Babel

Exactly, I don't have a slide of it, but imagine I could have found one if I'd looked. So all that to say, it's not in your order of worship. If you have a Bible, you can follow along, if not, you can just listen from Genesis chapter 9. I say, do you hear the word of God? The sons of Noah who went forth from the ark were Shem, Han, and Japheth. Han was the father of Canaan. These three were the sons of Noah and from these, the people of the whole earth were dispersed. Noah began to be a man of the soil and he planted a vineyard. 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. Then Shem and Japheth took a garment, laid it on both their shoulders, and walked backward and covered their nakedness of their father. Their faces were turned backwards, and they did not see their father's nakedness. 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 he shall be to his brothers. He also said, blessed be the Lord, the God of Shem, and let Canaan be his servant. May God enlarge Japheth, and let him dwell in the tents of Shem, and let Canaan be his servant, and after the flood Noah lived 350 years. All the days of Noah were 950 years, and he died, let us pray. While there I pray now that you would just teach us the gospel of Jesus, as we look at this story of Noah and his sons, open the eyes of the blind and the ears of the death, and Christ name we pray these things, Amen, and Amen. We'll just by way of review, it's interesting because if you've ever studied the book of Genesis, you know it falls into sort of logical chunks, and the first logical chunk is chapter 1 through 11. It basically goes up through the tower of Babel, and then after Babel you have Abraham, and then you have Isaac and Jacob, so it goes on from there. So it's going to be a logical chunk, we're going to finish up here pretty soon. A lot of biblical scholars call that the primeval history, and if you remember the purpose of the book of Genesis, at least in my opinion, or at least as I understand it, is to remind Israel of the promises of God, that God promised them he would deliver them from Egypt, and that he would get them into the promised land, and also when did Moses write it, that's important to Moses either wrote the book of Genesis, probably either when Israel was in Egypt, and he's writing this in order to persuade them that they need to leave Egypt and let God save them practically, or that they've already left Egypt, and he's trying to persuade them that God is going to finish the job. And so when you have that template in your mind and you begin to look at the book of Genesis, you begin to see all these, the correlation between Israel's experience and the book of Genesis generally speaking. Even from the very first day of creation, right, it says that God spoke into the Tohu, Vibohu of creation, that was the formalist void in the chaos. Another word for that, in Hebrew is the oppression and bondage. Now to God speaking to Israel's oppression and bondage, he certainly did, and did he release them from it? Yes, he did. And then after God speaks in light into darkness, he divides the water from the dry land. Is there anything in Israel's experience that sounds like that? The Red Sea, of course. And so if you move forward, the story of Noah is the same thing because also Noah, just as Noah was passed through the waters of judgment and survived, so Israel had passed through the waters of judgment and survived. And if you remember, if you were here last week, remember what God said in chapter 9 and the verse, verse says, and God bless Noah and his sons, this is after the flood, he said, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth, the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth and upon every bird of the heavens. And so basically, he saw that Noah is the next Adam, that Noah and people would look at him that ways. He's going to be the one, but also just as Noah was given this mandate to be fruitful and multiply and to rule and subdue the earth. So Israel was given the mandate to be fruitful and multiply. It's always funny if you look, if you read the Bible, the more you try and squash down God's people, the more they seem to multiply. And Israel was given that mandate just and we too were given that mandate as Christians. What it meant for God to fill the earth with his image and the ancient kings would take images of themselves and they would put images of themselves on anything they possessed so that when you were maybe riding your camel through an area, you'd look up and see an image of some king or another and you'd say, oh, he owns this. Well, God, the great king says, I'm filling the whole earth with my image. So wherever you see people, that is a sign that I own this place. And we take part in that. And so all that happened. And if you remember last week, we came up the flood and God's promise and God says, I'm going to set my bow in the clouds. I'm no longer going to, I promise I'll never flood the earth. And that's where it leaves us. But now you have Noah and his family. And they're going to be the ones who, at least according to the Bible, are now responsible for remultiplying the earth and writing out. And it's very interesting story because I reminded you of all that stuff about Israel because as we begin to head into the Tower Babel story, this is one of the most important stories that I just read to you in the history of Israel as they sort of tried to figure out what their place in the world. Okay. So what are we going to look at here? Okay, beginning again, I read that to you. That was the only picture I could find of ham, shem, and japeth. And I thought, you know, okay, these guys are going to be the ones responsible for repopulating the earth. That's a good thing they're already married. I thought, um, so the sons of Noah went forth from the ark, shem ham, and japeth ham was the father of canin. These three were the sons of Noah. And from these people, the whole earth were dispersed. Okay, that's fine. The most important thing you see in that verse is the editorial comment right in here. Shem ham and japeth and ham was the father of canin. Because remember Israel had a few enemies, right? The Egypt was the, if you're, you know, if you're doing a drama and someone was playing an Egyptian in front of Israel, that's when you would boo and hiss. And the other people that would be villains would be people from canin, the caninites. And so immediately something is happening here. You have shem ham and japeth ham is the father of canin. Don't forget that boys and girls, right? They're reading this story. So building toward babble, what happens next? Noah plants a vineyard. Let me read it to you. In verse 20, it says, Noah began to be a man of the soil and he planted a vineyard. He drank wine and became drunk and lay uncovered in his tent. Okay, I think this is just one of the most hilarious things because, you know, it's sort of like, okay, Noah, you just spent a year on an ark, cooped up with your family. What are you going to do now? I'm going to Disney World, right? He doesn't say that. What does Noah do? I mean, it's just, it's interesting to me. He gets off the boat and he like has to have a strong a stiff drink, apparently. So he's cramped up. He goes. He plants a vineyard and Noah gets drunk and he's laying in his tent naked. That's all we know. Another thing about the Hebrew language generally and as it applies to this text is that the Hebrew language is actually very vague. If you've ever, you know, like in seminary, I had to study Hebrew as well as Greek and Hebrew is just a bear to try and translate because it's relatively vague in the translation. I mean, it could be this or it could be that or it could be one thing or it could be another. It could be, you know, active. It could be passive. So that's going to come into play in a minute because we see Noah plants a vineyard. He gets, you know, as my friend, Zan Church, what would say? He gets drunker than Coder Brown passes out in his tent and then what happens? Ham, the father of Canaan commits treachery. Whenever you're reading the Bible, you know, it seems like it's common sense. People don't catch it. If you want to know what's important, notice what does the author keep repeating? And I've shown you this before. If you've ever been in a class when I've taught the book of Judges, the book of Judges, you know, it's this sort of rape and pillage for 17 chapters and then the last three chapters or four chapters of the book in Judges about every 15 or 20 verses. It says, now, remember Israel had no king and everyone did what was right in his own eyes. And then it tells another story and it says, now, remember, if you didn't get it yet, Israel didn't have a king. What do you think the guy's point is? Israel doesn't have a king. That's a problem. So in this story, what do you think the problem is? Let me read to you. It says in verse 22 in Ham, the father of Canaan saw the nakedness of his father and told his two brothers outside. So obviously Moses wants us to know without a shadow of a doubt that Ham is the father of Canaan. It's almost like you can't say Ham without adding that as a qualifier. Ham, the father of Canaan, saw his father's nakedness. Now, the interesting thing, if you, when you look at verse 22, what does it mean? Do you think Moses, we were talking about this before, what actually happened in there? When Ham walked in, it says, he quote, saw his father's nakedness and then went out and told his brothers. It is benign as just walking in and sort of catching his father with his towel down. Let me be honest, I live in a house with all women and I have four women in my house and I think if we have five bathrooms, all of them will be used at the same time without me. I don't know how that works. So constantly, I'm constantly in my bathroom. Hey, hey, privacy in here. Hey, hey, hey, hope privacy in here. But I'm not one time have I ever thought to curse one of my children for all generations throughout all eternity because they happen to see me naked. Not once. What's going on here? And the answer is just this, it's probably something more than him just having seen Noah. In other words, he probably did something that was perverse, something that was wrong, something that was bad because what the authors trying to get across here is he's trying to use very vague language. Children would have read these stories. And remember that I said how Hebrew is often hard to like, it could mean this or could mean something else. One way to read this text in the Hebrew language is that it had, it was something sexual. Either way, whatever he did was really bad and Noah didn't appreciate it. And so, Ham goes in and does this, but also that gives you sort of sense of he's setting up the character of Ham. Would you not, it's one thing, when you think of someone who would commit that kind of act with their father, what does that make you think of? If you know the Bible at all,

place called Sodom and Gomorrah. If you, if you ever, when you read through the Bible, if you ever want to just, you know, it's like when I, I think I've told you before when I was in the army, we used to go out in the field for a week and we would come back and we would clean our weapons in the room. And we would literally sit there for hours on end just criticizing each other and cracking on each other and seeing and just die laughing at it. You know, you, you see Alan, you know, when he had like rocks in his shoes, you know, trying to march, whatever, but if you wanted to end the discussion, if you, if you were just tired of doing that, you just said something about the other guy's mom. Right? You know, your mom was so fat, your mom was so dumb, your mom was so, you just say that and all the sudden it's done when you're reading the Bible. If you want to end the discussion, if you want to just point out, you know, like I'm tired of trying to explain how bad you are, you're like Sodom and Gamora. Can't get any worse than that. The book of judges, the guy wants you to know how bad it is and the book of judges, how bad it had gotten in Israel, it's like Sodom and Gamora. This reminds, this has that same kind of flavor. That's how bad ham is and ham is who, the father of Canaan. I'm getting ready to send you from Egypt and one bad guy into the land of Canaan. What do you think God thinks of Canaan? If you're at least you're Israel, if you're in Israelite, do you think he's on your side or do you think he's on their side? Would it encourage you or would it discourage you? I would imagine, encourage you to think, man, those guys are not the good guys. So what happens next?

We read it to you for 23, then Shem and Jacob took a garment, laid it on both their shoulders, walked backward, covered the nakedness of their father. Their faces were turned backward and they did not see their father's nakedness. That's pretty clear. Now, it's just, if nothing untoward happened here, besides ham seeing his father's nakedness, that Noah was that uptight, that they had to walk in backwards and never look, never, you know, that's an issue as well, but apparently Noah appreciated what the other two sons did. And so where does that take us? When Noah wakes up, and here's the bread and butter, the whole passage, Noah wakes up in verse 24, it says, when Noah awoke from his wine and knew what his youngest son had done to him, that's another clue that something happened more than seeing. His son had done something to him. When he saw what his son had done to him, he said, cursid be canin, a servant of servants, he shall be to his brothers, okay? So Noah wakes up and he basically just starts, you know, speaking, curses are blessings, cursid be canin, a servant of servants shall he be to his brothers. And who would come from ham? In other words, remember these three brothers in chapter 10, if you read on through chapter 10, that's the table of nations, and it shows it gives the tribes that sort of came from these three brothers, and for whom was ham the progenitor, the Egyptians, Arabs, and Babylonians, among others. Do those three groups of people play any part in the history of Israel? The bad guys, at least from Israel's perspective. Now you can imagine if you're from a muslim perspective or Persian perspective or something else like that, you might want to try and switch the story around a little bit to make it sound like you're not the bad guys, but either way, from Israel's point of view, the bad guys came from ham, and the bad guys who came from ham, what is their status before God? Generally speaking, cursid be canin, right? Now where does that leave the other two? You have shem. What does he say about shem? Blessed be the Lord, the God of shem, and let canin be his servant. Okay, that's pretty big. Now remember, this isn't the days of no, this is quite a long time before Israel, but if you're in Israel and you're reading this, what does that tell you about, what is your history? Tell you about your future. What is the history of Israel? Tell you, well, their history says that all the way back to Noah, when there are only three guys who are going to repopulate the whole earth, ham committed some grievous act and sin. And from that point on, God said, cursid be ham, cursid be canin, blessed be shem, and for all the days of your life's canin will serve shem. Would that encourage you? It should, because they're looking back to their history. Now who do you think comes from shem?

The Hebrews and the Assyrians are a few other scattered tribes. So the Hebrews, the semites, basically, come from shem. Who else, the japheth is sort of like a third wheel here, but nonetheless,

he says of japheth, may God enlarge japheth and let him dwell in the tense of shem and let canin be his servant. So there's sort of a pecking order that has been arranged. So if the shem is at the top, japheth, he comes under shem's blessing and canin, he has to serve them both. And we're going to talk about when you get to Abraham, but also there's a principle throughout the book of Genesis. Whatever, however you interact with the blessing bearer is how you are treated by God. So in other words, in this situation, I'm going to call shem is God's blessing bear. His God's blessing has been put upon him and japheth is blessed because of his relationship with shem and also canin has to serve japheth because of japheth's relationship with shem. So what does all that mean? Well, first of all, who does japheth father, basically Europe and northern Asia, and a few others? I mean, there are a lot of, is it an ethnologist? But either way, so that's where biblical speaking, these people come from. The summary of all this stuff, memory told you, it's going to be cut in half, thanks to mercy. Genesis 9, 20 to 27 reminds Israel of their place in God's economy. Remember I told you this is one of the most important things in Israel's history, at least in the book of Genesis, because it is this big fat juicy reminder of where they stand in relationship to God. Because I imagine, you know, they just left the Egypt or they're in Egypt. Let's assume that they're in Egypt and they're in Egypt and they are the slaves and all the people in Egypt are basically, let's just say wealthy or they certainly don't have chains around their legs and they look around and they're reading this and Moses is telling in this and do you think they thought he was crazy? In other words, they had to feel, assuming they were in Egypt, that this can't be the case, you're telling us that these guys, the rich guys are the masters are the ones who are cursed and we're the ones who are blessed, that God really has something planned for us, or if they're heading toward the promised land, remember in the land of Canaan? They were afraid because the people were like grasshoppers and yet you read the book of Genesis and you read all the way back to the very beginning, those guys over there, they might be as big, they might make you look like grasshoppers but they are the ones who are cursed. God's plan is for you to prosper. God promised you he would deliver you from Egypt and he promised you he would finish the job. And so what do they learn in this text that God, they reminded their place in God's economy in spite of the way things may seem at the moment? Now what does it have to do with us? What has everything to do with us? Because ask yourself, if you're a Christian, what does it say about, you know, you look around you, your situation and you look how hard things are and you say, God, why is this happening to me? You're telling me that I'm the one who's blessed and that those guys are the ones who are cursed, the ones who are pressing me, the ones who are harming me, all the things that are going wrong in my life and the answer is absolutely. That God knows what he's doing because if you're not sure that when you look at something and it looks like nothing could be worse, that that's actually upside down and that's the good thing. All you have to do is you look at the cross because the cross is the ultimate place where it looked like everything was lost and it looked like that we had no hope and no help anywhere and yet at the very place of betrayal, the very place of wrath and punishment is the very place of deliverance. That's what Israel would have learned from their perspective. That's what we ought to learn here. Think about that. Let me pray for us. Father, I pray that as we continue in the book of Genesis that you would remind us, you continually keep us reminded of our place in your economy that we are the apple of your eye that you have drawn us out of our bondage and our slavery to sin, not in order to punish us and make our lives worse but in order to take us to the promised land and you promise that you who began a good work would be faithful to complete it and Father, I pray that you give all of us here the faith to believe that. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.