American Glory - The Curse of Ham Finally Explained
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1 hour and 18 minutes
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Summary
This episode is based on a sermon series I delivered at our church on Genesis 9: "Race, Nations, and Christian Nationalism: The Curse of Ham and the Historic Christian View About Race in America." In this episode, we discuss what a prophecy from Genesis 9 tells us about race, nations, and national identity.
Transcript
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Today on American Glory, we're talking about possibly the world's most controversial doctrine,
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the curse of Ham, and whether a prophecy from Genesis chapter 9 has anything to tell American
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Christians about race, nations, and bringing order to the world. Buckle up,
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it's going to be a long episode coming up right now.
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Welcome to American Glory. This is season two on American Christianity. I'm your host,
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Dale Partridge. This is the second episode of the season, and it's titled The Curse of Ham
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and the Historic Christian View About Race in America. Now, if you don't know, American Glory
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is both a podcast and a video show. And if you want to listen, you can listen to the NXR podcast
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feed, or you can also go to my personal podcast feed. Just go to Dale Partridge's podcast on
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Google. You'll find me on Spotify or Apple or wherever you can listen to podcasts. Now,
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if you want to watch the video and it does come with helpful slides and graphics, you can watch
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it also at my YouTube channel at Dale Partridge TV. Now this season, I'm going to be covering
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eight topics around American Christianity. In this next episode, I'm going to be starting a
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two-part series on the doctrines of dispensationalism and Zionism and how they
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have shaped and destroyed much of American life. Today's topic is one of the most controversial
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episodes I've ever done or probably ever will do. It's based on a five-part sermon series that I
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recently delivered at our church on Genesis chapter 9, verses 18 through 27. And it's called
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Race, Nations, and Christian Nationalism. Now, I've attempted to truncate that series into one
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episode here on American Glory, which will be very difficult to do. And it's why this episode
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is going to be a little bit longer than other episodes. And I've been forced also to leave
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a bunch out. And so if you want to watch the full sermon series, that's also available on my YouTube
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account, and you can listen to it at the Kingsway Sermons podcast as well. So the curse of Ham
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comes from a passage of scripture that deals with Noah and his three sons after the flood,
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including a particularly scandalous incident between Noah and his youngest son, Ham. And that
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led to Noah cursing Ham through Ham's son, Canaan, while Noah blessed his other two sons, Shem and
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Japheth. And this is vital because Noah is operating in this passage of scripture that
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we're going to look at as a second Adam in a new earth. And these three sons really are like the
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federal heads, not only of the three branches of humanity, but also of the many nations that come
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from each one of these children. Genesis 9.19 actually says, quote, these three were the sons
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of Noah. And from these, the people of the whole earth were dispersed, end quote. Now, in other
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words, from these three sons come the three macro races of humanity, the Shemites, which are
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generally the Jews and the Arabs, the Hamites, which are generally the African peoples, and the
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Japhethites, which are generally white people, but also include some Asians and Hispanics.
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Now, what makes this passage so significant is that this prophetic curse and blessing over these
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three branches of humanity gives us insight into God's providential and civilizational will
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for these three groups of people. Ultimately, this passage gives us like a broad answer for
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why the Jews and the Arabs are the way they are, and why the Africans are the way they are, and
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why the whites are the way they are. And what makes this so compelling is that not only does
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Scripture support the unfolding of this prophecy, but so does world history and personal experience.
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And this is particularly helpful for our present American moment because as a multiracial,
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multiethnic, multicultural nation, we're experiencing increasingly difficult and harsher
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conflict over things like immigration or religion or race or national identity.
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And so the beauty of this passage is that it gives us biblical answers about reality.
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And that is exactly what we are so desperate in needing right now today here in America.
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So let's start this episode on the topic of the curse of Ham.
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This is important because today many people, especially Christians, claim there is one race, the human race.
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However, the Bible never uses the term human race.
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the phrase human race is a modern term to downplay the ethnic and racial distinctions
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that God has providentially created. As I've already mentioned, Genesis 9 recounts the first
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major subdivision of mankind after the flood. And while there are thousands of cultures and
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hundreds of ethnicities, there are only three races. Shem, the middle child, produced the
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Shemites, or as we know them as the Semites, and is listed first because in him was the Messianic
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line. Ham, the youngest son, as we see in Genesis 9.24, produced the Hamites, and Japheth, who is
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called the eldest in Genesis 10.21, produced the Japhethites. Basically, in the same way the
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Israelites were a family descending from a particular man, we know Jacob, but ultimately
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Isaac, and Abraham. These three macro families come from these three men. Now, you need to know
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that very few people resist being associated with Shem or Japheth. I mean, Middle Eastern peoples
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to this day still identify as Semitic peoples, and Europeans have shown virtually no resistance
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to the label Japhethite. But when it comes specifically to the Hamitic peoples,
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generally the black populations. This term is considered discriminatory because
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they claim it was used historically to justify inequality. Wikipedia even says,
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Hamites is the name formally used for some African peoples in the context of a now outdated model
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of dividing humanity into different races. This was developed originally by Europeans in support
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of colonialism. The term was originally borrowed from the book of Genesis in which it refers to
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the descendants of Ham, son of Noah, end quote. Now, this doctrine, the curse of Ham, which
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explains the reason for the historical black civilizational subjugation and white civilizational
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superiority is often claimed to have been invented by some 18th century Presbyterians to justify the
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transatlantic slave trade. Now, that is just a flat-out lie. This interpretation wasn't some
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fringe 18th century invention. It was held by many of the early church theologians, including
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Origen and St. Ambrose and Hippolytus of Rome and Epiphanius, Ephraim Assyrian, John Chrysostom,
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medieval theologians like Aquinas, Isidora Save, Honorius Augustinanius, reformers like Luther
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and Calvin, Puritans like Henry Ainsworth or Matthew Poole or Matthew Henry or John Gill,
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and then later theologians like Abraham Kuyper and R.L. Dabney, along with many others. I mean,
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there are so many more that I didn't include. Those are just some of the bigger names.
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The Glossa Ordinaria, finalized in the Middle Ages, it's a massive collection of early church
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father commentaries that codify the consensus of the early writers, and it cemented the theological
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rule that Ham was the true target of the curse. In fact, it claimed that human slavery was
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introduced into the world solely because of Ham's specific sin against parental authority.
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In other words, this isn't some fringe position. In fact, I would say that I hold a moderate view
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compared to much of church history. And it was widely held throughout much of the early church,
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the medieval church, in the Reformation era, and even into the pre-1900 time of American history.
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Now, the reason the Curse of Ham is so intensely rejected is that we live under an egalitarian
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liberal regime, treats the mere acknowledgement of any distinctions regarding superiority or
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inferiority, whether that's between the sexes or the races, as some type of moral evil.
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The art world has completely abandoned beauty. What used to point people towards
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truth now celebrates chaos, ugliness, and radical individualism. That's not an accident. It's the
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fruit of a culture that has ultimately rejected God. See, art is not neutral. It disciples people.
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Jacob Dinman of Dinman Originals is working to reclaim fine art for Christ and for America.
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His paintings aren't just decorations. They're statements. Pieces like A New Manifest Destiny
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and Heritage Revival present a vision of an American Renaissance rooted in Christian faith,
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ordered liberty, and the inheritance our fathers handed down to us. And there's something for every
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budget. You can start with high-quality art prints for just $40. You could purchase hand-drawn
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original sketches for only $100 or invest in a one-of-one original painting, each of these
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representing hundreds of hours of work. If we're serious about rebuilding Christian civilization,
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we should surround ourselves with the things that remind us of what's true, what's good,
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and what's beautiful. Check out the link in the description below to see the full collection
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from Denman Originals. Now, but what if the historic Christian's understanding of these
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matters is actually correct, but we're simply not permitted to hold or teach that interpretation
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any longer. And I believe that's the deeply frustrating position that we find ourselves in.
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We can read church history. We can see the patterns. We can see the chaos caused by denying
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reality. We can see the broad distinctions between the sexes and the races and the cultures,
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Yet we are forbidden by the current cultural orthodoxy, even in the church, to notice these
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things or discuss these distinctions. A few weeks ago, a group of pastors from a well-known
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denomination called me a heretic for arriving at the historic conclusion on this passage.
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And here's the truth. They call it heresy not because it violates historic biblical Christianity.
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They call it heresy because it violates liberalism. And in liberalism, any doctrine
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that even suggests positive or negative distinctions about races or nations or sexes
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is automatically labeled as racist or misogynistic. And this is because egalitarianism is the West's
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most adored idol. But here's the problem facing the liberals. We live in the information age.
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Okay, statistics and videos and photographs and news and historical documents and studies,
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They can no longer hide reality as they could a few decades ago.
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What was instinctual or experiential in the previous generation
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has become empirical and undeniable in today's world.
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I mean, you may have heard about one or two black men assaulting a white person in the 1940s.
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Now I see the videos of that happening 30 times a day on X.
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And as a result, more and more people are coming to see these distinctions.
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They are noticing the generally civilized nature of white Western nations
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and the generally uncivilized nature of black African nations.
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Now, my objective in this show is to show how the Bible explains these civilizational distinctions.
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That is how the blessings on Japheth and Shem and the curse on Ham here in Genesis 9, 18-27
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are the cause of these broad, again I say broad, civilizational distinctions. In other words,
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there is a biblical answer to the racial differences that we all notice, particularly
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between African peoples and Western peoples. And these distinctions are rather sharp. They range
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from rates of violence and family stability to intellectual capacity and civilizational and
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technological and economic output. Okay, these truths give us answers for why roughly four to
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five percent of the black population or four to five percent of the population, black males between
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the ages of 15 to 45, commit around 60 percent of the murders. They give us answers for why the
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Black population has roughly a 20-point lower average IQ than their white counterparts.
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They give us answers as to why 70% of Black households do not have a father present.
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They also explain why white Europeans account for over 95% of major scientific inventions
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and technological breakthroughs, the vast majority of Nobel Prizes, most billionaires,
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and why Africans account for less than 1% in all three of those categories,
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even though as a global population, they are greater than whites. And so these are the
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questions that we're trying to answer. And this is the content of this particular doctrine
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gives us some of those answers. It talks about, for example, why are there no third world white
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nations and no first world black nations? Okay, why is Japan, which is roughly 1% Christian,
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a highly civilized and orderly nation, while Congo, which is over 90 to 95% Christian,
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remains a third world nation. Why were ancient Rome and Greece producing advanced civilizations
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and architecture while modern sub-Saharan Africa does not yet even have highways or a sewer system?
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Why were Europeans the captains of these massive ships sailing around Africa in the 1700s while
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most Africans had still not leveraged the wheel? See, most of all, why do these disparities
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extend far beyond America and the contemporary period? Like, why do they persist across nations
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and continents and historical eras. Like, why are the gaps this sharp? Why are they this persistent?
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Why are they this cross-cultural? When that happens, people begin to ask,
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what's truly driving them? Is it really just missed opportunities for thousands of years?
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Is it just circumstance or is it providence? And I believe the answer to that question is providence.
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And why it is good to understand these things is the most important question for our period.
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Like, why is it important for us to look at this?
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Why are we trying to bring these distinctions?
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Now, first, it is our duty as Christians to understand reality.
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And as Christians, we know that reality is given to us or best interpreted through the lens of
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Scripture. Understanding reality brings clarity, and clarity brings order, and order brings peace.
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Second, because there is nothing more frustrating than trying to solve problems with incorrect
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solutions. And that's exactly what we have been doing. Since 1960, Africa has received
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about $2.6 trillion in foreign aid, and the results are remarkably poor. In America, we have offered
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trillions of adjustments in our economy. Charlie Kirk even said it was $20 trillion
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since the civil rights era, just making adjustments for things like DEI or Medicare or welfare or
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public schools or Section 8 housing, food stamps, many other government-funded systems
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to support, in a large degree, Black families. And the results are only worse. Think about that.
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They've actually, the Black population in America has actually decreased since the government has
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funded much of their programs or welfare. We have sent missionaries and several,
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I mean, we've sent thousands, tens of thousands of missionaries to African nations, and we have
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many African nations that are now over 80% Christian, yet they still remain third world
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countries. And what's the reason for such civilizational distinctions? If the solution
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isn't money or religion like Christianity, what is it? And I believe the answer to all of these
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questions, which again, are generalizations, are rooted in this passage of scripture.
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And so I want to begin by just reading the text from Genesis 9, 18 through 27. But I also want
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to preface by saying, first, I believe that all people are made in the image of God. I believe
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that God is saving people from every tribe, nation, and tongue. I believe God is saving
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black people across Africa and beyond, I believe that God has raised up black men for good and
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godly works across time and history. Now, while I argue, or I'm about to argue, that the descendants
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of Ham labor under a civilizational curse at the national and corporate level, I also affirm
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that all peoples and nations stand under a far deeper curse of sin. And so every one of us must
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repent and believe in Christ. Now, in addition, I just want to give some terms. I am a race
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realist, but I'm not a race determinist. A race determinist claims that racial groups are
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permanently locked into fixed capabilities with no possibility of meaningful change in the future.
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And I reject that entirely. I believe that racial groups can be transformed through
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conversion to Christianity and the generational outworking of the gospel in that particular
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people group. Now, this also means that I'm not a race essentialist who elevates biology above
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religion. Scripture is not Gnostic, we know that, and it places religion and biology both
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as powerful factors of civilizational outcomes. Now, racial distinctions are real and they are
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biblically grounded, particularly in the providential ordering that we're going to see
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here in Genesis 9 and the table of nations in Genesis 10. Now, lastly, I do not expect
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full civilizational equality among all peoples in this present age or possibly ever. However,
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I do expect the gaps to narrow significantly over the centuries as Christian obedience increases
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and basically through God's grace, the missionary advance of the church and godly Christian
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colonization, we should anticipate the rise of great, stable, and glorious African nations
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that far surpass what we have seen in those nations in the past or how we observe them
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today. The same promise holds true for Japhethite and Shemite peoples as well. So as the gospel
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saturates the world, every nation should advance civilizationally and flourish civilizationally,
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each according to its unique station and calling, yet without any hard sealing imposed by ancestry
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alone. So Christianity, again, does not erase earthly distinctions. It redeems them and it does
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elevate them. And I include this because I don't want this message to leave black Christians
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without some sort of civilizational hope. That's not my intent. There is hope, but it's only found
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in obedience to Christ and through the full embracing of God's order for the world. And let
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me explain that. God did not create a fair and equal world. Some are rich, and some are poor.
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Some are healthy, and some are sick. Some are tall, and some are short. Some are strong. Some
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are weak. Some are gifted. Some are simple, right? Some are brilliant. Some are not. Okay, most of
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all, and this is just getting to soteriology, some are elect, and some are reprobate. Okay, God
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sovereignly chose to save first the Jewish people, the gospel would come from them,
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rather than, say, the Philistines or the Egyptians. He directed the gospel to go west
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and not to go east. In other words, we have to stop putting our confidence as Christians
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in egalitarian fantasies. God is not a God of equality. Now, God is a God of equal value.
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We have equal value before the Lord, but we do not have equal opportunities or equal outcomes.
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Okay, we have equal value before the Lord. Every one of us are equally valuable because we are
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made in the image of God. And so I say all this to those who would claim this position is racist.
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And I think that charge is dishonest. Racism is, at least how we define it today, is hating a person
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simply because of their race. And that is not what I am saying or how I feel. And it's not
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what I hope to perpetuate. My goal is to faithfully explain what scripture teaches and what
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almost all of church history and even secular history understood about racial distinctions
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and what modern Christians ought to do in response to this historic truth being recovered
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in the years to come. So let's look at the text and read here in chapter nine.
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The sons of Noah who went forth from the ark were Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
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These three were the sons of Noah, and from these people the whole earth were dispersed.
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Noah began to be a man of the soil, and he planted a vineyard.
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He drank of the wine and became drunk and lay uncovered in his tent.
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And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father and told his two brothers outside.
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Then Shem and Japheth took a garment, laid it both on their shoulders,
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and walked backward and covered the nakedness of their father.
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Their faces were turned backward, and they did not see their father's nakedness.
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When Noah awoke from his wine and knew what his youngest son had done to him,
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Cursed be Canaan, a servant of servants, shall he be to his brothers.
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Blessed be the Lord, the God of Shem, and let Canaan be his servant. May God enlarge Japheth
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and let him dwell in the tents of Shem, and let Canaan be his servant, end quote.
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The central question of this text is this, what is meant when it says that Ham saw the nakedness
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of his father? The reason this passage generates so much discussion is because of the severity
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of the consequences described in verses 24 and 25. When Noah awoke from his wine, it says,
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and he knew what his youngest son had done to him. He said, curse be Canaan, a servant of servants,
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shall he be to his brothers? It leaves us with five questions. First, what exactly did Ham do
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to Noah? Second, why curse Canaan for Ham's sin? Third, is the curse on Canaan actually a curse on
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Ham? Fourth, if the curse is on Ham's posterity, how has it manifested itself in scripture and
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history? And then fifth, how should Christians, Shemites, Hamites, and Japhethites think about
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race, nations, and civilizations? So I want to start with just addressing question number one,
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what exactly did Ham do to Noah? Now, we are asking this question for three reasons.
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Number one, a drunken man lacks awareness of his own actions, let alone the awareness that someone
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has seen him naked. So the fact that Noah awoke and realized that something had been, quote,
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done to him strongly suggests that more occurred than just a mere accidental glance at nudity.
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Number two, the severity of Noah's prophetic curse upon Ham's line also seems to imply some
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far more serious sin than simply seeing his father uncovered. Number three, scripture never
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explicitly condemns a child or a relative for accidentally or innocently seeing a parent
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uncovered. The Bible, like nowhere, treats nudity as some sort of criminal offense.
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Now, because of these three reasons, scholars have generally arrived at three interpretations
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of this passage, which I'm going to present to you so that you can consider them for yourselves.
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The first is the voyeurism view, which claims that Ham saw his father undressed and mocked and
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gossiped about his father's nakedness. And this is the majority modern view, but it's the
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historical minority view. And the reason I think this view is so popular is that it's like a flat
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reading of the text. I think it's the least intellectually complex, and it seems to just be
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very, you know, oh, that's what it says. I'm going to believe it. Now, if this view is true,
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it's the only passage in the entire Bible where someone is condemned for visually seeing someone
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uncovered. Now, its weaknesses are its inability to explain, one, the strong language used in the
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passage, two, the severity of the curse, and three, why Canaan was targeted by Noah and not Ham.
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The second view is the sodomy or the castration view, which claims that Ham had sexual relations
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with his father, or that he maybe amputated his manhood or something. Now, this view and the third
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view, which I'll give it a second, both see this phrase in the passage, the nakedness of his father
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as a Hebrew idiom for some sort of sexual activity. Now, several Reformed theologians, including
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Luther held this possible sodomy view or something like that. The strength of this view is that it
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explains the severity of the curse. It provides context for Noah's words in verse 24, which said,
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you know, Noah knew what his youngest son had done to him. It gives a kind of a rational
00:28:42.640
explanation for how a drunken Noah would have come to know that something had been done to him
00:28:48.640
because he would have physically felt the aftermath of some sort of sexual violation when
00:28:54.240
he woke up. But its weakness is still that it doesn't explain why the curse was directed at
00:29:02.160
Canaan, which is Ham's son. So the third view is the maternal incest view, which claims Ham had
00:29:12.160
sexual relations with Noah's wife, his mother. And this view is held by E.W. Bullinger, Dr. Michael
00:29:19.040
Heiser, seemingly Peter Leihart, Roman Catholic scholar Scott Hahn, and John Bergsma. And I want
00:29:27.360
to go back to this phrase as we just think about this, this phrase, the nakedness of his father.
00:29:33.900
Now, as I said, this is a Hebrew idiom for sexual activity, the term uncovering nakedness.
00:29:42.160
is a euphemism used throughout the Old Testament for sexual intercourse, especially incest or
00:29:48.340
relations with someone biologically forbidden, like a close relative, a stepmother or something
00:29:53.060
like that. And so I'm going to read you just four passages of scripture that will help you see what
00:30:00.540
I'm talking about. Leviticus 18, 7 through 8 says, quote, you shall not uncover the nakedness of your
00:30:07.140
father, which is the nakedness of your mother. She is your mother. You shall not uncover her
00:30:14.880
nakedness. You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father's wife. It is your father's
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nakedness, end quote. Leviticus 20, 11 says, quote, if a man lies with his father's wife,
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he has uncovered his father's nakedness, end quote. Deuteronomy 22, 30 says, quote,
00:30:38.700
a man shall not take his father's wife so that he does not uncover his father's nakedness, end quote.
00:30:46.840
Deuteronomy 27, 20 says, quote, cursed is anyone who lies with his father's wife
00:30:54.340
because he has uncovered his father's nakedness, end quote. Now, at first, I kind of struggled to
00:31:03.240
buy in because in our passage, it says that he saw the nakedness of his father, not uncovered
00:31:12.160
the nakedness of his father. But then I found Leviticus 20 verse 17, which directly links
00:31:19.580
seeing and uncovering together. It says, quote, if a man takes his sister, a daughter of his father
00:31:28.500
or a daughter of his mother and sees her nakedness, it is a disgrace and they shall be cut
00:31:36.160
off in the sight of the children of their people. He has uncovered his sister's nakedness and he
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shall bear his iniquity, end quote. Then I found other verses I'm not going to read, but Ezekiel
00:31:51.300
16, 36 through 37 and 22, 10 also use this term seeing and uncovering nakedness as like a synonym.
00:32:00.080
So ultimately, what these passages show is that violating your mother is violating your father.
00:32:07.700
Seeing your father's nakedness is sleeping with your mother. Now, why? Because
00:32:14.460
under God's law, a wife is one with her husband, and so when you violate her, you violate him.
00:32:21.840
Now, you have to be thinking, if this was more than voyeurism, then why does verse 23 say of
00:32:30.840
Shem and Japheth, their faces were turned backward and they did not see their father's nakedness?
00:32:36.560
Again, that sounds kind of like they're avoiding some sort of visual crime, not a sexual crime,
00:32:41.560
right? So to that, I would argue that if the phrase is idiomatic on the front end,
00:32:47.020
then it has to be, to be consistent, we have to read it in verse 23 as idiomatic on the back end.
00:32:52.940
So the verse says Shem and Japheth did not see their father's nakedness. It really means that
00:32:59.920
they did not partake in violating their mother as Ham did. And so the reason I believe this view
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00:33:08.140
is the most coherent is because it offers the most explanatory power of the passage.
00:33:14.700
So a few other things. Number one is the Bible has more direct words for homosexuality and sodomy.
00:33:21.340
And so if the sodomy view were true, Moses would have likely used the word for sodomy that he uses
00:33:28.220
throughout the Torah. Second, the idea that Ham would attempt to curse Noah's line by producing
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00:33:36.640
illegitimate seed is perfectly consistent with the entire narrative of Genesis and the Old Testament.
00:33:43.620
In fact, we see this pattern over and over. Cain's rebellion, the Nephilim, Abraham's sexual sin with
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Hagar producing Ishmael, the rivalry between Jacob and Esau in which one became the true seed and the
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00:33:57.280
other was rejected. And so this war between the legitimate and illegitimate seeds runs throughout
00:34:04.120
the entire Old Testament. So the idea that Ham committed a sexual sin in order to produce
00:34:09.160
illegitimate offspring, I think it fits squarely within scripture's recurring thing. Number three,
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00:34:16.260
the Bible sees sleeping with a king's wife as like the ultimate form of dominance.
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00:34:23.640
And this is what Absalom did to his father, David. Absalom publicly slept with his father's
00:34:30.040
concubines on the roof of the palace as really a deliberate way to humiliate David and to secure
00:34:36.940
his own claim to the throne. And this was a way to disgrace the previous ruler and establish
00:34:44.120
your own dynasty or royal succession. And number four, most importantly, is the maternal incest
00:34:52.360
view is the only view that offers a coherent answer for why Noah directs this curse toward
00:35:00.600
Canaan, which leads us to our second question. Why did Noah curse Canaan for Ham's sin? So Canaan
00:35:08.680
wasn't cursed because of what he did. Canaan was cursed because of who he was. Canaan was the
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incest child and illegitimate seed of ham but this this leads us uh or leaves us with another
00:35:24.780
question if canaan is cursed what are the consequences for ham which leads us to the
00:35:32.060
episode's third question is the curse on canaan actually a curse on ham now in in the ancient
00:35:41.740
covenantal world, a son was not viewed as an independent individual in the way that we think
00:35:48.940
today. We have to kill off our modern tendency toward individualism. In a covenantal framework,
00:35:55.920
there's no disconnecting the curse on Canaan from the curse on Ham. And that's why so many
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00:36:02.780
historical theologians have arrived at this conclusion. A son was the extension and public
00:36:08.180
representative of his father. We see this in the ministry of Christ, but his name, his honor,
00:36:14.920
his shame, his future were all bound up in his father's identity. That's a thing in the Old
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Testament. And this is why names in scripture so often carried the father's name, right? Simon
00:36:25.440
Bar-Jonah literally means Simon, son of Jonah. When Saul saw David fighting Goliath, he didn't
00:36:32.840
ask, who is that young man? No, he asked in 1 Samuel 17, 55 through 56, whose son is this youth?
00:36:42.240
See, Saul wanted to know the father because the son represented the father. So the glory
00:36:49.580
that David won against Goliath reflected directly back on his father, Jesse.
00:36:55.320
Now, under God's order to bless or curse a son was to bless or curse the father.
00:37:03.920
And this is like, I think, the key to understanding why Noah cursed Canaan and not Ham directly.
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00:37:10.200
If Noah had pronounced the curse on Ham, the shame of Ham's sin would have actually fallen
00:37:16.760
back onto Noah himself, the father of this incest offender.
00:37:22.100
So by Noah particularly directing the curse onto Ham's son, Canaan, the shame and judgment would
00:37:30.460
generally fall back on Ham. And so the curse on Canaan was ultimately the curse on Ham.
00:37:36.740
It was like perfect covenantal justice. The fruit was cursed because the root was corrupt.
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And that is the specific target of Ham's curse was Canaan, but Canaan's curse only existed
00:37:51.740
because of Ham's evil. And so if I could kind of phrase it another way, while the curse was
00:37:58.700
particularized in Canaan, it did not stop with him. Canaan was simply the first and most visible
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manifestation of the curse that I will argue flows through Ham's entire line.
00:38:13.120
Now, some people say, okay, sure, it was a curse on Ham because cursing his own son would have been
00:38:23.380
incredibly painful for Ham to watch. But the curse was limited to Canaan. It wasn't to all
00:38:29.360
of Ham's posterity. Now, some of you might be thinking, Dale, that's quite a leap, right? That's
00:38:36.320
quite a leap to say that the curse on Canaan really is a curse on all of Ham's posterity.
00:38:42.320
The text says, right, curse be Canaan, not all of Ham's posterity, right? So here's some further
00:38:48.980
rationale for why I believe this is the correct view, that the curse is not just on Canaan,
00:38:55.260
but also on Ham and all of his posterity to some degree. Again, particularly on Canaan,
00:39:00.720
but generally on Ham. So we have to remember that Noah is speaking to his sons in a covenantal
00:39:07.240
manner. So similar to what we see, like with Abraham's blessing on Isaac and Ishmael, or
00:39:13.440
Isaac's blessing on Jacob and Esau, or Jacob's blessings on all of his 12 sons. So these blessings
00:39:21.560
and curses, they're not limited to their own lifetimes, okay? They are prophetic words to
00:39:26.940
covenant heads that apply to all of their descendants. Now, we know this for certain
00:39:34.360
because the very next chapter gives us in chapter 10, the table of nations, which explicitly lays
00:39:40.780
out this principle. For that reason, in a moment of blessing and cursing, it would be extremely
00:39:47.600
strange for God to leave one entire branch of humanity unaddressed. In other words,
00:39:55.460
this would be the only instance in all of scripture where a father explicitly blesses
00:40:02.440
some sons while saying nothing to another. So I believe that Noah did say something. I believe
00:40:10.520
he cursed Ham starting with Canaan, or he curses Ham in Canaan. And again, this was the prevailing
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interpretation in much of both Jewish history and Christian history. Okay, an 8th century Jewish
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00:40:26.280
says, quote, just as he cursed the earth on account of the snake, as it says, may the earth
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be cursed because of you, so a third of the world was cursed on account of wine, as it says,
00:40:41.460
and Noah awoke from his wine, end quote. St. Ambrose said, quote, Ham was condemned by his
00:40:50.020
father's curse, end quote. Martin Luther says, quote, Ham is cursed by his father, a servant of
00:40:56.640
servants shall he be, that is, the lowest and vilest of slaves, end quote. Matthew Henry, who
00:41:03.720
wrote the world's longest standing Bible commentary and is like a moderate by like every standard,
00:41:09.500
says, quote, he pronounces a curse on Canaan, the son of Ham, in whom Ham is himself cursed, end
00:41:18.000
quote. Matthew Poole has a commentary published by Banner of Truth that says, quote, when Canaan
00:41:24.900
is mentioned, Ham is not exempted from the curse, but rather more deeply plunged into it, end quote.
00:41:32.900
W.G. Blakely, who was endorsed by Charles Spurgeon, also published by Banner of Truth,
00:41:38.580
said on this passage, quote, though the curse of Ham was formally pronounced on Canaan alone,
00:41:44.580
it has been reflected more or less on the other branches of his family, end quote.
00:41:51.020
Abraham Kuyper adds in his book, Common Grace, Volume 1, which is published by Lexham Press,
00:41:56.800
quote, the fact that now for the first time the actual history of our human race gets underway
00:42:02.980
is expressed in the prophecy that the Holy Spirit placed on Noah's lips. It led him to sketch out
00:42:11.160
the lines along which history of the world would unfold, in his full blessing for Shem,
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his partial blessing for Japheth, and his curse on Ham, end quote. And John Calvin, in his
00:42:25.420
commentary on Genesis, also published by Banner of Truth, says, quote, and that is to say, Ham is
00:42:33.440
cursed first, as if the words were framed this way. God is not content to punish Ham, who offended,
00:42:41.740
but God's rigor and severity will have to extend further. And God shows from age to age that that
00:42:49.100
lineage is an abomination to him. The first thing we have to remember about this passage is that God
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wanted to punish Ham in all his lineage. So it is with good reason that such a sentence is
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00:43:03.720
pronounced on Ham and his entire lineage, end quote. So let's just say that you're still not
00:43:12.140
buying it, right? You think the curse was limited only to Canaan and the Hamitic people are not
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00:43:17.600
under this curse. Here's a vital point that you have to consider. Even if someone argues that Ham
00:43:24.680
himself is not cursed. We can certainly say that Ham is not blessed. Okay, so in either case,
00:43:32.940
whether through an act of curse or through the absence of blessing, Ham and his branch of humanity
00:43:40.800
are being covenantally judged. Okay, and this really leads to the fourth question of the episode.
00:43:48.040
If this curse does affect all of Ham's posterity, how has it manifested itself in Scripture
00:43:54.480
and in history. And so let's start by talking about the first line from this curse from Noah.
00:44:03.140
It says, quote, cursed be Canaan, a servant of servants, shall he be to his brothers, end quote.
00:44:11.180
So first, a lot of folks forget that this is narrative. And sometimes there are years,
00:44:18.400
even decades between verses. And so we often read that Noah wakes up from his wine and immediately
00:44:25.700
says, curse be Canaan, right? So he can't be talking about Canaan because Canaan's not even
00:44:32.480
born yet if it's the maternal incest view, right? And we kind of picture it all happening in like
00:44:37.560
this dramatic moment. But all throughout Genesis, we see that the story frequently jumps forward in
00:44:44.520
time from one verse to the next one. So let me give you an example. Right after the flood,
00:44:50.060
Noah and his family exit the ark. Then in the very next chapter, we're told that Noah began to
00:44:57.380
be a husbandman, plant a vineyard, drank the wine, and got drunk. That process alone,
00:45:04.560
just in one sentence, that process alone, clearing the land, planting vines from seeds,
00:45:10.900
you know, waiting for them to grow, harvesting grapes, fermenting the wine, that would have
00:45:16.160
taken several years at minimum. And so we're not looking at something that happened like days or
00:45:22.720
weeks after the flood. There was real time that passed. So if Ham, one of the three covenant heads
00:45:31.540
of the nations is cursed, or again, at least not blessed, then his descendants to some degree
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should demonstrate the signs of that curse. And I believe scripture and world history do bear this
00:45:43.440
out. The great antagonists of God's people repeatedly come from Ham's line. Now remember,
00:45:52.200
Ham had four sons, Canaan, Cush, Mizraim, and Put. Canaan is listed last because he is cursed in the
00:46:01.700
same way that Shem is listed first, even though he's not the oldest, if Canaan wasn't first,
00:46:07.940
then we have to believe that lots of time had passed and that Ham had three other kids prior
00:46:17.700
to him, which is again, unlikely. And so from Cush comes Nimrod, the founder of Babel and the
00:46:24.880
builder of the Tower of Babel, the very first organized rebellion against God after the flood.
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00:46:31.000
From Cush also came the great empires of Babylon and Assyria, which are repeated like archetypes
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00:46:37.200
of tyrannical opposition to God's kingdom. You can see that in Isaiah 13 through 14,
00:46:42.000
Jeremiah 50 and 51, Revelation 17 and 18. Now from Mizraim, one of the other sons of Ham,
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00:46:48.280
comes Egypt, right? It's the great enslaver of Israel, which becomes the classic biblical
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00:46:53.460
picture of worldly oppression, idolatry, resistance to the Lord, all of that. And you can see this in
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00:46:58.940
Ezekiel 29-32, Isaiah 30-31, Revelation 11-8, and many other passages. Now, put is mentioned less
00:47:07.080
frequently, but consistently appears in the scriptures as like this warlike mercenary people
00:47:12.540
who lend military support to other Hamitic powers against God's people. You can see that in Ezekiel
00:47:20.240
27, 10, 30, verse 5, and Nahum 3, 9. And then, of course, from Canaan comes the Canaanite nations,
00:47:29.480
including the infamous cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, the Philistines, the Amalekites,
1.00
00:47:34.220
all of which become symbols of gross immorality and divine judgment. So all four lines of Ham are
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00:47:42.100
antagonists of God's people. Now, in addition to hostility to God's people, we also see biblical
00:47:50.220
and historical Hamitic servitude and subjugation, not just in Canaan, but also in Cush, Mizraim,
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and Put. For example, in Genesis chapter 16, Sarai's maidservant, Hagar, is Egyptian from
00:48:06.860
Mizraim and is brought into subjection under Abraham's household and, of course, leads to
00:48:12.240
the chaos of Ishmael. In Genesis 41, Joseph is made second in command over Egypt. Later in the
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00:48:20.520
Exodus, Exodus 12, 35 to 36, the entire nation of Egypt is plundered and forced to serve Israel
00:48:28.000
during the Exodus. Second Chronicles 14, 9 through 15, we have King Esau of Judah defeating Zerah
00:48:34.940
of the Cushites, who came against Judah with like this massive army of a million men and like
00:48:42.060
300 chariots. And the Cushites were completely routed out and plundered by Israel. In Daniel 11,
00:48:51.880
42 through 43, in the prophecy of the kings of the north and the south, Egypt and Put would later
00:48:59.120
be conquered and ruled over by successive Japhethite powers, the Greeks in 332 BC, the Romans
00:49:06.220
in 30 BC. In fact, Egypt was ruled over by the descendants of Japheth for over 300 years and
00:49:12.700
then put, which is modern day Libya, for 600 years. Another interesting point is that if the
00:49:20.660
curse was only on Canaan and it was only to be subject... So think about this. So Canaan is
00:49:27.360
supposed to be subject to both Shem and Japheth. And most of my opponents on this position claim,
00:49:34.560
the curse, it was limited to Canaan and the Canaanites, and it was fulfilled in the Canaanite
00:49:41.160
conquest led by Joshua. But if that's the case, then part of the prophecy would have never come
00:49:49.460
to pass because no Japhethites were involved in the Canaanite conquest. And we know Deuteronomy
00:49:57.020
18, 21 through 22, says that in order to determine if a prophet is true, his words have to come to
00:50:05.160
pass. So if we need to see submission, not just to Shem, but also to Japheth, we have to move beyond
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Canaan and look at Ham's other sons, where we actually do see extensive Hamitic subjugation
00:50:24.420
to Japheth throughout history. So if you look at it just as Canaan, only Shem is ruling over
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Canaan. But if you look at the curses on all of Ham's lineage, then you go, oh, now we see
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00:50:43.040
both Shem and Japheth biblically and historically ruling over the Hamitic peoples.
00:50:51.480
John Brown Haddington, he's a respected Scottish Presbyterian minister in the mid-1700s. He
00:50:59.160
produced an extensive commentary on this passage, and he was tracing the fulfillment
00:51:02.940
of this Noahic prophecy throughout world history. And I wish I could read you the whole thing,
00:51:09.060
because it's just incredible to see how Noah's words come to pass so clearly among the wars
00:51:16.900
and civilizations of men. But Brown suggests that basically the curse covers centuries of
00:51:23.860
Hamitic subjugation. The Canaanites were repeatedly conquered and enslaved by the
00:51:31.000
Shemites and the Japhethites from Calda Lamor's invasions and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah,
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00:51:39.380
Solomon's use of the Canaanite slaves to build the temple, and later the domination of the
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00:51:44.000
Hamitic peoples, by the Assyrians, the Greeks, the Romans, the Saracens, the Turks, like right down
00:51:49.100
into the slave trade and long centuries of bondage across North and Sub-Saharan Africa.
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00:51:56.980
Now, it's important to say clearly that the curse of Ham is a civilizational station. It's a curse
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of civilizational station, not a curse of redemption. Again, as I said earlier, God is
00:52:13.460
saving Africans all over the world. Another point is the curse of Ham does not deny that
00:52:22.640
some individual Africans might be uniquely gifted and blessed with civilizational intellect and
00:52:28.240
leadership ability. And I believe God's purpose in such cases is often to raise up strong leadership
00:52:34.800
for their own people. So Africa and Africans desperately need good black leadership in both
00:52:41.440
society and the church. And extraordinarily gifted Black Christian men should view that
00:52:49.280
gifting as a divine call to lead and serve their own people. And this is why I believe
00:52:55.440
the late Bodhi Bauckham was right as he moved his family back to Africa, where he made a massive
00:53:03.560
impact. Another point I want to make is that we have been so propagandized about slavery that we
00:53:10.600
forget scripture does not forbid slavery, it redeems it. Now, chattel slavery, as practiced
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00:53:18.160
in the transatlantic slave trade, was evil because it systematically violated God's structure and
00:53:25.540
command for how masters were to treat slaves. So biblical slavery, or some people would say
00:53:33.240
indentured servitude, was often used actually as a protective and pro-life measure. A master
00:53:40.180
would take in a person who would likely have died in poverty or war and brings this person
00:53:48.260
into his household, providing for his needs. And if he did that according to God's design for how
00:53:55.480
masters should treat servants, then it was done well and in a godly manner. That is to say that
00:54:02.240
there are many forms of servitude throughout history. And I don't believe that the curse of
00:54:08.120
is a command for blacks to be subjected to chattel slavery or really any form of direct
00:54:18.320
ownership of individual humans. I'm talking about this is a political subjugation,
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00:54:25.120
a civilizational station. These are broad generalizations about large groups of people.
00:54:32.520
Um, that being said, I do believe that a prophetic curse, uh, is not merely spiritual or symbolic.
00:54:43.420
Um, it, it, it manifests, uh, in real physical and historical consequences across generations.
00:54:50.460
Um, I have, I've, I've summarized these, uh, kind of this curse of ham, what it would look like and
00:54:57.100
what it would manifest itself historically using four G's, geography, gospel, gods, and genetics.
00:55:06.380
I'm a preacher, right? So we got to do that. So let's look at geography. God providentially placed
00:55:10.760
Ham's descendants predominantly in some of the most geographically punishing environments on
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00:55:17.640
earth. Okay. Roughly one third of the African continent is infested with what's called the
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00:55:23.600
tetsi fly, which kills cattle, draft animals. It makes plow agriculture production very inefficient
00:55:30.840
and sometimes impossible. And most of Africa's rivers are blocked by rapids at these critical
00:55:38.920
crossings. And the Sahara Desert is this like massive barrier that isolates sub-Saharan African
00:55:45.360
peoples from the rest of the world. And so ultimately outside of like Antarctica, Africa
00:55:51.340
Africa is the least desirable, profitable, livable continent in the world.
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00:55:56.360
And this, of course, shaped the development of its people.
00:56:00.760
Because of Africa's geography and climate, which again features less seasonal variation
00:56:08.060
than Europe did, there was historically less pressure to develop advanced food storage.
00:56:14.880
didn't have, you know, seasonal planning or really intense architecture to handle snow and hard
00:56:22.000
weather. And you didn't have this indoor technological development. In other words,
00:56:27.760
like the climate fostered physical adaptations for outdoor survival over intellectual adaptations
00:56:34.180
required for like harsh winters, long-term agricultural planning, like the kind we see
00:56:43.580
Like indoor societies cultivate intellectual pursuits,
1.00
00:56:48.600
which are music or reading or invention, right?
00:57:23.080
than any other major people group on earth.
1.00
00:57:35.900
Greece, Rome, and obviously Europe in the future.
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00:57:39.440
And so, but it was the Japhethites who actually took the gospel around the world through the
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00:57:45.840
Reformation and the printing press and all the things that were invented there.
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And the Japhethites are actually the ones that took it to Africa, but not until about the 1800s
0.99
00:57:55.760
in mass, which leads us to the third G, which is gods. The Hamitic peoples have endured
1.00
00:58:04.640
millennia of paganism, idolatry, animism, all of which have actively hindered their
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00:58:11.900
physical development. And let me explain what I mean by that. Pagan religions don't
00:58:17.680
merely affect your beliefs, right? They shape your daily life, including your diet,
00:58:21.600
your sexual practices, your moral norms. And this leads to the fourth G, which is genetics.
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when you have thousands of years of people eating burger patties made of flies, as they do in
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Burundi or Congo or Ethiopia, it affects your biology. When 50% of all African peoples practice
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cousin marriage, it affects your biology. When people sacrifice their children and ritually
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consume blood, as they do in Kenya and Tanzania, it affects your biology. And so these practices
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degrade health and increase genetic defects. And it affects things like IQ, which strongly
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correlate with future orientation or long-term planning or impulse control or poverty levels
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or criminality, and all of which are essential for building and maintaining complex civilizations.
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And as a result of these types of factors, the current average life expectancy in sub-Saharan
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in Africa is 20 years lower than in Europe. So lastly, we have to talk about the compounding
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effects of all of these things, right? So you have geography, a late gospel, pagan gods,
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you're worshiping demons, and poor genetics. And they essentially shape a people. And that is that
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God in his sovereign wisdom designed real conditions for the Hamitic peoples in keeping
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with the prophecy of Genesis 9 that would place them essentially in a servant-like station among
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the nations marked by what? Well, a greater dependence, struggle, need. And all four branches
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of Ham, Canaan, Cush, Mizraim, Put, display this. So in medicine, there's a process that's called
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reversed diagnosis, and it's where you look at the results to determine the cause. Now, Jesus
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basically used this process when he said, you'll know a tree by its fruit, okay? When you look at
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the fruit, the historical and biblical outcomes for Ham's descendants, it strongly indicates
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that the curse was not limited to just one branch, Canaan, but it touched the whole tree.
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And so it's either a strange coincidence that virtually all the nations descending from Ham
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are biblically and historically hostile toward and eventually conquered by the nations of Shem
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and Japheth, and they are all generally live in a place of dependence and need, or the prophetic
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curse applies particularly to Canaan and generally to Ham's entire line. Now, this leads us to our
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fifth and final question. How should Christians, Christian Shemites, Hamites, and Japhethites think
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about race, nations, and civilizations. Now, again, we have to remember that this text is not just
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about a curse on Ham, but also a blessing on Shem and Japheth. So in chapter 9, verses 26 to 27,
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it says, quote, he also said, blessed be the Lord, the God of Shem, and let Canaan be his servant.
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May God enlarge Japheth and let him dwell in the tents of Shem and let Canaan be his servant,
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end quote. Now, the primary blessing to Shem is that the Messiah would come from his branch of
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humanity. But that has not been their only blessing. John Haddington Brown, he said in
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that great commentary, quote, the blessings bestowed upon the Shemites by God have been
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remarkable. The most rich or fertile parts of the world fell to their share, end quote.
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He goes on to explain that the blessings on Shem highlights the rich lands, the mighty empires given
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to his descendants, along with this extraordinary privilege of preserving the true religion for
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2,000 years or more than that, thousands of years. And essentially, the birth of the Messiah,
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the birth of the church, all come from the Shemite line. Now, for Japheth, we see that
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he actually receives two distinct blessings. First, God says that, well, Noah says as a
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prophecy, he says that God will enlarge Japheth. So in a nationalistic context, this speaks of
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like a geographic expansion of Japheth's lands, which by the way, totally adds up with world
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history. Second, God declares that Japheth, quote, shall dwell in the tents of Shem, end quote.
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And this points to really two realities. One, the taking of Shemite lands and territories,
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which we do see in history. It's actually like why the Japhethites were in Jerusalem
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during the crucifixion of Christ. We were taking over and ruling over those particular lands. But
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again, God causes all things to work together for good, and it's incredible. But more importantly,
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this dwelling in the tents of Shem refers to being grafted into the vine of Israel,
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which is Christ. So ultimately, this is a prophecy that God would produce an expansive
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and dominating people who would receive the gospel to a greater degree than even the descendants of
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Shem. There's actually like in chapter 10 of Genesis, it talks about how the Japhethites
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become the coastland people. And if you know a little bit about history, they go from Mount
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Ararat, which is where the ark landed, and they arrive just north, about 500 miles to what is
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called the Caucasus Mountains. And in the 1700s, you had a gentleman who was a Christian German
01:04:45.100
scientist, and he realized that the Japhethites really had their first seedbed of civilization,
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Japhethite civilization, at the Caucasus Mountains. And it's why we call white people to this day
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Caucasians. But they moved... So the Caucasus Mountains sits between the Caspian Sea and the
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Black Sea, and they moved left or west through the kind of Slavic territories to the northern
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Mediterranean, to Greece, to Italy, all that territory, Rome, all that was created. And
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there's a prophecy in Isaiah, I think it's 42, that says the coastlands wait for his law.
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And so when God sends Paul on his missionary journey, and if you looked at a missionary
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journey of Paul. You can see the map is all of the coastland realities, and he's not ever
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permitted to go deep beyond the coastland territories of the Mediterranean. And so
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essentially, this is a fulfillment of chapter 42 of Isaiah, which is a fulfillment of chapter 10,
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saying that they became coastland peoples, which is a fulfillment of Genesis chapter 9 that
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Japhethites will dwell in the tents of Shem. So it's just incredible stuff when you start really
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looking into the deeper details. Now, in the same way a prophecy of subjugated and servant people
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manifest in certain biological and civilizational characteristics, like we saw in Ham,
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a prophecy of enlarging and dominating people also is going to manifest certain biological
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and civilizational characteristics. So Japheth and his descendants were endowed with ambition,
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industry, high intelligence, great land, technological capacity, virtue, artistic
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excellence, military prowess, Honorius Augusta Denesis observed during the time of the early
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crusades. He said, quote, those of Shem are free, those of Japheth are noble, and those of Ham are
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serfs, end quote. The Westminster annotations on this passage say, quote, the European Gentiles,
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especially the Romans of the posterity of Japheth, extend their temporal empire so far as to account
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themselves lords of the world, end quote. In John Brown Haddington's commentary, he explains how
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the blessing on Japheth foretells this massive enlargement as his descendants, the Greeks,
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the Romans, the Celts, the Tartars, the Turks, the Europeans, they multiplied, they conquered
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vast territories originally belonging to Shem. They spread across Europe and Asia, and of course,
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eventually to the Americas, and became the primary vehicle for the spread of the gospel
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among the Gentiles across the world. And he concludes that the precise long-term fulfillment
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of these words in both scripture and history stands really as a powerful evidence of the
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divine authenticity of the Bible. And essentially, when these prophecies come true in world history,
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it makes your faith stronger. And so what is the real solution for bringing gospel order to the
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world, including to the Hamitic peoples? It's by embracing both the blessings and the curses
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that God has declared here in chapter nine. So here's what I mean by that. God has sovereignly
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assigned different stations, civilizational stations, and trajectories to different peoples
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for his glory. The Shemites have been blessed to inaugurate the gospel, and they are most blessed
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by embracing Christ. The Japhethites have been blessed to enlarge in both territory
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and Christian regeneration, and they are most blessed when they expand through Christian
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colonization. Now, to consider this in relationship to Ham, when I say Christian colonization,
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were not to overtake in an evil manner, physically enslave with evil motives or exploit people,
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but to establish order, godly leadership, and carry the gospel even further.
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The Hamites have been assigned a civilizational station of subordination and dependence,
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And they are most blessed when they embrace their station under Shemite and Japhethite
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So the answer to this paradigm is not endless foreign aid.
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The answer is to return to Christian colonization of Africa that actually worked.
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In fact, the only times Africa had nations that they have seen significant and sustained
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civilizational improvement, I'm talking like infant mortality rates are going down,
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murders going down, diseases going down, tribal wars are stopping. The only time they saw that are
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when they have come under some type of European or Shemite supervision. We saw this in colonial
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Kenya and Botswana. Dramatically, we saw this in Rhodesia. White Christians turned like a broken
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third world territory into thriving first world Christian societies in less than a century.
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And when that supervision was finally removed, the pattern reversed, as we have painfully
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witnessed in Zimbabwe and elsewhere. I have a friend who runs a large ministry giving clean
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water to places in Africa. And he said one of his biggest problems is they will put a $10,000
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or $40,000 well, and then it will stop working for a $20 part and nobody will get it fixed.
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they won't find a solution to the problem. In fact, in many times, someone stole the part
01:11:42.060
to take the metal to use it for something else. And the whole village goes back to
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the dirty rivers and ponds to get their water and their disease.
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And there's a, I forgot the gentleman's name, Frank something. He's a black man from Africa.
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and he said that there's no word in many African languages for the term maintenance.
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So they don't understand the idea of maintaining something in many tribes across Africa. And so,
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again, this is part of the civilizational station that we're not allowed to talk about.
01:12:20.440
And what this teaches us is that national civility is downstream, not merely from religion,
01:12:28.700
but also from race. Now, again, in the end, this passage, it shouldn't leave anybody in despair
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or pride. It should drive all of us to the foot of the cross. Because while the Hamitic people
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are under a civilizational curse, we are all under the curse of sin. I think of 1 Corinthians,
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take heed that you stand lest you fall. Don't be prideful in who you are and the fact that you're
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better than a particular other race. Now, it should humble the Japhethite who might boast
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in his enlargement. It should comfort the Hamite under generational burdens. It should remind the
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Shemite that his greatest privilege is simply to be a vessel for the Messiah who saves the world.
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God is a God of order, and it's our duty as American Christians to submit in love and grace
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to the order and station the Lord has appointed for each of us. And so again, we're all made
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equally in the image of God. We're all sinners in need of forgiveness and mercy.
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But the gospel doesn't erase our earthly distinctions. It does bring peace to them.
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And so my hope is that we can see Christian nations, whether they're Hamitic, Shemite,
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Semitic, or Japhethites, white Europeans, that there's peace between those nations,
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that we could actually, as Japhethites, go in and help rule over in a loving and godly way
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over the African nations. Sure, there will always be conflict and war and sin involved in all of
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these things, but I think the greatest shot we have at peace is embracing order, embracing what
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the historic church has seen as very obvious conclusions to passages like these. And again,
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order brings peace. And so as Americans, as we wrestle through the chaos of our own
01:14:45.560
multiracial, multi-ethnic, egalitarian experiment, it's time to stop denying the distinctions that
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God has sovereignly established. So again, the Japhethites should not abdicate their place to
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enlarge and carry the gospel of Christ around the world. The Hamites should not see themselves as
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those who do not need leadership of Japheth or Shem. We must embrace biblical reality, right?
01:15:19.180
The gospel redeems individuals from every race, but it does not erase those distinctions.
01:15:24.620
and so we have to be committed to pursue clarity and order and peace in our homes, in our churches,
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and in our nations, in our governments, in our politics by submitting to God's design so that
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Christ might be glorified and our country might once again reflect his good order. Now, I'm not
01:15:48.480
going to be doing a weekly audit this week because this episode is long, and so we're just going to
01:15:53.460
move toward the end. And next week, I'm going to be discussing part one of a two-part series on
01:16:01.240
dispensationalism and Zionism. The episode will be titled Dispensationalism, The Satanic Lie
01:16:07.580
That Wounded American Christianity. Now, if you don't already, you can follow me on X,
01:16:12.860
Instagram, or YouTube. I'm posting new content literally six days a week. And so I'd love to
01:16:18.300
have you on that journey. My featured book for this episode is The Israel Delusion,
01:16:24.000
Challenging Christian Zionism and Reclaiming the Church as the True Israel. It's available
01:16:28.740
on relearn.org or in audio at the ReLearn app. You can also pick up a copy on Amazon.
01:16:34.800
My name is Dale Partridge. Thank you for watching or listening to American Glory.
01:16:48.300
America will either have Christ or it will have chaos.
01:16:59.960
For years, conservatives believed that Trump could reverse America's decline.
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But after Trump, the right is now fractured, exhausted, and losing ground.
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Endless infighting and electoral losses have exposed a deeper problem that politics alone cannot solve.
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A nation that rejects Christ cannot be restored by mere personalities, grandstanding, or Christless conservatism.
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So NXR Studios' first annual conference, America After Trump, brings together pastors, politicians, commentators, and Christians that are committed to strength, cooperation, and a durable future for the American right.
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Complaining is not a strategy, and despair cannot be an option.