When Noah awoke from his wine and knew what his youngest son had done to him, he said, “Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be to his brothers.” He also said, “Blessed be the LORD, the God of Shem; and let Canaan be his servant. May God enlarge Japheth, and let him dwell in the tents of Shem, and let Canaan be his servant.”- Genesis 9:24-27 ESV

Warrior;
This is an interesting passage. Life was destroyed on the earth, 40 days it rained, and many more days were Noah and the other surviving 7, on the ark. For behold, I will bring a flood of waters upon the earth to destroy all flesh in which is the breath of life under heaven. Everything that is on the earth shall die. But I will establish my covenant with you, and you shall come into the ark, you, your sons, your wife, and your sons’ wives with you. (Genesis 6:17-18) There were now only 8 on the planet; Noah and his three sons; Shem, Japheth and Ham, and all 4 brought their wives. There were 8 people who were left, who were saved, who were DELIVERED… to repopulate the earth, to start over. Why did this happen, what brought about the destruction by the flood? The same thing that is destroying America today, and leading the world into a kingdom of darkness, despair, fear, and separation from God- Man and our wicked hearts! The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the LORD regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. So the LORD said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them.” But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD. (Genesis 6:5-8) The belief that man is basically good is NOT biblical, it is NOT true and that lie needs to be replaced with the TRUTH. The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? (Jeremiah 17:9)

Leader, in the Bible Egypt is representative of the world. As we learned during the exodus, you can get the people out of Egypt, but getting Egypt out of the people is a much more difficult job. In other words, we are flesh and because of that flesh, we sin. We are NOT sinners because we sin, we sin because we are sinners! Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned. (Romans 5:12) Todays text in Genesis 9 is referred to as the CURSE OF HAM. The Bible functions on a NEED-TO-KNOW basis; God tells us what He feels we need to know. There are many things, many pieces of information that are NOT in the Bible and one of them is this puzzling question: What did HAM do that caused such a harsh and consequential action by God and Noah? We do not know the details of what Ham did, but we know it was severe enough to get Ham and His ‘line’ cursed throughout all of eternity. What we do know: 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. (Genesis 9:20-23) There is much speculation in Biblical circles about what could have happened to create such a harsh punishment. It is posited that Ham could have mocked Noah to his brothers, he could have been gossiping about seeing his drunk father, naked, it is thought that maybe Ham molested Noah, or in his drunken state maybe there was homosexual activity. Nobody knows, but what is known is the harshness and severity of the punishment.

Conduit, in the 10 commandments there is only one commandment that has a blessing tied to it. The 5th commandment states: Honor your father and mother. Then you will live a long, full life in the land the Lord your God is giving you. (Exodus 20:12) God was starting fresh, over, with a new group of people and He was offended by Ham’s lack of honor in this new beginning? Also, remember at the end of Genesis 6:8, but Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD. Since Noah was GOD’S man, and HAM or Canaan violated Noah, maybe that is what drew God’s ire? Whatever happened, it was a BIG DEAL! Similar to the BIG DEALS with Korah and the rebellion against God’s man Moses. Numbers 16:1–40 indicates that Korah rebelled against Moses along with 249 co-conspirators and were punished for their rebellion when God first opened the earth to swallow them and then sent fire from heaven to consume all 250 of them. It was a big deal with Israel’s first king, Saul, refused to follow God’s direct instructions and destroy all the Amalekites in 1 Samuel 15. This is what the Lord of armies says: ‘I will punish Amalek for what he did to Israel, in that he obstructed him on the way while he was coming up from Egypt. 3 Now go and strike Amalek and completely destroy everything that he has, and do not spare him; but put to death both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.’” (1 Samuel 15:2,3) It was a BIG DEAL when Moses hit the rock at Meribah, instead of speaking to it, like God had instructed him! See Numbers 20:11. This happened at Meribah, which in Hebrew means: Strife, contention or quarreling- which is exactly what was going on. This, seeming small act kept Moses from going into the promise land. We know that HAM disrespected His Father, and we know that HAM rebelled against God, when He rebelled against Noah, and we know that HIS entire line was accursed. It comes down to OBEDIENCE and honoring those that God honors! In the MSG paraphrase Samuel’s explanation to Saul, I believe, is the best explanation for God’s interaction with Ham, Korah, Moses, Saul and us. Then Samuel said, Do you think all God wants are sacrifices— empty rituals just for show? He wants you to listen to him! Plain listening is the thing, not staging a lavish religious production. Not doing what God tells you is far worse than fooling around in the occult. Getting self-important around God is far worse than making deals with your dead ancestors. Because you said No to God’s command, he says No to your kingship. Jesus said it best when He walked among us: Why do you call Me, “Lord, Lord,” and do not do what I say? Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. (Luke 6:46, John 14:23) Today remember, if you are going to where the banner of CHRISTIAN, you might want to obey Christ and live by His standards and His instructions! But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. (Matthew 6:33)