Genesis 6:5-7 "Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. (v.6) And the Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. (v.7) So the Lord said, 'I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth...' "

From the verses above, it seems that even in the relatively brief time that humanity has been around, things have already gotten so bad that God can't stand it. God is described as being so unhappy with the situation that He decides to "...destroy man...from the face of the earth". Luckily for us though---

Genesis 6:8 "...Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord."

If Noah hadn't "found grace in the eyes of the lord," the bible would have been a mighty short book. Thankfully, God was not yet ready to give up on the human race... He told Noah to get busy and build a big boat, because He was planning on ---

Genesis 6:17 "...bringing the flood of waters on the earth, to destroy from under heaven all flesh... everything that is on the earth shall die."

Noah was smart enough to listen to what God was saying and he ---

Genesis 6:22 "...did according to all that God commanded him..."

Noah built a big boat (or "ark" as the bible refers to it) and eventually ---

Genesis 7:20-21 "The waters prevailed... and the mountains were covered (v.21) ...and all flesh died..."

But because God found Noah to be worth saving, he and his family were eventually delivered onto dry land once more. Through Noah and his family, God essentially gives humanity a fresh start, telling them to ---

Genesis 8:17 "...be fruitful and multiply on the earth..."

Ahhhhh.... a fresh start. This seems encouraging.

In a sense, Noah and his family have now been 'separated' from sin, right? Clearly, they have been 'separated' from the sinful world which had surrounded them. That world is now gone, wiped clean by the flood.

So then ... things will go better this time, right?

Well... maybe not ---

Genesis 9:21-22 (Noah)"...drank of the wine and was drunk, and became uncovered in his tent. (v.22) And Ham... saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brothers outside."

Some people see Noah's drunkenness as being the main point of this story and use it to support their belief that drinking is a sin. While I would agree that drunkenness is not wise and can certainly lead to sin, in reality, drinking is just a secondary issue here.

There is 'sin' being described in the above passage, but it's Ham's sin, not Noah's.

When Ham saw the "nakedness" of his father, he had a choice. He could have gone in and covered his father up, and then gone quietly on with his own business. If he had done that, he would have been showing love and respect by doing what he could to restore his father's honor and preserve family unity.

But Ham chose not to deal with it that way... He instead chose to humiliate his father by announcing his lapse to his two brothers. To put it plainly, Ham dishonored his father... He saw his father's need, but chose not to do the right thing.

But at least his brothers knew enough to do the right thing. They ---

Genesis 9:23 "... took a garment, laid it on both their shoulders, and went backward and covered the nakedness of their father. Their faces were turned away, and they did not see their father's nakedness."

You can see a big difference here between the two responses. Ham's response was clearly disrespectful and would cause embarrassment and suffering for his father. On the other hand, his brothers' response was very respectful and was intended to limit embarrassment and suffering.

To some of us, Ham's sin may seem pretty trivial, but because God is using this sequence of biblical stories to illustrate spiritual principles, it is a very serious matter indeed. Basically, it all boils down to a matter of 'unity' versus 'division'...

As we have seen, God desires that all of His creatures be 'united' with one another. It is Satan's false 'freedom' that breeds any and all forms of 'division'. This pertains to Ham's sin in the sense that he could have chosen to protect family unity by doing the right thing, but instead, he chose (by his actions) to magnify his fathers mistake, thereby opening the door to gossip and division. Division is an issue that God takes very seriously, and thus Ham's sin results in a 'curse'. 16

Ultimately, for our purposes, the point in this story is that even after being 'separated from sin' (by the flood) and given a fresh start, 'sin' has survived the flood and is still alive and well here on earth (as Ham's sin has just demonstrated).

Put another way, this story shows that even among the 'best' people God could find, the 'inward leaven of sin' was present, and still continuing its deadly work.

Clearly, it is going to take more than just an 'outward' separation (like the 'flood') to truly separate mankind from the 'inward' (or 'spiritual') root of sin.

Until that 'inward' (or 'spiritual') aspect is dealt with, mankind will continue to have trouble.

                                                                                                                
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