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Sermon
Genesis

Sin, Sons, and Sovereignty

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November 26, 2023
Genesis 9:18–29
Steven Lee
Pastor for Preaching & Vision

The Sovereignty of God

Sin & The Fall

The Gospel

Transcript

0:11Well, happy Thanksgiving. It's good to be here as we worship the Lord and continue our study in Genesis. And it's texts like this that I sometimes think, oh, I should have picked a special Thanksgiving passage instead with all the visitors that are among us. But if you are a visitor, we're glad you're here. As we turn now to God's word, we're in a series in Genesis, and now we come to Genesis nine, which you just heard. Read the latter half of that. And we'll also look at chapter 10 as well this morning. So why don't you join me as we pray, father in heaven, we come now to your word, having been encouraged and exhorted by your by song.

0:56And now we want to be encouraged and exhorted by your word. So help us to see what you want us to see here in this passage. Enliven our hearts so that we would love and trust and delight in Christ, all the more. Pray that in Jesus' name. Amen. I wonder if any of you have ever had this experience. You're looking forward to something that anticipation builds and builds. You've been dreaming about this moment, perhaps for years, but when it finally happens, it's a let down. You're disappointed, you're underwhelmed. The reality of what you experience doesn't live up to all the suspense and anticipation and the hype that surrounded it.

1:47Maybe it's a big purchase like a car or a house. Maybe it's that big expensive vacation. I was gonna say, maybe it's the marriage day, the wedding day. You've been planning for it. Hopefully not the marriage itself, but these long awaited milestones just don't live up to expectations. After the promotion, you realize, oh, I just have more responsibility, more work, and more stress. Or the day after your birthday, you're left with day old cake, more gray hair, and you're one year closer to death. The day after Christmas, the decorations have to come down, life gets back to normal. In the aftermath of the flood account that we saw last week, we can begin to feel a little bit of that sense of letdown.

2:37If you weren't here last week, pastor Bedden helped unfold this epic story of rescue and salvation through judgment. God displays his justice, and in the midst of that, he displays his mercy as well. And as the waters recede, God makes a covenant by putting his bow in the sky and says that he's never going to destroy the earth ever again by way of flood it. It's what we make movies of these epic stories of God's mercy and judgment. But in the aftermath of this flood account, which you just heard read what happens, Noah gets drunk, passes out and lays uncovered in his tent. We go from the sublime to the ridiculous.

3:30This is the story that they skip in your kids', you know, illustrated storybook bibles. So we ask this morning, why is it here in our Bibles? And what encouragement can we find from that and from the genealogy in chapter 10? Well, I think Genesis nine and 10 helps set the stage for God's plan of rescue that's going to come through Abraham in Genesis 12. So, so the main point of our text is that after the flood, we might think, and they lived happily ever after, everything got back to normal, all the sins been blotted out, right? Unfortunately, no mankind did not live happily ever after. But instead, it's pointing forward, not backwards.

4:25It's pointing forward to a day where God will rule over the whole earth. What we learn in Genesis nine in this latter half is that the flood can't fix our problem of sin. Sin still remains within every heart, and yet God is continuing to unfold his plan of redemption through which he will save all mankind. What our passage does is it gives us this glimmer of hope, despite the let down that sin still remains. It reminds us that we can trust in our sovereign creator and sustainer of everyone and everything because he didn't make a mistake, but rather he's unfolding his glorious plan of redemption.

5:23That's pointing forward to Abraham, pointing forward to David, pointing forward ultimately to Jesus. So let me try to illustrate this with Bob Ross. If, if you've never heard of Bob Ross, you, you're missing out. He's the creator and host of the TV show, the Joy of Painting. How many of you have watched of his programs? Oh, many of you're missing out. He, he teaches you how to paint these beautiful landscapes. I think this was back in PBS in the eighties and nineties. He's known for his quirky phrases and his big afro and, and his phrase is like, let's add some happy little trees. As he's painting, right?

5:59And every like once every program, you'll think, oh, he just messed it up. He he'll put these big black brush marks on his beautiful blue or whatever, you know, landscape, and you'll just think, oh, he, he totally messed it up. And then five minutes later you realize, oh no, he, he, he had a purpose and intention behind it. It's fixed. And he's known for saying, we don't make mistakes, we just have happy accidents. And similarly, God doesn't make mistakes, but God doesn't even have happy accidents. Instead, what we see is that God is unfolding his plan of redemption on the canvas of history, on the canvas of scripture, and even on the canvas of each and every single one of our lives this morning, God does not make mistakes.

6:52He does not mess things up. Instead, he's unfolding his plan of redemption for mankind. And, and that's what we're to see in our passage of this morning. So what we're gonna do is look at our passage in two main parts. The first part is all of the rest of chapter nine. From 18 to the end, we see this, the reemergence of sin after the flood. And then we're gonna look at chapter 10 where we see Noah's sons are fruitful and they multiply into many nations. So here we come to sin after the fall. The story is pretty straightforward. You just heard it read. Noah had three sons, Shem, ham, and J fifth from these three sons, all the people of the whole earth are dispersed.

7:37That word dispersed means to scatter. And it's an important word 'cause it shows up again in chapter 10. Shows up three times in chapter 11, one through nine as it anticipates the Tower of Babel. Now Noah plants a vineyard, drinks wine gets drunk, lies naked. Verse 22 says, and Ham, the father of Canaan saw the nakedness of his father and told his two brothers outside. And then it tells us that sham and take a blanket, they walk backwards so as not to see and cover their father Noah wakes. And it says that he knew that his youngest son had done something to him. And then notice what he does in verse 25, who does he curse?

8:23He curses Canaan, not ham, he curses Canaan, which is ham's fourth son. In contrast, sheem and Jfi are blessed. And then Noah were told dies at 950 years old. This is one of those stories that makes you scratch your head. And you would just wonder what in the world that there's two significant questions in this passage beyond, besides what in the world. The, the first is what did ham do to merit Noah's curse? And the second question is, why does Noah curse ham's son Canaan rather than ham himself? In answer to the first question, some speculate that ham did something heinous and horrible like castration or sodomy or sleeping with Noah's mother, uh, Noah's wife, his mother, excuse me.

9:14In Leviticus, there's uh, the phrase uncovering one's nakedness, which is a euphemism for sleeping with a relative. It's, uh, it's all over Leviticus 18, but I think the solution is actually that's most clear, is also the most simple to figure out. What ham did We look at what Shem and Jfi do in response, they walked backwards to cover their father ensuring that they did not look upon their father's nakedness. This wouldn't have solved anything if ham's offense was castration or sodomy or incest. This solution makes sense if the offense is seeing his father in his uncovered state. So I, I think it means this, and it's a little bit of speculation.

9:58I think Ham saw his father in this embarrassing state. He laughs at his father's expense and he calls his brothers and he says, get a load of this dad. You kind of get the sense it's voyeurism, it's delighting in the misfortune or embarrassment of another. It's not an accidental glance or being in the wrong place at the wrong time. It's he's reveling in his father's embarrassing state. This would be deeply disrespectful. His instinct isn't to cover his father's shame, but to delight in it and to get a good laugh out of it. This is different from helping an aging parent go to the bathroom. This isn't a prohibition ev against ever seeing a parent naked, rather ham mocks and rebels in his father lying there naked.

10:51Now, what are we to make of the curse? First, this is not a prophecy, but it's rather a human pronouncement. It's like a prayer that Noah utters before God. It's like when I give the benediction at the end of the services, almost every week I'll raise my hands and I say, the Lord bless you and keep you. It does not mean that I've been endowed some special power in order to cause the Lord's blessing to fall upon you. What am I doing in that moment? Uh, I'm declaring a blessing while praying to God that this week I'm praying that the Lord would bless you. Uh, that's what Noah's doing, this prayer pronouncement that he's declaring.

11:29Now, the the question is why does Noah curse ham's son Canaan? You see that in verse 25. If you look at your passage with me, look at verse 18. We see that there's mention of Canaan from the very beginning. The sons of Noah went forth from the ark, sham, ham and jth, and then parentheses ham was the father of Canaan. And then look at verse 22. We see again Ham, the father of Canaan, and then he's cursed in verse 25. So why is there so much attention on Canaan in this passage? He's not the firstborn of him, but he's likely his fourth son. You can see that in chapter 10, verse six. He's listed last there.

12:13Well, this was written by Moses drawing upon oral traditions or written records, and Israel would've already had this long history with the Canaanites. They're to inherit the promised land by driving out the Canaanites. You can read about this in Exodus and Deuteronomy and the Canaanites are Israel's enemies. And so what this account begins to do is it helps explain the hostility and the rivalry that's between Israel and Canaan. Uh, Israelite in that day hearing this account would've said, oh, this is why there's so much hostility between our people now. And the text doesn't tell us why Noah curses Canaan rather than ham we're left to speculate.

13:00It could be that Canaan is somehow guilty along with ham. It could be because Ham is Noah's youngest son that he curses Canaan, who is hims youngest son. It could also be that in chapter nine verse one, God had blessed Noah and his three sons. And so Noah doesn't want to curse what God has already blessed. At the end of the day, we don't exactly know. But what it does do for the listener, especially the original listeners, is that it would explain the ongoing hostility between Israel and all of the surrounding nations. This is in some ways even similar to how we see modern day Israel experiencing hostility from all of the surrounding nations.

13:48Now the curse is that Canaan's gonna serve his brothers and Noah bless his sheem and jfi that big picture as we step back from this passage is that God is unfolding his plan of redemption for mankind and and how is he doing that? Well, the flood didn't rectify mankind's sin problem. Instead, it's setting the stage for a solution that is to come. We see that back in chapter six, mankind was full of evil continually, that all the thoughts and intentions of their heart were wickedness. And we might think the flood blotted out sin. We get a blank slate, a new start. And the first thing that happens is a fall.

14:46Noah disgraces himself and curses ham for his sin. Sin still remains. We might also think we've been giving lots of attention through our series to the seed or the offspring of the woman and the seed and the offspring of the serpent and the seed of the offspring, or excuse me, the seed of the woman was through the line of Seth that goes all the way to Noah. But then the seed of the serpent went through kain to ec. And we might think, well, all of Kane's descendants have been wiped out. So there there's no more seed of the serpent. Well, unfortunately that's not true. The offspring of the serpent begins to manifest itself in Canaan.

15:35Canaan's descendants come from, uh, canaan's descendants become the Egyptians, the Philistines, the Assyrians, and the Babylonians. So we see the seed of the serpent that lives alongside the seed of the woman. Now it's important to just mention Canaan's curse. Here is no justification for enslaving people of a certain race or ethnicity. Unfortunately, slavery has been practiced by nearly all peoples throughout history. No one culture or people can claim the high road when it comes to the evil of slavery. And in the history of the church, some have used Genesis nine as justification for enslaving Africans, supposing that they came from the line of ham.

16:23There's no justification for that in this text. Rather what this text is trying to do is it tells us that all of mankind comes from the three sons of Noah. We have the same origin and we're all marred by sin and wickedness. Now, how do we apply a confounding text like this? This morning? I think what we see is that Adam falls short in the fall in Genesis three, and then we see that Noah falls short despite being a man who walked with God, who was called righteous. And so our hope rests not on either of these two men, but our hope is to look forward to a future offspring that would come from the seed of the woman through Shem.

17:12We're waiting. We're supposed to be waiting for a righteous rescuer that is still to come. And amazingly on this side of the cross, we know that that savior has come. And what does Jesus say in John 1247? He says, I've come not to judge the world, not to bring a flood or a fire, but to do what instead, to bring forgiveness of sins. Jesus came to atone for sins to renew his people. And what problem did he address? Our sin problem from the inside out. If anyone hears his voice, they can come and receive his grace and forgiveness it. There's this picture after the flood almost of kind of a new creation, a recreation, and yet we see the presence of sin.

18:09And then yet in Jesus, he talks about there being a new creation as well. Actually, it's Paul in two Corinthians five 17 says, therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away. Behold the new has come. So a recreation takes place, but not just in the world out there, but within every heart. Now Noah dies, then we come to another genealogy, the todo, the generations that traces Noah's three sons. So we come down to Genesis 10. This is part two. Noah's sons, Genesis 10 is often called the table of nations. And it describes how all the nations of the world descend from Noah's three sons.

19:01And I wanna share five observations about this chapter. I'm not gonna read it. It's a lot of names. I would encourage you when you go home today, read that around the dinner table. It'll be a fun exercise trying to pronounce all the names. Uh, but let me give you five observations about this chapter first. This is a unique genealogy in the Bible and in all of ancient literature. So the reason it's unique is because it doesn't trace one line of individuals like the line of cane or the line of Seth or the genealogy of Jesus, where it goes from one person traces it all the way to another person. Rather what this genealogy does, it shows how Noah's three sons, all the peoples or tribes of the earth come from these three sons.

19:53You can see that in verse two, the sons of Jfe. And then they list them and then you even get some of the next generation and then the sons of ham in verse six. And then em, you see all of his descendants. You can also notice with the suffix I am, IM all the people groups that are beginning to be mentioned, kid him in chapter 10, verse four, Dom or chapter 10, verse 13, ldi, anonym and so forth. You can also see the people groups that are coming from this with the suffix, ITES, ites, Jebusites and Amorites and gsites and Hivites. So it's not just tracing individual people, but it's tracing people, groups and nations and tribes that come from this one family that's populating the whole earth.

20:42The second observation is that we're seeing this development of people groups. Now notice this fourfold description. Look with me at verse five, verse five. From these the coast land peoples spread in their, now notice this lands each with his own language by their clans and in their nations. Kind of a fourfold description. Now look at verse 20. These are the sons of ham by their clans and languages, lands and nations. Another full fourfold description, similar. Now look at verse 31. These are the sons of Shem by their clans languages, their lands and their nations. What is the significance of this?

21:28It's describing the development of people, groups that are divided by language, location, or land and culture. It means that Genesis 10 is chronologically after Genesis 11, one through nine because the introduction of languages doesn't appear until after Genesis 11. And we'll look at that in just a moment. But does any of that sound familiar? Clans, languages, lands and nations? I'm seeing one or two noded heads. It should sound familiar. When we get to the New Testament, we get to Revelation five, nine, and it describes people from every tribe and language and people and nation. Or Revelation seven, nine, same thing.

22:15So different people groups begin to emerge in Genesis 10 and 11, and they're gonna be gathered back at the final judgment. This is one of those broad themes that's traced throughout scripture that all mankind comes from Adam, all mankind comes from Noah and his three sons. And as these nations develop, God is going to pick one man in order to bless the entire world. He's gonna pick Abraham. And he says through you, through, I'm gonna make you into a great nation. And through you, I'm gonna bless all the nations of the earth. And through that nation, Israel comes Jesus. And through Jesus, Jesus begins to gather back all the nations of the earth so that people of every tribe, language, tongue and nation will be gathered around his throne.

23:12So what this is telling us is that the God that we serve is not just the God of Adam, not just the God of Noah, not just the God of Abraham, not just the God of David, but he is the God of all nations and peoples. And he's jealous to regather all of his people to worship him. And chances are already this morning, we are a result of that. Most of us are not Jewish in our family lineage. We are from the nations being gathered back who are declaring that Jesus is Lord and king. The third observation is that Genesis 10 is closely linked with Genesis 11, one through nine, the story of the Tower of Babel.

24:02If you look at Genesis 11 verse one, it says, now the whole earth had one language and the same words. But back in Genesis 10, we read that they all had their own languages. So what's going on here? It it shows that it's both not chronological, but it's a little bit like that. Genesis one and two, uh, Genesis, uh, 10 gives us the broad overview just like Genesis one and then Genesis two kind of zoomed in and gave us explanation. That's what's happening here. Genesis 10 gives us that 30,000 foot view of all of these various nations that come from these three families or this one family. And then Genesis 11, one through nine zooms in and shows us how it happened, how they're dispersed across the face of the Earth.

24:51And what it does is it sets us up for the solution that's going to come in Genesis 12 through Abraham. The fourth observation we want to see is that Israel's enemies are listed among many of these nations. Did you notice that? Lots of familiar names. If you read your Old Testament before, we see Ham fathered Kush who fathered Nimrod, who built Nineveh, which shows up in the story of Jonah or Ham fathered Egypt. Who fathered Kalu, him from whom the Philistines come. That's chapter 10, verse 14. And then in verse 15 and onward, we see this long list of Israel's enemies, the Jebusites and the Amorites and the Gsites.

25:35And it goes on and on. What this does is it provides explanation for Israel's ongoing tension with the surrounding nations. The fifth and final observation is that there are 70 nations that are listed. 14 descendants are listed from the line of J. Fifth. 30 people are listed as a the descendants of ham. And then 26 names are listed as the descendants of Shem. So 14 plus 26 is 40 plus, 30, 70 nations. And remember Genesis throughout what we've seen uses multiples of sevens and tens to kind of kind of clue us in to something significant. So I think we have 70 nations here that signify the totality or the fullness or the completeness of all the nations on the face of the earth.

26:30It's also significant because kind of throughout the Bible we see different hints and uses Of 70, 70 people entered into Egypt. That's Exodus one, five. There were 70 elders that received the filling of the spirit with Moses. Uh, numbers 1125. But then in Luke 10, Jesus sends out a bunch of his disciples two by two. And how many does he send out? Well, it's kind of a trick question. Some manuscripts say 70, some manuscripts say 72 because they're probably quoting from the Greek translation of the Old Testament that cites 72. But Jesus sends out those 70 disciples, and it's in the context of what he says here in Luke 10, two, the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.

27:17Therefore, pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. What's Jesus doing when he sends out those 70 disciples? He's making a very explicit statement that I am now regathering all the nations of the earth. He's on mission to gather all of the nations from the four corners of the earth. Jesus' mission was to come and not just save Israel, but to regather all of the people that would be scattered and spread out across the world. So Genesis nine and 10 are important passages for our faith. Hams sin and Noah's curse remind us that this world is still broken after the flood.

28:20It's a new start, it's a blank slate, and yet it is still marred and stained by sin. The 70 nations remind us that we're united by one origin, and yet we're still deeply divided by geography, by culture, and by language. This is a result of human sin and God's judgment. It reminds us that life on earth isn't a fairytale. Life doesn't just go back to its sinless, pre-fall state. But what Genesis nine and 10 are doing is that they're pointing us forward to the day when God, God will gather and rule over all the nations of the earth. God is sovereignly unfolding his plan of redemption for all of mankind.

29:14And that plan of rescue would come through one man. Our passage of this morning ought to remind us that God is still faithful. God is still faithful. Perhaps you've gone through something like the flood in your life where everything that you could kinda hold onto has just washed away Perhaps the death of a spouse, a a, a death of a parent, a death of a child. And you think, how can I possibly go on in the midst of such heartache and such pain and suffering? And we're reminded that the flood was not an accident. It was not a mistake. It did not ultimately deal with sin, but God would come and deal with sin.

30:12It reminds us that God is sovereign over this world, sovereign over the brokenness and the heartache. And our greatest problem is not what is out there, but our greatest problem that God had to come and deal with is the sin, the indwelling sin that dwells within every human heart. Noah, of all people walked with God called righteous, is the one who embarrasses himself, gets drunk. It's a picture that our greatest problem is our sin. We are like Noah. Maybe we're not inebriated and passed out, but we fall short of God's perfect standard. And yet, if you're not trusting in Jesus this morning, the good news of the gospel is this, that God has already sent the snake crusher.

31:14He sent Jesus so that he would come and provide forgiveness of sins. He closes us in his righteousness and takes away all of our guilt and shame at the cross. Jesus has come to rectify our sin problem. He takes out our heart of stone and puts in a heart of flesh so that we might know him and love him and trust him and be able to confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. If you're not trusting in Jesus this morning, you're invited to look to Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, and to put your hope and trust in him. Noah was a righteous man that walked with God and walked by faith, yet he ended up drunk, naked and ashamed.

32:11You remember the promise, the hope that Ec Noah's father had for him. He said, this son, he's the one that's gonna bring us relief. He, he's the one that's gonna give us rest from our toil. A and we find no Sad disappointment. Noah does not ultimately give us relief from our work and from the painful toil of our hands, we're just look past Noah for another that is still to come And and this is what sets us up for Advent for the next four weeks, isn't it? Advent is the season in the Christian calendar that we anticipate it's a season of anticipation and expectation. As we prepare our hearts for Christ's coming, we let the su suspense build as we celebrate Christ's first coming and we're to renew our hope that Jesus is going to return, he's coming back, he's gonna make everything that is broken new once again.

33:23But here's the best part about advent. There's no let down. There's no let down with the arrival of Jesus. It's not underwhelming or disappointing. In fact, Jesus first coming far exceeded what any of Jesus' contemporaries could have dreamt, imagined or expected. It far exceeded what all the prophets could anticipate, that Jesus God himself would come down and he wouldn't come down with a sword proceeding from his mouth to bring judgment and to slaughter all of his enemies. But Jesus would come humbly as a baby born of a woman so that he might reconcile us to God. He might provide forgiveness of sins.

34:18He might bear our burdens. He might be crushed for our iniquities. By his scars. We are healed. Jesus would hang on a cross, be nailed to a tree, die for sinners and redeem all who would believe. And so the invitation is that we would come and gather around his throne in worship through this passage were to see that God is unfolding his story of redemption, that he's sovereign in the midst of it all. He's not made a mistake. He's not fumbling the ball. Instead, God is unfolding his glorious plan so that we would be recipients of the grace of God revealed in the one and only Savior and Lord Jesus.

35:18And in Advent we can anticipate his second coming where this call will go out. Revelation seven, nine to 12, it says, after this, I looked and behold a great multitude that no one could number from every nation and from all tribes and peoples and languages standing before the throne and before the lamb clothed in white robes with prom branches in their hands and crying out with a loud voice. Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the lamb. And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures. And they fell on their faces before the throne.

36:05And they worshiped God saying, amen. Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power, and might be to our God forever and ever. And all God's people said, amen. Amen. Father, we do now ask that you would glorify yourself in our hearts as we go from here we well up with thanksgiving because of what Christ has done, and we're well up with thanksgiving because you're sovereign over the canvas of scripture and over the canvas of history and over the canvas of our lives that you are faithful no matter what we are facing or experiencing. And we thank you that ultimate hope rest not in Noah or Adam, but in Jesus.

36:58And so we thank you that he's come and as we move into Advent, we eagerly await his second coming and wanna celebrate his first coming. We pray that in Jesus' name. Amen.

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Sermon Text

Genesis 9:18–29

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