Noah and the Ark
INTRODUCTORY WORDS
There is a verse in the New Testament which reads: "As the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be."
1. One cannot but marvel that the Lord went on and specified the eating and drinking, the marrying and giving in marriage, as certain parallelisms between Noah's day and the day of the Lord's Return. He was, of course, speaking not merely of the fact that they ate, or that they married. He referred to the method and the ideals of eating and drinking, and of marrying and giving in marriage. Those are the things which we see before us at this very hour. The marriage bond has become almost a jest, and the ideals of eating and drinking have become that of luxuriating and feasting with revelry.
2. Christ, also, said, "They * * knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be." The people in the days of the flood accordingly disbelieved the testimony of Noah as to the destruction of the earth's peoples by the deluge. They spurned the very thought as an impossibility. So it is today, the world knows the warning of the Lord's imminent Coming, and it has heard the cry of tribulation which is about to fall. The world, however, with a smile of unbelief goes on its way as thoughtlessly as did the men of Noah's day.
In Thessalonians, we read, "When they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them." The world is likened unto those who sleep in the night; to them the Coming of the Lord will be as a thief. We, who believe, however, are of the day, and the hour of His Coming will not overtake us as a thief.
3. A third parallelism between the days of Noah and the days of Christ's Coming is seen in world conditions. In the days of Noah the earth was filled with violence. All flesh has corrupted his way upon the earth.
In the days of the Coming of the Son of Man, "evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse." "Perilous times will come." Men are, indeed, lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection. The earth is fast ripening in wickedness, and God in mercy to the human race must soon come in judgment.
4. God gave abundant warnings in the days of Noah, so also, does He give warnings in our day. The longsuffering of God waited in Noah's day, as Noah preached righteousness, and called upon a world of sinners to repent. The Lord our God is warning the people now; and the long-suffering of God is once more waiting, ere the cry is heard, "Thrust in your sickle and reap." God is giving one last long and loud call, commanding men everywhere to repent.
We, to whom the warning message has been given, must hasten with our words of warning, for God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to the knowledge of the Truth.
I. A DESCRIPTION OF A PERFECT MAN (Genesis 6:9)
1. Noah's character. Noah was a just man. How blessed it is that in the midst of darkness, there was light! In the midst of all impurity, there was a man who was pure. In the midst of injustice and violence, there was a man who was just.
We saw once in Pittsburgh, Pa., in the center of the factory and mining districts, where every building was almost black with smoke and dust, and every countenance was besmirched and soiled with soot we saw a beautiful flower, as white as snow, unsullied and unmarred. We plucked it, and as we looked at its white petals we marveled that such purity could dwell untouched mid such environment. So it was in Noah's day. Mid a world grown old in sin, and corrupted in wickedness, Noah stood forth a just man, and perfect in his generation.
2. Noah walked with God. Other men in Noah's day were walking according to the lusts of the flesh, according to the prince of the power of darkness, but Noah walked with God. Other men went along with the tide; they placed their oars in their boat and drifted down the stream of public immoralities. Noah, however, turned his face toward the light, and toward the rising sun. He turned his ship upstream, and against public opinion, he pulled for the heights of that purer, better air.
II. A MAN WHO WALKED WITH GOD (Genesis 6:9, l.c)
Why should we, who live in the pollution of the present hour, imagine that it is impossible to walk among men and yet to walk with God?
1. We may be in the world and yet not be of the world. Our Lord Jesus has saved us out of this present evil generation. He has told us very plainly that the world will hate us. It will have no place where we can lay our head. There is, However, another side to this question.
2. We may be in the world, and yet we may walk with God. Noah did this, Enoch did this, David did this, Paul did this, thousands of men of our own generation are doing this. We may, also, walk in the light of His countenance, in a communion with the Almighty that is unbroken and unmarred.
3. Walking with God suggests several things.
(1) A holy comradeship. How blessed that we may not only know God, but that we may know Him in the intimacy of companionship!
(2) A co-operative undertaking. We should walk with God in service. "God is faithful, by whom ye were called unto the fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord." The word "fellowship in this Scripture suggests co-partnership. It means that we are called into business with Christ Jesus.
III. A MAN TO WHOM GOD REVEALED HIS PURPOSES (Genesis 6:13)
God said unto Noah, "The end of all flesh is come before Me; * * I will destroy them with the earth."
1. God led Noah into the innermost secrets of His plan. It is not to every one that God will thus reveal the blueprints which mark out the structure of His designs. To a man, however, who is perfect and just, and who walks with God to such an one God will reveal Himself.
2. God delights in telling His bondslaves of the things to come. If God told Noah, will He not also tell us? Perhaps the expression, "As it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man," again may be applied. God told Noah that the flood was coming: He tells us that the tribulation is coming. Revelation 1:1-3, tells us how God gave unto Christ, "To shew unto his SERVANTS things which must shortly come to pass." How else could we warn men of the coming of certain destruction, if we, ourselves, knew not of it? God has told us, that we may tell to others that which is about to come to pass. How else could we prepare ourselves unto the hour of His Coming, if we knew it not? God loves His own, and He wants them to be robed, and ready when He comes.
3. How may we discover God's will, and what He is about to do? If we would know from God, Himself, His secrets, we must dwell in the secret place. A little boy was so intent on selling his newspapers, and so carried away with the rush of traffic that he failed to hear the warning siren of the auto, and was trampled down.
We stood on the streets of Philadelphia and observed the throngs rushing hither and thither oblivious to the fact that above their very heads the church chimes we're playing, "Nearer, my God, to Thee." If we would know God's plans and purposes we must go apart and walk with Him.
IV. A MAN WHO WROUGHT THE WORKS OF GOD (Genesis 6:14)
1. Man's correlation with God, in the work of man's redemption. Working together with God. How wonderful it must have been to Noah to have been a co-laborer with God, working under Divine orders and with Divine approbation! This was true in Noah's case, and it should be true with us. God has said, "Unto every man his work." We are to preach the preaching that He bids us. We are to go where we are commanded.
Noah had instructions which were positive and plain. God told him the details upon which he should build the ark. He was to make rooms, a window, and a door. He was to make a lower, a second, and a third story to the ark. He was to make it of a certain kind of wood, of a certain length, and a certain breadth. He was to pitch it, within and without, with pitch.
Our commission in our service for Christ is just as detailed. We are to work according to the pattern which God places in our hand.
2. The far-reaching results of man's ministry. Noah not only saved himself and his family through the ark, which he builded, but he conserved a race, innumerable, which sprang from his loins. Noah, in his obedience and comradeship with the Almighty, became God's instrument through which God kept His promise and pledge made in the Garden, that the Seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's head.
The Apostle Paul said, "I magnify mine office." How marvelous it is to be linked up with. God so intimately in the redemption of man! We may not become an Ark, a Saviour, by which men may be saved; but we can proclaim the message of redemption. We can go to the ends of the earth with its story.
V. A MAN WHO OBEYED GOD IMPLICITLY (Genesis 6:22)
Many years after Noah, Moses lived. Noah was commanded to build an ark, Moses was commanded to build a Tabernacle. Of Noah it is written, "According to all that God commanded him, so did he." Open now your Bibles to Exodus 40:16, and you will read, "Thus did Moses: according to all that the Lord commanded him, so did he." The words spoken of Noah are exactly the same as those spoken of Moses. In Exodus forty we read seven times that Moses did as the Lord commanded him.
1. The inner meaning of God's demand for obedience. We are about to consider the ark itself. We believe that the ark was a typical building; that God commanded it to be built in a certain way, because it symbolized things which pertained to salvation.
The same thing was true of the Tabernacle. It was true to a larger extent, to finer details. Only once it was said of Noah, "According to all that God commanded him, so did he." Seven times, however, we read, that Moses did as the Lord commanded him. The Tabernacle, therefore, takes precedence, typically, over the ark.
We read, in fact, in the Book of Hebrews of how God told Moses, "See that thou make it according to the pattern shewed thee in the mount." We may not enlarge upon these wonderful types, but we do urge that we should obey all the commands of God, exactly as they are given, and this we should doubly do, when His commands relate to ordinances and acts which pre-figure and symbolize salvation truths. If we fail in our obedience, we will break a type, and, therefore, we will spoil the truth of the gospel message.
2. The glory of obedience is its completeness. To do part of what we are told, and not all, is to mar the beauty of the part we do. There is a little verse in Joshua that says, "That thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein." Let us fulfil our obedience, until we stand perfect, and complete, in all the revealed will of God.
VI. A MAN PROTECTED FROM COMING DISASTER (Genesis 7:1)
1. A loving invitation. God said, "Come thou * * into the ark." God will not suffer His own to perish with the wicked. He always prepares a way to escape. There are some who have an idea that the saints will pass through the tribulation period, partaking of the wrath. We cannot see this, inasmuch as God hath not appointed us unto wrath.
It is easy to understand how God's children will be called upon to suffer tribulation in the world, and how the world may hate them. It is, nevertheless, impossible to conceive how one who knows God, and who walks with God, can suffer judgments which fall from on high.
God was about to send dire judgments upon the earth, but to Noah He seemed to say, "Come * * enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee: hide thyself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast."
God will protect certain ones of Israel, by hiding them under His wing. He will protect His saints of the Church, by taking them up above the tribulation, where they shall be forever with the Lord.
2. An inclusive invitation. God said unto Noah, "Come thou, and all thy house into the ark." God gave unto Noah his own.
As to Noah and all his house, we cannot but feel that they stood with him in his faith.
We read how Joshua said, "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." We read of the jailer, who believed in God with all his house. We read of Abraham, "I know [Abraham], that he will command his children and his household after him." Thank God for Christian homes!
VII. THE ARK AND ITS SIGNIFICANCE (Genesis 6:14-16)
It will be impossible to discover all of the details of this wonderful typology.
1. The ark was typical of Christ the Saviour. The ark stands for salvation. In it Noah was safely housed against the waters which prevailed upon the whole earth. In Christ we are safely housed against the wrath of God which will fall upon the ungodly.
2. The ark was typical of security. When Noah went into the ark, God shut the door. There was no chance of that door giving way. The door signified both that the wicked could not enter in, and that Noah could not pass without.
To one redemption had become impossible, the last call had been given; the doom had been sealed. He who rejects Christ and the proffers of salvation, during his earth life, will find a closed door in the life to come. He who is saved will find himself secure in Christ for evermore.
3. The ark and its window. From the window, Noah and his family could look above at the wonders of God's heaven. To the saved enclosed in Christ, there is an open window, even the window of prophecy, through which we may behold foregleams of the glories of the riches of God's grace, which await us in the ages to come.
4. The ark was pitched within and without. The Hebrew word for "pitch" is the word "Atonement." We are made safe in Christ, our Ark, because of His Calvary work. The Atonement is not only the message of salvation from the world, which lies without, but it is the basis of every blessing which is ours in the Heavenlies to come.
5. The ark and its gopher wood. The gopher wood brings before us the fact that Christ became flesh. Thus proceeds the wonderful symbolic message of the ark.
6. Pairs of every living thing of beast and bird and creeping thing were saved along with Noah. All of this suggests to us, in no uncertain way, that when the Millennium comes the whole creation will enter in to the glorious liberty of the sons of God, and will be delivered from its travailing together in pain even until now.
7. The ark with its three floors. This brings before us the various stages of blessing which come to us who are saved.
8. The ark and its one door. This tells us that there is none other name given under Heaven and among men, whereby we must be saved.
AN ILLUSTRATION
"MY GRACE IS SUFFICIENT FOR THEE"
The other evening I was riding home after a heavy day's work. I felt very wearied, and sore depressed, when swiftly, and suddenly as a lightning flash, that text came to me. "My grace is sufficient for thee." I reached home and looked it up in the original, and at last it came to me in this way, "My grace is sufficient for thee," and I said, "I should think it is, Lord," and burst out laughing. I never fully understood what the holy laughter of Abraham was until then. It seemed to make unbelief so absurd. It was as though some little fish, being very thirsty, was troubled about drinking the river dry, and Father Thames said, "Drink away, little fish, my stream is sufficient for thee." Or, it seemed like a little mouse in the granaries of Egypt, after the seven years of plenty, fearing it might die of famine; Joseph might say, "Cheer up, little mouse, my granaries are sufficient for thee." Again I imagined a man away up yonder, on a lofty mountain, saying to himself, "I breathe so many cubic feet of air every year, I fear I shall exhaust the oxygen in the atmosphere," but the earth might say, "Breathe away, O man, and fill thy lungs ever, my atmosphere is sufficient for thee." Oh, brethren, be great believers! Little faith will bring your souls to Heaven, but great faith will bring Heaven to your souls. C. H. Spurgeon.