Spoken word

DEVOTION

GENESIS

SPOKEN WORD

Gen 9:24-29

24 When Noah awoke from his wine and found out what his youngest son had done to him, 25 he said, "Cursed be Canaan! The lowest of slaves will he be to his brothers." 26 He also said, "Blessed be the LORD, the God of Shem! May Canaan be the slave of Shem.   27 May God extend the territory of Japheth; may Japheth live in the tents of Shem, and may Canaan be his slave."  28 After the flood Noah lived 350 years. 29 Altogether, Noah lived 950 years, and then he died.

NIV

We just saw how Ham had disrespected his father and now Noah awakes to find out what Ham had done. When we read these words we might be tempted to read them with anger in our voice thinking this is how Noah said them. But he could have spoken then with a soft voice and tears in his eyes, feeling horrible about having to put this curse on the son of Ham, but being the family patriarch it was his duty to meter out disciple for wrong doing as well as giving words of praise, yet this was not the case here.  It does seem rather odd that Canaan should suffer this curse because of the actions, or behavior of his father. But there is something in future time which bears out this prophetic speech of Noah. His words must had been inspired by God rather than a harsh disciple toward one son and a tender heart toward the others. If we look ahead,

Lev 18:1-5

18:1 The LORD said to Moses, 2 "Speak to the Israelites and say to them: 'I am the LORD your God. 3 You must not do as they do in Egypt, where you used to live, and you must not do as they do in the land of Canaan, where I am bringing you. Do not follow their practices. 4 You must obey my laws and be careful to follow my decrees. I am the LORD your God. 5 Keep my decrees and laws, for the man who obeys them will live by them. I am the LORD.

NIV

We know the Lord God gave the Israelites the land of Canaan. These were the descendants of the son of Ham, of his son Canaan. We know that God drove the Canaanites out and handed their land over to the Israelites, and we know why.

Deut 9:4-6

 4 After the LORD your God has driven them out before you, do not say to yourself, "The LORD has brought me here to take possession of this land because of my righteousness." No, it is on account of the wickedness of these nations that the LORD is going to drive them out before you. 5 It is not because of your righteousness or your integrity that you are going in to take possession of their land; but on account of the wickedness of these nations, the LORD your God will drive them out before you, to accomplish what he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. 6 Understand, then, that it is not because of your righteousness that the LORD your God is giving you this good land to possess, for you are a stiff-necked people.

NIV

All this is within those words of Noah spoken unto his sons, as God inspired him. What lesson can we learn from this? How does this apply to our lives? Although we may not think we have been inspired by God to speak to our children in this manner, we may well be inspired to speak words into our children’s lives, as well into the lives of others we encounter. Because the Holy Spirit dwells within us, we do have the ability to speak prophetic words into the lives of others, especially our children, even if they are full grown with children. Such was the case with Noah and his sons, who were all married and at least Ham already had a son. This is not to say that everything we say to them has to be spoken as prophetic. In fact, it is even possible that children could speak prophetic words to their siblings and parents as we see in the life of Joseph. The point is first of all we should be aware of how we speak to one another, our words are important. When we speak out of haste, we speak words we should not. Those are the times we are surely not hearing the Spirit, in fact we are flat out ignoring him. If we are listening to the Spirit within we will speak words as he inspires us to speak and some of those word might well effect generations of descendants. In this world today once we accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior it is imperative we speak those words into the lives of our children so they can speak them into their children and the children to come, generation after generation. These are words which bring life into them, eternal life. But if we fail to speak them we have already spoken words which will cause them condemnation. This holds true of our families, as well as those who we encounter during our life. True we could focus on not having anything to do with the practices of the Canaanites. We can withdraw from the practices of the world around us, but that would not be going into all the world speaking the truth of the gospel to them, bringing them life instead of death. Noah spoke as inspired by God who knew how the children of Canaan would become. We have the Spirit who directs us to speak words into the lives of others. He knows who will hear and respond, he knows who will not hear and live as the Canaanites did. Noah was sensitive to hearing from God. We need to be sensitive to hearing from the Spirit. Noah did not speak from his own point of view, but of the view of God. We should be careful not to speak as men, but to speak as from God. We see the importance of the spoken word.