hanger #5

We are continuing on in Genesis today. What we have seen so far in the unfolding of the world is that rebellion against love runs deep. We have also seen the long suffering and patience of God. We have seen the sadness of God because of man’s rebellion. For 1500 years God gave us the opportunity to repent- especially the last 120 years- everyone was fully aware of the call to repentance but all but one refused to humble themselves before God. So God flooded the world in order to save the world.

Yet in spite of all the opportunities the wicked rebellion of mankind continues on after the flood. In verse 18 of chapter 10: Now the sons of Noah who came out of the ark were Shem and Ham and Japheth; and Ham was the father of Canaan. 19These three were the sons of Noah, and from these the whole earth was populated. 20Then Noah began farming and planted a vineyard.

I want you to understand that years go by in between these two verses. It takes time to plant a vineyard and have it produce grapes. It takes time to make wine out of those grapes. We aren’t told why but out of the fruit of his labors Noah commits sin by getting drunk. Verse 21 tells us that He drank of the wine and became drunk, and uncovered himself inside his tent. 22Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brothers outside. 23But Shem and Japheth took a garment and laid it upon both their shoulders and walked backward and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces were turned away, so that they did not see their father's nakedness. 24When Noah awoke from his wine, he knew what his youngest son had done to him. 25So he said, "Cursed be Canaan; A servant of servants He shall be to his brothers." 26He also said, "Blessed be the LORD, The God of Shem; and let Canaan be his servant. 27"May God enlarge Japheth, And let him dwell in the tents of Shem; And let Canaan be his servant."

I would imagine many of us would say what’s the big deal? We obviously haven’t been given a lot of information here. But we must learn to trust that everything that is in this book hangs on the foundation of love. Whatever Ham did Noah seemed to know what it was as soon has he woke up. I would tend to say that it was more than just taking a peek at dad drunk and naked in his tent. How would Noah know that by just waking up? But I can’t say for sure. Whatever it was, it was enough to require a prophetic curse to be spoken upon all his descendants.

In one sense this is very similar to Adam’s rebellion: one man sins and the rest of his descendants have to live in the consequences of his actions. This should be a warning to us all: we can mess up life for all the generations that follow us with just one step off the path of life. Actions have consequences; your actions matter to more people than just you. They can affect all those that come after you. We will eventually get to the end consequences of this action when the descendants of Shem conquer the descendants of Ham in the land promised to Abraham by God.

When Jesus said ‘on these two things hang all the law and prophets’ these things were included as hanging on love. This crazy event flows out of the love of God and the love of our neighbor. Ham’s action revealed his lack of love for God and for his father, his neighbor. It revealed his heart. And the result was the wages of rebellion. The response of love to hatred is immediate and at the same time patient and long suffering.

I want you to understand some things in all of this. Whatever Ham did there was no civil justice to be done. Life went on. Ham was cursed and more than likely that didn’t seem like that big of a deal to Ham at the time, maybe for the rest of his life. The prophecy didn’t mean that no one from Ham’s family would ever humble themselves and get on the path of life. On the contrary we are told that Rahaab would become a part of the tribe of Shem by faith. Anyone who wants to can step onto the path of life. That sad part is not too many want to do that.

The next chapter tells us that all of the brothers had kids, and grandkids. Their families turned into cities, and then nations. They either walked on the path of life or they walked in death. Life goes on. The blessings of God are poured out on the cursed and the not cursed. Seeds are sown and love causes them to grow. King Satan sits on the throne and begins to rebuild his kingdom after the flood and darkness continues to grow on the face of the earth.

So far we have not been told of anyone but Noah finding grace in the eyes of the Lord. The consequences of ideas, especially the idea of rebellion against love are unfolding in the lives of everyone on the planet. The one righteous man dies 350 years after the flood. And sometime after that world unites as one against Love and tries to overthrow it.

In Chapter 11 we read: 1Now the whole earth used the same language and the same words. 2It came about as they journeyed east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. 3They said to one another, "Come, let us make bricks and burn them thoroughly." And they used brick for stone, and they used tar for mortar. 4They said, "Come, let us build for ourselves a city, and a tower whose top will reach into heaven, and let us make for ourselves a name, otherwise we will be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth."

What we see in this passage is that there was a time on this planet when communication was easy – even after the rebellion. I don’t know about you but for me communication is one of the hardest things that I have to do and I don’t do it well. Sure I can get up here and foam at the mouth for 30 minutes every Sunday but that is one way communication. I don’t know if you hear what I’m saying or not. If you don’t then it’s not communication at all. I’m horrible at one on one communication for a myriad of reasons. So I find it somewhat comforting to know that lack of communication is a part of the curse for rebelling against love. I long for the day when we will be able to fully communicate without difficulty. I’m sure I will be amazed.

I find an interesting parallel to our own times here in this passage. Here the people of the world, the entire world it seems, join together in one accord and try to exalt themselves to the position of God. They not only use the same language they have the same mind and the same desires. They are united in rebellion against love. Their goal is to make themselves a name. We have a really poor understanding of the meaning of the concept of naming something in our culture. I think it was somebody in the movie Pulp Fiction that said: Names don’t mean anything in America. That’s exactly right they’re just words to us.

But they were not just words in scripture, names had meaning but also to have the name above all names was to have authority and power over all the other names. The population of the world is not trying to gain fame here they are trying to exalt themselves to the place of authority. They are trying to be king of kings and Lord of Lords. They were continuing to advance the rebellion against love.

What we continually see over and over again is that death reigns supreme in mankind’s heart unless they humble themselves before grace. That being said, I would also add that these people loved one another (not in the godly love your neighbor as yourself kind of way but as unbelievers have affection for one another), they were friends, they were united in working together, they were getting along. It is the world that the majority of people in our own time are looking for. You hear it often: Why can’t we just get along? Here, at this point in time, the world was one. They were able to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony. There were no dissenters. The world and everyone in it was united by one goal to take all power and control for themselves. This is why it is a good thing that we don’t all get along in our day and age because from the perspective of scripture if we do we will unite in rebellion against God.

Verse 5 tells us that: The LORD came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built. 6The LORD said, "Behold, they are one people, and they all have the same language. And this is what they began to do, and now nothing which they purpose to do will be impossible for them. 7"Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, so that they will not understand one another's speech." 8So the LORD scattered them abroad from there over the face of the whole earth; and they stopped building the city. 9Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the LORD confused the language of the whole earth; and from there the LORD scattered them abroad over the face of the whole earth.

To put an end to this new rebellion against love God doesn’t pour out wrath upon the people he simply gave them the gift of tongues without the gift of interpretation. What he does is take away the grace of being able to communicate. He removes a bit of the gift of common grace that he had been giving the rebellious up to this point. They don’t want him in their lives and so he gives them want they want – less of him and his grace. The result is that they are scattered over the face of the whole earth – each according to their language. Now instead of 1 group of rebellious people striving against God we now have hundreds of different groups striving against God and because of the inability to communicate they begin striving against one another.

I mentioned a parallel to our own times and I think this is it: In the history of our nation what we see is that God gave us the grace to communicate around a single language – English and form a united culture. Because of our faithfulness to him in the early years he allowed the communication barrier to be broken down. English began to be spoken by more and more people. The original goal was to spread the good news. But eventually we turned our backs on God and he began to once again remove the grace of communication from our land. It is getting to the place where the ability to communicate is becoming harder and harder even within the same language.

God has given us what we desire – a meaningless world of chance and the end result is the destruction of communication. We say the same words but every person’s words have a different meaning. We are seeing the consequences of the ideas of evolutionary thought starting to blossom and produce fruit. God is giving our culture what it believes in.

There was a time when we were a melting pot; people of all different nations and languages would come here and assimilate into one people. We were a picture of what the body of Christ is supposed to look like all the parts of the body working together to grow up the body into maturity: But not anymore.

Now we are a picture of the parts of the body warring against itself so that they can be equally dominate. The body is cutting itself up in different little groups each with its own agenda. Sound familiar? It should because that is what the church has been doing for longer than the nation has. We have been chewing each other up and spitting out the remains, dividing ourselves into smaller and smaller groups refining our doctrines in the name of purity while all the while carving up the body of Christ into more and more dysfunctional pieces.

There can be no hope for the nation if the church doesn’t repent. This division that exists, this pride and arrogance in the name of Christ is anything but love. Like the Pharisees we have pursued the word of God without embracing the God of love and now our nation stands on the brink of destruction. We often times resign ourselves to the fact that while the body may not be growing here, more and more people are turning to Christ in other countries. But if they are turning to the same watered down gospel, the easy belivism, and bickering over truth that we do; is that really a good thing? If all they are looking for is a way to escape this life and get on to the next then they will be of no help at all in advancing the kingdom of God.

Our calling is to advance the kingdom of God in every area of life. We are called to exemplify love in every area of life not out there somewhere but right here in our midst, right here in our families and communities. I don’t need any more ideas of things to do or ways to do it. I have plenty of ideas. I need the power to do. The power to do that which I hate the most: communicate. I need God to pour out his grace upon me so that I can speak to my children and they can hear what I am saying. I need God to pour out his grace upon my ears so that my children can speak to me and I can hear what they are saying. I need the babel removed from my life. I don’t know what it will take to make that happen but I need it.

And yet that is only the start. I need the same thing here. I need for you to be able to hear what I am saying. We need to be able to hear what each other is saying. I’m not sure that we have that yet. I am more inclined to believe that we are all hearing what we want to hear and doing what we want to do. It is my prayer, my hope, my desire that God would give us the grace to be able to move ahead, to change, to get on the same page, to pursue that which God has laid on our hearts with a single goal which should not be to increase our own kingdom and exalt our own name but to increase the kingdom of the one true God and exalt his name above all others. All we have to do is look around at the culture in which we live and see what not to do. May God give us the grace to do the right thing in a broken and abnormal world.

Let’s pray. Oh Father open our eyes, change our hearts, advance your kingdom in our lives. Exalt the name of Jesus above all else. Amen.