CHAPTER SEVEN

Part 2

The Origin of Bigotry And Feelings of Racial inferiority

Genesis 9:20-27

The aftershocks of the Great Flood hit Noah hard.  No one on earth was still alive but his wife, his three sons, and their wives. His extended family had perished, along with all his neighbors.  Before him lay a surreal landscape of broken trees and  bones of the dead. Noah felt the weight of a new responsibility as head of the human race.  Noah cringed from memories of that awful flood, beginning with that dread day the promised judgment began.  Noah could still hear formerly skeptical neighbors banging on the door of the Ark, crying in fear.  But Noah couldn’t open it because God had shut it. All Noah could do was cry for them, even as he thanked God for his own deliverance.

As the Ark bobbed and pitched on the churning waves, there were times Noah’s sleep left him. Noah, a preacher of righteousness who had preached his heart out, with only seven souls saved to show for his long years of proclaiming the judgment of God. Had Noah done his very best to urge his godless neighbors to turn from their wicked way and be saved?

It’s hard to be the one everyone looks up to, especially when you yourself need someone to tell your own troubles to.  A burden shared is a burden halved, but Noah didn’t want to burden his loved ones with his own anxieties and regrets. Surely wine could comfort his heart.  So Noah planted a vineyard and harvested his vintage.  Noah was a prudent man who seldom stumbled. But this time the wine was too strong and Noah was too weak.  All he could do was sleep it off in his tent, away from the eyes of his family.

Noah was the only man God  had counted as righteous, head of the only family He’d deemed worthy to spare from the Judgment of the Flood.  Noah and his wife were old. Only their sons and their wives were still alive and able  to repopulate Planet Earth. But Noah held an honorable position, a venerable elder saint who did his best to lead and guide his family in the ways of holiness.  Noah surely did not want his family to see him in this humiliating state, and to lose respect for him.

Noah fell into a foggy sleep.  From far away came a loud guffaw.  Oh no, he thought.  Someone’s walked in on me. Noah tried to fumble for his cloak, but his shaky hand wouldn’t obey him.  He felt his cold, naked vulnerability. The laughs grew louder. Through fluttering eyelids, Noah thought he saw the flash of a fleeing form, then the dripping of rain.  Not more rain! Or was that laughter?  Nobody likes to be laughed at, especially the Patriarch of the whole human race, who had already endured decades of derision from ungodly neighbors who could not understand why an ocean liner was being built so far from the coast, in a world where rain had never before fallen.

Noah could barely move his head. But it came to him.  Noah knew whose laugh that was.  No one else was capable of such a shrill laugh, which reminded Noah of a crow.  That strident voice could surely awaken the dead. Immobilized by his wine, Noah could only hope no one else would come in. But in his cloudy confusion he could discern two faceless shapes coming closer. This time Noah felt no fear. One of the figures  softly whispered: “Quickly, brother.  Do not look behind you. Now lower the cover carefully.  Let’s hurry away before father awakens.”

At least they weren’t laughing at him.  Noah felt fabric fall across his torso and legs. He groaned, knowing that his first visitor had gotten an eyeful.

Subsequent questioning revealed that Shem and Japheth had been informed of Noah’s inebriation, and also of his nakedness. But what really kindled Noah’s wrath was the motive of the informer.  For some  perverse reason, Ham had wanted to discredit his dad in the eyes of his brothers, to debunk Noah’s  testimony that he alone had been found righteous upon the earth.

Such crass betrayal merited severe punishment.  Some people in future fallen civilizations would be the ruling elite, while its humblest inhabitants would be slaves to serve those on the  top rungs of society. Right then and there it was decreed who would be at the bottom of the pecking order.  Who but the progeny of the treacherous Ham? 

Ham’s youngest son  Canaan, had had nothing to do with his dad’s mischief. Yet the dire prophecy of slavery was pronounced upon him, not his father Ham.  And it was never meant for  Canaan’s brother Cush, progenitor of  the black African peoples. Noah said:   “Cursed be  Canaan. A servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.  Blessed be the Lord God of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant.  God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant.”

Ham’s two brothers Shem and Japheth, along with their wives, must have been horrified by Noah’s sentence on the son of Ham, and looked differently upon Ham’s entire clan from that day on.

Many diverse ethnic groups sprang from Ham, as recorded in Genesis 10:6-20,  I Chronicles 1:8-16, Psalms 78:51, and chapter 106:22.  Ham’s illustrious grandson Nimrod, was fathered by  Cush, ancestor of all the black nations of Africa.  Nimrod was called “a mighty hunter before the Lord”.  He founded the City of Babel, later known as Babylon, where pagan mystery religions flourished. Babylon was located in modern-day Iraq.

Perhaps Nimrod felt alienated from his Creator because of Noah’s dire edict.  Indeed, the Tower of Babel was a gigantic monument to human ego, not a tribute to the greatness of God.  It was there that  God thwarted the world’s first space program by  dividing mankind into diverse ethnic groups speaking their own tongues. 

The North African peoples and Assyrians sprang from Ham, as did the Canaanites, Egyptians, and Philistines. Many believe that ethnic Gypsies (the Rom) descended from Ham.

The Canaanites were composed of many diverse tribes (i.e. Hivites, Jebusites, Girgashites, Amorites).  At the time of the Exodus, they were flourishing in the Land of Canaan.  But God was furious with them because of their practice of child sacrifice and other gross sins.  God was  determined to drive the Canaanites out of the Promised Land, and rid it of their immorality.  So the Lord commanded the Israelites to wage war against them and wipe them out.  He declared the City of Jericho accursed in His sight (Joshua 6:17). When the walls of Jericho fell, only the harlot Rahab and her family were spared, because she had shown her faith in God by helping some Israelite spies escape detection.  She dwelt among the Hebrews, and became an ancestress of King David and Jesus Christ. Thus, through faith, Rahab was accounted as righteous by God, and did not suffer the fate of the other Canaanites (Hebrews 11:31; James 2:25). Likewise,  Ruth the Moabitess became a worshipper of the One True God.  She found favor in His sight,  and was also in the lineage of Christ (Matthew 1:5-6).

The various peoples of the Holy Land, including the Moabites, Amalekites, and Philistines, eventually   ceased to exist as  identifiable ethnic groups. In spite of many centuries of exile from their own land, God has preserved the Jews as a distinctive people; but their ancient enemies, the Philistines,  assimilated  into other  nations. God Himself declared that He would be at enmity with the Amalekites throughout all generations, until they were utterly destroyed, because they had ambushed the Israelites as they fled from Egypt (Exodus 17:14-16; ISamuel 15:1-3).  By contrast, the neighboring Kenites were spared, because they had been kind to the Israelite refugees ( I Samuel 15: 6).

Although the Edomites were, like the Israelites, descended from Abraham’s son Isaac,  they likewise lay under God’s curse.  The entire Book of Obadiah, and Ezekiel chapter 35 tell of God’s anger against the Edomites, who bullied God’s people when the Babylonians came and destroyed Jerusalem, and carried the Jews off to slavery.  The Edomites mocked the Jews’ plight, hindered their escape, and returned fugitive captives to the Babylonians.  For their many sins, God promised them utter destruction.  One preacher said that if he knew he belonged to such a doomed race, he would get out of it through placing his faith in Christ, and being spiritually grafted into the Family of God (Romans 3:28-29; 11:13-24).

The Egyptian civilization was one of the most scientifically advanced of the ancient world.  But Egypt oppressed God’s people and  fell beneath the judgment of the Ten Plagues of the Exodus.  Egypt later came under the heel of the burgeoning Roman Empire, and has never regained its former glory. God’s promise to Abraham has helped shaped the destiny of nations: I will bless them that bless thee and curse them that curse thee (Gen.12:3).

As for the Gypsies, many of them were brutally persecuted by the Nazis and put into concentration camps, alongside the Jews. The Nazis considered all other races inferior to the so-called Aryan race. They turned a blind eye to  those Scriptures which declare that non-Jewish believers are grafted into the Tree of Israel by faith (Rom.11:17-21).

If Noah could only have foreseen the abject misery which lay in store for countless millions throughout the centuries!  Perhaps he might have pleaded with God to spare those people affected by his prophecy.  No wonder Scripture exhorts saints to bless, and curse not (Romans 12:14).  I believe that  careless words spoken in anger give satan an open door to do his dirty work.  Parents, watch what you say to your children.  Never give them up as hopeless, but ever speak gentle words of encouragement and godly love to them.  Noah was the spiritual head of his family upon earth. Spiritual headship carries with it a strong measure of authority and responsibility. I just don’t think Noah foresaw all the  multiplied millions of hapless souls doomed to centuries of spiritual and societal oppression.  The enemy is pleased whenever we, however unintentionally, turn a blind eye to his destruction of  others.

The Lord has shown me that there is a subconscious area of our souls which can be warped by the lies of the devil, even if our conscious minds are totally ignorant of negative impressions  recorded there  by heredity or personal experience.  I believe that just as the sin nature is inherited, that other ill effects of the Fall of man have been passed on, including racial prejudice.  Many people cannot seem to overcome deeply ingrained hostilities toward other races, no matter how well they’ve been taught God’s truth.

All of mankind is descended from the three sons of Noah: Shem, Ham, and Japheth.  Each of us has a direct patrilineal (father-to-father) descent from just one of these men, although most of us could probably trace  indirect lines of descent from all of them, and over thousands of years an incredible amount of racial mixing has taken place!

It’s just plain ignorant to say only one racial group has ever been enslaved.  A great proportion of the ancient Roman Empire was comprised of slaves.  There were German slaves, British slaves and Greek slaves, many of them with porcelain white skin and fair hair coveted by their dark-haired owners.  Before the Exodus set them free, even God’s Chosen People, the Hebrews, were slaves.

 Abraham, founder of both the Jewish and Arab nations, took his wife’s Egyptian maid Hagar as a concubine, in order to produce a male heir.  Ishmael, son of the slave girl, would have been Abraham’s heir, had the Patriarch’s lawful wife not produced a son of her own.  Isaac was the one who inherited Abraham’s wealth.  But God also promised to bless Ishmael, son of the bondwoman, because he too was Abraham’s son. Today, Ishmael’s descendants, the Arabs, sit on billions of dollars worth of oil deposited beneath the sands of the Arabian Peninsula. Many Jews are also materially wealthy, and the spiritual riches of the Kingdom of God were  first entrusted to them.

Joseph was one of the twelve sons of Israel, grandson of Abraham.  He was taken by slave traders to Egypt, where through divine Providence, he attained to the highest office in the land, under Pharaoh.   He  married the daughter of the Egyptian Priest of On.  They had two sons.

Eventually Joseph was reunited with his father Jacob, whose name had been changed to Israel in Genesis 35:10.  As he looked on, his boys jointly received the blessing of the first-born son from their dying grandfather (Joseph’s half-brother Reuben had forfeited this birthright inheritance through sin). Israel laid hands on their heads, and formally adopted them into his family, possibly because of their Hamitic heritage (Israel himself was descended from Shem; hence a Semite). Joseph’s two sons were promised national greatness.

         Despite the fact Noah’s curse was pronounced on Canaan, Ham’s youngest son, and Canaan’s  descendants were Hittites and Egyptians, not sub-Saharan Africans, the portentous words spoken against Canaan were used as an excuse by “Christian” white slave traders to justify  doing the devil’s work.  Over the centuries, black people have suffered the cruelest oppression possible. Millions were kidnapped from their homes in Africa, branded and caged like animals. Evil slave traders packed their human cargo like sardines in foul, dark holds of ships, where many sickened and died.  In America and elsewhere in the “civilized world”, the survivors were stripped of their basic human dignity and sold at auction like cattle. African-American slaves endured insults, harsh punishments, enforced illiteracy and backbreaking toil till death set them free.  Only the hope of a better life in heaven brightened their bitter days.  Oppressed field hands sought comfort in the singing of spirituals.

Even after the Emancipation Proclamation bestowed de facto freedom upon African Americans, their lot was hardly improved.  Following  the Reconstruction Period after the Civil War, southern states enforced “Jim Crow” laws to prevent the betterment of the black man’s social and economic condition. In Dixieland, a  white man could rape, injure or even kill a black person without fear of retribution from the white legal system.  I still remember those shocking news telecasts of the ‘50’s and ‘60’s, which showed bigoted white policemen  attacking Civil Rights demonstrators with fire hoses and snarling dogs.  I remember seeing the filthy rest rooms reserved for African-Americans at “filling stations”; how they were barred from restaurants and white churches, in spite of St. Paul’s teaching that all believers, regardless of nationality, are one in Christ Jesus.

If you boasted of having an Indian ancestor in your family tree, your neighbor might smile and say: “I believe my granny was one-quarter Cherokee.” You might even be admired for claiming kinship with that other oppressed race, which was nearly exterminated by “racially superior”  invaders whose lust for land and gold made them willing to kill for it. Racism rejects variety in God’s creation. That code of white racism is limited only by the “Pocahontas clause”. All non-Anglo-Saxon ancestry WITH THE EXCEPTION OF a bit of Native American heritage is looked down on by bigots.  Pocahontas was a historical Indian princess whose life has been glamorized in film and legend. Indians who wanted only to mind their own business and get on with their lives were reviled and lynched by white settlers. Whole tribes were wiped out by merciless white soldiers who slaughtered entire villages of women and children while their men were away hunting. Talk about cowardice and cruelty! Yet, the white man has admired the Indians’ brave warriors so much that cities, parks and states have been named after them.

However superficial the honor, the Indian is at least immortalized in American place names, and a few of their words have been assimilated into the English language.  Every  office holds a powwow to decide who’s highest on the totem pole. But where is the honor for the black man who donated free labor to build America into a superpower? Who brags about having a cotton picker in their family tree?  I read of one blond, blue-eyed boy who got barred from a school in Mississippi because he was one-sixty-fourth black!

Much blood and many tears were shed in the long struggle to secure the civil liberties of African Americans, and to give them legal protection against the brutality of prejudiced policemen and courts. But love cannot be legislated. Many are still bound by  traditional hurtful attitudes. I believe that racial prejudice is  an inherited instinct, much more than a deliberate choice, and needs to be overcome by the Power of Christ in us. By the same token, gnawing feelings of inherent inferiority experienced by people of any ethnic group  (regardless of color)  need to be healed by the Power of the Blood of Christ. The Curse upon Canaan, or any other suspected curse, must be repudiated by the Prayer of Faith!  All those who are saved by the Blood of Jesus have been grafted by faith into His own lineage (Rom. 11:16-24). We Christians have a right to be free from any curses incurred by any of our ancestors, known or unknown. The entire Book of Obadiah pronounces God’s judgment and curse upon the descendants of Edom (Esau).  Yet even this curse can be overcome through faith in Christ and His shed blood.

Just as  words of judgment proclaimed the problem, we as Christians can, by Spirit-empowered words, escape the effects of ancient curses.  Christ’s victory on the Cross vanquished the powers of darkness (Col.2:15).  But we must claim Christ’s victory on our behalf for it to be effectual in our personal lives. Born-again descendants of any oppressed ethnic group  have the right to declare themselves liberated by Christ Jesus Who died for people of all nations. That is God’s Emancipation Proclamation. When we become believers, we are grafted into Spiritual Israel, through our union with Christ.  Thus, we are under God’s blessing, and not His displeasure.  If you are born again into God’s family, you must see yourself as God sees you, not as some spiritually blind bully sees you.

This same principle applies to any type of  curse you suspect may have affected you or your ancestors. People of all nationalities have unwittingly been the victims of generational curses.  Many have gone to their graves without ever being able to overcome unexplainable feelings of inferiority, chronic illness or  misfortune, or bullying from others who seem to despise them for no reason whatsoever. Through the Blood of the Lamb we can be set free from such satanic spirits of oppression.

I remember a prayer  we offered up in church on behalf of President Reagan, who had just survived an assassination attempt. More than a century before, the Indian chief Tecumseh had uttered a curse which decreed that every U.S. president elected in a year ending in “0” would die in office. Reagan had won his first term in 1980. Up until then, this curse had never failed to work.  But we all decided enough was enough, and Ronald Reagan was going to survive his term in office.  I believe that what makes curses effective is the power of satan enforcing them, not the words themselves.  As Spirit-filled believers, we need to take authority over all the works of darkness, and rebuke the devil.

I have prayed in the Spirit for victory over any and all generational curses which might have given rise to satan’s oppression in the area of bullying, or other misfortunes I suffered over the years.  I feel stronger and more at peace. I have a healthy perception of my worth to God which I didn’t have in my nightmare years.

At this time, I feel led to pray with those of you who have reason to think you have been oppressed by the devil through the outworking of any kind of inherited curse. As you read this  prayer and make it your own, it will be just the same as I were there in person offering it up on your behalf.  Whichever words apply to your situation, offer them up to the Lord by faith. Join me now in calling upon the Lord  to deliver you.

Prayer For Deliverance From Generational Curses

Dear Heavenly Father, we stand on specific promises of Your Holy Word.  Many centuries after that dark pronouncement upon Ham,  You declared in Ezekiel chapter 18 that You judge us as individuals, not as groups. You promised that the son shall not be held responsible for the sins of his father, neither shall the father be liable for the sins of his son.

We thank You, dear Father, that in Christ, there are no longer any racial or ethnic distinctions to create hindrance to receiving Your blessing.  Christ has given all of us the right to be free in Him. And yet, the devil is always reluctant to vacate places of authority  which he has usurped in the lives of people.

We plead the power of the Blood of Jesus over the life of the reader who has suffered racial harassment.  Right now we claim that the enemy will no longer be permitted to enforce any curse against this person.   May your precious child will know that as You look at him or her, You will see only Christ, the New Life within. We ask that this beloved saint will be the object of Your continual care, and that deeply ingrained strongholds put in his or her life by satan’s lies will be utterly torn down. We ask that all the chains in this soul would be broken, and this dear one would live in the light of the knowledge of being one of a son or daughter of God.

Through faith in Christ this person is innocent of  any sins his ancestors may have committed, or any idolatry his ancestors may have participated in. Please send warring angels to contend with any foes who would come against this person who has taken refuge in Christ Jesus. Where there was bondage before, let there be glorious liberty in Christ.  Amen.

Satan Wars Against Abraham’s Seed

When Jesus was being tried before Pontius Pilate, His enemies among the Jewish religious leaders incited a mob to  stand before Pilate’s judgment seat and demand that He be sentenced to die on the Cross. Pilate feared that troops might have to be called in to forcibly restore order, and the wrath of the  Roman Emperor would descend upon his head if he failed to pacify the crowd. Frustrated, he dipped his hands into a basin of water and declared: “I am not responsible for the death of this innocent man. This is YOUR doing!”

 In that awful moment the mob sealed the destiny of their nation:  “May His blood be on us and on our children!” (Matthew 27:24-25). Thus, Christ was rejected by His own nation  (John 1:11).

It is reasonable to suppose that the mob itself had Christ crucified out of ignorance. Those people had been deceived by self-serving religious leaders. Because they had blindly put their trust in the opinions of pompous, well-educated men, they had no compunctions about uttering that curse. Since, in their eyes, Christ really was guilty of blasphemy, they honestly didn’t think the curse would take effect.

Scripture indicates that some of the religious leaders who condemned Christ were deceived by satan and it was possible for them to be forgiven.  St. Paul himself fell into that category. But those  authorities who deliberately lied to the mob bore a fearsome degree of guilt before God.    They knew they were lying, but didn’t care that they were hindering others from entering into Life Eternal. Earlier, these depraved men had received a chilling rebuke from Christ Himself: They lay under the most terrible judgment of God, because they knew from fulfilled Scripture  and from observing the miracles and godly nature of Christ, that He was indeed the very Son of God. And yet, in order to preserve their own place in the pecking order, and to avoid crossing the Romans, they had denounced Him unjustly, even maligning the Holy Spirit within Him.  Because they had knowingly slandered the Spirit of God, they were beyond redemption.  Blind leaders of the blind, those wolves in sheep’s clothing had misled their people  to the point where they even pronounced a bitter curse upon their own progeny.

But Jesus had given the Jews clear warnings.  Most of Matthew, chapter 23 deals with Christ’s scathing denunciation of scribes and Pharisees whose hearts were corrupt in the sight of God, and who were leading others down the path of destruction.  He foretells their mistreatment of His disciples, and the punishment which they would suffer for it. He even said that the guilt of all the righteous blood ever shed, from that of Abel to the Prophet Zacharias, would be laid upon those living in His own generation.  He lamented that the City of Jerusalem had rejected its own time of salvation from God, and they had refused His protection from divine judgment.  Because of this, Jerusalem itself would be leveled in A.D.70 by the Roman general Titus, after a terrible siege. Some Biblical scholars think that had the Jews accepted Jesus as their Messiah at that time, that somehow He still would have been offered up as a Sacrifice for sin; and, following His resurrection,  the glorious Kingdom of God on earth would have immediately commenced.  But it has been delayed for nearly 2000 years.

Throughout history, the Jewish nation has been victimized. After the Romans drove them out of their promised Land, they fled to other nations for sanctuary.  Everywhere they went, they endured persecution, harassment and hatred. Jews were forced to live in ghettos, and prohibited from engaging in most trades.  Whenever disease epidemics or other misfortunes struck the community, Jews were made the scapegoat.  At such times, they would be driven out or slaughtered, and their homes destroyed. The Crusaders, bloodthirsty bigots who had not one speck of the Love of Christ in their hearts, killed to show fidelity to false religion. They murdered thousands of Jews and Arabs “to defend the faith”. Those butchers insulted our Holy Savior by calling themselves by His Name.  They seem to have forgotten God’s explicit warning to those who would harm Abraham’s descendants:  I will bless those who bless you, and curse those who curse you (Genesis 12:3).

The atrocities against the Jews continued over many centuries, culminating in the unspeakable horrors of the Holocaust. European “Christians” were wrongly taught that the Jews were “Christ-killers”.  How absurd!  Those of later generations had no part in the travesty of justice which took place before Pilate’s judgment seat.  One might as well blame modern Italians for the leveling of Jerusalem in A.D.70!

I believe satan takes advantage of it when the Church fails to pray for the Jews.  Much trouble has resulted from general lack of knowledge about what motivates the devil, who appears before God to accuse people of sin (Job 1:8-11; Zechariah 3:1-2; Revelation 12:10).  Because the Jewish nation would not accept their Deliverer, satan immediately seized upon those words uttered by the hostile mob to give him an excuse to afflict generations of Jews. Only fervent prayer in the Name of Christ, the Deliverer of Jew and Gentile alike, could have stopped satan from harming Jewish families.  It is the responsibility of every head of a family to, by  faith,  place the Blood of the Lamb over his household as God’s protection from the Angel of Death (Exodus 12:1-13; Hebrews 9:11-15; I Peter 1:18-19). Christ is the Lamb of God (Isaiah chapter 53; John 1:29). His Blood shields unperfected saints from the wrath of a righteous God. Only through Christ can we approach the Throne of God (John 14:6; I Timothy 2:5; Hebrews 10:19-20).  We are to render the Son honor, even as we do the Father (Psalms 2:12; John 5:23).  Through extolling the greatness of Christ the Lord, “the Enemy and Avenger” is restrained, and we have peace in our lives (Psalms 8:2).

If You Are Jewish

Now I would like to pray for your protection from the devil, who is the adversary of God’s Chosen Nation.

Dear Heavenly Father, I give You thanks for this dear Jewish friend who has read this far in my book.  He or she is not seeking help from other people, but from the Living God. You  have united all believers in Christ Jesus, and torn down the wall which once separated us.  All Christians owe a debt of gratitude to Your Chosen People the Jews, through whom the Redeemer came, and who  faithfully preserved the Scriptures through many centuries of persecution.

Dear Lord, this one has been oppressed by enemies, maybe even persecuted for being Jewish.  We know that the devil is behind this strife, and he won’t stop harassing Christians and Jews alike until he is cast into the deep Abyss.  But the person reading this cannot be held responsible for what was done to Christ 2000 years ago.  He or she genuinely wants to please You and fulfill the destiny you’ve mapped out for their life.  Please help them to see that Christ loves all who seek the truth with a sincere heart, whether Jew or Gentile.

I as for Your mercy and protection upon the life of this precious reader, and over all his or her family, circumstances, and possessions.  Give this precious one a special touch of Your healing and restoring power, that all the damage the enemy has done might be remedied. Where there was adversity, let there now be assurance of Your blessing. Let Your Holy Love be shed abroad in the heart of this one, and  dispatch Your warring angels to defend him or her from all the attacks of the devil.  In Jesus’ name, Amen.