Gtcotr/021818
Exodus
34 says the sins of fathers are visited upon their children to the third and
fourth generations. But Deuteronomy 7 proclaims that righteousness will endure
for a thousand generations.
Last
Sunday we discovered that God did not intend the Old Testament to be just a
historical record of what happened to the Children of Israel on their journeys
through life. Rather God gave us the Old Testament accounts of the Children of
Israel as a roadmap for us to use in our lives.
We
drew parallels from the natural to the spiritual and saw how Egypt equaled the
world; Pharaoh equaled satan; and how the natural enemies of the Children of
Israel equal the spiritual enemies we face in life today.
Finally,
we realized it was never God’s intent for His children to live in a wilderness.
The wilderness is not the Promised Land and it’s too close to the world. He
brought us out of the world to get the world out of us.
Today
we begin studying the enemies who occupy our Promised Land. Together we are
going to learn how to identify and defeat them. If we are going to be
victorious we must be willing to face the enemies of our souls … if we face
them, God will help us defeat them. If we refuse to face them, we forfeit, and
they win by default. Are you ready? Let us go at once …
Exodus 3
7 ¶ And the LORD said: “I
have surely seen the oppression of My people who are in Egypt, and have
heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows.
8 “So I have come down to
deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up from that
land to a good and large land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the
place of the Canaanites and the Hittites and the Amorites and the Perizzites
and the Hivites and the Jebusites.”
The First Enemy – The Canaanite.
For
near 40 years I have diligently studied the words, the people and the lessons
of the Bible. The Canaanite enemy is a subject I know very well. I have
wrestled in my mind trying to discern how much to share with you this morning. I
don’t want to overload you, but I do want to equip you.
I
could just tell you that The Canaanite is the enemy of
our soul called Compromise. I could say that this spirit will do its
best to keep you living as a worldly Christian. The Apostle Paul called those
people, Carnal Christians.
I
could simply encourage you to recognize those temptations to compromise your
Christianity and forsake every flesh motivated sinful habit of your soul.
Perhaps I could inspire you to resist the enticements that draw you to love the
world and the things of the world. You already know how Jesus said: “All that is in the world, the lusts of the flesh, the lusts
of the eyes and the pride of life, are enemies of God.” (1 John 2:16)
The
truth is the spiritual enemy we face in life called the Canaanite tries to
entice us to compromise our lives. The Canaanite is a sweet-talking devil who
tries to subdue you and bring you low by getting you to bow your knee to him
through compromise. He is trying to sell us a bill of goods and rob us of the
power that godliness and holiness brings to a life. He says, “It’s ok to sin
just a little or lie just a little or cheat just a little … everybody else does
… you can’t be perfect … look at what they’re doing … don’t feel bad about it …
you’re doing good … it feels right … come on … just a little, no one will know
…”. He is one heck of a salesman for sin.
My
grandson Jacob told me some people call it “realism” but it’s just sin.
Some
people are tempted to compromise their values for love or sex, money, power or
position. Life is about more than just getting what we want … it’s about
getting what He wants. And, what God wants is better.
I
could say the Canaanites will tempt you to compromise your walk with Christ –
“Don’t!” – and I could just leave it at that. But, I feel I wouldn’t be giving
you the whole story or equipping you as well as I should so that you can defeat
this enemy of the soul both for your sakes and the sake of your families. So,
allow me to go just a little deeper in the scriptures today and help you discover
more about this Canaanite and how to defeat him.
By
the time we get to Moses and the situation in Exodus 3, God has cursed the
Canaanites and has been angry with them for about 700 years. Do you remember
the flood in the days of Noah? Let’s go back in time …
About 2348BC, (4366 years ago, +/-), God sent the flood to destroy the
world and all its inhabitants because the world was filled with wickedness. But
Noah was a righteous man and a preacher of righteousness, therefore God saved
him and his household. After a year on the ark they all began their new lives
on an earth that had been cleansed by the washing of the waters. This too is a natural
parallel to salvation and water baptism.
Some
years passed, and life was going along ok. Noah’s sons were all raising
families and God’s plan to replenish the earth was in full swing. Genesis 9
tells us that Noah was a farmer and he had a vineyard. After harvesting his
crops one year, Noah made wine and sometime after it had fermented Noah drank
too much, became drunk and passed out in his tent.
The
youngest of Noah’s three sons, Ham, knew what his father had done and went into
his father’s tent and did something shameful to his father. Then, as if that
wasn’t enough, Ham came out and went and bragged and laughed and made fun of his
father’s nakedness in front of his two brothers, Shem and Japheth. These two
older brothers, out of respect for their father, took a blanket and walked
backwards into their father’s tent and covered him. (There are so many
spiritual parallels we draw from this record God gave us to use as a roadmap
for our lives.) We continue:
Genesis 9 NKJV
24 ¶ So Noah awoke from his
wine, and knew what his younger son had done to him.
25 Then he said: “Cursed be
Canaan; A servant of servants He shall be to his brethren.”
26 And he said: “Blessed be
the LORD, The God of Shem, And may Canaan be his servant.
27 May God enlarge Japheth,
And may he dwell in the tents of Shem; And may Canaan be his servant.”
So,
if Ham did this abominable act to his father before God and others, why did God
curse Canaan and not Ham? Ham had four sons:
Genesis 10:6 The sons of Ham were
Cush, Mizraim, Put, and Canaan.
1.
Cush – The father of the
of Persians and Arabians from Iraq south to Ethiopia.
2.
Mizraim – The father of the
Egyptians in both upper and lower Egypt.
3.
Put – The father of the
Libyans and the people who first settled the lands we now know as Tunisia,
Algeria and Mauritania.
4.
Canaan – The
father of the Phoenicians and all those “ites” in the land of Canaan.
So
why did God curse Canaan instead of Ham? A few reasonable answers exist among
scholars from every age. I’ll offer just two:
1.
Either
Canaan agreed with and accompanied his father into that tent that day and
committed a lewd act against his own grandfather,
2.
Or
Canaan was the one son of Ham who was just like his father and grew up tempting
and teaching others to compromise.
Ham
was born in the world before the flood, and even though he escaped death it was
not enough to motivate him to change his life. Ham continued his worldly
wickedness into his new life. It seems easier for God
to get His children out of the world than it is for Him to get the world out of
His children. Ham was a wicked, worldly man. Many believe that Ham taught
and tempted people to do wicked things and that Canaan was just like him.
At
any rate, neither Ham nor his other three sons were named in the curse which
followed this horrible act. The notion that all the descendants of Ham are
cursed or that they carry some extra burden in life is preposterous and in
complete opposition to the clear Word of God. Canaan was named, and the Canaanites
are consistently targeted by God as His enemy.
We cannot live a victorious life with one foot in the Kingdom of God
and one foot in the world.
A compromised life can cost us and our families too much. He did not save us
from Pharaoh to let us live in the swallow and shadow of Egypt.
Two questions for
today:
1. How can we identify compromise?
a. The Hebrew word
Canaanite means peddler or merchant. This is one who entices you, trying to
sell you a bill of goods. It’s an attempt to humble and humiliate you and
subdue you by bring you low and laughing when you fall.
b. The serpent in the
Garden of Eden had this spirit.
c. Do you hear a voice
tempting you to compromise? Is it telling you that just a little bit won’t
hurt? It’s the Canaanite!
2. How can we defeat the Canaanites in our life?
a. Face it … Just call
it what it is … not realism … it’s compromise.
God
said He would drive the Canaanite out from before your face … but you must face
it …
b. Repent before God
with a heart-felt sorrow.
c. Recover yourself
with a commitment to stay away from it and/or never do that again.
The
Apostle Paul said, “I crucify my flesh daily!”
·
Do
what it takes
·
As
many times as it takes
·
To
get the victory …
·
Don’t
bow to the Canaanite
In
what areas of life are you most tempted to compromise?
·
Lusts
·
Money
·
Revenge
·
Sex
·
Pride
·
Anger
·
Alcohol
·
Pornography
·
Adultery
·
Selfishness
·
Hate
·
Cussing
·
Gossiping
·
Lying
·
Cheating
·
Drugs
What
calls your name and tempts you to compromise your Christian walk and witness?
What is the lie you are tempted to believe? Who wants to set you up and them
make you fall and uncover your nakedness? Who wants to hurt you and your
children and your children’s children?
It’s
the Canaanite! Recognize him and run to Jesus! Repent and Recover yourself from
the snare of the devil … (2 Timothy 2:25) Let’s
Pray!!!
