So we're going to turn to our Bibles today and we're going to be in Genesis chapter 9, 18 through 29. We've entitled this, How the Sin of Our Ancestors Affects Us. This is a very bizarre episode in Noah's life. I'll just say this, you're going to see Noah, who's a spiritual giant, he's one of the heroes of the faith obviously, he's in Hebrews 11, but you're going to see him in a bad light today. And I think one of the things you want to take away about understanding Noah or understanding any of the biblical characters, whether it's Moses or David or whomever, What you will see is the Bible will give the great things they did, the amount of faith they had, and the great exploits that they did, but then it will show you the other side of them. And it will show you that they have flaws. You will see Moses wrestle with his flaws, you will see David wrestle with his flaws, and now you will see Noah wrestle with his flaws. And what is the point in showing us all of this? Is that they are like us. There's strengths, but there's weaknesses. They're made in the image of God, but they have a sin nature. They have amazing talent and gifts from the Lord. but sometimes they don't use them in the right way. And it's a picture of us, but it's also to focus our attention then to realize, well, where is perfection found? And that perfection is found in the Messiah, it's found in God, and it solely belongs to Him. And so, I think what the Bible tries to do is give us a realistic look of our heroes of the faith that they too had warts just like we do. They too had flaws. You'll see that part of Noah and then the other part you'll see is a very, very bizarre situation that occurs with one of his sons. I will note this. If you interpret this from a Gentile perspective, you're really not gonna grasp what's happening in the text. You have to look at the text from a Hebrew standpoint, and then if you do, it will totally light up and you'll understand, okay, that totally makes sense, what's happening here. Again, it's hard for our Gentile minds to sometimes get around some of the things that we're doing because definitely Jewish, definitely Semitic, definitely Middle Eastern, in the approach of the text. And so you have to understand that culture to understand this. Let me make a note about this too. Genesis one through 11 is the foundation for the entire scripture. And that's what I'm gonna take us through to 11. We'll stop there and then we'll go do a New Testament book. Then I'll come back to chapter 12 and deal with Abraham. But you have to understand Genesis one through 11 as a foundation for all your doctrine, a foundation for understanding pretty much everything else that's explained in the rest of the Bible all the way to the book of Revelation. And believe it or not, this is going to set a foundation that you and I have to understand. It's actually been repeated now in chapters 1 through 11 three times. You've seen the ancestry of Cain, we've seen the ancestry of Seth, and now we're seeing the ancestry of Noah and one of his sons going south. And it's trying to tell us a message for the rest of the Bible. I'll deal with this more in the application, but here's the principle. What our ancestors have done whether that's going back three or four, five, six generations or whatnot, or culturally what our ancestors have done, will set the stage for your and my behavior if that cycle is not broken. And it is a major issue in the Bible. And you have to really become an Abraham and a Sarah to break that cycle and really understand what you're inheriting from your group, your nation, your culture, and even from your own personal family. We carry with us these traits that are passed down, whether you know them or not. And what you'll see in your own life is that there are certain things that passed on to you that may not necessarily be biblical. We want to take the good, but we don't want to take the bad. And a lot of people just simply don't have enough introspection to look at their family, look at their culture, their nation, where they come from, and realize how it's affecting them and their outlook on reality. Rest assured, if you incorporate how your family thinks And it's opposed to the Bible. And if you don't break that, you will think just like your family. You will think just like your culture. You will think just like your nation. And this is pretty hard-hitting, but the theme is carried all through the Bible. And it will take people in the Bible to stop the cycle in their own pattern of life. And you'll see that throughout the Bible. But here again, you're going to see something happen, and it's with one of the boys. And the boy's progeny, from that point on, will take on the same behavioral characteristics as their father. And we're talking about hundreds of years difference and it continues to perpetuate. So with that being said, let's jump into the text and try to understand this bizarre thing that happened, okay? Verse 18, now the sons of Noah who went out of the ark were Shem, Ham, and Japheth. And Ham was the father of Canaan. Note Ham is noted that he is the father of Canaan. That's your trigger in your mind. Something's going on here. There's something different. Who was in the land before the Israelites got there? The Canaanites, weren't they? And the promised land or Israel was not called the promised land or Israel before this. It was called the land of Canaan. So it triggers in an Israeli mind, ah, this is where the Canaanites came from, from Ham, their father. So you have these three boys, basically what I want you to understand from even a scientific level, what they have discovered about these three boys is all the nations that you now see on the planet earth came from these three. Interesting enough that science has backed this up. Let me show you a mitochondrial DNA. You can see the DNA structure in the middle of it, and this is kind of where our DNA is structured in. Guess what they have found. There are only three mitochondrial structures in DNA in human beings. There's only three. They label them M, then R, and then N, and there are only basically three lineages in DNA. You would expect more. You would think, well, there should be thousands. There's only three. And science says, look, human beings are derived from three DNA structures and that's it. No more than that. Guess who those three referred to? Shem, Ham, and JPEF. Even science backs this up, even though they don't, it's a funny thing as a scientist, look at that. They know there's only three mitochondrial DNA structures and they won't connect dots. What does that mean? It means that the story of Noah is substantiated now by modern day science, by modern day biology. Isn't that amazing? It just verifies everything the Bible says, it's connected. I'm puzzled when people say the Bible is not a scientific book. Oh, it is. It's got science all through it. It proves even some of our findings. Okay, move to the next text, verse 19. These three were the sons of Noah, and from these the whole earth was populated. Guess what? We know from anthropological records that's exactly what happened. Initially, this is where they branched out, Japheth to the north, Shem into the Middle East, and Ham more into Africa. But interesting enough, after the Tower, they spread out, and these were the three groups. You can see this after the Tower of Babel. We'll look at Tower of Babel. Later, they branched out from the Middle East, and this is where, if you study DNA human migration, this is exactly what you would expect from the dispersion that God did from the Tower of Babel. And then, basically, you have the populous human DNA migrations that happened. Now, a lot of the evolutionists want to say it came out of Africa, but it didn't. What we see from the DNA, it actually came from the Middle East, exactly what the Bible records. Noah's Ark settled there in Armenia or Turkey, and from there, everything branched out. What it does say, interesting enough, just more on the scientific level, with three mitochondrial DNAs, It shows us that the human race, the human population all over the planet is very young, not old, because you would expect more mutations and things of that nature and more variations in the DNA structure that would give you, you know, if we're millions of years old, you would expect more DNA structures, but there's only three, again, proving the Bible is not millions of years old in creation. We're looking about maybe 6 to 10,000 years old and that's it. And because of that, the DNA actually proves it, because there would be more variations. But anyway, interesting what they found. I did some research on this, and I was looking at the history of DNA. And what they notice, this is what evolutionists say, is at some point in our human history, they'll say about 10,000 years ago, that the human race bottlenecked, they will say to 10,000 people, Something happened and all of a sudden all these other ancestors died and it bottlenecked to 10,000 people. Isn't that interesting? Now if I understand that DNA, what they have discovered, then I also know how to interpret that DNA structure. When did the human race get bottlenecked? The flood. It wasn't 10,000, it was eight. Isn't it funny? And they say, you know, they're having a hard time now with saying the human population came out of Africa. They're struggling with all this now because we, as you know, they came out of the Middle East. But think about that. Even the DNA structure shows that somewhere in the past, not further than 10,000 years, there was a DNA bottlenecking. that reduced the human population to three mitochondrial DNAs. That's amazing, guys. That's a huge apologetic when you're talking to evolutionists and things of that nature. The DNA structure shows a young Earth, and it shows the human population got bottlenecked, and it's really young. Wow. Okay, that's enough for Mr. Science. So, let's go back to the text. Verse 20. And Noah began to be a farmer. Nothing wrong with that. What it means in the Hebrew of began is that he took on an occupation that he never did before. I think his former occupation was building an ark for 120 years. He's done with that. He's got to find a new career and a new season of life, obviously. So he says, I'm going to be a farmer. And what you have to start seeing is Moses is showing us is that he's the second Adam or the new Adam as Adam was a farmer. So now Noah is a farmer. And so he's planning all kinds of things. And thus, he says he planted a vineyard. OK, great. Nothing wrong with that. Vineyards, grapes, wine was highly celebrated in the Middle East. Okay, so there's nothing wrong with that being stated, but keep reading. Then he drank of the wine. Okay, nothing wrong with that either. The Bible allows the drinking of wine, but here's the problem. It's the next line, and was drunk. So the Bible allows you to drink as long as you don't get drunk. Okay, so where did he go wrong? He got drunk. Now, here we go. We've got Noah, who preached for 120 years, did this unbelievable feat of faith, survived on his ark with his family, and you think, wow, man, what a superhero, and gets off and gets drunk. I'm just sitting there thinking, no, what was going through your head, man? Now, here's a principle you have to understand of why Noah did that. How could Noah be so lofty and then come down and get dead drunk? Well, it's this principle you might see in your own life play out, or if it hasn't, you've got to warn yourself and protect yourself about it. When you have high spiritual victories in life, I mean, man, you have these mountaintop experiences, you have victory, and you're great, the first thing that will happen is you will let down your guard. And that's when you're vulnerable for attack. Hey man, you're gonna be attacked until we are raptured or we die. So even if you have victory today, right around the corner Satan's gonna attack you again and don't let down your guard. So Noah thought, well, my big task is over, I'm done, so now I'm just gonna let things go and lets his guard down and there you go. He drinks too much and becomes intoxicated. Now, that being said, he's the kind of drunk that's not just stumbling, he's passed out. Okay? But now we get into the bizarro world, and something very strange happens. But again, you have to look at this from a Hebrew standpoint to understand this, because it won't make sense. Because I guarantee you, if you pick up an English commentary written by a Gentile, I know what they're all going to say. And they will interpret this by the English and not by the Hebrew idioms. It's important to know the Hebrew idioms. Okay. And it says, and became uncovered in his tent. Now, from a Gentile perspective, and if you just read this in English, you're gonna say, okay, he got so drunk, he threw off his clothes and he's laying there buck naked in the tent. That's not what it's saying. Now, hey, he could be naked. It could be exposed. In fact, I think he is, not because he got drunk, but because of another thing that's going on. To become uncovered in his tent, inside of his tent, is a Hebraism. And it means to be exposed, and it's meant to be unprotected. He's unprotected and he's exposed. And let me tell you another part of this. Him and his wife are in there, in the tent. They are both unprotected and they are both exposed. But let me give you a little twist. It means to be unprotected sexually. Okay? meaning Noah and his wife, okay? So again, it doesn't talk about his wife, but it's implied in the Hebrew idioms, okay? And I'll show you this in just a second. In verse 22, it says, and Ham, the father of Canaan, notice this is the second time it's connected him to Canaanites, okay? It should be a warning, hey, this dude's a bad dude. What do you mean he's a bad dude? He's saved and he got on the ark because the only way you're getting on the ark is he's saved. Can you be saved and be still a bad dude? Absolutely. There's a lot of Christian bad dudes and dudettes. Okay? There's a lot of bitter brothers and twisted sisters out there. Oh, they're saved. They're going to heaven, but man, they're toxic to be around. It's trying to connect you to Ham to the Canaanites that the Canaanites are twisted up and just like their father. Okay, so it says, and Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father. Now, if you interpret this from a Gentile standpoint or an English standpoint, you would say, well, I guess Noah was naked and Ham saw his father naked. That's what a lot of the commentaries say, but it's wrong. This term, saw the negatives of his father, is a Hebrew idiom. And I can tell you where it's found. I don't know why certain commentators won't simply look further in the five books of Moses to find out what this idiom means. Let me show you what the idiom means. Let's go to Leviticus 18, so you can see the phraseology here, and you'll see it. Then the Lord spoke to Moses. Leviticus 18 is about all the sexual immoral things that he doesn't want Israel to do, okay? Speak to the children of Israel and say to them, I am the Lord your God according to the doings of the land of Egypt where you dwell. You shall not do and according to the doings of the land of Canaan. I don't want you to be like Egyptians and I don't want you to be like the Canaanites. Notice the connection, Canaanites, Ham. And the context is sexual immorality, okay? None of you shall approach anyone who is near of kin to him to uncover his nakedness. You see the phrase? Talking about incest. I am the Lord. You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father, and he's going to say, which is the? Nakedness of your mother. Did you catch that? The nakedness of the father is the nakedness of the wife. That's where the term comes from. So when you read this text, just keep that up there. When you read the text, it said Ham saw the nakedness of his father. It's not what you think it's referring to because he just explained in Leviticus what that phrase means. It's not referring to Noah, it's referring to his mother. Keep reading this. You shall not uncover the nakedness of your sister, your father's daughter, or your mother's daughter, whether brought up in the family or in another home. Talking about incest, we're eliminating that. Also, you shall not approach a woman to uncover her nakedness as long as she is in her customary impurity. I don't want you having sex when she's on her period. Now, notice it didn't say sex. What did it say? her nakedness, don't uncover her nakedness while she's on her period. Jump to Leviticus 20. The man who lies with his father's wife has uncovered what? His father's nakedness. Both of them shall surely be put to death, their blood shall be upon them. If a man takes his sister, a daughter of his father or a daughter of his mother and sees her nakedness and sees his nakedness, it is a disgrace. and they shall be cut off in the sight of the children of their people. He has uncovered his sister's nakedness, and he shall bear this iniquity. You shall not uncover the nakedness of your mother's sister, nor of your father's sister, for that would uncover his near of kin. They shall bear their guilt. If a man lies with his uncle's wife, he has uncovered his uncle's nakedness. They shall bear their sin. They shall die childless. If a man takes his brother's wife, it is an unclean thing. He has uncovered his brother's nakedness. They shall be childless. What does the Hebrew phrase uncover nakedness mean? To have sex. That's the Hebrew way of saying to have sex. Now, anytime you see uncover nakedness, it means sex, but notice when it refers to Noah, he saw the nakedness of his father. It's not referring to Noah. Like you see in Leviticus 18 and 20, it refers to Noah's wife, not Noah. And this is where many of the commentators get it wrong. If they would just look at Leviticus 18 and 20, you would know exactly what Moses is talking about in Leviticus, and you marry the two. Scripture interprets scripture, right? So what is this old boy up to? Yeah, it's bizarre, isn't it? It kind of makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up. Get the picture. Noah got drunk, okay? One of the things we don't know is whether his wife got drunk with him in the tent. It might be, we don't know. But it does mean this, Noah's unprotected and she is unprotected sexually. Yeah, but that's his mom. I know. Isn't that bizarre? So what do you think Ham did? As Noah was drunk, perhaps his mom is drunk, or maybe not. If she's drunk, he could take full advantage of her. If she's not, he could just overpower her. It doesn't make a difference. He has sex with his mother. Now that's bizarre. Now us Gentiles sitting here would say, man, that's not only bizarre, that's just weird. And I don't get that. Why in the world would he do that? There's an element of the Middle East and the Hebrew mindset. You have to understand what's happening here. Why he would do this and why his child is always named in this episode. I'll come back to that. And it says, and he went outside. Let's go forward. Told his two brothers outside Now again, the commentators will say he went out and boasted. Hey, I saw dad naked. That's not what's happening He told his brothers for a reason and again, this goes to the Hebrew mindset So what is this what's going on? Why would he attempt this? He took advantage of Noah and his mom Had sex with his mom for what? Well, here it is In the Hebrew culture and most Middle Eastern cultures, they're ruled by a patriarchy. The Judeo-Christian ethic that we have established in the United States is based on a patriarchy, okay? We understand the roles of authority that God has ordained in the scriptures, and we follow that. That's what's under attack right now, by the way, is the patriarchy, as they call it. And this is the way God has governed human societies by authority structures, okay? So in the Hebrew mindset, in the Middle Eastern mindset, Noah, again, is the second Adam. He has full authority. He is the top dog. He is the main guy. He is the patriarch, okay? So Adam's off the scene. Noah is the new patriarch. He is gonna be, basically, the rabbis called him the master of humanity, which means that he has all power and authority vested in him, okay? He's like a king, if that makes sense. And Ham, wants to usurp that position. Remember in the garden, a usurper came to Adam to usurp him? Same pattern. Satan usurped Adam, and Ham is trying to usurp his father, the head. Okay, well, how does having sex with his own mom usurp? Because in those times, all the way into Israel's history, When you had sex, like with a king's harem, or concubines, or wives, you took on the authority of that king. Do you remember that happened one time to David? Do you remember that his boy Absalom? He's wilder than a peach orchard boar hog, man. That kid was way out of control, man. He needed to be spanked a long time ago. But what did that guy do? Absalom got so rebellious towards his dad, he came into Jerusalem. David left to not cause a big fight. So David let the throne go. Absalom took the throne. And what is the first thing Absalom did? He had sex with David's entire harem on the top roof in all Jerusalem for everyone to see. And what was that act doing? It's not because he's just simply a pervert. He's showing all of Israel, I'm the king because I'm having sex with the king's harem. Therefore, all authority now is in me, and you better obey me. Now, it's very Middle Eastern to think like that, but that's how they thought, and that's the way the Bible is written. Hence, back to Ham, he is trying to take his father's position, usurp Noah, and become the king of humanity, basically, at that point in time. And he's going to do it by having sex with Noah's wife. That's where it's all going. That's how sick and twisted it is. But again, you have to understand it from a Middle Eastern standpoint. Okay, so what did the brothers do? Verse 23, but Shem and Japheth took a garment, laid it on both of their shoulders, and went backward and covered the nakedness of their father. What is the nakedness of their father? His wife. So a lot of times I'll see portraits and paintings Sistine Chapel has and Michelangelo did this and a lot of other paintings and it will show Noah's sons backing up and covering like a naked Noah in the picture. And that's totally wrong. That's not what the Hebrew is saying. And you got this picture of the boys, but what they're doing is walking backwards to cover up their mother. Does that make sense? Okay, so this perhaps implies that the wife of Noah is also so drunk she is passed out. Because why wouldn't she just cover herself after she got raped or whatever? She seems to be inebriated. And therefore, you know, the boys see the situation. Noah's passed out, their mom is passed out. Ham went in there, had sex with their mom, she's passed out. And oh, do we see other patterns where someone is drunk, And someone tried to have sex with him. Yes, lots, two daughters. This also happened later on in other situations where David tried to get Uriah drunk so he would have sex with Bathsheba to cover up the pregnancy. And so you'll have this continual, get someone drunk, then have sex with them. It's a rape basically in many situations. But anyway, this is what's going on. And so they're walking backwards, not to cover up Noah per se, but to cover up their mom. And so, anyway, go back to the text, it says they went in backwards and covered their nakedness of their father, which is the mom, their faces turned away, and they did not see their father's nakedness. So they didn't participate in this either. They didn't take advantage of this, and so they did right by that. Okay, so back to the text, verse 24. So Noah awoke from his wine and knew what his younger son had done to him. Now, what he knows is something's happened to his wife. He knows that Ham has went in there, tried to usurp the position, and Ham's real colors have come out now. Think about this, guys. Ham's a believer, but the undercurrent that's always been inside of him has been, I'm gonna rebel against my father, I'm gonna usurp his authority, I'm secretly in rebellion, no one will know this, and basically I'm against God's authority, because I'm gonna establish my own authority. Is that even possible? Yeah, it's very possible. Even believers can hide their real intent. You think about when they're on the ark, was Ham thinking this way? He had to be. This isn't just come out of a vacuum. When you see someone do something that comes out of left field, and you say, I can't believe they did something like that. No, it's been going on in their head for a very long time. They've just been looking for the opportunity to do it. And here was his opportunity. So something was wrong with Ham from day one. He was a believer, no doubt about it. He's a believer, that's the only way he got on the ark. But in his mind, he was rebellious, rebellious against God's authority. Verse 25, then he said, cursed be Canaan. Now, the way to interpret this is not necessarily like he knew what he had done to him. There's a time lapse here between these two verses. I can tell you pretty much how much the time lasts. Nine months. Yeah, it gets worse, doesn't it? Because look who he curses. He didn't say, cursed be Ham. He says, cursed be Canaan, the child that was born from this incestuous relationship from Noah's wife and from Ham. She had a baby and the baby's name was Canaan. So, what's separating these two verses right here is about nine months. Once the baby is born, Noah goes, cursed. Curses the child. Why? Why does he curse the child? Because, again, instead of cursing Ham, Ham's already messed up, but he curses the child in this sense. This child was a product of someone trying to usurp Noah's authority and trying to be the seed that was the seed line that was promised in Genesis 315. It's called spiritual jealousy. Have you noticed that since that promise has been made to Adam and Eve, the woman's seed will destroy the serpent. That theme starts getting carried on. And apparently, he not only won the position and power of Noah, he wanted to be the seed line for the coming anointed one. Okay, that seed line, if you follow it out, would be granted later on the Abrahamic covenant. That seed line in the Abrahamic covenant will be granted land grants, the land of Canaan. That seed line would be promised a king who would rule forever. And he wants that for his own kid and his own progeny. And so Noah then has to curse the kid. to ensure that that doesn't happen, that that is not the seed line. It won't be the seed line. And therefore, he puts an end to that by cursing. And obviously, God followed up on that. This then goes into a concept I want you to understand. And it's a Hebraic concept, but it's a biblical concept that we all have to get our hands around. It's called corporate personality or corporate solidarity. Corporate personality or corporate solidarity. And what does that mean? It's not that just Canaan is cursed. His whole line is cursed. That line will never have land. That line will never produce the Messiah. None of the Abrahamic promises will be made to this line. But here's my question to you. If they're not promised land, why did they plant themselves right in the land promised to Abraham. Satanic. Even Satan was working in this whole scheme, because the Canaanites would be there in the land when Moses got there and Joshua got there, and at that point, they're trying to be squatters and prevent Israel from getting the right to the land as the seed line. So the seed line's promised a lot of things. It's promised a future Messiah, but it's also promised land. That's why Israel has the right to the land today. It's a seed line issue. And because that corporate solidarity and corporate personality, it comes into cursing the whole line because this, God will make a statement in Deuteronomy, I visit the sins of the fathers on the third and fourth generation. Now, it doesn't mean that God makes children and grandchildren pay for the sins of their parents. That's not what he's saying. It means that The third and fourth generation will continue to copy the behavior of their ancestors if something is not stopped. Now guess what happened? The Canaanites are probably the most despicable group to ever exist in human history. They were despicable. Lowest of the lowest. Gross immorality, gross idolatry. So when Joshua gets in there, what does he tell Joshua? Drive them out of the land. I want them all out of there. And it's not because Israel doesn't want to be friendly. These people are that low. One of the worst groups in human history. Because guess who they're following in their behavior? Dear old dad. They're following Ham's pattern. What did Ham do? Sexual immorality, went so far he committed incest with his own mom, tried to usurp, tried to buck the system, tried to go against authority, and then where does that leave you if you don't want to follow God? You follow idols. That's exactly what his ancestors did. The Canaanites are patterned off of Ham. And so Moses is trying to make the connection. It's called corporate solidarity. And with all that being said, now you can see why God told him, when you go in the land, you have to drive the Canaanites out. They don't belong there. It's not their land. They have been cursed. Huh? Does it mean that an individual Canaanite couldn't be saved? No, it doesn't mean that. They could get saved. But if they don't, they will act out the pattern of their family and their ancestors. It's what God's saying. So return back to the text. A servant of servants, he shall be to his brethren. A servant of servants, he shall be to his brethren. That's interesting. It's a flip-flop. He wanted his own brothers to serve him, And God's saying, no, what you wanted is gonna be reversed on you, and you're gonna serve your two brothers. Interesting. I'll talk about a little bit more history, how that was accomplished in just a bit. Verse 26, and he said, blessed be the Lord, the God of Shem. Notice that connection, that Shem is now being called blessed of the Lord, and the Lord is entwining his name into Shem, the God of Shem. Okay? And may Canaan be his servant. Now why is it doing that? Because God is locating where the seed line is going to come from. It's starting to narrow now. So out of the three boys, Shem will be where the seed line comes from. Do you know who's in that seed line? If you follow that seed line out, they're the Semitic people. Shem. Shem means the name. What name? Galway. And if you follow that seed line, guess who will be the patriarch that emerges out of that? Abraham. Abraham will come from the line of Shem. And it's at that point that Israel starts existing in Abraham. So it's showing you it's going to burrow down Shem, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, then the 12 tribes of Israel, Judah, King David, and then the Messiah himself. So it's showing you where the seed line's coming. In verse 27, may God enlarge Japheth and may he dwell in the tents of Shem. Shem is gonna be the religious leader. And Japheth, this other brother, is going to enjoy being in the tents of Shem. That's interesting. You know where Japheth mostly settled? Indo-European, India and different parts of the world. Well anyway, the idea here is this is going to be fulfilled in the millennium. And this is the idea of all the nations coming to worship Jesus in the messianic reign. They're all nations will come, Psalm 2 and all these other passages that talk about the nations now coming to Shem or Israel to worship the Messiah that will be fulfilled in the future. So it's a, this was made early on about the messianic kingdom. And then it says, and may Canaan be his servant. And basically it's a land issue is what we're talking about. Let me show you some pictures of the Canaanites about this land issue, about being a servant. This is where they settled. They didn't settle anywhere else except the land that was supposed to go to Shem and the land that was supposed to go to Israel. So we see that in Joshua's conquest. Let me show you some other pictures about the Canaanites. The Canaanites were famous for handing their babies over to Molech. And Moloch, obviously, there used to be an idol, and they would heat Moloch up, there would be a furnace inside of him, and he would heat the hands, and then they would burn their babies on top of the hands of Moloch. That's how wicked they were. They're like Planned Parenthood. Does that make sense? They're that wicked. Well, this is how, you can see ancient reliefs about the Canaanites. That's a child sacrifice, if you can see it. They're preparing the child for sacrifice, and that's what they did, the Canaanites. They were that low of a group. And then we have some other pictures of the gods they worshipped. This is Baal. They worshipped Baal, and they worshipped his father by the name of El, the god of El. And these were the Canaanite gods that the Israelites had to contend with. And anyway, that being the case, the Canaanites eventually would serve Shem through Israel. Israel conquered the Canaanites somewhat, but it took Japheth at the end of this to conquer the Canaanites. And that happened in 146 BC by the Romans, sons of Japheth, that attacked the final colony at Carthage and destroyed their last remaining vestige of any Canaanite. So that scripture of being a servant It started with Shem, Israel's conquering, pushing them out of the land, and then with the Romans, sons of Japheth, finally annihilating them. And that came true in 146 BC. The last verse says this, and Noah lived after the flood 350 years. So all the days of Noah were 950 years, and he died. Interesting enough, looking at some genealogies on this, Noah lived for 39 years that overlapped with Abraham. So Abraham probably had contact with Noah at that point in time and they probably interacted and Abraham learned a lot of what was going on. Obviously that was passed on to Moses and the patriarchs. But his mission is over. He's called home. And Noah leaves this incredible legacy of obedience, even though he's flawed, he finished it up, and he's a marker for us to copy in the last days. Jesus said it'd be in the days of Noah, like the last days. So we're in the days of Noah, so to speak, and we're to do what Noah did. But don't get drunk, that's out, okay? You are to witness to this culture like Noah did. And don't lower your guard in that respect. Got it. Application. I gave you a handout of how important this is because it keeps repeating itself. And I won't spend a lot of time, but I want you to look at this handout I gave you called the Interactional Pattern that Passes Dysfunction from One Generation to the Next. What you saw with Ham passing on his proclivities to the Canaanites You have to make that connection and see that. And that passed on for hundreds of years. And look, whatever Ham did in moderation, his progeny did in excess. So it just gets passed on. But I want you to know this, this pattern you can see in Ham, you can see in today. And you have to notice the pattern, identify it, even with yourself, to break the cycle. Because you could get saved and become a Christian, but never break the pattern of your family. Never break the pattern of the cycle that you've been passed on. Now again, we're not talking about everything's bad from your family or everything's bad from your culture, but you have to know what's good and what's bad, and we're not gonna let the bad pass on to us and pass on to our kids. So look at this. Number one, dysfunctional worldly humanistic family rules that are void of biblical principles, laws, standards, or wisdom. So did you grow up in a family that knew biblical laws, principles, and standards? If you didn't, you have a good chance of incorporating whatever that law was in your own family of origin. These are pushed on the next generation knowingly or unknowingly. You just assume them. Number two, you'll see a personal pattern of attachment to the family that then develops. Basically it's this, I'm important because I keep the standards of my family. Or my family wants me to be X, Y, and Z, to think X, Y, and Z, and to do X, Y, and Z. That's what the Canaanites did. They said, my dad just did this, why can't we? Three, the person or child cannot see or process this dysfunctional familial pattern, so the child shuts off his emotion responses and develops an automatic coping mechanism. These coping mechanisms become deeply ingrained because it represents security, freedom from pain, and control over the environment. Take a guess of what the coping mechanisms were for the Canaanites. Sexual immorality, and they got really, really bad. They used sex as a coping mechanism to deal with what was being passed on to them from Ham. And it's the same thing today. Number four, the person or child refines the coping mechanism through the reinforcement, his style that he or she receives from his or her family. Regardless of how dysfunctional the role is, the family system becomes self-reinforcing. The more a person practices it, the more they feel as they belong to the family. The role becomes the critical link to belonging to the family group. This is why roles are so hard to change in a family, even if tremendous carnage has happened because of it. So each of you, if you don't break the cycle, will play the role that your family wants you to play. You might be the bad boy or the bad girl. You might be the golden child and everyone loves you. Whatever that role is, you'll play your role because your family will reinforce it unless you break that cycle and say no more. Five, the role determines relationship behavior both in the family of origin and after in marriage, parenting, and friendships. It just doesn't stay with your parents. The person attempts to use the same dysfunctional pattern in other relationships, they find people who match their dysfunction or create roles for their children to play that match their dysfunction. So you just don't get to keep it with yourself, you actually spread it. And this is the corporate solidarity I'm talking about theologically. It just passes on to the next generation. And six, not knowing anything else and not able to feel, the person practices his relational skills just as he or she developed them. The person trusted the dysfunctional pattern that led him to mistrust himself in the first place, thus setting the stage for the second generation of dysfunctional families. And on and on and on the cycle goes until someone gets enough courage and enough biblical wisdom to say, I'm breaking the cycle in my family. I'm sick and tired of it. Let me show you a story with this about a kid I used to play with when I was a young guy in Delano. And one of my friends lived down the street, and same age as I am, and I'd go to his house to play. But the problem is he could never come to my house, or he would never be able to leave his house. And what I realized growing up, I just thought it was strange, but it was weird. He was caretaking his other brothers and sisters. His dad had died early on and he was being raised by his mom, but the mom would disappear. Like just disappear and leave him to babysit the kids. And look, we're talking about, we were like eight, nine, and 10. What's an eight, nine, and 10 year old babysitting a bunch of kids? And so if we wanted to play with him, we had to go to his house because he was there watching the kids, and he had to grow up really fast in order to do that. And he never really could come out because he was always doing this. And then we went to school, and I know the principal, he would miss days at school. I'm like, where is he at, man? So the principal would have to go out there and go to his house and find him, and he was there caretaking during school because his mom had taken off. And it was just a despicable pattern that now that I look at it as an adult, this mom just kept abandoning them. I mean, they had tons of kids, and the mom would just take off and do what she wanted to do. She kept having kids, even though her husband had died, and he had to end up taking care of these other kids. It was the most bizarre situation I've ever seen, but it was a pattern. It was a pattern that she had established, and she was establishing for all those other kids, because if they don't have Christ in their life, then that pattern's gonna continue to go on, and maybe those kids will practice the same thing of abandonment or whatnot. Well, I caught up to him one time. I lost touch with him in high school, and I caught up to him later on after high school, and I said, hey, man, how you been doing, dude? What happened, dude? And he told me the whole story. He finally got out of the house and then called CPS. God bless him. He went back and rescued all of his siblings out of that house and got them away from her. And his idea was, I had to break the cycle. I had to stop what my mom was doing. And I couldn't let her keep neglecting the kids. And some of these kids, you know, there were kids from another man, not even his own father. And he rescued them, went back and took care of them. And he finally broke the cycle. Because for something inside of him just said, I'm not letting this happen. It ends today. The funny thing is, he's in law enforcement today. And it totally makes sense. He wants to right the wrongs in life. He wants to protect innocent people from bad people doing things to them. And so now it totally makes sense why he would go in law enforcement. I gotta give it to him, man. I don't know how he made it through that situation, I don't know how he did it, but he did it, and he rescued every one of them. And now today, all those kids are productive members of society. They all have good jobs, they're doing well, some are sheriffs, they're all doing really well because he had enough guts to break the cycle and rescue them. And because of that, that's a lesson for you and I. What you see with this story is something was passed down and got really bad and Israel had to deal with it. And the same thing is true. If we don't break the cycles in our lives that are coming from our ancestors, you will live just like your ancestor. But you and I are called to a different purpose. You and I are called to be the Abraham and Sarah of your family. You just have to start new. You have to end the cycle and say, today we start new. We are now the Abraham and Sarah of our families. We leave Ur of the Chaldeans and we go to the promised land where God has called us. That's our call. Break the cycles and follow Jesus. Let's pray.