It is a pleasure to be back with you again to minister the word of the Lord to you. Please turn in your Bibles to the book of Genesis. Genesis chapter 9, verses 18 through 29 is what we will be looking at this evening. I've been preaching through the book of Genesis at Hope OPC in Grayslake. I believe I preached last time as well from this. So I'm gonna come and bring you a message again from the book of Genesis. I give your full attention now to the word of God. I'll begin reading in verse 18 of chapter nine and read through the end of the chapter. The sons of Noah who went forth from the ark 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. 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. 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. 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 he be to his brothers. 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. After the flood, Noah lived 350 years. All the days of Noah were 950 years, and he died. Let's ask God's blessing on his word. Lord God, do now attend this word which you have so carefully, perfectly inspired and carefully preserved for us, cause your servant to speak faithful and true words concerning it. Indeed, may the voice of Jesus Christ himself sound forth to your people. May they hear and live. We ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Imagine for a moment, I know you're familiar with the book of Genesis, but imagine you're reading it or hearing it read to you for the very first time, and then you come to this passage. Wouldn't it be somewhat surprising and shocking? because from everything that we've heard about Noah, as he's introduced right at the end of chapter five, but really takes an important role from chapter six onward. Everything that we have been told about him concerns his exceptional goodness. From chapter six onward, we learn that Noah alone is righteous in a sea of wickedness. Noah alone walks with God. And yet in our passage, it is not Noah's righteousness which is on display. Indeed, it is his foolishness that is on display. Noah gets drunk. Be honest, that's what the text is presenting. And things do not go well from there. So why this turn of events in the book of Genesis? What's changing? What's going on here with Noah and then what happens afterwards? Well, as we look at this passage, I'd like us to consider it in three ways. First of all, I'd like us to consider Noah's sin. Secondly, his son's responses. There's more than one response, responses. And then finally, God's grace, the amazing grace of God. Noah's sin, his son's responses, and God's grace. Well, first of all, Noah's sin, and straight away we're told about that in verse 20 and following. Noah began to be a man of the soil. He planted a vineyard. He drank of the wine and became drunk. Some commentators try to figure out ways around this. Maybe he really didn't get drunk at all, but that really is the case. Later on in the text, it says when he awoke from his wine, He gets, he gets drunk and we read as a consequence in verse 21, he lay uncovered in his tent. My friends, people, sensible people don't normally pass out drunk when they are not fully covered. But again, you don't do sensible things when you drink to excess. And this is what happens to Noah. He essentially becomes drunk, he passes out, he is naked and he is unclothed. And so we begin to see, though Noah has had this unblemished record, at the end of chapter five, he is given the name Noah in hopes that he will bring rest. but he is not going to be the one to bring true rest to God's people. We will look for another. But if this Noah, who we have heard about so far, if he of all people, if that guy can struggle with drunkenness, is there any among us who can say, we will never struggle with that or with other such sins. This text calls us to humility. We need to be humble. We also need to be careful. On the one hand, we don't want to overreact to Noah's sin, as some do, and say, well, this is so bad, and therefore the sin is in the wine itself. Passages like Psalm 104.15, Isaiah 25.6, which is an amazing passage, which speaks of the celebration to happen in the new heavens and the new earth, to be accompanied with celebratory wine, make it clear that wine is indeed a celebratory gift from the Lord. The problem is not in things made by the Lord. The problem is in what people do with those things. However, however, in our correct championing of the doctrine of Christian liberty, we also don't want to overreact the other way. We don't even wanna suggest it's okay to get a little drunk. The Bible is very clear, Proverbs 20 verse one, wine is a mocker and strong drink a brawler and whoever is led astray by it is not wise, it's not wise. Paul continues this theme of wisdom and folly in Ephesians 5, 17, and 18. Therefore, do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is, and do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit. And so scripture clearly witnesses that overconsumption of alcohol is serious sin and it leads to disastrous consequences sometimes, terrible consequences, destroyed families and destroyed lives. All of us must be in the business of turning from this and other sins And if for any reason, any even here, should abuse alcohol so that it mocks you, robbing you of your senses, you, I, any of us who stumble with that sin, we must turn from that. And the good news, as we will see later on in this passage, is the Lord provides grace, he provides strength, he provides new life in our lives. his son to do just that, to turn from this and all sin. We'll come to God's amazing grace later. Now I'd like us to pivot and move from Noah's sin to the response of his sons. After Noah's folly, we see that his son, one son, Ham, goes into the tent and he sees his father passed out and naked. And listen to this last part of verse 22. and he told his brothers who were outside." There's a lot packed in that. Really, I think we have to understand this, and he told his brothers who were outside. It's as though we're being told, Ham speaks in this way, can you believe it? The worthless old man is in there, passed out, drunk, naked. We've got the upper hand on him now. Let's capitalize on the old man's folly. Utter mockery, utter contempt. Now, fascinatingly and thankfully, Shem and Japheth refused to join in with him. Instead, we read this in verse 23, then Shem and Japheth took a garment. Now, the Hebrew word for garment there is actually, the definite article comes in front of it, not a, but the, and so I think we might do well to translate the passage as one translation does, the New English translation says, then Shem and Japheth took the garment. What that means then is if they took the garment, that means that when Ham went inside and saw his father naked, he must have seen the garment laying down beside him as well. He takes it, he seizes it, he goes out with it. Maybe he throws it on the ground in an effort to make absolutely sure that his father would be exposed and humiliated before all. But then Shem and Japheth took the garment. They laid it both on their shoulders and they walk backwards. They walk back so as to be careful not even to gaze on their father's nakedness. And then what do they do? They cover him. Now, I'm going to come back to this important matter of the covering of Noah's nakedness later, but do not miss the contrast of the brothers' responses. They couldn't be more different, could they? One of mocking, the other of care, respect, and honor, and covering. And it poses the question to me and to you, what will you do when the sin, and failure, and shame of others is exposed to you? What will you do? We know what Ham did. He did the same as so many today do on the internet. He blabbed and he exploited the sin of others, his own father shaming him to gain leverage over him and to promote himself. If you belong to Christ, You cannot do that, you must not do that. That is not the path of the cross. The cross does not exploit the sin of others to gain advantage for self, to seize on the failures of others to promote oneself. Proverbs 10, 12 says this, hatred stirs up strife, but love, and this is the same word in the Hebrew, love covers all offenses. First Peter 4.8, love covers a multitude of sins. James 5.19-20, my brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back, let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins. For those of you who are married, remember that in 1 Corinthians 13, 5, Paul says that love does not count up wrongdoing. That's the ESV's translation, at least down in the footnote, kind of the alternate translation. I prefer that, I like that. Love does not count up wrongdoing. Husbands and wives, get rid of the scorecards that maybe you keep, keeping track of the failures of your spouses. Why would you want to hang on to those? So that you can remind them of their failures? God does not treat you that way. He no longer remembers our sin. Children, it's tough when you see your parents who confess faith and seek to lead you in the faith, it's tough when you see them mess up The way of Jesus Christ, though, is not to expose the sins of your father and your mother as Ham did. Rather, as you grow and as you mature in the faith, as you mature in godliness, you still honor them, no matter what's going on, but you realize as well that they are sinners just like you, and they are in need of help. What does it look like for kids or others under authority to walk backward, not even gazing upon the sin and the failure of others, covering them in love as your Heavenly Father covers you. What exactly does that look like? I'll leave it to you to figure that out. Of course, what I'm saying doesn't mean that when people sin against us, we just sweep it under the rug. That's not what I'm saying. Sin has to be dealt with. Rather, I'm talking about not exploiting the sin of others for your own good. That we must never do. That is not the way of the cross. Let's move then, we've looked at Noah's sin, the responses of his sons. Now let us look at God's grace. God's grace comes flooding into the scene now as we look at Noah and he gives, some people refer to this as his oracle, Noah's oracle, because he says things which are prophetic in nature. There's a prophetic word coming forth from Noah and God's grace is seen first of all in that he even uses Noah. After this incident, right? Noah had sinned, he had shamed himself, and yet God uses him. We are reminded here that God does not save and use perfect people. He saves sinners. And this oracle, which Noah then is granted by God and speaks forth, it first brings a word of curse. And this curse is not spoken against Ham himself, but it is spoken against Ham's son, Canaan. That seems kind of odd, right? Ham is the one who did this shameful thing, but he speaks of Canaan, pronounces a curse on Ham's son, Canaan. Why is that? Well, who is it who inhabits the promised land? that the Israelites who were first reading this account, granted to them by Moses, were going to. It is, of course, the Canaanites, the sons of Cain. Israel's war against the Canaanites looks back to this prophetic curse uttered on the son of Ham. More importantly, it looks all the way back to the curse pronounced by God in Genesis 3.15. I will put enmity between your seed and her seed. And that future war against the Canaanites, it is itself prophetic in its own way. Regarding the future, it prophetically speaks of the final war of history, the last battle fought, the great battle of Armageddon, when the lamb once slain will return. as the roaring lion to bring God's righteous judgment on all who still cling to their sin and rebellion and who will not look to his work in faith. So there's a curse pronounced on Hamson Cain. It'll kind of work its way out in the Canaanites, but ultimately at the end of history, that curse will be worked out. Now let's pivot again and look at the blessing that's pronounced upon Noah's other two sons, Shem and Japheth. Now, maybe some know a little Hebrew. Shem is a very common word in Hebrew. It simply means name. The people who descend from Shem will be the people of the name. God places his name on these people. It is through Shem's descendants, the Shemites, the Semites, But the promise line will continue and it is from Shem, the promised Messiah of Genesis 3.15 will come. He will be the true Noah. He will be the one to give God's people rest. And note, Noah has a deep awareness of God's work in all of this. Noah's blessing Shem It isn't just a personal matter. It isn't him just saying, well, Shem treated me so well, so now I'm gonna be nice to him. I'm gonna say something good about him because, you know, he treated me much better than him. No, look at Noah's words in verse 26. Noah says this, blessed be the Lord, the God of Shem. Noah sees God's hand in this, and he blesses God, the God of Shem. Let me just say kind of as an aside here, isn't this the hope of every parent to be able to say these words? I have a daughter, Anna, and a son, Jonathan. And the greatest longing and prayer for me as a father is to be able to say, blessed be the God of Anna, and blessed be the God of Jonathan, blessed be this God, for it is he It is He who has caused them to give up their names and to take on His name, to be people of Hashem, people of the name. True Shemites. What of Japheth? What of Japheth? Well, we see Japheth is spoken of in verse 27. We read this, may God enlarge Japheth and let him dwell in the tents of Shem. Now one commentator says about the word, which is translated enlarge, that it would be better, and I am in agreement with this, better be translated open wide. And so then there's a connection between what's said in verse 27 in the first line And in the second line, and so we could think of verse 27, we could translate it like this. I'm being a little paraphrastic, but I'm bringing out the sense of open wide. May God open wide to Jaboth, the tents of Shem, so that Jaboth may enter into Shem's tents and dwell there. Beloved. This is prophetic. This is exactly what happens in redemptive history. God's blessing falls first on Shem, the Shemites, narrowly on the nation of Israel, but God ultimately has in view a worldwide family. One day God will bless the Gentiles. He will bring the Gentiles. He's not gonna have two peoples. He's gonna have one people. He will have one flock, he will bring the Gentiles into the tents of Shem, that they may possess the same promises and the same God first made to Israel. Indeed, the movement to these Gentiles is seen in the next chapter of Genesis, in Genesis chapter 10. I preached that this morning, the so-called Table of Nations. Genesis 10, verse 5 speaks of the descendants of Jabeth, a certain group of them, is referred to as the Coastland Peoples, Genesis 10, 5. Who are these Coastland Peoples? Well, it's pretty clear when you study scripture and history, that these coastland peoples are those who later settle in the Mediterranean, particularly among the islands of the Aegean Sea, the Greeks. And there is a scriptural witness to the fulfillment of this prophecy. It's found in the life of the apostle Paul. Paul is the one, he is the apostle to the Gentiles. He goes to the Greeks. And when Paul speaks of the blessings which come upon the Gentiles, he actually uses the open wide language which comes from our passage. First Corinthians 16.9, there Paul says, as he writes to those in Corinth, he talks about how God has a wide has opened a wide door for effective work in Ephesus for him. That's the language. God has opened a wide door. He's opened wide the tents of Shem to the Gentiles, to those in Ephesus. He repeats that language, or Luke records him, he and Barnabas using that language in Acts 14.27. Paul speaks of how God had opened a door of faith to these Gentiles. That's language which traces its way back to Noah's prophetic oracle. And this is worth thinking about. I don't know about you. I am not ethnically Jewish. Maybe some here are. I suspect most are not. And if that is the case, your faith is a fulfillment of God's gracious promise that he would bless the Japhethites, the Gentile descendants of Noah, by opening wide to you and to me the blessed covenant tents of Shem. It's the tents of Shem which are open to Japheth. The Japheth may come in and dwell there, not the other way around. Not just because God first makes his promises to Israel, but also because the Gentiles have to come into the tents of Shem and be blessed there, why? Because the singular Messiah, he descends from the line of Shem. They come in there to bask upon the blessings who is the true Shemite, the true Noah, the Lord Jesus Christ. The title of this sermon is, How Are Things After the Flood? You kind of think, you know, this God sent this disastrous flood, and things were bad before, they must be better after. Well, in some ways, but in many ways, they're the same. Sin is still there. It was not eradicated by the flood. It remains in mankind in general. And our text shows us that believers struggle with sin in the age in which we now live. But there is good news. There is such good news. There is gospel here. The gospel comes especially into view, I believe, as we see the similarities of this Noah story with the Adam story before it. Our text starts in verse 20 with Noah being a man of the soil, a gardener who grows a vineyard. He reminds us of a certain one who comes right at the beginning. God's gardener in the garden who God placed there to guard and to keep his garden. Both gardeners sin. Both sin with respect to fruit, Adam eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, Noah drinking the fruit of the vine to excess. Both are given a prophetic word of gospel. Adam hears it directly from God himself. Genesis 3.15, Noah speaks it on behalf of God. After both sin and disobey, their nakedness is exposed. And my friends, both are clothed. by another. Yes, the problems before the flood continue after the flood, but the promise of the gospel, it is also the same. In fact, it's better because what we see here now in the life of Noah, we gain more revelation, more clarity. It is through the line of Shem, and God will have a special plan for other sons and daughters as well. And it's even better for us who stand at the end of the ages, for we have seen the fulfillment of these promises. The true Noah, the one who truly gives rest has come. He has taken away your sin and your shame. He clothes you with his garments of glory, his garments of righteousness. And as he clothes you with his glorious garments of his own resurrection life, He empowers you to live for him, to turn away from reliance and comfort in the things of this world. As Noah stumbles, he looks for comfort in the things of this world. The Lord empowers you as he unites you to Christ, to cling, to him. And so whether it is the sin of drunkenness or gossip, which is also seen in this text very clearly, God gives you the power to turn away from the intoxicating wine of this world and to be filled with his spirit. Not perfectly, to be sure, but really and truly. And he places such As he claims such people and clothed them, he makes them part of a family, the church. And if you are a member of this family, be mindful of that and welcome the newcomers he brings in. These newcomers, they have credible professions of faith, but maybe they're struggling. Maybe you see them stumble. Don't take advantage of that. Don't seek to exploit that and promote yourself. Rather serve them, cover their sins in love, help them. I close with the closing words of James, which I mentioned a few moments ago. I'll read them again. My brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back, let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins. Let's pray. Lord God, we do indeed thank you for your word. We thank you for amazing grace that where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more. We see this in the life of Noah and we know it in our love. Work out the life of Jesus Christ in us so that though we are never like him in atoning for sins of others, we may yet still not take advantage of the sins of others and seek to cover them in love. Enable us to do this for your honor, your glory, the greatness of your name. We ask it in that name of Christ, amen.