Few
there are who have been so greatly honored as Noah. Like his great grandfather, it is recorded of him that he walked
with God. He, by faith, being warned of
God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving
of his house. His grandfather’s name
and presence must have been a daily reminder of judgment that was daily drawing
nearer. We can well believe that those
last five years between the death of his father and grandfather, years in which
the ark was nearing completion, must also have been years of very earnest
testifying, by that ancient “preacher of righteousness”. And then came that death which opened the
way for the flood. And then the flood
itself, with the utter destruction of friends, acquaintances, and all the world
they knew. Noah’s three sons and their
wives passed through these solemn and terrible years. Those years should have left an imprint of solemnity on all that
little family. But what is almost the
first spectacle on which we gaze after freedom from the long confinement of the
ark? We see Noah drunk in his tent,
uncovered, and his son Ham mocking him.
And one of those three favored sons, delivered through the waters of the
flood now falls under a curse which lasts to the present day.
Who was to blame? Why did the son of such an honored servant of God as Noah, fall
under such a terrible condemnation?
What he had seen and heard since childhood in his father’s house and
especially the last few years should have hindered him following such a wicked
course. But, truly, who was to
blame? How often must it have been
forced home to Noah’s conscience, “Had I not been guilty of that
self-indulgence which made me drunk, that I would not have behaved in that
shameful manner that subjected my son to the temptation that caused his
ruin.” Bitter, bitter regrets must
often have filled Noah’s heart, but they were vain regrets, and the bitter
fruit of that day’s self-indulgence lasts to the present moment. And Ham’s second son Mizrain evidently went
further than his father in the paths of wickedness, for an old writer says of
him, “Mizrain was the inventor of those wicked arts named astrology and magic,
and was the same person whom the Greeks name Zoroaster.”
Oh, my dear ones, take heed to self-indulgence! It is so easy to slip into it, and we find it so much more pleasant than enduring hardness as good soldiers of Jesus Christ; soldiers on duty, not, off duty. We will hear more of the bitter fruits of self-indulgence as we continue to meditate on the parents of Scripture: but meanwhile let us remember that “Temperate in all things”, no matter whether chocolates, a book, or a hobby-as well as that in which Noah failed-is a good motto for every one of us parents.