Scripture reading for this morning is in the
ninth chapter of the book of Genesis, and
we are reading verses 18 through 29.
Genesis chapter 9, verse 18 through verse 29.
Remember, in the context, we have just had
the account of the establishment of the Noahic
covenant.
And Moses continues in the 18th verse, writing,
Now the sons of Noah came out of
the ark, who came out of the ark
were Shem and Ham and Japheth, and Ham
was the father of Canaan.
These three were the sons of Noah, and
from these the whole earth was populated.
Then Noah began farming and planted a vineyard.
That verse in the Hebrew text may be
rendered slightly differently, and if you have a
different version, you might have noticed some difference.
Literally, the Hebrew text says that Noah was
a man of the earth, and that he
began planting a vineyard.
And so we could render it, then Noah,
a man of the earth, a husbandman or
a farmer, began planting a vineyard.
And he drank of the wine and became
drunk and uncovered himself inside his tent.
And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the
nakedness of his father and told his two
brothers outside.
But Shem and Japheth took a garment and
laid it upon both their shoulders and walked
backward and covered the nakedness of their father,
and their faces were turned away so that
they did not see their father's nakedness.
When Noah awoke from his wine, he knew
what his youngest son had done to him.
So he said, cursed be Canaan, a servant
of servants, he shall be to his brothers.
He also said, blessed be the Lord, the
God of Shem, and let Canaan be his
servant.
It is important, as we've been trying to
point out reading through the book of Genesis
and expounding the text, to notice the names
for God as they occur.
And this verse particularly is important.
Blessed be Yahweh, the Elohim of Shem, and
let Canaan be his servant.
May Elohim enlarge Japheth, and let him dwell
in the tents of Shem, and let Canaan
be his servant.
And Noah lived 350 years after the flood.
So all the days of Noah were 950
years, and he died.
May the Lord bless this reading of his
word.
The questions of race and nationalism, that is
nationalism versus internationalism, have gained serious attention from
20th century thinkers.
But in spite of the onslaughts of the
sociologists and the politicians, the barriers have still
survived.
Are there many races among humans?
The only reliable account of the origin, characteristics,
and history of human society is found in
the Bible.
And unfortunately that account has been greatly neglected
in the 20th century.
We generally tend to categorize people by their
color.
We speak of white people, yellow people, brown
people, and black people.
And depending upon the person whom we are
reading, we generally say they are, there are
from three to six major races.
Or if we classify by languages, we know
that there are thousands of languages.
Every time the Wycliffe Bible Translation Society gives
a count of the languages of the earth,
the figures tend to rise.
But there are many thousands of languages, many
of which have not yet been committed to
writing.
The Bible, however, affirms that there is one
race of men.
Not many races, one race, but nevertheless that
there are three families of men.
The descendants of Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
It is rather striking, I think, in connection
with this that the Apostle Paul, in the
words that he spoke in Athens, would appear
to agree with this.
Because he says, and he made from one
every nation of mankind to live on the
face of the earth, having determined their appointed
times and boundaries of their habitation, that they
should seek God, if perhaps they might grope
for him and find him, though he is
not far from each one of us.
You'll notice he says that there is, that
all have come from one, every nation of
mankind, that God has determined their appointed times,
he has determined their habitation, and he has
also determined that they should seek after God.
That is his purpose for the providential dealing
of God with nations.
Well, in Genesis chapter 9, we have just
been reading about the Noahic covenant made with
Noah and the sons of Noah and the
family, and in verses 18 and 19, we
read of their emerging from the ark, and
evidently from the standpoint of the providence of
God, they turn now to the seeking after
God.
And of course we see a quite different
thing emerging from that which is expressed by
the Apostle Paul as ideally our purpose upon
the earth.
One of the very important things about this
section that we're going to look at is
the further development of the messianic prophetic program.
And there is some indication of a covenant
that already exists between the redeemed and the
Lord in the words that God speaks through
Noah.
In verse 26, when we read, Blessed be
the Lord, the God of Shem.
And there is a relationship that evidently has
been established between the Lord and Shem, so
that Shem is the people of God, and
God is the God of Shem.
So evidently, if I may add this, the
seed of the woman is to come from
the Semitic family of the families of the
earth.
Well, let's look now at our passage, and
we look first at verses 18 and 19,
where Moses writes of the sons of Noah
and the populating of the earth.
We read in verse 18, Now the sons
of Noah who came out of the ark
were Shem and Ham and Japheth, and Ham
was the father of Canaan.
These were the three sons of Noah, and
from them the earth, the whole earth, was
populated.
The Noahic covenant has been established.
The rainbow has been established as the sign
of that covenant, which suggested, among other things,
the willingness of God in the heavens to
penetrate the earthly sphere.
Even in the very activity of providing a
sign for men, we have evidence of the
initiative of God in things.
For just like the sun's rays shine from
heaven upon the droplets that are in the
skies and the rainbows produced, so God from
heaven determines to give man blessing and a
part of his blessing is the unconditional Noahic
covenant.
So there is suggested by the rainbow the
willingness of God to have a measure of
fellowship with those who are upon the earth,
and he promises them that he will no
longer destroy the earth by a flood.
There is no redemptive promise specifically bound up
in that, but it is an evidence of
that initiative that proceeds from God determining to
bless man.
The rainbow, in addition to the things that
we suggested last week, suggests to that extent
that there is a measure of peace between
God and man.
Evidently, it is based upon the atoning work
that the Lord Jesus should accomplish, and this
common grace that is ours of a promise
of never being destroyed again by a flood
is one of the byproducts of our Lord's
ministry of sacrifice upon the cross at Calvary
to be accomplished centuries after this.
The fact that the rainbow embraces the circle
of a man's vision suggests also again the
universality of the Noahic covenant.
It is a covenant that is made by
God unconditionally with all of men.
Now, in verses 18 and 19, there is
a formal mention of these emerging sons, Shem,
Ham, and Japheth.
And verse 19 suggests that Noah had only
three sons.
How many daughters he had, the scriptures does
not, does, the scriptures do not say, but
evidently his progeny male-wise was limited to
Shem and Ham and Japheth.
Now, before we pass on, let me just
make this comment.
It is evident from the account in general
that though the flood has been used by
God to destroy all but eight sinners from
the face of the earth, sin has not
been destroyed.
And the things that Noah and his family
bring into the new age are the things
that resulted from the sin of Adam in
the Garden of Eden.
When Adam sinned, remember, all men became guilty
of Adam's sin.
The imputation of sin took place immediately so
that every man is born guilty of Adam's
sin.
Not only that, but the scriptures affirm that
we also by the process of generation give
to our descendants a sin nature.
That's the second effect of the sin of
Adam.
Furthermore, we also by virtue of the guilt
that we possess of Adam's sin and the
sin nature that is communicated to us by
generation, we therefore now have inability to turn
to the Lord apart from divine enablement.
The scriptures make that very plain.
The Lord Jesus himself saying, No man can
come to me except the Father which hath
sent me draw him.
So that no man is able to come
to God apart from divine enablement.
We are unable.
Human inability is the third effect of the
fall in the Garden of Eden.
And the scriptures also reveal that if there
is no redemptive experience, then all of the
full penalty of death shall be ours.
The spiritual death in which we all live
will be prolonged into an eternal spiritual death.
So those four great effects flow from Adam's
sin.
It is evident then that Noah and the
members of his family, the eight souls that
were saved, bring with them the curse of
Adam's sin.
And while everything begins with a new kind
of glory about it, sinners are still there.
And the future therefore is not good from
that standpoint.
Now we look secondly at the defiance of
man in verses 20 through 23.
It's rather, I think, it's a very touching
thing to realize what has happened to this
great man, Noah.
Let me describe to you how he must
have seemed to those who lived with him.
He was a very prominent figure in the
first place.
He was well over 600 years of age
because he was 600 years of age when
the flood came to pass.
Furthermore, now time has elapsed so that he
has been able to plant a vineyard.
The vineyard has been able to grow.
He has been able to harvest grapes.
And so there must have been a half
a dozen years or more.
These grapes have been gathered.
All of the processes for making wine have
taken place.
And the fermentation and perhaps some aging, if
he knew anything about the processes.
There is a question about that, of course.
But at least it's some time now after
the occurrence of the flood.
And so he's a man of 620 years
or more of age.
Old men, old Christian men, old believing men
are always an object of interest because they
are men who have passed through the vicissitudes
of life.
I know one of the great experiences that
I had as a young Christian was having
an opportunity to talk to some of the
greatest of the Bible teachers that I was
able to have contact with.
And I used to always try to find
some time to get with them and ask
them about the study of the Word of
God.
How to study the Word.
And any hints that they might give to
the preaching of the text.
And it always seemed to me that old
men who had passed through the experience of
Christian living and had been successful to that
point were men from which we could learn
a great deal.
Nor was a man that was worthy of
peculiar honor.
Distinguished for the elevation of his piety, he
is one of the men who is said
to have walked with God just like Enoch.
He had long maintained his fidelity to God
in the midst of very evil times.
For the days before the flood were very
evil days.
In addition, he had experienced the special deliverance
from the hand of God.
He had passed through the experience of the
catastrophe of the flood.
And in addition, he had not brought any
stain upon his piety nor cloud upon his
name.
He was, in a sense, the second head
of the human family.
Adam was the first and he is the
second.
He is also, in one sense, the second
head of the believing family of God.
Because he comes through and if his family
were believers, as we may surmise, he was
the second head of that company.
He was an old disciple who had probably
seen Seth by virtue of his age.
The son of Adam.
He had also walked with Enoch.
He had spoken with Methuselah.
And since he lived to be 950 years
of age, he lived on into the days
of Abraham and was over 50 years of
age when Abraham, when Abraham, or rather he
had about 50 years of opportunity to converse
with Abraham.
So he is a remarkable man.
One of, clearly one of the most distinguished
figures in all of Holy Scripture.
And if we were to paint a picture
of the famous men of the Bible, Noah
would surely be one of them.
But now, in spite of the high regard
with which Scripture speaks of Noah, and with
which the people of Noah's day must have
regarded him, we read here of his drunkenness.
Listen again.
Noah, a man of the soil, began planting
a vineyard.
And he drank of the wine and became
drunk and uncovered himself inside his tent.
This event, we say, was much later than
the leaving of the ark.
What happened?
Well, we are not sure whether Noah began
to drink because of inexperience with the alcoholic
beverage.
The chances are that he knew, he well
knew, the consequences of this act.
The chances are, if we may judge by
the intelligence of the people who lived before
the flood, the chances are that he understood
all that we understand about the making of
wine, perhaps even more.
So it's probably to be regarded as an
act of self-indulgence on Noah's part.
The Bible says that we are to beware
of Satan who goes about as a roaring
lion, seeking whom he may devour.
And that is what happened.
He devoured Noah, the patriarch.
Now, let me hasten to say that the
picture that we give here is a picture,
then, of a man who is disobedient to
the word of God.
But he is, nevertheless, Noah the patriarch.
I guess I should also mention that when
we read here that Noah drank of the
wine, we are not saying that Noah's sin
rested in the fact that he drank of
the wine.
As far as the Bible is concerned, to
indulge in the drinking of wine is a
perfectly legitimate gratification.
There's nothing wrong, so far as we can
tell, in Noah's drinking of the product of
the vine.
The sinfulness of making fermented liquors cannot be
established from the Bible.
As a matter of fact, the Bible speaks
of the beneficial effects of the drinking of
wine.
For example, in Judges, in the Psalms, in
the Proverbs, even in the New Testament, when
Paul tells Timothy to take a little wine
for his stomach's sake, it is clear that
the use of wine has certain beneficial influences
upon man's physical system.
God himself, in Holy Scripture, employs wine as
a symbol of the highest and choicest blessings,
both temporal and spiritual.
The Lord Jesus Christ made wine at the
marriage feast in Cana of Galilee.
Now, of course, we must temper all of
this by pointing out that the New Testament
tells us that if there are weaker brethren
who do feel that the drinking of wine
is a sin, for the sake of the
conscience of the weaker brethren, the stronger brethren,
who know that Scripture teaches that to drink
wine is all right, should refrain from drinking
for the sake of the conscience of the
weaker brethren.
But it is the weaker brethren who have
the scruples, the Scripture says.
There are other reasons for total abstinence, which
may exist in certain circumstances, and the Bible
speaks about them.
This is not a message on this subject,
and so I'll leave it at that.
I want to say this, however.
The Bible speaks most strongly about the effects
of drunkenness.
And so while we say that the Scriptures
do not say anything about the drinking of
a glass of wine, the Bible speaks most
strongly about the overuse of alcoholic beverages.
And furthermore, the Bible reveals that there are
terrible consequences for the overuse of the alcoholic
beverages.
Characteristic from the standpoint of the Bible is
that intoxication tends to the sins that go
along with sensuality, frequently of sexual abuse.
And we have illustrations in the Bible that
plainly teach that.
We have one in the book of Genesis
that comes to mind immediately of the experience
of Lot when he became drunken himself, or
Ahasuerus, or Belshazzar.
And there are many others in Scripture of
the effects of overuse of that which is
permissible according to Scripture teaching.
So it teaches us the lesson that just
as is the case in so many things,
all things are lawful, all things, however, may
not be expedient.
So Noah's sin was not in the fact
that he drank the wine.
Noah's sin lay in the fact that he
drank it and became drunk.
And you can see the terrible picture of
this godly man drinking the wine, becoming more
and more under the influence of it.
Finally, as the wine begins to inflame his
being, he's warm, he throws off his outer
garment, has nothing on but his underwear, and
then, as we say, he passed out, fell
on the floor.
Quite a picture for a man who had
walked with God.
Now him, enters the tent at this moment,
sees his father lying upon the floor, obviously
passed out from some overuse of the liquors.
He probably could smell the odors of the
tent.
Instead of acting as a child under the
influence of a father's authority, he acts the
reverse.
Incidentally, modern biblical criticism demonstrates its failure to
understand humanity by suggesting that because we have
this beautiful picture of Noah being a righteous
man in the first part of the life
of Noah, as it is recorded here, and
now have this picture of Noah's great sin,
that obviously, according to them, the accounts of
the first part must have come from one
source, whereas the story of Noah's drunkenness must
come from another source, as if it would
be impossible for the same writer to write
of Noah's walk with God and then to
write of Noah's sin.
Modern criticism not only does not know its
criticism too well, but it certainly does not
know human nature.
This is very true to human nature.
Noah was a great man, but he was
a man, and because he was a man,
he can sin and he can sin in
the most degrading way.
Some interpreters have suggested that what Ham did
was not simply to make fun of his
father, but that he actually performed a homosexual
act upon his father.
Now we read in verse 22 that Ham,
the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of
his father.
In Leviticus chapter 18 and verse 6 through
verse 19, the expression, see the nakedness of,
occurs a number of times.
And that expression in that chapter is related
generally to sexual types of sins, but not
simply to homosexuality, I might add.
So it is the opinion of some that
when Ham saw the nakedness of his father,
that is a reference to a homosexual act
that he performed upon his father.
And that is supported, they say, by the
fact that in verse 24 we read, when
Noah awoke from his wine, he knew what
his youngest son had done to him.
Now I must say that we must give
attention to this interpretation of the event.
It would not certainly be beyond the range
of possibility, and it surely would be in
accordance with the curse that is pronounced upon
Ham's family.
Because from the beginning homosexuality is looked upon
as rebellion against the authority of God, and
it still is rebellion against the authority of
God.
That is why the Bible speaks of homosexuality
as sin.
It is rebellion against the natural constitution and
against the authority of God.
But nevertheless, in spite of that, it is
difficult to prove that interpretation.
So I am inclined to be a little
more modest in interpreting the expression and refer
it rather to salacious, scornful ridicule on Ham's
part.
He saw the nakedness of his father and
he rejoiced in it, evidently.
He relished it.
He evidently had some grudge against his father,
or at least he did not want to
abide under the parental authority.
And as a result of it, he told
with relish and pleasure what had happened to
Shem and Japheth.
And so it was salacious, scornful ridicule, I
believe.
It was an act of rebellion against the
father's authority.
It was the very opposite of what came
to be regarded in the Ten Commandments, under
the Fifth Commandment, as the requirement to honor
one's father and mother in order that our
days might be long upon the earth.
So long before the Fifth Commandment was broken,
it is Ham who breaks the principle that
lies behind it.
He dishonored his father.
Now the characteristic, by the way, that is
repeated in the New Testament in Ephesians chapter
6, and it is something that children should
remember, and young people.
The father does have a measure of authority
that is spoken of in Holy Scripture, and
to dishonor one's father is a sin.
This very commandment is used as an exaltation
in Ephesians chapter 6, verses 2 and 3.
And we are expected to honor our fathers
and our mothers, that our days may be
long upon the earth.
That's a word for the children in the
audience.
It's a word for young people, and a
very necessary word in these days, the authority
that God has given to the head of
a family, or heads of a family.
The response of Shem and Japheth is so
different.
They were grieved evidently.
They were full of respect.
They picked up a cloak, or perhaps even
the cloak of the father, which Noah had
thrown aside.
They turned their backs.
They put the cloak over their back.
They backed over against Noah and covered his
nakedness in order that they might look upon,
not look upon it.
What a beautiful illustration of the difference between
children in the same family, incidentally.
Here were three children with the same father
and mother, the same privileges, the same opportunities,
but oh how different one of them was
from the other.
We've often seen that illustrated in the children
of individuals in this life.
It also illustrates that a son may have
very pious parents and experience many providential mercies
because of the six, because of the parents
and yet be at heart a child of
the devil.
It also illustrates the fact that in the
final analysis, it often is the sovereign grace
of God that determines what results from the
same situation.
Now of course the Bible specifically blames him,
he is responsible for his sin, but it
does illustrate that the reason that Shem and
Japheth have their blessing is not because of
anything in them, for they all three were
equally wicked.
But it was the grace of God that
was manifested in the case of the other
two.
People often point to, Jacob have I loved
and Esau have I, have I, Jacob have
I loved, Esau have I hated, and they
have said, how could God hate Esau?
Now that is a problem, I would grant,
but nevertheless it's in scripture.
But the biggest problem is how God could
love Jacob, that's the biggest problem.
In other words, the exercise of grace on
God's part is an even greater problem than
the revelation of his sin, of his anger
against sin.
Well now we look at the prophecy of
Noah.
Eventually, Noah awakened from his drunk condition.
As he sobered up, he reflected upon the
fact that he was lying in a place
that he was not accustomed to lying, and
perhaps the cloak had been put over him
in a way that he did not normally
do.
And so he recognized that something had happened
to him, and that also someone had been
involved, someone had seen.
And so he inquired, and he learned, that's
the meaning of the expression he knew in
verse 24, he learned what his youngest son
had done to him.
He was told by either Shem or Japheth
that Ham had seen his nakedness and had
told them about it.
Now what follows is a remarkable thing.
It's one of the great messianic promises of
the Old Testament.
It's rather startling that it should come at
a time when Noah has committed this great
sin too.
Did you notice as you were reading this,
the remarkable parallel between this prophecy and the
first messianic prophecy in Genesis 315 that we
studied a few weeks back.
There remember it was said that the seed
of the woman should crush the head of
the serpent, a mortal wound, so that someone
from the line of Eve would be responsible
for a victory over the serpent.
Now I want you to notice the parallel.
The first prophecy of the coming of the
Lord Jesus Christ, for he is the seed
of the woman, was given after the fall
of Adam.
This one is given after the fall of
Noah.
Both Adam and Noah had been commanded to
fill the earth.
Each of them was an ancestor of all
men in their present world.
Adam was the ancestor of those that followed.
Noah was the head of those that followed
him in the new conditions after the flood.
Each sinned by partaking of a fruit, Adam
of the fruit of the tree in the
midst of the garden, Noah of the fruit
of the vine.
As a result of their sin, each became
naked.
When Adam and Eve sinned, they saw that
they were naked.
They had evidently been that before, but they
saw their naked condition.
And now we read of Noah's nakedness.
Each was provided with a covering by someone
else.
And finally, following the fall of each, a
tremendous messianic promise is given, and in the
messianic promise there is not only promise, but
also curse.
It's striking, the parallel.
I don't want to make too much of
it, and I don't intend to do it
by pointing out these parallels, but it is
a rather striking thing.
So along with the curse, there were blessing
and anticipations of ultimate salvation given as well.
Now let's look at the three divisions of
the prophecy.
It's a very symmetrical prophecy.
There is a prophecy concerning Canaan, the youngest
son of Ham.
There is one concerning Shem, and there is
one concerning Japheth.
And first, concerning Canaan, we read in verse
25, Cursed be Canaan, a servant of servants,
he shall be to his brethren.
Several questions are raised here immediately, and the
first is, why was Canaan blessed instead of
Ham?
Canaan was the youngest son of Ham.
Why did he not say, cursed be Ham?
Well, the fact that that has proved a
problem to people is evidenced by the fact
that the Arabic version of this has inserted
Ham.
And so it reads, cursed be Ham, the
father of Canaan.
Because not only does that seem logical, but
we have had this in the preceding context.
Verse 18, Ham was the father of Canaan.
Verse 22, and Ham the father of Canaan.
So some scribe, thinking surely something has been
left out here, inserted, cursed be Ham, the
father of Canaan.
That would make excellent sense.
But unfortunately, in the manuscripts of the Old
Testament, and in the versions of the Old
Testament, it has no other support.
So we must go with the text as
we have it.
Cursed be Canaan, a servant of servants.
And ask, why should Canaan be cursed rather
than Ham?
Now some who have interpreted the sin of
Ham as being of homosexual perversion have suggested
that, nor given insight by the guidance of
the Holy Spirit, perceived the perversion of Ham
being found in his youngest son.
And because of that, Canaan is cursed.
Since the sin of the father, he is
unable to see, will reappear in the son.
Now the principle, of course, is true.
We do know that that often happens.
But so far again, as the text is
concerned, there does not seem to be any
real exegetical basis for it.
So I'm inclined to go with another interpretation.
And when I say I'm inclined to go,
you'll understand I'm not trying to be dogmatic,
as is my custom.
Because I do think there are lots of
things in the Bible that I don't know.
And then I know there are lots of
things you think that I don't know that
I think I do know as well.
So the resulting things that I don't think
I know, plus the ones that you know
I don't know, make a great deal of
biblical knowledge, I know.
But I'm inclined to think that the thing
that lies behind the cursing of Canaan instead
of Ham may be this.
After all, Canaan was the youngest son of
Ham.
And of course, the sin of Ham was
a breaching of the proper family relationship.
That is, children should honor their parents, their
father and mother.
And so the curse pronounced upon Canaan is
really an indirect curse upon Ham in this
sense.
Since Ham has breached the family relationship, he
himself will suffer a breach of his own
family relationship in the cursing of Canaan.
So Ham's family suffers since he breached his
own family relationship with Noah.
Now, that doesn't completely satisfy me, but it
seems to be suggested by what follows.
Cursed be Canaan, a servant of servants, he
shall be to his brethren.
But now that raises another question, and one
that has been on the lips of biblical
students for about 25 years now.
Does this curse justify the practice of segregation?
After all, we read, Cursed be Canaan, a
servant of servants, he shall be to his
brethren.
Canaan is the son of Ham.
The Hamitic peoples are supposedly the black peoples.
That's wrong, incidentally.
The Hamitic peoples are much broader than black
people.
They are the Hamitic peoples, and therefore the
black Africans are included, and God has pronounced
a curse upon them, and therefore segregation is
justified.
There isn't anything in the Bible really to
support this, but it has had wide appeal
among those who go through the Bible and
do not give it the careful attention that
it should have.
In the first place, the curse falls upon
Canaan, and not upon Ham.
Now, we know from the biblical record that
the Canaanites dwelt in the land of Palestine
in the days of Joshua, and on into
the days of David and Solomon.
And when we read the Old Testament accounts,
we can turn to the book of Joshua
in chapter 9, verse 23, where Joshua brought
the Canaanites, the sons of Canaan, under their
dominion and made them hewers of wood and
drawers of water, that is, servant of servants
to the Semites.
And there were some that were left, and
they later also were subjugated by Solomon in
his day, and in 1 Kings chapter 9,
verse 20 and 21, it is specifically stated
that that is what took place.
Then, in the case of the wider group
of the Canaanites, such as the Phoenicians and
the Carthaginians and others who belong to the
family of Canaan, they were subjected to the
Japhetic Persians, the Macedonians, and the Romans later,
and so the prophecy concerning Canaan has been
fulfilled in Scripture as it is set forth
here.
In other words, there isn't anything in the
Bible, so far as I can tell, that
justifies the practice of segregating black peoples from
whites.
We are all members of one family.
God has made of one all nations upon
the earth.
Now, the second of these prophecies, and it
has to do with Shem, and this is,
of course, the more important one.
He also said, blessed be the Lord, the
God of Shem, and let Canaan be his
servant.
Now, here is a place where we need
to study the Bible carefully, carefully, looking at
each word.
Oh, I wish people in the twentieth century
would study the Bible as if it were
God's word.
People don't do this because basically they don't
really believe that the Bible is God's word.
If an angel were to stand here and
say, this is God's word, study it, we
think we would probably be better students.
But we wouldn't, but we ought to be.
Now, he says, not blessed be Shem, incidentally,
he says, blessed be the Lord, Yahweh.
Now, we have said over and over again
that this name for God is the name
for God that suggests that he is a
God who makes a covenant and keeps it
with his people.
Yahweh, the Lord, the God of Shem.
Now, he is blessed.
Now, Shem is going to be blessed only
because of his relationship to him, and so
he says, blessed be the Lord, Yahweh, the
covenant-making and keeping God.
He is the God, the Elohim, the mighty,
powerful, creator God of Genesis 1-1.
He is the God of Shem.
But now notice that little preposition of.
He is the God of Shem.
He is Shem's God.
In other words, Shem possesses this God.
That's a possessive relationship.
Now, the possessive relationship suggests then that Shem
is God's people, using the collective sense.
And furthermore, not only is Shem related to
God and his people, but God is the
God of the Semites.
Now, what is there in the scriptures that
has suggested that there is this relationship?
Now, that relationship to be their God and
they to be his people is spelled out
in the covenants of the Old Testament.
You'll find it in all the unconditional covenants.
It is expressed.
They will be my people, I will be
their God.
He enters into an unconditional, gracious relationship with
his people, climaxed in the New Covenant, when
the Lord Jesus speaks about how in the
New Covenant his people are to be redeemed
through the blood that he shed.
Blessed be the Lord, the God of Shem.
Well, you can see from this that it
is clear that Genesis chapter 3 and verse
15 has implicitly involved a covenantal relationship between
the seed of the woman and a certain
succession of individuals.
Now, we're right at the fountainhead of Messianic
prophecy and we should expect things to be
rather general.
The details will be filled in as the
biblical record proceeds.
But you can see right here that Shem
has a covenant relationship with God which will
be spelled out later on.
It's rather striking too that Shem, that name
incidentally means name.
And one of the things characteristic of the
God of the Old Testament is his name.
He is, that term name suggests all that
he is in his attributes and powers.
And Shem is given the name of name.
Blessed be the Lord, the God of name.
For he is the great name of the
Old Testament.
He's identified himself with Shem and those who
are related to Shem.
And incidentally, he does it by grace.
There is nothing that Shem has done to
justify that relationship.
It is unconditional blessing on the part of
God.
Now, this is spiritual preeminence.
Blessed be the Lord, the God of Shem.
Now, later on as the Bible unfolds, added
to the spiritual preeminence will be an ultimate
political preeminence in the kingdom of God upon
the earth.
It will always be primarily spiritual, but it
will also be political in the kingdom of
God upon the earth.
Now, let me make an application.
Carolyn Custis is the person who is supplying
the right-hand side of the bulletin with
quotations from Mr. Spurgeon and others.
And a few weeks ago, she had put
in our bulletin some words that Mr. Spurgeon
wrote concerning Psalm 56, verse 9.
When I cry, then my enemies will be
turned back.
This I know, for God is for me.
Now, Mr. Spurgeon goes on to talk about
God being for us.
He says it's impossible for any human speech
to express the full meaning of this delightful
phrase, God is for me.
He was for us before the worlds were
made.
He was for us, or He would not
have given His well-beloved Son.
He was for us when He smoked the
Only Begotten and laid the full weight of
His wrath upon Him.
He was for us, though He was against
Him.
He was for us when we were ruined
in the fall.
He loved us, notwithstanding all.
He was for us, or He would not
have brought us humbly to seek His face.
He has been for us in many struggles,
in many temptations.
And then Mr. Spurgeon went on to speak
about how He was with us and how
He is for us in the infinity of
His being, with all the omnipotence of His
love, with all of the infallibility of His
wisdom.
He is eternally and immutably with us, for
us throughout eternity.
And because He is for us, He always
hears the voice of prayer and will always
give His help.
When I cry unto you, then shall my
enemies be turned back, the psalmist said.
It is tremendous to have God for us.
And that is what He is by virtue
of the covenant, the new covenant, which He
has made with His people.
Isn't it great to be in the new
covenant?
Isn't it tremendous to have the salvation that
comes from Jesus Christ and know that God
is for us, even in all of the
experiences of life, which may seem so bad?
I want you to know that there is
nothing that will take you through the deepest
trials of life more than to know that
He is for you in the experiences of
life.
Blessed be the Lord God of Shem.
I'm not prophesying, I'm praising.
Blessed be the Lord God of Shem.
And let Canaan be His servant.
Now the third of the divisions of the
prophecy has to do with Japheth.
May God enlarge Japheth.
There is a blessing for Japheth though.
He is not in the covenant, but there
is a blessing for him.
Japheth comes from the Hebrew word pathah, which
means to give ample space.
And so the Japhethic peoples are the peoples
that have spread over the western hemisphere.
And you'll notice there are two blessings given.
May God enlarge Japheth.
That is, He has given territory and also
it would appear faculties, certain faculties, certain enlargement
in His faculties.
And the second blessing is let him dwell
in the tents of Shem.
Ah, He does have a part.
He does have a part in the covenant,
but it's secondary to Shem.
And it's through Shem.
Let him dwell in the tents of Shem.
It's by virtue of union with Shem that
Japheth has his blessing.
Now the, we don't have in the Old
Testament the full revelation of all that is
involved here.
We have to come to the New Testament.
But what do we read in the New
Testament?
Well, we read in the New Testament of
how God has, in Matthew chapter 21, how
He has, for example, taken away the stewardship
of the Kingdom of God from the generation
of Jewish people who rejected our Lord Jesus
and given it to a nation that will
bring forth the fruits, a nation that Peter
identifies as Gentiles.
The Apostle Paul tells the story of the
olive tree and the cutting off of the
natural branches and the grafting in of the
unnatural branches who partake of the root and
fatness of the olive tree.
And so the Gentiles enter into the blessing
of the covenant made with Abraham.
They enter into the blessing of God of
Shem by virtue of the grace of God
later on.
And so we are told here beforehand of
the blessing that shall come upon the Gentiles
as they are united with the Abrahamic promises
through Israelitish disobedience in the time of our
Lord.
Now the Bible also goes on to say
all Israel shall be saved in the future
and the natural branches shall be grafted in
again into their own olive tree, as the
Apostle puts it.
But here you see we have almost an
outline of the religious history of the world.
It's remarkable, exceedingly remarkable that here in the
earliest stages of the revelation of God we
have what the Bible goes on to speak
about in many, many chapters and pages.
The expansive power of Japheth refers not only
to the territory and the multitude of them
but to other intellectual and active faculties.
For example, the Japhethic peoples include the Indians
and it includes also all who are to
be classified as Indo-European nations.
The metaphysics that we know is traceable to
the Hindus.
The philosophy of the Greeks who invented their
particular kind of philosophy, they are Japhethic peoples.
The military prowess of the Romans, they are
Japhethic peoples.
The spread of the western, of the world
toward the west is the result of the
influence of the Japhethic peoples.
We are largely Japhethic peoples and the blessing
that is pronounced upon them is that God
will give them ample territory, which he has
done.
The Hamatic peoples are most interesting of all,
I think, because we're inclined to think that
Americans are the great inventors of mankind, but
we're not.
It is the Hindus who founded, and the
Greeks who founded philosophy, and they are truly
two great philosophical races.
And we, I say, tend to think of
ourselves as the inventors, but that is not
true.
Almost every basic invention can be traced to
the Hamites, the Chinese Hamites, and others, such
as the Egyptians.
For example, incidentally all we do is kind
of develop the philosophy of science and applied
technology.
The actual discoveries are made by the Hamatic
peoples.
The original explorers and settlers of the world
were Hamites.
They were the first cultivators of the most
basic food staples, potatoes.
Baked potato, traceable to the Hamites, I guess.
Corn, beans.
They were developers of the basic types of
structural forms and building tools.
They were developers of the usual fabrics for
clothing, and also for the tools of sewing
and weaving.
Sing a sewing machine company.
Hamitic.
Discoverers of a wide variety of medicines, inventors
of most of the practical mathematics, surveying navigation,
the machinery of trade and commerce, money, banks,
postal systems, developers of paper, ink, block printing,
movable type.
All of these things traceable to the Hamites.
They were the inventors of humanity.
And then the great religious peoples.
The three great religions of the earth, Judaism,
Mohammedanism, Christianity, all Semitic.
They were given spiritual promise, and that they
have had.
Isn't it striking?
Right here in Genesis chapter 9, we have
an overview of human history.
Oh that our sociologists, you see I got
it right, oh that our sociologists and our
politicians and others would pay attention to the
biblical revelation.
How much better off we should be.
Well let me conclude, time is up.
There is one race of men, but there
are three families, all descendants of one man,
Noah.
And the great hope of God, from the
standpoint of his preceptive will, is that the
nations of the earth would seek after God.
That of course they have not done.
There is only one place of safety, and
that place of safety is in the tents
of Shem.
There is only one place of safety, it
is found in trust in the seed of
the woman, and in the seed of Shem.
Biblical revelation lets us know of course that
that is our Lord Jesus Christ.
He is the only hope of safety among
men.
And as the apostle writes in John chapter
3 and verse 36, he who believes in
the Son has eternal life, but he who
does not obey the Son shall not see
life, but the wrath of God abides on
him.
May God speak to your heart.
May you sense your own need, your own
guilt and condemnation, the fact that you are
heading to spiritual death.
May the Holy Spirit reverse your path by
bringing conviction and conversion.
May you come to the Son to receive
the life that is life indeed.
Come to Christ.
Put your trust in Him.
The only place of safety is in the
seed of the woman, in the seed of
Shem.
The invitation goes out to Japhetic peoples to
dwell in the tents of Shem.
Come to Christ.
Don't leave this auditorium not having made that
decision.
May we stand for the benediction.
We are so thankful to thee, Lord, that
we are able to read in Holy Scripture
of the great plans and purposes that our
eternal God has for men.
We do not doubt for one moment, Lord,
that the word of God shall be fulfilled
in the most minute detail.
Not one jot nor tittle shall pass from
the Lord till all be fulfilled.
O God, if there are some in this
audience who have not yet come, may they
hasten to Him whom to know is life
eternal, who offered the atoning sacrifice, whose blood
covers our sin.
Now may grace, mercy, and peace go with
us for Jesus' sake.
Amen.