Intro:
1. C. S. Lewis, "A silly idea is current, that good people do not know, what temptation means. This is an obvious lie. Only those, who try to resist temptation, know how strong it is.
After all, you find out, the strength of a wind, by trying to walk against it, not by lying down. A man who gives in to temptation, after 5 minutes, simply does not know, what it would have been like an hour later.
That is why bad people, in one sense, know very little about badness. They have lived a sheltered life by always giving in. We never find out, the strength of the evil impulse inside us, until we try to fight it."
2. Noah had preached about righteousness for 120 years, and knew what it was to resist temptation, in it's full fury.
But, like all of us, it eventually knocked him down...
3. Even the Mature are not exempt from Failure.
Trans:Gen. 9:18-29
Boice, "The first thing the fall of Noah teaches us is that anyone can sin. No one is above or beyond temptation...We want to be righteous and blameless, and walk with God. Yet here is Noah, our example, falling into sin. If he can sin, anyone can, ourselves included.
This judgment needs to be strengthened, however, for the point of the story is not merely that anyone can fall but that everyone does. If this story existed by itself apart from the rest of the Book of Genesis, it would make the first point but not necessarily the second. It would say that anyone can fall but not that all do. However, the story is not isolated. It occurs in the context of a book in which the deterioration of character is traced in personage after personage and the message of the book as a whole seems to be: "There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one" (Rom. 3:10-12).
Genesis begins with man (Adam) in Eden under the blessing of God. But sin enters and the book ends with a man (Joseph) in a coffin in Egypt, a place of bondage. The first child, Cain, is named in expectation of the coming Deliverer ("here he is"). But Cain becomes a murderer. Noah likewise falls, for all sin and "fall short of the glory of God" (Rom. 3:23).
There is this lesson too. Noah was 600 years old when the flood came, so he had lived righteously before God for a long time. In his youth and for most of his life he was "blameless among the people of his time."
But now, in his latter years, he mars that earlier record. Is this a unique incident? Not at all. It is merely one good example of the fact that many in the Bible were strong in living for God when they were young but departed from the will of God when they were older.
Moses sinned late in his life by striking the rock and taking some of God's glory to himself, as a result of which he was not permitted to enter the Promised Land.
David sinned with Bathsheba when he was in his fifties.
Solomon departed from the will of God when he was old. It has been thus for many. Past success does not provide power for future victory. So although we cry "Remember your Creator in the days of your youth" (Eccles. 12:1), we have to cry "Remember him in middle age and in old age as well." None of us is ever past temptation or the need of God's sustaining grace."
If we could get rid of all the wicked people on the planet - we would still have a wicked sin nature!
""When they sin against You (for there is no one who does not sin), and You become angry with them and deliver them to the enemy, and they take them captive to the land of the enemy, far or near;" 1 Kings 8:46 (NKJV)
"2 God looks down from heaven upon the children of men, To see if there are any who understand, who seek God. 3 Every one of them has turned aside; They have together become corrupt; There is none who does good, No, not one." Psalm 53:2-3 (NKJV)
"Who can say, "I have made my heart clean, I am pure from my sin"?" Proverbs 20:9 (NKJV)
"For there is not a just man on earth who does good And does not sin." Ecclesiastes 7:20 (NKJV)
Isa. 53:6; 64:6; Rom. 3:23; 1Jn.1:8...
I. FIRST, HE DID ENDURE FOR YEARS WITHOUT NOTICABLE FAILURE. 9:18-19
A. Before the flood - 120 years.
B. After the flood - to the undiscerning eye, it looks like as soon as he got out of the Ark he went out and got drunk!
18 Now the sons of Noah who went out of the ark were Shem, Ham, and Japheth. And Ham was the father of Canaan. 19 These three were the sons of Noah, and from these the whole earth was populated. - When we look at this family in chapter 10, we will see that some time passed before he got drunk.
Leupold, "We have advanced quite a time from the Flood; at least, Noah's son Ham already has children, and even the youngest Canaan is born already (10:6). Several decades may well have passed."
Trans:While Noah had a sin nature from birth until death - he did say "No" to that sin nature consistently...so can we!
1 Cor. 10:13/1 Jn. 2:1
Steve Lawrence had a song, "Go Away Little Girl"
"Go away, little girl. Go away, little girl.
I'm not supposed to be alone with you....
I belong to someone else, and I must be true."
The song is about a young woman who has been flirting with the singer, but he is committed to someone else. He acknowledges that he's very tempted by this girl's attention, and he is struggling to stay true.
Christians are not immune to temptation. We often find ourselves wooed by the devil or our evil human nature to sin, and it's a struggle to withstand the temptation.
But we have help. Jesus experienced all the temptations of humanity. "Since he himself has gone through suffering and testing, he is able to help us when we are being tested" (Hebrews 2:18).
What's more, the Lord apparently monitors the level of our temptation and ratchets up his assistance accordingly. "God is faithful. He will not allow the temptation to be more than you can stand. When you are tempted, he will show you a way out so that you can endure" (1 Corinthians 10:13).
So temptation can never be an excuse for us. It's a challenge. But we can rely on God even when we are tempted to sin. And this Noah did for many many years.
II. FURTHERMORE, NOAH'S EVENTUAL FAILURE. 9:20-23
A. His Folly. 20-21
1. His Iniquity - he got drunk. 20-21a
20 And Noah began to be a farmer, and he planted a vineyard. 21 Then he drank of the wine and was drunk - there way no excuse for this, people discovered how to make wine from grapes before the flood.
Hughes, "The reality is that Noah was not ignorant. He was over 600 years old, and this event was some time after the flood because it takes years for a vineyard to produce, not to mention that he now had numerous grandsons because Ham's son Canaan was the youngest of four (cf. 10:6).
He was a seasoned man of the soil, and he knew what wine could do. He was no helpless victim. He passed out because his drinking had gone out of control. Noah had wrought his own degradation.
The Hebrew "lay uncovered" is reflexive, which emphasizes that he "uncovered himself." He was so utterly inebriated that he stripped himself naked and passed out. Having uncovered himself, he therefore had covered himself with shame and disgrace.
"Woe to him who gives drink to his neighbor, Pressing him to your bottle, Even to make him drunk, That you may look on his nakedness!" Habakkuk 2:15 (NKJV)
"Rejoice and be glad, O daughter of Edom, You who dwell in the land of Uz! The cup shall also pass over to you And you shall become drunk and make yourself naked." Lamentations 4:21 (NKJV)
Sin was alive and well in the new world. Goldsworthy comments,
"The flood did not purge the earth of wickedness and we cannot suppose that such was its purpose."
Indeed, if God wanted to eradicate evil, he would have had to eradicate the entire human race. But this God would not do—because he had promised that the offspring of Eve would one day crush the head of Satan (cf. 3:15).
Noah was the one righteous man on the face of the earth. His righteousness was not self-generated, but God-given imputed righteousness that came by faith.
His blameless life had been a thing of wonder in the depraved pre-flood world. But now sin, in a moment had conquered him. This helpless drunk, fallen unconscious in his tent, is as significant a warning to us as the flood.
Noah could not make it on his own. He was terribly flawed. He needed help from beyond himself. He needed God's grace.
Noah's folly is recorded to make us wise. His pathetic example demonstrates that people in their prime, and even in their old age, are sometimes overtaken by sensualities that they before had avoided.
I have known this because it has been told to me for years. But now I can feel it—the tendency to allow myself indulgences that I avoided when younger, with the dismissive line that "I'm too old for these things to harm me."
The tendency is to ease up when the conflicts lessen. When all the world was against Noah, he faced scorn and violence straight-up. But in his vineyard among his own who needed no proof of his virtue, he relaxed.
Marcus Dods observed, "Noah is not the only man who has walked uprightly and kept his garment unspotted from the world so long as the eye of man was on him, but who has lain uncovered on his own tent floor."
We can become so careless in our home life that we forgo spiritual disciplines around those we trust. All too often the walls of our homes witness irritabilities and anger and slanderous words and laziness and sensualities that—if the walls could speak—would take our gray hairs down to Sheol.
Noah's failure stands as a witness to the dangers that await the faithful with the passing of years. His sorry failure is a call to vigilance. But even more, the Scriptures here record Noah's fall in order to instruct us that this great man of God, who had so honored God was a flawed man—a sinner—and thus in need of continual grace."
2. His Immodesty.
became uncovered - lit. "he uncovered himself."
Lutzer, "Noah's experience illustrates that drunkenness and immodesty usually go hand in hand. Alcholism always lowers a persons moral defenses. After a few drinks, in-hi-bitions are gone and reasonable people feel free to do what would be normally too embarrassing."
"30 Then Lot went up out of Zoar and dwelt in the mountains, and his two daughters were with him; for he was afraid to dwell in Zoar. And he and his two daughters dwelt in a cave. 31 Now the firstborn said to the younger, "Our father is old, and there is no man on the earth to come in to us as is the custom of all the earth. 32 Come, let us make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him, that we may preserve the lineage of our father." 33 So they made their father drink wine that night. And the firstborn went in and lay with her father, and he did not know when she lay down or when she arose." Genesis 19:30-33 (NKJV)
"So they were up early the next morning and began offering burnt offerings and peace offerings to the calf-idol; afterwards they sat down to feast and drink at a wild party, followed by sexual immorality." Exodus 32:6 (TLB)
Trans: This incident should be enought to sober any of us up!
"1 Moreover, brethren, I do not want you to be unaware that all our fathers were under the cloud, all passed through the sea, 2 all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, 3 all ate the same spiritual food, 4 and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ. 5 But with most of them God was not well pleased, for their bodies were scattered in the wilderness. 6 Now these things became our examples, to the intent that we should not lust after evil things as they also lusted. 7 And do not become idolaters as were some of them. As it is written, "The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play." 8 Nor let us commit sexual immorality, as some of them did, and in one day twenty-three thousand fell; 9 nor let us tempt Christ, as some of them also tempted, and were destroyed by serpents; 10 nor complain, as some of them also complained, and were destroyed by the destroyer. 11 Now all these things happened to them as examples, and they were written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages have come. 12 Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall." 1 Corinthians 10:1-12 (NKJV)
It is so easy to have an arrogant attitude like Peter.
"27 Then Jesus said to them, "All of you will be made to stumble because of Me this night, for it is written: 'I will strike the Shepherd, And the sheep will be scattered.' 28 "But after I have been raised, I will go before you to Galilee." 29 Peter said to Him, "Even if all are made to stumble, yet I will not be." 30 Jesus said to him, "Assuredly, I say to you that today, even this night, before the rooster crows twice, you will deny Me three times." 31 But he spoke more vehemently, "If I have to die with You, I will not deny You!" And they all said likewise." Mark 14:27-31 (NKJV)
I loved to watch Steve Irwin, the Crocodile Hunter, but I knew he would die young. You simple do not play with wild animals without sooner or later getting in trouble.
Steve survived countless snakebites; chased up a tree by a deadly komodo dragan; spat on by a red spitting cobra; pulled into the water by a massive crocodile.
On Sept, 4, 2006 he was filming a documentary on "The Ocean's Deadliest." The weather was bad, so they stopped filming for the day. Steve decided to do some work for a children's show, that was to be hosted by his 8 year old daughter, Bindi.
Steve came across a 5 ft wide stingray and began to follow it. Stingrays are called the "puzzy cats of the sea" because of their docile nature. Steve got too close and the Stingrays poisonous barbed tail went into Irwin's chest and pierced his heart.
He was only the 17th person in the world, known to have been killed by a stingray.
Sin is like that - if we play around with it, lose our fear of it, even little harmless sin - we are going to get hurt! Never never lose your fear of sin - no matter how old you are; how experienced you are in turning from sin...Dread it's deadly sway!
B. His failure effected his Family. 9:22-23
1. Ham's sin of Satisfaction in anothers downfall. 22
And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father - This is a difficult passage with various interpretations as to what exactly is going on.
Leupold, "The expression is not a mere harmless and accidental "and he saw" but "he gazed with satisfaction."
Why? Candlish, "Ham did not merely dishonor him as a parent - he disliked him as a preacher of righteousness. Hence his satisfaction, his irrepressible joy, when he caught the patriarch in such a state of degradation.
Ah! He has found that the godly man is no better than his neighbor; he has made a notable discovery; and now he cannot contain himself. He rushes forth, all hot and impatient, to publish the news, so welcomed to himself."
How many are delighted to find something wrong in delegated authority! Love covers sin, not rejoices in it. A truly wicked person delights in the downfall of another.
"And above all things have fervent love for one another, for "love will cover a multitude of sins." 1 Peter 4:8 (NKJV)
Any Carmichael, "If I belittle those whom I am called to serve, talk of their weak points, in contrast with what I think are my strong points, then I know nothing of Calvary love."
2. Ham's sin of Scandalazation.
told - Leupold, It is not a mere "and he told" though we know of no other way of translating it. The circumstances suggest that it means: "and he told with delight."
Some just love to find a scandal! Then to broadcast the failure of another - far and wide, with anybody who will listen.
Hocking, "Gossip is frequently rooted in a lack of love for others. When we seem to take great pleasure in telling others about another persons fault; weaknesses; or sins, we reveal a lack of God's love.
God's love, refuses to be happy, when hearing of unrighteousness...Love, seeks to build up, rather than, tear down. Love is very protective of others, and is not happy, when their faults, weaknesses, or sins are exposed."
An example of a loving response was made by his brothers:
"But Shem and Japheth took a garment, laid it on both their shoulders, and went backward and covered the nakedness of their father. Their faces were turned away, and they did not see their father's nakedness." Genesis 9:23 (NKJV)
Trans:While we should not excuse Noah's behavior, we can certainly learn from it:
(1) No believer is beyond sin - A 120 years of preaching righteousness did not remove Noah's sin nature, nothing but death can. 1 Jn. 1:8,9
(2) Yesterdays obedience will not guarantee todays victory - we have to trust God moment by moment; confessing sin; keeping our obedience up-to-date. You cannot accumulate victory. Eph.5:18
(3) We do not lose our salvation when we sin - Noah is still saved; still presented in the Hall of Faith. Heb. 11:7
(4) Our sin effects others - Noah's sin was not the cause of Ham's sin, but it did give him an opportunity to sin.
(5) This incident is another proof the Bible is God's Word.
Pink, "It is human to err, but it is also human to conceal the blemishes of those we admire. Had the Bible been a human production, had it been written by uninspired historians, the defects of its leading characters would have been ignored, or, if recorded at all, an attempt at playing down any faults would have been made.
Had some human admirer chronicled the history of Noah, his awful fall would have been omitted. The fact that it is recorded, and that no effort is made to excuse his sin, is evidence that the characters of the Bible are painted in the colors of truth and nature, that such characters were not sketched by human pens, that Moses and the other historians must have been written by divine inspiration."
C. His Furry. 24-27
1. The Inquiry. 24
So Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done to him - Leupold, "Here it implies "knowng as a result of inquiry," i.e., "he learned" or "found out."
2. The Prophecy. 25-29
a. A Cursing not upon Ham but his son Canaan [kay-none].
Why?
Then he said: "Cursed be Canaan; A servant of servants He shall be to his brethren."
(1) First, it is possible that Canaan [kay-none] was somehow involved? Giffith Thomas, "According to an old Jewish tradition, Cannan was somehow involved in the sin and was associated with his father in the mockery of Noah." No scripture...
(2) Some point out an O.T. principle - the sins of the father are visited on the children. Ex. 20:5
(3) Some point out the principle that we reap what we sow - Ham dishonored his father, so his son would dishonor him.
Note:This curse cannot be applied to anyone or race today. Ryrie, "The curse is not on the Hamities, but on the Canaanites, the inhabitants of Palestine who were the first subjected by Joshua and later by Solomon (1 Ki.9:20-21). The Canaanites long ago became extinct."
b. The Blessing on Shem and Japheth.
(1) Shem - And he said: "Blessed be the LORD, The God of Shem, And may Canaan be his servant.
Boice, "The second part of Noah's oracle is a blessing on Shem...The first messianic prophecy was in Gen. 3:15, it is evident as the story of Genesis unfolds that he will appear in the godly line of Seth. The line of descent is narrowed to the Se-mi-tic peoples, who descend from Shem. In time the promise is narrowed still further to the house of David."
(2) Japheth - May God enlarge Japheth, And may he dwell in the tents of Shem; And may Canaan be his servant." - they would spread over a large geographical area and would hve spiritual blessings by way of their association with Shems descendants.
3. Noah's Longevity. 28-29
28 And Noah lived after the flood three hundred and fifty years. 29 So all the days of Noah were nine hundred and fifty years; and he died.
Con:
1. Even the Mature are not exempt from Failure.
2. Lucado, "Let's start with Abraham, though the Father of a Nation, he wasnt without his weaknesses. He had a fibbing tongue that wouldnt stop! Twice he traded in his integrity for security - "She is my sister!" Can God build a Nation on that kind of faith? God did!
God took old forked tongue and started a Nation.
Moses, until he was 80 yrs old, didnt look like he would amount to much more, then a once-upon-a-time prince, turned outlaw. Would you choose, a wanted murderer, to lead a Nation out of bondage? God did. Called him by name through a burning bush - scared the old man right out of his sandles.
And what can you say, about a fellow, whose lust got so lusty, that he got a woman pregnant; tried to blame it on her husband; had her husband killed; and then, went on living as if nothing had happened? Well, you could say, he was a man after God's own heart - the man's name was David.
Then comes Jonah. God's amabassador to Nineveh. However he had other ideas, he hopped on a boat sailing in the opposite direction. So God put him in a whale's belly and barffed him up, bringing him to his senses.
Elijah, the prophet who liked to pout; Jacob the wheeler-dealer; Sarah the woman who giggled at God's great promise.
The lesson is clear - God used and uses people to change the world. People! Not superhumans; not geniuses; not perfectionists; but people. Crooks and creeps; losers and liars; murderers and misfits; and what they lacked in perfection, God makes up for in grace."
Johnny Palmer Jr.
StrugglingThruScriptures.ning.com
