So we've seen in this text matters that may stir up a number of questions. What in the world is going on? Why is this even in the Bible? And what's going on with Ham and Canaan and the two brothers and covering Noah? But it reminds us again of the covering of our sin, just as Shem and Japheth literally covered the sin of Noah. Our Lord Jesus has spiritually covered our sin. But we recognize that even those who are redeemed, who are part of the new covenant, who have the Holy Spirit, we still sin. When do we cover someone's sin and when do we expose it? You may recall that not long ago, the Southern Baptist Convention was embroiled in a controversy over how churches had handled some cases of sin involving abuse of children and how they had even tried to deal with it internally, covering it up and not exposing it as they should. And in some sense, we should not be surprised because in our brokenness, we will likely expose sin that should be covered and cover sin that should be exposed. We need the Lord's help and discernment and we'll think through this as we go through this text to understand when do we address sins publicly? When do we not? When do we cover them? And so the question that we need to ask again is, how do we deal with the sin in our own heart? And how do we deal with the sin that we're aware of in the church? And here's our summary for today, just as our Savior, the Lord Jesus has covered our sin and shame, we must cover one another's sins. and be faithful to expose them when required for the safety of others and for the holiness of the Lord's Church. And I want to just think for a few minutes about this issue. How do we know when to cover sin or when to expose it? And just a few brief thoughts. First, we need to Check our attitude. Do I have a pride of superiority? Well, so, you have sinned, have you? Well, I've never committed that sin. If that is our attitude, we've misunderstood the grace of the gospel and the depravity within our own hearts. Someone could even respond with unbelief. Like, well, if they sinned, there must not be anything to this at all. The whole thing is fake. I'm going to reject the thing. But perhaps someone could be looking for an excuse for their own sin. Like, well, I didn't do that, but I had this other thing, and maybe my sin really isn't that bad, knowing that this other person actually sins from time to time. So we need to first check our attitude. And our impulse should be attempt to cover the sin first. What does that look like? Well, we identify, is this a sin against me? Has someone hurt me? Matthew 18. gives us instructions on how to respond to that. You go to the person in private and you point out to them their sin. And if they do not respond, then you bring others to witness their response either of repentance or of stubborn resistance. We need to understand, am I part of the solution to this problem? Peter reminds us in 1 Peter 4, 8, above all, keep fervent in your love for one another because love covers a multitude of sins. There are sins that occur. that we need to cover out of love. And I think all spouses understand this. We include others in this appeal to someone to repent and turn from their sin. We don't include others for the chance to talk about it and gossip it. Even if it's disguised, oh, can you pray with me for brother so-and-so, or sister so-and-so, they've stumbled into sin, let me tell you all about it. So we include others as the scripture tells us, but it is for the purpose of repentance, drawing them back, not for gossip. A final thought, leaders are included and maybe especially so. In 1 Timothy 5, the Apostle Paul describes a process for confronting leaders, elders who sin. He says, don't accept an accusation except on the basis of two or three witnesses, but he also says, Those who continue in sin rebuke in the presence of all so that the rest may be fearful of sinning. The leaders are to be held to account, held to a high standard. But of course, there's a framework for doing that. And obviously, but certainly worth stating, if there's any question about safety or someone being harmed, then we must immediately expose that sin. And in many cases, go to our authorities, governmental authorities whom God has established to do justice. And, praise God, we've not had difficult instances where we've had to wrestle through this together. But there are times when it's very appropriate to cover a sin, very appropriate to appeal to someone to turn from their sin and recognize it, repent. And times when we must simply alert others to the sin in a very public way. And of course, I'm reminded of all of that because of what we see in this passage regarding Noah and how his sons responded to his sin. So we're considering a new world post-flood, but sin remains. What was not washed away in the flood was the sin nature that was present in Noah and his wife, his three sons, their wives. All the humans on the ark carried their sin nature into this new world. And so as we walk through this text, we'll see four sections. First, an overview in Genesis 9, verses 18 and 19. Then we'll look at Noah's sin and covering by Shem and Japheth. Then Noah's prophetic response in 9.24 through 27. And then in understanding at least a bit of the prophetic nature of Noah's blessing and cursing, we're going to jump forward, Lord willing, into chapter 10 and see some of the table of nations that's recorded there. And then finally, we'll return for an epilogue, the end of the chapter and the end of Noah's life. So first, we'll consider this overview in Genesis 9 verses 18 and 19. And we read, now the sons of Noah who came out of the ark were Shem and Ham and Japheth, same three sons that we've seen mentioned several times in the book of Genesis. But notice here, we have this extra detail, and Ham was the father of Canaan. Now we We already sort of know what's coming, so we understand why, as Moses recorded this, he would have included this note about Ham and his son Canaan. These three were the sons of Noah, and from these, the whole earth was populated. And so, once again, just a reminder, we are all part of one extended family. We are all one race. We are all one family. Every person living upon the earth is part of this one family, the family of Noah and his sons. So then we'll consider Noah's sin and covering in verses 20 through 23. So we see here, then Noah began farming. Nothing wrong with that. Certainly something appropriate to do, as his ancestors had. He planted a vineyard. He drank of the wine and became drunk and uncovered himself inside his tent. And we, of course, would wonder, how could this happen? And also, why in the world would God want to tell us about it instead of hiding it? Because Noah's a hero of the faith. And we do see, remarkably, that the most righteous man on Earth sinned. And there's an interesting thread, if you will, and dispensational thought that the actions that God has taken over time all highlight the fact that we are unable to be righteous on our own. Our ancestors failed in a absolutely perfect garden without a sin nature, they failed. And that sinful nature that they then acquired was passed along to their children. And we saw earlier that the earth was filled with violence, wickedness. Every intent of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually. And maybe someone would say, well, yes, that's because there's these wicked people. Most of us are good. We need some way to deal with those really evil, wicked people like murderers. And we've seen very recently that God instituted capital punishment. But capital punishment doesn't solve the problem. It's important to honor life because God created life, but the problem arises from the human heart, from the sin nature, which we all have. And here was a brand new earth, everything literally scrubbed clean, if you will, all evidence of the prior world and culture gone. And even in that situation, the most righteous man on earth sinned. And perhaps someone would say, well, if God would just spell out the details of what we need. And he did that in the law and called the people to himself and said, here is my standard. And they said, all that the Lord says, we will do. work out not well at all. So having capital punishment, having a perfect or a restored world, having God's laws, even, well, God, if you would change us from the inside, and that's the blessing we experience in the new covenant, and yet we still sin. And in the age to come, the Lord will snatch us away, come back, establish his kingdom on the earth for a thousand years. And somebody might say, well, if God himself was ruling and reigning, then we can do this, we can comply. But Jesus Christ, the King of Kings, will be ruling and reigning, and yet, when Satan is released, He will lead people to rebel against the only perfect ruler the world has ever known. And so in each of these ages or dispensations, if you will, it's very clear that man cannot be perfect on his own. And considering Noah again, he was blameless and yet he was vulnerable to sin. In Genesis 6-9, Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his time. Noah walked with God. Peter tells us that God preserved Noah, a preacher of righteousness. And it reminds us anyone can sin and everyone does sin. There's also a divine testimony about human sin that we see here. The fact that this story is even here with kind of its ugliness and like, I would leave this out if I was the editor of the Bible. The fact that it's even included and that no excuse is offered, no mitigating circumstances for Noah. is really proof of the divine inspiration of the Bible. Because legendary figures, stories that are accumulated about great people of the past, they usually kind of smooth over the rough spots. But God is honest in his recording and records even the failures of this man who was regarded as the one who was righteous. And coming in the context of a universal flood brought about by universal sin, it testifies to the same point as the Apostle Paul, all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. But he goes on being justified as a gift by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. Noah was not saved because of his obedience, all that ark building, nor did he lose his salvation because of his failing. Hebrews 11, 7 tells us he became an heir of the righteousness that comes according to faith. We're also reminded from Noah's experience that we are vulnerable our entire lives. Now, it's reasonable to expect as a believer, as one who has the Holy Spirit, the blessings of the New Covenant, God saying, I'm writing my laws and my ways in your heart and your mind. It's certainly reasonable for us to expect that we will grow more mature and that we will have more victory over sin. And yet, we never outgrow this tendency to sin. And we're always one unguarded moment away from some sin or another. And I'm reminded of the investment disclaimer, which You may hear, usually the announcer pronounces this very quickly, saying something like, past performance, there's no guarantee of future results. Please see the prospectus for detail. And they have something else to kind of distract you. But the idea is, hey, what happened in the past doesn't necessarily guarantee what's going on in the future. And you could have a marvelous string of obedience and then let your guard down. as perhaps Noah did, and then stumbled into sin. So we learn several things about ourselves. We must continually depend upon our Lord's power and his strength and not our own. May it never be that we would say, I got this, I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go a whole week with no sin. What? We have no power, no strength other than what the Lord has given us, and we must continually avail ourselves to him. So, we continue, then, after seeing Noah's sin, Ham, the father of Canaan, second time that this comes up. So obviously this repetition is purposeful and drawing our attention. Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father and told his two brothers outside. And it is interesting that there's perhaps more going on here. than what is obvious on the surface of the text. But we need to be cautious about reading into the text things that aren't there. So as we consider this, I think the most important point is that we must never delight in someone else's sins. And it is true that Noah and Ham are responsible for their respective sins. Noah let his guard down, he overindulged, and he is responsible for his sin. But Ham is responsible for his sin as well, and we'll dig in a little more as to what that is. You may recall that in Leviticus 18 and 20, there's a set of very detailed rules about whose nakedness you are not to uncover. You are not to uncover the nakedness of your father, of your mother, of your sister-in-law, and so forth. A lot of laws about that. But that's not the case here. Noah uncovered himself, and Ham simply saw what had happened. But in the language, as I understand, it's not just that he saw Ham, but he was pleased to see that his father sinned. And again, we must never delight in someone else's sin. But if you think about so much of the entertainment that is available to us, it causes us to, oh, I hope they sin. I hope this relationship leads to something or any number of situations. Oh, I hope that guy is able to steal the diamond. And we're rooting for sin, and that's the way much of entertainment is geared. but we must never delight in someone else's sin. We should be fearful, lest we too be tempted, as the scripture says. Ham was pleased to see his father's iniquity, not that he took delight in seeing his father naked, but he delighted in, ha ha, well, so, how's Mr. Most Righteous now? He may have been chafing under his father's leadership, even though it was by virtue of his association with his father that he was invited onto the boat to begin with. But there's something in his attitude and the fact that he didn't cover Noah, but went outside to tell his brothers about it. We face at least two dangers if we consider someone else's sin. We can be like the story of the Pharisee and the tax collector, the one who prayed, I thank God that I am not like other men, swindlers, adulterers, or even like that tax collector over there. We can be tempted to sin in response to someone else's sin by thinking ourselves better, or again, we can justify our own sin. Ham increased his father's shame by gossiping about it to his brothers. He told his brothers, and maybe even thought, They would get a laugh out of it. Ha, ha, ha, what do you know? The old man, he isn't so perfect after all. But that was not their response. That was only in Ham's heart. He violated the principle of honoring his father and mother. That wasn't recorded in the law, but that principle certainly was evident even before the flood. So we see Noah's exposing of himself, Ham's response to it, and then in verse 23, his other brothers. But Shem and Japheth took a garment and laid it upon both their shoulders. If you can envision, they're holding something on their shoulders and walked backward and covered the nakedness of their father. They were extreme in their care to literally cover and cover the sin of their father. Their faces were turned away so that they did not see their father's nakedness. This is a visual picture of what Christ has done for us. He has provided an eternal covering of our sin. We looked at Psalm 32 earlier, Psalm 85, you forgave the iniquity of your people, you covered all their sin. We must be wary of our vulnerability to sin, especially in unguarded moments. Then we look at Noah's prophetic response in verses 24 through 27. And Moses records here, when Noah awoke from his wine, he knew what his youngest son had done to him. And that youngest son refers to Ham, And it's interesting, we'll see that Ham's youngest son is the one that is cursed. He sinned as a son against his father and his son was cursed. So here's what Noah says, verse 25, cursed be Canaan, a servant of servants he shall be, to his brothers. So this is quite significant and we would logically ask, well wait a minute, what about cursing Ham? Why wasn't Ham the one cursed? And scholars have debated about this. There is the fact that the scripture records that God blessed Noah and God blessed his three sons. And so in one sense, Ham had already been blessed by God. In another sense, it's a mercy in that it wasn't Ham's entire line that was cursed. one branch of it. But what we'll see, Lord willing, in the genealogy and the table of nations is that the sin that perhaps was in seed form in Ham was multiplied in his youngest son, Canaan, and exploded in his descendants who became the most wicked people on the earth, as God describes their conduct. And God instructs the Israelites to wipe them out. And he lists some of the things that they are doing that the Israelites are not to do when they go into the land. And a verse after verse about all the incestuous relationships they are to avoid, and homosexuality, and bestiality, and child sacrifice. All that coming from this one descendant, this grandson of Noah, Canaan. But there's a marvelous picture of grace even in this. because there was a Canaanite woman named Rahab who was in the city of Jericho and she received the spies and they provided for her not to be destroyed along with the rest of the city. And she is in the earthly lineage of our Lord Jesus Christ. It's an amazing thing. There was grace even present here. Now, unfortunately, people have twisted this scripture to try and justify slavery, saying, oh, well, you see, it was these descendants that are cursed, and he's to be a servant, he's to be a slave, so we have the right to enslave other people, and particularly dark-skinned people from Africa. And it turns out that that's not at all what the scriptures are saying. It was actually something imposed on the scripture by people who wanted to justify slavery. And again, I keep promising that we'll see in the table of nations, which we may have to look at another time, but it turns out that the line of Canaan is actually not dark-skinned people, as recorded by ancient Egyptian paintings. They were more what people would call olive-skinned, more Mediterranean-looking peoples. And this curse was worked out centuries ago and is nothing that we have any responsibility to implement. Now, Noah continued. After this cursing of Canaan, now he gives some blessing. And it's interesting, there's a bit of a parallel with what the Lord spoke after Adam and Eve sinned. He cursed Satan, cursed the serpent, cursed the ground, but gave a promise of a coming redeemer. So here, Noah says, blessed be the Lord, the God of Shem, and let Canaan be his servant. May God enlarge Japheth, the other brother that carried the garment, coming in backwards, and let him dwell in the tents of Shem and let Canaan be his servant. Now, one interesting thing about both of these brothers is that the name Shem is where we get the idea of the Semites, those descended from Shem. And there's a little play on words in Japheth's name. His name actually means enlarge. And so Noah is saying, may Japheth expand as his name is, may he fulfill his name. And it turns out that the descendants of Japheth, many of whom we are, have had the broadest reach across the earth. And so there's something that the Lord revealed to Noah about his descendants that led to this curses and blessings. And so I'm going to try to very quickly, turbo mode, go through the first part of this table of nations in Genesis chapter 10. So you see here, starting at the beginning, here's the records of the generations of Shem, Ham, and Japheth, as we've seen before, the sons of Noah, and sons were born to them after the flood. Let me just explain how I've constructed this so you can at least visually see. It's so easy for us to regard the genealogies recorded in the Bible as dry lists of names and who cares and who's even heard of these people. So what I did was I looked up every one of these names to see, do they appear later in the scripture? And so, for example, we see here Noah's son Japheth and his sons. And for sake of time, I think I'm not even gonna read this out loud, but all the highlighted names, in this case, Gomer, Magog, Javan, Tubal, Meshach, those all appear later in the scriptures, predominantly in the time of the prophets who are looking to the future and even to the end times. And if you were part of the Ezekiel class, In adult Sunday school, you know that many of these names appeared. So these are not simply dry, dusty names. The Lord is showing us where all these tribes and people came from. So we notice that Japheth had a son named Gomer, and here, now we have recording of his descendants, and Ashkenaz, Togarmah, those are names that appear later as well. And there's even Jewish people who migrated to the area where the descendants of Ashkenaz went in Europe and particularly into Germany. And they're identified as Ashkenazi Jews, even to this day. And they live in the region where this descendant of Japheth, descendant of of Gomer went. Another son, Javan, and I thought, well, this is a dead end, but sure enough, he's mentioned other places and his descendants. Tarshish, we've heard a lot. That's where Jonah was trying to go, associated with ships. And in summary, we notice All these descendants of Japheth, from these the coastlands of the nations were separated into their lands, everyone according to his language, according to their families, into their nations. And we know just peeking ahead, the Tower of Babel is coming and the nations will be scattered because of their languages. So again, My apology for going through this so quickly. Now we turn to the descendants of Ham. We've looked at Noah's son, Japheth, and his descendants, now Noah's son, Ham. The sons of Ham were Cush, Mizraim, Put, and Canaan. Oh, so here's our Canaan. who was, apparently, all these boys were born in the years following the flood, because it took some time for the grapes to grow, the grapevine to be established, and so forth. And these descendants of Cush, then, were some of the African peoples. You see their various names. And there's one particular son of Cush that we'll have to come back to, especially as we get to the Tower of Babel, this man Nimrod, a mighty one. And it seems like, oh, he's being commended. Well, no, he's being identified as a very wicked man. He was a hunter, but not like, oh, he got a lot of deer or something. No, he was a hunter of humans. He was a warrior, a conqueror, and was so known for that, he earned a certain reputation. And notice, the beginning of his kingdom was Babel. Oh, we've heard of that before, and we're going to come back and talk more about Nimrod later when we get to the Tower of Babel in the land of Shinar. That name keeps coming up again and again in the scripture. And he continues. We're still talking about Nimrod. Went into Assyria. Oh, that's important later. Built Nineveh. Oh, that's where Jonah went. Urged them to repent. And we see some of these other cities. Mizraim is often associated with Egypt. And here, you'll notice that the names look kind of funny. It's like there are two different colors. That im, I-M, ending is a plural ending. And so I've highlighted the base form because it's that base form. For example, lud and anam. Those are the ones that occur later in the scripture. And poor Put, associated with Ethiopia, there's no sons recorded in this particular genealogy. And finally, we get to Canaan, and he had many sons. And you'll start recognizing these as the enemies of Israel, the ones that God told them to conquer because of their Wickedness. Canaan became the father of Sidon, Heth, Jebusite, the Amorite, the Girgashite, the Hivite, the Archite, the Sinite, and the Arvidite. Again, notice I've highlighted the base part of his name, the Hamathite. These are all the families of the Canaanites. And the territory Extended from Sidon, this is a place that was conquered, was judged by God, as you go toward Gerar, as far as, no way, Gaza. You mean something that's in the contemporary headlines was in the Bible? All the way back, indeed, the same area. But notice this Canaanite territory as you go toward Sodom and Gomorrah, places really only known for their extreme sin, and Admon, Zeboim. These, the sons of Ham, according to their families, according to their languages, by their lands, by their nations. And I wanted to go through that, and I apologize for the speed with which I did it, but just to acquaint you a bit with where that line of Canaan was going. And God prophetically allowed Noah to see the sin in Ham, thinking lightly of someone else's sin, broadened in his descendant Canaan and all the Canaanites, and they engaged in gross sins. So finally, we get to our epilogue in Genesis 9. So we're returning back to chapter 9 from chapter 10 in the last two verses. And we read here, Noah lived 350 years after the flood. So all the days of Noah were 950 years, and he died. You remember, we looked at this pattern in Genesis chapter 5. Every one recorded, all these sons recorded in the genealogy in Genesis chapter 5, so and so was born. lived a certain number of years, had a son named such and such, had other sons and daughters, lived so long, and he died. That was the refrain. And we see this pattern recognized by the Apostle Paul again in Romans 5, 14. Death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the offense of Adam, who was a type of him who was to come. They all died. They were subject to death because of Adam. And that thought again in 1 Corinthians 15, 22, for as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive. Those in Christ can look forward to a resurrection of righteousness and blessedness forever. Just as our Savior, the Lord Jesus, has covered our sin and shame, we must cover one another's sins and, at the same time, to be faithful to expose them when required for the safety of others and the holiness of the Lord's Church. Please pray with me. Father, we thank you for your faithfulness through these many ages and your patience with sinners. What a marvel that you have given your son to redeem those who have rebelled against you. And your picture of grace in Rahab is a comfort to us, that no one is excluded, that every person may call upon your name and be saved. We thank you for your grace. In Jesus' name, amen.