Just like when we talked about what Adam and Eve could have done differently, and what Cain could have done instead of getting angry and killing his brother, this time we are going to talk about how Noah reacted and maybe what he should have done instead. We’ll be comparing him to Jesus, who faced a similar situation where he was naked and humiliated and behaved very differently.
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Hi! I’m Miss Tyler and welcome to another episode of Context for Kids where I teach you guys stuff most adults don’t even know. If this is your first time hearing or if you have missed anything, you can find all the episodes archived at contextforkids.podbean.com, which has them downloadable, or at contextforkids.com, where I have transcripts for readers, or on my Context for Kids YouTube channel.
I always tell you guys that the people in the Bible aren’t perfect—except for Jesus. And last week, wow, Noah really handled being humiliated in a bad way. No matter what Ham, his youngest son, did and no matter how embarrassing it was, it was wrong of Noah to curse his innocent grandson, who probably wasn’t even all that old yet. But, he isn’t the only person in the world to take out his anger on totally the wrong person! And God Himself even talks about the importance of not doing that in Ezekiel. If someone, or you or I, does something terrible, then we are the ones who ought to have consequences, and not someone else, right? If someone steals your bike do you want their little brother or sister to get punished? No way! That wouldn’t be fair or right. But sometimes we do things like that and we’ll be talking today about what we can learn about Noah’s big mistake. And remember that everyone in the Bible will make these kinds of mistakes and I am grateful they were recorded in the Bible so that we can learn from them how not to behave. And not only that, but we also learn that no one is perfect except Jesus. It helps us to get up and keep on going after we do something terrible ourselves, and it also helps us to forgive people when they mess up because we remember that it happens to everyone.
Noah acted foolishly. He drank too much alcohol and got so drunk that he was laying out naked in his tent and when Ham found out about it, he told his brothers and probably everyone else too. Ham’s older brothers covered up their dad with a cloak, which is like a cape but very thick like a blanket. So, when Noah woke up the next morning with a terrible headache (because that’s what happens when you drink alcohol), he would have noticed that someone else’s cloak was laying on top of him and he would be pretty suspicious. I guess he probably went out and asked people what happened and maybe none of them wanted to look him in the eye because they were too embarrassed to tell him, but someone must have because the Bible tells us that when Noah found out what had happened, he was obviously furious because he let loose with some really terrible words toward his grandson! He told his grandson that he would be cursed and that he would be a slave! Then he was complimenting and blessing Shem and Japheth and never even mentioned Ham. Sometimes I wonder if maybe he just never talked to Ham again. It doesn’t say! There’s a lot of stuff the Bible doesn’t say because if it did say those things it would fill a whole library with just the Bible because it would be so huge!
Has that ever happened to you before? Was someone angry at someone else and did they maybe take it out on you instead? Sometimes, we’re angry at someone whom we can’t hurt and so we hurt someone else instead. Sometimes, when parents are angry at their boss they will come home and yell at their kids—and the kids aren’t even the problem! Or maybe an older brother or sister gets in trouble at school or fails a test and comes home and is mean to everyone. Sometimes people will be mean to their dog if they are angry at someone else. Or they start yelling at strangers on the internet. But all of these things are really wrong.
In Ezekiel chapter 18, God talks about this and why it’s wrong. I am not going to read that chapter but I will tell you what it says—it tells us that the people who should be dealt with are the people who have actually done something wrong, and not the people around them. God gave an example of a very good man who keeps the commandments and is kind to his neighbors and always does what is right, but his son is violent and hurts people, he steals from them and does all sorts of terrible things. Does his father deserve to go to jail? No way! The father raised his son right but the son decided it would be more fun to be just horrible and mean. So, the son goes to jail and not the father. And then God goes even further and asks what happens if that guy who was very mean and went to jail, if he had a son but the son didn’t want to do those things because he knew they were wrong and he tried very hard to be a good man—would he get thrown in jail with his dad? No way! It’s a good lesson for us that we can’t blame and punish people for things they haven’t done or when we are angry at someone else.
But what if Noah had handled things differently? How might things have been a lot better? What can we learn from playing the “what if” game? Do you remember that we have done this before? When the Bible tells us that someone makes a terrible decision, like eating the forbidden fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, or when Adam and Eve don’t take responsibility for their sin, or when Cain got angry and killed Abel? Remember when we rewrote those stories to talk about what might have happened instead if they had been wise and honest and listened to God? Because remember, doing something wrong isn’t the end of the world, and we make it a whole lot worse when we do even more wrong to try to cover it up or try to lie our way out of the trouble we earned. And sometimes, when we are honest, we don’t get into trouble or we get into way less trouble than we would have. People like it when we are honest because they know that they can trust us when we make mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes, but not everyone is trustworthy enough to admit it and try to make things right again.
What was Noah’s first mistake? Well, that one is easy. He got drunk—so drunk that he fell asleep naked for the world to see because maybe he didn’t close the door to the tent! But Noah’s second mistake isn’t as easy to see. Noah’s second mistake was getting so angry that he wasn’t clearly thinking about how he was reacting to the problem. Have you ever heard the word “overreacting?” That’s what we call it when someone is angry about something or another, and what they do in response is just crazy, over the top, and too much compared to what was done, or that they lashed out at the wrong person entirely. If Noah was drunk enough to fall asleep naked, then I guarantee you that he had a really horrible headache the next morning. His head must have been pounding like the drums at a rock concert. He would have hurt and that would have put him in a really bad mood and they had no coffee or aspirin in those days. So, he was tired and hurting and then really confused because of the cloak over him. And I don’t know about you but when I am tired and in pain and confused I might do something really stupid—I might go yelling at everyone without really thinking or caring if it is a good idea. I will tell you that Miss Tyler can act like a real goober head and so it is a good thing that I only drink wine on the Passover, and not very much. Plus, I think it tastes and smells pretty gross, so there’s that too.
And let me tell you something else—when I feel that way, sometimes I don’t even care that I could be entirely wrong because I am just in a bad mood. Isn’t that just awful? Are you sometimes so grumpy that you just don’t care what you say or who you say it to? I am not proud that I still do this sometimes although I do it a lot less than I used to. Boy howdy, if I wanted to say something I just said it and I didn’t even care but then God started dealing with it because He hates that. He loves the people I was being mean to, even if I didn’t or even if I was only concerned about my own feelings. And so, when we are grumpy, we have to be really thinking about what we are doing. Sometimes we have to force ourselves to be quiet when we don’t have anything nice to say. Maybe sometimes we need to keep away from other people and just tell them we need to be alone for a while. Sometimes we have to go to a lot of trouble to protect other people from our bad attitude, and especially when it isn’t their fault! Noah drinking too much wine was absolutely no one’s fault except Noah’s. No one forced Noah to drink all that wine. No one made Noah fall asleep naked where people could see. Ham was wrong to do what he did, but Noah gave him the opportunity, the chance, to do wrong. Noah should have taken a few minutes to really think about the fact that he had let everyone in his family down by acting like that and being out of control, and that it would be wrong to take out his bad mood on them.
Of course, the big problem is obvious. Even if he didn’t have a headache or was tired or grumpy, what happened to Noah would embarrass absolutely anyone! Oh my gosh, he was seen naked and drunk. How would you like it if someone saw you naked and then told other people about it instead of quietly covering you up and keeping their mouth shut about it? Why do we even enjoy embarrassing people like that? And not just kids but grownups. We watch videos on YouTube and TV where people are really being embarrassed and not just in front of a few people but when it is on the internet, it can be millions of people overnight. Some people get so embarrassed that they feel like their lives are ruined forever, and some kids have even killed themselves because they were so embarrassed and thought they always would be. We need to remember that every person on earth was created in the image of God and we have to treat other people like they are precious and important. Noah had a similar problem because everyone he knew in the whole world probably knew what had happened because Ham blabbed and made him look very foolish and untrustworthy. Because Noah was the leader of the whole family, it was even worse. Everyone looked up to Noah and respected him because he was the oldest and wisest and had gotten them to safety from the flood and God talked to him. Wow. Wouldn’t you think that Noah was pretty awesome? But now, suddenly, Noah seems like just a normal person who is really lucky there were no cell phones because Ham probably would have made a video and put it on Twitter.
So, Noah went from being the top dog to being the most embarrassed and humiliated person in his family. That would have been terrible, and I think that is exactly what Ham wanted—I think he wanted his father to be so ashamed that he couldn’t be in charge anymore. So that no one would want him for a leader. We don’t know why for sure Ham did what he did, we just know it was wrong and cruel and that it hurt his relationship with his father and his brothers and probably with his son too if he was old enough. Nowadays, someone who is humble, who doesn’t think too highly of themselves, might have the same thing happen and just laugh and throw up their hands into the air and say, “Well, that was sure stupid of me! I can’t believe I even did that—no way will that ever happen again. I’ve learned my lesson and I hope you have all learned that no one wants this to happen to them!” And then maybe everyone else would laugh and everyone would feel comfortable around Noah again and maybe they would just see him as another normal person but one who had done amazing things.
But Noah didn’t do that. Noah lashed out and hurt someone who hadn’t done anything wrong at all. Maybe it was because he didn’t even know where to begin with Ham because Ham had caught him doing something foolish and reckless. Probably he was too embarrassed to even look at Ham or talk to him and maybe he figured that it was entirely his fault in the first place that he had been laying there drunk and naked and felt a bit guilty. We don’t know and we may never know. I know some people say that they will ask God when we see Him but I don’t actually think we will care about any of these questions anymore. I mean, why would we, right? Why would we care about a bunch of people who died thousands of years ago who we don’t even know? And if we meet Noah, I don’t think it would be very polite to ask about it. People want to forget the embarrassing things in their lives, not answer questions about it from total strangers! I am glad there aren’t chapters in the Bible about me!
This is one of the reasons why Jesus tells us to be very humble and to not exalt ourselves. What do those words mean? Well, to exalt ourselves is to decide that we are very important—more important than other people. Showing off, bragging, bossing people around, making a big deal about what we can do or how much we know are all ways of exalting ourselves, but Jesus told us that whoever does that is going to be humbled. What does that mean, to be humbled? Well, it means that you are going to end up being shamed, and embarrassed, and you’ll look bad. And so, the Bible tells us to humble ourselves before someone else does it for us. So, everyone doesn’t need to know your IQ or how many points you scored in the game, or what famous people you are related to, or how much money you have or any of that. When we are humble and don’t go around announcing how awesome we figure we are, then we won’t have so far to fall when we do something ridiculous, and we all do ridiculous things sometimes! But I will tell you something, when you are prideful and a bragger, people really enjoy it a lot more when you make a mistake. When you do something wrong, does it end up on tv and in the newspapers? Probably not and I hope it never does, but when someone famous does something wrong? Oh boy, everyone is talking about it and laughing, right? I hope that neither one of my kids is ever famous because I don’t think I could handle seeing their mistakes being made fun of by people all around the world.
Because Noah was the most popular and respected person in the family, people didn’t expect him to make those kinds of mistakes and end up embarrassed like that. Maybe if Ham had had so much to drink and ended up naked and passed out everyone would have just rolled their eyes and said, “Oh gosh what did he do this time?” But when everyone thinks highly of you, they are more disappointed too and it is way more embarrassing if you aren’t a really super humble person who can just apologize and laugh at your mistakes. It’s harder for people to laugh at you if you are laughing too! It stops being fun for them. And other people will see you as someone who is wise and safe to make mistakes around. But boy howdy, if you start yelling and screaming and lashing out at the wrong people, then the people who don’t like you will be glad and the people who do like you will get worried. We all have to learn how to deal with being embarrassed because it’s always going to happen.
Now who in the Bible is the most worthy person of all to be exalted, honored and respected? Is it Abraham?—Nope, he got his wife in trouble twice by telling her to pretend she was only his sister and not his wife and so she was kidnapped twice by guys who wanted her to be their wife! Isaac did the same thing once. Don’t even get me going on Jacob! Moses and Aaron and Miriam all got themselves in terrible trouble for doing what they shouldn’t have. David really messed up as bad as a person can mess up, quite a few times. Solomon, oh my, the things that boy did! Peter, James and John really just blew it over and over again. Peter even denied knowing Jesus at all, three times! Right after he swore that even if the other eleven bailed on Jesus, he never would and he was willing to die before running away. And then he ran away. And then when a servant girl questioned him, he denied Jesus three times. A servant girl. Pretty embarrassing—not exactly like she was a Roman centurion or something, with armor and a sword.
But there was someone who was humiliated, embarrassed, and shamed more than anyone else ever was in the history of all the world and that is Jesus—Jesus who never did anything wrong. Noah was angry that Ham had made fun of him to everyone by pointing out that he was drunk and naked, and Noah took it out on his grandson. But Jesus didn’t do anything wrong. He was arrested without committing any sin or crime, and they tied Him up and put a blindfold on Him, and ripped at his beard, and punched him and slapped Him and spit in His face, and made fun of Him. And then they took Him to the Romans, and they took all His clothes off and beat him with whips with metal tips while people watched, and they dressed Him up as a king and beat Him on the head with rods and pushed a crown made of long sharp thorns on His head and made fun of Him again. Then they sent Him to be nailed to a cross. He had to take a big heavy beam of wood through the streets, and people made fun of Him, and He was so weak from being beaten that they had to get someone else to carry it for Him. When they got Him to where they were going to kill Him, they took off all of His clothes again and made Him hang in front of a lot of people naked. And they were so mean to Him, telling Him that if He was really so great, He could come down from there and save Himself.
How did Jesus respond to how horrible they were treating Him? He was the Son of God so He could call out and all the angels of Heaven would come and rescue Him, and they could kill everyone who was making fun of Him. That would show them—no one would ever make fun of Jesus ever again. Jesus didn’t just have a bad headache, like Noah, His whole body hurt, and he was bleeding. Jesus wasn’t tired from drinking too much alcohol—He hadn’t slept in over a day! And He wasn’t just embarrassed in front of his family for being naked, like Noah—Jesus was naked because they took His clothes away and nailed Him to the Cross and they were yelling insults and being horrible. Noah didn’t have to deal with any of that. If Jesus wanted to, He could have had them all killed. No one would even have blamed Him for doing it because those people were really asking for it.
Jesus didn’t say anything to them. He didn’t threaten them. He didn’t tell them that they’d be sorry when He rose from the dead. He didn’t insult them the way they were insulting Him. Do you think you would have yelled back and said, “Just you wait! God is going to strike you dead for this!” I think I would have a hard time being quiet and kind. Have you heard of the Fruit of the Spirit? Paul talks about them in Galatians 5. As we become more and more like Jesus, we will be more loving, joyful, peaceful (meaning we don’t pick fights), patient, kind, good, trusting and trustworthy, gentle, and self-controlled. Well, think of how many of those things Jesus had to be while He was sadder than He had ever been in His life and hurting more than we can even imagine? He could have called down fire from Heaven on them all but He had perfect self-control, so He didn’t. He is called the Prince of Peace and so He didn’t go to war against them. He was too gentle and kind to shout terrible things at the crowd. He could have called angels to rescue Him, but He was patient and trusted God that this was the way to save the world. I would have shouted for those angels and called down fire from heaven and I would have been really angry. That’s why God still has a lot of work to do before I can be anything like Jesus.
Jesus showed us how to be perfect. And some people will say, “He overturned the tables in the Temple and used a whip!” Yes, but He didn’t hurt anyone and when He did that, He was fulfilling prophecies that were about Him. That’s why He didn’t do it all the time. There was a time and a place for Him and only Him to come to the Temple and judge what was going on there. And there was the time when He said “Woe!” to the Pharisees and called them hypocrites, which means they were pretenders. But Jesus also really loved them, and I think He was very sad because of how they were missing the point of the commandments. And a great many of them believed Jesus after He rose from the dead. And one of the biggest reasons they believed was because of something Jesus said on the Cross—He said, “Father, forgive them because they don’t know what they are doing.” Yes, He was harsh on that one day but He was also willing to die for them and to forgive them for everything they had done. That’s amazing.
Noah cursed his innocent grandson and never seems to have taken it back, just because He was embarrassed, and Jesus was way more embarrassed, and not only didn’t He curse anyone but He forgave people who actually were guilty! We can be impressed with how obedient Noah was—amazingly obedient. He is a great example for us to do what God tells us even if it seems crazy. But He isn’t a good example of how to handle embarrassing situations and especially ones that we bring on ourselves by acting foolishly. We can’t love our reputations more than we love people or it will get us into big trouble. Imagine if Noah had taken Ham aside to talk to him about what he had done and asked him why he did it? Maybe Noah could have fixed whatever was broken that made Ham think that was a good idea in the first place. But we’ll never know because Noah fell far short of the example we have in Jesus.
I love you. I am praying for you, and I hope you have a wonderful time this week studying the Bible with the people who love you.