
of this world that be to serve his people. That's exactly right. The Lord, Blesses rain and sunshine
on the earth, so there's crops that grow from this earth to
feed God's people. I know it feeds a lot of other
people. But you know why it grows? To feed you. That's exactly,
other people benefit, I grant you, but it's growing to feed
you. That's right. The titans of industry. Everybody
just hatin' on them and how wealthy they're becoming. You know really
all they are? They're your servants. You know
why God raised them up to build these big empires of business?
To give God's people a job. That you could just have a common,
ordinary job to earn a living and go home and take care of
your family and give to the church to spread the gospel. They're
just your servants. Just let the political powers
that be. Now, I want to be a good American. I have very strongly held beliefs,
and I vote on those beliefs. A believer ought to be the best
citizen that there is. But now when the election's over,
even when they're debating, let them have it. Let the pot shards of the earth
strive the pot shards of the earth. Let somebody that's willing
to get down there in the gutter and do that kind of stuff do
it to run the country. I mean, they're not doing what
they want to do anyway. All they're doing is what God
has them do. So how wonderful is that? They
can do that so you and me don't have to get down in the gutter
and fight those political battles. Let them do it. They're suited
for it. You're not. Just let them take
care of the matters of the world. They're your servants to provide
peace and prosperity in the land. So like I said a minute ago,
you can take care of your family. You can live quietly and peaceably. and we can gather together and
worship, let them take care of that. So we can do this. So we
can do this. There's just nothing better than
a family coming together on a Wednesday night to worship God. You'd think what a blessing that
is. I mean, it's just unbelievable. Let's do this. Let them take
care of that. You work for your boss at work, and buddy, you're
his servant, he's your master. That's the way scripture describes
him. Whatever he tells you to do,
you do it with the best you can do it, with all the ability that
God gave you. But I'm telling you this, that boss is your servant. That's right, you do whatever
it is he tells you to do, you do the best that you can do all
year long, so at the end of the year, he gives you a good performance
evaluation, and then it's up to him to push the paperwork
through to give you a raise. He's just your servant. Doing
that so you can take care of your family. That's what this
means, is the servant business. The world is just made to serve
God's people. And the main meaning of this
prophecy, remember, is spiritual. This is concerning the Lord Jesus
Christ. If you can't find Christ in a
passage of scripture, you ain't found the meaning yet. Here's
Christ in this passage. Noah prophesies here that Shem
is blessed of God. You know what he means there?
The Savior is coming through Shem. Now no one knew that. How did they know that? God told
him somehow. The Savior is coming through Shem. God in the flesh
is going to be born from a descendant of Shem. I mean, that's blessed. That's
blessed. What an honor for Shem and an
honor for the whole world. The Savior is coming through
him to save his people out of this world. And Japheth, he'll
be enlarged. He'll be persuaded. He's gonna
live in the tents of Shem. God will bless Japheth to live
together in peace with his brother. Now here, Shem is a type of Christ.
The Messiah's coming through Shem. Japheth is the type of
a believer. The Holy Spirit is gonna bless.
He's gonna enlarge God's elect by persuading them, by drawing
them to come to Christ. And they're gonna come and they're
going to live at peace with Christ. They're going to be at peace
with him. They're going to live at peace in his tent under the covering
of Christ. They're going to live at peace
under his protection that every believer lives in freedom, freedom,
free from the law, free from worry of death, free from worry
of condemnation of the law, free in the wide open spaces that
are found in Christ. Canaan, the descendants of Ham,
they have no part in this promise. This promise is made to God's
people in Christ. And you know, it's not for Ham
because of any particular sin of Ham's because he saw his father's
nakedness or anything. Ham's just not a partaker of
this because God didn't choose him. God didn't choose him. It's
God's prerogative. It's his royal rights to bless
one, to choose one and not the other. To bless one and not the
other. To choose one and pass by the other. Now that is being
saved by grace. God just chose to save one, not
the other. That's grace. This promise is made to a people
who are not yet born. They didn't, they're like, they're
like Jacob. They didn't do any good or evil, but the purpose
of God, according to election might stand. God made this promise
to bless the people who are not even born yet. That's grace.
That's grace. That's being saved by grace and
kept by grace. And I'm telling you what, there's
not the slightest chance this prophecy will fail to come true.
because it's by grace, not works. It's not up to Shem and Japheth
to make it all happen and teach their children. God's gonna make
it happen. That's his grace. And the only
difference between Shem and Japheth and Ham is God's grace. He kept them from doing it. It's
God's grace. All right. Now back to my original
question. Do you know sinners are saved
by grace? Sinners are saved and they're
kept by the very same grace, by the very same grace. God does
not cast his people off because his promise of grace. God does
not cast his people off because he sees them in Christ. It's
not their works that makes God keep them. It's because he sees
them in Christ always. And quite thankfully, our works
don't figure into that equation anywhere. It's a good thing that
they don't because otherwise we'd be damned, wouldn't we?
Now I'm going to give you a few examples and then I'll apply
this to us. I hope, I think this will be a blessing. What about
Abraham? You know, Abraham was just an
idolater, just going through his life as an idolater like
his father and grandfather and great grandfather did before
him. And God came to him and told him, get out of your father's
house, go to a place I'll show you. I'll tell you when we get
there. Where are we going? I'll tell you when we get there.
He went. He got wind. He got there and
was going through his life and God made a promise to Abraham,
I'm gonna give you a son through Sarah. He said specifically through
Sarah. Now Abraham believed God. He
called the father of the faithful. Yet Abraham thought he had to
help God out and have a son with Hagar. He thought this must be
what God means. God means for me to do my part.
Now Hagar was young. She was strong. It was just natural
for a child to be born to Hagar. Physically speaking, a child
can't be born to Sarah. She's too old. But Hagar, she's
young. She's in her prime of her childbearing
years. So a child born to Hagar is a child of the flesh, born
of the strength of the flesh. Abraham wasn't much acting like
he was believing God was going to keep his promise, was he?
Then there was another time. They were down there in Egypt.
Abraham, I mean, Sarah, she was a looker. She's a beautiful woman.
And Abraham thought, you know, this king, this country, he gonna
kill me so he can take Sarah to be his wife. So he told Sarah,
tell him you're my sister. So you didn't kill me, you know.
Here, take my wife, you know. That doesn't much sound like
a man of any faith, of any integrity whatsoever, does it? It didn't
sound like he was trusting God to protect him, did it? But what
sayeth the scripture? Romans 4.4, Abraham, believe
God. And it was counted unto him for
righteousness. Here's what scripture got to
say about Abraham. Abraham believed God. That's what scripture says
about poor, weak Abraham. You know why? Because God sees
Abraham in Christ. He sees him as perfect. He sees
him in the object of his faith. Well, there's Abraham. What about
Sarah? Sarah was listening through the tent, you know, trying to
hear, when the Lord there was talking to her husband, and Sarah
heard God's promise, Sarah's gonna have a child next year.
And Sarah laughed. She laughed, not in joy, in unbelief. That's not possible, I can't
have a child. That's Sarah. Lord called her
on her. See, you laughed, I know you
did. Yet what say the scripture? Hebrews 11, 11. Sarah judged
him faithful, who had promised. Did she really? In Christ she
did. That's the way God sees her.
God saw weak Sarah. He saw her in Christ as perfect. What about Lot? Lot and Abraham,
they're doing well, and they were afraid that the land couldn't
support all their cattle, so they chose to divide. And Abraham,
being the older, should have had first choice, but he gave
first choice to his nephew. And Lot chose the well water
plains of Sodom and Gomorrah. And Lot lived there a good while.
He prospered in that land. He got along well enough in that
land of horrible sin and idolatry that he prospered. And when Lord
came to him and told him, get out of this place, I'm going
to destroy it. Lot was hesitant to leave. I
mean, he lived just fine with all them people. This vileness,
he lived just fine with it. Prospering, he was one of the
elders that sat in the gate of the city. Lot, ugh. But what saith the scripture? 2 Peter 2, 7. And delivered just
Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked. Was he really? Didn't sound like Lot was all
that vexed, did it? In Christ he was, and that's
the way God saw him. God saw him as perfect in Christ. God saw him in the object of
his faith. What about David? In his pride,
David one day decided he's gonna number Israel. That was a direct
violation of God's commandment. God said, don't you count those
people, they're not yours, they're mine. David wanted to know how
many people he ruled and he counted. Just pride, that's all it was.
Horrible destruction on Israel. David one day decided to commit
adultery with his friend's wife. His friend, his friend. This
is a good friend. This is a faithful friend, a
faithful servant. David committed adultery with
his wife and then he killed him trying to cover up the whole
problem, you know. And if it couldn't get any worse
than that, David used his trusted friend and general in on the
plot to get his friend killed. And you know after that, you
talk about repercussions for your sin, you wonder why Joab
did all these things to David afterwards? It's because Joab
lost all respect for David. You just think of the damage
that that caused. But what sayeth the scripture?
You know what God said about David? This man did all this.
He's this a man after my own heart. Really? I mean, it sure doesn't sound
like it. David's a man after God's own
heart, because David depended upon Christ. Against thee and
thee only if I sinned, done this evil in thy sight. Oh God, be
merciful. Be propitious to me. Cover my
sin in the blood of Christ. In Christ, David was perfect. He believed God. He trusted Christ
and God saw him in the object of his faith. Perfect. Now I've said all that to get
right to this point. I want to ask you again. Do you know sinners
are saved for Christ? Do you cast all of your salvation
on the Lord Jesus Christ and you don't trust any of your words,
do you? Do you hope to be kept by Christ? Not because of any
works that you do, just by Him, His power and His grace. Do you? I hope you do. Well, when you
see your sin, you do something that makes you ashamed. All of
our sin doesn't make us ashamed, but if something comes up that
makes us ashamed, what do you do then? Do you try to make it
up to God? Act better, you know, for a few
days and then, you know, God be more willing to forgive you
because you've, you know, done some good things to offset this
bad things. Or do you hope in the blood of Christ? Do you hope
that His blood has paid for your sin and atoned for your sin? Not your works, His blood, His
grace. Will you sin like that? Something
that just makes you ashamed. Do you lose all peace of heart?
You can't sleep, you're afraid of condemnation, you're afraid
God's gonna cast me off now. My brother and my sister, don't
do that. Don't do that. The only peace of heart we can
have is trusting Christ. The only peace of heart we can
have is God sees me the same way he saw Abraham and Sarah
and Lot and David. perfect in Christ. Now you know,
you know I'm not making any excuse for sin. But when we fail, when
we fail, when any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father.
We're saved and we're kept and we're not cast off by God's grace. And aren't we thankful? Aren't
we thankful? Let's bow together. Our Father,
oh, how we thank you for your mercy, your grace to your people,
and Christ our Savior. How we thank you that you don't
leave any of this up to our will, our works, our power, but it's
all, the whole of our salvation, all of our soul, hangs upon your
power, your love, and your grace to your people. It all hangs
upon the blood of Christ cleansing us from all of our sins. Father,
I pray that you cause each of us to leave here tonight trusting
in Christ, looking to him by faith. And Father, thrill the
hearts of your people. Give us joy, peace, confidence
of heart, because we trust Christ and Christ alone. It's in his
blessed name, for his sake and his glory, we pray. Amen. All right, son. Okay, if you would stand and
turn to song number 75, Abide With Me. Abide with me. Fast falls the eventide. The darkness deepens. Lord, with me abide. When other helpers fail and comforts
flee, Help of the helpless, O abide with me. Swift to its close ends our life's
little day, Earth's joys grow dim, its glories pass away. Change and decay in all around
I see. O Thou who changest not, abide
with me. I need Thy presence every passing
hour. What but Thy grace can foil the
tempter's power? like thyself my guide and stay
can be through cloud and sunshine oh abide with me hold thou thy
word before my closing eyes. Shine through the gloom and point
me to the skies. Heaven's morning breaks and earth's
faint shadows flee. In life, in death, O Lord, abide
with me.