Genesis 9: 20- 27
20 And Noah began to be an husbandman, and he planted a vineyard:
21 And he drank of the wine, and was drunken; and he was uncovered within his tent.
22 And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without.
23 And Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid it upon both their shoulders, and went backward, and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces were backward, and they saw not their father’s nakedness.
24 And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him.
25 And he said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.
26 And he said, Blessed be the Lord God of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant.
27 God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant.
The son was cursed for the sin of his father.
Title: THE SIN OF THE FATHER
- God’s Intention.
- The Effectual Curse
- The Invading Spirit
- Catalyst for the Reversal of the Curse
I. GOD’S INTENTION.
Genesis 9 tells us that Noah is saved from the deluge. He had found grace in the sight of the Lord, and now he and his family have been graciously accepted when they approached the Lord with burnt-offerings. In him, therefore, the race of man is to be begun anew.
God’s intentions:
- Blessing
God gave Noah the same kind of mandate He gave Adam in the beginning of creation (Genesis 1:28).
God blessed Noah and his sons — He assured them of his good-will to them, and his gracious intentions concerning them. The first blessing is renewed, “Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth,” Genesis 9:7.
By virtue of this blessing mankind were to be both multiplied and perpetuated upon earth, so that in a little time all the habitable parts of the earth should be more or less inhabited. And though one generation should pass away, yet another generation should come, so that the stream of the human race should be supplied with a constant succession.
The blessing of God is the cause of our doing well.
- Dominion
The word dominion in the Bible means to have power or rule over something. Thus dominion over the other animals is renewed.
“The fear and dread of you” and “Into your hand are they given” implies:
I. That those creatures which are any way useful to us are reclaimed, and we use them either for service or food, or both, as they are capable.
II. Those creatures that are any way hurtful to us are restrained, so that, though now and then man may be hurt by some of them, they do not combine together to rise up in rebellion against man.
Here we see:
I. That God is a good master, and provides, not only that we may live, but that we may live comfortably, in His service. Not for necessity only, but for delight.
II. That every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused (except for blood).
3. Covenant
Thus all of creation is given a new beginning, a new opportunity to live in the harmony that God intended. However, this new beginning is also a continuation.
The covenant, the sealing of the newly-restored relationship between God and God’s creatures. This is entirely God’s doing. God enters into an eternal covenant with all creation without requiring anything in return. God does so in full awareness that “the inclination of the human heart is evil from youth.”
The flood has not cleansed the human heart of sin, but God knows this, and He enters into covenant with man.
So God promises to Noah and to his descendants, and to every creature on the earth, never again to destroy all creation with a flood.
“Bow of battle”-To hang up one’s bow is to retire from battle. That bow in the clouds is the sign of God’s promise that whatever else God does to seek our restoration, destruction is off the table.
An implication of this promise is that God will try everything else. God will seek us and seek us, despite God’s knowledge of every sin, every grief, and every shame that veils our vision of God’s reality and of our own as God’s creatures. Whatever dwells in our hearts that keeps us from hearing the harmony of all life in God’s care, God will not give up on loving us into restoration.
II. THE EFFECTUAL CURSE
Noah cursed Canaan for the sin of Ham. V22“And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father and told his two brethren without”V25And he said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.
Different explanations why the curse was placed upon Canaan:
#1 : The traditional understanding of this passage is that Ham sinned by seeing his father Noah’s nakedness and telling his brothers about it, rather than covering him. As a result of this perceived sin, Noah cursed Ham’s son Canaan, knowing that in the future he would be a “servant of servants” to his brothers.
#2 :The sin of Ham was simply a lack of respect and honoring his father. His sin was not a sexual act but rather a disrespectful act in seeing his father’s nudity and telling about it to others. Canaan could have been with Ham in that incident.
#3 :In Noah’s drunken stupor, Ham “saw his father’s nakedness” (slept with his mother or his father’s wife). This would explain why Canaan, Ham’s offspring was cursed—he was the product of this “affair”.
“To see the nakedness of” and to “uncover the nakedness of” are used repeatedly as unmistakable rewordings for sexual relationship by Moses himself. In Leviticus 18 alone Moses uses the phrase “uncover the nakedness of” as a euphemism for sex, and particularly for the sin of incest.
Leviticus 18:7: “You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father, which is the nakedness of your mother; she is your mother; you shall not uncover her nakedness.”– A man’s mother has a nakedness that is his father’s nakedness, that is, a nakedness that belongs to his father alone. He is not to “uncover her nakedness,”
This sheds an entirely fresh light on Genesis 9:22, for it reveals that Ham’s sin is he “saw the nakedness of his father,” that is, the nakedness that properly belonged only to Noah.
Extra-biblical source – Jewish Tradition:
Noah’s wife is Naamah – the sister of Tubal-cain, a descendant of Cain, the son of Adam and Eve (Genesis 4:22). Why Tubal-cain’s sister should be specifically mentioned is unknown. Her name, meaning “the beautiful” reflects the worldly mind of the Cainites, who looked for beauty rather than for character as the chief attraction in women.
Ham’s sin was something he did to Noah. Genesis 9:24And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him.
Ham showed his character:
- An opportunist.
He took advantage of the weakness of his parents. He committed a shameful act when his father was drunk and helpless.
An opportunist is a person who exploits circumstances to gain immediate advantage rather than being guided by consistent principles or plans.
- Corrupt
He was filthy. He had no regards for his own parents.
In the Bible corruption refers to:
- Literal, physical decay.
- Moral corruption and depravity.
- Something that is putrid or rotten.
He has morally ‘gone to the dogs’, perverted, reprobate and his character stinks.
- Lustful
Lustful intent strongly implies something deliberate or an intentional considered choice. Noticing that someone is attractive is not a sin but looking with sexual intent, fantasizing, or leering certainly is.
Therefore, the curse took effect because there were grounds for it and especially when pronounced by someone in authority. When a man is cursed, his land is cursed.
When Adam was cursed, the ground was also cursed: Genesis 3:17After Adam ate from the tree, God cursed the ground, saying, “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life”. The ground would produce thorns and thistles, and Adam would have to work hard to get edible crops.
Ham uncovered his father’s nakedness and the result was a curse on Canaan and his children.
III. THE INVADING SPIRIT
God told Joshua to drive out(not kill) the Canaanites from the land because there is a spirit in them that will invade the hearts of the Israelites. The spirit of this nation still exists and does a lot of harm to the people of God.
Canaan had 11 sons: Sidon, Heth or Hittites, the Jebusites, Amorites, Girgashites, Hivites, Arkites, Sinites, Arvadites, Zemarites and Hamathites).
The number 11 is the number that stands for confusion and refers to something that is out of order. Therefore Canaan is a people and a land of confusion and disorder as a result of the curse.
The curse of confusion became a spirit that prevailed in the lives of the Canaanites and increased through many generations. And as people of God we need to know how to defend ourselves against this spirit.
When God called Abraham, He promised to give him the land of Canaan.
In Genesis 12 God gave Abraham a revelation of the land of Canaan. Abraham built an altar, teaching us that PRAYER is our first line of defense against the Canaanite spirit.
In Genesis 32 after Judah sold Joseph, his grief was so bad that he took a Canaanite woman to be his wife. Instead of running to God for repentance and forgiveness, he ran to a Canaanite – flesh. As a result his marriage was one of shame and trouble. Two of his sons were so wicked that God Himself slew them.
Joining our spirit to a wrong thing will hurt us. Many Christians instead of seeking God, leave off spiritual things that can restore them and lose themselves in a system that hates God. Our second defense is to SEEK GOD always when you made a mistake.
In Genesis 27 Jacob’s mother warned him that he was not to marry a Canaanite. Jacob grow into a mighty nation that would eventually defeat the Canaanite nation. Jacob married Leah and Rachel, people of his own nation.
Many young Christian men and women marry people who have no interest in Christ. When children come into their lives there is confusion and mixture of faith and unbelief. A godly seed is not produced.
To defeat the Canaanite spirit from coming into your family, marry a real Christian spouse and serve God as a family.
IV. THE CATALYST FOR THE REVERSAL OF THE CURSE
Abraham knew the people and what is happening in that land. He saw it. So he first laid it before the altar. And in the course of time Canaan would become a special place.
Canaan was cursed and so his land.
How can God give a cursed land to Israel?
God can turn accurse into a promise for His people. The cursed land became the land of promise because God reversed the curse. Only God and can turn things around but there must be a catalyst – a person that causes changes.
Abraham did that which was right in the sight of God and therefore God chose him to be the catalyst for the reversal of the curse.
And God fulfilled his promise to Abraham when He brought Israel out of Egypt and led them to the Promised land, the land that flows with milk “God’s infinite provision” and honey, “God’s blessing, God’s love, strength and wisdom and things of great worth”. It was an abundant land. It was a blessed land. And the Bible tells us that it is the land of Canaan.
A cursed land through a cursed man became the land of promise because of Abraham. A cursed land turned into a land that flows with milk and honey because of Abraham.
But lo and behold, One greater than Abraham has come. Greater in the sense that even Abraham longed to see His days. Abraham built an altar of stones with animal as sacrifice before God but He built an altar with His own body on the cross. His altar is far better because it was sealed with His own blood. Blood represents life and the blood of the Lamb of Godis New Life because the bible says: “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” 2 Corinthians 5:17. An old life gone and a new life begun.
Jesus was cursed because the Father laid all our curses upon Him on the cross but He rose from the greatest curse which is death to show us that in Him the curse is reversed. The curse cannot take effect on the Risen One and the curse will not take effect on those who rise with Him.
Jesus, our Greater Abraham is the catalyst – the Person that caused changes. He laid his life at the altar of Calvary and rose from the dead to defeat the spirit of confusion that has been causing disorders in our lives.
Through Abraham’s offspring all families of the earth will be blessed and in Jesus, “those who call upon the name of the Lord will be saved.”
CONCLUSION:
Do you need to be saved? Saved from the curse?
Do you feel like you are a “Canaan”, who bears the sin of your father? You don’t have to live under the shadow of your parents’ sins and failures. You don’t have to inherit and suffer the curse of their wrong behavior, character and desires. You can come out of a life that is out of order. You can be free from the spirit of confusion.
Do you feel like you are “Ham”, who is responsible for the curse of your family? Or are you a hasty person, who always makes decisions without laying them before God first?
Do you feel that somebody laid a curse on you?
Remember, Someone has caused a change. He reversed or moved the curse backward because He bore the curse to himself. Jesus, our greater Abraham went all the way to the cross to bear our curses so that milk and honey will start to flow.
