Sin. Does the word make you squirm in your seat a little? What is the first thought that goes through your mind when I stand up here and start talking about it? “Oh no, here comes a fire and brimstone sermon.” Is anyone offended if I stand up here and call you all a bunch of sinners? Of course I have to include myself in that as well. It is not a popular topic, and I don’t particularly like preaching about it.
However, the Bible is basically about two things, sin, which is primarily what the Old Testament is about, and the remedy for sin which is the New Testament. If you don’t like the word sin, then the Bible is going to be a very difficult book for you. Both the Hebrew and Greek words for sin mean to miss the mark or offend. Too often Christians have gotten stuck with the limited idea that sin is just breaking the commandments.
But it is so much more than that. Sin is anything we do, say or think that is not in line with God’s heart, so if anyone claims to be without sin they are a liar as the apostle John confirms. But I think to get a real idea of the nature of sin we need to look very closely at what Paul says in Romans 6, 7 and 8. Let me summarize.
Sin is not our nature, God did not create sinners. We talk about having a sinful nature, but that simply means we have a tendency toward sin. Sin came into the world through our bodies, sin lives in us. Not in our nature, but in our flesh, much like a virus. You wouldn’t say you have a flu nature. We have the sickness of sin. It was brought into the world by Satan, and it was activated for all humanity through one person, Adam. Notice even though Eve ate the fruit first, she is not credited with the original sin. She was deceived, tricked by Satan, it was Adam who chose to sin even after seeing Eve’s mistake.
As Christians Paul says our old spiritual self has died and been resurrected in Christ. What that means is that as believers, our spiritual self is now perfect, but it lives in this corrupted body that is dying because of sin. Our spiritual self is now saved from death, but our body will still die because sin lives in it.
Paul says it is not we who sin but the power of sin that lives in us, in our flesh. Some say that flesh means sinful nature, but that is not completely accurate. Paul uses the word sarx, which means literally meat or body stripped of skin, and our brain, including many of our learnings, and habits are included in this.
We who have died to the old self, which we have to choose, but God makes happen when we are reborn, have a choice of whether to be a slave to sin that lives in us, or slaves to our new spiritual self that also lives in us with the Holy Spirit. Sometimes we choose sin, other times we choose God.
But we can never fully rid ourselves of sin until we are given a new body because that is where it lives, make sense? That’s why even though we are already made perfect spiritually by God, we still sin.
Now this topic could consume many sermons, but for today I just want us to understand the nature of sin as we look at the events in Genesis. Sin is a living power that lives in us, so when we call ourselves sinners, it is because we sin, but it is not who we are in Christ. And it has no eternal power over us anymore if we are in Christ.
But notice that God doesn’t punish our sinful behaviour. Yes there may be natural consequences, but God doesn’t punish for the actual sin per se. He punishes the refusal to repent after we sin, when he gives us the chance. Look at what Peter says in his sermon in Acts 2: “Repent and be baptized in Christ for the forgiveness of your sins (that’s all), and you will receive the Holy Spirit. This promise is for everyone whom the Lord calls to himself.”
The Holy Spirit and the Law will show us our sin, and all God wants is for us to be sorry and make an effort to turn from that sin. But he knows we can’t not sin while in the flesh.
This is what the entire Old Testament is about. How God’s people continued to sin in spite of so many chances to repent and change their ways, and trust Him. Today we will see both a repeat of Adam of Eve in the Garden, and a repeat of the death and resurrection of Christ. What I mean is that the dynamics of what happened here with Noah and his sons, are very similar to the dynamics of the original sin, and people’s response to Christ’s act of redemption.
This dynamic, very simply put is as follows:
- God makes a promise with one condition.
- People choose to take it for granted or forget it.
- and Consequences follow.
In the Garden, God creates humans with the promise of complete provision, dominion over all creation, and everlasting life. All he asks is that they not eat from one tree. Adam and Eve choose to take the promise for granted and do their own thing by eating from the forbidden tree. Never mind why God put that tree there, they were given everything except this one thing. I guess you could say that this negative command was the beginning of temptation to see if people would choose God or their own desires.
Until Satan entered the picture through Eve’s thoughts, it wasn’t an issue. But as soon as Satan highlited the temptation, the desires of the flesh took over. The consequences were expulsion from paradise and the possibility of physical death, pain, and hard work.
Now with Noah and his family, God does another major creative work and makes another promise or:
I. Covenant (vv 1-17)
Last week we saw that God promises never again to destroy life on earth as he did in the flood. Noah and his family are safely on dry ground because of the Ark.
By the way did you know that the Hebrew word for the Ark Noah built is the same word for the basket that Moses was saved in when his mother floated him down the river? So an Ark has now been responsible for saving God’s people twice already.
Today God’s blessing continues as he tells them again, as he told Adam and Eve, to be fruitful and multiply. Children are a blessing by the way, though the world may not see it that way anymore. He also reinstates their dominion over all other living creatures, though this time they will not be friends, but will be afraid of man.
Before, we had dominion but the animals were our friends. One of the reasons they were not afraid to get on the Ark. But now we want to eat them, so they’re a little scared. I would be too, if it weren’t for government rules, many species of wild animals would have been completely wiped by us by now.
Now we are allowed to eat the animals, where it sounds like before this, man may have been vegetarian. However as we see, there was no great benefit of being vegetarian, most of them still died in the flood. So anyone claiming religious grounds for being a vegetarian is on very shaky ground.
Man is now permitted to eat the animals, but no eating the blood, which he calls the “life”. Right here we get a clue about what is to come. We are commanded to never eat the blood of anything, nor to shed the blood of any people, because we are to wait for the shedding of Jesus blood (the life), and the symbolic drinking of His blood at the Lord’s supper as we did today.
So the covenant is made, God will not destroy all of creation ever again, he gives Noah’s family the blessing to be fruitful and multiply, and he throws some meat into the deal. But he hasn’t said you are now free to sin. In fact he puts in a new regulation not to shed another person’s blood. ... Now let’s quickly look at:
II. The Sons (vv 18-19)
Noah, now like a second Adam becomes the new father of the entire human race. We see the sons enter the picture again and the text makes a point of saying that Ham was the father of Canaan who we don’t even know yet. But it’s setting us up for the events to come in verses later in the chapter. It is from this line that the Palestinians and Syrians came from, and we know what their relationship with Israel is like even today. But more importantly these people were the worshipers of Baal, Asherah, and Dagon to name a few. These Canaanites are the ultimate spiritual adulterers of God.
These three sons then were the people that the entire population of the earth would now come from. Every person that has ever lived on earth since the flood is a descendant of one of these three. We’ll look at that in more detail next time, but for now we can say that all three were important in God’s plan, but it was from Shem’s line that the next great man of God would come, Abraham. He founded the Jewish nation and through him would come the Redeemer who would fulfill Genesis 3:15 and crush the serpent’s head.
Noah eventually died, the natural consequence of sin, but God stayed faithful. Shem’s line became God’s chosen people and Japheth’s line became the Greeks.
Look in Romans 1, “The Gospel is the power of salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first (the line of Shem), and also to the Greek (Japheth’s line, which now includes us by the way).” Notice there is no mention here in Romans of the Canaanites, Ham’s line, implying that there is no salvation for them because they don’t believe.
So there’s a little background, but where we are going to spend most of our time today is on:
III. The Sins (vv 20-29) that creep back into humanity.
So Noah grows some grapes and of course he’s had a pretty rough year so he decides to tie one on. The first recorded sin after the flood. He gets drunk and naked. Drinking wine is not a sin, we even see in Psalm 104 verses 14 & 15 that God brings forth wine to gladden the heart of man. Drunkenness, orgies and things like that are called sins in Galatians 5, and Proverbs 20 says that wine is a mocker and whoever is led astray by it is not wise.
Noah was definitely drunk, and we can infer an orgy or something similar by his nakedness. But this is not even the important sin in this story, though it does echo the shame from the awareness of nakedness that Adam and Eve experienced in the Garden after they sinned.
It is Ham who does two things that angered God more than Noah’s drunkenness.
First he sees his father naked. Now again it’s so easy to pass over this. Ok, Ham walks into his dad’s tent and happens to see his dad lying there naked, no big deal, walk out, tell his brothers out of concern for his dad, and away they go to help old Noah out after he parties a little too hard.
But it’s the response of the brothers that leads us to investigate Ham’s actions. They go in with a piece of clothing walking backwards to cover Noah so that they didn’t even see their father’s nakedness.
Now when Noah wakes up from his drunken stupor and hears what Ham did, he is so outraged that he curses his son’s son, his own grandson. For what, stumbling in on him naked and passed out, who’s fault is that?
Well the text doesn’t give details, but what we know is that what Ham did shamed his father. Some say it could have been as simple as laughing and going and telling his brothers, “hey come look at this, Dad’s passed out naked, you gotta see this.” That’s possible, but the Hebrew word here used for “see” has many different uses including gaze, stare, spy, and enjoy.
Some say Ham was the first voyeur, knowing that Noah must have been naked for a reason that we can assume, and that Ham may have been watching for some time. Remember what the Canaanites who were Ham’s line, were famous for, incredible sexual immorality. It probably started with Ham.
Regardless of what actually happened, the brother’s response shows that Ham’s actions were very disrespectful toward their father, and in Exodus and Deuteronomy the penalty for dishonoring your parents is death in that culture, so the brothers are very careful not to repeat what Ham did. But Noah just curses Ham’s family line and says they will be servants of his brother’s lines, which will include much of the population of the world. Even though Noah curses Canaan, he shows mercy in sparing Ham’s life. Now remember when Noah gives this curse he is speaking from God. It’s actually God’s curse, because Noah was just a human, he couldn’t make any curse take effect.
Another example of God’s mercy conquering the curse is Rahab. Remember she is the Canaanite woman who hid the spies that Joshua sent into the Promised Land in Joshua chapter 2. She was spared when Joshua’s army finally obliterated Canaan. James chapter 2 says Mercy triumphs over judgment and he uses Rahab as an example. Rahab is also mentioned in Hebrews, so her faith and example of God’s grace is very important. God’s grace extends even to those who are cursed, if they have faith. Remember we are all cursed on account of Adam.
As far as the brothers go, their behaviour is indeed an example of how love covers all sins. Sin is not funny. Ham thought is was, but the brothers took it seriously and in the spirit of love covered their father so he would not experience further shame. Jesus love covers all our sins in the eyes of God. Proverbs says two other things, “He who covers a transgression seeks love” and “a prudent man covers shame”. Then there’s Galatians 6 telling us that we are to help restore sinners in a spirit of meekness. We are never to kick someone when they’re down, or flaunt other’s sin so we can feel better about ourselves. We are to help restore that person gently.
Listen carefully. We are sinners because we sin, we miss the mark, we do and think things that are not pleasing to God. It doesn’t matter if we’ve been Christians for 80 years. But hear what God is saying to us, and what he has said to his people since the beginning of creation. It goes something like this:
“I hate sin, but I allowed sin to enter the world, therefore I am not going to punish you for sinning, yes your bodies are going to die, because that is the natural effect of sin that I put in place. But that is not my punishment, in fact that’s a gift that allows you to be with me in an eternal state as Adam and Eve were before sin entered the Garden.
He says, I know you are going to sin, all I ask, all I have ever asked, is that you believe in my love through my mercy and giving you my son to forgive all sin forever, including future sin. Come back to me even if you sin, because my grace has saved you from the eternal effect of sin, if you accept it and put your trust in my son.”
Do you understand? Our past, present, and future sins are completely forgiven forever. This even applies to non-Christians. Yes we will all physically die, but that has nothing to do with what we do, just Adam’s transgression brought that about.
None of us, including unbelievers will ever spiritually die, spirit cannot die. Everyone’s soul will be conscious forever. The only punishment left is for those who do not believe and claim the promise, those people’s souls will spend eternity wishing they could die. The only thing any human can ever do now that will be punished by God is not believe.
He is simply asking us to believe that His covenant is good. He hates sin, but in essence He doesn’t care that we sin, because through Christ he has forgiven all sin for eternity. All he is asking is for us to believe that. That’s it, believe we are forgiven by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Life may be tough, we might get sick, we will continue to sin, but none of that is God’s punishment for our actions, that’s just life in a fallen world. But in the end, we get to be with Him not only in death but also in this imperfect life if we want to.
He gave Noah’s people the rainbow, he gave us the cross. When you see either, remember that God’s promises are set in stone, and all he is asking is for us to believe that and claim it.
Our choice is to believe or not. You know it’s generally accepted that though a relatively small force, the Canadian troops were vital in winning the second world war. While we are remembering God’s covenant let’s not forget our soldiers in the coming weeks. You know why I think they were so successful, because they all chose to be there. Just about every other country in that war had many soldiers who were drafted or in some way were forced to serve in the military. One has to wonder how that would affect military performance.
But every Canadian that put their life on the line fighting in that war, and every other one for since, was there because they chose to be there. The same is true with us, when you believe and choose to be in God’s army. God trusts that when you truly give your life to his cause, just knowing and believing His promise of victory will make us want to sin less, not more. Our performance if you will, the extent of our sinful behaviour, as children of God will reflect the degree that we believe His promises.
Don’t forget His promises, don’t just think about today and tomorrow. Think eternally, that’s where you will see and have absolute ongoing fulfillment, never from this life. The rainbow was there for Noah, the cross is there for us, Lest we Forget.
