Blessed is the One Whose Sin is Covered

Blessed is the One Whose Sin in Covered

We are continuing in our series called Genesis: After the Flood. Noah and his family have debarked off the flood and are basically beginning again. At this point we come to a pretty strange story about Noah and his sons. Let’s begin reading at verse 18.

Genesis 9:18-29

I. Understanding the passage

We can see that this passage records an embarrassing moment for the Noah family, but why is it important enough to be recorded in the Bible? What’s really going on here and why is it such a big deal? Let’s take a minute to unpack this story because what happens between Noah and his sons will have a major impact on nations yet to be born.

The Bible describes Noah as a blameless and righteous man who “walked with God”. Before the flood, when the world was full of perversion and violence, Noah stood out and stood strong as a godly man. But here we see that while Noah was a godly man, he was not a perfect man. Noah plants a vineyard – the first vineyard to be planted after the flood - and he gets to sampling the fruits of his labor (wine) and, well, Noah gets rip roaring drunk. Not just tipsy, but three sheets to the wind drunk.

And somehow in his inebriated state Noah ends up lying naked and unconscious in his tent. So to the sin of drunkenness Noah adds the shame of passing out naked and exposed in his tent. It is a sad and brutally honest story of a righteous man exposed as a flawed man. Noah was a sinful man in need of grace, just like you and me.

At this point Noah’s son Ham enters the tent and sees his father lying drunk and naked, uncovered. Now we need to understand that in ancient Eastern morality to look on your parent’s nakedness was a very serious violation of decency and privacy, and Ham would have known this. But rather than discreetly covering his father and thereby ending the matter and protecting his father’s dignity, Ham went and told his brothers about their father’s exposure, not to ask for help, but to invite them to join his enjoyment of his father’s shame and to widen the circle of that shame.

Shem and Japheth realize how serious this is, and they take pains not to further shame their father by looking on him in this sad state, but they put a garment over their shoulders between them and walk into Noah’s tent backwards so that they don’t see Noah, and so that as they pass over Noah, the garment drops over him and covers him completely. Stark contrast between Ham’s desire to expose Noah’s shame and Shem and Japheth’s desire to cover their father’s shame. When Noah wakes up and finds out what happened, he curses Ham and he blesses Shem and Japheth.

More prophetic oracles than blessings and curses

But here more questions are raised: why does Noah curse Canaan when it’s Canaan’s father Ham who violated Noah’s dignity? And why do these blessings and curses “take” in such a way that future generations are affected by them? It’s clear from the OT that the Canaanites are cursed by God and the children of Shem – the Jews – will especially be blessed by God. A blessing or a curse is only as powerful as God is willing to fulfill it, yet it seems that God does fulfill Noah’s curse and blessing. Why?

• Ham’s sin was of a perverse nature and it is very possible (even likely) that Noah saw the same

immoral characteristics already manifesting themselves in Ham’s youngest son Canaan.

One of the things the Canaanites would be known for was their sexual immorality. As a nation they would become abhorrent to God in large part because of their reprehensible perversions. In some way Noah might have seen this already forming in Canaan. Ham’s sin was indeed passed on through Canaan.

• These are not just blessings and curses – they are prophetic oracles from God

God fulfilled Noah’s words because they were oracles given to Noah by God. God saw that this event in the tent was a glimpse into what type of legacy these men would leave. God intended to bless Shem’s offspring. The Canaanites would be one of Israel’s greatest and most despised enemies for centuries to come.

Remember that it is Moses who wrote Genesis, and this passage would have great meaning to the Israelites as they have been promised the land of Canaan by God. So this is a prophetic oracle foreshadowing the wicked and cursed progeny of Ham and Canaan.

So this embarrassing family moment was to have far-reaching effects on the future generations (and future nations) of Ham, Shem, and Japheth. But let’s take our final minutes to consider what we can learn from this passage this morning. I want to share two lessons relevant to us from this passage.

II. Blessed is the one whose sin is covered

Every one of us has sin that needs to be covered. If Noah, as righteous and blameless as he was, had this kind of moral meltdown, showing himself to be a sinful, flawed man in need of God’s forgiveness and grace, how much more do we need the kind of grace that covers sin and shame?

Exposed before God

You know what the greatest terror will be on judgment day? It will be the sense of raw terror at being completely seen and exposed by the eyes of Him who sees all.

And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account. Hebrews 4:13 (ESV)

When we think of scary and terrifying now we tend to think of dark, demonic, evil kind of stuff. Raw wickedness, the unknown and evil, raw violence – those are things that scare us, which is why horror movies are so scary to us. But on judgment day those who die without Christ will face something that will be far, far more terrifying: the perfectly pure goodness of God. We don’t think of raw goodness as being terrifying, but it will be on that day to sinners

On judgment day God’s good and perfect and just eyes will penetrate through to the inner being of every sinner not in Christ and nothing will be hidden and nothing will be clean and they will feel naked and exposed and vulnerable to righteous judgment.

With that in mind, David – himself no stranger to serious and secret sin – writes:

Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Psalm 32:1

The ultimate act of covering love was accomplished by Jesus Christ on the cross. His blood covers all the sins of every person who places their trust in Him, and He covers our nakedness with the garment of His righteousness.

On that day before God, we will not stand naked and ashamed as we deserve, but Jesus will cover us in His righteousness and we will be holy in the Father’s sight. Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.

III. Blessed is the covered sinner who covers sinners

When Ham saw his father Noah drunk and naked, rather than covering his father’s shame, he wanted to expose it further. He took delight in widening the circle of who knew about it. We need to be careful that we don’t follow in his footsteps.

There is a perverse kind of delight that we can derive from exposing other people’s sin, shame or weaknesses. In a sad and pitiful way it can make us feel better about ourselves as if belittling others makes us a bigger person. Pitiful.

ILL: I wish I could say I have never been tempted in this way – that wouldn’t be true. I remember a night some years ago when I was pastoring on Long Island and we held a Good Friday service combining three churches. After the service a couple came up to me who were members of one of the other churches and they began to unload their grievances with their church and how they were sure we were much better. Man, I ate it up. Not only then, but I turned that over in my heart all the way home.

Now since then I have learned that those kinds of compliments are really pretty worthless. But what should be concerning to me or you in moments like that is why do we enjoy the weakness of someone else being exposed? Be sure of this: one day it will be you (or me) and we won’t like it one bit then. Blessed is the covered sinner who covers sinners.

• Watch out for gossip – Gossip is really taking delight in exposing someone else to someone else.

The words of a whisperer are like delicious morsels; they go down into the inner parts of the body. Proverbs 18:8 (ESV)

It’s the kind of delicious that Ham had a taste for. He went to whisper it to his brothers. We need to recognize that God will not bless that kind of behavior. Don’t pass on rumors. Don’t give ear to rumors and gossip. We all have taste buds for juicy gossip – recognize the cursed nature of that stuff and don’t cultivate a taste for it, but of covering. You have been covered – cover others.

• Watch your humor – There is a kind of humor that tears down others in people’s eyes. I’m not hyper-sensitive to jokes and there is a place for what we in SGM call “busting” on each other – good natured, affectionate busting keeps us humble. But sarcasm has been called a way to speak cutting truth in the guise of humor. If your home is filled with sarcasm, be careful. It is a humor that cuts people down – and it’s really not funny. A friend once made the observation that sarcasm is a substitute for intimacy. Ever notice there are some relationships that are built entirely on sarcasm? Never move to serious conversation, never honor, never encourage, never ask hard questions. Often continual sarcasm makes it nearly impossible to transition to anything deeper.

• Watch your prayer requests – what might be the most insidious disguises that uncovering people can take is uncovering someone in the form of a prayer request. “I want us to pray for the Joneses, I heard they are going through some real marital difficulties, and I happened to see Mr. Jones having lunch with a woman that wasn’t his wife and I’m real concerned.” We should pray for one another – and it would be very appropriate to say we’ve had the Joneses on our hearts and want to lift them up to the Lord, that God would strengthen and bless them. But watch out for the temptation to pull back the covers – you just want so badly for people to know what’s really going on.

The difference between covering and covering up

Now, in this day of scandal and cover up, it’s important to say that what I am advocating here is covering other’s sin and keeping the circles of who knows what as small as possible. I am not talking about covering up sin.

The Catholic Church is reeling right now from allegations of covering up for the horrible, immoral acts of certain priests. When a church or a Christian tries to cover-up sin, it adds more sin to sin. It is the responsibility of any Christian or church leadership to uncover and deal with sin in appropriate and responsible ways. We protect one another’s reputation and dignity, but we don’t protect one another from the right and proper consequences that are attached to certain actions.

Love covers a multitude of sins – but so can fear of facing consequences, so we must be courageous in asking what is loving, just and right in this situation? More could be said about that, but you get the point.

Conclusion:

In John 8 there is a story of a woman caught in adultery – in the very act. The religious leaders cruelly brought her to Jesus, exposing her sin and inviting Jesus to condemn her for it. There is a kind of religious spirit that feels righteous enough to expose others in their sin for their own religious agenda.

Jesus invited the one who was without his or her own sin to be the first one to cast a stone at her. They all left, pricked by guilty consciences. And then the One who could have righteously stoned her, said these freeing words to her,

"Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?" 11She said, "No one, Lord." And Jesus said, "Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more." John 8:10-11

Christian, you are blessed because the Lord has covered your sins, and does not condemn you, though He could. If we live in the daily awareness of that blessed truth it will protect us from becoming like the religious leaders exposing and be more like Christ, covering. And repent where we find delight in exposing.

God has commissioned us to tell people about the Savior who didn’t come to condemn them, but to die for them, so that they might covered. Forgiven. If you are not a Christian, I believe the Lord Jesus Himself is inviting you to come to Him, not to be condemned, but to be covered. As we sing this last song, will you come to Him in your heart, placing your trust in His death and resurrection for our salvation?