The Blinding Power of Bitterness
Family arguments can be difficult. In some cases an argument can be done with respect and get to issues that need to be addressed, while in other cases feelings can be hurt and people can choose not to see each other again. Sometimes a family argument can be so intense that a schism results so deep in the family that the progeny of the involved look nothing like each other at all. Karl Marx was the son of a Jewish convert to Protestant Lutheranism, Mao Zhedong (the founder of Communist China) was the son of a rags to riches business man and Joseph Stalin's roots of faith were as such that at age 16 he was on scholarship as a Seminary Student.
No place is this more true than in the Biblical testimony of Noah's family. Anybody who's been to Sunday School for any amount of time or even watched the movies recently will know that Noah was a man who obeyed the Voice of God by building a boat and as such his family survived the devastation of a massive flood and were called to rebuild and repopulate the earth. That part of the story is pretty well known, but the story doesn't end there.
Noah and his Three Sons
Noah and his family didn't part their ways with sweet memories of faithful obedience and witnessing the miraculous as a family unit, they actually kept on living together for a while. Long enough to see each other's faults and even be present when each other sinned (sound familiar?) The sin in particular, being that one day after Noah had planted a vineyard, he put back one......errr two.....um 6....too many glasses of wine and he was, well drunk.
Yes -- the spiritual giant who's faith changed the world and forever left God's mark on his family -- had passed out drunk and naked in his tent.
Noah had three sons, one of which, named Ham, first saw Noah naked and in a wrong heart of mockery and dishonor, Ham went and got his two brothers, Shem and Japeth, so that they could all laugh at their father together. Now when Shem and Japheth arrived on the scene they had a sense of honor for their father and went backwards to cover him up -- which is a very prophetic picture of how we should honor or fathers and mothers both in the spiritual and in the natural even when the commit real acts of sin. Meaning that not only will you not participate with those who would deride a man of God when he has fallen, but you refuse to even look upon them in their weakest state -- not that we shouldn't hold each other accountable, but when it comes to participating with gossips and maligners you want nothing to do with that conversation.
So as it turns out Noah wakes up and somehow he figured out what Ham had done to him and whether it was an utterance from the Holy Spirit or just Noah acting rashly from anger, Noah speaks a curse over Ham's son Canaan that he will be the "lowest of servants" and that his descendants would be the servants of the descendants of Shem and Japheth. Either way as I've said in an earlier post, Blessings and Curses hold spiritual power, and whether or not it was intentionally said, those were recognized as prophetic utterances for the 3 brothers.
Canaan walks away from God
Then we see one of the greatest tragedies of the Bible. Canaan and his descendants, despite seeing the incredible miracle that God had brought to their family because of Noah's faith and despite understanding that the flood itself occurred as a judgment on sin. All that withstanding, Canaan forged a progeny that entirely rejected the Lord. Their sins, which ranged from whole-sale idolatry, all forms of sexual immorality, to horrendous violence to even the ritualistic sacrifices of their children to idols. The wickedness became so saturating that even after giving them 400+ years to repent God had to release His Judgment on the people of Canaan and wipe them off of the face of the earth.
Its sobering to think that someone could have been raised with the education that Canaan was given -- seeing first hand both God's Judgment on sin and God's miraculous provision for those of obedient faith -- and still turn his back on the Lord. This makes for a powerful illustration of the blinding nature of bitterness. Canaan himself hadn't done anything yet due to a careless act by his father, he now had a prophecy over his head that relegated him to the lowest rung of a society run by his brothers. So due to these ill-begotten feelings Canaan likely decided that he didn't need God and that he was going to do things his own way and that without God. Thus the legacy of idolatry that we see both in the Biblical and historical record for all things associated with the Canaanites.
And here is an even greater tragedy. Its very likely, that the proclamation over Canaan was itself not a permanent one, but rather a temporary correction meant to humble his soul. I know this because similar proclamations were made over Levi by Jacob where the phrase "let not my glory be united with their assembly" was entirely turned around because of the humility and faithfulness of Moses (who was of the tribe of Levi) -- where it became the tribe of Levi that was the only tribe that God would allow into His Most Holy Place to gaze upon His Glory.
Its my suspicion that should Canaan have humbled himself before the Lord and lived passionately for God like Moses did, then God likely would have given his family line a greater blessing down the road.
Thus we need to really examine ourselves about this. This is truly a sobering thing. Despite all of the miracles that you've seen God do, and despite from where He has brought you -- bitterness, if left unchecked can blind us to the point that we make decisions that we will truly regret on the Day of Judgment.
No place is this more true than in the Biblical testimony of Noah's family. Anybody who's been to Sunday School for any amount of time or even watched the movies recently will know that Noah was a man who obeyed the Voice of God by building a boat and as such his family survived the devastation of a massive flood and were called to rebuild and repopulate the earth. That part of the story is pretty well known, but the story doesn't end there.
Noah and his Three Sons
Noah and his family didn't part their ways with sweet memories of faithful obedience and witnessing the miraculous as a family unit, they actually kept on living together for a while. Long enough to see each other's faults and even be present when each other sinned (sound familiar?) The sin in particular, being that one day after Noah had planted a vineyard, he put back one......errr two.....um 6....too many glasses of wine and he was, well drunk.
Yes -- the spiritual giant who's faith changed the world and forever left God's mark on his family -- had passed out drunk and naked in his tent.
Noah had three sons, one of which, named Ham, first saw Noah naked and in a wrong heart of mockery and dishonor, Ham went and got his two brothers, Shem and Japeth, so that they could all laugh at their father together. Now when Shem and Japheth arrived on the scene they had a sense of honor for their father and went backwards to cover him up -- which is a very prophetic picture of how we should honor or fathers and mothers both in the spiritual and in the natural even when the commit real acts of sin. Meaning that not only will you not participate with those who would deride a man of God when he has fallen, but you refuse to even look upon them in their weakest state -- not that we shouldn't hold each other accountable, but when it comes to participating with gossips and maligners you want nothing to do with that conversation.
So as it turns out Noah wakes up and somehow he figured out what Ham had done to him and whether it was an utterance from the Holy Spirit or just Noah acting rashly from anger, Noah speaks a curse over Ham's son Canaan that he will be the "lowest of servants" and that his descendants would be the servants of the descendants of Shem and Japheth. Either way as I've said in an earlier post, Blessings and Curses hold spiritual power, and whether or not it was intentionally said, those were recognized as prophetic utterances for the 3 brothers.
Canaan walks away from God
Then we see one of the greatest tragedies of the Bible. Canaan and his descendants, despite seeing the incredible miracle that God had brought to their family because of Noah's faith and despite understanding that the flood itself occurred as a judgment on sin. All that withstanding, Canaan forged a progeny that entirely rejected the Lord. Their sins, which ranged from whole-sale idolatry, all forms of sexual immorality, to horrendous violence to even the ritualistic sacrifices of their children to idols. The wickedness became so saturating that even after giving them 400+ years to repent God had to release His Judgment on the people of Canaan and wipe them off of the face of the earth.
Its sobering to think that someone could have been raised with the education that Canaan was given -- seeing first hand both God's Judgment on sin and God's miraculous provision for those of obedient faith -- and still turn his back on the Lord. This makes for a powerful illustration of the blinding nature of bitterness. Canaan himself hadn't done anything yet due to a careless act by his father, he now had a prophecy over his head that relegated him to the lowest rung of a society run by his brothers. So due to these ill-begotten feelings Canaan likely decided that he didn't need God and that he was going to do things his own way and that without God. Thus the legacy of idolatry that we see both in the Biblical and historical record for all things associated with the Canaanites.
And here is an even greater tragedy. Its very likely, that the proclamation over Canaan was itself not a permanent one, but rather a temporary correction meant to humble his soul. I know this because similar proclamations were made over Levi by Jacob where the phrase "let not my glory be united with their assembly" was entirely turned around because of the humility and faithfulness of Moses (who was of the tribe of Levi) -- where it became the tribe of Levi that was the only tribe that God would allow into His Most Holy Place to gaze upon His Glory.
Its my suspicion that should Canaan have humbled himself before the Lord and lived passionately for God like Moses did, then God likely would have given his family line a greater blessing down the road.
Thus we need to really examine ourselves about this. This is truly a sobering thing. Despite all of the miracles that you've seen God do, and despite from where He has brought you -- bitterness, if left unchecked can blind us to the point that we make decisions that we will truly regret on the Day of Judgment.
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