Noah’s Eminence

Noah's Eminence

(No. 3196)

A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, MAY 5, 1910.

DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING,
OCTOBER 19, 1873.

"And the LORRD said unto Noah, Come you and all your house into the
ark, for you have I seen righteous before Me in this generation."
Genesis 7:1.

[Another Sermon by Mr. Spurgeon, upon verses 1 and 7, is #1336 in,
Volume 23–A FAMILY SERMON.]

GOD keeps His eyes upon the sons of men and He searches among them for
certain individuals upon whom He delights to fix His gaze. These are
not the kings and princes. These are not the men of talent or of
fashion. These are not the men who are regarded by their fellows as
famous. When God speaks of having seen Noah, He speaks of having seen
one of the kind of men for whom He was looking, namely, a righteous
man. There is not a righteous man upon the earth whom God does not see.
He may be in a very obscure position, his circumstances may be those of
poverty, he may be anything but famous. But as long as he is righteous,
God delights to look upon him. He looks upon him so as to take care of
him so that if destruction is to come upon the face of the earth, an
ark is to be prepared for the preservation of righteous Noah and his
family. "The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, and His ears are
open unto their cry." Whoever else He does notsee, He is sure to see
the righteous! But "the face of the Lord is against them that do evil,
to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth."

Now, what God delights to look upon, we should delight to look upon, so
we will fix our mind's eye upon the righteous man mentioned in our text
and notice, first, the eminence of Noah's character. Secondly, try to
find out wherein that eminence consisted. And, thirdly, consider the
gracious reward given to him because of that eminence.

I. So, first, we are to notice THE EMINENCE OF NOAH'S CHARACTER. He was
a righteous man in the sight of the Lord. The Lord said unto
Noah…"you have I seen righteous before Me in this generation."

Noah was a gracious man, one to whom the Lord had shown great favor for
He had put Divine Grace in his heart and had given him faith, for it
was by faith that Noah "prepared an ark to the saving of his house, by
which he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness which
is by faith." The Grace of God was within him and became the source and
wellspring from which flowed the righteousness for which he was so
remarkable. Divine Grace is the root of every righteous character, so
let Grace have the honor and glory of it!

In the Chapter preceding our text, we are told that "Noah was a just
man." It is especially noticeable that in an age of violence and
oppression, Noah was a just man. He was no oppressor. He dealt justly
and fairly with his fellow men. Noah was also "perfect in his
generations." The marginal reading is that he was "upright." He was not
one who leaned this way for advantage, or who leaned that way for gain.
He stood upright in conscious integrity before his fellows. Acting in
accordance with the Grace of God which was in his heart, he had learned
to do that which was just towards others. He was also a devout man, for
we read that "Noah walked with God." Like his ancestor, Enoch, he lived
in communion with God, in prayerfulness and pious meditation–and his
life before his fellow men was in consistency with that walk before
God.

It is especially mentioned that Noah was righteous in that generation,
and this is the more remarkable as that generation was so unrighteous
and ungodly! The darker the night, the more brightly shine the
stars–and good men are never more precious than in evil times! There
are plenty to go the way the stream is running. When godliness is in
the ascendant, and the Puritans rule the realm, they are Puritans, too,
but when ungodliness comes to the front and the Cavalier holds the
scepter, they scoff at everything that is good! Like dead fish, they
must go with the stream–they have not the power of the living fish to
swim against the current. They go the way their neighbors go. But Noah
was a righteous man

in an unrighteous generation. It may be that you, dear Friend, are
seeking to serve the Lord among most ungodly men. Well, if it is so, be
all the firmer for the right because of all the wrong that is around
you! Remember how much honor it brings to the Grace of God when it
produces a righteous Noah in the midst of an evil generation. You,
working man, are the only one on your street who comes to the House of
God–well, mind that you come boldly–be not ashamed of being
different! And when, in your workshop, you hear the cursing and
reviling of the wicked, let them know whose colors you wear and who is
your King. But be careful that your life is so consistent that they
cannot pick holes in it–and then you need not mind being a speckled
bird among them, as Noah was in his generation!

What makes the character of Noah all the more remarkable is the fact
that he was almost alone as a righteous man. The Lord said to him, "You
have I seen righteous before Me in this generation," as though he was
the only righteous one in that generation! When the flood came, his
ancestors had all passed away and the members of his own family were
not all that they ought to have been. He practically had to stand alone
and standing alone is not easy work. You know how we are all helped by
the company of godly people, how good it is for us to be where the Word
is preached with power, or where we can listen to the gracious talk of
Christians who are more advanced in Divine things than we are. But to
stand quite alone–to be the one white man amid a nation of aborigines,
to be the one traveler in a land which all the inhabitants are your
foes, to be in a community where there is no one to help you–it is
only the Grace of God that can make a man of this sort and enable him
to say, "If the world, itself, is to be destroyed, one honest man shall
be found upon its surface. The Grace of God has so settled me in the
fear of the Most High that whatever others may do, as for me and my
house we will serve the Lord."

But the special point about Noah's character is that we are not only
told that he was righteous, but that he was righteous before God. The
Lord said to him, "You have I seen righteous before Me in this
generation." As I have turned that expression over in my mind, I have
thought of the various tribunals before which we all have to stand. And
as I try to take you, in imagination, before them, one after another, I
wonder how many of you will be able to pass them all and to endure the
supreme test so that, like Noah, you may be righteous before God?

First of all, there is the common tribunal of ordinary society and
public repute. I hope that without any conceit, the most of us can say
that we believe we are reckoned as righteous by our fellow men. They
trust us in business matters, they do not suspect us of dishonesty. We
hope we have not given them occasion to do so. Yet, in so large an
assembly as this, there may be some who dare not say that even in the
opinion of their fellow men, they are righteous. And if it is so, my
dear Hearers–if you are justly condemned by your fellow creatures–how
can you expect to stand before the tribunal of God? If you cannot
dispute the justice of man's verdict, you may well tremble at the
thought of appearing before the bar of God! You are evidently
unrighteous but oh, thank God that there is a Savior for the
unrighteous, "for when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ
died for the ungodly." That last word describes you–you know that you
could not stand without a degree of shame before those who are
acquainted with your character. Well then, fall down upon your knees
before God–tell Him that you are sinners, but also quote Paul's
faithful saying that, "Christ Jesus came into the world to save
sinners." Do not be afraid to do so! Christ did not come to save sham
sinners, but real sinners such as you are! Go to God in all your
sinfulness, without first attempting to make yourselves better, and
cast yourselves upon His Infinite Mercy in Christ Jesus!

There is another tribunal a little further on. A man may have a pretty
good character among his fellow men who do not know him intimately, but
how does he stand in the opinion of his more immediate friends? Those
who know us well, those with whom we constantly trade, those whom we
meet in our daily work–our employers, our servants, our fellow
workers–what do they think of us? If any of them think badly of you
because you try to do what you believe to be right, you need not mind
that, but rather rejoice that you are counted worthy to suffer for
Christ's sake! But, on the other hand, if friends who judge you as
favorably as they can are obliged to regard you as far from upright,
how will you stand before the all-seeing eyes of God? Let the painful
fact that you do not stand well before those who know you drive you to
humble yourself before the Lord and to seek pardon and peace through
Jesus Christ, the sinner's Savior!

Suppose we have been able to pass these two barriers of public repute
and our more immediate acquaintance? How do we stand in the inner
circle at home? Occasionally, when I have spoken well of some young man
or woman, I have been grieved to hear the parent stay, "I wish, Sir,
your judgment had been correct. My son (or daughter) may behave very
well before strangers, but it is very different at home." Sometimes I
have thought a good deal of certain men whom I have met here but I have
afterwards discovered that they had broken-hearted wives whom they had
not treated with the love and kindness they ought to have shown towards
them. And I have also known professing Christian women who have not
studied the comfort of their husbands and have not made their home the
little paradise it ought to be. If we have a good cha-

racter in the Church, and a reputation for sanctity there, what is the
verdict of those who know more about our private life? What is the
verdict of the servant concerning his master? What is the judgment of
the wife concerning her husband? What does the parent or the brother or
sister say? I solemnly fear that there are many professors of religion
who cannot pass this test–and I am deeply sorry when this is the
case–for if there is any place where Christianity should be best seen,
it is in the home circle! Rowland Hill used to say that he would not
give a penny for the religion of the man whose cat and dog were not the
better for it. And there is much good sense in that homely remark. I do
not know anyone here whom this cap will fit, but if there is such a
person, I hope he will put it on and wear it. This is the sum and
substance of the matter–if our character cannot endure the scrutiny of
those who are around us in our home, how can we hope to stand at the
bar of God when all that we have done shall be published before the
assembled universe?

Supposing that we can satisfactorily pass that ordeal, how do we stand
before our enemies? "Before our enemies?" asks someone. Yes, for you
remember what was said by the jealous presidents and princes of Babylon
concerning Daniel, "We shall not find any occasion against this Daniel,
except we find it against him concerning the Law of his God." He was
such a godly man that they could not find a flaw in his character
however closely they examined him. There he stood fully clad in the
armor of righteousness and before they could lay hold of him, they had
to get their king to make a new law ordaining that any man who would
pray should be cast into the den of lions. Look, too, at our Lord Jesus
Christ when He was accused by His enemies–they brought various charges
against Him, but they could not substantiate them. And even when they
bribed two witnesses to give evidence against Him, even theydid not
agree with one another as to what He had said! His life had been so
perfect that there was nothing that could be truthfully laid to His
charge. "Ah," says one, "that zsa test, to live so that even our
enemies cannot truthfully find any fault in us." It is no dishonor to a
man to be wrongfully accused–it is rather a mark of honor to have bad
men plotting against him–but it is a subject for gratitude to God when
one can run the gauntlet of our enemies and remain unabashed before
their cruel, wolfish eyes! They are always on the watch for anything
wrong or inconsistent with a Christian profession. "Well," says one,
"that is a test that I could not pass." If so, dear Friend, remember
this–there is no enemy whose eyes are as clear and as keen as those of
God! Even the great archenemy could not detect a thousandth part of the
imperfections and infirmities that lie open before the Most High! How
important it must be, then, to be found righteous before God!

Then, further, I wonder whether all of us who profess to be Christians
could pass the test of being adjudged righteous before our own
conscience. I do not mean that we should be self-righteous–God forbid
that we should ever be that! But I mean that we should have so lived
that our own conscience would declare that we had not been hypocrites,
nor liars, nor deceivers, but that, through the Lord's upholding and
restraining Grace, we had been true to our profession and had done that
which we sincerely believed to be right. You remember how the Apostle
John, taught of the Spirit, writes concerning this matter–"If our
heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and knows all things.
Beloved, if our heart condemns us not, then have we confidence toward
God." [See Sermons #1855, Volume 31–what is the verdict?

and #3152, Volume 55–THE LOWER COURTS.] Can we, all of us, pass this

test? Happy and blessed are we if we can! But even then, we must remind
ourselves and one another that there is a still sterner test which Noah
was able to pass, for he was righteous before the Lord.

II. This brings us to the second part of our subject, in which we are
to try to find out WHEREIN THE EMINENCE OF NOAH'S CHARACTER CONSISTED.
He was distinguished for his righteousness before God, for the Lord
expressly said to him, "You have I seen righteous before Me in this
generation."

So the eminence of Noah's character consisted in this–his
righteousness must have answered to the Divine standard. God would not
have called Noah righteous if he had not been righteous–and we cannot
suppose that God's standard is anything short of perfection. Then did
Noah live a perfect life? No, speaking popularly, and as the Scripture
often speaks, we may say that Noah's character was a righteous one.
There must have been flaws in it and, certainly, after this time, there
was one great sad flaw of which it is not now necessary to speak more
particularly–still, God regarded him as righteous–and that must
settle the question as far as we are concerned.

Noah had the righteousness which is of faith, and that faith of his
enabled him to look forward to Christ's Atonement. Do you ask how I
know this? Well, when he came out of the ark, he "built an altar unto
the Lord, and took of every clean beast, and of every clear fowl, and
offered burnt offerings on the altar." Those sacrifices were acceptable
unto the Lord, for He "smelled a sweet savor"–"a savor of rest"–in
them, and they were among the many types of the one great Sacrifice
that was afterwards to be offered upon Calvary's Cross. It was in this
way that Noah's faith enabled him to look forward to Christ as the
sin-atoning Lamb of God. And his faith, like that of Abraham, "was
counted unto him

for righteousness." God looked upon him, in Christ, as a perfectly
righteous man–and his righteous life was the experiment and outflow of
the inward righteousness which God had imputed to him in answer to his
faith. He was righteous before God, and no man was ever that in his own
naked character! Job's friend, Bildad, said concerning God, "The stars
are not pure in His sight. How much less man, that is a worm? And the
son of man, which is a worm?"

I have set forth the character of Noah before you and commended it to
the utmost. Yet I know that in the sight of God, the Patriarch's
character was not, in itself, perfect. There must have been innumerable
imperfections, infirmities, and faults which God's Omniscient eyes
could see in it. How, then, could he be said to be righteous before
God? Why, God looked at him in Christ! He became heir of the
righteousness which is by faith, or, as Paul puts it, he was "accepted
in the Beloved." Then, in consequence of that acceptance, he was
"righteous" in the modified sense in which all the Lord's people are
righteous when the Grace of God has taught them to walk uprightly and
so made them, at least in a measure, like their righteous Father who is
in Heaven!

But let me add to this, in order to clear the Gospel of anything like
legal defilement, that the eminence of Noah's character appears in the
fact that he was righteous before God, that is to say, his
righteousness had respect to God. When he dealt with his neighbors, he
did not say to himself, "Now I must deal righteously with these men, or
I shall lose my reputation as an honest, upright man." Oh, no! He dealt
righteously with men because he desired to be righteous before God. He
did not ask himself, "What will my neighbors think or say concerning
the building of the ark?" His great concern was to be obedient to the
commands that the Lord had given him and, therefore, we read again and
again, "according to all that God commanded him, so did he." He
fashioned his life by the will of God, not by the will of his fellow
men, nor by his own will and, Beloved, this is the way for us to be
righteous before God, when He brings us, by His Grace, to desire to
live according to His will and to His praise and glory! I fear that
many professors go blundering on, not stopping to pray, "Lord, show us
what You will have us do." Noah did not act thus–he was righteous
before God, righteous with respect to God, righteous in God's sight!

I would like to have, in this Tabernacle, a band of men and women who
will be just and fear not. Who will do the right even though all others
are opposed to them, or though no one else shall know anything about
it. Are any of you seeking to please men by your religion? If so, such
religion is of little or no worth. Be not the servants of men, but the
servants of God! Take your orders from Him and from Him alone. Do not
shape your course and character according to the fashion of society. If
you are truly born of God, you belong to a noble race which should
never stoop to such degradation as that, so be righteous before the
Lord! You have already had the righteousness of Christ imputed to you,
so may the Spirit of God impart that righteousness to you that you may
live unto God, and before God, fearless and careless of what men may
say against you so long as you are right in the sight of the Most High!
May the Lord graciously give us such a righteousness as this! And,
Beloved, we must have it, we must have it, for without holiness shall
no man see the Lord! Our own righteousness can never save us–we must
have the righteousness of Christ!

But remember that we must be purified in heart, character and conduct,
or else, where God is we cannot go. How searching will be that test
which we shall have to endure at the last! When we are judged by our
fellow man, they may be deceived–but when we shall be judged by God,
He will never be deceived. Men may accept fair words as signs and
tokens of Divine Grace, but God will not so much regard our words as
read our hearts! If men hear us pray, they say, "What good men they
must be." Yet God knows what hypocrisy may be lurking behind those
pretty sentences! Men judge us by our actions, but God can read the
motives that prompted us to those actions. You know how righteous men
have appeared to be in the eyes of their fellow men, yet they have
proved to be false after all. God grant that none of us may ever be
like that, but may we have a character that will bear holding up to the
Light of God, a character concerning which, when the eyes of God
examine it, He will say, "Here is truth in the inward parts. My Spirit
has worked truth and integrity within this heart and life–this man is
weighed in the balances, and is not found wanting." I am speaking these
solemn words to myself, to the deacons and elders around me, and to you
who have long professed to be Christians–not to you outsiders, but to
the very best people here. None of us are any better than we ought to
be and I cannot help fearing that some of us are not what we seem to
be. Do not let us imagine that what we seem to be in the sight of our
fellow creatures will have any weight in the judgment of God! We may be
reckoned righteous by our neighbors and friends, but if we are not
washed in the precious blood of Jesus, if we are not robed in the
righteousness of Christ, if our lives have not within them the
evidences of the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit, our friends'
favorable judgment will avail us nothing when the all-seeing eyes of
God beholds us as we really are! I pray with all my heart that we may,
each one of us, be righteous before God even as Noah was in his
generation.

III. I have no time left for dealing with the third part of my subject
which was to have been THE GRACIOUS REWARD GIVEN TO NOAH BECAUSE OF THE
EMINENCE OF HIS CHARACTER.

You all know that the Lord will bless the righteous forever and ever,
but the great question that we all have to answer is, are we righteous
Oh, what searching sermons, what tremendous blows hypocrites will
endure without showing a sign of feeling anything! I usually notice
that if I preach a sermon that is more than ordinarily searching, there
are sure to be some tender-hearted souls crying out at the close that
they are hypocrites. Dear Creatures, I wish I had no hearers more
hypocritical than they are! Those who take such discourses most to
heart are often those who have the least reason for doing so, while the
real hypocrite is no more moved by it than is the marble in our
baptistery! I might almost point him out with my finger, for he would
not stir–he would be as bold and brazen as Judas was when he sat with
the rest of the Apostles just before going out to betray his Lord. Oh,
the dreadful presumption, the terrible hardness of heart to which men
may come! Lest this should be the case with any of us, let us, each
one, now pray David's prayer, "Search me, O God, and know my heart; try
me, and know my thoughts: and see if there is any wicked way in me, and
lead me in the way everlasting."

Let each one also pray, "Lord, let me know the truth about my case! Let
me neither be self-deceived nor a deceiver of others! Let me know the
worst of my case! Open my eyes even though the sight of my petition
before you should be horrible to the last degree! Do not let me go down
to Hell dreaming that I am going to Heaven! Let me know what I really
am–and if my heart has never been broken, break it now! If I have
never been washed in the precious blood of Jesus, wash me in it now!
Jesus, the sinner's Savior, I come to You this moment. I cast my arms
around Your Cross, O frown me not away! Look in mercy and love upon me
and tell me that my sins, which are many, are all forgiven."

Let the most trembling soul in this whole congregation cling to the
Cross, crying to Him who hung upon it–

"Nothing in my hands I bring, Simply to Your Cross I cling. Naked, come
to You for dress. Helpless, look to You for Grace. Foul, I to the
Fountain fly– Wash me, Savior, or I die!"

If we cannot cling to Christ's Cross as the sailor clings to the mast,
let us cling as the limpet clings to the rock–and the more the devil
tries to detach us from it, the more closely let us cling to it. Let us
come either as saints or sinners, whichever we may be, to the foot of
the Cross and look up at that dear head crowned with thorns and those
blessed hands and feet and side so rudely pierced and, as by faith, we
see the precious sin-atoning blood flowing from the Savior's cruel
wounds, let us each one sing as we have often done before–

"There is a Fountain filled with blood, Drawn from Emmanuel's veins And
sinners, plunged beneath that flood, Lose all their guilty stains! The
dying thief rejoiced to see That Fountain in his day, Oh may I there,
though vile as he, Wash all my sins away!"

Then, though you have not, up to now, been righteous before God as Noah
was, you shall be so for the future! The blood of Christ and the
righteousness of Christ shall make you so! And then a new heart and a
right spirit shall be given to you–God's own Spirit shall be put
within you and God shall be glorified in you even as He was in
righteous Noah! May it be so, for His dear Son's sake! Amen.

EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: GENESIS 7.

Verse 1. And the LORD said unto Noah, Come you and all your house into
the ark Notice that the Lord did not say to Noah, "Go into the ark,"
but, "Come," plainly implying that God was, Himself, in the ark,
waiting to receive Noah and his family into the big ship that was to be
their place of refuge while all the other people on the face of the
earth were drowned. The distinctive word of the Gospel is a drawing
word–"Come." Jesus says, "Come unto Me, all

you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." And He
will say to His people at the last, "Come, you blessed of My Father,
inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world."
"Depart" is the word of justice and judgment, but, "Come," is the word
of mercy and Grace! "The Lord said unto Noah, Come you and all your
house into the ark"–

1. For I have seen you are righteous before Me in this generation.
Therefore God drew a distinction between him and the unrighteous, for
He always has a special regard for godly people.

2, 3. Of every clean beast you shall take to you by sevens, the male
and his female: and of beasts that are not clean by two, the male and
his female. Of fowls also of the air by sevens, the male and the
female; to keep seed alive upon the face of all the earth.Of the clean
creatures which might be offered in sacrifice to God you see that there
was a larger proportion than there was of the unclean, that there might
be a sufficient amount for sacrifice without the destruction of any
species. The unclean beasts were mostly killers and devourers of others
and, therefore, their number was to be less than that of the clean
species. Oh, that the day might soon come when there would be more of
clean men and women than of unclean, when there would be fewer sinners
than godly people in the world, though even then there would be the
ungodly "by two" like the unclean beasts.

4. For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty
days and forty nights; and every living substance that I have made will
I destroy from off the face of the earth. It is the prerogative of the
king to have the power of life and death, and it is the sole
prerogative of the King of kings that–

"He can create and He destroys." But what destructive power is brought
into operation because of human sin! Sin must be a very heinous thing,
since God, who despises not the work of His own hands, will sooner
break up the human race and destroy everything that lives rather than
that sin should continue to defile the earth! He has destroyed the
earth once by water because of sin and He will the second time destroy
it by fire for the same reason. Wherever sin is, God will hunt it. With
barbed arrows will He shoot at it. He will cut it in pieces with His
sharp two-edged sword, for He cannot endure sin. Oh, how foolish are
they who harbor it in their bosoms, for it will bring destruction to
them if they keep it there!

5. And Noah did according unto all that the LORD commanded him. Here
was positive proofof his righteousness, in that he was obedient to the
Word of the Lord! A man who does not obey God's commands may talk about
righteousness, even the righteousness which is of faith, but it is
clear that he does not possess it, for faith works by love–and the
righteousness which is by faith is proved by obedience to God. "Noah
did according unto all that the Lord commanded him," and so proved that
he was righteous before God.

6. And Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters was upon
the earth. He was nearly 500 years old when he began to preach about
the flood–a good old age to take up such a subject! For a 120 years he
pursued his theme–three times as long as most men are ever able to
preach! And now, at last, God's time of long-suffering is over and He
proves the truthfulness of the testimony of His servant by sending the
flood that Noah had foretold.

7. 8. And Noah went in, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons' wives
with him, into the ark, because of the waters of the flood. Of clean
beasts, and of beasts that are not clean, and of fowls, and of
everything that creeps upon the earth This largest and most complete
menagerie that was ever gathered together was not collected by human
skill–Divine Power, alone, could have accomplished such a task as
that.

9. There went in two and two unto Noah into the ark, the male and
female, as God had commanded Noah. They "went in." Noah had not to hunt
or search for them, but they came according to God's plan and purpose,
even as, concerning the salvation which is by Christ Jesus, His people
shall be willing to come to Him in the day of His power–with
joyfulness shall they come into the ark of their salvation!

10, 11. And it came to pass after seven days, that the waters of the
flood were upon the earth. In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in
the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were
all the fountains of the great deep broken up and the windows of Heaven
were opened. Perhaps the world was in its prime, when the trees were in
bloom, and the birds were singing in their branches, and the flowers
were blooming on the earth, "the same day were all the fountains of the
great deep broken up and the windows of Heaven were opened."

12-13. And the rain was upon the earth forty day and forty nights. In
the same day entered Noah, and Shem, and Ham, and Japheth, the sons of
Noah, and Noah's wife, and the three wives of his sons with them, into
the ark These eight persons are very carefully mentioned. "The Lord
knows them that are His." "And they shall be Mine, says the Lord of
Hosts, in that day when I make up"–or, shut up–"my jewels," as He was
about to do in this case. In similar fashion,

God makes a very careful enumeration of all those who believe in
Him–precious are they in His sight–and they shall be preserved when
all others are destroyed!

14. Theey and every beast after his kind, and all thee cattle after
their kind, and every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth after
his kind, and every fowl after his kind, every bird of every sort
"Every bird of every sort," that is, every kind of bird! They are all
mentioned again. God makes much of salvation, oh, that we also did! We
may recount and rehearse the story of our rescue from universal
destruction–and we need not be afraid or ashamed of repeating it. As
the Holy Spirit repeats the words we have here, you and I may often
proclaim the story of our salvation and dwell upon the minute
particulars of it, for every item of it is full of instruction!

15, 16. And they went to Noah into the ark, two and two of all flesh,
wherein is the breath of life. And they that went in, went in male and
female of all flesh, as God had commanded him: and the LORD shut him
in. [See Sermons #3042,

Volume 53–THE PARABLE OF THE ARK and #1613, Volume 27–SHUT IN OR SHUT
OUT.] Now the jewels are all in and, therefore, the casket is closed!

17. And the flood was forty days upon the earth. Just as it had been
foretold, for God's Providence always tallies with His promises or with
His threats. "Has He said, and shall He not do it?"

17. And the waters increased, and lifted up the ark, and it was lifted
up above the earth. You can see it begin to move until it is afloat.
The same effect is often produced on us–when the flood of affliction
is deep, then we begin to rise. Oh, how often have we been lifted up
above the earth by the very force that threatened to drench and drown
us! David said, "It is good for me that I have been afflicted," and
many another saint can say that he never was lifted up until the floods
were out, but then he left the worldliness with which he had been
satisfied before and he began to rise to a higher level than he had
previously attained.

18-19. And the waters prevailed, and were increased greatly upon the
earth; and the ark went upon the face of the water. And the waters
prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills that were
under the whole Heaven, were covered If Moses had meant to describe a
partial deluge upon only a small part of the earth, he used very
misleading language! But if he meant to teach that the deluge was
universal, he used the very words which we might have expected that he
would use. I should think that no person, merely by reading this
chapter, would arrive at the conclusion that has been reached by some
of our very learned men–too learned to hold the simple Truth of God!
It looks as if the deluge must have been universal when we read that
not only did the waters prevail exceedingly upon the earth, but that
"all the high hills that were under the whole Heaven"–that is, all
beneath the canopy of the sky, "were covered." What could be more plain
and clear than that?

20-23. Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains
were covered. Andall flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of
fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing that
creeps upon the earth, and every man: all in whose nostrils was the
breath of life, of all that was in the dry land died. And every living
substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground, both
man, and cattle, and the creeping things, and the fowl of the Heaven;
and they were destroyed from the earth: and Noah, only, remained alive,
and they that were with him in the ark. This is the counterpart of what
will follow the preaching of the Gospel–those who are in Christ shall
live, shall rise, and reign with Him forever–but none of those who are
outside of Christ shall live. "Noah, only, remained alive, and they
that were with him in the ark."

24. And the waters prevailed upon the earth an hundred and fifty days.