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South Bay SDA Church

Genesis

Jeremy Arnall

01 The Creation Account: Let There Be Light

02 Day 2 of Creation: Under Heaven’s Quilt

03 Day 3 of Creation

04 Let There Be Time

05 Day 5 of Creation

06 Day 6 of Creation

07 And God Said, “Let There Be Rest”

08 Media & Mediums

09 The Naked Truth About Righteousness

10 The Naked Truth About Righteousness

11 What Worship Costs and What Love Requires

12 Two Lines, Two Legacies

13 Terms & Conditions

14 The Mantle of Love

The title of the message this morning is the mantle of love.

Dear Lord, please speak to our hearts this morning and help us to comprehend the magnificence of your love.

Help us, Lord, to see our need and to see Your provision.

Help us to see as You see that we might love as you love.

We looked at the story of the rainbow and the coming off of the ark in our last study back in December.

And we are just now getting back to our series and we are in verse 18.

This is a story that sometimes perhaps goes unnoticed.

I will try to handle it in a very delicate way, but it's what's next in the book.

Now the sons of Noah who went out of the ark were Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

And from these the whole earth was populated.

And Noah began to be a farmer and he planted a vineyard.

And then he drank of the wine and was drunk and became uncovered in his tent.

And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father and told his 2 brothers outside.

But Shem and Japheth took a garment, laid it on both their shoulders, and went backward and covered the nakedness of their father.

Their faces were turned away, and they did not see their father's nakedness.

So Noah awoke from his wine and knew what his younger son had done to him.

And then he said, Cursed be Canaan, a servant of servants he shall be to his brethren.

And he said, Blessed be the Lord, the God of Shem, and may Canaan be his servant.

May God enlarge Japheth and may he dwell in the tents of Shem and may Canaan be his servant.

And Noah lived after the flood 350 years.

So all the days of Noah were 950 years and he died.

The event takes place most likely years after the flood, in part because it says he grew vineyards.

The area near Mount Ararat, where the Ark rested, is known for its vineyards, I am told.

Unfortunately though, Noah becomes inebriated by the wine from those grapes.

He's discovered in an awkward and humiliating situation and Ham walks in and sees his father in this unfortunate state.

You could argue that's what tents are for, is to hide things like nakedness.

It's, well, not exactly clear, but it gives us enough to know that this was an unfortunate event.

Many speculate about the story like people do today.

When details are scant, but hint perhaps that something's scandalous.

People still today love a story like this because it allows them to try to fill in the blanks.

When the text says that Noah became uncovered and that Ham saw the nakedness of his father.

Some refer to the seeming connection, refer to the seeming connection that exists or could exist between Leviticus 18 where it talks about incest and the story here in chapter 9.

Now I'm not going to go into great detail here because I don't think it's even correct.

But I want you to be aware because it's out there and it's quite plentiful.

And it says in Chapter 18, verse 6 of Leviticus, none of you shall approach anyone who is near of kin to him.

The nakedness of your father's wife you shall not, we're on the next verse, sorry.

The nakedness of your father's wife you shall not uncover.

So, the text is saying here that you shall not uncover the nakedness of your father's wife, but then it says it is your father's nakedness.

To defile the father's wife is referred to here as the father's nakedness.

So, I want you to notice 1 other piece as it relates to the story, or could relate to the story in Genesis 9.

If a man takes his sister, his father's daughter or his mother's daughter and sees her nakedness and she sees his, it is a wicked thing.

And they shall be cut off in the sight of their people.

He shall bear his guilt." And then of course there's those similarities that 1 might notice between this story and the story of Lot and his 2 daughters, which we won't go into this morning.

But, while such theories and speculation may seem at first glance biblical and have existed these theories for many years, there are significant problems with such theories.

If these suggestions, now hear me carefully, if these suggestions were true, Then how would Ham's brothers covering the nakedness address the problem adequately?

If this is a situation as described in Leviticus 18, Then how would Shem and Japheth going backwards and covering their fathers nakedness, how would that address and resolve the problem that is somehow being suggested by some as it relates to Leviticus 18?

Roy Gane, Adventist scholar, points out some distinctive differences in these passages between Leviticus 18 and 20 and Genesis 9.

He states, in Leviticus 18, the combination of approach with to uncover nakedness.

In other words, in verse 6 it said, if they are to approach a person near of kin and to uncover nakedness, he says the combination of approach and to uncover nakedness unambiguously refers to sexual activity.

This is not the same as Genesis 9, 22 where Ham, the father of Canaan, saw his father's nakedness.

Ham, it says, saw rather than approached Noah.

In Leviticus 20 verse 17, seeing nakedness does not occur in the context of these relations.

But this context is indicated by the verb leka, take.

Which does not apply to Ham and Noah." Not only this, but I like the way the SDA International Bible Commentary points out when it says, the reaction of his brothers, who not only cover the nakedness of their father, but also managed to avoid seeing it, confirms that the problem was essentially about the seeing of the father's nakedness and not about any implicit sexual misconduct.

And as Casuto points out, if the covering was an adequate remedy, it follows that the misdemeanor was confined to seeing.

If you go out there you'll hear some of these things, but I want you to think and realize this is likely, most likely not the case.

In fact, I would say it would be remote at best.

So, let's try to understand it at face value as Moses records it rather than interject man's theories.

You see the Holy Spirit must have given Noah enough, hear me now, he must have given Noah enough relevant information to take home the lesson without us having to speculate.

Noah was in his tent unclothed, which is, which if he's in his own tent, what's the problem?

And this is the shameful thing in this passage, certainly.

Especially given that Noah was just 3 chapters before described as a righteous man, perfect before God.

Genesis 6-9 says, this is the genealogy of Noah.

Noah was a just man, perfect in his generations.

So here is a man of God who is drunk in his tent.

But this man of God, well his sin is recorded here.

In that he was drunk and when 1 is drunk they are not thinking clearly and often easily embarrass themselves and others.

So Ham discovers him in his tent in this pathetic condition.

Now whether this was an accidental discovery or Ham knew better than to enter, we can perhaps somewhat speculate.

But even if it was an accident, which we could presume, here's where Ham's choice matters.

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Series

Genesis

14 The Mantle of Love

Transcript

Parent Series

Sponsor

Recorded

The Perils of Covetousness

41m

AMEN 2009 Plenary Sessions

Old Things Have Become New

45m

144,000: Why is Dan’s Tribe Not Included?

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It Helps to Call It Sin

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Practical Christian Living

Part 3 - Holding on to a Clear Conscience

1h 18m

Eugene Prewitt: The Spirit of Prophecy

So Persecuted They the Prophets

53m

Jesus On Prophecy

Satan on Prophecy vs. Jesus on Prophecy

57m

SWYC 2006 Plenary Sessions

The Active Ingredients of the Christian Life

44m

The Divine Design, Part 2

46m

Sound Doctrine