What is Destiny?
Notes
Transcript
Intro:
Pg. 92 Frederick Douglas
We hear things like:
My parents were divorced.
My dad has anger issues, so I do.
My dad didn’t care for his family.
My dad abused me.
I sat with a person who harmed himself to deal with the emotional pain of abuse in his past.
We live in a very broken world.
The more you get to know people the more you see.
I. Noah was to be the restart
I. Noah was to be the restart
God was committed to the human race.
God had promised that the offspring of the woman would deal a blow to Satan.
God saved a remnant of the human race.
Noah was to be this restart.
Him and 3 sons and their wives.
He begins farming.
Planted a vineyard.
He drinks of the wine and becomes drunk.
I wondered didn’t he know what the excess would do?
Wasn’t he delivered from the chaos that more than likely involved drunkenness.
This created trouble.
Because of his drunkenness he did something he wouldn’t have done otherwise.
The problem with drunkenness. We don’t have control of ourselves.
This is the problem with other mind altering drugs as well.
It is often a way of self-medicating to deal with emotional pain.
What does the NT say about drunkeness?
34 “But take heed to yourselves, lest your hearts be weighed down with carousing, drunkenness, and cares of this life, and that Day come on you unexpectedly. 35 For it will come as a snare on all those who dwell on the face of the whole earth. 36 Watch therefore, and pray always that you may be counted worthy to escape all these things that will come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man.”
3 For we have spent enough of our past lifetime in doing the will of the Gentiles—when we walked in lewdness, lusts, drunkenness, revelries, drinking parties, and abominable idolatries. 4 In regard to these, they think it strange that you do not run with them in the same flood of dissipation, speaking evil of you. 5 They will give an account to Him who is ready to judge the living and the dead.
There are more we could look at, but we know that getting drunk is often associated with casting off all restraint and ending up in more sin and consequences. College parties. Immorality. Loss of life. Drunk driving.
e. Anyway we look at it, Noah wasn’t in his right mind.
i. Ham was involved in something with him.
a. Some think it was more than just looking. (Somehow Noah knew what happened).
b. Possibly some mockery involved. (He told his two brothers).
ii. Shem and Japheth respected their father.
They had respect for his dignity.
II. The curse of Canaan
II. The curse of Canaan
Noah cursed Canaan. God didn’t.
Why Canaan and not Ham?
One, the blessing on the other brothers was looking to their descendants.
Two, Ham was already blessed by God.
How much weight did this carry?
Was it actually more of a prophecy?
I would tend to think there is something to this.
Basic Principle of like begets like.
Canaan was going to replicate the immorality of his father.
The descendants of Shem and Japheth would reflect their honor.
III. Misconceptions about this Curse.
III. Misconceptions about this Curse.
That it is ongoing today.
It was fulfilled when they served the Israelites.
That Ham was black and so the people with black skin were under this curse.
People used this to Justify the trans Atlantic slave trade.
No evidence biblically.
It does not say that no one had a chance if they were a descendant of Canaan.
That this had to do with race.
One, there were 3 other sons of Ham, but Canaan got the curse.
Some are unsure how this first became associated with black people. There seems to be evidence that Jewish, Christian and Muslims all bear some responsibility for this.
Arabs had begun to enslave some African people
Darkness became associated with servitude.
Then Europeans and Americans.
Some say the Canaanites were certainly not African.
IV. Truth
IV. Truth
“The Canaanites were to suffer the curse and the bondage not because of the sins of Ham, but because they themselves acted like Ham, because of their own transgressions” Cassuto, from Noah,
3 According to the doings of the land of Egypt, where you dwelt, you shall not do; and according to the doings of the land of Canaan, where I am bringing you, you shall not do; nor shall you walk in their ordinances.
4 “Do not think in your heart, after the Lord your God has cast them out before you, saying, ‘Because of my righteousness the Lord has brought me in to possess this land’; but it is because of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord is driving them out from before you. 5 It is not because of your righteousness or the uprightness of your heart that you go in to possess their land, but because of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord your God drives them out from before you, and that He may fulfill the word which the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. 6 Therefore understand that the Lord your God is not giving you this good land to possess because of your righteousness, for you are a stiff-necked people.
Joshua went on to recount what they had done to get to wander in the wilderness.
b. “The difference between the future prospects of the ancestral brothers pertains to their morality, not their ethnicity as such” Bruce K. Waltke
i. Family of the prostitute, Canaanite Rahab becomes part of the covenant family.
14 So the men answered her, “Our lives for yours, if none of you tell this business of ours. And it shall be, when the Lord has given us the land, that we will deal kindly and truly with you.”
17 Now the city shall be doomed by the Lord to destruction, it and all who are in it. Only Rahab the harlot shall live, she and all who are with her in the house, because she hid the messengers that we sent.
5 Salmon begot Boaz by Rahab, Boaz begot Obed by Ruth, Obed begot Jesse, 6 and Jesse begot David the king.
David the king begot Solomon by her who had been the wife of Uriah.
31 By faith the harlot Rahab did not perish with those who did not believe, when she had received the spies with peace.
c. The Judean Achan is cut off when he behaves like the Canaanites.
i. Joshua 7
ii. 2 Kings 17:20 (NKJV)
20 And the LORD rejected all the descendants of Israel, afflicted them, and delivered them into the hand of plunderers, until He had cast them from His sight.
V. Opportunity and Redemption
V. Opportunity and Redemption
Yes. Sin has lasting consequences. We see it in this story. Yet there is redemption!
Culture is real and it certainly shapes people, but this is not the end of the story.
People will be added to God’s people by rebirth.
4 “I shall mention Rahab and Babylon among those who know Me;
Behold, Philistia and Tyre with Ethiopia:
‘This one was born there.’ ”
5 But of Zion it shall be said, “This one and that one were born in her”;
And the Most High Himself will establish her.
6 The Lord will count when He registers the peoples,
“This one was born there.”
Selah.
b. They are not bound by ethnicity.
c. They are not bound by culture or a people group.
i. Race is not biblical, we do well to replace this with “people group” It is not mentioned in the Bible.
ii. Pg. 53 - 55 One Blood.
Think about the wars and trouble over “race”.
What Hitler did and the difference may have been greater among fellow Germans.
It is absurd.
d. Jesus had Mercy on the Canaanite Woman. This also must have had a profound effect on the Jewish people.
21 Then Jesus went out from there and departed to the region of Tyre and Sidon. 22 And behold, a woman of Canaan came from that region and cried out to Him, saying, “Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David! My daughter is severely demon-possessed.”
23 But He answered her not a word.
And His disciples came and urged Him, saying, “Send her away, for she cries out after us.”
24 But He answered and said, “I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”
25 Then she came and worshiped Him, saying, “Lord, help me!”
26 But He answered and said, “It is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the little dogs.”
27 And she said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the little dogs eat the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table.”
28 Then Jesus answered and said to her, “O woman, great is your faith! Let it be to you as you desire.” And her daughter was healed from that very hour.
e. The Jews had the first opportunity.
25 You are sons of the prophets, and of the covenant which God made with our fathers, saying to Abraham, ‘And in your seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed.’ 26 To you first, God, having raised up His Servant Jesus, sent Him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from your iniquities.”
f. The Jews were to be a light to the Gentiles!
i. They quote from Isaiah in Acts.
46 Then Paul and Barnabas grew bold and said, “It was necessary that the word of God should be spoken to you first; but since you reject it, and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, behold, we turn to the Gentiles. 47 For so the Lord has commanded us:
‘I have set you as a light to the Gentiles,
That you should be for salvation to the ends of the earth.’ ”
48 Now when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and glorified the word of the Lord. And as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed.
e. Opportunity and hope.
i. This is what continues to drive me forward.
The last Adam I Cor. 15:45
Bear the image of the heavenly.
Not of the dust.
ii. The gospel really is good for people.
iii. No, you are not bound by what your dad or mom was or did.
You are not bound by what your culture is or was.
You have the opportunity to be reborn.
iv. We have the light, we bear responsibility to carry this forward.
To engage with people. To spread the message of hope.
Go out with confidence, that God is the healer.
God is desiring for all people to experience redemption.
God wants to see family tree’s changed.
God wants to give people the ability to break from bondages of drunkeness, immorality, and anger.
God wants to heal people.
Mark 3:31-35 Jesus said “here is my family”
The last Adam gave us the mandate to teach all peoples this message. No one is excluded on race or people group.
Jesus came and conquered, but it was not by shedding of enemies blood but his own. He offers the open hand to all. The question I leave and continue to ask is how can we show Jesus better, how can we invite better. How can we give hope better.