Hartland Spring Convocation 2022: Walking in the Light

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Hartland Institute of Health and Education

Charles Holtry

Sabbath School

I'm glad to be back on Heartland campus this morning.

It's good to see familiar faces, friends, family, In a way, yes.

Today what we're doing for our Sabbath school is not going to be a sermon.

I'm afraid I scared maybe the media team a little bit.

They did not look scared, I will clarify that.

Very professional, but we are going to have some discussion.

And so if you do have a Sabbath school lesson on you, we will be looking at our Sabbath school lesson.

If not, I know that you also can find it on the internet.

Not that I'm encouraging Facebooking right now, but I definitely could check out that.

Powerful families have affected our world for a very long time.

In fact, if you look at the history of our world you'll see that powerful families have done much.

If I were to ask you what are some names of powerful families that have affected or influenced our planet?

See, there's a story in that middle row, I'm listening to you ma'am.

Yes, Any other families or names that come out as you're thinking?

Genghis Khan and those are connected with that.

And then recently, even in the United States, we have certain families that really affect what takes place in the United States.

Yes, some are familiar with the Kennedy family, the Bush family.

These are large political families and there's others.

But there is a family that has affected the course of our history as a world more than any other, and that's some man named Noah and his prodigy, right?

So if you don't mind turning with me to the book of Genesis chapter 9, that's where our lesson picks up.

I'll be asking several questions as we go through, but let's start in Genesis 9.

Genesis chapter 9, we'll be beginning with verse 18.

Now, the story that we see being given here in Genesis chapter 9, verse 18, is a very unique 1.

And the question that you saw in your quarterly was why would we have such a strange story?

What is the message that's trying to be given to us?

So let's read through it and know that this is the question we are going to be asking ourselves.

I just, Genesis chapter 9 verse 18 it says, and the sons of Noah that went forth of the ark were Sham, Ham, and Japheth.

These are the 3 sons of Noah, and of them was the whole earth overspread.

And Noah began to be a husband man, and he planted a vineyard, and he drank of the wine and was drunken, and he was uncovered within his tent.

And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father and told his 2 brethren without.

And Shem and Japheth took a garment and laid it upon both their shoulders and went backward and covered the nakedness of their father and their faces were backward and they saw not their father's nakedness.

And Noah awoke from his wine and knew what his younger son had done unto him.

And he said, Cursed be Canaan, a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren." A unique story.

A story that tells of 3 sons' reactions to the impropriety of their father.

My question would be, and by the way, if you would like to speak, I think we're, just raise your hand and someone will bring a mic to you that way you can can be heard What is the message that's trying to be shared with us today as we're looking at this story of?

Ham By the way, we'll be looking at Shem and Japheth as we go through, but what is the message, why this strange story, what is the purpose of it being told?

I smiled when I looked at this, I thought this is not going to be a great jump in and talk about story.

But if there's something you're studying you wanted to share, I don't want to miss out.

Yes, We have a hand up here on the front row.

I don't know a lesson for me was honor your father and mother where Ham discovered his father naked and he didn't have to tell anybody.

And again, that is definitely a lesson we see coming out here is respect for parents, yes.

In addition to that, well, there are the good parents or the bad parents, we still have to honor them.

In this case, Noah did not behave very well himself by getting drunk, but he still did not deserve the dishonor that he received.

So here we have a father who's clearly not doing something that would be wise.

We have another hand here, center on the aisle.

It's after the flood, did no 1 know that wine would make him drunk?

Maybe wine had Different characteristics than before, I don't know.

There has been major changes that have taken place.

Yes, so we have a hand over here on the right-hand side.

Again, we're looking at, as well the mic's coming, we're looking at the story.

Lessons that we can garner from this story.

We won't spend too much more time, but we'll take another hand or 2, yes.

So if I understand your question right, you're asking why did God feel the need to put this in there, right?

Yeah, what is the purpose or the message of this story?

From what I can see, you know, God chose Shem to be, and his lineage, to carry on the important, oh, And he gave him the honor of perpetuating the lineage so that the Messiah could go through it.

And I think this helps us to see a little bit more clearly the character of Shem and Japheth and why God chose them so it wouldn't be God had favorites, but that we could be able to see, here's another reason why I've chosen the lineage of Shem, so that the Messiah could come through his lineage.

Amen, so I'm hearing you mention the fact that the Bible is all about Jesus, right?

And so the promised seed is going to be coming through Shem, and this is a chance to highlight the character of Shem.

I see a couple more hands and then I will go on to our next question and open up a little bit.

I just want to say that every time I read this story, it's so powerful that, first of all, that this family was saved out of the old world.

And these were the first people to step into the new world, so to speak.

And God had committed to this family to repopulate the whole earth.

And to me, that's a blessing, number 1, and also it's an honor, you know, that he saved them out of all the people that was living during that time period.

If I were to ask you here, how many of you are related to Noah?

So this is our heritage, am I right, that we're reading about?

I have a friend of mine who mentioned it this way.

He said, we often talk about races, and the reality is we're 1 human race.

And we're all 1 family, and that's always good to remember.

All right, so there is, I'm glad you brought out the point of the connection with Shem and Japheth because I think that's a big issue that comes out here too.

We see a difference in response between Shem and Japheth and Ham.

The lesson did something a little interesting.

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