2004 European Bible Study MeetingThe Journeys of AbrahamApril 12th, 2004, AfternoonFor the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.  Hebrews 4:12The Cursed Land of Canaan Let’s turn to Genesis chaptear 9 and read from verse 20.And Noah began to be a farmer, and he planted a vineyard. Then he drank of the wine and was drunk, and became uncovered in his tent. And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brothers outside. But Shem and Japheth took a garment, laid it on both their shoulders, and went backward and covered the nakedness of their father. Their faces were turned away, and they did not see their father’s nakedness. So Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done to him. Then he said: “Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants he shall be to his brethren.” And he said: “Blessed be the Lord, the God of Shem, and may Canaan be his servant. May God enlarge Japheth, and may he dwell in the tents of Shem; and may Canaan be his servant.”  Genesis 9:20-27 After Noah came out of the ark, he planted a vineyard. Then, one day, it seems he drank too much wine. As he fell asleep in his drunken state, he became uncovered in his tent, and when his son Ham saw this, he went and told his brothers. This is slightly different from Ham merely being disrespectful to his father.  When we read passages like this in the book of Genesis, we need to understand how the account unfolded before this time. There was no law at that time, and the commandments God had given to man were really quite straightforward. Until Genesis chapter 9, God had simply commanded man to be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and we find that people who put their trust in God offered sacrifices to Him in the way that He had done. Also, Genesis places substantial weight and importance on the “seed.”  This passage we have read is not simply an account of the incident in which Ham found his father lying naked in his drunken state and went and told his brothers; we need to think a little more deeply about this matter. Ham saw his father’s nakedness and went and told his brothers. He definitely saw the part of his father’s body through which the seed is passed on, and he went and told his brothers. His brothers walked in to their father backwards and covered their father’s nakedness without looking at him. These three sons had been born through the body of their father Noah to whom God had given the command to be fruitful and multiply, and they, too, were capable of passing on the seed in the same way. Yet, at this time Ham had taken lightly this method that God had ordained, and spoken of it without thinking. This is why Noah said, “Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants he shall be to his brethren.” Ham had four sons: Cush, Mizraim, Put, and Canaan. It was not Ham that Noah cursed, but Ham’s son, Canaan. The land of Canaan was the region in which the descendants of Canaan lived. The people who lived in that land were cursed.  Abraham came to the land of Canaan about three hundred years after this incident. We cannot really say that during those three hundred years it was only descendants of Canaan that lived in the land of Canaan; there would have been people of various tribes all living together in that land. Nevertheless, in view of the fact that the land was called Canaan, we can be sure that the people who first took up residence in that land were the descendants of Canaan, the son of Ham. The Bible tells us that when Joshua led the Israelites into the land of Canaan after they came out of Egypt, they fought with the Canaanites. Also, when Jesus was in this world, a Canaanite woman came to Jesus and addressed Him as, “Son of David.” That land of Canaan is now the land of Israel. In Genesis chapter 10 from verse 15, we find the genealogy of Canaan. They dwelt in the land that stretched from Sidon in the north, to Sodom and Gomorrah in the east, and south to regions similar to present-day Israel. Abraham, the forefather of the Israelites, first appears in the Bible at the end of Genesis chapter 11. God called him from far away and brought him to this land of Canaan. God called this man who lived like a nomad far away and led him into the cursed land of Canaan. This was similar to when God addressed the earth that was without form and void, and said, “Let there be light!” God said to Abraham, “Get out of your country, from your family and from your father’s house, to a land that I will show you” (Genesis 12:1). So it was that Abraham, who became the forefather of the Israelites and father of faith of all those who believe—all those who have been made righteous—obeyed God and entered this land that had been cursed. We come across something similar in the book of Exodus. It happened when the Israelites were slaves in the land of Egypt. The Israelites had greatly increased in number, so the pharaoh commanded that all the male children born to the Israelites were to be put to death. In the midst of this situation, a male child was born into a Levite family, and his parents hid him away. When it became evident that they would not be able to hide him any longer, they set him in a basket and floated it on the river. The princess of Egypt—the daughter of the pharaoh—found the child and raised him as her own. That child grew up in the palace of the royal family, the most powerful people in Egypt, with his birth mother as his wet-nurse. A child of Israel was growing up at the center of Egypt, the enemy of Israel which treated the Israelites as slaves.  In just the same way, when the Israelites were being trampled under foot by the Roman Empire, unbeknown to anyone else, a child was growing in the womb of a certain woman in the land of Israel. Who was that child? It was Jesus Christ.  If you examine the Bible from the beginning, you will see that God definitely does not use a method of going round in circles. He proceeds secretly and quietly, but His methods are very keen and precise. This is why there are times when the people or powers involved in this work are not aware of what is happening. When “The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep,” the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters, and God said, “Let there be light” (see Genesis 1:2-3). This was just like when the light shone in the darkness, but the darkness did not comprehend it (see John 1:5). Also, Abraham entered the land of Canaan accompanied only by his family. It does not say anywhere in the Bible that Abraham clashed in any way at that time with the Canaanites. It was only after Abraham had been to Egypt that a little friction arose between him and the people of Canaan. Moses grew up in the royal palace of Egypt even though at some point he would become Egypt’s archenemy and free the Israelites from the bondage of Egypt. In just the same way, Jesus grew within the body of a woman. Even the experience of being born again that we have all had is very similar to this. When a person is born again, the people beside him do not see or hear anything as the word of God pierces his heart like a very sharp knife. The person alone is aware of this.All these things that occur through the word of God are very similar to what is expressed in Hebrews chapter 4.For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.  verse 12 It was not just a random incident when Ham saw his father’s nakedness and went and told his brothers, and then Ham’s son, Canaan, was cursed. God who “commanded light to shine out of darkness” (2 Corinthians 4:6) continued to use this same method to carry out His work. It would not be incorrect to say that these words refer to the history of Israel. As the Bible says, “That which has been is what will be, that which is done is what will be done” (Ecclesiastes 1:9).The Command Received by Abraham The genealogy of Shem is to be found in the latter part of Genesis chapter 10. Shem had a son by the name of Eber, and he had two sons: Peleg and Joktan. Verse 26 onwards, talks about the descendants of Joktan. Genesis chapter 10 is all about the descendants of Noah’s three sons, but this has little to do with Israel. The genealogy in Genesis chapter 10 is closely related to man. In chapter 11, however, we come across a hitch. The order of events found in the Bible is described in careful detail. Genesis chapter 11 talks about the tower of Babel. God had said, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth,” but in order to avoid being scattered across the face of the whole earth, the people acted in a way that was diametrically opposed to God’s will in that they started to build a tower whose top is in the heavens. As a result, their work was brought to a halt. They did not even use stones to build the tower; they made bricks and baked them thoroughly. This is a reference to the history of man’s efforts to accomplish things in accordance with the will of man, who was himself made of the dust of the ground.  After the account of what happened in regard to this tower, the Bible goes back to the genealogy of Shem. Chapter 11 verse 10 begins with, “This is the genealogy of Shem,” and then Abraham was born nine generations from Shem. In Genesis, there are nine generations, but in Luke’s Gospel we find one additional generation, making ten. In Genesis, after Shem comes Arphaxad, and after Arphaxad, comes Salah. In Luke’s Gospel, however, it says that a man by the name of Cainan is inserted in the genealogy after Arphaxad. (see 3:36) We cannot know the reason for this from the Bible, but there are times when God omits people from the genealogies. We find this to be the case in Matthew chapter 1 as well.  At the time of Peleg, a descendant of Shem, the earth was divided. Then, a few generations later, Terah was born. Terah was living in the city of Ur, which was located in the southeastern region of Babylon. Historically, there was a highly developed civilization in Ur at that time. Terah had three sons: Abraham, Nahor, and Haran. It was while this family was living in Ur that Abraham heard the voice of God speaking to him. God told him to leave that place. So this family set off towards the north with their father Terah. They arrived at the city of Haran in Mesopotamia, and there Terah died. Abraham parted from his father in Haran. This is when Abraham left behind his former self so that God’s word might be accomplished. It was also in Haran that Abraham departed from Nahor. His other brother, Haran, had already died in Ur before Abraham left there. It was when Abraham was completely separated from his brothers and his father that he heard the voice of God speaking to him once more. Similarly, it is after we have put our own thoughts and matters related to our flesh in order before God that we are able to see a little more clearly what God is saying in His word. We are able to read such deep meanings within the life of Abraham.Now the Lord had said to Abram: “Get out of your country, from your family and from your father’s house, to a land that I will show you.”  Genesis 12:1 Is this verse simply saying that Abraham went to the land of Canaan as God led him in order that Abraham might live there? There was a time when God commanded God the Son to “Get out from Your Father’s house and go to a land that I will show You.” Following God’s direction, the One who was seated on the throne of God’s glory in the beautiful third heaven came down and entered the body of a certain woman in the land of Israel. It is much easier for us to understand if, when we read the Bible, we look at everything in the light of Jesus. From Haran, Abraham traveled towards the southwest, taking with him his wife, his nephew Lot, and his servants. The path that Abraham took starting out from Ur, passing through Haran, and continuing on to the land of Canaan followed the shape of a crescent moon, and at that time it was a very fertile area. Abraham followed this path and entered the land that God showed him, the land of Canaan that was inhabited by the Canaanites, a nation that had been cursed.  God appeared to Abraham when he arrived at Shechem, and there He promised to give this land to Abraham’s descendants. In the King James Version of the Bible it does not say “descendants” but “seed.” Of course, historically speaking, it was Abraham’s descendants—Israel—who took possession of this land, but in Galatians chapter 3 verse 16 we find it says clearly that “your descendants” refers ultimately to Jesus. God had already made this promise to Abraham when he was in Haran. I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.  Genesis 12:2-3 Having received this promise, Abraham arrived in the land of Canaan at the age of 75. Then, he met with God by a great terebinth tree in the land of Shechem. After that, Abraham was led by some unknown power and gradually traveled south until he reached Egypt. In Egypt, Abraham was very concerned about his wife Sarai, because she was very beautiful. He was worried that someone might kill him and take Sarai as his own wife. So he told Sarai if anyone should ask her, she was to say she was his sister. If she did this, they would come to him, thinking he was her brother, and they would treat him well. Later, Abraham’s son Isaac also married a beautiful wife and acted in the same way. The Egyptian pharaoh, however, heard about the great beauty of this woman, and he sent and had her brought to his palace. As a result, God brought a great plague upon the pharaoh and his household. So the pharaoh summoned Abraham and asked him why he had lied and said that his wife was his sister. Then Abraham took his wife, left Egypt, and went back to the land of Canaan once more. When he returned Abraham was rich in silver and in gold. He was given all these riches before he left. Later, the Israelites went through exactly the same experience. Through Joseph, Jacob’s entire family of no more than seventy moved to Egypt. Four hundred years later, a huge multitude of 600,000 men on foot—not counting the children—left Egypt and eventually entered the land of Canaan. At that time, they also took great riches and many animals for sacrifice with them as they went out into the wilderness.  Abraham traveled from the land of Canaan, down to Egypt, and back again. The Israelites also went down to Egypt and later came back up again. Later, Jesus was born in the land of Canaan, and he also went down to Egypt to flee from Herod, and then came back again. Having heard that the King of the Jews had been born, Herod had given the command that all the young male children were to be killed. Abraham and the Israelites had left Canaan and gone to Egypt to flee from a famine. They did this to avoid death. Jesus, too, fled the sword of Herod and went to Egypt in the arms of His birthmother and her husband, Joseph.  This is quite unique. What does this mean for us? In the Bible it says, “That which has been is what will be, that which is done is what will be done.” From a broad perspective, all these

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