Speaker: Pastor Josh Hossler
Date: June 29, 2026
Primary Text: Genesis 9:18–29

Introduction

Amen. Good morning. Hey Cam, good morning. Can you guys give the worship team a hand? All right.

Well I'm glad you guys are here this morning. It's good to see you, good to be with you. Thank you for choosing to come to church on a beautiful sunny summer day in Michigan. I'm not sure how many we get, but this is one of 'em. And I’m glad you guys are at church this morning.  if you have your Bible, I want to encourage you to start turning to Genesis chapter 9. We're gonna be in Genesis chapter 9 this morning.  before we get into that part of God's Word, as we're going through the book of Genesis, I want to recommend a couple of resources to you. And they're up here, you can see them after service. My mission in life is to fill up your bookshelf, is my mission. So some books that go along with where we are in scripture. This one here is called The Flood of Evidence: 40 Reasons Noah and the Ark Still Matters by Ken Ham. Love to have you  consider that if you have questions about Noah and the Ark and where we've been in Genesis last couple of of weeks. And then another one which is relevant to today and then the next couple of Sundays is this book here called One Race, One Blood, The Biblical Answer to Racism. And I would highly recommend that you consider what God's Word says about that topic and just so important that we understand the truth. And so you can take a look at those after a service. If you take either of those books, I will hunt you down and find them. So I'm joking. That's a joke. I can tell you guys are a little bit quiet, a little bit subdued this morning. What's going on? You guys doing all right? Everything going okay? Okay. Alright, I hope so. 

Genesis Recap
We're gonna be in Genesis nine, and I'm glad that we're studying Genesis together because for many people, I am realizing for many people this may be the first time you've ever studied Genesis. For some of you this may be the first time you've ever read or been in the book of Genesis. And there's so much that God has to teach us from His Word, and so I'm excited to be able to dive in some more again this morning. So, quick recap for where we've been, in case you're just joining us. So far in Genesis, we've seen what we'd call the dawn of God's creation. Genesis 1:1 starts out with in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. So we believe that God created all things, God created everything perfectly, He created it good. It was exactly the way that He designed it to be.

Then we saw the next movement in the story of Genesis is the descent of man's corruption into sin. And how that continues to progress toward the wickedness that we see in Genesis 6 when God sends the worldwide flood to bring judgment. We've also seen how God rescues Noah and rescues his family and rescues all the animals that are on the ark with them at the time, and how God makes a covenant with Noah of of relationship with him, and how God chooses to build through Noah then the rest of mankind after him. So the main lesson from two weeks ago in Genesis was the value of human life, if you were with us. So we saw that human life and that your life and my life matter not because culture says they do, but because God says they do. And that's huge. Not just our lives, but every single human being has value because God says it's built in, it's intrinsic in the human life because we're made in the image of God. So from the womb until the tomb, that's one easy way to remember, from the womb to the tomb, every single human life has intrinsic built-in value because we are made in the image of God. So therefore we must value and protect and honor human life.

So today we're going to look at the final episode of Noah's life. It's a sobering reminder that we can never be too careful to guard our hearts from sin's deception and be reminded of God's amazing grace for our lives. So I promise you that when I was going to school to study to be a pastor, they didn't teach us how to preach passages like we're gonna be in this morning. You never know what you're gonna find in God's word.

So here we go. Church, are you guys ready? Genesis 9:18-29.  Let's go ahead and stand together and honor the reading of God's Word. Our plan and approach to Scripture, if you're new to us, is we just keep taking the next section. And this is the next section. You guys can be praying for Pastor Nathan next Sunday as he has Genesis 10. Just take a glance at Genesis 10. It's all names and they're not easy names. So pray for him as he works on his pronunciation this week. But I know God has a great message in store with through Genesis 10. So Genesis 9, starting in verse 18. You had no idea what you were in for when you came to church this morning.

Scripture Reading - Genesis 9:18-29

So here we go. Here's what God's Word says.

“The sons of Noah went forth from the ark. They were Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Ham 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, and 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. And then Shem and Japheth took a garment and laid it on both their shoulders, and walked backward and covered the nakedness of their father. Their faces were turned backward, that 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 shall be to he shall be to his brothers. He also said, Blessed be the Lord the God of Shem, and let Canaan his servant 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 three hundred and fifty years, all the days of Noah were nine hundred and fifty years, and he died.”

Prayer Over The Message
And let's go to prayer if you'll join me in your hearts. I just would encourage you to express your heart to the Lord right now. What do you need him to do in your heart? Are you coming to him with walls put up? Are you coming to him with an openness that says, God, whatever you have for me today, I want it. What is your prayer to the Lord? Father, thank you for this time that we have together. I just pray that we would continue to see it as a sacred privilege. And Holy Spirit, please help this not to be a routine for us. I believe there's real work that you want to do in people's hearts. There's real specific things that you want to point to that you want to address for our good and for your glory. God, we know that you're faithful. We know that you're loving. And you would love nothing more than for this time to be used effectively and powerfully. God, that it really would be true that we would leave different than when we came. So, whatever the case is, God, if a person's here this morning and they're discouraged, I pray that they would walk away full of faith. If there's someone here this morning who's apathetic, I pray that you would get their attention and wake all of us up to the seriousness of the things of God. And I pray, God, that you'd reveal the truth to us. We know that we receive all week long messages from the world about what the world thinks is important. But right now this morning for just a few minutes would you guard our hearts and our minds and help us to build on the foundation of the truth. God, thank you for your kindness toward us and for your help in these things these next few moments. In Jesus' powerful name we pray. Amen. Amen.

Message

You may be seated. Well, are you guys ready for a sermon about Noah's drunkenness? Oh man, so so interesting. So Noah is one of those leaders and one of those characters in the Bible that you know we teach in Sunday school, right? And that God worked powerfully through him. But this is the only episode that we know of of Noah's life of the last third of his life. And I believe God's going to use it to teach us some really great things this morning.

So let me start off this way. I'll never forget, I know we won't forget the year that none of us like to mention or think about, the year 2020. So yeah, we'd like to scrub it from history, scrub it from our minds.  but I'll never forget kind of the strange like dichotomy or juxtaposition of two things going on in that summer of 2020. You know, the world was kind of falling apart with COVID restrictions and fears and anxieties about all that was going on. And at the same time, there were riots taking place in our country that centered around the issue of race and racism at the recent death of George Floyd. And you guys can remember kind of the Black Lives Matters movements and all that's going on within our country of all that that's swirling around. And at the same time, I don't know if you remember or not, but at the same time, there was new developments in space exploration. We were sending people to space that hadn't happened for a while. And I just remember thinking that this is such a strange contrast between all that we can do, all the amazing things we can accomplish, like sending someone to space, at the same time we can't fix the human heart. That there's this darkness, there's this wickedness in the human heart that that all the technology isn't going to be able to address. And it reminds me of what we read in Jeremiah 17 says

“the heart is deceitful above all else or above all things and desperately sick. Who can understand it?”

And then God speaks up.

“I the Lord, I search the heart and I test the mind to give every man according to his ways according to the fruit of his deeds.”

So we see an episode in Noah's life. It kind of reminds me, it's probably a country song. You can take the girl out of Texas, but you can't take Texas out of the girl. Maybe it's not even a song. I have no idea. I need to learn to like filter more of those things before they come out. But so we see that Noah had survived through the flood, but that there's still sin in the human heart. There's a line in one of Shakespeare's plays, the play of Julius Caesar, where Cassius is saying to his friend this line, he says, The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves. So if I were to give you kind of a summary of this passage and how it applies. I think this passage in Genesis, it teaches us and shows us again the universality of sin and human sinfulness. And it reminds us of the need for God's unmerited favor and grace. So we're going to learn today in this passage that we all fall short of God's glory. We are all sinners in need of God's grace and rescued by the grace of God through Jesus Christ.

So let me give some quick explanations for some details and then we'll dive into some application. Okay? So one of the things I love about scripture is the Bible never hides the failures of its leaders. Again, we teach about Noah in our Sunday school class. I don't I don't remember hearing any sermons in Sunday school class about Noah's drunkenness. And when we teach Noah on the Ark, it's usually the flannel graph version. I don't remember the gory details of all the death and destruction. But the Bible is not does not hide the flaws of its leaders. That's one of the things that we see in this passage.

I've had people or I've I've had conversation with people wondering: okay, so it talks about Noah's drunkenness. Did Noah knew that drinking wine was going to make him drunk at this time. So maybe fermentation was new, and maybe Noah didn't know what was going to happen. I think that alcohol was a known entity to them at the time. And so I think that Noah knew what was taking place.

You'll notice as well that there's twice in this passage where the name Canaan is mentioned, actually more than that, but twice where it references that Ham is the father of Canaan. Let me back up. So Noah and his three sons, his three sons are what? Shem, Ham, and Japheth. I want to make sure you guys are following along. Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Okay, Shem Ham and Japheth. Shem, Ham, and Japheth. So when Noah is writing this, sorry, when Moses is writing this, he's writing at the time in history when the people of Israel are about ready to head into the promised land, also known as the land of Canaan.

Okay, there you go. There's the connection. So Moses is helping to give them understanding that as as God brings them out of slavery from Egypt in the book of Exodus, their wandering years, as they're about ready to enter the promised land, the book of Joshua, Moses is writing the first five books of the Bible. We call it the Pentateuch. And so Moses is writing this and giving them the understanding that this Ham, this son of Noah, his son's name is Canaan, and this is the land that we're about to enter into the land of Canaan.

That makes sense if it makes sense, just remember we talked Nathan said he wants thumbs up from everybody. So that works for me too. So all the this is also interesting. Look at verse let me see where it is real quick. Look at verse 19. These three were the sons of Noah, and from these people the whole earth, the people of the whole earth were dispersed. So what this is telling us is that every single person that has ever lived on planet Earth is a descendant of one of these three people, either Shem, Ham or . Make sense? Thumbs up? Thank you.

Alright, great. So Shem Ham and Japheth. You guys have heard of the term anti-semitism before. Right? So anti-Semitism is technically meaning those who are descendants of Shem. So it's more technically anti-Shemitism. We just drop the H, alright? But that's technically what that term means. It means hatred toward descendants of Shem. So in the technical sense, then, anyone who is a more of an Arabic-speaking person, Jews, Palestinians, Egyptians, etc. Now that term anti-Semitism has narrowed in its meaning to mean mainly or primarily hatred toward Jews, but in a technical sense, it means all those who descended from Shem.

How are we doing so far? Okay, I got one. Awesome. I'll take it. I'll take whatever I can get this morning. The other thing that we notice from this passage is that these are the only recorded words of Noah. Some have called this Noah's last sermon, Noah's final sermon. So Noah was a preacher of righteousness for decades prior to the flood, but these three verses are the only recorded words of Noah. And then it says at the very end of the passage that we read that Noah lived for three hundred and fifty years after the flood, and all the days of Noah were how many?

So this is what we notice about this passage. So what I want to do for the next few moments is we're going to talk about the sinfulness of Noah, the sinfulness of Ham, not the food, but the person, and then the curse of Canaan. Okay?

So first of all, the sinfulness of Noah. Look at those first several verses with me. Says the sons of Noah went forth from the ark, they were Shem, Ham, and Japheth. And Ham was the father of Canaan. These were the sons of Noah, and from these people the whole earth were dispersed. Noah began to be a man of the soil, and he planted a vineyard, and he drank the wine, and became drunk, and he lay uncovered in his tent.

So again, like I said, the Bible doesn't hide the flaws of its leaders. So what was Noah's sin, or what were Noah's sins? They're pretty obvious on the surface, aren't they? Noah's sins were that he drank too much wine to the point that he became drunk drunk, right? And then the consequent action after that was that he was laying naked. You guys ready for me to go into these topics? I know that Noah is listening. And that Noah, this is one of our Noahs in our church. Yes they had a Noah back here.

I was saying the first service when I first started to become a pastor, I never pictured that I would say the word nakedness so many times in a sermon. Or anyway, you'll anyway here we are. So we're gonna address for just a moment Noah's sin. And it says that after the flood, Noah became a worker of the soil, and he planted a vineyard, and he harvested the the grapes from the vineyard, and made wine, and he drank to excess to the point where he was drunk.

So what does the Bible say about alcohol? You're really curious to know what I'm gonna say, aren't you? The Bible says this about alcohol that alcohol, the fruit of the vine, is a gift from God. You don't have to say amen to that, but that drinking to excess is sin. The point of drunkenness is sin.

What I find is really interesting and fascinating, and in many ways heartbreaking, is how lightly our culture and even many Christians take the sin of drunkenness. Like our culture glories and revels in it. “Oh man, I got wasted. I got hammered.” And even many Christians, it's become a a soft sin in many ways. That's not how the Bible treats it. Ephesians 5:18 says:

“And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, or that is sin, but be filled with the Holy Spirit.”

So as as believers, if you are in Jesus Christ, if you're a Christian, then you should be led by the Spirit of God and not led by drunkenness.

Proverbs 20:1 says:

“Wine is a mocker, strong drink is a brawler, and whoever is led astray by it is not wise.”

And we do see this on the positive side, Psalm 104:14-15 says:

“God, you cause grass to grow for the livestock and plants for man to cultivate, that he may bring forth food from the earth, and wine to gladden the heart, and oil to make his face shine, and bread to strengthen man's heart. But drinking to excess is sin.”

We read again in the New Testament, 1 Corinthians 6:9-11, says:

“or don't you know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived, neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, and you were sanctified, and you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and by the Spirit of our God.”

So why is drunkenness a sin? I'm gonna give you the most dad answer I can possibly give, number one, because God says so.

But we we might say, “Well, why why is if it's not hurting anybody, why is drunkenness a sin?” It's a sin because God says it's a sin. It's a sin because we've lost our faculties and aren't making righteous decisions to live for God. And it also leads to so many other sinful things, doesn't it? You end up becoming a slave to it. It leads to other things like domestic domestic violence and homicide and adultery and sex outside of marriage and, in Noah's case, nakedness.

I was reading some interesting statistics this week about alcohol and about drunkenness, and fifty percent of all murders occur in an. Alcohol is identified as nearly the sole cause of domestic abuse and date rape. Alcohol makes people more aggressive, makes people more violent. So you have to know yourself in regard to alcohol.

But let me just ask a question. Are you using alcohol? Are you going to alcohol as a crutch or as something to escape instead of going to the Lord Jesus Christ? Are you relying on something like alcohol or something else instead of relying on God. And for some people, it's just not worth it, and they shouldn't be around alcohol. That's my personal stance. I I abstain. I don't. I'm not. I don't consume alcohol. If you do in a biblical sense or in a God honoring way, that's that's awesome. Praise God for that. But for me, the risks are too high, that it's just not worth it for me.

So for some of you, maybe that's for you. And there's a couple different warnings here from this example for Noah. Again, we don't know exactly why Noah did this or what led to this, but for some reason, in some way, Noah let down his guard and began to coast a little bit. That's the warning for us is that we can't coast. We can't assume that we have this sin thing figured out.

So I shared this first service. You guys know my story. I grew up in a Christian home. My mom and dad, very godly Christian people. My dad was a pastor, and I gave my life to the Lord at a very young age, and so I know I don't look it but I'm pushing fifty. I'll turn forty eight this October. I know I don't look it but that's the truth. That's what my my driver's license says.

So I've had the privilege of being a Christian, being in a Christian home and walking with the Lord for a long time. And you would think that by this point you kind of have the sin thing figured out and that you don't fall or stumble into sin. But that's just not the case. And you would think that Noah by the time he reaches about 600 years old would have the sin thing figured out.

But here we have even Noah at the end of his life, the last third of his life, and this is what we read about him. R. Kent Hughes said this about this passage:

“when all the world was against Noah, he faced scorn and violence straight up. So before the flood, Noah was preaching righteousness, and he was a stalwart in his faith. But in his vineyard, among his own who needed no proof of his virtue, he relaxed. And all too often the walls of our homes witnessed irritabilities and anger and slanderous words and laziness and sensualities that if the walls could speak would take our grey hairs down to Sheol.”

How often is that true? This is a warning to us that we must finish strong and finish well. I'm so thankful for the wide range of ages within our church family. I think it's a great thing. Like I can't tell you how many ladies in our church are expecting newborns right now. We praise God for that. And I can't tell you, we have so many retirees, and I just I love that we have this wide range of ages. This is maybe more toward those who are in the the last third of their life. But you have to finish well.

You have to finish strong. It's a tragedy and it happens way too often where people don't finish well. I think it's especially a tragedy when anybody doesn't, but especially when somebody in ministry doesn't finish well. There's a couple that stand out to me as examples. Many years ago, there was a man by the name of Ravi Zacharias. He was a great apologist. He was great in defending the faith. He helped me tremendously just to grow in my conviction of the Word of God and my my faith in what Christ has done. But even after his death, it was revealed that the last decade of his life, he was involved in inappropriate sexual relationships and completely discredited his ministry.

Many of you know that I'm  going to school and the seminary that I attend is called the Master's Seminary, and it's been a great experience. But just a few months after I started in the program, one of the leading faculty members of the program, who was pastoring a church in Texas, it was revealed that he'd been having an inappropriate sexual relationship with a young lady for the past five years and completely discredited his ministry, completely devastated his family. And it's just a great warning to us of how important it is to finish well and to finish strong.

This past Friday night, we had a men's event here as a men's corn hole tournament. And it was it was a lot of fun. We had a great time and you know just throw some burgers on the grill and get out a couple of corn hole boards and it was great.  I didn't win, but I had fun. That's a theme you're gonna hear a couple of times throughout the sermon this morning.

But we were talking a couple months prior, great great idea, they did like a DIY build your own corn hole board event. I wasn't able to make the make to make it to it, but some of the guys brought their corn hole boards to the tournament and got to use those and but not all the boards made it to the tournament because they they hadn't gotten finished. And that's okay, right? Like it's definitely okay. But just that reminder that it's it's it's one thing to start something, it's another thing to finish something. And that in the Christian faith, we're called to not only start well, but also finish well. We see that as a warning from this example of Noah. Doesn't matter how old you are, you still need God's grace, and that's true in the story of Noah.

Many people as well are like, you know what? I've got a lot of years until I'm old. I'm gonna live my life right now and have fun. And then later on, I'll give my life to Christ. What a foolish way to live. God calls us to live for him, to not wreck our lives, living in sin. So it matters how you finish. So that's the sinfulness of Noah. Noah stumbles into sin.

Next, we're gonna see the sinfulness of Ham. And my girls thought it was humorous that there's a person in the Bible named Ham. The sinfulness of Ham. Look at the next couple of verses, starting verse 22:

“And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father and told his two brothers outside. And then Shem and Japheth took a garment, laid it on both their shoulders, and walked backward and covered the nakedness of their father. Their faces were turned backward, and they did not see their father's nakedness. And though then Noah awoke from his wine and knew what his youngest son had done to him.”

So let me ask you a question what was Ham's sin? This is a really interesting situation, isn't it? So Noah is drunk, Noah is laying uncovered in his tent, and Ham somehow sees the situation, and Ham, instead of covering his father up, Ham goes outside and says, “Guys, you gotta hear this.” And he gloats and he kind of glories to his brothers about how his father had fallen.

But the other two sons, the other two brothers, they seek to honor their father, so they grab a blanket between the two of them and walk backwards and cover him up so that they don't see their father's nakedness. They don't shame their father any further.

So what was Ham's sin? What was Ham's sin? So Noah was in the wrong, Noah was drunk. Ham's sin was in how he handled his father's nakedness. The text even kind of indicates that he kind of gloated, he kind of looked with joy at his father's nakedness. He seemed to take pleasure in his dad's sinfulness.

Now some have speculated that there's more going on here in the text that somehow maybe Ham took advantage sexually of his dad. Or there's even a euphemism here that possibly the nakedness of his father is referring to Noah's wife, and that possibly Ham had taken advantage sexually of Noah's wife. I don't think that's the case. I think it's the the simple reading on the surface that Ham saw his father's nakedness and he gloated that his father had fallen. And he went out and he bragged to his brothers. He took pleasure in telling his brothers, you guys will never believe what dad did.

So not only did Noah sin, but also Ham sin by not protecting his father's honor. And we read in the New Testament, 1 Peter 4:7-8 says:

“the end of all things is at hand, therefore be self controlled and sober minded for the sake of your prayers. Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, for love covers a multitude of sins.”

Proverbs 10:12 says:

“Hatred stirs up conflict, but love covers all offenses.”

Galatians 6:1 says:

“Brothers, if anyone's caught in a sin or transgression you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watching yourselves lest you too be tempted.”

So what is being described is it not that we're to cover up sin, but that we're to not gloat in other people's downfalls. So if I were to identify Ham's sin, it's a sin of self-righteousness.

So  again another example of having fun, not not necessarily winning, but having fun. You guys hear us talk in the summertime here about our church's  softball team, our men's softball team. So we had another game this past Wednesday. Sorry, this past Monday. And we played another team which will not be named. But we got destroyed. But we had fun, but we lost really bad. 

So in this field that we played on, there's  one of the outfield fences is relatively close. And in slow pitch softball, there's not a whole lot you can do to strike a batter out. If they're good hitters, they will hit it over the fence almost every time, which is what happened on Monday for the other team. 

So in this league,  you can hit one home run per inning. If you hit more than that, it's an out for the team that hit the home run. There were several innings that we got out, that we finished the inning on defense because the other team hit too many home runs over the fence.

So it tells you a little bit about how the game went. Our our team is actually a good team and and  it's great to do that and and hang out with our guys, not to disparage our team at all. I'm really competitive and I don't like to lose, even if it's a church league, even if it's church softball. And so it's amazing what you'll do in your mind and make assumptions about other people to make yourself feel better.

So I'm not kidding you, I was judging the other team hard. See I was imagining them in the worst light possible. Like silly things like I bet I'm closer to Jesus than they are. Like that kind of thing. I'm embarrassed to admit it, but but that's like the thoughts, and if you're judging me for thinking that, then you're also the doing the same exact thing right now. “Oh, I would never do” there, you just did it, okay? But it's the sin of self-righteousness. It's a sin of looking at someone else and their flaws and their faults and and thinking, “oh I would never do that. I'm way better than them.”

So what this is describing is that we should be gentle and careful with one another's flaws. Not to cover up sin and ignore sin, but to not gloat in someone else's downfall. The Bible gives us instructions about how to approach sin and sinfulness in others.

Matthew 18:15-17 says:

“if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone.”

Again, if if this could be the filter for social media, that would be incredible. There'd be like a third of the things posted that than there are right now. But that we address sin issues with one another.

Now, this is not universally applied. I mean, some situations require public warning and public confrontation. But in our relationships with each other, we're not. This is why in marriages and I think that this is something that young married people, it happens there, but then you quickly learn.

So let me just start with okay, so husbands and wives. Is it helpful? Is it ever helpful to say negative or disparaging things about your spouse in front of other people? No. Okay. Those are the people who've been married for a minute. Like, I can remember a couple times when we were newly married where you just think you're just being funny, but say something negative about your spouse in in company it doesn't it's not helpful. You quickly learn like that's not going to help anything. And husbands and wives, we have usually the most ammo to use against our spouse.

That's just one example of how we can protect the honor of one another. It's not covering up sin, but it's not gloating in it either. Do you guys remember in Genesis 3 when Adam and Eve sinned? What did Adam and Eve do to try to cover up their sin. They made fig leaves, they tried to cover themselves. You guys remember what God did at the end of Genesis three? God covered their sin. God covered their nakedness. God made garments for them out of an animal and God made a covering for them. So we're to be gentle and kind with other people's flaws.

Here's one application. It doesn't matter how right you are, you still need God's grace and to show grace as much as others.

And lastly let's look at the curse of Canaan the last several verses. Verse 25:

“and Noah said Cursed be Canaan a servant of servants shall he be to his brothers and 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. It says, Now after the flood, Noah lived three hundred and fifty years, and all the days of Noah were 950 years, and he died.”

So what is the curse of Canaan? So if you notice, remember again, Noah has three sons. They are Shem, Ham and Japheth. That's the only one you're going to remember, but at least you remember that one. Shem, Ham, and Japheth. And Noah curses Canaan. Who's Canaan? Canaan is the son of Ham. And he blesses the two other sons. He blesses Japheth and he blesses Shem.

Let me just try to unpack this and, if this takes a little bit longer, I hope you guys will understand. While we're here in this passage, I want to make sure that I that I address this. So this passage has been used at various times in history to justify chattel slavery like what took place here in America in our history.

If you guys are curious about the subject of slavery in the Bible. We did a sermon on that at the end of  2025. It's from 1 Timothy 6. You can go find that on our YouTube channel. I would definitely recommend you go and listen to that. So from this passage, some have taught something called the curse of Ham. Have you ever heard anybody ever heard of that term, the curse of Ham? Yeah, a few of you.

So it's wrongly using this passage to justify slavery because the theory is that the curse on Canaan or the curse on him is because of skin color, and that those who are of a certain skin color are then cursed to slavery for the rest of their lives. That is not what this passage teaches. That is a sinful, sinful thing to be taught. Make sense? Again, I would recommend this book to you, One Race, One Blood.

Nathan's gonna get into that topic a little bit more next Sunday. So important that we understand on the topic of race, that there is one race, the human race. That this construct of multiple or different races is a human construct. That's not a biblical construct. There's different nations, different ethnicities, but there aren't different races of human beings.  

Ken Ham, who's the author of these books, , he likes to describe, let me go in the weeds this way. Okay. I know I have your attention, so alright, listen carefully.  I'm not a scientist or biologist, but we all have built into the genetic make genetic makeup of us is the possibility for variation. So we don't have the same eye color, don't have the same and we all have different levels of melanin in our skin that allows for variation of skin tone. So the author of the book One Race, One One Blood, he says you know people call call him white and then he holds up a sheet of paper to his arm and he's like I'm not this is white right like this is so all that to say having prejudice or hatred towards someone because of skin color is a sinful unbiblical thing. Okay, does that make sense? Any thumbs up from people? Okay. Alright.  if you have questions about that, want to talk more about that,  come see me. But I just wanted to address that some people have taken this passage and misused it.  that is contrary to scripture. God is a God of all nations, and that in the church it should be a place for diversity.

And also the kingdom of heaven is going to be a place of diversity. Amen, church. Like we're gonna see people from every tribe, tongue, and nation worshiping Jesus Christ together in heaven. Okay. Alright. We good? Okay. I felt a little bit like I was scolding my children, but hopefully they didn't come across that way.

So what is the curse of Canaan? And why does Noah curse Canaan and not curse Ham? We'll get through this quickly and we'll wrap up. So let me just say this.  this is Noah we're talking about, and Noah doesn't have any special powers or special abilities to be able to enact a curse on Ham and his family. Does that make sense? Noah doesn't have like a magic wand to go like I now curse your family. In fact, in the previous chapter, God blessed Noah and his sons. So it's not like Noah has the ability to override God's blessing on their lives.

I think more what's happening is that this is more prophetic than it is punitive. That this is more telling what's going to happen if they continue down this road. Noah sees where this leads. And he's telling us the trajectory of the lives of these three men. That if you continue in this direction, here's where it will take you. And to be honest, he's not wrong. If you trace out these three lines in scripture, Noah is not wrong. This does take place. So he's he's telling them that if you continue to live this way, here's what will happen to your kids and their kids and their kids. He's giving them a warning.

So a couple years ago, our family went to Niagara Falls.  great trip. Loved going there to see God's creation. If you're ever there and are tempted to try to climb over the guardrail, okay, first of all, don't do it. There are warning signs everywhere. Like if you do this, you will die. Don't climb over this fence. There's a warning. I think that's what's going on in this passage. And the same thing can be applied to our lives as well. That if you head this direction, this is going to be the outcome.

I just want to say, as a warning to us that if you are playing with sin, if you are flirting with sin, it will lead to death and destruction every single time. Every time. There's never a time in which we can use sin as a mechanism to get to life and peace and God's grace. Does that make sense? Sin every single time, every single time, leads to death and destruction. And there are consequences. There are different earthly consequences to different sins, but every sin makes us as human beings under the wrath of God. Even the smallest sin is deserving of eternal punishment and 100% in need of God's grace. We are all under the curse of death because of sin.

All right. Are we good so far? Everybody doing all right? Alright. I'm a little bit worn out from that softball game on Monday and the corn hole tournament on Friday. No, I'm not just kidding. But  I wanna do one last thing.  if you I wanna ask you guys to turn your Bibles to Ephesians 2. If you go with me to Ephesians 2 or just a moment. If you're new to the Bible, Ephesians it's in the New Testament and you'll find it after the book of Galatians. Ephesians 2.

Again, remember we're talking about the universality of sin and sinfulness, and that we all need God's grace. It's what we read in Ephesians 2 says:

“And you are dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our sins and trespasses, he made us alive together with Christ. By grace you have been saved.”

That's a good spot for an amen.

“And he raised us up with Christ and He seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. So that in the coming ages God might show the immeasurable riches of his grace and kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.”

So I just want you to see for just a moment what we're seeing is that from the greatest sins from in our minds what are the worst sins possible to what we'd say are the smallest sins possible they are all deserving of God's wrath and judgment. Does that make sense? So there's no room. So my little mental thing of “I bet I'm closer to Jesus than they are"“. There's no room for any of that. Because the only reason any of us are saved at all is because God is gracious.

I'm not saved in any way, shape, or form because somehow I'm better than somebody else. We are saved by God's grace and God's grace alone. That verse, the pastor goes on to say,

“For by grace you've been saved through faith. This is not of your own doing. It is the gift of God. Not a result of works, so that no one can boast.”

Doesn't matter how sinful you are, you can still be rescued by God's grace. And that should be so encouraging to us. God's grace is available to all. I'm gonna use this illustration. I use it first service. Hopefully it's helpful. Does your understanding of the gospel leave room for God to show amazing grace to some of the people that we would say are the worst of sinners.?

Like for example, everyone uses these extremes, I recognize that's what this is, but I want you to picture, like if we think of the worst, the worst of the worst, Hitler's one of the names that we do, right? Like, does your understanding of the gospel allow room for someone like Hitler if he I don't think this is true of his life, but if he had given his life to Christ before he passed away. Does your faith allow you to have room that we might see him in heaven one day?

Shared some things about  Jeffrey Dahmer, serial killer, Jeffrey Dahmer, that I hadn't heard before. And it kind of had that moment of like, wow, does my faith have room for this? So Jeffrey Dahmer was a serial killer who killed seventeen people in some gory I won't go into all the details. But that toward the end of his life, Jeffrey Dahmer professed faith in Jesus Christ and was baptized. Now, only the Lord knows, right? But does your faith allow, does your understanding, understanding of sin and God's grace allow for the fact that the reality of that we may see Jeffrey Dahmer in heaven? That God's grace is that good.

Now, some people would hear that and go, well, that's so unfair. That's so unjust of God. But what that should show us is how significant our sins are. And like my sin of self-righteousness on the softball field is just as damning as the sins of Jeffrey Dahmer. Now, the earthly consequences are different, but as far as our guilt before God, they're the same.

God is gracious. Maybe you're here this morning and maybe you're more like Noah, and you've stumbled and fallen into sin, but you can be restored by turning from your sin and believing in the Lord Jesus Christ. Maybe you're here this morning and you're more like Ham. External, externally living a good life, but internally, you're full of hypocrisy. You need the grace of God just as much as anybody else does. And you can also be forgiven of your sin by turning to Christ.

Maybe you're here this morning and you're more like Canaan. Maybe you don't have a relationship with God. Again, God does not turn you away, that you would come and call on the mercies of God, and He will show you grace as well.

So praise God that He shows mercy and grace to sinners like us. That he redeems rebels. Let's pray.

Closing Prayer

Father, thank you for this time to be reminded of your grace. I pray that we would never take it for granted. God, we thank you for not hiding things from us like the example of Noah here in Genesis 9. I pray that we'd all come to you with sober hearts and minds, just acknowledging our own sinfulness before you. I pray that we'd recognize how how great your grace is toward us that would cause us to love you and to be grateful and to worship you. God, we just thank you for your kindness. I pray for the person who's having a hard time seeing you as kind. Yeah, that even in that you'd give them your grace. To see how kind you are, to see how loving you are, to see how good you are. And God fill our hearts with worship and gratitude. Just to think that you are a God of grace, that you don't treat us as our sins deserve. But God thank you for your love and your mercy and your kindness. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Would you please stand with me as we sing?