WHY IS THE WORLD THE WAY IT IS?
BECAUSE GOD IS KIND TO BAD PEOPLE
GENESIS 9: 18 – 10:32
INTRODUCTION
In the early 1980’s a Jewish rabbi by the last name of Kershner wrote
a book that became a national best-seller overnight. The title of the
book was "Why do Bad Things Happen to Good People?" His book was an attempt
to deal with the age old problem of evil in the world. Traditionally it
is formulated like this: If God is loving and powerful then he would not
allow evil to exist, he would not allow the innocent to suffer. Evil does
exist therefore God is either not loving or not able to stop evil or both.
His answer to the problem of the suffering of the innocent was to say
that God loves human beings and is distressed about the suffering we endure
but there isn’t anything he can do about it. He is very sympathetic to
our plight and wants to comfort us in our suffering but he is unable to
do anything about stopping the evil. His solution to the problem of evil
in the world resulted in him creating a fictional god. The god he describes
in his book is not the God of the Bible.
Kershner’s motivation for writing this book came about through the loss
of a child to disease. The heart of the problem he was wrestling with
was not really the abstract issue of how can evil exist in a world ruled
by a loving and powerful God but a far more personal one. How could he
love and trust a God who took away his beloved child? If God caused or
allowed his child to die, how could he ever love or trust this God? Since
he was unwilling to love a God who would allow such suffering he made
up his own god to believe in. The emotional problem he was dealing with
is very real. However, we must beware of attempts to resolve our own pain
that result in us saying and believing things that are not true. Not only
do we dishonor God but we cut ourselves off from what will really help
us in our suffering.
The year after Kershner’s book was published I had occasion to visit
with a couple whose oldest son was killed while mountain climbing two
months earlier. They had read the book and accepted Kershner’s view of
god. They were very defensive and hostile to the traditional, biblical
view of a God who loves his people but who is in control of all the events
of life, including suffering. They were unwilling to love and trust a
God who would have taken their son from them. People in the midst of suffering
need our sympathy and comfort. However, it is a false comfort that presents
a god who does not exist. The unwillingness of Rabbi Kershner and my friends
to accept the biblical teaching that God loves his people and God is in
charge of the suffering of his people, while understandable, is wrong.
Their unwillingness is rooted not simply in a false understanding of God
but begins with a false view of humanity and our relationship to God.
What is more surprising to you…
- That you are usually healthy or that you sometimes get sick?
- That retail clerks are usually courteous or that sometimes they are
rude?
- That most people have a job or that sometimes people are unemployed?
- That your children usually obey you or that sometimes they disobey
you?
- That your parents are usually kind to you or that sometimes they are
mean to you?
- That there is such an abundance of food in the world or that sometimes
there are famines?
- That most days the weather is not threatening or that sometimes hurricanes
kill thousands of people?
- That children live past the age of five or that children die before
the age of five?
The Bible, especially the early chapters of Genesis is intent on persuading
us to be surprised by the kindness of God in caring for human beings.
The question the Bible wants us to wrestle with is not chiefly, "why do
bad things happen to good people?" but rather "why do good things happen
to evil people?" If you view adequate food as a right and not a gift you
will never be happy. If you view courteous treatment by others as a right
and not a gift you will always be complaining. If you view a happy marriage
as your due and not as a gift, then you will be unhappy in your marriage.
The end of the story of Noah in Genesis 9 and then the description of
what happens to his descendants in Genesis 10 is given to us so that we
will be surprised by God’s kindness. It is given to convince us that all
of life is a gift and we are to live in God’s world humbly and gratefully.
This passage tells us that…
MAIN POINT
We ought to be surprised that God is kind to the evil and the good
because…
I. All men are sinful (9:18-21)
I want you to consider what we’ve been told about Noah up to this time
in the story. First, I want you to notice that up to 9:25, Noah has not
spoken a word. Beginning in Genesis 6:9, all the way through the story
of the flood and God’s rescue of Noah and his family Noah is silent. All
the speaking is either done by God or the narrator telling the story.
All we know about Noah is what has been said to him and about him and
how he has responded to what has been said to him. Trace with me what
has been said to him and how he has responded.
- Gen 5:28 When naming Noah his father said, "he will comfort us in
the labor of our hands caused by the ground the Lord has cursed." Lamech
thinks that Noah may be the savior promised in 3:15. Throughout the
flood story we are given no reason to doubt that Lamech is correct.
- 6:8—Noah finds favor in God’s sight. God chooses to be gracious to
Noah. He initiates, not Noah.
- 6:9—Noah is described as a righteous man, blameless in his generation.
He walked with God.
- 6:22—Noah did everything just as God commanded him
- 7:5—Noah did all the Lord commanded him
- 7:7 & 13—Noah entered the ark
- 7:9 & 16—Noah loaded the animals on the ark, "as God had commanded
him"
- 8:8—He looks for God’s salvation, the drying up of the waters
- 8:18—Noah leaves the ark when God commands him to
- 8:20—Noah builds an altar and offers clean animals in sacrifice as
thanksgiving and for the forgiveness of sins
We might be tempted to think that we have in Noah a different kind of
human being. It appears that Noah doesn’t sin, that in Noah we have found
the Savior of humanity. Maybe the world will be different now. Maybe God’s
statements in 8:21 about humanity’s propensity to evil and his institution
of capital punishment in 9:6 are overly pessimistic. The story in 9:20
lets us know that we have the same problem in Noah and his sons as we
had in Adam and his sons. Just as God made promises to Adam in Genesis
1 & 2 so God has made promises to Noah and his sons in the first half
of Genesis 9. Then just as Adam ate fruit and so brought sin into the
world, so Noah takes of the fruit of the vine and sins by getting drunk
and uncovering himself. Both Adam’s and Noah’s sin are exposed in their
nakedness. Next, just as one of Adam’s sons follows in his father’s footsteps
by murdering his brother, so one of Noah’s sons uses the occasion of his
father’s drunkenness to sin. The similarities between the story of Adam’s
and Cain’s sin and Noah’s and Ham’s sins are meant to let us know that
sin is still rampant within the human race.
I was at a funeral once and overheard a relative of the person who died
say, "If anyone was good enough to go to heaven she was. If she’s not
in heaven then none of us will make it." As human beings we are constantly
evaluating our own behavior and the behavior of others against a standard
of goodness of our own making. God’s standard of goodness is his own character.
He says in the OT, "Be holy, for I am holy". In the NT, Jesus says, "Be
perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect". No one meets the standard.
All of us are bent on living independent of God. We all love to sin, even
Noah. We will never be surprised by God’s kindness until we are absolutely
convinced of our own sin.
We ought to be surprised that God is kind to the evil and the good
because…
- All humans are sinful
- And because…
II. Some boast of their sin while others are ashamed of sin. (9: 22-24)
In vv. 22-24 we see how Noah’s sons have two different reactions to their
father’s sin. Ham, the youngest son of Noah goes into Noah’s tent, sees
his father laying naked in his drunken stupor and then goes out and boasts
about what he has seen. He exposes his fathers shame. Something that we
in the democratic west don’t really understand is how highly God values
respect for parents. The fourth of the 10 commandments declares, "Honor
your father and mother". Paul repeats this instruction in Ephesians 6:
1-3 "Children, obey your parents in the Lord. Honor your father and mother…"
In Israel, a child who cursed his parents was to be put to death. In several
of the lists in the NT that prove how sinful human beings are apart from
God’s grace, disobedience to parents is listed right along with murder
and sexual immorality and the other "big" sins.
A word to the children…
What Ham does here is very wicked. He is an adult with his own family.
He not only enters his father’s tent in order to see how his father has
shamed himself but he also publicly exposes his father’s shame. He is
scornful of his father and seeks to involve his brothers in mocking their
father. It is a mark of sinful human beings that we not only love to sin
but we also love to involve other people in our sin. We don’t like to
be around people who will not participate with us in our sin. How many
people have become addicted to alcohol and other drugs because their "friends"
kept insisting that they join them in their partying? How many of us participate
in gossip because a friend cannot keep quiet? How many families or churches
have been split because of the need of someone to prove that they are
right and the "others" are wrong?
The thing that divides human beings is right here. How we respond to
the reality of sin is the thing that divides one human from another. As
the rest of this passage makes very clear, the human experience is the
same, regardless of race, gender, age, economic status, etc. What makes
one human different from another is how we deal with the reality of our
own sin and the sin of others. Do we defend our right to behave how we
want to behave or do we acknowledge sin and seek to cover it? Those who
belong to God openly confess their sins and seek God’s forgiveness in
Christ. They seek to help others find relief from their sins in Christ.
There are only two kinds of humans as these three brothers show.
When Ham sees the drunkenness and shameful behavior of his father he
is offended by it and so mocks his dad. My guess is that he is being self-righteous
and judgmental. He sees his dad’s sin as a bigger problem than his own
sin. Ham says something like this, "How could dad have done this? Doesn’t
he care about us, about our children? How could he treat us like this?
Shem and Japheth, can you believe how stupid our dad is? You’d think he,
of all people, would know better. There he is, lying in the tent drunk
and naked. What a fool! What a disgrace to us and our families! How will
we ever be a happy family again?" Ham, like us, is able to see the sin
of others and feels the hurt of others against himself more than he sees
the sinfulness of his own behavior.
The action of Shem and Japheth to cover up their father shows that they
recognize the shamefulness of their father’s sin but it also shows they
understand that they are not responsible for how their dad behaves. They
are responsible for how they behave. They have to choose, will they allow
their father’s sin to cause them to sin or will they respond to their
father’s sin with love and respect? We see in Shem and Japheth the humility
and the charity of people who know their own sin and know the reality
of God’s forgiveness. People of faith are honest about sin, they don’t
ignore it, but they don’t use the sin of others as an excuse to sin. They
seek to help others overcome sin.
We ought to be surprised that God is kind to the evil and the good
because…
- All humans are sinful
- Some boast of sin and others are ashamed of sin
- And because…
III. God promises to destroy all those who boast in sin and to bless
all those who are ashamed of sin (9: 25-27)
When Noah awakes from his drunken stupor and finds out how Ham has treated
him he speaks the only words we have recorded from his lips. He acts as
a prophet of God and declares that, because of Ham’s sin, his descendants
will be under God’s curse. He also declares that because of Shem and Japheth’s
obedience their descendants will be blessed.
What is surprising about Noah’s statement in v. 25 is that he curses
Canaan, who we find out in 10:6 is the 4th born son of Ham.
Why does he curse Canaan and not Ham? You’re going to have to pay careful
attention. First, I want you to notice that twice in the verses just preceding
Noah’s curse we are told that Ham is the father of Canaan (vv. 18 &
22). In fact, when Moses reports the sin that Ham committed he also tells
us that Ham is the father of Canaan. If you look over at 10:6 you will
seen that Ham has 4 sons, so why is Canaan picked out? The other thing
to notice is that in chapter 10, which lists the descendants of Noah’s
sons, Canaan is given more ink than any other descendant, see 10: 15-19.
When the writers of the OT wanted to highlight something they would give
it more ink. Why the emphasis on Canaan?
The answer lies again in remembering to whom this was first written.
It was written to Israel in the desert prior to their going into the land
of Canaan. God has promised them that he is going to give them the land
of the Canaanites. They are to go into the land and kill all the tribes
of Canaanites, they are to spare none. Look with me at Genesis 15:16
on page 10. God is making his promise to Abraham that he will make him
into a great nation and that he will give the land of Palestine to his
descendants. He tells him that his descendants will live in Egypt for
four hundred years but then they will come back to the land of Palestine.
Why is God going to wait all this time? "because the sin of the Amorites
has not yet reached its full measure". The Amorites are one of the Canaanite
tribes. All of the Canaanites are often referred to as Amorites. Now look
at Deuteronomy 7: 1-6, page 131. The Canaanites stand as a symbol
throughout the OT for those who oppose God. They are the enemies of God
who worship false gods and engage in all kinds of sinful behavior. They
are just like their father Ham who was not ashamed of his own sin but
rather boasted in it. So, the promise to destroy Canaan and then their
destruction by Israel stand as a warning that God will punish all who
are not ashamed of sin and who do not seek forgiveness for their sin.
Canaan is destroyed because of sin, not because God is a racist. God is
going to destroy every sinner who does not repent and find refuge in Christ.
Notice that not only does God promise to destroy those who, like Ham,
are not ashamed of sin but defiant in their sin, but he also promises
to bless those who are like Shem and Japheth. The promise is made to those
who live by faith. If you are a person who is ashamed of sin, seeks forgiveness
for your sin and seeks to help others overcome their sin, then the promise
is for you.
We ought to be surprised that God is kind to the evil and the good
because…
- All humans are sinful
- Some boast of sin and others are ashamed of sin
- God promises to destroy all those who boast in sin and to bless
all those who are ashamed of sin
- And because…
IV. At present, God shows abundant kindness to both (10:1-32)
When we read 10:1 after having just heard Noah’s curse and blessing on
his sons we expect to see the fruit of that cursing and blessing. However,
what do we find in chapter 10? See in vv 2-5 the sons of Japheth, in vv.
6-20, the sons of Ham and in vv. 21-31 the sons of Shem. Look at how each
of these genealogies end, v. 5, 20, 31 and 32. We would expect to see
some evidence of God’s curse on Canaan and his blessing on Shem and Japheth.
Yet what do we find? All of Noah’s sons flourish in exactly the same manner.
God is kind to all three sons. In fact, a case could be made that, at
least in this chapter, Ham and his descendants are more prosperous than
the other two. Look at Nimrod in vv. 8-11.
- Successful hunter
- Had a proverb coined because of him
- Successful city builder
In fact, Ham has at least 38 descendants named while Japheth has only
14 and Shem only 26. Ham has 15 verses of ink, Japheth only 4 and Shem
9. All of the descendants of Noah flourish and it even seems that Ham
and his offspring do even better than the other two.
What we see here is something the Bible says over and over. Jesus himself
says what we are seeing here in Matthew 5 when he says, "God causes his
sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous
and the unrighteous." You cannot know how God feels about you or about
any other human being based on how well or how poorly the circumstances
of life are going. Every human being is being treated with much greater
kindness than they deserve. Yet God is going to make a distinction among
human beings. He promises to destroy all those who will not repent of
their sin and trust in Christ and he promises to eternally bless all who
do face their sin, repent of it and find refuge in Christ.
The person of faith knows that all the kindnesses we experience here
on earth are but a prelude and a hint to the eternal happiness of heaven.
As Jonathon Edwards says:
"The enjoyment of God is the only happiness with which our souls can
be satisfied. To go to heaven, fully to enjoy God, is infinitely better
than the most pleasant accommodations here. Fathers and mothers, husbands,
wives or children, or the company of earthly friends are but shadows;
but God is the substance. These are but scattered beams, but God is the
sun. These are but streams. God is the ocean."
We also know that all the suffering in this world is only a hint of the
suffering that awaits all those who refuse to trust in Christ. All those
who treat sin like Ham will suffer forever. But it isn’t now, now God
is kind to the evil and the good. Psalm 73 is written to deal with this
problem. Why do the wicked seem to prosper and there seems to be so little
benefit to following Christ? Please turn there, page 415. Read vv. 2-5
& 12, then vv. 13, 16-20, then vv. 25-28.
Boris Kornfield in Loving God
We ought to be surprised that God is kind to the evil and the good
because…
- All humans are sinful
- Some boast of sin and others are ashamed of sin
- God promises to destroy all those who boast in sin and to bless
all those who are ashamed of sin
- At present, God is abundantly kind to both
© Copyright
2000 John Swanson.
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