The Curse of Canaan & Origin of Races: Genesis 9 Bible Study

Welcome to Through the Bible with Les Feldick, a 30-minute walk through the Scriptures, teaching in-depth Bible truths that change people's lives. Now, here's your host, Les Feldick. Good evening, and once again, it's good to have you. And those of you watching on television, we trust you'll take your Bible and follow along with us. We'll pick up where we left off last week as we were in chapter 9. Noah and his sons have now come out of the ark, and God has given them new instructions. Now they are permitted to eat of anything that lives, except they were not to partake of the blood. And life is indeed precious, and so God makes the stipulation now that human life is to be protected by a civil government. And that civil government was to exercise law and order by setting up a deterrent, which in this case we call capital punishment. And again, we have to realize that there are many influential people who are aghast at capital punishment. And of course, I can be, because there's always that fear that you may be executing an innocent person. But I think the Bible takes all that into consideration. We're talking about people who without a shadow of a doubt are guilty of murder, and they have to be dealt with. No one wants to see an innocent person put to death. Now, that would be horrible. We know that. But as we move on then, in verse 7, God now continues to instruct. Remember, God never leaves the human race without a knowledge of His will. Now, back here they had no written law, they had no written word, but nevertheless God gave instructions. And then it was expected that they would pass it on to the coming generation. And to a certain degree, isn't that our responsibility? You know, I've told people years ago when my own children were just babies, I used to say, you know, we're only one generation away from paganism. That's all. One generation. Because, you see, if we don't instruct our little ones in the things of God, and they grow up ignorant of all this, what are their kids going to be? Pagan. Or they're going to be out in something as bad. And so it's the responsibility of every generation to teach their children the things of God. And, of course, it's been the failure of the human race from day one not to do it. And this has been the problem, that even beginning with Adam, I often have to think. Now, you know Adam lived 930 years into that 1650 to the flood. He must have already seen the breaking down of the morality, and how it must have torn at the man to see what was happening to his offspring. We're going to see the same thing now after the flood. These three sons of Noah are going to be the progenitors then of another, within a matter of a couple hundred years, a civilization of people that go off the deep end into paganism. And we're going to see that, if not in this half hour, then definitely in the next one. All right, so now in verse 7 he says, Be fruitful, multiply, bring forth abundantly in the earth, and multiply therein. And God spake, verse 8, unto Noah, and to his sons, and him saying, And he said, Behold, I will establish my covenant with you, and with your seed after you. Now, remember that this word covenant pops up all the way through Scripture, but especially here in the Old Testament. And a covenant is always from God to man. And consequently, it cannot be broken. God's Word cannot be broken. Now, when man makes a covenant with man, usually they don't last very long. We call them treaties today. A treaty usually isn't worth the paper it's written on. But when God made a covenant, it was eternal, and it could never be broken. And now he's going to come in, this covenant with Noah, and it's simply the one that you all know about, where he sets the rainbow as a promise that he would never again destroy the earth with water. Now, way back in Genesis chapter 1, when I referred to that first flood, I made mention of the fact that I think the reason God put this extra emphasis on not ever flooding the earth with water again is because he's now done it twice. And he says there's not going to be a third time. Now, he's going to destroy it. We're coming to the day, I think, speedily, when again this old earth is going to be completely renovated, but it's not going to be done with water. Rather, it will probably be with the forces from within. Again, volcanoes and earthquakes and cosmic disturbances, meteorites and various things. The earth is going to go through a complete regeneration in order to be fit then for the kingdom that is coming. But here he establishes this covenant with Noah that he'll never again destroy the planet with water. And the rainbow, a lot of people have put a question, they say, well, why the rainbow? Well, you want to remember, before the flood, it had never rained. There was no rainbow. But now after the flood, we have weather and we have storm clouds, we have thunderstorms and the accompanying rainbow, and so God could very literally say, now when you see that bow, always be reminded that the flood was a literal happening, but it'll never happen again. Now, I think we can leave that, and we can come all the way down to verse 19. And these are the three sons of Noah, and of them, those three men, of them was, what's the next two words, the whole earth was overspread. Now again, flying in the face of what most people are taught in our secular educational system, contrary to most of science today, we maintain that the earth that now is our mountains and our rivers and our plains and our streams, as well as our population, all began on this side of Noah's flood. Our present day mountain ranges came up as a result of the flood. Our present day river basins were all formed as Noah's flood waters receded, and God established the seas. I'll have to beg your forgiveness. I forgot to cover a question that comes up so often. We're going to cover it, because I think it's interesting. It must have crossed your mind when God took the water off the earth, which previously evidently was up there in the atmosphere in some sort of a vapor belt, and yet there's nothing in Scripture to indicate that He lifted water back off the earth after the flood. And so the question has come up over the years, well, where did all that extra water go? And I'll have to say, beg your forgiveness, that I didn't point it out. So let's just stop a second. Go back with me to the book of Job, because it's interesting that this old book leaves no stone unturned. Go back to Job chapter 38, and let's just reflect a moment on the floodwaters of Noah, and then we'll come right back to his three sons. But the floodwaters of Noah are definitely on the planet, and they're in a particular place. Job 38, drop down to verse 30, and I'll give you a second to read the verse, and then you can tell me where is the excess water. Sure, on the frozen ice caps, Antarctica and the Arctic, frozen as a stone. Now, you see, that rings a bell with the environmentalists. What are they scared to death of? Oh, the global warming. And, you know, I can remember telling my classes 20 years ago that if the atmospheric temperature would rise an average of 2 degrees worldwide, New York City would be underwater. And people used to look at me almost cross-eyed, and I said, it's a fact. If the average temperature would rise just 2 degrees, enough of those polarized caps would melt that it would flood most of the coastal areas of the land masses on this earth. And now, you see, we're hearing it. I read it again just the other day, that if indeed we are having global warming, and I doubt it, I think it's just a big flap, but if we are, see, they're scared to death that New York will go underwater and L.A. could go underwater, but God took the excess water, and He froze it as a stone up there on the northern ice cap, but predominantly in Antarctica on the South Pole. Well, I wanted to cover that, because I think it's kind of an interesting little tidbit. Now, if you'll come back with me then to Genesis chapter 9, the three sons of Noah, from whom the whole earth was populated. In other words, we can segment the whole mass of population tonight into three areas, the sons of Ham, the sons of Shem, and the sons of Japheth. And the more archaeologists dig, the more they come to proving Genesis chapter 9, and particularly chapter 10. But we'll leave it for that for just a moment, because now we want to go to verse 20. And the Bible is, what shall I say, it never glosses over anything, does it? It tells everything like it is. Now, I think you and I would just as soon skip verses 21 through 23, because it's not a very pretty picture. But God doesn't do that. He doesn't gloss over. He doesn't cover up. Even His choicest servants, such as Abraham, David, Moses, when they failed, God still puts it out there in front of us. All right, now look what happens to Noah, verse 20. And Noah began to be a husbandman. In other words, he began to cultivate. And he planted a vineyard, grapes. And you normally think of grapes, what's your first product? Wine. And so Noah is the first indication. Now, I'm not saying that it wasn't before the flood, but it seems from Scripture that this is the first instance of the use of alcohol. And look what it did to the man. Even this great man Noah, a man of faith, a man who found grace in God's eyes, a man who survived the judgment of the flood, and yet alcohol got to him. And what happened? He drank of the wine, was drunken. And I mean he must have been drunken to the place of having passed out. He's out like a light. And he was uncovered, or he was naked, within his tent. And then verse 22 says, "...and Ham, the father of Canaan." Now, the Scripture is careful to point that out, because Canaan immediately reminds you of what other thing in Scripture? The Canaanites living in the land of Canaan, which now we know as the land of Israel. Ham, then, one of the three sons of Noah, usually listed in the middle. It's usually Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Ham saw the nakedness of his father and told his two brethren without. And then Shem and Japheth, realizing what had taken place, they go in backwards with a blanket or a garment upon their shoulders, and they covered the nakedness of their drunken father. Then verse 24, if you've got any insight at all into language, verse 24 should tell us something. "...And Noah awoke from his wine," and what's the next word? Knew. "...and knew what his younger son had done unto him." I always tell my classes lately, 20 years ago, 15 years ago, I would almost pass by these verses, because you didn't even like to touch on the subject. But we're living in a day now where it's in our every magazine, it's in every newscast, and we're up against it in our society. And I personally think, and I can't prove it, but I think there's enough evidence in Scripture based on verse 24 that something more than just seeing Noah's nakedness took place because of the verb, he knew. A drunken person in a stupor would never know that someone came into the room and left and saw their nakedness. So I have to feel that something homosexual took place here, and it had to be something drastic like this for Noah to come back and place a curse, not upon him, but upon his son Canaan. Now it's interesting to note that the offspring of that grandson Canaan then were the people that we'll be touching on somewheres down the road in Sodom and Gomorrah. And what was the problem in Sodom and Gomorrah? Homosexualism. And so it all ties together. And we don't want to overdo the subject, but I think we've said enough that this was not just a casual thing, but it was something of intense importance. Verse 25, And so when Noah realized what had taken place, he cursed Canaan, not Ham, but the son of Canaan. And I've often wondered, and I've had people ask me more than once, well, why did he curse Canaan and not Ham himself? And the best explanation I've ever read, I'll pass on to you, because I think it's the best one, is that in the ancients, and to a certain degree today, a son did not receive credit so much himself as his father. Now, let me give you an example. You remember back in the Old Testament when David came upon the scene? The first thing, when King Saul saw what a specimen this young man was, what did he ask? Who is his father? And so the glory of David was in a reflection upon his father, Jesse. And I think you have the same thing here in reverse. Had Noah placed the curse upon his son, Ham, it would have been a reflection upon whom? Himself. And so he skips that, and he puts the curse on Canaan, so that someday someone could say regarding Canaan, hey, whose son is that? And they wouldn't say Noah, they'd say what? See? I say I think that's the best explanation. But anyway, the curse isn't laid on Ham, it's laid on Canaan, and Canaan is the one who, remember, now maybe I can put a makeshift map, and I always make sure that people understand that this is not drawn according to scale, but here's our Mediterranean Sea, and here's present-day Jerusalem. There's the Sea of Galilee, and Jordan River, and the Dead Sea. And this whole area now we understand as Canaan. Now down here, of course, will be ancient Sodom and Gomorrah, and this is present-day Jerusalem. But this is what we normally picture of as the land of Canaan throughout all of Scripture. Today we refer to it as the land of Israel, but for our sake of study, we're still going to refer to it as Canaan, because the Canaanites, the offspring of this grandson of Noah, is now occupying the land of Canaan. Now this carries all the way into the coming of the nation of Israel, and hopefully within just a little while we'll be getting to Genesis chapter 12, which to me is the benchmark of Genesis, because from Genesis chapter 12 we're going to get the setting of everything that leads into our own doctrine in the church age. And I'll be almost boring you with it, I think, because I make so much of the Abrahamic covenant in Genesis chapter 12. But what I'm saying is, when it comes to the choosing of a bride for Isaac, you know what the Old Testament says? Abraham had been told of God that Isaac's wife was not to be a citizen of what? Canaan. See? He said, My son shall not marry a Canaanite. Well, it comes all the way back to what took place here, and that's why we've got to take our time and look at all these things detail by detail, because there's a reason for everything. This isn't like some people try to say, just a bunch of Jewish myth that came about sitting around a campfire. My, what a bunch of hot air, or something like that is. This is the literal unfolding of God's program, and He's giving it to us detail by detail, and it all fits. Nothing comes into the picture that you can say, well, now that just doesn't fit. It all fits. All right, so, Canaan is the one who is cursed, and then he goes on to say, Blessed be the Lord God of Shem, and Canaan shall be his servant. And then verse 27, And God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem, and Canaan shall be his servant. Now, I've always been real careful that we do not imply that through these three sons of Noah, and because of the curse placed on the son of Ham, that God has given an inferior race, or that He has made others superior. Now, we're going to see the whole human race divided from these three men, and they're going to be different in their role. Now, I like to use the word role in more places than one, and we can use an analogy of an athletic team. Now, you take a football team, just for an example. You certainly know enough about sports that the line man has a totally different role than a running back, and a wide receiver has a totally different role from the quarterback. Some are on camera a lot more than others, but yet, take one of those players off the team, and what happens? Well, the people who are most visible can do nothing, because every member of that team has to play his role in order for the whole thing to work. And it's the same way now with these three basic races of humanity. They are not one superior over the other, but they all have their particular role. Now then, what are the roles that God has stipulated? Well, the offspring of Ham, who are going to be, in the next chapter, predominantly responsible for the building of the Tower of Babel. So, somehow or other, some of these offspring of Ham, and we'll call them that, we'll call them Hamites, make their way, and then, of course, come to the land of Canaan. And from the Canaanites, then, we know that there is a migration down into what we would call Southern Africa, and maybe even Southern Arabia. And, well, you come down later, and you get to the Queen of Sheba, who probably came from some area down in that south. Now, then, from, oh, the Euphrates River, and we've seen that in the news lately, the Tigris and the Euphrates, and remember, I'm not drawing to scale, but somewhere east of the Euphrates River, we have the establishment of the offspring of the other son of Noah, Shem. And then, from that Tower of Babel, as they began to migrate, as they migrated up predominantly toward Europe and western Russia, we have the offspring of Japheth. I guess it would be perfectly safe in saying that's predominantly what we call the white race, or the Caucasians are the Japhethites. Now, out of the line, then, of Shem, we're going to follow predominantly the man Abraham, who then becomes the father of not only the nation of Israel, but who else? All the Arab peoples. So, our Middle Eastern people are predominantly from Shem, and that's why I put it over here on the board. The offspring of Japheth are going to migrate up to Europe, Scandinavia, Great Britain, and all up and down western Russia. All you have to do is reflect on human history, and we know that from the Tower of Babel we have the population going to the Orient, China, and I think from China the Mongolians, and those are the people that migrated then across the Pacific, and were probably the forerunners of the American and the South American Indians, the Incas, but never lose sight of the fact that those people had tremendously advanced civilizations. In fact, the Chinese were way ahead of the Caucasian races when it came to materials such as silk and mathematics, the spices, and many other areas. So, you see that there's no superiority here in the Caucasians over some of these others, but it's the role. Now, this never dawned on me until the other day as I was just thinking, and I do a lot of my thinking just riding in that tractor, believe it or not, but it all of a sudden dawned on me that when God said here that He would enlarge Japheth, I think I can see now where it came about, and go with me, if you will, to the book of Acts. The book of Acts, chapter 16, Acts chapter 16. Now, up until this time, the Caucasian people, or the Japhethites, were for the most part barbarian. And if you'll remember, when Rome was at the pinnacle of its power, Rome was actually overrun by the barbarians from the north, you remember, from the Gauls who sacked Rome and burned it. Well, they were the people of Europe and northern Europe. And so, the Japhethites were really of not much impact on the human race until we get here to Acts chapter 16. And you remember, Paul has been spending all of his time there in Asia Minor, which today is the land of Turkey. Now, verse 6, when they had gone throughout Phrygia, in the region of Galatia, and were forbidden of the Holy Spirit to preach the word in Asia, Asia Minor. In fact, what Paul had really intended to do, according to this, is here he'd been in Asia Minor, and he intended to go back to the east. That was his intentions. But the Holy Spirit stopped him, and instead it sent him due west to the land of Greece, and hence the gospel went to what continent? Europe. And the gospel, as we now know it today, went to Europe, and it just simply overwhelmed it. And as the gospel went over Europe, that in turn prompted European peoples, by virtue of their convictions, to go where? To America. And so, we've seen now in the last several hundred years how that the Caucasian races have taken the things that were more or less lying there dormant for ever so long, and they've exploded it with intellectualism, with technology, and yet I think the engine behind it was Christianity itself. And so, all of this again ties together. Paul would have gone right back to Asia, but the Holy Spirit said, No, I want you to go to Europe, and from Europe the gospel spread to us. Thank you for watching Through the Bible with Les Feldick. Through the Bible is a partner-supported ministry. If this program has been a help to your study of the Scriptures and you'd like to see others enjoy the teaching, your support would be greatly appreciated. Write to us at Les Feldick Ministries, Route 1, Box 760, Kenta, Oklahoma, 74552, or call 1-800-369-7856. Remember, all programs are available in printed form, audio cassette, and videotape. Be sure to tune in next time to Through the Bible with Les Feldick.