Genesis chapter 9. And my sermon today is on Canaan's sin. Canaan's sin. Starting in verse 18, chapter 9. 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, servant of servants, shall he be to his brothers. He also said, Blessed be the Lord, the God of Shem, and let Canaan be a servant. May God enlarge Japheth, and let him dwell in the tents of Shem, and let Canaan be a servant. After the flood, Noah lived 350 years. All the days of Noah were 950 years, and he died. Let us pray for wisdom in preaching your word. Pray that you help us to stop where your word stops and speak where your word speaks. Help me as I preach. In the name of Jesus Christ, I pray. Amen. So we moved on from the section on the covenant of grace, the covenant As we saw, the covenant that goes from chapters 7 through 9 as far as this picture of salvation through the flood, through the picture of Christ, the ark, the title of Christ, Noah, and the sign. We saw how that sign is perverted today in work, but when we see a rainbow, We should think, and I should point our thoughts and our minds to heavenly places, to Christ, and we see that picture in Revelation of Christ's throne surrounded by the rainbow, which represents peace between God and man. Ironically, that same symbol represents both peace between God and man and God's just judgment of sin and unrepentant sin. So God gave the people before the flood, preacher of righteousness. He wrestled with them, and his spirit wrestled with them for 120 years, and they refused to listen, and so he judged them for their sin. So, ironically, the people boasting in the rainbow today are boasting in a symbol that represents God's hatred for sin, his justice. His hatred was so perfect that it had to be meted out on his own son, and God had to become man, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, became man, put on flesh, So that all the justice due to us sinners every sin down to the last drop Had to be atoned for on the cross and paid in full and so that's that's the irony of the modern abuse and perversion of Rainbow, but for us who believe in this free gift it is peace through the Sun And so now we've moved on to This this next section and we're looking at the Suns obviously obviously Shem Hammond Japheth and we know that their wives were in the ark. So, it's interesting in verse 18 that it does make clear here that Ham was the father of Canaan, because Canaan's gonna figure into this, Story and those were the sons of Noah the three sons of Noah from these people the whole earth But it were dispersed. So we all as an axe. It says that we're all that is made of all of one flesh all Mankind there's not races of people. There's one if you want to use a word race of people that descended from Noah and his three sons and not millions of years ago, but just 4,000 years ago, so this is a bottleneck where everybody comes from these three men, these three men, their wives, and their children. They populated the whole earth. And we saw that Noah planted a vineyard, and we know that this wasn't, most likely this wasn't too close to the flood. Obviously, it takes a little while to plant a vineyard. One of the scenarios I'm gonna give you as far as what this sin actually entailed would say that it was quite a bit further into things. But he planted a vineyard, and we saw how the Bible doesn't really put the spotlight and focus, even to the extent that some people would, on Noah's sin here. The emphasis tends to be here on the fact that on or Canaan's sin, and we're going to talk about that, but we know from Scripture, and this is why it's important when we look through the Scriptures, to never take for granted that just in a common error, just because something is descriptive, is described, is descriptive in the Word of God, is given as history, is an anecdote in Scripture doesn't mean that the Scriptures are condoning it. Don't go through the Old Testament thinking, oh man, look at these people, what they're doing, what they're getting away with. Oh, that's okay? This man of faith did this, this man of faith did that, they did these things. You have to not only look at the context of the situation, but then you have to turn to the clear teaching of Scripture. Thankfully, when we turn to the clear teaching of Scripture on a case like this, we do know that as we, as I preached on, you know, obviously a fun, interesting series of sermons on drunkenness and then nakedness and nudity, but we do know that wine, God says that he gave it to make man's heart glad, and he lists wine among all these other things, of the crops of the earth and all these other things that we take for granted that human beings need. God created wine, He created alcohol as a gift to humanity, but there are many, many clear, we went through these when I preached on it, denunciations and prohibitions against drunkenness. And I would love for there to be this neat, tiny line, and I specifically avoided, when I preached on drunkenness, I avoided drawing a nice, tight line, because I have my personal lines that I know for my body, for my, in a given period of time, how much I will drink and that I'm comfortable with. But I was careful not to do that because every person's different. But we saw drunkenness personified and the effects of drunkenness, and we saw really a description of what drunkenness is. So it's not like the Scriptures don't teach us what drunkenness is. And our reason needs to be guiding us. We need to be full of the Spirit and guided by the Spirit, and so when that alcohol takes over, or whatever drug or thing that we're using, takes over and supersedes our ability to think, our ability to be led by the Spirit, and we become, in extreme cases, like children, then that's sinful. And so we do know that this wasn't just Noah's okay, Noah was sinful in his drunkenness. Now, it kind of seems like in the context, I can't say this for certain, but Because you kind of ask the question, what was the big deal? He's in his tent, he gets drunk, okay, we understand that's bad, but he's uncovered and so what's the big deal with his nakedness in his tent? It almost seems like from the severity of the situation and from the way the situation has played out, that possibly it wasn't the private tent that we may think it was. It might have been more of a tent where he shouldn't have been exposed like that. I can't say that for certain, but it almost seems like given the context, because it's not inherently wrong for somebody in their own dwelling, in their own room, it's not wrong for somebody to be naked. But we did talk about, because this is one of the first, this is not the first, but this is one of the Since Adam and Eve, and God clothed Adam and Eve, this is one of the first mentions of nudity, so we talked about nudity, and we talked about how biblically, in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve were without shame, but as soon as the curse came, as soon as the fall came, there was shame. And God, they tried to clothe themselves with fig leaves, which were not sufficient. God clothed them with furs, which are a picture of Jesus Christ in that perfect clothing of righteousness. And when we look forward, as nudists we'll say, oh well, we can go back to that. When we look forward into Revelation, into the end of Scripture, into Heaven, we see that people are clothed with white robes, we see clothing. So, there's no reason to think that we will go back to nudity and nakedness in the future. because now mankind cannot stand, even in eternity, even a million years in the future, we will not be able to stand in our own righteousness, our own skin, as it were, like Adam and Eve did in the garden, which is not, it's a bad thing, but it's also not a bad thing in the sense that that's God's plan of redemption, and it's beautiful, and we see God's hand in providing us that covering of Christ. So we talked about nudity and nakedness and verse 22, and Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father and told his two brothers outside. So now I'm gonna give multiple possibilities. We're not gonna probably even dwell on these that much. Honestly, I don't know after having studied this, I went through dozens of commentaries. I don't think there's any way to 100% know what happened. I think we have enough to go off of that I can preach on and that we can learn from, and that it's valuable for us. This isn't just some part of the scripture that we should just fly by and that we can't get anything out of. But as far as the specifics of what happened, it's going to be hard to pinpoint that, given there's just not enough information, seemingly, to do that. There's just not enough there. And I remember Rushini one time in one of his works said, that if we're looking for a book to satisfy our curiosity, the Bible's not it. The Bible leaves us hanging around every corner, and the Bible is more about us being equipped for righteousness and for glorifying God not for satisfying our curiosity. So it leaves us hanging and it leaves us with question marks at many points. We have to trust that God has given us the revelation that we need for all godliness and instruction. So I'm going to give you multiple possibilities here with this situation. So the gist is that 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. And when Noah awoke from his wine and knew what his youngest son had done to him, he said, Cursed be Canaan. So that brings up some questions. Why is Noah specifically cursing Canaan, who's the son of Ham? And we'll touch on that. But the general outline is that whatever was done by Ham or Canaan to Noah was evil. And whatever Shem and Japheth did was honorable in covering their father's nakedness. And when Noah found out what, hammer Cainan had done, he was upset and he proceeds to give a curse to Cainan and blessings to the other two sons. Now before I go too far into that and I'll give the possibilities, one of the things that I saw in Calvin's sentence that was actually edifying to me, as somebody giving sermons and preaching, and that responsibility is, and this is in no way, shape, or form to diminish, like, my preaching needs to flow out of godly life, and my preaching must be in keeping with my conduct, with my profession, with I can't stand up here and I wouldn't be able to long-term stand up here and be, people play this game for a long time, but eventually they're exposed of blatant, sinful, unrepentant, hypocrisy, hypocrisy, hypocrisy, hypocrisy, hypocrisy, without repentance, confession, turning from that sin. So I'm not advocating that in the least, but we do see that God works through men, fallen men, men who had just been sinful in their drunkenness. And God gives here a faithful and accurate prophecy through the mouth of Noah right after his having been drunk. And so Calvin made the point of, as an encouragement, that no one getting up to preach is ever going to be perfect. a vessel of giving this goodness of God's Word, and if we were to expect and demand perfection, if I had to come up and feel like, you know what, I can't give the message because I sinned this week, and we're not talking, I'm not talking and justifying unrepentant habitual sin, but if I get up here and I think, you know, I can't preach because I sinned, this week, nobody would ever preach, nobody would ever deliver the Word of God, nobody would ever give God's message. This is not to negate there are basic qualifications of godliness, and like I said, habitual unrepentant sin could mean that I shouldn't get up and preach. But also we have to be careful because the longer The longer you spend with somebody who gives you the word, the more fault, the more reasons to dismiss the preaching you will see, and the more things you're gonna see, the more inconsistencies you will see. You're gonna see Noah-like situations, where here somebody goes from drunkenness to prophecy, spirit-inspired prophecy. And so there's also, Calvin gave the admonition in reverse, that those that are listening need to be not so quick to dismiss the message because of the messenger and to realize that God does give his message through fallible, sinful people, and you're gonna see some of those inconsistencies. And as the body of Christ, I think you should confront those inconsistencies where it's appropriate, but still to understand that truth comes in this world at the hands and the mouths of people who are far from perfect. in regular sin, every day, every week, every month, they're sinners. Now, there's two forms of leadership. A lot of leadership training today is built on a corporate model, and that model tends to be that If you want your reputation to be upheld, if you want people to value what you have to say, you should distance from them. You should not hang out with them. Your office should be at the end of the hall, up on the next level. You should intentionally, and leaders will do this, and this carries over into the church to the point that a lot of, and I've even heard this from different people in my past, where it's basically like, you guys are getting too comfortable and too familiar, there's just not enough respect, so I gotta distance. That is not a Christian leadership model. Christian leadership model is that we would all be close enough and interact enough that you would see the inconsistencies and that you're gonna see these type of things and be part of my life and be there to correct me when I'm wrong, but that is a very dangerous model. We just saw that breakdown with a pastor who was well respected, who I respected, who come to find out was basically almost zero interaction with the people around him, was gone most of the time, and in unrepentant sin. So, side note there. So the possibilities in this situation, with the sin, and notice I said Canaan's sin is the title of the sermon, and that was to be a little bit provocative to get thinking, because that could almost be put as a question. Canaan's sin, why is this sin attributed, why is the curse given to Canaan? So the possibilities kind of going in order are, at the very least, and I'm gonna preach to all these. When I preach on one of them, I'm gonna preach to all of them. So the application's gonna be the same. Ham went in, noticed the nudity, walked out, didn't cover it up, and mentioned it to his brother. So let's say it was a public tent, I don't know, or there was a chance that somebody would come in to bring him something. Ham goes in. And it says, oh, there's my dad, he's drunk and he's naked, and walks out and tells brothers, oh, dad's in there naked, doesn't do anything about it to cover him, knowing that that could happen again. So that's kind of the lowest rung of sin that could be involved here, but it's still sin, and so we're gonna preach against that, because obviously, whatever the circumstances were, he wasn't showing enough respect to cover up his fathers like his brothers did. That's contrasted. He walks out, his brothers come in and cover up. That's what he should have done is have averted, gone back, covered up without looking. That's the very least. The next possibility is that Ham went in, noticed, and went back and mocked his father. So there very likely could have been a huge level of disrespect, of mockery. Look, he acts like he's something, he preached to these people, no wonder nobody listened. Of course, this all is fictitious, I'm not putting words in his mouth, but the attitude that could have been there. Just a disrespectful, mocking, jeering attitude of, He is here, oh, look at, look at, there's Paul on the tent, drunk and naked. Or even it could have been more sinister and he could have been actually going, oh, you know, talking about his nakedness or describing his nakedness in a mocking, in a sick, in a wrong, sexual, whatever the way was, he very likely could have been perverse in his report back to his brothers, thinking that they're going to be on the same page in their disrespect for the father and dishonor for the father. And then they go in and they cover him up, walk backwards, cover him up, keep that from happening further. There's also some indication in a lot of people, including Jewish tradition over the years, for whatever that's worth, I don't put a ton of value in that, but there's a lot of people that would say that something else happened, and that can go in different ways. It could be that Ham went in and sexually took advantage of his father in his drunkenness, and that's one of the things we have to realize about drunkenness, when I preach on drunkenness, is that's part of why we have to keep that reason intact, and we have to keep There's a correlation between, normally for most of us that have reason, that have a brain that's working, keeping our reason intact tends to go hand in hand with walking in the Holy Spirit. If you make yourself so you're like a child and you're just completely out of it and you're open to things that you would never do or be open to and you're just completely out of it, things can happen in those situations and regularly happen in all kinds of party situations that are very, very bad. sexual and all kinds of things happen, and wake up and not really realize what was going on in the moment, but you were out of it, so it's hard to be, you can't be led by the Spirit when you're drunk like that. So there could have been something that happened between, Ham could have taken advantage of the situation with his father, or, since we saw last time that the nakedness of the mother In, I'm gonna turn to Leviticus 18.8. Turn to Leviticus 18.8. It's interesting because this oneness, this connection, this one flesh nature of marriage is really emphasized here. Leviticus 18.8. Actually seven. You should not uncover the nakedness of your father, which is the nakedness of your mother. She's your mother, you shall not cover her nakedness. you should not uncover the nakedness of your father's wife, it is your father's nakedness. So there's this connection between the nudity, the nakedness of the mother with the father. So it also could be that somehow the mother was involved. And one translation, because those sex and sexual sin and uncovering nakedness are so closely connected, the Berean translation and some translations have you must not have sexual relationship with your father's wife, it would dishonor your father. So there's a chance that given the wording here in Genesis that actually there was sin, given that Noah was out of it, there was sin with the mother, maybe she was out of it too, who knows what. I've pretty much covered all the bases. You can probably stop there. That's the... Those are the main options that I saw in, it didn't matter how far back I went back into history. These seem to be the options, even in the early church fathers or Jewish tradition or on into now. The only other aspect to throw in here is it's very interesting. I can't speak authoritatively here, but the question comes up, why is Canaan one of the sons the youngest son being, because usually you would think if the curse is coming upon the ham, it would have gone to his oldest son, but it's specifically given to Canaan as described as his youngest son. And there's this interesting reference here. In verse 24, when Noah woke from his wine and knew what his youngest son had done to him, Now as far as we know, in every list, it's Shem, Ham, and Japheth. And usually, that order indicates age, birth order. So usually it would be the oldest first, Ham, and Japheth. So as far as we know, Ham seems to have been the middle child. Ham doesn't seem to have been the youngest son. Whereas in the genealogies, Canaan is the youngest son of Ham. There's a very real possibility that the reason that Canaan was cursed is that given the customs and the way this is written, that it's actually because he does reference the youngest son had done to him. It's actually Canaan who did whatever it was. That actually this is in reference to Canaan and or some commentators would say possibly him and Canaan together. We don't know. But it's very likely that this isn't just arbitrarily fixed on Canaan as the youngest son, that Canaan actually had some guilt. Now, Calvin simply just said, well, God can choose sovereignly who he will to pass it on through a specific son. It just does seem a little bit random if Canaan was not involved in the sin or the perpetrator. So the biggest aspect of this, regardless of whether it was, oh, dad's in the tent areas, drunken, naked, didn't do anything about it, knowing that people could walk in and see him. And then Sheb and Ham or Japheth would go and cover him or all the way to the point that some sin between Canaan or Ham and Canaan and Noah or his wife took place, any degree of that, it all is gonna be preached on the same here in the sense that the underlying issue seems to have been, whether it was with Ham or Canaan, dishonor and a lack of respect. I would submit to you that these type of things don't come out of thin air, whatever the case was, and that Ham or Canaan, didn't just start there. Hammer Canaan, this was not the beginning of the sin of Hammer Canaan, that they were, their disrespectful, dishonoring heart, sinful heart came out, and this was the opportunity for that heart to be exposed. Usually these type of sins that are so notable that you're gonna see this where he's cursed in scripture, when you see somebody fall in public in a great way, it's not like that just happened yesterday. It's not like they just all of a sudden fell. There's so many barriers that you have to break down to get to the point where you're having a relationship like some of these high prominent pastors and church leaders get into that are ongoing relationships over years sometimes, It didn't start with that relationship, it started before that with other problems and other things leading to that. We don't have to fear that if we have a, now we should still be careful what situations we place ourselves in, but if we have this track record of being a one woman man, not just physically but mentally and all the other ways, we don't have to be always in fear that, oh, some little thing's gonna set me off into some major catastrophic sin. Now, with that said, I'm not discounting taking some precautions and those type of things, because you can find yourself in those situations where, like Joseph, you have to run away. But the sin starts in the heart, and so often, when somebody falls into those sins, they've gone down a road that's taken them to the point that they're ripe for the picking, and they take the next logical step based off of all the other decisions and heart issues they have. So I would submit to you that Hammer Canaan, there was a fundamental lack of honoring his father, Noah, or grandfather, Noah, a fundamental lack of respect. So the question comes up, was this punishment overkill? I want to set before you the severity of What happens with dishonor? What happens with disrespect when children don't honor their parents? And I'm not gonna pull any punches to show you kids what the scripture, how the scripture deals with it. And it's way more severe than we think. Turn to Ephesians chapter six, verse one. I'm trying to remember who said, Men fall privately well before they fall publicly. Ephesians chapter six, verse one. And I wanna, the end result, I'm gonna give you guys, you kids specifically, kids listening, I'm gonna give you kind of the conclusion, the point of it, before I even work all the way through it. Cultivate right now. In all the little things, a spirit of honor towards your parents, grandparents, older people. Be very, very respectful, not just outwardly, but in your heart, and you will never find yourself in a situation where any of this applies to you. And if you have a pattern of disrespect and dishonoring your parents and just having a bad attitude towards your parents, work on that. Just admit it and acknowledge it, confess it, and work on it. Memorize some passages. Memorize some of these passages. Write down these references, or remember them, or ask your parents, ask me for them, and memorize these passages to help you with your fight. Ephesians chapter six, verse one. Children will be your parents in the Lord for this is right. And I love how, because in the 10 commandments, it's honor your father and mother, but here Paul ties it to obedience. Lest you think it's just a, just an attitude. There's also obedience to children under your parents room. honor your father and mother, this is the first commandment with a promise, that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land. And I would say too that this, how, so we're talking about life in the land. Your life is going to be determined by how well you honor parents and those in authority over you and those with your grandparents. Your life, how long you live in the land will, is tied to this, is part of this. What's the opposite of living long in the land? Being cut off from the land, living a short time period in the land, dying, death, being pushed out and not being able to live in land. And I would say that for us fathers, this actually puts the emphasis on verse four. Fathers do not provoke your children to anger. Think about, and I'm guilty here, and I ask my kids forgiveness, especially when they're young, because I was not, I failed in this area often, especially in the past. But think about a dog. You can have a dog that would have been a great dog. But if you treat that dog poorly, and you provoke that dog to anger, and you pick at that dog, and you pull that dog's tail, and you mess with that dog, and you make that dog mean, that dog that could have been a perfectly gentle dog, you can take a golden retriever, a lab, an otherwise perfectly, one that's not prone to violence at all, and through your behavior, through your picking at that dog, beating that dog, mistreating that dog, you can make that dog a monster. And you can make that dog a dangerous dog. And so I think this puts the emphasis for us as parents, obviously there's grace and we can repent and hopefully avert any consequences. But for us as fathers, do not promote your children to anger. Now it doesn't mean everything we do in the right way is not gonna make them angry, but specifically we're trying to avoid, kind of like with the dog, we don't wanna pull their ears all the time and mess with that dog abuse that dog. Same thing with our children. We don't want to provoke them to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. We need to help them and realize we do have an influence on them in this. So, Ephesians 6.1 points to that unchecked individual sin leads to severe consequences, not living long in the land, which when you multiply that on the part of a nation leads to national death, national suicide. Deuteronomy, let's look at how severely, I want all you kids to look at, this is not me as a dad just speaking, this is, I've been a son too, I do remember what it was like. I have a lot more respect for my, my parents' parenting that I had in the past, because in the past it was like, oh yeah, I would do things differently, and now I actually did really well. But I've been a son, I know what it's like, I know sometimes it can be, you can take things certain ways, but I want every one of you kids, kids listening, Pay attention to what the Bible is saying with these passages. Deuteronomy 21, 18. Deuteronomy 21, 18. Now, here's a question for you kids. Are you always gonna feel like having a respectful, honoring attitude towards your parents? No. No, you're not. You're not always gonna feel like it. That's why we don't live our life based off of our feelings. We don't live our life based off of what we want, what we think, what we feel, but off of what the word of God says. Deuteronomy 21, 18. If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and though they discipline him, will not listen to them, that his father and his mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of the city, the gate of the place where he lives. You guys know what's gonna happen to this rebellious and stubborn son? Will not obey his parents? Anybody know the answer? He doesn't continue living. Let's see. And they shall say to the elders. Now this is not, this is not a family justice situation. They're taking them to the elders of the city. So there's due process. And they shall say to the elders of the city, this is our son. This is our son. It's stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey our voice. He is a glutton and a drunkard. Now, There's every indication that if this is not talking about a six-year-old, it's not talking about a 12-year-old, it's not talking about probably even a 14-year-old, it's talking about somebody who's old enough, he's going around, he's feasting nonstop, he's a glutton, and he's a drunkard. So it's probably somebody who's old enough to be a drunkard. Then all the men of the city shall stone him to death with stones. So you shall purge the evil from your midst, and all Israel shall appear in fear. There's this idea that if you allow this evil in your midst to continue, it will be contagious, that it will take over your society, that it will ruin you as a people, that it will destroy you, that you as a culture will not live long in the land that the Lord your God gives you. That's how serious this is. The Bible gives the death penalty. Now, I'm a theonomist. A lot of people aren't. So I would actually say, and I'm not saying we're anywhere near a position to implement this law, but I would say that ideally civil government, this is a law that civil government should at least in substance uphold. The Puritans of New England had this on the books. They basically copied this law and the laws I'm about to read. Now, how often do you think they had to How often do you think they executed and stoned children for that level of stubbornness and rebelliousness? Anybody have a guess? How many kids? Never. They never did. Because the law was enough of a terror that nobody, they weren't gonna do that. So you had a culture that honored at least even if not inwardly, they outwardly at least honored their parents because there was this external fear. Now, I shouldn't take this lobbying on the books for you to, as a Christian, as a believer, to listen to God's word and to his law. So listen to his law. Exodus 21, verse 15. Also, some of these laws are really important too to go over because unbelievers will throw these up and just quote them as if by quoting them, they've just refuted Christianity. And I think it's like, okay, what's your, like, I would concur with the scripture here. Exodus 21, 15. Whoever strikes his father or his mother shall be put to death. Whoever strikes that is to hit their parents, shall be put to death. You never, ever, no matter how you ever feel, hit your parent. You don't strike your parent. Under biblical law, striking your parent, I'm angry so I'm gonna slap my parent, I'm gonna hit my parent, that was punishable by death. That's how, this represents the holy nature and heart of God. that that's how serious taking it to that extreme. But let's not go to that extreme. Let's start and deal with the hard issue behind what would lead somebody to hit their parent. Leviticus 20 verse nine. for anyone who curses his father or his mother. Now, we talked about somebody who is belligerent and stubborn and is out drinking and carousing, and his parents say, cut it out, stop it, and that son, who's an older son at this point, or daughter, will not listen, will not heed, is just rebellious, they're set in their rebelliousness, they're to be put to death. We've talked about a son or daughter who hits their parent, and now, We're talking about one who curses their parent. For anyone who curses his father or his mother shall surely be put to death. He has cursed his father and his mother. His blood is upon him. That's like this little line here at the end. His blood is upon him. Don't think that, oh, it's the tyrannical the biblical government or the tyrannical parents or anything like that in this scenario that are bringing out his blood and killing and bringing about upon him his death. No, that individual's blood is upon himself and he's brought it upon himself by cursing his parents. You guys never, ever, ever curse your parents. Doesn't matter how internally upset and frustrated you are. Now work on your heart, but you don't curse your parents. And I would advocate that when you see these death penalty type prohibitions, that you stop as far short of them as you can on the heart level with the little things, with the little looks, with the little attitudes, with the little expressions, with the little things you say in response when your mom or dad tells you something you show respect and honor. And then one other emphasis on this, and this is one that also atheists like to bring up, 2 Kings 2.23. 2 Kings 2.23. This is talking about the prophet Elisha. This is God's anointed. This is God's prophet. Now again, he's like we just learned with Noah. This is somebody who probably had his personal failings. We kind of know he did because he was a descendant of Adam. But he's God's anointed. He's God's prophet. He's God's voice piece, mouthpiece here as he gives God's word. In verse 23 of 2 Kings 2, 23. He went up from there to Bethel. And while he was going up on the way, some small boys came up out of the city and jeered at him, saying, Go up, you bald head. Go up, you bald head. And he turned around. And when he saw them, he cursed them in the name of the Lord. And now did God honor that curse? Was that it? Was that a godly curse that he gave? Yes. And two she bears, two female bears, two sows came out of the woods and tore 42 of the boys. From there he went on to Mount Carmel, and from there he returned to Samaria. So we have this little anecdote of the severity. Here they are just simply mocking someone who's older and wiser, and maybe they didn't even know that he was a prophet, but they mocked God's prophet, and the prophet curses them, and out of the woods come two bears and tear up 42 of them. And as the law says, their blood was on them. God rightly judged them. Children should not mock older people. Children should not mock parents and grandparents and uncles and the elderly and those that are preaching the word of God or really any, I mean, you shouldn't be mocking a whole lot anyways, Don't go mocking people that are older than you. Pretty safe rule. So what about this punishment to further generations? Because we see that this punishment was very specific. And I'm gonna talk, I'm gonna be preaching. Of course, I went on a series of drunkenness, nudity, and next up is racism. And we're going to talk about how people have used this next passage to justify racism against black people. But the curse is very specifically to the descendants of Canaan who ended up being at odds with the people of Israel. And so this curse is fulfilled way into the future. It's not fulfilled for a long time. So one principle is that you can get away with evil sometimes for a while. And God will not seemingly judge you, and then you sit there and go, ha, there's no God to judge me. And later on, the hammer drops. So God does work that way. But what about this judging of future generations? God does say that he punishes to the third and fourth generation, turn to Exodus 34, 7. You know what? I actually put together, I think, two sermons here. I'm going to save this sermon for next time. I want to end on this one. And that is, I'm going to just end with application. Because I think we have a full thought. And I'm going off into a different thought. honor your father and your mother, obey your parents. We've seen how taking it to the extreme of belligerent, disobedience, cursing, and striking your parent, hitting your parent are all death penalty offenses under God's law. There's not that many death penalty offenses, but these are some of them. There's not a lot of laws. Like, you think about God's law, we have millions of laws on the books and statutes in the United States. We have a book, you can get a book, I've never gotten it, but apparently you can get a book that has all the numbers and penumbras of the Constitution, and it's like a massive book of all the court decisions and all the emanations and things that supposedly the court has found the Constitution and it's this massive book. And then we have millions of laws. We pump out law after law after law. They don't even just pump out one law, they pump out omnibus laws where our senators and representatives will get thousands of pages and have to decide on something overnight with thousands and thousands of pages in it. And they sneak all kinds of stuff into laws on chicken farming. There'll be something about truck manufacturing. It'll be hidden in there. Our system is out of control as far as pumping out laws, but if you go back to God's law, there's 600 and something laws that you said, who knows the exact number, but 600 something laws is nothing in comparison. God's law doesn't, a lot of God's laws don't even enforce any, there's no civil enforcement. But these are a handful out of the law, 600 something laws that have, and then out of those, there's only a small percentage that have civil enforcement. This was severe enough that God said, death penalty, death penalty, death penalty. And they're all related. They have to do with not honoring parents. And again, Those kids, those sons and daughters who might've been put to death, if there was ever anybody actually put to death, because it's a pretty severe warning, they didn't start that. You don't start, somebody doesn't just wake up as a great son or daughter with a great relationship with their parent and a respectful heart and slap their parent. How you get to slapping your parent is disrespect. dishonor, disrespect, dishonor, disrespect, dishonor, looks, a little bit of mocking, a little bit of this, a little bit of that, disrespect, dishonor, I don't like what they have to tell me, I'm gonna have an attitude, you don't work on your attitude, you don't fix your attitude, and at the end of that road is these offenses that God's Word takes so severely that He, in the Old Testament at least, gave the death penalty for. Nobody just happened into those death penalties. Nobody just stumbled in. They had to live a life that was very disrespectful and dishonoring to their parents. And the same thing we saw with Ham or Canaan, with whatever action happened there, that they didn't just stumble into it. Their heart came out in a pattern or habit. So I'm pleading with you, honor God's word, because what you'll find is that when the father God calls for honor of the father. Part of that picture is that he is our father and that's a picture of him as our father. So you show honor for the heavenly father by showing honor for the father. Do you kids know how the mom ties into that? If my son or daughter talks back to my wife, who's that son or daughter talking back to as far as I'm concerned? Who is that person talking back to? They're talking back to me. That's my wife, we're one flesh. You talk back to my wife, you're talking back to me. You talk back and disrespect your earthly father, you're by implication disrespecting heavenly father. Nobody can sit there and be like, I completely disrespect and dishonor my earthly father, but I love you, God, and I honor you and I respect you. That's not how it works. You show your respect, for your earthly father through honoring earthly father and mother. So I'm pleading with you to start small, wherever you're at, realize that it's really, really not only good, but essential. You have to honor your parents. You use tones. Respectful tones. It's not like they can't be your friend, but realize first and foremost, we are your friends, but we're first and foremost your parents. That's a God-given office that has to be respected. So use respectful tones. Don't talk back. Be slow to speak back. Don't just let your mouth fly when your parent says something. Don't mutter something under your breath. Don't grumble. Don't come back with an attitude. Work on that, reign that in. Work on the heart issue and then work on just restraining it as well. And again, ask for help. If you struggle with this, ask for help. If you struggle with this, ask for, hey, mom, dad, what's a good passage I can memorize? How do I memorize it? that would help me with my heart issue here. And I'm pretty sure that every parent in here would love to help their children to memorize a passage, to find a passage to memorize to help them to be respectful and honoring. So what we do in this area matters. It affects the whole course of our life. The Bible says, if you do not honor your father and your mother and obey them, you will not live long in the land that has been given you. Obviously, we've seen honor your parents and those that are older, those that are given positions of authority. And I'll end with this. Cover the shame of others rather than glorifying it or exploiting it. This one takes on all kinds of shades. Be like Shem, Shem and Japheth, and cover shame. When you see somebody's shame, when you see somebody Not just physically exposing themselves, but somehow there's shame involved. Do your best to cover for them instead of mocking and laughing and making fun of the person for their shame. An obvious example is somebody's pants fall down or something like that. Instead of just sitting there mocking, like, hey, or their zipper's undone or whatever. help cover shame versus glorifying or exploiting or mocking shame. And Christ is the ultimate example of this. Christ, we're full of shame. We're naked apart from him. We're nude apart from him. We're shameful and we'd be hiding behind fig leaves, but he covers us with his righteousness. So instead of just sitting back and mocking us as some horrible deity, some horrible God, Christ covers us with his own righteousness and paid the ultimate price to cover us in our shame. Let's pray. Lord, just thank you for your goodness to us, your mercy. I know it's difficult because we, as parents, sometimes get things wrong. Sometimes we speak too quickly. Sometimes we speak with a tone that we shouldn't have on our side, Sometimes we're too severe. And I know I've been guilty a lot of not listening enough first before jumping on a situation. So help us all, help us as parents to not be so quick in these ways and help us to be restrained ourselves and models of restraint, but also help the children to realize that their obedience, their honor, honoring of you through honoring of us isn't dependent on isn't dependent on our perfection. That, like Noah, they can have a father, mother, who does something shameful and wrong, like getting drunk, and who then speaks truth. And so help them to listen to the truth. Help them to, no matter what, be respectful, even if they disagree, even if they need to voice their opposition or their disagreement. Help it to be with softness, with humility, not with rude dishonor and disrespect. And I just pray that you help them to cultivate that spirit of honor and respect. They would ultimately, as they walk away from the families and they're not spending as much time with us as their parents, and they have a new family, I pray that that would translate over to respect and honor for you as their Heavenly Father. In the name of Jesus Christ, I pray, amen.