He That Hath Understanding, Let Him Calculate at Once (continued)
Consequently, after the flood, after God made His everlasting covenant with Noah that He would not destroy the earth again with water, after this Noah sinned, he let the desire of his natural man cause him to sin, to miss the mark. We can understand Cain's natural man for he was of that wicked one. But Noah? - How could this man of faith give satan the ground he needed to bring forth a Nimrod?
Well, beloved, here is a grave warning to us. Noah had stood his ground throughout one of the greatest conflicts of the ages, he had not given the enemy a particle of ground, he lived by faith in all that God Was, and Is, and Ever-Shall-Be. And through faith, he saved his household from judgment and he preserved a people who would be the vessels that carried the "seed", Which is Christ. But after the battle was over, after things began to be just an every day type of living, Noah set about his daily task to make a living as a husbandman, a tiller of the vine; and as he did Noah began to let down his guard. He was not alert and watchful for the next move of the enemy. And satan, who knows the weaknesses of our natural man, provided that which would satisfy Noah's carnal man. Noah partook of the works of his own hands, "And he drank of the wine, and was drunken." Genesis 9:24 tells us that it was "his wine." Now most of us blame Noah's son Ham for what followed, but Ham would have never seen the nakedness of his father, if his father had not first sinned.
There are many spiritual lessons that we can learn from Noah's failure, but first of all we must say this, actual drunkenness is a sin before God, and "strong drink," drinking intoxicating beverages, has always been, and still is, the cause of much of the misery that is in the world. Therefore, Christians should abstain from even the appearance of this evil. Remember, if Noah had not drunk the wine to begin with, he would not have become "drunken."
So we have seen that when the battle was over, Noah began to let down his guard, he became unalert and unwatchful. And this is just the time that satan will make his next move, as he provides that which will strengthen the natural man in order to weaken the stand of the spiritual man. Consequently, we find Noah partaking of the works of his own hands, "And he drank the wine, and was drunken." In the Bible when the word "wine' is used in a bad sense, it is speaking figuratively of that which yields to the lust of the natural man, it is speaking of the loss of self-control, it is speaking of the natural man exhibiting the worst part of its character, it is speaking of the natural man being governed by evil. That is why the Lord gives us this command in Ephesians 5:18: "And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled [in] the Spirit".
Therefore, we find that the Word solemnly declares, "And Noah awake from his wine," - in yielding to the desires and lusts of the natural man, Noah had been put to sleep spiritually! One of the most important things we can learn from this is that we face one of the most dangerous times in our spiritual life right after we have stood our ground in a spiritual conflict against "spiritual wickedness." Even though the battle seems to have let us, we must devote ourselves to prayer, continually staying alert in it (Col. 4:2); we must stay alert "in the Spirit" for the next move of the enemy will most certainly be a move to satisfy and strengthen our natural man in some way, in order to put us asleep spiritually.
Beloved, Noah's failure cannot take away from the fact that Noah was God's man, and that God accomplished mighty things through Noah because, through faith, Noah wholly depended upon his Lord. And God's final verdict upon Noah is that Noah became an heir of Righteousness, which means Noah is joint-membered with those who are joint-heirs with Jesus Christ. However, the Lord wants us to learn this from Noah's mistake. Noah did not remain alert after the battle, and the result was that Noah did not keep his natural man under subjection to God's Way; and God's Way is always the way of the Cross, the way of self-denial. This, for a time, Noah came under satan's rule, and satan had the ground he needed to bring forth a Nimrod.
"Now these are the generations of the sons of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth: and unto them were sons born after the flood" (Genesis 10:1).
~T. Austin-Sparks~
(continued with # 37)
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