several weeks ago in my reading,
I ran across some things that provoked me to give some time
studying Genesis chapter 11 and the context surrounding it, Nimrod,
the Tower of Babel, and so on. In fact, I had planned to bring
a message to you sometime back from that 11th chapter of Genesis,
but the more I studied, the more I realized I couldn't do it justice
in one message. And I think that it's really
not possible for us to quite understand what took place in
Genesis 11 until we understand the things that transpired in
chapters 9 and 10. So today I'm going to be preaching
to you from Genesis chapter 9, verses 18 through 29, particularly
if you'd like to hold your Bibles open there. The title of my message
is Noah and his sons. I'll be preaching to you from
this general section of scripture this morning and this afternoon
and then for the next several weeks probably on Sunday mornings
during our worship services so you can just read these sections
ahead of time if you'd like. Today we'll look at Genesis chapter
9 verses 18 through 29 where God the Holy Spirit reveals Noah's
terrible fall Ham's sin against his father and his father's God,
and God's curse upon Ham and his descendants, as well as the
prophecy that Noah made concerning Ham, Shem, and Japheth, his sons. Now, the whole account of Noah's
life after the flood. Remember, we're talking about
a period of 350 years. That's a long time, Ron. The whole history is given by inspiration in 29
verses, the whole history. Obviously some things are left
out, but this is given to us by divine inspiration and given
to us in such a brief manner, describing specific events. And these things are themselves
remarkable. Noah, Noah, my, if I'd been writing
the books, I'd be writing for years on it. Noah was the man
who single-handedly, under God, led the whole world in the establishment
of the worship of God after the flood. 350 years. Noah, under God, was
the man who established civil government in the nations of
the world again. In addition to these things,
Noah had the care of his own family. These things he carried
on for 350 years after the flood. And yet the Holy Spirit passes
by all the frustrations of the earth which he endured, all the
feats of faith which he accomplished, and focuses our attention upon
just one thing. Just one thing. He focuses our
attention on the only blemish recorded in the book of God against
this man Noah. His drunkenness and the resulting
sin committed against him by his son Ham. Now let me give
you the background of this and I think we'll see the special
reasons why the Holy Spirit focuses as he does on these things. First,
Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. That's the reason
for Noah's being delivered in the first place. Most people
preach about Noah and talk about Noah as though he somehow God
found grace in Noah's eyes, but that's not the way it was. Noah
found grace in the eyes of God. The reason Noah was saved was
not because Noah was good, but because God was good. The same
is true of all men. If you and I escape the wrath
of God, it will be because we find grace in the eyes of the
Lord, and just as it was with Noah, because God chose us as
he chose Noah. Because the Lord God provided
an ark of salvation for us in Jesus Christ, just as he provided
an ark which typified Christ for Noah. Noah and his family
were brought by the hand of God himself, by God's decree and
by God's hand into the ark and God shut the door. And if you're
saved, it'll be because God, by his word, by his decree, and
by his sovereign, omnipotent hand, brings you into the pale
of his grace in Jesus Christ the Lord and shuts you in. The
only way any sinner has ever been saved or ever will be saved
is if he finds grace in the eyes of the Lord. And that grace comes
to us only through judgment being exercised for the establishment
of justice and the glory of God. Noah was brought into the ark.
The ark passed through the flood of God's wrath. And as Noah in
the ark passed through the flood of God's wrath, and the wrath
of God never touched him, though it beat vehemently against the
ark, So God's elect have passed through the flood of His wrath,
and Jesus Christ our Lord and our Redeemer, our substitute
for us, bore the wrath of God, and we bore the wrath of God
in Him to the full satisfaction of divine justice. But bless
God, the sword of justice never touches us. It pierced our Savior
and our Redeemer in our room and in our stand. Now then, in
verses 1 through 11, Moses describes God's covenant with Noah. We
won't read these verses together now, but I encourage you to read
them again at your leisure. God promised his providential
care to Noah and to his sons, to his family, as they went about
replenishing the earth by God's decree. He put in the beast of
the earth, the fear of man. so that every beast in the earth,
in the forest, in the field, in the sky or in the sea, every
beast in the earth has a natural dread and fear of man and will
not naturally be provoked by a man to attack him unless he
feels confident, sees confident he has advantage over him. And
thus God established it according to his purpose. God gave man
all things for his happiness and his welfare in the world.
It says here, the Lord spoke plainly and said, I've given
you all things, all things, all vegetation, all animals, all
things in the world created for man's benefit, for man's good.
Man was not created for the earth, the earth was created for man.
Contrary to modern political correctness, incorrectness, contrary
to modern political thought and environmental worship of Mother
Earth as the idolaters now worship the earth. Bad enough to worship
man, we've come to worship Mother Earth. No, the earth was not
made, or man was not made for the earth, but the earth was
made for man. And after the flood, God said, all right, now it's
yours, it's yours. God required all men under penalty
of death to take care of one another. Look at verses four
or five, or verses five and six. The Lord says, if man sheds man's
blood, by man shall his blood be shed. Now this is not just
a declaration of just vengeance. It's not just an establishment
of capital punishment. But as this principle is expanded
by the giving of the law, and as it is further expanded by
our Lord Jesus Christ in the Sermon on the Mount, this command,
this prohibition to murder, is that which includes far more
than just not taking another man's life. It includes our responsibility
to protect and care for and value the lives of others. You see,
fulfilling the law, fulfilling this command of the law is not
just saying, well, I never murdered anybody. No, no, no, no. It's
protecting his name, his character, his reputation, his health, his
life, protecting him with care. And thus, the Lord God would
have us to care one for another. In fact, it is at this particular
point that Ham sinned, as we shall see, and broke God's law,
demonstrating his rebellion against the Lord. Then in verses 8 through
17, God's covenant is spelled out. God promised never to destroy
the earth again with the flood of water, and he gave Noah a
sign. He said, I'll give you a rainbow
in the sky. When it rains, look up in the
sky and you'll see my bow in the sky, and you'll remember
I promised never to do this again. So that you have no reason to
dread and fear that the earth will again be swept over with
the flood of water. This rainbow and this covenant,
of course, are used in Revelation chapter 4 to be a picture of
the covenant of God's grace made with us before the world began
in Christ and the promise that God would never destroy his covenant
people in the flood of his wrath at all. That bow is that which
John saw around the throne of God in Revelation 4, from which
proceeds everything that comes from the throne of God. That
is, everything that comes to pass is brought to pass in time
according to God's eternal purpose of grace given to His people
in Christ in covenant grace before the world began. Now then, As
we read this account given to us in scripture of all of these
things that transpired, we see in verses 18 and 19 a remarkable
declaration. 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 the whole earth was overspread. Now we have two choices. Folks always want choices. You
got two choices. We can either accept the ever-changing
guesses of evolutionary fools who call themselves scientists
with regard to the origins of men and the origins of nations,
or we can believe the revelation of God. You can do whichever
you want to. For me, I believe God. I don't
have any confidence in men whose opinions change with every turn
of a rock or every discovery of a leaf. But rather, we have
here the giving of the revelation of God concerning the origins
of men and the origins of all nations. From Shem, Ham, and
Japheth, according to the book of God, are descended all the
peoples of the earth. And before that, from Adam and
Eve, our original parents. Now it's obvious that we have
many different groups or races with what seem to be very greatly
differing features. The most obvious of these is
skin color. And many see these differences
with races, because Chinaman and Orientals have a little more
fat around their eyes than you do, or because a black fella
has darker skin than you do, or because another fella has
this different characteristic than you do. They see these as
a reason to doubt the Bible's history, because when men want
to question God, they never lack for reasons, very good reasons,
they think. They believe that the various
groups could only have come to pass as they have, and these
various distinctions of physical stature could only be brought
to pass by a gradual process of evolution over many, many
eons of years, beginning with some cosmic ooze in the universe
that just sort of went out who knows where. Well, that's sheer
nonsense. That's just sheer nonsense. Only
blasphemers and willfully ignorant blasphemers would even think
of believing such stuff. Skin pigmentation, eye and hair
colors, the shapes of men's and women's physical features change
within our immediate families in one generation. In one generation,
I mean one generation. It doesn't take a long time.
It just doesn't. It just stands for reason that
if this thing's happened here and this has happened here and
this group of men look like this and this group of men look like
that, it just stands for reason. They must have just over billions
of years evolved into these conditions from some kind of a primeval
ape or less, from some kind of a caveman monster or less. But that's ridiculous. It's ridiculous. All it takes to refute such a
theory is looking at me and my daughter. We have some similar
features, so that you can immediately recognize that the girl might
be physically related to me, but she's a lot prettier than
me. She just looks better than I do. She's easier on the eyes
than I am. There are things with which she
has been blessed, which I was not blessed with. And thankfully,
she didn't inherit from me. Those things just happen in one
generation. I've got brown eyes. She's got
blue eyes. It's not supposed to be possible.
Not supposed to be possible. Brown's supposed to be dominant.
But things don't work according to evolutionary theory most of
the time. Most of the time. The fact is,
people who have the idea, who choose to believe that the races
of men evolve from some crude species of monkey, or from some
crude species of barbaric man, or from some cosmic ooze, if
they sincerely believe such, they are good candidates for
the loony bin. I don't care how smart they are
or where they got their degrees. We may have different skin color,
we may be shaped differently, but the fact is the entire human
race, listen to me now, my good Southern friends, listen to me.
The entire human race is one race. The entire human race is one
race, not two and not 20. We are all the sons and daughters
of Adam, descended through Noah and through Shem, Ham, and Japheth. The dispersing of the nations
under the judgment of God was the work of God's wise, adorable,
and good providence for the saving of his people, for the glory
of Christ out of every nation, kindred, tribe, and tongue from
the four corners of the earth. But we must never imagine that
somehow this is the free chance of luck and the luck of evolutionary
processes. This is what the book of God
says. God says that he hath made of one blood all nations of men
for to dwell on the face of the earth. We're all one. We're all
one. So your pride of place and race
and position is just foolishness. It's just foolishness. The whole
human race is just one race. Now having said that, let's pick
up our text in verse 20. And Noah began to be a husbandman,
and he planted a vineyard, and he drank of 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
brothers without. Now there's several things I
want to show you from this passage of scripture, but today we will
look at just verses 20 through 23, and I want to call your attention
to just these two things, Noah's fall and Ham's sin. Why are these things recorded?
Here in verses 20 and 21, Moses, by divine inspiration, describes
and records for us the terrible fall of God's faithful servant,
Noah. Now this sad, sad record is written
for our learning and for our admonition. So let's learn its
lessons well. May God, the Holy Spirit, teach
them to us. We must make neither more nor
less of this than the Holy Spirit makes of it. We're told by God
the kind of man that Noah was back in Genesis 6. Turn back
there if you will, verse 9. Like Job, grace had made Noah
a gracious, just, and upright man. Here in verse 9 of Genesis
6, these are the generations of Noah. Noah was a just man
and perfect. Now clearly what we have read
already in Genesis 9 will teach you that this word perfect does
not mean sinlessly perfect. It does not mean that he was
a man without fault or without sin. But rather when the scripture
says he was a just man and perfect in his generations, it simply
means this. First, Noah was a man justified
by the grace of God through the imputed righteousness of Christ
whom he believed. And by the grace of God, he had
been made to deal with men justly as he walked in the earth. That's
what justified men do. That's what they do. You can
bake on it. Justified men walk justly. Many
women who know God Almighty deal with one another uprightly. Many
women who were born of God, who know God, walk justly before
men. And then we're told that he was
perfect. The word simply means that Noah
was upright, sincere, and honest. Grace had distinguished him from
the rest of Adam's fallen race. Grace had set him apart from
a corrupt society and a corrupt race. And grace had set him apart
from the corruptions of the society in which he lived. In a world
that was corrupt, Noah walked uprightly. In a world that was
perverse, Noah was upright. In a world that was crooked,
Noah was upright. He was sincere before God and
before men. And yet when Moses was inspired
of God to write the history of this man, this remarkable man,
this man who lived after the flood for 350 years, he mentions
nothing about those 350 years except this terrible fall. This man Noah, like his grandfather,
walked with God. just like Enoch did, walked with
God by faith, trusted the blood of Christ by faith, just like
you do, David, just like I do. And yet for 350 years, all that
went on, Moses is inspired to tell us, when Noah came out of
the ark, he began to be a husbandman, nothing wrong with that, he was
a farmer. He was an old farmer, but he was a farmer. He chose
not to spend his time in idleness, even in his old age, and he raised
his crops, planted a vineyard, and he made wine and he drank
it to excess. The problem was not that he was
a farmer. The problem was not that he raised grapes or blackberries
or whatever it was he raised. The problem was not that he made
wine. The problem was not that he drank
it. The problem was that he got drunk. That was the problem.
because of his intemperance. This man who was charged with
the government of the world failed to govern himself. Now the intention
of our Heavenly Father in permitting the fall of Noah and the intention
of the Holy Spirit in recording it is for our learning and for
our admonition. Let me show you this in two texts.
Turn to Romans chapter 15. Romans chapter 15. Verse four. Whatsoever things
were written aforetime. I think what we've just read
is included in that, isn't it? Whatsoever things were written
aforetime were written for our learning that we through patience
and comfort of the scriptures might have hope. Look in chapter
10 of 1 Corinthians. 1 Corinthians 10. So pastor,
this is talking about the things written in scriptures, yes? and
also the events recorded. Verse 11, now these things, all
these things, every one of them, happened to them. These things
happened to all these people back yonder in the Old Testament.
For example, They are written for our admonition upon whom
the ends of the world are come. Wherefore let him that thinketh
he standeth take heed lest he fall. All right, let me give
you four or five things clearly taught by what we have here.
Number one, this is God's book. This is God's book. That's right,
this is God's book. If it were written by men alone,
apart from inspiration, if it were just a compilation of thoughts
and facts and historical data put together by men without inspiration,
designed to give us respect and disdain for men, we'd cover this
up. I would, wouldn't you? If I were
writing this about someone that I highly admired, someone that
I highly respected, and I were commending to you his teaching
and his example, if I even dealt with it, I'd at least give some
extenuating circumstances. I would at least find an excuse
for it. But here the Holy Spirit inspires Moses to tell us about
Noah. And he said, now you tell the
folks that Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. You tell
the folks that Noah, Noah was a just and upright man. Noah
was a man who feared God and walked with God. And Noah got
drunk. You tell them. Because the word
of God deals with things honestly. Honestly. Now secondly, learn
this. This is written to teach us that
salvation is of the Lord. It was the grace of God that
chose Noah. Grace precedes the need for grace. God made the covenant with Noah
and promised him that he would not destroy him in his wrath
even before he had need of the promise. God gave Noah assurance
even before he had need of assurance. Grace saved him. Grace preserved
him. Grace kept him. And when he fell,
grace restored him, picked him up, and preserves him still.
Thirdly, the Holy Spirit here shows us that the very best of
men are just men. Oh, I wouldn't tell God we could
learn that. The very best of men are just men. Man at his
best estate is altogether vanity. The fact is, Noah, like you and
I, though saved by grace, though robed in the righteousness of
Christ and washed in the blood of Christ, was himself still
just a sinner saved by grace. His nature, by nature, had not
changed. That is to say, his earthly,
fleshly nature was not in any way altered, though God had given
him a new nature and made him a new creature in Christ. The
fact is the human heart is essentially evil, yours and mine, everybody's. The fact is man is a totally
depraved creature as he walks in this world, even though saved
by free grace, still just depraved sinners needing grace constantly. Fourthly, Learn this, the only
righteousness any sinner has or can have before God Almighty
is the righteousness of Christ. Chuck Darty, the only righteousness
we have is Christ. That's it. That's it. The righteousness of Christ imputed
to us at Calvary in justification. and the righteousness of Christ
imparted to us in the experience of grace and sanctification.
But it's all the righteousness we have. And learn this too. No believer
in this world is exempt from or immune to temptation or sin. Any. No believer in this world is
exempted from or immune to temptation or sin. Any. Merle Hart, that includes you
and me. No sir. God graciously keeps
his own elect from Satan, but not from sin. From death, but
not from decline. From condemnation, but not from
corruption. From falling away, but not from
falling. Sometimes God lets one of his
saints fall for the comfort of others, lest we be overwhelmed
with despair when we experience the same thing. Haven't you often been comforted
as a result of what happened to Peter after he fell? I have. Haven't you often been refreshed
in your soul? Refreshed in the depth of your
being? After you read of how God spoke
peace to David and forgave David's sin and upheld David and withdrew
not his loving kindness from David, even though David committed
adultery and murder. Oh, how those words cheer my
soul. Blessed is the man to whom the
Lord will not impute sin. Sometimes God lets one fall for
the good of many. Martin Luther was exactly right
when he wrote in his commentary on Genesis, the Holy Spirit wanted
the godly to know their weakness or wanted the godly who know
their weakness and for this reason are disheartened to take comfort
from the offense that comes from the account of lapses among even
the most perfect patriarchs. In such instances, he says, we
should find proof both of our own weakness and therefore bow
down in humble confession and also ask for forgiveness and
hope for it. If any man's saying we have an
advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. And he's
the propitiation for our sins. Now look at verses 22 and 23.
Here is Ham sinning. Ham, the father of Canaan, saw
the nakedness of his father and told his two brethren without.
Sham and Japheth took a garment and laid it upon 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, when Noah lay in his tent in his drunken stupor, We'll not excuse it. We'll not
offer any extenuating circumstances. I've read lots of supposed excuses. God just tells us he got drunk.
That's all he tells us. We'll take it from there. And
there he lay. What happens to a man when he
gives vent to intoxication of any kind is he loses control
of his judgment and senses. and things that he would not
even think about doing without blushing when he's sober, he
does when he's drunk and doesn't think a thing about it. Some
of you been there, you know what I'm talking about. There Noah
is, that godly man, that example of faith, that upright man, that
leader of men, that great man, there he is. naked and drunk. And Ham walked in on him. Now,
if you want to understand what happened, you've got to understand
Ham. You've got to go back to the
source. What Ham displays here was not
just some impetuous thing that you might expect from a seven
or eight-year-old boy. Oh, no, no, no, no. It wasn't just he
walked in and said, hey, boys, come look at Daddy. Look at Daddy.
He's laying here naked. No, no, no. Ham was at least
100 years old. At least 100 years old. He's
a grown man, family of his own. And all his life he's hated his
father and his father's God. Oh, he pretended to believe God.
He walked with Noah and with Noah's family into the ark, when
Noah pronounced judgment coming because he was afraid of judgment.
But all the while he despised his father and his father's God. God required that Ham honor his
father, as men ought to honor their fathers, even in their
weaknesses and in their faults. For this is right, this is right.
How come? Because your father's set over
you in God's stead. He's the picture of authority
over you. And therefore, God requires that we honor them for
the benefit of society, for the benefit of others, because it's
right. It's just right. It's just right. Ham, though, despised his father.
No doubt, Ham had often been the object of Noah's reproof. Perhaps he had even been upbraided
over drunkenness many times. But this son treated his father
with utter contempt because in his heart he'd already murdered
him. Before the flood, let me see if I can make good on this,
show you from the scripture. Before the flood, the whole world
thought Noah was a fool. The whole world. I can identify
with that. I preached the same thing Noah
did and the whole world thinks I'm a fool. The whole world condemned Noah
as a heretic and looked down their nose upon him as a mad,
divisive, mean-spirited bigot because his preaching of righteousness,
his preaching of God's righteousness condemned the world and the world
wouldn't have it. Though he hid it, Ham was all
the while in complete agreement with the world. And now his true
hearts manifest. Like Absalom after him, Ham walked
in the way of Cain, ran after the error of Balaam, and perished
under the gainsaying of Korah. How's that? Speaking evil of
those things they know not, and what they naturally know, they
know just as brute beasts. speaking evil of dignities, whom
the angels wouldn't dare charge with evil. Ham thought himself
holy and thought Noah was evil. Therefore, this man Ham jumped
at the opportunity to expose Noah. Noah, he looks at him and
says, this man, look at him. Hey boys, come in here. Shem
and Japheth, come in here. I want you to see daddy now.
Look at him. Watch him now, this man who claims
to be God's prophet, God's despised him. Now God showed him for what
he is, rejoices in iniquity. This is the conflict which has
always gone on since the beginning of time between the seed of the
woman and the seed of the serpent. Cain murdered Abel. because of
this enmity. And Ham uncovered his father's
nakedness, revealing the same enmity. It's the enmity of hell,
which inflames the rage of the entire world against Christ,
his church, and his gospel. It's the enmity of hell which
unites false religion, the whole religious world, intoxicated
with the wine of Babylon's free will works, religion with the
wine of Babylon's fornication. It's this enmity of hell that
unites the whole world against Christ and his kingdom. You see,
Ham was an apostate. He had learned from a boy the
way to worship God. His father had taught him. And
Ham said, I know a better way. I know a better way. I can come to God just like I am.
I don't need this substitute. I don't need this ark. I don't
need this blood you talk about. I'll come to God on my own merit.
Ham behaved as a reprobate man because he rejoiced in iniquity and was delighted to spread it.
This is what that means, Sam. He looked at his father's nakedness
and he said, now here's my chance to look good. Here's my chance
to show myself. Folks, I wouldn't do that. I
wouldn't do that. And so he goes out in the streets
and he calls Sham and Japheth. He says, come here boys. You
know, I hate to be the bearer of bad news. You know how the
gossiping tongue wags? Boy, I hate to repeat things
like this. Boy, you can't imagine how it grieves me to have to
tell you this. But daddy's in here waddling around drunk naked.
He's falling down drunk and buck naked. There he is. Now what do you think? Shem and Japheth. Oh, how graciously they behaved. Shem said to Japheth, get a blanket. He says, let's go in and cover
up daddy's nakedness and don't tell anybody. Don't utter a word about it.
This ain't daddy. This ain't daddy. This is not
God's prophet. This is not our king. This is old Noah. And so they went in backward
and refused to consider it, refused to look on it, and refused to
show it. That's what grace does, isn't
it? Isn't it? You see, slandering Gabby murdering gossips don't
know God. They just don't know God. That's
the behavior of Cain and Ham and Nimrod. It's not the behavior
of Shem and Japheth, God's elect. Not the behavior of Christ, is
it? This is what our Lord tells us Be kind one to another, tender
hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake
has forgiven you. It's called grace. And grace
makes people gracious. How do we respond to this? God make me such a man. God, make me such a man. Because if I don't have this
love, I don't know God. And if you
don't have it, you don't know God either. That's just right,
isn't it, Rex? That's just right. Amen. All right, ladies and gentlemen,
lead us in the hymn, if you will, please.