Genesis in Biblical Perspective:
The Gospel of Christ from Genesis –
A Son and His Sin Once Again

Genesis 9:18-29

By Dr. Harry Reeder III

This is the word of God. Genesis 9:18-29.

18 The sons of Noah who went forth from the ark were Shem, Ham, and Japheth. (Ham was the father of Canaan.) 19 These three were the sons of Noah, and from these the people of the whole earth were dispersed. 20 Noah began to be a man of the soil, and he planted a vineyard. 21 He drank of the wine and became drunk and lay uncovered in his tent. 22 And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father and told his two brothers outside. 23 Then Shem and Japheth took a garment, laid it on both their shoulders, and walked backward and covered the nakedness of their father. Their faces were turned backward, and they did not see their father's nakedness. 24 When Noah awoke from his wine and knew what his youngest son had done to him, 25 he said, "Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be to his brothers." 26 He also said, "Blessed be the LORD, the God of Shem; and let Canaan be his servant. 27 May God enlarge Japheth, and let him dwell in the tents of Shem, and let Canaan be his servant." 28 After the flood Noah lived 350 years. 29 All the days of Noah were 950 years, and he died.

The grass withers. The flower fades. God's Word abides forever and by His grace and mercy may this Word be preached for you.

As we're going through the book of Genesis, one of the reasons we're doing this is I have a basic commitment in the ministry of the Word just to be committed to expository preaching, which means to consecutively work through books of the Bible or consecutively work through a book of the Bible. I found many reasons to do that. Sometimes we have folks that visit us that listen to the radio ministry either on In Perspective or Sundays here and invariably there's a couple of comments that are made. One is I'll meet them and after that they say you know you don't look a thing like you sound. I don't really know how to take that, particularly if they say you know you have a face for the radio.

Here's one that has to do with expository preaching. A fellow kind of came in and he said "Now I've wanted to meet you." I said, "Yes, sir." He said, "Now, tell me what is this suppository preaching?" So we had to kind of redefine what preaching was, expository. Everybody always asks in expository preaching don't you dread to see the genealogies? Actually you don't. What you dread is there are certain passages in the Bible that I do dread sometimes. In fact, you may never hear me preach on the Song of Solomon. I may refer to it; you may never hear me preach on the Song of Solomon. There are a couple of passages in Genesis that frighten me just to think that I'm on my way there, to get there. One of the, of course, is this text. This is a pretty challenging text of what is being said and you don't want to miss it, but you want to over declare it as well. Clearly in this text there's three ways that you can get started. There is Noah's Fall, Ham's Sin, and Canaan's Curse. When I was a kid growing up, I loved Yogi Berra for a lot of reasons not the least of which was the way Yogi would say things. Yogi learned from Casey Stengel how to say things but never really say it or to say it in a different way like nobody else did. He'd say things like, "You know, baseball is 90% mental and then the other half is physical," or he'd say, "That Mickey Mantle, he's amphibious." I think he meant ambidextrous is what he meant there. "He's amphibious and not only that he can throw with either hand." The one, of course, I really like was when Yogi Berra said, "Yeah that's déjà vu all over again." Have you ever had that déjà vu experience, you know, you feel like whoa, I've been here, done this? Well here we are, whoa, been here, done this.

The world is covered with water in chaos, remember that. Genesis 1, "The world is covered with water and the chaos of judgment." Genesis 6, "The Spirit of the Lord hovered upon the waters and brought order and the Spirit of the Lord and the wind blew and dried up the waters and brought order." It's chaos, cosmos, chaos, cosmos. God entered into a covenant with Adam saying, "Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth; subdue the earth, rule over the creatures." God enters in to a covenant with Noah saying, "Be fruitful, multiply, team upon the earth, and I will never judge the world again by water." Adam has three sons, Cain, Abel, Seth. Noah has three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Adam falls into sin. Noah falls into sin. Adam has a garden. Noah has a vineyard. Adam was commanded not to take the fruit. Noah's had to do with the fruit of the vine. Adam's fall led to the sin of his son, Cain. Noah's fall led to the sin of his son, Ham. Sin of Cain brought a curse upon the line of Cain. Sin of Ham brings a curse upon the line of Ham. Do you see it? Very clearly, this is being put together so that we will be arrested in our attention to this text. As difficult as the text may be - Noah, nakedness, uncovering - the text is clearly being highlighted by the Holy Spirit with the pen of Moses. It's being highlighted very clearly.

Now what is there? Let's first look at Noah's fall. You'll see after mentioning the sons from which all of the earth comes, the sons of Noah in 9:18-20, Noah began to be a man of the soil and he planted a vineyard. Noah been a shipbuilder for awhile now, he now enters into being a vine keeper, a vine dresser, and beyond that he also makes the fruit of the vine into a wine. So Noah begins this process and then it says in Genesis 9:21, "He drank of the wine and became drunk and lay uncovered in his tent."

Noah begins to develop a vineyard, becomes a man of the soil, and in particular, is the developing of a vineyard. Out of that, of course, the fruit of the vine and out of the fruit of the vine comes the wine that was developed, the fermented drink that would come from it. It is a drink that the Bible says appropriately used is good for the stomach, good for merriment, good for joy, and the wine is called the Cup of Gladness, yet with Noah there are too many cups and there's drunkenness. With drunkenness comes the inevitable demise into sexual immorality. The sexual immorality is described as "laying uncovered in his tent." That would mean many things. My encouragement is you don't press it to mean too much by reading things into it. I believe that likely what is just being stated is that the wine removed his inhibitors. With his inhibitors removed, he then began to expose himself thinking he was in the privacy of his tent. To what degree that went in terms of sexual activity, I don't know, the text doesn't say, and I'm not going to speculate.

I do know that this man who will live 50 years shy of 1,000 being a millenarian, is clearly at a low point in his life. This is the man who God's favor had been upon. This is the man that that Bible tells us walked with God. This is the man that the Bible tells us was righteous. This is a man who lived by faith. This is a man who not only walked with God, lived my faith, but was blameless in his day. Here is a man who was a herald of righteous. Here is a man for 120 years worked for God and built the Ark. Here is a man who gathered in the animals under the influence of God bringing them. Here is a man who had been shut into the Ark. Here is a man even in his anxiety to leave the Ark did not step foot out of the Ark until God sent him out of the Ark. Here is a man when he did step foot out of the Ark, the first thing he did was worship God.

Here is a man whose worship was so blessed of the Lord that a promise is given that God says, "Until the end of the earth, until the consummation of everything, when I roll it up with fire, until then, I promise I will never again judge the world by water and until that day My hand of blessing with be upon all of humanity. All of humanity will taste My grace and mercy. The rain will fall on the just and the unjust. The sun shall rise upon the evil and the good and in all of this I will allow all of humanity to know that I have ordained seed time and harvest, sun and moon, day and night. I have ordained the seasons, the summer and the winter, and as long as the earth endures, My hand will give that stability of common grace through all of humanity as well as redemptive grace to My people."

Then that man begins to toil in the soil. He begins to develop a vine. He begins to develop the wine and then the man has a night of drunkenness that leads to some sexual immorality, at least to the point of exposing himself within his tent. Then comes Ham's sin. What is Ham's sin? Ham's sin is he exposed himself to his father's exposure and then he exposed his father to his brothers. Very clearly Noah has become at this moment an opportunity for Ham's pleasure of ridicule and mockery. It is not enough to privately see what has happened to his father. Instead of turning his eyes from it, he gazes upon it but even then he doesn't stop. It's not enough that his eyes are exposed to his father's exposure, he now tries to expose others to his father's exposure, his brothers, Shem and Japheth.

Then comes Canaan's curse. Here we are made aware early on that there will be another generation after Shem, Ham, and Japheth and that Ham will have sons and this particular son is Canaan. Who is Canaan? He is one of four sons that will be given to Ham. He is the fourth son, the youngest son. This is found in Genesis 10. The generations of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth are being described and their sons. Genesis 10:6, "The sons of Ham; Cush, Egypt, Put, and Canaan." Notice the fourth son is Canaan, the youngest son. That son bears the brunt of his father's sin with the curse that comes upon Canaan. Remember, where is Israel when the Book of Genesis is being given to Moses? They're freed from Egypt and they're on their way to the Promised Land. Which is occupied by whom? It is occupied by the Canaanites. They are going to go into a land that is occupied by a fierce people with a culture of violence and warfare. More than that, they are going into a land that is occupied by a people who would not only have a culture of violence that must be driven out, but they are going into a land with a people who have a culture of paganism that has codified immorality into worship. Sexual perversion dominates. They have the high places with the temple prostitutes, the fertility cults, all of those things are there among the Canaanites. Their worship is engaged in sexual immorality and sexual perversion. How did Canaan get there? It was from their father Canaan and from his father, Ham. The curse had been delivered. The result is whenever one is in the bondage to sin in general and sexual promiscuity and perversion in particular one becomes the servants not only of sin but the servants of others.

Now Canaan will become the servant of Shem and the servant of Japheth. Shem, of course, is the father of the Israelites. That's where we get the name Shemites. It comes from Shem. Now notice the curse to Canaan comes a blessing to Shem and Japheth. Ham had exposed himself to his father's exposure and then attempted to expose his father to his brothers all for his own pleasure and delight. What does Shem and Japheth do? They do not expose themselves. On the contrary, they do two things; they cover their father and cover their father in such a way that they never lay eyes on their father. Their heads are turned, their bodies are turned, and then they cover their father. So these that did not expose their father or expose themselves to the exposed father then these receive a blessing from the Lord.

What is the blessing? Shem will be blessed with the Lord Himself. The Lord God is the God of the Shemites and the Lord God will enlarge the tents of the Semites to bring in those of Japheth, the Gentiles. Here God is laying out His order of redemption as He works in the lives of Shem through Israel and from Israel what will he tell Abraham? He will say, "In you, all the families of the earth shall be blessed." Paul says, "I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, it is the power of God into salvation to everyone who believes to the Jew first and then to the Gentiles." Right here, they very promise that God's blessing that will work through Shem will extend to the Gentiles and will go to Japheth and to his. The tents of Shem shall be enlarged to bring in Japheth and Canaan shall be a servant to all.

What an interesting text. The parallels are so amazing with Adam and Noah, and the abruptness of this. You have this man Noah just moving along, the testimonies of God's Grace pointing ultimately to Christ, pointing to what grace is doing in life and then all of a sudden there's this story that just grates, that we almost just want to close the page on. But, God doesn't close the page on it. In fact, God lays it out in such a way that you can't miss it. God lays it out in such a way that it arrests the attention.

What is God doing in this? Well there are a couple of things that begin to be pretty obvious at least to me. There are observations that I'd like to share with you as to God's placement of this by the Holy Spirit through Moses in this Book of Genesis. The first thing is God is telling us powerfully that His Word is true and trustworthy. God is giving us the integrity of His Word. God is telling us His Word is true, reliable, and trustworthy. We say we believe in the inerrancy of Scripture, we say we believe in the reliability of Scripture, the dependability of Scripture and rightly so, but here is one more evidence as to why. God's Word is always true even when speaking of the heroes of the faith.

I was raised in a Christian home and then I actually didn't go away to college, I went away to other things. I was actually residing at a college. That's what I was doing. The things I did, I did so well that I made the Dean's List as I mentioned to some of you. I made the Dean's List my sophomore year. The only problem was it was the wrong Dean's list. It was the Dean of Student's List. He informed me that I was no longer able to stay at East Carolina. Now ashamed as I am of that, it's also a little bit of a badge because if any of you have all ever been to East Carolina and know anything about East Carolina University, I mean, if you can fog a mirror you can graduate from there. To flunk out your sophomore year is almost an accomplishment; it's almost an achievement actually. I came home and was actually moving toward the Marine Corps. I had been involved in the Platoon Leaders Corps and while I was at home, God began to work in my heart. Then I met Cindy and the Lord used her, my dad, my mom and my grandparents and I became a believer.

After I became a believer, to marry Cindy I had to make the deal with her dad that I'd put her through school, which I did. We were married, I put her through school, and then when I got her through school, I went back to East Carolina. When I got back to East Carolina, now a Christian, I decided I was going to take a class on religion. Except maybe Auburn and I'm only saying that because Frank would want me to do that, I'm not sure you ought to take religion courses in state-supported schools. Unless you're just willing to be a missionary for the Lord because your grades may be in jeopardy, as mine were and because I was a new Christian I didn't have a lot of fodder, I didn't have a lot of facts, I didn't have a lot of data, but that never stopped me before, so I just stepped up and I would engage it with the professor.

I was taking this class called Comparative Religions and it became very clear to me that Christianity doesn't fit in this class, it doesn't compare. Now, I can start listing to you all the ways that Christianity just doesn't fit. You have to be dishonest with what Christianity teaches to put it in a class of comparative religions. Not the least of which every religion out there gives you a regimen, a religion, a regimen of what you must do to be right with God and gain Heaven. Christianity stands in absolute opposition to all of the religions because it says "what you do can't get you to God, in fact, what you do is never the answer it's always the problem." Even our righteousness is like filthy rags. But the great news is that Christianity is not a religion giving us a regimen that you must engage in to get to Heaven. Christianity is a glorious message that Heaven has come down for us in His Son, Jesus Christ and what we could not do, God did for us in His Son out of His own love, grace, and mercy.

Another way that Christianity stands in opposition to the religions of the world is in its Holy Book. All of the religions of the world get their holy books and they all whitewash the participants. They always present them in a way that you know is not true. I just love the honesty in the Bible. I love the honesty in the Bible when it's just talking about things like miracles. I remember reading it with some folks here when we were standing in the Valley of Aijalon and God says, "I just made the sun stand still. I had to lengthen the day because I'm going to win the battle here." I love the miracle of Balaam's donkey talking to him. Balaam's donkey sees this Angel of the Lord and stops and then the donkey crushes Balaam's leg against the wall. Balaam beats the donkey. When he beats the donkey, the donkey says to him, "What are you doing?" Now here comes the real miracle, Balaam then talks back to the donkey. Now, if I'm writing that here's the way I'm going to write this, I'm going to write, "Now I know you're not going to believe what happened next...", that's what I'd put there. I know you're not going to believe this, but Balaam's donkey talked to him. The Bible doesn't say that. The Bible just says Balaam's donkey talked to him and Balaam talked back to his donkey.

In other words, the Bible never apologizes. What is a miracle? It's just God being God and the Bible never apologizes. It just puts it right in there. When the Bible talks about our great heroes of the faith, it doesn't whitewash anything because what's the message of the Bible? The message of the Bible is all have sinned and that includes these heroes of the faith, they're sinners saved by grace. Even after they're saved they have to deal with sin in their life. They deal with sin before they're saved; they deal with sin after they're saved. Praise God, God's Grace is greater than our sin, but they're sinners saved by grace and the message is clear. Therefore, the Bible doesn't whitewash anybody. You see them right there, warts, pimples, everything, they're just right there. Nobody gets whitewashed.

Do we have a great king in the Bible? Sure, his name is David. He's an adulterer and a conspirator to murder, but God's Grace is even greater than David's sin. Do we have a man writing the first five Books of the Bible under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit? His name is Moses. Who is he? He's a murderer. He had to run from a country because he had murdered. Do we have a New Testament full of thirteen marvelous Epistles written by the hand of a man who God laid His hand on him, named Paul? Yes, he is a religious terrorist. He was Osama Bin Laden before there was an Osama Bin Laden, but God's Grace was great. I love the Bible, it's absolutely trustworthy. Therefore, please know your Bible.

God's Word is true. There are all kinds of evidences. One of them is the abundant way it's honest about the people in the Bible. Look at Noah this great hero of the faith, he makes Hebrew's Chapter 11 and he's in the Hall of Faith. Here is this great man of God, the favor of God is upon him, he walks with God, he is blameless in his own day, he is righteous, he works for God, he builds an Ark for God, he obeys God, he won't get out of the Ark until God tells him to get out of the Ark, and when he takes his first step out of the Ark, he worships God. Here is a man that stands as the evidence that God's Grace is greater than sin, but what's the last thing we hear of him? He's sinning. I don't know about you, but this seems pretty anti-climatic. If it was just me, I would never have included this, but God puts it right there to let you and me know because you and I falter and fail constantly, don't we? I'm not talking just human frailty, I'm talking about our old man comes back and many times in our greatest moments of victory, in the next moment we succumb and falter before the Lord. God is honest in His Word so that we might know that our salvation is of the Lord. Our trust is in Him.

The second thing that God is doing in this text is He is telling us something. He is shouting, "Sin has consequences." Don't let Satan tell you it doesn't. Forget private sins. Sin has consequences. Mrs. Museveni is the wife of the President of Uganda. She has led the charge against AIDS in Uganda. Uganda is the one nation in Africa that has reversed the AIDS epidemic and now it is on the decrease. She has made it very clear that she refuses to sell people a bill of goods about safe sexual activity of promiscuity and perversion. She is calling an entire nation to abstain from sexual activity outside of the bounds of marriage. She was supposed to give a speech at the United Nations, but she hasn't been able to give that speech and you know why? They found out what she was going to say because she said what she was going to say to a Pan African Council. Here's what she said, "In Uganda we do not believe in safe sex because we don't believe in safe sin."

There is no such thing as safe sin. Sin has consequences; even if you're a Christian and forgiven of all your sins, sin has consequences. Thankfully, the consequence of eternal condemnation has been removed, but sin still has consequences. We not only ought to hate it because our Savior paid for ours, we ought to avoid it because it is destructive. Sin not only has consequences, but let me add this to this observation – sin not only has consequences, but the consequences of sin include the spread of the consequences of sin to other people. Noah sinned in his drunkenness. Ham sinned in exposing himself to his father's exposure. Then Ham sinned when he sought to expose his brothers to his father's exposure. Then the curse of sin comes and the curse of sin comes to Ham and from Ham now to Noah's grandson, Canaan, and from Canaan to an entire nation that is dominated with fertility cults, paganism and violence that is filling the land. God has taken His people and put them in Egypt for 430 years until the iniquity of the Canaanites and the Amorites, until that iniquity is full then He says, "I will bring my people back in order to expel them from the land." There is this culture of death and destruction and sexual perversion and where did it come from? It came from their father, Canaan. Where did that come from? It came from his father, Ham. Where did that come from? It came from Noah's sin.

Don't ever buy the lie that sin is personal and private. It always impacts other people. You're really not by yourself in front of that computer with the door closed and the sites you're visiting. It won't stop there. You're not really by yourself in the closed door room and you never know whose eyes are looking in the tent. You never know who is watching - fathers, your sons and your grandsons - mothers, your daughters and your granddaughters - you never know who is watching. We certainly know God is always aware and our delight is the smile of God and the pleasure of God. But who would be watching, who would be seeing? My sin doesn't stop with me. My sin has reverberations. Therefore, I don't want to sin because I love my Savior. I know I'm not going to be sinless, but I certainly want to sin less but I also don't want to because of what it means and the impact it has on other people.

Here is one other observation very briefly. God works through the family, just bank on it. God works the consequences of sin through a family, God works grace through a family. God's Grace is when He says, "I'll be a God to you and to your children after you. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ you shall be saved, you and your household." The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call to Himself. But also remember He says, "I will visit the sin of the fathers to the third and the fourth generation." Sin has consequences in the family. The family works and God works through the family. Submit your family to the Grace of the Lord Jesus, fixing your eyes on Jesus. Lord, as for me and my household, we shall serve the Lord (Joshua 24:15b).

Here are a couple of takeaways. Here's the first takeaway and I'm calling it flee and fill. What struck me is when I went back to Adam and I saw all the parallels with Noah in this event, even the nakedness and the shame and all that was happening. When I went back and looked, the first thing that struck me was this. Eve saw the tree was good for food. Ham saw his father. The eye is a gate to the heart. What will you put your eyes upon? What will our eyes gaze upon? I just realized in a situation like this, for me to pursue a walk for the Lord by His Grace and His Glory, what I need to do is I need to flee temptation and I need to fill my heart and my eyes with that which is of the Lord. I need to flee and fill. Here are a couple of tendencies that we have. I'm saved by Grace so it really doesn't matter how I live. Somebody gave this one to me and I call it sloppy agape. I'm saved by love of God, so it doesn't matter what I do. It's just sloppy agape. Listen, you don't prove God's Grace by a lazy Christian life. God's Grace is not proved by laziness. I want to encourage us to be fit (F.I.T.) Christians. What's a fit Christian? It is someone who is Faithful, Intentional, and Teachable. I want to concentrate on the intention one here by saying intentionally flee temptation and intentionally filling is what we need to do. Now, if you just flee you create vacuums and what you have fled will come back and fill it up seven times worse. So don't just flee, learn to fill. And don't try to fill without fleeing. It's put off, put on, flee, and fill. Do I want my marriage to be sure in the Lord? Then I want to flee temptation as a man and as a husband and then I want to fill my heart with the Word of Christ concerning my family and my wife and my wife herself. I want to fill my life. That's what I need to do. I need to flee and I need to fill. I need to let my mind dwell on those things that are everlasting. Don't be careless, be circumspect, be careful, and be intentional about your Christian life.

I don't know what drink it was of the wine when Noah became drunk. I don't know if it was the sixth drink, the fifth one, the fourth one, or the third one. Now, I know that the fruit of the vine is not evil in and of itself. I'm fully aware of that, but I know me and I'm sure you're not me and Praise the Lord for that, but I know me and I don't know about third, fourth, and fifth, but I do know this; I don't have to worry about on which one I became drunk if I don't take the first one. So I've had to flee and fill with something else so that I am not drunk with wine but filled with the Holy Spirit. I am not laying out for you your decision-making in that process except the principle. Flee temptation, don't resist it – flee it. Fill your heart and your soul with that which is pure and right.

Another takeaway is this passage calls us to the blessing of the ministry of love, an untold piece of the ministry of love. Let's just finish with a passage in 1 Peter 4. Here is an aspect of the ministry of love that you don't want to miss. 1 Peter 4:7, 8 says "7 The end of all things is at hand; therefore be self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of your prayers. 8 Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins." Ham despised his father and his father at his moment of sin and weakness becomes an object of derision for Ham and Ham exposes himself to his father's exposure. Then Ham wants to use his father in order to further expose him and so he's ready to expose him to his brothers, but when the brother's hear, the brothers refuse to look. They take a cloth, they hold it to their shoulders, they keep their face turned away, they walk backwards, and they covered their father's sin. Love covers a multitude of sin. That doesn't mean you ignore it. We have to deal with sin. If your brother sins, what do you do? You do go him and you go to him privately. You may even need to take one or two people that are spiritual to help, but we don't expose one another. We don't put one another out for public derision. Love covers a multitude of sin. In order to deal with it in the privacy of exhortation and grace and mercy, engage in the ministry of love that covers sin even while it's being dealt with.

Have you ever heard the story "for want of a nail, the horse's shoe was lost"? For the loss of the shoe, the horse's leg became lame. When the horse became lame, his rider could not ride him and the rider was a General and because the General was not on the field of battle, the battle was lost. The battle was lost and the war was lost. It all started with the nail. Noah, Ham, Canaan, and a whole culture are in the death spiral of paganism. But could we see the opposite on this Independence Day? Could we celebrate that God might raise up believers again? We can hope the nail's not missing and the life is one of growing and grace and the impact is seen in the life of a child. The child rises up to bless the Lord. The neighborhood has changed, a community has changed, a city has changed, a state has changed, and a nation has changed. Oh God, give us not Ham and Canaan, give us Shem and Japheth, not because we can cover sins ultimately and finally, but because we know the One who covers our sin with His perfect righteousness, Jesus Christ, and may that righteousness rule and reign in this land. Oh, God, do it. Let's pray.

Father, thank You for the moments that we could be together. Father, it is clear that all have sinned and that sin has consequences. This is not matters of privacy, but it can be a matter of redemption if we come and flee to a Redeemer, which we now do. Father, if there is anyone reading this who has never yet made that commitment to Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, may they come this day. Father, for Your people that are here today, may we be intentional in our walk for Christ drinking of the Grace of the Lord Jesus from His Word and fellowship with His people in the context of worship and in the lives that are given to ministry. Feed us, fill us, feed us and fill us that we might flee that which is destructive. Then, oh God, may we pursue not only one another but others who'd yet know our Savior that the nations would worship You. Oh, Lord, would You claim this nation, even this July the 4th, our hearts cry oh God, I ask You, I plead with You, and would You do it one heart at a time? I pray this in Jesus' Name, God of Grace and Glory, Amen.