What would you say if you saw a professing Christian lying naked in a drunken stupor? Sometimes the young are carried away with youthful lusts and end up disgracing themselves and their Christian profession. But the Bible tells us of an old man of God who had some of the most wonderful experiences of God’s presence and salvation and yet is found in this pitiful, pathetic and scandalous state. What a warning! We can be hard on the young but the Scriptures reveal to us several cases where old believers backslide terribly, causing offence and bringing contempt upon the church of God.

Noah’s Godliness⤒🔗

Amongst the godly of ancient times Noah is one of the most outstanding. Scripture says of him: ‘Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God’ (Gen 6:9). He was a righteous and holy man and ‘perfect’ in the wicked day in which he lived when violence and lust reached such proportions that God said, ‘The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth’ (6:13). But in contrast we are told, ‘But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord’ (6:8). God decided to wash the world clean as it were and start again with Noah and his family. Earlier we read of Enoch who ‘walked with God: and he was not; for God took him’ (5:24). Here was one who was so godly and had such a deep relationship with God that he was said to walk with God and did not actually die. He and Elijah are the only two in the history of mankind of whom this can be said. Yet Noah in the chapter following the one about Enoch is also said to walk with God. What a holy man Noah must have been!

Noah’s faith is praised in Hebrews 11 where he is placed among the heroes of faith: ‘By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house; by the which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith’ (Heb 11:7). Peter says God ‘spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly’ (2 Pet 2:5). Here is one of the greatest men of God who ever walked this planet.

Noah’s Drunkenness←⤒🔗

The Bible tells us: ‘Noah began to be an husbandman, and he planted a vineyard’ (Gen 9:20). No doubt in pre-flood times people grew grapes and made wine. It is not presented as some new discovery which Noah made, but rather as something he thought he would try doing. It was some years after the flood since Canaan the youngest son of Ham was around. The zeal of the builder of the ark and the preacher of righteousness is beginning to wane. The thankfulness and worship which characterised Noah’s emergence from the ark is not so evident. Sadly how often in the Scriptures we are warned of the backsliding which characterises many Christians in their old age. He made his wine, enjoyed the taste and the sensation and overindulged.

What does the Bible say about Drink?←⤒🔗

Wine is a gift of God’s providence: ‘Wine that maketh glad the heart of man’ (Ps 104:15). Our Saviour turned water into wine at the wedding in Cana when the supply had run out (Jn 2). Paul advises Timothy, because of the contaminated nature of the water available, ‘Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach’s sake and thine often infirmities’ (1 Tim 5:23). The Lord’s great rule is moderation in all things: ‘Let your moderation be known unto all men. The Lord is at hand’ (Phil 4:5). Drunkenness is severely condemned: ‘Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you: but ye are washed’ (1 Cor 6:9-11). All drunkards will go to hell unless they repent, and repentance means not just being sorry but turning one’s back on drunkenness. We all know the poverty it brings, the broken families and broken hearts, the health problems (stomach, heart, liver, brain damage), the accidents caused, the violence, the crime, the destroyed lives, the early death, but the Bible also tells us of the eternal misery of hell which follows. People like to talk of heavy drinking as an illness but God talks of it as sin (Gal 5:21).

Noah’s Shame←⤒🔗

Scripture warns, ‘Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth his colour in the cup, when it moveth itself aright. At the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder’ (Prov 23:31-32). Noah was tempted and yielded. He overindulged, threw off his clothes and lay in a drunken state in his tent. How pathetic! How desperately sad to see the godly patriarch bringing the name of God into the gutter! The devil is always looking for ways to tempt us and get us to grieve the Holy Spirit and tarnish our witness. A moment’s madness can do much harm. It takes a lifetime to build a good character but only a few minutes to lose it. Watch and pray lest you enter into temptation. It is easy to steal, to lie, to lose your temper, to commit adultery and so disgrace yourself and your God. People will say, ‘You Christians are great at telling others how to live but you are just hypocrites. The church is full of hypocrites’. However, remember that there is also a way back. The devil will try to get you to despair. ‘There is no hope’, he says, ‘just give up your profession of faith. You are going to end up in hell anyway’. But God loves to receive prodigals back. He promises, ‘I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely: for mine anger is turned away from him’ (Hos 14:4).The New Testament makes plain that Noah repented. He ‘became heir of the righteousness which is by faith’ (Heb 11:7).

Ham’s Sin←⤒🔗

Noah’s second son Ham was also a professing man of God. He too was saved from the flood which came on the ungodly. He sees his father lying naked in the tent, doesn’t just glance but fastens his gaze on him and despises him. ‘Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall’ (1 Cor 10:12). The Fifth Commandment says, ‘Honour thy father and thy mother’. He should have felt deeply sad but instead enjoys it. Do you ever take pleasure in someone else’s sin? His son Canaan receives prominent mention in the narrative. Perhaps he was the first to come on old Noah and told his father, or perhaps Ham told Canaan and shared the mocking of his father with his youngest son. Ham proceeded to tell his brothers Shem and Japheth, expecting them to join in his mockery of godly old Noah, but their reaction was quite the opposite and immediately and delicately they covered their father’s nakedness. How wicked it is to gloat over the sins of other Christians, even those who have offended us or been unkind to us in the past.

Noah’s Prophecy←⤒🔗

Some have wrongly tried to justify the slavery of Africans on the basis that Noah pronounced a curse of servitude upon Ham. The Africans are certainly Ham’s descendants but it is worth noticing that the curse is pronounced on his son Canaan and not on the rest of his sons: ‘Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren’ (Gen 9:25). Later the wickedness of Canaan had reached such a level that Israel was commanded to wipe them out and take over their land. The Gibeonites survived by deceiving the Israelites and persuading them to enter into a covenant with them but they became hewers of wood and drawers of water for the house of God (Josh 9:27). Shem is blessed. From him comes the elect nation and the seed of the woman, the Saviour. Japheth will share in the blessing and come to dwell in the tents of Shem. Here is a clear prophecy, thousands of years before it happened, of the gospel blessings which would come to the Europeans, the sons of Japheth. But we long too for the fullness of the promised blessing to come to the Jews (and indeed the Arabs as well – also Shemites) in that they will behold Him ‘whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him’ (Zech 12:10) and so be saved with Japheth.