“Noah began to be a man of the soil, and he planted a vineyard. He drank of the wine and became drunk and lay uncovered in his tent.”
-Genesis 9:20–21
Genesis 9:20–21 are baffling, mind-boggling, humbling, to see Noah, the righteous man who was spared out of all the people in the earth. He and his family were spared this flood because of the favor he had before God and yet as soon as that flood subsides and after all the grace and mercy and power that Noah had seen in God, that we turn around and the next chapter, he’s drunk and shamefully uncovered in his tent. Oh, the picture of sin. It is so pervasive. We can never ever think we’ve arrived. We’re not prone to temptation anymore. Sin’s not an issue for us anymore, at least not in this world. Obviously, there’s coming a day in Heaven, New Heaven, New Earth, no more sin. No more sin ever. We long for that day because that is just not the case in this world. We are always tempted.
Sin is always an issue. We are constantly facing temptation so we long for the day when we will be freed from the presence of sin.
We’re always prone to sin and this is the picture we see all over the Bible. Hero after hero, in a sense, in the Bible, we see their flaws up close and personal. We see that they are not perfect and ultimately, they are not who we need to save us from our sin. Noah can’t save us from our sin. He’s a sinner. Same thing with everybody to come after him. Abraham, Moses, David, Solomon, the prophets.
This Verse Reminds Us That Jesus Can Save Us From Sin
Yet, there’s One. There’s One sinless One. There’s One who never succumbed to temptation. One who never gave in to sin and His name is Jesus and this sets Him apart from every other person in all of history. Oh, Jesus, we praise You as the sinless One. There is nothing evil in You. You never once gave in to temptation. We glorify You for Your perfect life, for being totally without sin, without deceit in any way, never a thought, never a word, never a desire, never a deed, action that was not glorifying to the Father. So all glory be to Your name, Lord Jesus.You are, though like us, fully man, unlike us because You are without sin and as result, we praise You because You alone can save us from sin. There’s no one else that can save us from sin. Everybody else is a sinner. Jesus, You alone can save us from sin.
Genesis 9:20–21 Prays To Turn Us Away From Temptation
So we pray, oh God, by Your power, by Your spirit, in the work of Christ in our hearts, help us to turn from sin today. God, none of us is beyond all kinds of temptation today. I know I’m not, not one of us listening right now. We are tempted in so many ways. Even the “most righteous among us” or “most holy among us” is still prone to sin, to evil, to wickedness today. So help us, we pray. We need Your help. Help me to turn from sin today. Help everybody who’s listening right now to turn from temptation today. And, help us to live in righteousness. We need Your help to do that. Help us by Your grace for Your glory, knowing our propensity to sin. Please guard our minds and our hearts in Christ. Help us to live in a way that brings honor to You. Jesus, we need You to do this work in us. So help us, we pray in Jesus’ name, Amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
