It is presidential campaign season, and as you probably know, it has already gotten pretty ugly. Candidates always look for some flaw or weakness to exploit in their opponents – and of course they never fail to find something! We shouldn’t be surprised; because every one of us has flaws and failures.
In fact, one of the great arguments in favor of the authenticity of scripture is that the Bible does not present a “glossed over” version of its heroes – rather it portrays them “warts and all”. It shows us their strengths to encourage and challenge us – but it also reveals their weaknesses, that we might learn from them too.
One such place is in the Book of Genesis, Chapter 9, which describes what happened after Noah and his family came out of the ark after the great flood. God gave the rainbow as a covenant, saying that He would never again destroy the world with a flood. In :18 it reminds us that the sons of Noah were Shem, Ham & Japeth. And the narrative continues in :20: “Then Noah began farming and planted a vineyard.” And :21 says “He drank of the wine and became drunk, and uncovered himself inside his tent.” We will stop right there for now.
When I came to this passage the other day in my Bible reading time, I thought with chagrin, “Oh, I had forgotten about this.” When I think of Noah, I don’t generally think about this scene. I think of how it says earlier that he “found grace in the eyes of the Lord” (6:8), and how he was a righteous man, and how Chapter 6:22 says that he “did according to ALL that God had commanded him”. Noah was a great man of God. His faith is immortalized in the great chapter of “The Hall of Faith” in Hebrews 11.
And yet we find him here, after the ordeal of the flood is over, planting grapes and getting drunk and “uncovering himself inside his tent.” Now, there are a number of different interpretations of just what that “uncovering” means, and what Ham’s sin was in relation to it, but we are not going to delve into that tonight (“thank goodness!” you may be thinking!) But what struck me when I read this recently, and what I want to focus on for just a few minutes tonight, is the fact that even this great man of God, this forefather of the faith, who was so strong in so many ways, had his own failings. This one of whom it was said that “according to all that God commanded him, so he did” regarding the ark and the flood, acted dishonorably on this occasion. Which serves to remind us of the universal truths: “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” “There is none righteous, not even one.” “There is none good, not even one.”
It is just a good reminder of the sin nature that is in us all, and that there are no perfect saints. Not Noah, who got drunk; not Moses, who got angry and struck the rock; not David, who sinned with Bathsheba; not Elijah, who lost his faith under the threat of Jezebel; not Peter, who caved in to the “peer pressure” of the Judaizers in Galatians 2 … NO saint is perfect! Here in this patriarch is what most of us today would consider a MAJOR flaw – drunkenness! Can you imagine the scandal if one of our staff members or deacons or Sunday School teachers was found drunk?! It would be scandalous! And this in a man who had such faith, and who had found favor in the eyes of the Lord, and who had seen God do such miraculous things in the flood. It is needed reminder of the sin nature that indwells us all – and that such failings are not beyond any of us! Now, let me make it clear that the universal nature of our sins and failures does not excuse them; but this truth should remind each one of us to have three important attitudes about the failures of others: Continue reading →
shawnethomas 