Depravity

[0:00] We're in Genesis chapter 9, and now we're at the end of that chapter. So if you have your Bibles, I want you to open to Genesis chapter 9. And we're going to begin this morning in verse 20 and read down to the end, which is verse 28.

[0:14] So I want you guys, as you turn there, or as you find it on your phone, to stand up with me as we read together. Moses tells us, Noah began to be a man of the soil, and he planted a vineyard.

[0:28] He drank of the wine and became drunk and lay uncovered in his tent. And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father and told his two brothers outside.

[0:41] 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.

[0:53] When Noah awoke from his wine and knew what his youngest son had done to him, he said, Cursed be Canaan, a servant of servants shall he be to his brothers. He also said, Blessed be the Lord, the God of Shem, and let Canaan be his servant.

[1:10] May God enlarge Japheth, and let him dwell in the tents of Shem, and let Canaan be his servant. After the flood, Noah lived 350 years.

[1:21] All the days of Noah were 950 years, and he died. Help us, we ask now, to understand your word. We pray in Christ's name.

[1:32] Amen. You guys be seated. Well, the movie Noah came out this weekend just as we are finishing the story of Noah.

[1:43] And that wasn't planned. That wasn't something that I attempted to do. In fact, when we began this series in Genesis, and I charted out what I'd be preaching each week, I didn't even know anything about the movie about Noah that was coming out.

[1:57] But it did open this weekend, and it made already a ton of money. I think it's projected to make over $40 million this weekend at the box office. And I haven't seen the movie.

[2:08] Some of you might have already seen it. I haven't seen it. I've read some reviews on it. Most of them were not very favorable toward the movie, the reviews that I read. But nevertheless, it's been a huge hit at the box office.

[2:22] And a lot of times we struggle as Christians. Should we go see these movies? I mean, should we avoid them? What should we, how should we react toward them? What should we do with them? Particularly if they're produced and written by those who do not actually believe in Scripture as the Word of God, do not actually believe in Christ.

[2:40] How do we deal with those sorts of things? How do we approach them? In fact, it's a difficult thing to really make a movie based upon any portion of Scripture, let alone the story of Noah.

[2:52] Because here we are at the very end of the story of Noah, at the very end of chapter 9. And this is the first time that Noah has spoken a word in Moses' account of the flood.

[3:06] Not once has Noah said anything. Now, we know that Noah must have spoken. He built an ark. He had a family. He had a wife. And he had a wife and sons. And those sons had wives. And so he must have spoken.

[3:18] He must have said things. But Moses, as the Holy Spirit inspired him to write down this account of Noah's life and this account of the flood and the aftermath of the flood, the Holy Spirit didn't lead Moses to record anything that Noah said except for these strange, enigmatic words here at the end of chapter 9.

[3:37] And so I did read one interview with one of the actresses from the Noah movie and they asked her, how do you respond to the critiques about the movie that it just took too much freedom in adding too many things into the story?

[3:53] And her response was kind of funny. She said, well, if we follow the story exactly, most of the movie would have to be a silent film because Noah never talks. So at least she's read the biblical account of the story of Noah before she was in the movie because he is silent.

[4:08] He is quiet. In fact, anytime that you attempt to take what's written in any book, but particularly in the Bible, and you try to transfer that to the screen, you're going to have to leave out certain portions, but you're going to have to add a lot of things because the Bible doesn't tell us all the details that we would like to have.

[4:28] The Bible doesn't read like a soap opera and it doesn't read like a script to a movie. It doesn't give us a lot of conversational details a lot of times. It just gives us a summary of what people said and did.

[4:40] Oftentimes, when it gives us a direct quote, it doesn't bother to give it to us in any sort of flashy way. It just gives us directly and very simply what was said.

[4:52] So if you're going to try to transfer the Bible to some other medium, you're going to have a difficult time. But not just because of the transfer of mediums. The fact of the matter is that God has, in fact, chosen to reveal Himself to us through a book, through the written Word.

[5:11] And some might say, well, He didn't really have any other options at the time. I mean, they couldn't record audio, so He couldn't record the things that He said, say, on Mount Sinai to Moses. So they didn't have audio. They certainly didn't have television or movies.

[5:24] They couldn't give you a video recording of the events that took place. So, of course, God recorded things down in a book. He didn't have any other options. But you also forget that, for instance, the Bible tells us that Jesus came at the fullness of time.

[5:40] In other words, the events and the things that are recorded in the Bible happened at the exact time when God wanted them to happen, which means that God wanted these things to happen, wanted these people to live, wanted these events to take place, when the only way in which they could be passed down, other than just simply orally from person to person, was in a written document.

[6:00] It's important that the Bible is a text. And I look at my job as a preacher not to be to come before you and try every week to paint a vivid portrait in your minds of the events that take place.

[6:14] There's nothing wrong with that, but that's not my job. My job is not to help you visualize the events as they take place. I can't do that any better than Hollywood can. My task as a preacher is to come and to help you understand the text as it's written.

[6:28] And the text as it's written this week has some strange things in it. Noah becoming drunk here towards the end of his life.

[6:38] Over and over we've heard about Noah as a righteous man. The only thing we're told that Noah did so far in this story is exactly what God tells him to do. Over and over we're told that Noah did all that the Lord commanded him to do.

[6:51] Noah is a righteous, obedient man. And now here we find him towards the end of the story of his life and he's drunk and naked. Something strange is happening here. And then his sons react in a strange way and Noah utters a curse and a blessing and then the next thing we hear about Noah is he dies after 350 years.

[7:12] It's a strange, strange ending to the story of Noah. And there are a lot of questions that sort of come into your mind when you read this portion of the story. Number one, what exactly was Noah doing?

[7:23] I mean, if you read carefully, Noah's never really condemned for his actions here. I mean, Moses never records anything about Noah being condemned for doing what he did or even being censored for what he did.

[7:36] There's nothing in here about the text. And so we have to ask the question, did Noah do anything wrong? And then if we say yes, then what exactly did Noah do that was wrong? And then there's the question of, what was so wrong about what Ham did?

[7:51] I mean, what exactly did Ham do that upset Noah so much? I mean, we're told that when Noah awoke in verse 24, he awoke and he knew what his youngest son had done to him.

[8:03] What did he do that was so terrible? And then, perhaps strangest of all, Noah's response is not that he curses Ham. It's that he curses Ham's son, Canaan.

[8:16] Why does Noah do that? And then what's the deal with the blessing that he others for Shem? And then a sort of semi-blessing for Japheth. There are a lot of questions that this text raises. And we're just, this morning, our goal is to just walk through it and do our best to give the best answers that we can to those sort of questions.

[8:34] So first of all, what exactly did Noah do? And what's really happening here? A lot of that depends upon how you translate verse 20. In the English Standard Version, which is what I'm preaching from this morning, we read this in verse 20, that Noah began to be a man of the soil and he planted a vineyard.

[8:52] Now, some translations are going to say something like Noah was a man of the soil and he was the first to plant a vineyard. Others might say that Noah was the first to till the soil and he planted a vineyard.

[9:06] Some will say that Noah was a man of the soil and he began to plant a vineyard. So there are some issues happening here with how we translate this because the word began normally means that you start something, you begin to do something.

[9:19] But at times, it can mean that you're the first person to do something. So first of all, we have to deal, is this saying just telling us what Noah started to do? Or is it telling us something that Noah was the very first to do?

[9:33] And then secondly, what did he start or what was he the first to do? Because if you give this a very literal translation, it'll say something like this, Noah, a man of the land, began and he planted a vineyard.

[9:50] You see how strange that is? You want to ask the question, what did he begin to do? What did he start? Because it simply says, Noah, and he's described as a man of the soil or a man of the earth, Noah, a man of the soil, began.

[10:08] And then we're told, and he planted a vineyard. So normally you would expect it to say something like, Noah began to, whatever, Noah began to hop around in circles.

[10:20] You know, Noah began to travel all over the land. Noah began to build and all, you would expect what grammarians call an infinitive to follow this. Began to do something and there's no infinitive in there.

[10:33] There's no to do something in there. And so we have to either guess at what it is or leave it alone. And some people want to take the verb he planted later on and make it an infinitive.

[10:45] So Noah began to plant a vineyard or sometimes Noah was the first to plant a vineyard. But I'm not sure that that's really the best way to translate it. It may be the only thing that we can come up with if we don't want to just add words to it.

[10:58] But it's not probably the best way to do it. Some do prefer to add words and so they say, Noah began to be. So you add the words to be. Noah began to be a man of the soil and he planted a vineyard.

[11:11] The reason why that's important is because if you're going to translate this in such a way that Noah is the very first person, if you're going to say, Noah, a man of the soil, was the first to plant a vineyard.

[11:22] If you're going to say that, if he's the very first person to ever plant a vineyard, then no one's ever grown grapes before and no one's ever really had wine before. And so you have to say, well, perhaps Noah didn't understand.

[11:36] Maybe Noah didn't know. Maybe Noah was unaware of the effects of fermented grape juice on a person's mind. And so maybe Noah didn't do anything wrong. Maybe Noah was just acting out of ignorance and oops, he, you know, oh, he got drunk, but he didn't know that it was going to make him drunk.

[11:53] If you translate it that way, that could in fact be the point of the text. But I'm not sure that that's the way that we ought to translate it. In fact, if we just take it straightforwardly and we don't add anything to it, we don't shift any verbs around and what they mean or what the form of them is in the original Hebrew, then we are stuck with just Noah was a man of the soil or Noah, a man of the soil, he began.

[12:19] He just began. Which makes sense because he's now exited the ark. He's now offered up to God a sacrifice and God has established a covenant between Noah and the rest of Noah's descendants for all time.

[12:34] And this is the first real activity outside of Noah's worship and the covenant making that God does with him. This is the first real activity we see from Noah after the flood.

[12:45] And so it may simply be that the text is saying that Noah just started. He started life anew. He started fresh. Everything's new. And Noah began.

[12:55] Began what? Well, to do everything. I mean, nothing's been happening for a while. Everything's fresh and new now. And so whether or not Noah becomes a farmer or whether Noah becomes a hunter or whether Noah becomes something else, all of that is new activity now in this newly formed world that Noah is living within.

[13:17] So Noah simply began. Noah's starting life anew. I think that's the point of the passage. But more important than what we do with this word began, I think, is the fact that Noah is described as a man of the soil.

[13:32] This is who Noah is. And I don't think it's simply a reference to the fact that Noah became a farmer, although that's obviously a part of the intent because he does move on and plant a vineyard.

[13:42] I think it's much more is at play here than simply, well, Noah began to be a farmer. I think it's more than that because the words here echo the words at the end of Genesis chapter 3 when God speaks to Adam and Eve after the fall and particularly to Adam and he tells him not only that he will have to work hard now to produce food from the ground, but he tells him that you're going to return to the dust.

[14:14] The ground is now your place because you are dust and to dust you will return. I think the point here at the beginning of chapter, towards the end of this story of the flood, is another reminder, once again, that though many sinners have perished in the flood, sin has not.

[14:37] Sin is still alive. Noah is still fallen. He is still a sinful person. He's simply a man of the ground. That's what we all are. We are people of the ground. We are formed originally, our first parent formed out of the ground and we are all, because we are sinners, going to die and return to the ground and we will become dirt someday.

[14:57] That's the truth about human beings and that's the truth about Noah and Noah's sons and all those descended from Noah. Sinners have been killed in the flood, but sin is alive and well in Noah and his sons.

[15:10] And right off the bat here, in the only real story that we get of Noah's life after the flood, we are reminded immediately he's fallen. So that what follows in this story are the kinds of actions you would expect from fallen humanity.

[15:30] He may be obedient as a whole in his life and compared to the people around whom he formerly lived, he was a righteous man, but Noah's a sinner. And we need to remember that when we were introduced to Noah in chapter 6, the first thing that we're told about Noah is that he found grace, grace, favor in the eyes of the Lord.

[15:52] Noah's salvation is not owing simply to Noah's righteousness. Noah's salvation in the flood is owing to God's grace and mercy because Noah, like everyone else, is still fallen.

[16:03] He's still a sinner. And I think that's the point here at the end of chapter 9. Noah's a man of the soil and Noah, after the flood, became a farmer and planted a vineyard.

[16:16] And then we're told that he became drunk. He became drunk. Now some would say that the sin of Noah is just simply that he drank alcohol, that he shouldn't have done that, he shouldn't have made the alcohol, he shouldn't have allowed the grapes to ferment, and he certainly shouldn't have drank the alcohol.

[16:33] But the fact of the matter is is that the Bible nowhere condemns moderate consumption of alcohol. It just simply doesn't. In fact, it's assumed throughout the Old and New Testament that the people of God are going to drink alcohol.

[16:46] And alcohol, in and of itself, particularly wine, is not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, I want you to hold your place in Genesis chapter 9 and turn all the way over to Psalm 104.

[17:00] Psalm 104, which we read a portion of earlier, is offered up as praise to God, speaking of all the good things that God does. demonstrations of God's power and demonstrations of God's mercy and grace toward His people.

[17:16] And things have been listed, things that God has done, good, merciful, gracious things that God has done. And if you pick up in verse 14, that continues. We're told that He says, You cause the grass to grow for the livestock, and plants for man to cultivate, that he may bring forth food from the earth, and wine to gladden the heart of man, oil to make his face shine, and bread to strengthen man's heart.

[17:44] So wine is placed on a level here with oil, which is very important in the ancient world, even important to us today, but we have oil in many, many forms. But oil to make his face shine, keep him clean, bread, food for him, and wine to gladden his heart.

[18:02] It's not portrayed negatively here. It's a good gift of God to His people, to the world. In fact, if you read later on in the prophets, when they give this graphic depiction of the new heavens and new earth, they speak of wine being present.

[18:22] And whether or not that's a literal depiction and wine is really there or not, you cannot back away from the fact that wine is used as a picture of God's blessings in the age to come.

[18:33] It's not by itself evil or wicked, and the consumption of alcohol by itself is not evil or wicked. But then on the other hand, we're not told that Noah drank wine.

[18:45] We're told that Noah became drunk on the wine, which is uniformly condemned throughout the Scriptures. I'll give you one passage.

[18:57] We're close to it. We're in the Psalms, so turn over to Proverbs 20. If wine is given as a good blessing from God, wine also comes with an inherent danger to it.

[19:09] Proverbs 20, verse 1, tells us that wine is a mocker, strong drink, a brawler, and whoever is led astray by it is not wise.

[19:24] Wine can be, if not dealt with carefully, alcohol itself can be a threat against someone's happiness, well-being, and a detractor from their wisdom.

[19:46] It can be all of those things. Over and over and over throughout the Scriptures, we find drunkenness itself condemned and warned against.

[19:57] Because it causes you to do things that you normally would not do. It doesn't simply remove inhibitions, although it does that. It alters your state of mind so that you will do things that you normally just would not do.

[20:12] You will participate in things that you normally would not participate in. That's why we're told that drunkenness shows a person is not wise. You can't be wise and drunk at the same time.

[20:24] It just doesn't work like that. You'll say crazy things if you're drunk. You'll do crazy things if you drink too much alcohol, which is exactly what we see Noah doing here.

[20:35] Go back to Genesis chapter 9 and take a look at what the text really tells us. In verse 21, He drank of the wine and became drunk and lay uncovered in his tent.

[20:53] It's not a surprising effect. Alcohol often has the effect of causing people to lose articles of clothing, and that's exactly what happens here with Noah. He's drunk and naked. At least he's inside of his tent.

[21:05] He's not out in the open air exposed to everyone, but this is not good. He's lost his faculties. He's not even aware of what he's doing, and he's just lying there in the tent, out of his mind, no clothes on.

[21:20] That's not good. That's not a wise thing to do. And then it gets worse. Because in verse 22, we read that Ham, we're told is the father of Canaan, Ham saw the nakedness of his father and told his two brothers outside.

[21:40] Now, this is where the speculation goes crazy with people. This is where it goes crazy. Because all the text tells us is that Ham saw the nakedness of his father who had previously become uncovered.

[21:55] That's all it actually tells us. And yet, there's been all sorts of speculation because modern day readers of the Bible read it and they see, well, Ham saw his dad without his clothes on.

[22:06] That doesn't necessarily warrant a curse, does it? I mean, we think to ourselves, that can't possibly be the only thing that he did.

[22:16] Surely something worse is meant here. Surely Moses is just softening his language as he describes for us the great evil that Ham must have done.

[22:29] And in fact, people will often point you to the book of Leviticus. You can turn there if you want. Leviticus chapter 18, we have some very similar language that's often used to accuse Ham of doing something worse than simply seeing.

[22:45] Leviticus 18 verse 6 tells us that none of you shall approach any one of his close relatives to uncover nakedness. I'm the Lord. You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father, which is the nakedness of your mother.

[23:00] She's your mother. You shall not uncover her nakedness. You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father's wife. It's your father's nakedness. Now, I'm not going to get into a lot of detail here as kids, but some interpreters take this and say, you see, the father's nakedness is the nakedness of his wife.

[23:19] And so therefore they accuse Ham of doing an incestual, awful thing here. They're saying that that's exactly what Ham did. Others would take a step even further and accuse him of some sort of homosexual act.

[23:31] And imaginations begin to run wild on what exactly Ham did here. But I think it's nothing more than what the passage says for two reasons. Number one, the language of Genesis chapter 9 is actually different than the language of Leviticus 18.

[23:48] Similar words are used. Uncover and nakedness are used, but they're not used in the same way. In Leviticus chapter 18, to uncover someone's nakedness is to do a particular thing. But in Genesis chapter 9, nobody uncovers Noah's nakedness.

[24:02] He is uncovered. Ham sees him without any clothes on. It's a different language altogether. Similar words, different context, different use of the words.

[24:13] So I'm not convinced that Leviticus 18 gives us any reason to think that Ham did anything worse than looking at his father. But the most important thing here is I think the reactions of Shem and Japheth.

[24:27] How do Shem and Japheth avoid committing the sin that Ham commits here? What do they do? Look closely. Verse 23, Then Shem and Japheth took a garment, laid it on their shoulders, and walked backward and covered the nakedness of their father.

[24:44] Their faces were turned backward, and they did not see their father's nakedness. So all of their effort between the two of them, holding a sheet over their shoulder, walking backwards.

[24:57] But not only walking backwards, but being sure to have their face turned this way, so they don't even get a peripheral view of their dad. walking backwards, dropping the blanket on him as best they can, exiting.

[25:10] All of their effort is aimed at what? Not seeing, literally seeing, their father's nakedness. That's what Ham did.

[25:21] So why is it so bad? Ham's sin is not simply a sin of seeing something.

[25:38] Ham's sin is a sin of dishonoring his father. Both by seeing him, and then especially by going out in a sort of mocking fashion to tell his brothers exactly what he's seen.

[25:51] Dad's passed out over there in his tent. He's just messed up, guys, and he didn't even have any clothes on. Just go look. Go look. Go take a look. It's dishonoring to their father.

[26:05] And we think, well, is that so bad? I mean, does that really deserve a curse? And the law of Moses to dishonor your parents was to incur the death penalty. This isn't, this isn't a minor issue in the Bible.

[26:20] This is, this is serious business. What Ham does here is a terribly wicked thing of dishonoring his father. His father who has lived a righteous life.

[26:35] His father who was chosen by God to be the one through whom humanity and animal kind was saved. His father who brought him onto the ark and rescued him and his wife and his brothers and his sisters-in-law.

[26:49] His father with whom God made a covenant that would last throughout all of human history with all of his descendants. Noah. He mocks his own dad. Noah.

[27:00] He just mocks him. Dishonors his father by looking at him, going into his tent, looking at him, and then going out and telling others. This is a big deal what Ham does here. You don't have to read anything else into it if you just read this through Bible-colored glasses and see this for what it is.

[27:18] Dishonoring of his father, which is an evil, evil thing that he does. And so Noah does awake. And we're told that Noah somehow knew what Ham had done to him.

[27:29] We don't know. Perhaps Noah wakes up and realizes there's a strange covering on him. And perhaps Ham left something behind. We have no way of knowing. Maybe. We don't know.

[27:39] We have no way really of knowing how in the world Noah clued away instantly that it was Ham who had done something because he knew immediately that his youngest son had done something to him.

[27:54] But the fact that Noah knew it is not nearly as strange as the way that Noah responds. Look at his response. A curse and then a blessing. Look at the curse first. He says in verse 25, Cursed be Canaan, a servant of servants he shall be to his brothers.

[28:10] Logically, you would think Ham has done an awful thing. He's dishonored you. Wouldn't you curse Ham? And instead, he curses Ham's son, Canaan.

[28:22] Why does he do that? Well, there's a lot of speculation here as well. Some people take the track of just simply saying Noah couldn't bear to curse his own son. So instead, he cursed his grandson.

[28:35] But if you know anything about grandparents, most grandparents would rather curse their kid than their grandkid. So I'm not sure that that's the best solution to take. Others have said that it may be that since Ham was one of those on the ark with Noah, that Ham was regenerate, that Ham was a believer, that Ham was saved, and therefore Noah was unable to pronounce any sort of curse upon Ham because Ham was among God's people.

[29:00] But Noah's youngest son, Canaan, is not saved. He's not a believer, at least not yet, so he's open and available for cursing. Maybe. I don't know. It's not in the text.

[29:12] Others say that, well, Canaan was Ham's youngest son, and since Noah has been dishonored by his own youngest son, the best punishment he could think of would be, rather than to curse Ham, to curse Ham's youngest son.

[29:29] Possibly. I really have absolutely no idea why Noah chose to curse Canaan rather than Ham. But what I do know is why Moses chose to record this curse.

[29:46] I know exactly why the Spirit of God inspired Moses to record these and only these words of Noah. because the name Canaan should be very, very familiar to all of us if we've read our Bibles at all.

[30:03] If you've read much of the Bible, you should know the name Canaan because God promised Abraham the land of Canaan. It was the Canaanites that God commanded Joshua and the Israelites to exterminate.

[30:18] The Canaanites are those upon whom God will one day bring His judgment and He will give their land and their cities and their homes to the Israelites.

[30:33] In fact, God is so serious about this that He gives, He promises to give Abraham the land when we first meet Abraham in a couple of chapters.

[30:45] And then a few chapters after that, God tells Abraham, Abraham, I'm going to send your descendants over to Egypt for about 400 years.

[30:57] And I'm going to send them there until the iniquity of the Amorites, and the Amorites is another term for the Canaanites, until the iniquity of the Amorites is full.

[31:10] And when that's full, I'm going to bring them back. And of course, when God brings them back, now these Canaanites have been allowed to go their way without the influence of the Spirit of God at all, without even the influence of any one of God's people.

[31:26] All of Abraham's descendants through Isaac are now in Egypt. And so they're able to go their own way. And you get to see total depravity in the absence of God's common restraining grace take its course.

[31:40] And by the time the Israelites show up on the scene, the Canaanites are an awfully wicked people practicing all sorts of pagan rituals and all sorts of evil, wicked things that they do around their temples, even to the point of sacrificing babies and children to these false gods.

[31:57] They are at the point where they deserve the judgment coming through the hand of the nation of Israel. God allows them to get to that point. And if you're the Israelites standing on the eastern shore of the Jordan River, staring across and seeing Jericho in the distance and knowing that there's city after city beyond Jericho, and God has just given you a command to wipe them out, utterly decimate them, kill them all.

[32:33] It might be helpful for you to know not only are these people wicked and deserving of it, but back several generations ago they were already named before they even existed.

[32:49] They were already called out and named as a cursed people. This is who they are. This is how evil and wicked they are and from their very inception they have been wicked and evil and under a curse.

[33:04] I don't know why Noah chose to curse Canaan instead of Ham himself, but I know that Moses recorded it so that the Israelites might understand and so that we even centuries later might have a better understanding of why the events of Joshua take place the way that they do.

[33:21] These are evil, wicked people under a curse. But just as surely as there's a curse here, there's also a blessing that takes place. Verse 26, Noah also said, Blessed be the Lord, the God of Shem, and let Canaan be his servant.

[33:41] And then secondly, May God enlarge Japheth and let him dwell in the tents of Shem and let Canaan be his servant. So Canaan now not only destined for destruction under the hands of the Israelites someday, but in the meantime Canaan will be a slave, a servant to both the descendants of Shem and the descendants of Japheth.

[34:06] And that happened that unfolded in history. The Canaanites as they lived were always under the thumb of someone else. Always under the thumb of someone else. Always a thorn in the side of the Israelites because they didn't fully obey God's command to wipe them all out.

[34:22] But most of the time under the thumb. It really, really took place. But more importantly than that is to recognize the blessing. Blessed be the Lord.

[34:33] And the word here is all capital letters in English which means this is the covenant name of God. He is the covenant God of Shem. The relationship that God shared with Noah is now passed down to Shem.

[34:48] And the blessing moves from Noah down to Shem. And with the blessing comes the promises. Do you remember the promises of Genesis chapter 3 about a seed that would come? Promises passed down along with the blessings.

[35:03] Noah was not the seed. He was not the one who would bring rest as his father thought even though his name is rest. But the promises and the blessings move on. Now through Shem.

[35:16] And we're going to look and see next week as we look at the genealogy in chapter 10 and the Tower of Babel in chapter 11. We're going to look at the descendants of Shem and Ham and Japheth and see where they're scattered in the world.

[35:28] But one of the things we'll realize is that as this story moves forward it moves rather quickly to bridge the link between Shem and Abraham so that we can see and clearly understand that the blessings and the promises move from Noah to Shem to Abraham and ultimately for us as believers in Christ we see these promises we see these blessings come to fruition in reality in Christ and for all those who are in Christ.

[36:00] Turn over to Galatians. I want you to see this and not simply take my word for it. Galatians chapter 3 in verse 7 Paul tells us something he wants us to know.

[36:14] Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham and the scripture foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham saying in you shall all the nations be blessed.

[36:31] So now pay attention closely to verse 9 So then or therefore those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham the man of faith.

[36:50] The blessing of Abraham becomes the blessing of all those who trust in Christ who later on we learn in Galatians is the true seed of Abraham the true real Israelite the real descendant of Abraham and all the promises of God terminate on Christ all the blessings given to God's people throughout all time terminate on Christ and then through him are filtered out to all those who trust in him and that's good news for people who are even not of the line of Shem there are peoples all over the world from the line of Japheth many of us in here European descent Japheth not Shem you don't get blessed if your descendants are from Europe your blessing does not come some sort of physical genealogical connection all the way back to Shem it doesn't happen so how do the

[37:52] Japhethites how do Europeans get blessed how do people in the farthest corners of Asia who are not descendants of Shem get blessed how do the peoples whose ancestors are from Africa how do they become blessed how does this happen even if we cannot trace a lot of current day nations we can't trace some of them back and I didn't pinpoint them exactly how can we be sure that a blessing might go to them if the blessing is passing from Noah to Shem to Shem to Abraham how can we be sure that those of us who are outside Abraham which is I would guess everybody here how do we get the blessing how can it happen very simply those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham the man of faith you want to receive the blessing of Shem then like Shem may the Lord really be your

[38:52] God may Christ be the object of your faith you want you want God to cover you and protect you and provide for you trust in the God of Shem and in his son Jesus because like Noah you and I are sinners just like Ham just like Shem and Japheth even we're fallen sinful people and our end will be no different from Noah's look at the last verse in this chapter last two verses after the flood Noah lived 350 years all the days of Noah were 950 years and he died he died just like everyone else before him except for Enoch Adam died Eve died Cain and Abel and Seth they died

[39:54] Methuselah died Noah dies here Noah's children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren will die you will die I will die whether it's in a year or 20 years or 50 years everybody in this room is going to die unless Jesus comes back first we're going to die okay that's the bad news the good news is the blessing given to Noah passed on to Shem passed on to Abraham can be ours through faith in the true seed of Abraham Jesus so let's pray we see blessing and curses throughout the scriptures father not simply here but over and over we see them and our desire is to be those who live under your blessing not not a blessing simply for material prosperity not a blessing simply for physical health though we would love to enjoy those things but what we desperately desperately need is to be able that it might be able to be said of us the Lord is our God

[41:07] Yahweh the covenant God of Israel the creator of all things he is our God Jesus is our savior and treasure pray that that might be said of all of us in here and if it cannot be said right now I pray that you would so work in the hearts of those who are here that by the time we leave in a few minutes all of us might be legitimately called sons of Abraham through faith in Jesus pray this in Christ's name amen