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Genesis Chapter
Six
Genesis 6
Chapter Contents
The wickedness of the world which provoked God's wrath.
(1-7) Noah finds grace. (8-11) Noah warned of the flood, The directions
respecting the ark. (12-21) Noah's faith and obedience. (22)
Commentary on Genesis 6:1-7
The most remarkable thing concerning the old world, is
the destroying of it by the deluge, or flood. We are told of the abounding
iniquity of that wicked world: God's just wrath, and his holy resolution to
punish it. In all ages there has been a peculiar curse of God upon marriages
between professors of true religion and its avowed enemies. The evil example of
the ungodly party corrupts or greatly hurts the other. Family religion is put
an end to, and the children are trained up according to the worldly maxims of
that parent who is without the fear of God. If we profess to be the sons and
daughters of the Lord Almighty, we must not marry without his consent. He will
never give his blessing, if we prefer beauty, wit, wealth, or worldly honours,
to faith and holiness. The Spirit of God strove with men, by sending Enoch,
Noah, and perhaps others, to preach to them; by waiting to be gracious, notwithstanding
their rebellions; and by exciting alarm and convictions in their consciences.
But the Lord declared that his Spirit should not thus strive with men always;
he would leave them to be hardened in sin, and ripened for destruction. This he
determined on, because man was flesh: not only frail and feeble, but carnal and
depraved; having misused the noble powers of his soul to gratify his corrupt
inclinations. God sees all the wickedness that is among the children of men; it
cannot be hid from him now; and if it be not repented of, it shall be made
known by him shortly. The wickedness of a people is great indeed, when noted
sinners are men renowned among them. Very much sin was committed in all places,
by all sorts of people. Any one might see that the wickedness of man was great:
but God saw that every imagination, or purpose, of the thoughts of man's heart,
was only evil continually. This was the bitter root, the corrupt spring. The
heart was deceitful and desperately wicked; the principles were corrupt; the
habits and dispositions evil. Their designs and devices were wicked. They did
evil deliberately, contriving how to do mischief. There was no good among them.
God saw man's wickedness as one injured and wronged by it. He saw it as a
tender father sees the folly and stubbornness of a rebellious and disobedient
child, which grieves him, and makes him wish he had been childless. The words
here used are remarkable; they are used after the manner of men, and do not
mean that God can change, or be unhappy. Does God thus hate our sin? And shall
not we be grieved to the heart for it? Oh that we may look on Him whom we have
grieved, and mourn! God repented that he had made man; but we never find him
repent that he redeemed man. God resolves to destroy man: the original word is
very striking, 'I will wipe off man from the earth,' as dirt or filth is wiped
off from a place which should be clean, and is thrown to the dunghill, the
proper place for it. God speaks of man as his own creature, when he resolves
upon his punishment. Those forfeit their lives who do not answer the end of
their living. God speaks of resolution concerning men, after his Spirit had
been long striving with them in vain. None are punished by the justice of God,
but those who hate to be reformed by the grace of God.
Commentary on Genesis 6:8-11
Noah did not find favour in the eyes of men; they hated
and persecuted him, because both by his life and preaching he condemned the
world: but he found grace in the eyes of the Lord, and this made him more truly
honourable than the men of renown. Let this be our chief desire, let us labour
that we may be accepted of him. When the rest of the world was wicked, Noah
kept his integrity. God's good-will towards Noah produced this good work in
him. He was a just man, that is, justified before God, by faith in the promised
Seed. As such he was made holy, and had right principles; and was righteous in
his conversation. He was not only honest, but devout; it was his constant care
to do the will of God. God looks down upon those with an eye of favour, who
sincerely look up to him with an eye of faith. It is easy to be religious when
religion is in fashion; but it shows strong faith and resolution, to swim
against the stream, and to appear for God when no one else appears for him;
Noah did so. All kinds of sin were found among men. They corrupted God's
worship. Sin fills the earth with violence, and this fully justified God's
resolution to destroy the world. The contagion spread. When wickedness is
become general, ruin is not far off; while there is a remnant of praying people
in a nation, to empty the measure as it fills, judgments may be long kept off;
but when all hands are at work to pull down the fences, by sin, and none stand
in the gap to make up the breach, what can be expected but a flood of wrath?
Commentary on Genesis 6:12-21
God told Noah his purpose to destroy the wicked world by
water. The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him, Psalm 25:14. It is with all believers, enabling
them to understand and apply the declarations and warnings of the written word.
God chose to do it by a flood of waters, which should drown the world. As he
chooses the rod with which he corrects his children, so he chooses the sword
with which he cuts off his enemies. God established his covenant with Noah.
This is the first place in the Bible where the word 'covenant' is found; it
seems to mean, 1. The covenant of providence; that the course of nature shall
be continued to the end of time. 2. The covenant of grace; that God would be a
God to Noah, and that out of his seed God would take to himself a people. God
directed Noah to make an ark. This ark was like the hulk of a ship, fitted to
float upon the waters. It was very large, half the size of St. Paul's
cathedral, and would hold more than eighteen of the largest ships now used. God
could have secured Noah without putting him to any care, or pains, or trouble;
but employed him in making that which was to be the means to preserve him, for
the trial of his faith and obedience. Both the providence of God, and the grace
of God, own and crown the obedient and diligent. God gave Noah particular
orders how to make the ark, which could not therefore but be well fitted for the
purpose. God promised Noah that he and his family should be kept alive in the
ark. What we do in obedience to God, we and our families are likely to have the
benefit of. The piety of parents gets their children good in this life, and
furthers them in the way to eternal life, if they improve it.
Commentary on Genesis 6:22
Noah's faith triumphed over all corrupt reasonings. To
rear so large a building, such a one as he never saw, and to provide food for
the living creatures, would require from him a great deal of care, and labour,
and expense. His neighbours would laugh at him. But all such objections, Noah,
by faith, got over; his obedience was ready and resolute. Having begun to
build, he did not leave off till he had finished: so did he, and so must we do.
He feared the deluge, and therefore prepared the ark. And in the warning given
to Noah, there is a more solemn warning given to us, to flee from the wrath to
come, which will sweep the world of unbelievers into the pit of destruction.
Christ, the true Noah, which same shall comfort us, hath by his sufferings
already prepared the ark, and kindly invites us by faith to enter in. While the
day of his patience continues, let us hear and obey his voice.
── Matthew Henry《Concise Commentary on Genesis》
Genesis 6
Verse 1
[1] And
it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and
daughters were born unto them,
Men began to multiply upon the face of the
earth — This was the effect of the blessing, Genesis 1:28, and yet man's corruption so abused
this blessing, that it turned into a curse.
Verse 2
[2] That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and
they took them wives of all which they chose.
The sons of God —
Those who were called by the name of the Lord, and called upon that name,
married the daughters of men - Those that were profane, and strangers to God.
The posterity of Seth did not keep to themselves as they ought, but
intermingled with the race of Cain: they took them wives of all that they chose
- They chose only by the eye: They saw that they were fair - Which was all they
looked at.
Verse 3
[3] And
the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is
flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.
My spirit shall not always strive with man — The spirit then strove by Noah's preaching, 1 Peter 3:19, and by inward checks, but 'twas in
vain with the most of men; therefore saith God, he shall not always strive, for
that he also is flesh - Incurably corrupt and sensual, so that 'tis labour lost
to strive with him. He also, that is, all, one as well as another; they are all
sunk into the mire of flesh.
Yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty
years — So long will I defer the judgment they
deserve, and give them space to prevent it by their repentance and reformation.
Justice said, cut them down; but mercy interceded, Lord, let them alone this
year also; and so far mercy prevailed, that a reprieve was obtained for six
score years.
Verse 4
[4]
There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the
sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them,
the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.
There were giants, and men of renown — They carried all before them, 1. With their great bulk, as the sons of
Anak, Numbers 13:33, and, 2. With their great name, as
the king of Assyria, Isaiah 37:11. Thus armed, they daringly insulted
the rights of all their neighbours, and trampled upon all that is just and
sacred.
Verse 5
[5] And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that
every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
And God saw that the wickedness of man was
great in the earth — Abundance of sin was committed in all
places, by all sorts of people: and those sins in their own nature most gross
and heinous, and provoking: and committed daringly, with a defiance of heaven.
And that every imagination of the thoughts of
his heart was only evil continually — A sad sight, and very
offensive to God's holy eye. This was the bitter root, the corrupt spring: all
the violence and oppression, all the luxury and wantonness that was in the
world, proceeded from the corruption of nature; lust conceives them, James 1:15, see Matthew 15:19. The heart was evil, deceitful and
desperately wicked; the principles were corrupt, and the habits and
dispositions evil. The thoughts of the heart were so. Thought is sometimes
taken for the settled judgment, and that was biased and misled; sometimes for
the workings of the fancy, and those were always either vain or vile. The
imagination of the thought of the heart was so, that is, their designs and
devices were wicked. They did not do evil only through carelessness, but
deliberately and designedly, contriving how to do mischief. 'Twas bad indeed,
for it was only evil, continually evil, and every imagination was so. There was
no good to be found among them, no not at any time: the stream of sin was full
and strong, and constant; and God saw it. Here is God's resentment of man's
wickedness. He did not see it as an unconcerned spectator, but as one injured
and affronted by it; he saw it as a tender father sees the folly and
stubbornness of a rebellious and disobedient child, which not only angers but
grieves him, and makes him wish he had been written childless.
Verse 6
[6] And
it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at
his heart.
And it repented the Lord that he had made man
upon the earth — That he had made a creature of such noble
powers, and had put him on this earth, which he built and furnished on purpose
to be a comfortable habitation for him; and it grieved him at his heart - These
are expressions after the manner of men, and must be understood so as not to
reflect upon God's immutability or felicity. It doth not speak any passion or
uneasiness in God, nothing can create disturbance to the eternal mind; but it
speaks his just and holy displeasure against sin and sinners: neither doth it
speak any change of God's mind; for with him there is no variableness; but it
speaks a change of his way. When God had made man upright, he rested and was
refreshed, Exodus 31:17. and his way towards him was such
as shewed him well pleased with the work of his own hands; but now man was
apostatized, he could not do otherwise, but shew himself displeased; so that
the change was in man, not in God.
Verse 7
[7] And
the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the
earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air;
for it repenteth me that I have made them.
I will destroy man —
The original word is very significant. I will wipe off man from off the earth;
as dirt is wiped off from a place which should be clean, and thrown to the
dunghill. Or, I will blot out man from the earth, as those lines are blotted
out of a book which displease the author, or as the name of a citizen is
blotted out of the rolls of the freemen when he is disfranchised.
Both man and beast the creeping thing, and
the fowls of the air — These were made for man, and therefore
must be destroyed with man.
It repenteth me that I have made them — For the end of their creation also was frustrated: they were made that
man might serve and honour God with them and therefore were destroyed, because
he had served his lusts with them, and made them subject to vanity.
Verse 8
[8] But
Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD.
But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord — This vindicates God's justice in his displeasure against the world, and
shews that he had examined the character of every person in it, before he
pronounced it universally corrupt; for there being one good man he smiled upon
him.
Verse 9
[9]
These are the generations of Noah: Noah was a just man and perfect in his
generations, and Noah walked with God.
Noah was a just man —
Justified before God by faith in the promised seed; for he was an heir of the
righteousness which is by faith, Hebrews 11:7. He was sanctified, and had right
principles and dispositions implanted in him: and he was righteous in his
conversation, one that made conscience of rendering to all their due, to God
his due, and to men theirs. And he walked with God as Enoch had done before
him: in his generation, even in that corrupt degenerate age. It is easy to be
religious when religion is in fashion; but it is an evidence of strong faith to
swim against the stream, and to appear for God, when no one else appears for
him: so Noah did, and it is upon record to his immortal honour.
Verse 11
[11] The
earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence.
The earth also was corrupt before God — That is, in the matters of God's worship; either they had other gods
before him, or worshipped him by images: or, they were corrupt and wicked in
despite of God. The earth was also filled with violence, and injustice towards
men; there was no order nor regular government, no man was safe in the
possession of that which he had the most clear right to, there was nothing but
murders, rapes and rapines.
Verse 12
[12] And
God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had
corrupted his way upon the earth.
God looked upon the earth — And was himself an eye-witness of the corruption that was in it, for all
flesh had corrupted his way - It was not some particular nations that were thus
wicked, but the whole world so; there was none good beside Noah.
Verse 13
[13] And
God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is
filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the
earth.
The end of all flesh is come before me; I
will destroy them — The ruin of this wicked world is decreed;
it is come, that is, it will come surely, and come quickly.
Verse 14
[14] Make
thee an ark of gopher wood; rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch
it within and without with pitch.
I will destroy them with the earth, but make
thee an ark - I will take care to preserve thee alive. This ark was like the
hulk of a ship, fitted not to sail upon the waters, but to float waiting for
their fall. God could have secured Noah, by the ministration of angels without
putting him to any care or pains, but he chose to employ him in making that
which was to be the means of his preservation, both for the trial of his faith
and obedience, and to teach us that none shall be saved by Christ, but those
only that work out their salvation; we cannot do it without God, and he will
not without us: both the providence of God and the grace of God crown the
endeavours of the obedient and diligent. God gave him particular instructions
concerning this building. 1. It must be made of Gopher-wood; Noah, doubtless,
knew what sort of wood that was, though now we do not. 2. He must make it three
stories high within: and, 3. He must divide it into cabins with partitions,
places fitted for the several sorts of creatures, so as to lose no room. 4.
Exact dimensions are given him, that he might make it proportionable, and might
have room enough in it to answer the intention, and no more. 5. He must pitch
it within and without: without, to shed off the rain, and to prevent the water
from soaking in; within, to take away the ill smell of the beasts when kept
close. 6. He must make a little window towards the top to let in light. 7. He
must make a door in the side of it by which to go in and out.
Verse 17
[17] And,
behold, I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all
flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven; and every thing that
is in the earth shall die.
And behold, I, even I, do bring a flood of
waters upon the earth — I that am infinite in power, and therefore
can do it; infinite in justice, and therefore will do it.
Verse 18
[18] But
with thee will I establish my covenant; and thou shalt come into the ark, thou,
and thy sons, and thy wife, and thy sons' wives with thee.
But with thee will I establish my covenant — (1.) The covenant of Providence, that the course of nature shall be
continued to the end of time, not withstanding the interruption which the flood
would give to it: this promise was immediately made to Noah and his sons, Genesis 9:8, etc. they were as trustees for all
this part of the creation, and a great honour was thereby put upon him and his.
God would be to him a God, and that out of his seed God would take to himself a
people.
── John Wesley《Explanatory Notes on
Genesis》
"NOAH FOUND GRACE IN THE EYES OF THE LORD" Genesis 6:8
INTRODUCTION
1. In Gen 6:5-7, we read of God's displeasure with the world and its wickedness 2. But as God pronounces judgment upon the world, and prepares to destroy it with a flood, we find encouraging words concerning one man: "But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord." - Gen 6:8 3. This simply means that Noah found favor in God's sight, and we know the result of that favor: escape for him and his family from the flood! a. But why Noah? b. Why did Noah find grace in the eyes of the Lord? c. And how might we apply this to our situation today? [Well, notice first...] I. WHY NOAH FOUND GRACE IN THE EYES OF THE LORD
A. HE WAS "A JUST MAN" - Gen 6:9 1. Some translations say "righteous" 2. This likely refers to his moral relation to God (Keil & Delitzsch) B. HE WAS "PERFECT IN HIS GENERATIONS" - Gen 6:9 1. Other translations (NASV, NIV) use the word "blameless" 2. Not that he was sinless, but that there were no blatant faults 3. He was a man of moral integrity among the people C. HE "WALKED WITH GOD" - Gen 6:9 1. This is how he manifested his righteousness and integrity (Keil & Delitzsch) 2. In walking with God, he imitated the example of Enoch, his great-grandfather - Gen 5:24 3. Walking with God in Noah's case likely involved... a. Calling upon the name of the Lord (which began in the days of Seth - Gen 4:26) b. Offering sacrifices to God (which began in the days of Cain & Abel - Gen 4:3-4) D. HE "DID ACCORDING TO ALL THAT THE LORD COMMANDED HIM" 1. Twice this is emphasized in the Scriptures - Gen 6:22; 7:5 2. We learn from the writer of Hebrews that this obedience of Noah came from faith - He 11:7 E. HE WAS "A PREACHER OF RIGHTEOUSNESS" - 2 Pe 2:5 1. He not only "lived" a righteous life 2. But he also "proclaimed" the need for righteousness, even though he lived in a very ungodly world [Noah certainly was an unusual man, but perhaps we see well why only heand his family "found grace in the eyes of the Lord." What about ourselves? Is there a need for us to "find grace in the eyes of the Lord" today? Yes!]
II. WHY WE NEED TO FIND GRACE IN THE EYES OF THE LORD
A. NOT BECAUSE WE FACE THE THREAT OF A WORLDWIDE FLOOD... 1. After Noah and his family were saved from the flood, God promised He would never again destroy the world in such a manner - Gen 9:8-11 2. The rainbow is a constant reminder of God's promise - Gen 9:12-17
B. BUT BECAUSE WE FACE THE PROMISE OF THE END OF THE WORLD! 1. Peter reminds us that just as the world was once destroyed by water, so it shall be destroyed by fire when Jesus returns! - 2 Pe 3:3-13 2. In view of this promise, Peter calls upon us to "be diligent to be found by Him in peace, without spot and blameless"
- 2 Pe 3:14 a. Just as Noah "found grace in the eyes of the Lord"... b. So we need to "found by Him in peace, without spot and blameless"
3. Is this not simply another way of saying that we, like Noah, need to find grace in the eyes of the Lord? [Indeed, it is! When the end of the world comes, we had better be in acondition where we too find grace in the eyes of the Lord! Otherwise,we will be like those left outside of the ark when the floods came! Using Noah as an example, then, consider...] III. HOW WE CAN FIND GRACE IN THE EYES OF THE LORD
A. WE MUST BE "JUST" IN HIS SIGHT... 1. Fortunately, the good news of the gospel is that God sent Christ in order to make us "just" (righteous, forgiven) in His sight! - Ro 5:8-9 2. This blessing is available to all who demonstrate true faith in Jesus - Ro 3:24-26 3. Being justified, we can have peace with God (concerning which Peter wrote) - Ro 5:1; cf. 2 Pe 3:14 B. WE MUST BE "PERFECT" IN OUR GENERATION... 1. That is, to be complete, mature, to be everything God desires of us 2. Again, the good news of the gospel of Christ is that God has provided the necessary elements for us to be "perfect"! a. The blood of Christ, to cleanse us of our sins - 1 Jn 1:7-9 b. The Word of God, to guide us to completion - 2 Ti 3:16-17 c. The strength of the Spirit, to help us in our struggles - Ep 3:16; Ro 8:13 d. The providence of God, who will work with us and lead us to victory! - 2 Th 3:3; 1 Pe 5:10 C. WE MUST "WALK WITH GOD"... 1. Of course, this would mean that we can "no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk..." - cf. Ep 4:17-20 2. Rather, it requires that we be "followers of God as dear children" (Ep 5:1), and that we...
a. "Walk in love" - Ep 5:2 b. "Walk as children of light", exposing the sins of darkness - Ep 5:8-11 c. "Walk as wise", with an understanding of what the Lord's will is - Ep 5:15-17 D. WE MUST "DO ALL THAT THE LORD HAS COMMANDED"... 1. Observing not just "some" things, but "all" things - cf. Mt28:20
2. For in so doing, we demonstrate our faith to be "a living faith" - cf. Ja 2:17,24,26 E. WE MUST BE "PREACHERS OF RIGHTEOUSNESS"... 1. It is God's will that we "proclaim the praises of Him", which would include His righteousness - cf. 1 Pe 2:9 2. This can be done most vividly by example, in living transformed lives - cf. Ro 12:1-2 CONCLUSION
1. God does not want anyone to perish in the great conflagration that is yet to come, but He does require all to come to repentance - 2 Pe3:9; Ac 17:30-31
2. And when we turn from sin and turn to God, what do we find? The same thing Noah and his family found: "grace in the eyes of the Lord"!
3. Speaking of the salvation of Noah should remind us of the comparison Peter makes between Noah's salvation and our own... a. I.e., the part baptism serves in our salvation - 1 Pe 3:20-21 b. Just as God used the element of water to save Noah from a wicked world... c. ...so in His grace God utilizes water in our salvation through the blood of Jesus! If you have not done so, why not find favor in God's sight by beingbaptized for the remission of your sins (Ac 2:38; 22:16)? Then, as welook forward to the coming of the Lord in which He will usher in "thenew heavens and new earth", give special heed to the words of Peter: "Therefore, beloved, looking forward to these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, without spot and blameless." - 2 Pe 3:14
－－《Executable
Outlines》
06 Chapter 6
Verse 1-2
The sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and
they took them wives of all which they chose
Sons of God different from the daughters of men
1.
In
disposition.
2. In profession.
3. In moral character.
4. In eternal destiny. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)
Sons of Elohim and daughters of men
Opinions have differed greatly as to the meaning of the name “Sons
of God,” or rather of “Elohim.” The rabbis, as was natural, from their love of
the marvellous, took for granted that the fallen angels are meant; since “nephilim”
is derived from the verb “to fall.” Hence Apocryphal Jewish literature assumes
this constantly, while not a few writers of the most opposite schools still
support this explanation, which, nevertheless, seems fanciful and ungrounded.
The giants are not said to have been “the sons of Elohim,” and their name may
as fitly be explained as referring to their “falling upon” their fellow men as
by any mysterious connection with the rebel angels. Nor does the name “sons” of
“Elohim” necessarily refer to angels at all; for the word “Elohim” is used
elsewhere in Scripture of men. Thus, in Psalms 82:1, we read that God “judges in
the midst of the Elohim,” who are shown in the next verse to be those who
“judge unjustly, and accept the persons of the wicked.” The name is evidently
given them from their office, in which they represented, in Israel, the supreme
judge of the nation--Jehovah. Jewish interpreters generally adopt this meaning
of the passage, believing that the “great” or “mighty” sons of Cain are
contrasted with the lowlier daughters of Seth. It is, moreover, very doubtful
if the word be ever applied in the Old Testament to angels. On the other hand,
it is continually used of heathen idols, and hence it may well point in this
particular case to intermarriages between the adherents of idolatry and the daughters
of the race of Seth, and a consequent spread of heathenism, far and near, with
its attendant violence and moral debasement. If, however, by “the sons of
Elohim” we understand the worshippers of Jehovah, the “daughters of men” would
mean those of the race of Cain. This interpretation, indeed, is now very
generally adopted, and seems the most natural. We should, then, read “the sons
of the godly race” took wives of “the daughters of men.” The children of such
marriages sadly increased the prevailing corruption. They became “gibborim,” or
fierce and cruel chiefs, filling the world with blood and tumult. It was to
prevent the final triumph of evil, Scripture tells us, that the deluge was sent
from God. (C. Geikie, D. D.)
Marriage to be sought of God by prayer
It came to pass, when men began to multiply upon the face of the
earth, and daughters were born unto them, that the sons of God (men well
qualified) saw the daughters of men (very lewd ones) that they were fair (that
is all they aimed at), and, therefore, they took them wives (hand over head) of
all which they chose; but, being not of God’s providing, they had better been
without them. Thus, when men send out lusts to seek them wives, and unclean
spirits to woo for them; when men send out ambition to make their houses great,
and covetousness to join house to house and land to land; when men send out
flattery, lying and deceitful speeches, and do not send out prayers and loud
cries unto Almighty God to direct them in their choice, they may thank themselves
if they meet with wives, but not such helpmeets as God otherwise intended for
them. (J. Spencer.)
Unequal marriages abhorrent to God
We see how grievous a thing unequal marriages be, when the godly
with the ungodly, the believing with the infidels, the religious with the
superstitious, are unequally yoked--surely even so grievous to God, that for
this cause especially the whole world was destroyed by the flood. The Lord is
no changeling; He disliked it ever, and disliketh it still. It is a secret poison
that destroyeth virtue more speedily than anything. Solomon was overthrown by
the daughters of men, for all his wisdom. Jehoshaphat matched his son to Ahab’s
daughter, and it was his destruction. He forsook the way of the Lord, and
wrought all wickedness in a full measure. Why? Because, saith the text, “The
daughter of Ahab was his wife.” Ahab was wicked, but a wicked wife made him far
worse, for she provoked him, saith the text. “Be not unequally yoked with
infidels,” saith the apostle, “for what fellowship hath righteousness with
unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? what concord hath
Christ with Belial? or what part hath the believer with the infidel?” It is a
law of marriage that should not be broken, that it be in the Lord--that is,
with His liking and in His fear--with such as be godly and hold the truth. Our
children we allow not to marry against our wills, but our right we challenge to
give a consent. And shall the children of God seek no consent of their Father
in heaven to their marriages? But His consent He will never give to marry His
enemy, and therefore do it not. It is not lawful; it is not expedient if it
were lawful. The flood came to punish such disobedience, and forget it never. (Bishop
Babington.)
Beauty a snare
Beauty is a dangerous bait, and lust is sharp-sighted. It is not
safe gazing on a fair woman. How many have died of the wound in the eye! No one
means hath so enriched hell as beautiful faces, Take heed our eyes be not
windows of wickedness and loopholes of lust. (J. Trapp.)
Wrong unions
The mingling of that which is of God with that which is of man is
a special form of evil, and a very effectual engine in Satan’s hand for marring
the testimony of Christ on earth. This mingling may frequently wear the appearance
of something very desirable; it may often look like a wider promulgation of
that which is of God. Such is not the Divine method of promulgating with or of
advancing the interests of those who ought to occupy the place of witnesses for
Him on the earth. Separation from all evil is God’s principle; and this
principle can never be infringed without serious damage to the truth. (C. H.
M.)
The Cainites and the Sethites
You will remember that at this time there were two distinct races
upon the earth--the descendants of Cain and the descendants of Seth; or, as we
will call them, the Cainites and the Sethites. The latter were godly people;
they worshipped and served the Lord; they kept up the observance of family
prayer; they recognized, in fact, an unseen and spiritual kingdom; and they
fashioned their lives, or endeavoured to fashion them, in accordance with their
belief. The Cainites, on the contrary, cared for none of these things; they
flung off the restraints of religion; they were the secularists and materialists
of the antediluvian world. Whether there was an unseen kingdom, and a King to
rule over it; whether there was such a thing as truth, or such a thing as
righteousness, or even such a Being as God Himself, they did not care at all to
inquire. These things might be, or might not be; but, at all events, there was
the present visible, tangible, enjoyable condition of existence in which they
found themselves placed; and of that they determined to make the best, without
troubling themselves about difficult and abstruse questions which could
probably never be solved. There is another observable thing, too, about these
Cainites. Female names occur in their genealogies; and these female names are
of such a character as indicates that especial attention had been given to
attractiveness of personal appearance, and especial value set upon it by the
women of this branch of the human family. Adah is one name: it means
“ornament--beauty.” Zillah is another: it means “shade,” and seems to refer to
the woman’s thick and clustering tresses, Naamah is a third: it means
“pleasing,” and alludes, in all probability, to the fascination and winning
attractiveness of manner possessed by the person who bore it. All this seems
significant. We gather from it that the women of the Cainite race came into
greater prominence, exercised a greater influence of a certain kind than the
women of the Sethite race; were more obtrusive and less modest; wore more
costly dresses, spent more time in adorning their persons, and gave themselves
up to the cultivation and practice of feminine allurements. The recollection of
this fact will enable us to understand better the statement of the text. Now,
for some considerable time the two races kept completely apart; the Cainites
went their way, the Sethites went theirs, and there was no intercourse to speak
of between them. But after awhile the separation was removed. We are not
informed how the change took place; it may have been through what we may call
accidental circumstances, bringing the two races into contact; but it was more
probably owing to a relaxation of religious principle on the part of the
Sethites, a lowering of the spiritual tone, a departure from the ancient
severity of their religious character, which threw them open to the assaults of
temptation on the part of their worldly neighbours. And it was through the
women of the Cainite race that the danger came in: “the sons of God” (that is,
the worshippers of God--the Sethites) “saw the daughters of men that they were
fair.” Their beauty attracted and ensnared them; their dress was exquisite;
their manners were fascinating, if a trifle bold--unlike, they would say, the
shy and retiring ways of the women of their own race; and they first fluttered
round, and then fell into the net that was spread for them. “And they took them
wives of all which they chose.” There is indicated in this language a simple
following of their own will; there is no reference to God or to duty in the
matter. The result was an intermingling of the two races, and a very rapid
increase of the corruption of mankind. Possibly some of the Sethites, the sons
of God, may have deceived themselves with fancying that they, by the infusion
of their goodness, were going to raise from its spiritual degradation the
Cainite family, and instruct them in the knowledge and the love of God. Ah, the
snow as it falls upon the street may cherish the hope that it is going to cover
the pathway with a robe of unsullied whiteness! The pure bright stream may
fancy when it mingles its waters with those of some turbulent and turbid
companion, that it is going to absorb the other’s foulness into its own
immaculate purity! But what a miserable mistake this is! Good is indeed more
potent than evil when it stands on the defensive and occupies its own ground;
but it is feeble, it is powerless, it is soon overcome, when it allows itself
to be drawn into the enemy’s territory, and to meet him as a friend. This seems
to be the true explanation of the narrative to which our text belongs. And now
the question arises, Has it any practical bearing upon ourselves, and upon the
circumstances in which we are placed? We believe it has. In what did the
criminality of these Sethites consist? In that perversion of the moral sense
which led them to prefer external advantages, external attractions, to
goodness. Yet how often we are tempted to prefer other things to this sterling
quality, or at least to think that the absence of it is more than atoned for by
the presence of exterior fascinations! Take, for instance, some favourite
writer. He is profane, perhaps; he scoffs at religion, or at least sneers in a
covert way. “True,” we say, apologetically; “but how full of intellect he is!
What a masterly hand he lays upon his subject! How magnificent are his
descriptions, and how his thoughts roll forth in a grand overwhelming tide from
the depths of his mind, sweeping all before them!” Or that companion of ours,
whom we have lately been warned against. “Perhaps he is irreligious; perhaps he
is a little loose, both in his habits and his notions. But how clever he is! No
one ever feels dull in his company!” Instances and proofs might easily be
multiplied. Now, all this exactly corresponds to the fault, the sin of the
“sons of God,” spoken of in our text. It is a criminal preference of external
fascinations to the goodness which consists in recognition of God and in
consecration to His service. “It is natural,” perhaps you will say. Granted;
but the Christian ought to carry that about him which enables him to
discriminate between the seeming and the real, and to know things, to a certain
extent at least, as they really are. Our subject applies to companionship
generally, and suggests the extreme importance of a right choice of associates.
Many of us, of course, are thrown into unavoidable juxtaposition with those
with whom we have no manner of sympathy, and whom we would gladly avoid if we
could. The exigencies of business bring into the same office, or into the same
pursuit, the pure and the impure, the godly and the ungodly; and nothing is
more common than to hear right-minded young people complaining of the words
which they are compelled to hear, or of the things which they are compelled to
witness, in the place in which their lot is cast. But, after all, a man is safe
if he is in the path of duty. It is the voluntary and not the enforced
association which exercises a deleterious influence upon mind and character.
But the subject suggests more particularly the effect of companionship between
the sexes, and, more particularly still, it puts men on their guard against the
fascinations of attractive and accomplished, but irreligious and unspiritual,
women. (G. Calthrop, M. A.)
My Spirit shall not always strive with man
The striving of the Spirit
I.
WHAT
IS IMPLIED IN THE ASSERTION, “My Spirit shall not always strive with man”? It
is implied:--
II. WHAT IS NOT
INTENDED BY THE SPIRIT STRIVING. It is no form of physical struggling or effort
whatever. It is not any force applied to our bodies.
III. WHAT, THEN, IS
THE STRIVING OF THE SPIRIT? It is an energy of God applied to the mind of man,
setting truth before his mind, reasoning, convincing, and persuading.
IV. HOW MAY IT BE
KNOWN WHEN THE SPIRIT OF GOD STRIVES WITH AN INDIVIDUAL?
V. WHAT IS
INTENDED BY THE SPIRIT NOT STRIVING ALWAYS? Not that He will at some period
withdraw from among mankind, but that He will withdraw from the individual in
question. There is a limit to the Spirit’s efforts in the case of each sinner;
at some uncertain, awful point, he will reach and pass it.
VI. WHY WILL GOD’S
SPIRIT NOT STRIVE ALWAYS?
VII. CONSEQUENCES
OF THE SPIRIT’S CEASING TO STRIVE WITH MEN.
God striving with man
God strives with man in many ways by the working of His blessed
Spirit within him; by the working of our own conscience, by various warnings
from without constantly strewn in our paths; but if we grieve and resist the
Holy Spirit of God, then He will not always strive with us, but will give us
over to a reprobate mind.
I. Consider the
great mercy of God, in consenting to strive with man at all.
II. The striving
of the Spirit is a means of resisting the flesh.
III. The Spirit of
God strives in many ways. His strivings have a meaning, a message, and a
warning to us all. (Bishop Atlay.)
The Spirit’s influence
I. THAT THE
SPIRIT OF GOD DOES EXERT AN INFLUENCE ON MAN FOR THE PURPOSE OF SECURING HIS
BEST INTEREST. Notice--
1. That this spiritual influence is universal. No doubt respecting
its possibility. He who made man can influence him.
2. That this spiritual influence is essential to the production of
good. Human nature is depraved, and therefore incapable of itself of producing
anything good. As every drop of rain which falls from the clouds, and every
spring that issues from the rocky mountains, comes from the mighty oceans; as
the light which makes every planet and satellite gleam in the dark void of
space comes from the sun, so does all good in man proceed from the Spirit of
God.
3. That this spiritual influence is, in every case, limited by the
conditions of man’s free agency. Nothing compulsory in its nature. If religion
be virtue, man in becoming religious must act from choice and not from
necessity.
4. That this spiritual influence is effective in proportion to the
adaptation of the means by which it acts upon men’s minds. Nature. Providence.
Chiefly the gospel.
II. THAT THE
SPIRIT OF GOD MAY CEASE TO INFLUENCE MEN FOR GOOD. This proved by facts. Saul (1 Samuel 28:15); Belshazzar (Daniel 5:1-31); Jews in time of Jeremiah
(Jeremiah 15:1).
III. THAT THE
SPIRIT OF GOD CEASES TO INFLUENCE MAN FOR GOOD BECAUSE OF MAN’S CONTINUED
REBELLION. “For that he also is flesh.” The word “flesh” is often used in
Scripture to denote the sinfulness of man. This ceasing to strive may not be
the result of a positive act of withdrawal of heavenly influences, so much as
that of the law of nature which determines that the momentum of any moving body
is diminished by constant resistance. In the moral universe, as well as in the
physical, this law operates.
IV. THAT THE
BENEVOLENCE OF GOD IS MANIFESTED IN THE MANNER IN WHICH SPIRITUAL INFLUENCES
ARE WITHDRAWN FROM MAN. “Yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.”
1. The withdrawal never happens till after a long period of
existence.
2. It never happens suddenly, but gradually.
3. It never happens without sufficient warning. (Evan Lewis.)
The Spirit striving
I. A WONDERFUL
FACT IMPLIED. The Holy Spirit strives with man.
1. Remarkable power. Man can refuse to obey the Creator.
2. Amazing Divine condescension.
3. Astonishing human obduracy.
4. A merciful reason. Why not abandon man? Love of God.
5. The benevolent purpose. That man may forsake sin.
6. The mysterious method.
II. AN ALARMING
PACT STATED.
1. A calamity of awful magnitude.
2. Most melancholy. (Homilist.)
The time of God’s grace is limited
There is a time when God will strive; but when that time is gone,
God will strive no more. To make this plain I will lay down these six things:--
1. I will let you see that it hath been so by testimonies of
Scripture. (1 Samuel 15:23; Hebrews 12:16-18; Luke 19:41-42)
2. I will show in or after what manner God deals with a soul in
giving it over.
3. I will let you see what persons they are.
4. Now I come to the fourth thing which is the grounds of it, viz.
Why the Lord in this life doth give men over and strive with them no more. The
grounds of this point arise from these two attributes of God, His justice and
His wisdom.
Divine forbearance and justice
I. THE LONG
SUFFERANCE OF JEHOVAH TOWARDS HIS WAYWARD CREATURES IS SET FORTH IS THE
SCRIPTURES IN VARIOUS WAYS. It is stated in a multitude of passages, that
longsuffering is one of His distinguishing attributes; and the truth of this is
evidenced by the exceeding great forbearance manifested towards many whose
character and conduct are recorded in Holy Writ (Exodus 34:6-7; Numbers 14:8; Ps 2 Peter 3:9). Consider, then, the
fact of God’s exceeding great forbearance, and let it be the means of gently
leading you to repentance. But, in addition to this, there is another
consideration which ought to operate on your minds--namely:
II. THE WARNINGS
AFFORDED TO SINNERS BEFORE THE POURING OUT OF HIS JUDGMENTS. There is nothing
more clearly manifested in the account given us in the Word of God of His
dealings with mankind, than the fact of the unwillingness with which the
Almighty inflicts punishment on sinners. It is termed in the twenty-eighth
chapter of Isaiah, and the twenty-first verse, “His strange work, His strange
act.” Mercy is the work in which the Lord delights; and judgment when executed
is performed as a matter of constraint, the effect of necessity. How many are
the warnings which the Lord holds forth before He strikes the blow I This was
remarkable in the case of the antediluvians. (T. R. Redwar, M. A.)
The danger of resisting the Spirit
I. THAT GOD’S
TAKING AWAY HIS SPIRIT FROM ANY SOUL IS THE CERTAIN FORERUNNER OF THE RUIN AND
DESTRUCTION OF THAT SOUL. This is clearly evinced from the words; for, although
the flood did immediately terminate in the destruction of the body only, yet
because it snatched these men away in a state of impenitence, it was
consequentially the destruction of the soul.
II. THAT THERE IS
IN THE HEART OF MAN A NATURAL ENMITY AND OPPOSITION TO THE MOTIONS OF GOD’S
HOLY SPIRIT outward contention is the proper issue and product of inward hatred:
striving in action is an undoubted sign of enmity in the heart (Galatians 5:17). Here we see there is a
sharp combat between these two: and the apostle subjoins the reason of it: “for
these two are contrary.” Things contrary will vent their contrariety in mutual
strife.
III. THAT THE
SPIRIT IN ITS DEALINGS WITH THE HEART IS VERY EARNEST AND VEHEMENT. To strive,
imports a vigorous putting forth of the power: it is such a posture as denotes
an active desire. There is none that strives with another but conquest is the
thing both in his desire and in his endeavour.
IV. THAT THERE IS
A SET AND PUNCTUAL TIME, AFTER WHICH THE CONVINCING OPERATIONS OF GOD’S SPIRIT
UPON THE HEART OF MAN IN ORDER TO HIS CONVERSION BEING RESISTED, WILL CEASE AND
FOREVER LEAVE HIM.
1. Scripture proof (Psalms 95:10; Luke 19:42).
2. How the Spirit may be resisted in His workings upon the heart.
Where we must first lay down, what it is in general to resist the Spirit.
And this I conceive is, in brief, to disobey the Spirit commanding
and persuading the soul to the performance of duty, and the avoidance of sin.
Now, the Spirit commands and persuades two ways.
1. Externally, by the letter of the word either written or preached.
2. By its immediate internal workings upon the soul, which I shall
reduce to two:
1. Concerning the resistance of the Spirit in disobeying the letter
of the Word. The reason that disobedience to the Word is to be accounted an
opposing of the Spirit, is because the Word was dictated and inspired by the
Spirit itself.
2. I shall next show how it is resisted in its immediate internal
workings upon the soul. Here we must reflect upon ourselves, and know that upon
the unhappy fall of man, sin and the wretched effects of sin immediately
entered upon, and took full possession of all his faculties: his understanding,
that before shined clear like the lamp of God, was by sin overspread with
darkness; his will, that bore a perfect conformity to the Divine will, was
rendered totally averse from and contrary to the things of God.
(a) That universal light which we usually term the light of nature,
yet so as it may also be rightly termed the light of the Spirit; but in a
different respect. It is called the light of nature, because of its general
inherence in all men; because it is commensurate and of equal extent with
nature, so that wheresoever the nature of man is to be found there this light
is to be found. “It enlightens every man that comes into the world.” But on the
other hand, it is called the light of the Spirit, in respect of the Spirit’s
efficiency, in that it is the producing cause of it as it is of every good and
perfect gift.
(b) The second kind of light may be called a notional Scripture light;
that is, a bare knowledge of or assent to Scripture truths. This light is begot
in the mind of all professors by the mere hearing or reading the word; it is
the bare perception of evangelical truths placed in the intellect, resting in
the brain, treasured up there by a naked apprehension and speculation. So that
the resisting this is almost the same with our resistance of the Spirit
speaking in the word, only with this difference, that in the former we resist
the word as considered in the letter, in this we resist it as it lies
transcribed in the conceptions of the understanding.
(c) The third kind of light may be called a special convincing light,
which is a higher degree of the enlightening work of the Spirit. This is the
highest attainment of the soul on this side saving grace; it is like the clear
shining of the moon and stars, which is the greatest light that is consistent
with a state of darkness. Yea, it is such a light as does not only make a
discovery of the things of God, but also engenders in the soul a certain relish
and taste of them.
(a) A begetting in it some good desires, wishes, and inclinations.
(b) An enabling it to perform some imperfect obedience.
(c) An enabling it to leave some sins. In all these works the Spirit
may be resisted and opposed.
3. Why, upon such resistance, the Spirit finally withdraws.
(a) As it is a punishment to the sinner, that has dishonoured Him.
God’s glory cannot be repaired but by the misery of the party that made a
breach upon it.
(b) God may vindicate His honour by clearing His injured attributes
from those aspersions that human mistakes might charge upon them.
1. Our resisting of the Spirit in His precepts and instructions will
certainly bereave us of His comforts.
2. The second motive why we should comply with the Spirit is,
because the resisting of it brings a man under hardness of heart and a reprobate
sense.
3. The third motive is, because resisting of the Spirit puts a man
in the very next disposition to the great and unpardonable sin against the Holy
Ghost. (R. South, DD.)
Why God’s Spirit will not always strive
There is a certain point beyond which He will not go for
sufficient reasons known fully to Himself, partly to us. Two of these we are to
notice for our instruction.
1. He will not touch the free agency of His rational creatures. He
can put no force on the volitions of men. An involuntary or compulsory faith,
hope, love, obedience, is a contradiction in terms, and anything that could
bear the name can have no moral validity whatsoever.
2. After giving ample warning, instruction and invitation, He will,
as a just judgment on the unbelieving and the impenitent, withdraw His Spirit
and let them alone. (Prof. J. G. Murphy.)
Neglecting the opportunity of grace
When I think of opportunities, I think I may liken us here tonight
to a number of men in the Arctic regions. They have been frozen up for a long
time, and the ship is high and dry on great masses of ice. The thaw comes on;
but the thaw, however, will last but for a very short time. They set their saws
to work; they see a split in the ice; there is a long and very narrow lane of
water. If they can get the ship along there before the water freezes it up
again, they may yet reach the shores of dear old England, and be safe; but if
not, they are frozen in for another winter, and very likely will be frozen in
forever. Well, now, tonight it seems just so with us. It seems as if the Spirit
of God had purposely brought some of you here; and I do trust He is opening, as
it were, the lane of mercy for you--causing your sins for a little time to
loose their frosty hold, and opening your heart a little to the genial
influences of the gospel. But, oh! if it should be frozen up again. (C.
H.Spurgeon.)
The world’s treatment of the Holy Spirit
It is sad, when the physician, having exhausted all the resources
of his skill, gives up his patient and retires. It is sad when the parent,
having tried severity and kindness, correction and encouragement, in vain, at
last, heartbroken and hopeless, desists from his endeavours to reform his
wayward child. But it is sadder still when Almighty God foiled, as it were, by human
obduracy, in all the manifestations of His grace and mercy, at last gives up
His efforts for the salvation of men, and retires exclaiming: “How often would
I have gathered you under My wing, and ye would not.” Such is the spectacle
here. The Spirit of God has, all through, been connected with our world. It was
He who moved on the face of the waters, reducing the discordant elements to
order, and building up that fair and goodly structure, which has still so many
traces of its original beauty lingering amid its ruin and decay.
It was He who was breathed into man, making him a living soul,
spiritual, and like to God in wisdom, goodness, happiness, and truth. After the
Fall, He did not forsake the work of His hands, but clave to the souls of men,
seeking to help their recovery, and if that might not be, seeking to act as a
drag on their downward progress. Oh, how long-continued, constant, and
persevering have been His efforts for the good of man! What has been the
treatment which He has received from them in return? God tells us what it was
from the men before the flood. They were going on in evils ways, and the Spirit
strove with them, tried to stop them, and turn them back. He pleaded with them,
warned them, but it was in vain; they went on, and grew worse and worse. Like a
mighty torrent they swept along, and drew even the godly along with them. At
length it became time for God to decide and act, and so He did. “My Spirit
shall not always strive with man.” Slowly and reluctantly, God comes to this
determination. Oh, the evil of man’s sin! It makes, as it were, a conflict in
the Divine bosom. Mercy calls for delay, but justice says, “It must be
limited.” Love to men, and unwillingness that they should perish, cry, “Let
alone a little longer,” but God is jealous for the honour of His Spirit. And so
a time comes when the blessed God must decide and act; and so He does. “Man has
become flesh,” mere flesh; all, with one exception, flesh. The case is
hopeless, “Open the windows of heaven, and break up the fountains of the great
deep.” So it was with Israel. With growing light, unparalleled privileges, they
grew worse and worse--more hardened, formal, hypocritical. The case was
hopeless; Israel was mere flesh--a dead, corrupting carcase. Ho, ho, ye Roman
eagles, come and devour! (J. Milne.)
The long suffering of God
The stroke of judgment is like the lightning flash, irresistible,
fatal; it kills--kills in the twinkling of an eye. But the clouds from which it
leaps are slow to gather; they thicken by degrees; and he must be intensely
engaged with the pleasures, or engrossed in the business of the world, whom the
flash and peal surprise. The mustering clouds, the deepening gloom, the still
and sultry air, the awful silence, the big pattering raindrops, these reveal his
danger to the traveller, and warn him away from river, road, or hill, to the
nearest shelter. (T. Guthrie, D. D.)
Sin beyond mercy
In an age of despotism, an Italian prince became celebrated for
his forbearance, also for his severe punishment when aroused to do vengeance.
He had an offending servant who was repeatedly admonished. With every pardon he
became more reckless and impudent, and thought he could do anything with
impunity. One day, he entered the presence of the prince with his hat on, and,
when rebuked, said he had a cold. His much-enduring master said, “I will take
care that you never catch cold again.” He immediately ordered the man to
prison, and that the executioner should nail his hat to his head. One of the
prince’s friends expressed surprise at this severe sentence, because the
servant had been pardoned for more serious crimes. The prince took a goblet,
and having half filled it with water, requested his friend to put an apple into
it. This made the water rise to the brim. The prince then told his friend to
drop in a coin. This made the water to run over. “How is it?” the prince asked,
“that the small coin caused the water to run over, whereas the large apple
raised it only to the brim?” The overflowing of the cup of God’s mercy is wrath
and destruction to the impenitent.
Giants in the earth
Giants
Story of Jack the Giant Killer: written to teach children that
they have got to fight giants.
I. The first
giant you have to overcome is ILL-TEMPER. Look out for him when told to do
something you don’t want to do. The time to beat him is right at the beginning.
II. The next giant
you have to meet is SELFISHNESS. We have only one mouth because we don’t have to
eat for anybody else; but two ears, eyes, hands, because we have to help other
people. This giant has only one ear, eye, hand--just enough to do for himself
and nothing more.
III. The third
giant is UNTRUTHFULNESS. He is a big liar. The most dangerous of all the
giants. Sin has many tools, but a lie is the handle that fits them all.
IV. DISOBEDIENCE.
V.
SELF-SUFFICIENCY. Whenever this giant moves you to sneer at the honest beliefs
of others, or to set your opinion and wisdom against that of the world, there
is but one thing that will suffice to conquer him, and that is faith. (J. M.
Pullman.)
Giants of strength
In the early days of which we read in the Bible men seemed to have
been stronger and taller, and to have lived to a greater age than now. But it
is not of these giants of strength of whom I would speak to you, but of giants
in character, in faith, in holiness, and endurance, who may serve us feeble
folk as examples how to live and die. Let us take Noah as an example of a giant
in faith. He believed God’s promise that He would destroy the world, though
there were no signs of the coming flood. And when the flood came, Noah was
saved and the laughers destroyed. Again, take Abraham as an example of a giant
of faith. Take Job as an example of patience: he lost health and home, and
money and children, at one stroke, and he said, “The Lord gave, and the Lord
hath taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord.” We, like them, may be giants
of strength if we trust in Him whose grace is sufficient for us. Let me now
tell you of some who have been giants of strength in their death, and let their
dying words be a sermon to us. Let us hear Simeon, the old man who had grown
grey waiting for the consolation of Israel; his dim eyes looked on the Son of
God, his feeble arms held Him, and he went to his rest, saying, “Lord, now
lettest,” etc. May we all likewise die the death of the righteous, and may our
last end be like his! St. Stephen sank beneath the cruel stones, crying, “Lord
Jesus, receive my spirit”; etc. St. Paul, when his work was nearly over, said,
“I have fought a good fight,” etc. Listen to Ignatius on his way to Rome to die
for Jesus, “My Lord was crucified for me.” St. Polycarp, the white-haired
bishop of Smyrna, is in the hands of his enemies, they bid him abjure the faith
of Christ, or be cast to the lions, and the brave old man makes answer, “We
Christians change no better for worse, but change from bad to better,” and so
goes to the lions. John Huss is being bound to the stake and he cries, “Welcome
this chain for Christ’s sake.” The dying Luther murmurs, “Into thy hands I
commend my spirit, for Thou hast redeemed me, O Lord God of Truth.” When
Melancthon was near his end, they asked him if he wanted aught, and he
answered, “Nothing but heaven.” The poet Goethe said with his last breath, “Let
the light enter,” and so passed away to where all things are made clear. When
the learned Grotius was dying they brought young people to his bedside to hear
his parting advice; he gave it in two words, “Be serious.” Beethoven, the great
composer, was too deaf to hear his own sweet music, but on his death bed he
said, smiling, “I shall hear in heaven.” Yes, the best music, the unending
praises of the Lamb of God! From these giants let us learn how to die. Many of
them were weak, and old, and sickly, some were women and tender children; only
let us be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might, and the feeblest
feet among us shall climb to heaven, the tiniest hands shall beat down the
tempter, the sickliest bodies shall be glorified. (H. J.Wilmot Buxton, M. A.)
God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth.
A degenerate world
1. The organic unity of society
is favourable to the spread of moral evil.
2. The native willingness of the human soul to do evil is favourable
to the contagion of moral wrong.
I. IT IS A WORLD
IN WHICH MARRIAGE IS ABUSED.
1. We find that marriage was commenced on a wrong principle. It is
altogether wrong for the sons of God to marry the daughters of men.
2. We find that physical beauty was made the basis of the
matrimonial selection. We find that the marriage bond was violated by impurity.
II. IT IS WORLD IN
WHICH VIOLENCE PREVAILS.
1. Men of physical strength became the rulers of the people.
2. Men of physical strength were the popular favourites of the day.
3. Men of physical strength were the terror of the day.
III. IT IS A WORLD
IN WHICH SPIRITUAL INFLUENCES ARE REJECTED.
1. This degenerate world had not been entirely left to its own
inclination.
2. The degenerate world rejected the holy influences of heaven.
3. The degenerate world was in danger of losing the holy and
correcting influences of heaven.
IV. IT IS A WORLD
UNDER THE IMMEDIATE INSPECTION OF GOD.
V. IT IS A WORLD
THREATENED WITH DESTRUCTION BY GOD.
1. This threat was retributive.
2. This threat was comprehensive.
3. This threat was mingled with mercy.
LESSONS:
1. To sanctify a long life by true piety, lest it become a means of
impurity.
2. To avoid unhallowed alliances.
3. To coincide with the convictions of the Spirit or God. (J.
S.Exell, M. A.)
The extent of man’s wickedness
1. The testimony of God
respecting man. In general, the wickedness of man was great in the earth. Every
species of wickedness was committed in the most shameless manner. But more
particularly, “the hearts” of men were evil; “the thoughts” of their hearts
were evil; “the imaginations” of the thoughts were evil, and this too without exception,
without mixture, without intermission; for every imagination was evil, and
“only” evil, and that continually. What an awful statement. But how could this
be ascertained? Only by God (Proverbs 16:2). This is His testimony,
after a thorough inspection of every human being. The same must be spoken of
man at this day. Proved by observation. What has been the state of your hearts?
Pride, anger, impure thoughts have sprung up in them. If occasionally a
transient thought of good has arisen, how coldly has it been entertained, how
feebly has it operated, how soon has it been lost. Compared with what the law
requires, and what God and His Christ deserve at your hands, do we not fall short
of our duty?
II. WHAT EFFECT IT
SHOULD PRODUCE UPON YOU.
1. Humiliation. On review of our words and actions we have all
reason to be ashamed. Who amongst us could bear to have all his thoughts
disclosed? Yet God beholds all; and has a perfect recollection of all that has
passed through our minds from infancy. We ought to be humble.
2. Gratitude. God sent His Son that through Him all our iniquities
might be forgiven. Is not gratitude due to Him in return?
3. Fear. Though your hearts are renewed by Divine grace, it is only
in part; you have still the flesh within you, as well as the spirit. (C.
Simeon, M. A.)
A degenerate world
1. In the first place, we may
remark the occasion of this general corruption, which was the increase of
population. When men began to multiply they became more and more depraved: yet
an increase of population is considered as a blessing to a country, and such it
is in itself; but through man’s depravity it often proves a curse. When men are
collected in great numbers they whet one another up to evil, which is the
reason why sin commonly grows rankest in populous places. We were made to be
helpers; but by sin we are become tempters of one another, drawing and being
drawn into innumerable evils.
2. Secondly: Observe the first step towards degeneracy, which was
the uniting of the world and the church by mixed marriages. The great end of
marriage in a good man should not be to gratify his fancy, or indulge his
natural inclinations, but to obtain a helper; and the same in a woman. We need
to be helped on in our way to heaven, instead of being hindered and corrupted.
3. Observe the great offence that God took at this conduct, and the
consequences which grew out of it: The Lord said, My Spirit shall not always
strive with man, etc. It is for that he also (or these also) were flesh; that
is, those who had been considered as the sons of God were become corrupt.
4. Observe the long suffering of God amidst His displeasure--His day
shall be a hundred and twenty years (1 Peter 3:20). All this time God did
strive, or contend with them; but, it seems, without effect. (A. Fuller.)
Moral declension
As there is a law of continuity, whereby in ascending we can only
mount step by step; so they who descend must sink with an ever increasing
velocity. No propagation is more rapid than that of evil; no growth more
certain. He who is in for a penny, if he does not resolutely fly, will find
that he is in for a pound. The longer the avalanche rolls down the glacier
slopes, the swifter becomes its speed. A little group of Alpine travellers saw
a flower blooming on the slope of the cliff on which they stood surveying the
prospect below. Each started to secure the prize; but as they hastened down,
the force of their momentum increased with each step of the descent--they were
borne on the smooth icy surface swiftly past the object of pursuit--and were
precipitated into a yawning crevasse. Such is the declension of the soul.
A fair scene spoiled
I know beautiful valley in Wales, guarded by well-wooded hills.
Spring came there first, and summer lingered longest, and the clear river
loitered through the rich pastures and the laughing orchards, as if loth to
leave the enchanting scene. But the manufacturer came there; he built his
chimneys and he lighted his furnaces, out of which belched forth poisonous
fumes night and day. Every tree is dead, no flower blooms there now, the very
grass has been eaten off the face of the earth, the beautiful river, in which
the pebbles once lay as the pure thoughts in a maiden’s mind, is now foul, and
the valley scarred and bare, looks like the entrance into Tophet itself. And
this human nature of ours, in which faith and virtue, and godliness, and all
sweet humanities might flourish, in miles of this London of ours, is what bad
air, and the gin palace, and the careless indifference of a Christianity bent
only upon saving itself, have made it. (Morlais Jones.)
Man’s corruption
I. THAT THE
WICKEDNESS OF MAN IS, AND EVER HAS BEEN, GREAT.
1. Among the Jews.
2. In heathen nations. But, to bring the matter home to ourselves,
for with ourselves the great concern lies, are not men still full of envy,
murder, debate, deceit? Is not the state of society lamentably corrupted and
depraved?
II. THAT THIS
WICKEDNESS PROCEEDS FROM HIS CORRUPT NATURE. Prove this from--
1. Experience.
2. Scripture. (Genesis 8:20-21; Job 15:14-16; Psalms 51:5-10; Matthew 15:19; Matthew 12:33; Romans 7:14-15; Romans 7:18.)
II. THE ONLY
REMEDY FOR THIS CORRUPTION. (John 3:16.) (H. J. Hastings, M.
A.)
The sinfulness of man’s natural state
Two things are here laid to their charge:
1. Corruption of life, wickedness, great wickedness. I understand
this of the wickedness of their lives; for it is plainly distinguished from the
wickedness of their hearts.
2. Corruption of nature. Every imagination of the thoughts of his
heart was only evil continually. All their wicked practices are here traced to
the fountain and springhead: a corrupt heart was the source of all. The soul,
which was made upright in all its faculties, is now wholly disordered. There is
a sad alteration, a wonderful overturning in the nature of man: where, at first,
there was nothing evil, now there is nothing good.
I. I SHALL
CONFIRM THE DOCTRINE OF THE CORRUPTION OF NATURE. Here we shall consult the
word of God, and men’s experience and observation. For Scripture-proof, let us
consider,
1. How the Scripture takes particular notice of fallen Adam’s
communicating his image to his posterity (Genesis 5:3).
2. It appears, from Job 14:4, our first parents were unclean;
how then can we be clean?
3. Consider the confession of David (Psalms 51:5). Here he ascends from his
actual sin to the fountain of it, namely, corrupt nature.
4. Hear our Lord’s determination of the point, “That which is born
of the flesh is flesh” (John 3:6). Behold the universal
corruption of mankind--all are flesh!
5. Man certainly is sunk very low now, in comparison of what he once
was. God made him but a “little lower than the angels”; but now we find him
likened to the beasts that perish. He hearkened to a brute, and is now become
like one of them,
6. “We are by nature the children of wrath” (Ephesians 2:3). We are worthy of, and
liable to, the wrath of God; and this by nature: therefore, doubtless, we are
by nature sinful creatures. I shall propose a few things that may serve to
convince us in this point--
(a) Is not sinful curiosity natural to us? and is not this a print of
Adam’s image (Genesis 3:6)?
(b) If the Lord by His holy law and wise providence puts a restraint
upon us to keep us back from anything, does not that restraint whet the edge of
our natural inclinations, and makes us so much the keener in our desires? And
in this do we not betray it plainly that we are Adam’s children (Genesis 3:2-6)?
(c) Which of all the children of Adam is not naturally disposed to
hear the instruction that causeth to err? And was not this the rock our first
parents split upon (Genesis 3:4-6)?
(d) Do not the eyes in your head often blind the eyes of the mind?
(e) Is it not natural to us to care for the body, even at the expense
of the soul?
(f) Is not everyone by nature discontented with his present lot in the
world, or with some one thing or other in it?
(g) Are we not far more easily impressed and influenced by evil
counsels and examples than by those that are good?
(h) Who of all Adam’s sons needs be taught the art of sewing fig
leaves together to cover their nakedness (Genesis 3:7)?
(i) Do not Adam’s children naturally follow his footsteps in hiding
themselves from the presence of the Lord (Genesis 3:8)?
(j) How loth are men to confess sin, to take guilt and shame to
themselves? Was it not thus in the case before us (Genesis 3:10)?
(k) Is it not natural for us to extenuate our sin, and transfer the
guilt upon others?
II. I PROCEED TO
INQUIRE INTO THE CORRUPTION OF NATURE IN THE SEVERAL PARTS THEREOF. Man in his
natural state is altogether corrupt: both soul and body are polluted, as the
apostle proves at large (Romans 3:10-18).
1. Of the corruption of the understanding.
2. Of the corruption of the will. The will, that commanding faculty,
which at first was faithful and ruled with God, is now turned traitor and rules
with and for the devil. God planted it in man “wholly a right seed,” but now it
is “turned into the degenerate plant of a strange vine.”
3. The corruption of the affections. The unrenewed man’s affections
are wholly disordered and distempered: they are as the unruly horse, that
either will not receive, or violently runs away with, the rider.
4. Corruption of the conscience (Titus 1:15).
5. Corruption of the memory. Even the memory bears evident marks of
this corruption. What is good and worthy to be remembered, as it makes but
slender impression, so that impression easily wears off; the memory, as a
leaking vessel, lets it slip (Hebrews 2:1).
6. Corruption of the body. The body itself also is partaker of this
corruption and defilement so far as it is capable thereof. Wherefore the
Scripture calls it sinful flesh (Romans 8:3). We may take this up in two
things.
III. I SHALL SHOW
HOW MAN’S NATURE COMES TO BE THUS CORRUPTED. Adam’s sin corrupted man’s nature
and leavened the whole lump of mankind. The root was poisoned, and so the
branches were envenomed: the vine turned into the vine of Sodom, and so the
grapes became grapes of gall. Adam by his sin became not only guilty but corrupt,
and so transmits guilt and corruption to his posterity (Genesis 5:3; Job 14:4). By his sin he stripped himself
of his original righteousness and corrupted himself; we were in him
representatively, being represented by him as our moral head in the covenant of
works: we were in him seminally, as our natural head; hence we fell in him, and
by his disobedience were made sinners, as Levi in the loins of Abraham paid
tithes (Hebrews 7:9-10).
IV. I SHALL NOW
APPLY THIS DOCTRINE OF THE CORRUPTION OF NATURE.
Use 1.--For
information. Is man’s nature wholly corrupted? Then--
(a) It is not a partial, but a total change, though imperfect in this
life. Thy whole nature is corrupted; therefore the cure must go through every
part.
(b) It is not a change made by human industry, but by the mighty power
of the Spirit of God. A man must be born of the Spirit (John 3:5). Secondly, this also shows the
necessity of regeneration. It is absolutely necessary in order to salvation (John 3:4).
Use 2.--For
lamentation. Well may we lament thy case, O natural man! for it is the saddest
case one can be in out of hell.
Use 3.--I exhort you to
believe this sad truth. Alas! it is evident that it is very little believed in
the world. Few are concerned to get their corrupt conversation changed; but
fewer, by far, to get their nature changed. Most men know not what they are,
nor what spirits they are of; they are as the eye, which, seeing many things,
never sees itself. But until you know everyone the plague of his own heart,
there is no hope of your recovery. (T. Boston, D. D.)
A dark view of sin
If a doctor knows that he can cure a disease, he can afford to
give full weight to its gravest symptoms. If he knows he cannot, he is sorely
tempted to say it is of slight importance, and, though it cannot be cured, can
be endured without much discomfort. And so the Scripture teachings about man’s
real moral condition are characterized by two peculiarities which, at first
sight, seem somewhat opposed, but are really harmonious and closely connected.
There is no book and no system in the whole world that takes such a dark view
of what you and I are; there is none animated with so bright and confident a
hope of what you and I may become. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
The sinfulness and cure of thoughts
1. Of the subject, “every man.”
2. Of the act, “every thought.”
3. Of the qualification of the act, “only evil”
4. Of the time, “continually.”
The words thus opened afford us this proposition: That the
thoughts, and inward operations of the souls of men, are naturally universally
evil, and highly provoking. In this discourse, let us first see what kind of
thoughts are sins.
1. Negatively. A simple apprehension of sin is not sinful. Thoughts
receive not a sinfulness barely from the object. That may be unlawful to be
acted which is not unlawful to be thought of.
2. Positively. Our thoughts may be branched into first motions, or
such that are more voluntary.
I. In regard of
God.
II. Of ourselves.
III. Of others.
I. In regard of
God.
1. Cold thoughts of God. When no affection is raised in us by them.
2. Debasing conceptions, unworthy of God. Such are called in the
heathen “vain imaginations” (Romans 1:21). Such an imagination Adam
seemed to have, conceiting God to be so mean a being, that he, a creature not
of a day’s standing, could mount to an equality of knowledge with Him.
3. Accusing thoughts of God, either of His mercy, as in despair; or
of His justice, as too severe, as in Cain (Genesis 4:13).
4. Curious thoughts about things too high for us. It is the frequent
business of men’s minds to flutter about things without the bounds of God’s
revelation (Genesis 3:5). “God knows that your eyes
shall be opened.” Yet how do all Adam’s posterity long after this forbidden
fruit!
II. In regard of
ourselves. Our thoughts are proud, self-confident, self-applauding, foolish,
covetous, anxious, unclean, and what not?
1. Ambitious. The aspiring thoughts of the first man run in the
veins of his posterity.
2. Self-confident. Edom’s thoughts swelled him into a vain
confidence of a perpetual prosperity; and David sometimes said, in the like
state, that he should never be moved.
3. Self-applauding. Either in the vain remembrances of our former
prosperity, or ascribing our present happiness to the dexterity of our own wit.
4. Ungrounded imaginations of the events of things, either present
or future. Such wild conceits, like meteors bred of a few vapours, do often
frisk in our minds.
5. Immoderate thoughts about lawful things. When we exercise our
minds too thick, and with a fierceness of affection above their merit; not in
subserviency to God, or mixing our cares with dependencies on Him.
Worldly concerns may quarter in our thoughts, but they must not
possess all the room, and thrust Christ into a manger; neither must they be of
that value with us as the law was with David, sweeter than the honey or the
honeycomb.
III. In regard of
others. All thoughts of our neighbour against the rule of charity: “Such that
imagine evil in their hearts, God hates” (Zechariah 8:17). These principally are--
1. Envious, when we torment ourselves with other’s fortunes.
2. Censorious, stigmatizing every freckle in our brother’s
conversation 1 Timothy 6:4).
3. Jealous and evil surmisings, contrary to charity, which “thinks
no evil” 1 Corinthians 13:5).
4. Revengeful; such made Haman take little content in his
preferments, as long as Mordecai refused to court him (Esther 5:13); and Esau thought of the
days of mourning for his father, that he might be revenged for his brother’s
deceits: “Esau said in his heart,” etc. (Genesis 27:41). In all these thoughts
there is a further guilt in three respects, viz
1. Delight.
2. Contrivance.
3. Reacting.
1. Delight in them. The very tickling of our fancy by a sinful
motion, though without a formal consent, is a sin, because it is a degree of
complacency in an unlawful object.
2. Contrivance. When the delight in the thought grows up to the
contrivance of the act (which is still the work of the thinking faculty). When
men’s wits play the devils in their souls, in inventing sophistical reasons for
the commission and justification of their crimes, with a mighty jollity at
their own craft, such plots are the trade of a wicked man’s heart. A covetous
man will be working in his inward shop from morning till night to study new
methods for gain; and voluptuous and ambitious persons will draw schemes and
models in their fancy of what they would outwardly accomplish.
3. Reacting sin after it is outwardly committed. Though the
individual action be transient, and cannot be committed again, yet the idea and
image of it remaining in the memory may, by the help of an apish fancy, be
repeated a thousand times over with a rarefied pleasure, as both the features
of our friends, and the agreeable conversations we have had with them, may with
a fresh relish be represented in our fancies, though the persons were rotten
many years ago. Having thus declared the nature of our thoughts, and the
degrees of their guilt, the next thing is to prove that they are sins.
There are three reasons for the proof of this, that they are sins.
1. They are contrary to the law, which doth forbid the first
foamings and belchings of the heart, because they arise from an habitual
corruption, and testify a defect of something which the law requires to be in
us, to correct the excursions of our minds (Romans 7:7).
2. They are contrary to the order of nature, and the design of our
creation. Whatsoever is a swerving from our primitive nature is sin, or at
least a consequent of it. But all inclinations to sin are contrary to that
righteousness wherewith man was first endued.
3. We are accountable to God, and punishable for thoughts. Nothing
is the meritorious cause of God’s wrath but sin. Having proved that there is a
sinfulness in our thoughts, let us now see what provocation there is in them,
which in some respects is greater than that of our actions.
Now, thoughts are greater in respect--
1. Of fruitfulness. The wickedness that God saw great in the earth
was the fruit of imaginations. They are the immediate causes of all sin. No
cockatrice but was first an egg.
2. In respect of quantity. Imaginations are said to be continually
evil. There is an infinite variety of conceptions, as the Psalmist speaks of
the sea, “wherein are all things creeping innumerable, both small and great,”
and a constant generation of whole shoals of them; that you may as well number
the fish in the sea, or the atoms in the sunbeams, as recount them.
3. In respect of strength. Imaginations of the heart are only, i.e.,
purely evil. The nearer anything is in union with the root, the more
radical strength it hath.
4. In respect of alliance. In these we have the nearest communion
with the devil. The understanding of man is so tainted, that his wisdom, the
chiefest flower in it, is not only earthly and sensual (it were well if it were
no worse), but devilish too (James 3:15). If the flower be so rank,
what are the weeds?
5. In respect of contrariety and odiousness to God. Imaginations
were only evil, and so most directly contrary to God, who is only good. Our
natural enmity against God (Romans 8:7), is seated in the mind.
6. In respect of connaturalness and voluntariness. They are the
imaginations of the thoughts of the heart, and they are continually evil. They
are as natural as the estuations of the sea, the bubblings of a fountain, or
the twinkling of the stars.
The uses shall be two, though many inferences might be drawn from
the point.
1. Reproof. What a mass of vanity should we find in our minds, if we
could bring our thoughts, in the space of one day, yea, but one hour, to an
account! How many foolish thoughts with our wisdom, ignorant with our knowledge,
worldly with our heavenliness, hypocritical with our religion, and proud with
our humiliations!
2. Exhortation. We must take care for the suppression of them. All
vice doth arise from imagination. Upon what stock doth ambition and revenge
grow but upon a false conceit of the nature of honour? What engenders
covetousness but a mistaken fancy of the excellency of wealth? Thoughts must be
forsaken as well as our way (Isaiah 55:7). That we may do this, let us
consider these following directions, which may be branched into these heads:
1. For the raising good thoughts.
2. Preventing bad.
3. Ordering bad when they do intrude.
4. Ordering good when they appear in us.
1. For raising good thoughts.
“approve things that are excellent” (Philippians 1:9-10); and where such
things are approved, toys cannot be welcome. Fulness is the cause of
steadfastness.
2. The second sort of directions are for the preventing bad
thoughts. And to this purpose--
3. The third sort of directions are for the ordering of evil
thoughts, when they do intrude; and--
4. A fourth sort of directions is concerning good motions; whether they
spring naturally from a gracious principle, or are peculiarly breathed in by
the Spirit. There are ordinary bubblings of grace in a renewed mind, as there
are of sins in an unregenerate heart; for grace is as active a principle as
any, because it is a participation of the Divine nature. But there are other
thoughts darted in beyond the ordinary strain of thinking, which, like the
beams of the sun, evidence both themselves and their original. And as
concerning these motions joined together, take these directions in short--
Man has made himself what he is
I would a thousand times sooner believe that man made himself what
he is than that God made him so, for in the one case I should think ill of man
only, in the other I am tempted to blame his Maker. Just think, I pray you, to
what conclusion our reason would conduct us in any analogous case. You see, for
example, a beautiful capital still bearing some of the flowers and foliage
which the chisel of a master had carved upon the marble. It lies prostrate on the
ground, half-buried among weeds and nettles; while beside it there rises from
its pedestal the headless shaft of a noble pillar. Would you not conclude at
once that its present position, so base, mean, and prostrate, was not its
original position? You would say the lightning must have struck it down, or an
earthquake have shaken it, or some ignorant barbarian had climbed the shaft and
with rude hand had hurled it to the ground. Well, we look at man, and come to a
similar conclusion. There is something, there is much that is wrong, both in
his state and condition. His mind is carnal, and at enmity with God; the
“imaginations of his heart are only evil continually,” so says the Bible. His
body is the seat of disease; his eyes are often swimming in tears; care,
anticipating age, has drawn deep furrows on his brow; he possesses noble
faculties, but, like people of high descent, who have sunk into a low estate
and become menials, they drudge in the service of the meanest passions. (T.
Guthrie, D. D.)
The flood of evil
God’s all-piercing eye cannot read wrongly. The Spirit’s hand
cannot pen error. Undoubted verity speaks here with open mouth. Thus with
sorrowing reverence we draw nearer to the fearful picture. In the foreground
stands Wickedness. This is a frightful monster. It is antagonism to our God.
Whose is this wickedness? The “wickedness of man.” Man, and man alone of all
who breathe the vital air, claims wickedness as his own. His crime sinks earth
into a slough of woe. The degradation is world wide. The cause is wholly his.
Wickedness is his sole property. Therefore, O man, see your exclusive
specialty. Boast not of any excellency. Glory not of reason, faculties, power,
mind, intellect, talent. Parade not your stores of acquired wisdom, your
investigating knowledge, your elaborating skill. But rather blush that your
superiorities claim wickedness as their territory. The picture next exhibits
man’s heart. This is the home of the affections--the springhead of desires--the
cradle of each impulse. Here the character receives its form. This is the
rudder of the life. This is the guide of walk. As is the heart, such is the
individual. Here schemes, and plans, and purposes are conceived. This is the
mother of contrivance and device. What is naturally transacted in this
laboratory? The reply here meets us. “Every imagination”--every germ of
idea--every incipient embryo of notion--every feeling, when it begins to
move--every passion, when it stirs--every inclination, as it arises, is “only
evil.” Terrific word! Evil. Here wickedness comes forth in another but not less
frightful form. Evil. It is the offspring of the evil one. “Only evil!” No ray
of light mitigates the darkness. No spark alleviates the impure night. No
righteous spot relieves the sinful monotony. No flower of goodness blooms in
the rank desert. No rill finds other vent. All flow in the one channel of
evil--“only evil.” Turn not too quickly from this picture. It is not yet
complete. The full hideousness is “only evil continually.” What! is there no
respite? Is evil never weary? Does not intermission break the tremendous
sameness? Ah! no. There is no moment of a brighter dawn. Countless are these
imaginations; but they all show one feature--evil continually. There is no
better aspect. When the Father of lights gives saving grace, then instantly the
foulness of the inner man is seen. Then the illumined conscience testifies,
“Behold, I am vile.” When the revealing Spirit uplifts the heaven-lit torch,
then newborn vision discerns the sin-sick ruin. But out of these materials God
peoples heaven with a redeemed multitude, pure and glorious as Himself. Yes,
through grace, there is relief large as the need. There is a remedy, mighty to
heal the deepest depths of the disease. The sinner is not forever buried in hopeless
guilt. God, from all eternity foreseeing the Fall and its tremendous woe,
devised a reparation wide as the breach. This gracious work is entrusted to His
beloved Son. Sin destroyed creature righteousness. Jesus brings in a
righteousness Divine. But the gospel-mercy is richer yet. Nature’s heart is, as
has been shown, a quarry of vile materials. It cannot be mended. These stones
can frame no holy fabric. But grace works wonders. The Holy Spirit comes, and a
new creation springs to life. He takes away the stony heart. He creates it
gloriously clean. Thus old things pass away. Thus all things become new. The
moral desert smiles fruitful and fragrant as Eden’s garden. (Dean Law.)
Universal corruption
I. THE CAUSES OF
THE CORRUPTION.
1. Original sin. This the prime cause; from this fertile source of
evil arose many fruits, each of which in its turn and place strengthened and
intensified the wickedness.
2. Pride. This would be fostered by growing numbers and wealth of
men. If they were expelled from the garden, had they not now many and fenced
cities? To this may be added pride of individual strength, which the flattery
of others might inflame. The Nephilim and their redoubtable progeny would be
regarded as leaders and champions.
3. Sensuality. Sons of God and daughters of men. Even to the better
trained mere beauty, devoid of piety, became a snare, The result was godless
and ill-trained children, who in their turn became the progenitors of a yet
more sinful race.
4. Idolatry, which diverted the attention from the holy God, and
fixed it on human qualities, etc.
II. THE
UNIVERSALITY OF THE CORRUPTION.
1. In regard to each individual. From the heart outwardly through
all the life. The heart includes “conscience and consciousness, will and
desire, intellect and emotion, understanding and affection.”
2. In regard to the race. All flesh. There were few exceptions. God
never left Himself without witness (Enos, Enoch, Noah, etc.).
3. They were thus corrupt, notwithstanding the preaching of Noah and
the example of Enoch.
4. The wickedness of man various. Idolatry. Violence. Violence the
effect of idolatry.
5. Till now all men spoke one language.
III. THE
CONSEQUENCES OF THIS CORRUPTION. God, beholding, resolved to destroy man.
Sceptics say the experiment failed--that men are as bad now as they were
before. Before it can be said to have failed its object must be defined. It was
punitive rather than remedial. As a punishment it did not fail. The story of
the deluge stands out in history as a Divine protest against sin; and as a
substantial proof that God is able, when and how He pleases, to destroy the
earth in the last great day. To furnish a proof of the possibility of the
future judgment seems to have been another object (2 Peter 2:4-6; 2 Peter 3:3-14). Another purpose
served by the deluge is to illustrate and certify the reward of godliness. This
seen in the character and preservation of Noah. The Divine estimate of sin and
holiness one of the most important things for the world to know. (J. C.
Gray.)
The universal corruption
1. The progress of corruption
was not arrested. It increased as the tide of population rolled on. For a time
the true people of God, the adherents of the house of Seth, kept themselves
unspotted from the world. But even this barrier was at last overthrown (Genesis 6:1-2). There were very plausible
reasons for their cultivating a good understanding, at least with the less
abandoned of the ungodly faction. Thus, in the first instance, the useful arts
and the embellishments of social life began to flourish, as has been seen in the
house of Cain (Genesis 4:19-24). Agriculture, commerce,
music, and poetry were cultivated among his descendants and brought by them to
a high pitch of perfection. Were the children of Seth to forego the benefit of
participating in the improvements and advantages thus introduced into the
social system? Then again, secondly, the lawless violence, of which Lamech’s
impious boast of impunity (Genesis 4:23-24) was a token and example,
and which soon became general so as to fill the earth, might seem to warrant,
and indeed require, on grounds of policy some kind of dealing between the
persecuted and harassed people of God and the more reasonable and moderate of
their opponents. The result was that to a large extent there ceased to be a
separate and peculiar people testifying for God and reproving sin; and a new
race of giants, powerful and lawless men, overspread the whole earth (Genesis 6:4). The salt of the earth lost
its savour, wherewith was it to be seasoned (Mark 10:50)?
2. At last the patience of the Lord is represented as worn out. The
period of His long suffering has arrived. The day of His wrath is at hand. What
must that wrath be which the Lord so pathetically expresses His reluctance to
inflict; and in reference to which He solemnly declares that it would have been
good for the men of that old world that they had never been made, and for the
traitor apostle that he had not been born? Such is now the state of the world
lately so blessed. It is abandoned by the Creator as unfit for the purposes for
which it was created. He changes, therefore, His work into a work of
desolation. One man alone believes, to the saving of his house, and becomes
heir of the righteousness that is by faith (Hebrews 11:7). Noah finds grace in the
eyes of the Lord. (R. S. Candlish, D. D.)
Evil thoughts
Some thoughts be the darts of Satan; and these non nocent, si
non placent. We cannot keep thieves from looking in at our windows, but we
need not give them entertainment with open doors. “Wash thy heart from
iniquity, that thou mayest be saved: how long shall thy vain thoughts lodge
within thee?” They may be passengers, but they must not be sojourners. (T.
Adams.)
It repented the Lord that
He had made man
The sincerity of the Divine compassion
Marvellous words indeed, words such as no man could have ventured
to use respecting God, words too strong and bold for anyone to have employed
but God Himself.
I. What the words
DO NOT MEAN.
1. They do not mean that God’s purpose had been frustrated. That
cannot fail.
2. They do not mean that an unexpected crisis had arisen. God
foresees all.
3. They do not mean that God is subject to like passions and changes
as we are. He does not vary as we vary, nor repent as we repent. Instability is
the property of the creature, not of the Creator.
4. They do not mean that He has ceased to care for His creatures.
Wrath, indeed, has gone out against the transgressor; yet neither man himself,
nor his habitation, the earth, has been overlooked by God--far less, hated and
spurned. The words intimate neither the coldness nor the dislike of the Creator
toward the creature. It is something very widely different which they convey; a
sadder, tenderer feeling; a feeling in which, not indifference, but profound
compassion, is the prevailing element.
II. What the words
DO MEAN.
1. That God is represented to us here as looking at events or facts
simply as they are, without reference to the past or future at all.
2. That God’s purposes do not alter God’s estimate of events, or His
feelings respecting individuals and their conduct.
3. That God is looking at the scene just as a man would look at it,
and expressing Himself just as a man would have done in such circumstances. He
sees all the present misery and ruin which the scene presents, and they affect
Him according to their nature; and as they affect Him, so does He speak, in the
words of man. But now let us look at the words of our text--“repenting,”--“grieving
at the heart.”
1. He grieved to see the change which sin had made in the work of
His hands. Once it was “very good,” and in this He had rejoiced. Now, how
altered! Creation was a wreck. Man’s glory had departed. The fair image of his
Maker was gone!
2. He grieved at the dishonour thus brought upon Himself. It was,
indeed, but a temporary dishonour; it was one which He would soon repair; but
still, it was an obscuration of His own fair character; it was a clouding of
His glory; it was an eclipse, however transient.
3. He grieved at man’s misery. Man had not been made for misery.
Happiness, like a rich jewel, had been entrusted to him. He had flung it away,
as worthless and undesirable. He had offered it for sale to every passer-by;
nay, he had cast it from him as vile. This wretchedness filled His soul, and
overshadowed this once blessed earth. How, then, could God but grieve?
4. He grieved that now He must be the inflictor of man’s misery.
There had, for long years, been an alternative. He could be gracious; He could
be long suffering. But now this alternative is denied. Such was the
accumulation of sin; such was its hatefulness; such were its aggravations, that
grace can no longer hold out against righteousness; long suffering has
exhausted itself, and judgment must take its course. (H. Bonar, D. D.)
Evil of sin in the sight of God
I. We may
inquire, first, WHAT WERE THE CAUSES OF SO GREAT CORRUPTION AS THEN PREVAILED.
1. One of these was the intermarriage of the sons of God, or
believers, with the daughters of men, or unbelievers. When the clear waters of
the Mississippi, Ohio, and Illinois mingle with the turbid Missouri, they never
regain their purity, but flow darkly on to the ocean; so when the children of
Seth made affinities with the race of Cain, there was no regaining of moral
purity until the generations of men had been buried in the waters of the
deluge.
2. Another cause of the wickedness of the men before the flood was
probably in their neglect of the Sabbath, and of God’s public worship. Of this
neglect we have the following evidence. In the days of Seth and Enos it is
said, “then men began to call upon the name of the Lord.” This is supposed to
refer to some regular assemblies for public worship, and as it is spoken in
connection with Seth and his posterity, we may infer that it was confined to
them. Indeed, it is said of Cain that “he went out from the presence of the
Lord,” and he complained that he should be hid from God’s presence; not His
omnipresence certainly, but from some visible display of His glory, in that
place where the sons of God worshipped. In that separation from God and His
worship the descendants of Cain rapidly increased in wickedness; for, if the
Sabbath and its worship were banished from among us, enlightened and religious
us we are, one half century might witness the most abominable idolatries, and
call for another cleansing deluge.
3. The long life of the antediluvians was yet another cause of their
wickedness. After the flood, God shortened man’s days from a little less than a
thousand to a little less than a hundred years, because brevity of life is
favourable to piety. It is in seeing our fellow creatures die almost as soon as
they begin to live, that sin is checked, and the things unseen and eternal
gather power. And what a curse to society might such a long life prove! Think
of a drunkard polluting the earth with his breath nine hundred years; of an
infidel scattering the poison of his works century after century; of the
adulterer, the robber, the murderer, protracting their existence through thirty
of our generations! The world would groan to have the grave close over them.
4. It is mentioned again, as a cause of their wickedness, that they
were an ambitious race. There were mighty men and men of renown in those days,
we are told, though we ask with a smile, who were they, and what did they do?
for the antediluvian Napoleons and Caesars have left no record of their
exploits. There were giants too in those days, and we generally associate with
them the idea of great wickedness, for great strength puffs up its possessor,
and makes him forget God. It was an age of great worldliness too for our Lord
says, “They ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they married and were
given in marriage, until the day when the flood came”; meaning that they were
absorbed in these things, for in mere eating and drinking there could be no
sin. It was, moreover, an age of great civilization and refinement; for there
were those who handled the harp and the organ, and artificers in all the
mechanic arts. These may be made subservient to piety, but too often great
skill in them, as, indeed, great worldly attainments of any kind, are apt to
draw the heart off from God, so that the most refined people may be the most
ungodly.
II. HOW GREAT THAT
WICKEDNESS WAS, we may gather from the strong language of our text, and from
other portions of Scripture. “And God saw,” we are told, “that the wickedness
of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of
his heart was only evil continually.” “The earth also was corrupt before God,
and the earth was full of violence.” And what rendered this sinfulness the more
guilty was, that the world was then in its youth, retaining probably more of
its infant beauty than it now has in its wrinkled old age.
III. But we may
especially see in our text and subject THE EVIL OF SIN IN THE SIGHT OF GOD. It
destroyed a world which God created; nay, more, as far as might be, it
destroyed the world’s Creator, when the Son of God died for it on the cross.
IV. Let us TAKE
CARE OF RELAPSING INTO THAT STATE IN WHICH SIN SHALL NOT GRIEVE US AT THE HEART
AS IT DOES OUR GOD. We are like Him, we are His, if we share His holy hatred of
sin. But we are in continual danger of growing callous and indifferent to it,
so that though once in the while, at long intervals, when some gross offence
has been committed, or when something has specially aroused us, we are softened
and contrite; yet our general frame is one of indifference to our offences. (W.
H. Lewis, D. D.)
It repented the Lord that He had made man
Dismissing at once, as they deserve to be dismissed, these coarser
and more repulsive aspects of the language before us, we will claim rather for
it this most beautiful characteristic; that it speaks of the sympathy of God
Himself with that very view of human life which is taken by the best and purest
of His children and servants below. There are times when the contemplation of
the misery and sin of the world is almost overwhelming to those who would keep
(if it be possible) both their faith and their reason. The words here written
of God Himself are exactly descriptive of them--“it repents them that God has
made man on the earth; it grieves them at the heart.” They can take little
comfort in the thought of the one or the two “perfect in their generations,”
while they see the bulk of mankind suffering without hope, and living without
God in the world. They can take little comfort in the thought of a heaven
opened to the believing and the holy, if it implies that the very opposite and
antithesis of a heaven is crowded with masses and multitudes of rejecters and
despisers and neglecters of the gospel. Oh, why did God--they ask themselves,
and there is none to answer--why did God make all things worse than for nought?
Why did He create upon the earth a race predestined to a choice foreseen to be
of evil? Why did He not either bias that inevitable choice for good, or else
blot out instantly from existence the creature that had used liberty for
self-destruction? With such questions all thoughtful men at times have vexed
themselves. It is something, I say this morning, to read here of the sympathy
of God Himself with the perplexity; to find the Bible speaking of God repenting
Himself that He has created--vexing Himself at the very heart for these
terrible consequences of the origination of human life and human free will. And
I read in this record much more than a fruitless or hopeless lamentation. I
read here, first of all, that which should reconcile heart and conscience to
the necessity of a judgment. The verso which says, “It repented Him,” is
followed by the verse which says, “I will destroy”--“I must bring a flood of
waters.” Yes, we could not wish that this evil should be immortal. We could not
wish that vices and crimes, cruelties and defilements, should go on forever
repeating themselves on a suffering earth. If we saw any clear proof that the
world, taken as a whole--not in a few of its privileged spots, but all over and
everywhere--was improving, was on the way, surely however slowly, towards a
millennium of health and welfare, we might leave contentedly the question of
the when and the how, and be willing that there should be patience, in heaven
as on earth, over a seed growing secretly and a promise gradually developing.
But is it thus with us? Is the growth of good, in the world as a whole, and of
good as a whole--the higher good as well as the lower, the spiritual good as
well as the physical--is this growth discernible? Side by side with the growth
of good, is there not an equal, or a more than equal, growth of evil? On what
night of this earth’s history does not the enemy go forth, while men sleep, to
sow his counterfeit grain? Who shall flatter us with the hope that either free
trade or cheap literature, either compulsory education or shilling Bibles, have
in them the secret of regenerating thoroughly this bad old world, or of
rendering superfluous that aboriginal faith of the Church, The day of the Lord
will come: “the judgment shall sit, and the books be opened”? For my part, I
think that I can leave in God’s hands the exercise of that judgment and the
settlement of its issues. There is, to me, almost an impertinence in trying to
settle for Him, in this twilight of our knowledge, either the exact meaning of
His terms, or the precise measurements of His eternity. I only know that saints
and righteous men have been reconciled to the expectation of a judgment, not by
the thought of the just recompense of the wicked, but by the thought of the
putting down of evil, and the introduction of a new heaven and earth--this very
heaven and earth it may be--wherein dwelleth righteousness. It would be no
kindness to the sinner to let him sin on forever and not die. God sympathizes
with us in our sense of this world’s evil; and if He had not in His view a
glorious future, from which the spectre of misery shall be absent, and in which
the demon of sin shall be forgotten and out of mind, He would say literally
that it repented Him to have created--He would say indeed, and also do it, that
He must annihilate the work of His own hands. But there is an alternative, and
He has provided it. (Dean Vaughan.)
Sinful defection
I. That such is
the pestilent nature of sin as to provoke God, who did make the world, to mar
it, and unmake it again.
II. A general
defection is a most certain forerunner of a universal destruction. (C. Ness.)
Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah
walked with God
Noah
I.
NOAH,
we read, “was a just man and perfect in his generations”; and why?
1. Because he was a faithful man--faithful to God, as it is written,
“The just shall live by faith.” Noah and Abraham believed God, and so became
heirs of the righteousness which is by faith; not their own righteousness, not
growing out of their own character, but given them by God, who puts His
righteous Spirit into those who trust in Him.
2. Noah was perfect in all the relations and duties of life--a good
son, a good husband, a good father: these were the fruits of his faith. He
believed that the unseen God had given him these ties, had given him his
parents and his children, and that to love them was to love God, to do his duty
to them was to do his duty to God.
II. The Bible
gives us a picture of the old world before the flood--a world of men mighty in
body and mind, fierce and busy, conquering the world round them, in continual
war and turmoil; with all the wild passions of youth, and yet all the cunning
and experience of enormous old age; everyone guided only by self-will, having
cast off God and conscience, and doing every man that which was right in the
sight of his own eyes. And amidst all this Noah was steadfast; he at least knew
his way; he “walked with God, a just man and perfect in his generations.”
III. There was
something wonderful and Divine in Noah’s patience. He knew that a flood was to
come; he set to work in faith to build his ark, and that ark was in building
for one hundred and twenty years. During all that time Noah never lost faith,
and he never lost love either, for we read that he preached righteousness to
the very men who mocked him, and preached in vain. One hundred and twenty years
he warned those sinners of God’s wrath, of righteousness and judgment to come,
and no man listened to him. That must have been the hardest of his trials. (C.
Kingsley, M. A.)
A good man living in degenerate times
I. THAT GOOD MEN
LIVING IN DEGENERATE TIMES ARE NOT OVERLOOKED BY GOD.
II. THAT GOOD MEN
LIVING IN DEGENERATE TIMES ARE OFTEN CHARACTERIZED BY SIGNAL PIETY. Piety at
such times is--
1. A contrast.
2. A rebuke.
3. A testimony.
4. A duty.
III. THAT GOOD MEN
LIVING IN DEGENERATE TIMES ARE ANXIOUS THAT THEIR FAMILY CONNECTIONS MAY BE
PRESERVED FROM MORAL DEFILEMENT.
IV. THAT GOOD MEN
LIVING IN DEGENERATE TIMES RECEIVE THE COMMUNICATIONS OF HEAVEN IN REFERENCE TO
THE DESTINY OF MEN.
1. This is a dignity.
2. This is a discipline. LESSONS:
The piety of Noah
1. It was characterized by justice.
2. It was characterized by moral perfection.
3. It was characterized by holy communion with God. (J. S.Exell,
M. A.)
The Christian’s walk
1. Christ the rule of it.
2. Christ the company of it.
3. Christ the end of it. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)
The saint among sinners
I. Notice here,
first, THE SOLITARY SAINT. Noah stands alone “in his generations” like some
solitary tree green and erect in a forest of blasted and fallen pines. “Among
the faithless, faithful only he.” His character is described, so to speak, from
the outside inwards. He is “righteous,” or discharging all the obligations of
law and of his various relationships. He is “perfect.” His whole nature is
developed, and all in due symmetry and proportion; no beauty wanting, no grace
cultivated at the expense of others. He is a full man; not a one-sided and
therefore a distorted one. We do not take these words to imply sinlessness, of
course. They express a relative, not an absolute, completeness. Hence we may
learn both a lesson of stimulus and of hope. We are not to rest satisfied with
partial goodness, but to seek to attain an all-round perfectness, even in
regard to the graces least like our dispositions. And we can rejoice to believe
that God is generous in His acceptance and praise. He does not grudge commendation,
but takes account of the deepest desires and main tendencies of a life, and
sees the germ as a full-blown flower, and the bud as a fruit. Learn, too, that
solitary goodness is possible. Noah stood uninfected by the universal
contagion; and, as is always the case, the evil around, which he did not share,
drove him to a more rigid abstinence from it. Flowers grow on a dunghill, and a
very reeking rottenness may make the bloom finer. Learn, too, that the true
place for the saint is “in his generations.” If the mass is corrupt, so much
the more need to rub the salt well in. Notice, again, the companion of the
solitary saint. What beauty there is in that description of the isolated man,
passing lonely amid his contemporaries, like a stream of pure water flowing
through some foul liquid, and untouched by it, and yet not alone in all his
loneliness, because “he walked with God”! One man, with God to back him, is
always in the majority. Though surrounded by friends, have we found that, after
all, we live and suffer and must die alone? Here is the all-sufficient Friend,
if we have fellowship with whom our hearts will be lonely no more. Observe that
this communion is the foundation of all righteousness in conduct. Because Noah
walked with God, he was “just” and “perfect.” If we live habitually in the holy
of holies, our faces will shine when we come forth.
II. Notice THE
UNIVERSAL APOSTASY. Two points are brought out in the sombre description. The
first is moral corruption; the second, violence. Bad men are cruel men. When
the bonds which knit society to God are relaxed, selfishness soon becomes
furious, and forcibly seizes what it lusts after, regardless of others’ rights.
To walk with God is the true way to make men gentle and pitying. Learn from
this dark outline that God gazes in silence on the evil. That is a grand solemn
expression, “corrupt before God.” All this mad riot of pollution and violence
is holding its carnival of lust and blood under the very eye of God, and He
says never a word. So is it ever. Then comes a further expression of the same
thought. “God looked upon the earth.” As a sudden beam of sunshine out of a
thundercloud, His eye flashes down, not as if He then began to know, but that
His knowledge then began, as it were, to act.
III. WHAT DOES THE
STERN SENTENCE TEACH US? A very profound truth, not only of the certain Divine
retribution, but of the indissoluble connection of sin with destruction. Sin is
death in the making; death is sin finished. The promise of deliverance, which
comes side by side with the stern sentence, illustrates the blessed truth that
God’s darkest threatenings are accompanied with the revelation of the way of
escape.
IV. We pass by the
details of the construction of the ark to draw the final lesson from the exact obedience
of Noah. We have the statement twice over, HE DID “ACCORDING TO ALL THAT GOD
COMMANDED HIM.” It was no easy thing for him to build the ark, amidst the
scoffing of his generations. Smart witticisms fell around him like hail. All
the “practical men” thought him a dreamy fool, wasting his time, while they
prospered and made something of life. The Epistle to the Hebrews tells us the
secret of his obedience: “By faith, Noah,” etc. He realized the distant unseen,
because he believed Him who warned him of it. The far-off flood was more real
to him than the shows of life around him. Therefore he could stand all the
gibes, and gave himself to a course of life which was sheer folly unless that
future was real. Perhaps a hundred and twenty years passed between the warning
and the flood; and for all that time he held on his way, nor faltered in his
faith. Does our faith realize that which lies before us with anything like
similar clearness? Do we see that future shining through all the trivial,
fleeting present? Does it possess weight and solidity enough to shape our
lives? Noah’s creed was much shorter than ours; but I fear his faith was as
much stronger.
V. We may think,
finally, of THE VINDICATION OF HIS FAITH. For a hundred and twenty years the
wits laughed, and the “common sense” people wondered, and the patient saint
went on hammering and pitching at his ark. But one morning it began to rain;
and by degrees, somehow, Noah did not seem quite such a fool. The jests would
look rather different when the water got up to the knees of the jesters; and
their sarcasms would stick in their throats as they drowned. So is it always.
So it will be at the last great day. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
Noah
I. HIS PRIVATE
CHARACTER.
1. He found grace in the sight of the Lord.
2. He was a just man.
II. HIS PUBLIC
LABOURS. A preacher of righteousness (1 Peter 2:5).
1. As such he would have to place their unrighteousness before them.
2. He had to enforce attention to righteousness.
3. As a preacher he was faithful.
4. He preached practically. By his own example, and especially by
building the ark.
5. Yet he was an unsuccessful preacher.
III. HIS GRACIOUS
DELIVERANCE.
1. The gracious reward of his faith and obedience.
2. For the encouragement of believing sinners to the end of the
world.
APPLICATION.
1. Noah lived after the flood three hundred and fifty years;
displayed great frailty, etc. Let us watch and pray, etc.
2. Ministers may learn their duty.
3. Sinners, their only way of sure and certain safety.
4. And the incorrigible, their inevitable doom. (J. Burns, D. D.)
Noah
I. THE INNER
PRINCIPLE OF NOAH’S LIFE. “Walked with God.”
1. Companionship.
2. Confidence.
3. Communion.
II. THE OUTER
ASPECTS OF THE LIFE OF THE PATRIARCH. His religion was no fruitless tree, no
scentless flower, no painted fire; it was a tree growing fruit, a flower giving
fragrance, a fire casting heat everywhere. I know there were many mournful and
some disgraceful defects in his character, but then they were the defects, not
of death, but of imperfect life. Society is always influential; companionship
moulds character, association produces resemblance; the less always catches
naturally something of the spirit and character of the greater; and so he, who
walked with God, became “a just man,” says my text, “and perfect in his
generations.” He who wears a mask before his God will always try to wear a veil
before his fellow creatures. Integrity is the invariable accompaniment of spiritual
religion; open, manly, brave, unselfish integrity. And so Noah was a just man,
always upright, always straightforward, always clear as crystal. The
righteousness at which he aimed was a righteousness of the heart; and here, of
course, as everywhere, the waters took their sweetness and their purity from
the fountain out of which they rose. He who has felt that inner life, which is
a walking with God, will be no sham amongst his fellow creatures, no trickster
towards them. Truth will be upon his lips, justice in his hands, honour in his
acts, probity in his dealings, purity in his affections. Noah, too, my text
says, was “perfect in his generations.” There was nothing pretentious, nothing
vain; all was sincere; his devotion to his God was a visible reality. The man
was just what he seemed to be--honest, earnest, truthful. The word
“generations” is a very emphatic word in this connection. The age was all
against such a character as this; it would be least looked for, and it would be
sure to pass unhonoured and unloved at such a time. The world was never more
corrupt than it was then, goodness never so scarce, so limited to a single
person; yet the man kept his course, contracted no contagion, never fell clown
quite to the low level which was on all sides of him. (C. J. P. Eyre, M. A.)
Noah walking with God
I. ILLUSTRATE THE
SENSE OF THE PHRASE, “WALKING WITH GOD.”
1. To exercise the thoughts upon God continually.
2. A conscientious regard to His Word and ordinances.
3. To live habitually in the exercise of spiritual graces, depending
on Divine influence.
4. It also imports that the attainments, intimacies, and joys, of
godliness are of a progressive kind.
II. WHAT WE MAY
ASSOCIATE WITH SUCH A WAY OF LIVING.
1. There is the highest honour which man can realize,
2. There is safety and peace to be found.
3. There will be a happy futurity. (Essex Remembrancer.)
Companionship with God
If we endeavour to keep the familiar figure of walking with a
person fully in mind, we shall see that the phrase implies--
I.
COMPANIONSHIP--constant and habitual; for as God is everywhere present and at
all times, so the saint is never parted from Him. United once we are united
forever by a companionship as constant as the omnipresence of God, and as long
continued as the immortal life of man’s soul. Let the expression be closely
observed, together with the familiar ideas it suggests--walking with God. Not
amid God’s works, nor in God’s presence; notwith the saints of God, not in the
ways of God, but actually with God, as if the Divine Being Himself had quitted
His throne--as, indeed, He has done in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, the
Son of God--and, linking Himself with the creature He had redeemed, went forth
in sweet and wonderful companionship with man, inseparable throughout all the
trials and perplexing paths of human experience.
II. The expression
IMPLIES CONCURRENCE OF WILL. To walk together implies movement toward the same
object, along the same road. Where two persons take different roads,
companionship must cease. Yet we know that Noah was a fallen creature like
ourselves. He lived after the curse of sin had fallen upon man; and we know it
to be the essence of sin that man’s will and God’s will do not agree. In
unfallen man, pure and holy as he came from his Creator’s hand, there was
perfect agreement with God. The two wills, the Divine and the human, were like
two strains of music in sweet harmony with each other. But sin turned the
harmony into discord. It is the very essence of the carnal nature that, in St.
Paul’s language, “it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.”
The will of man has become contrary to the will of God. One of the two must be
subject to the other. That is most certain. Which is it to be? Is the will of
the great, omnipotent, and holy Creator to be brought into conformity with all
the wayward fancies, all the petty selfishnesses, and all the foolish
imaginations of fallen man? God forbid! God’s will can not be changed to suit
man’s. Then it remains that man’s will must be changed to suit God’s, and thus
all the varying wishes of mankind be harmonized in one adoring submission to
the Divine mind. This can be; this may be; if you will not drive the Holy
Spirit away from you, this will be.
III. The expression
IMPLIES AFFECTIONATE AND DELIGHTFUL INTERCOURSE. Do you not choose as a
companion one whom you love? and if your choice be well placed, and there be
thorough sympathy between you and your friend, is not companionship delightful?
Indeed, do you not walk with him, for the sake of being alone with the loved
one and enjoying his society? (E. Garbett, M. A.)
The duty and advantage of cleaving to the Lord and His way, in a
declining time
Two doctrines are deducible from the words. Doctrine 1--In the
most declining generation, wherein sin and wickedness come tothe greatest
height,
I. GOD HAS STILL
SOME, THOUGH FEW, THAT RETAIN THEIR INTEGRITY, and cleave to Him and His ways.
It has been found so in all ages of the Church. In the old world there was a
Noah; in Sodom a Lot; among the children of Israel in Egypt a Moses, who all
retained their integrity, and cleaved to the Lord and His ways. When Christ
came into the world, there were some “waiting for the consolation of Israel”;
and when the Jewish nation was ruined at the destruction of Jerusalem, there
was “a remnant according to the election of grace.” In the grand apostasy under
the New Testament, there were still “two witnesses” left (Revelation 9:1-21).
II. How is it that
the declining of a generation comes to he so very general, THAT SO VERY FEW ARE
LEFT RETAINING THEIR INTEGRITY, that they may be for signs and wonders in the
day wherein they live?
1. The corruption of human nature is the springhead of it (Genesis 6:5).
2. No due care taken for the religious education of those who are
springing up, doth notably advance it.
3. Corruption of manners thus prevailing, everyone serves to corrupt
another, till the leaven has well nigh gone through the whole lump Genesis 6:12).
4. When a generation is thus posting on in the road of apostasy from
God unto ruin, the Lord usually takes home many of His own out from among Isaiah 57:1-2).
5. The declining humour by these means at length so prevails, that
it makes its way over all opposition, and gets the mastery; so as it carries
all before it, like a flood.
6. What puts the copestone on the course of a generation’s defection
from God, and readily fills the cup to the brim, is persecution of the way of
God, and of any that will dare to retain their integrity.
III. WHY ARE SOME,
THOUGH FEW, STILL LEFT RETAINING THEIR INTEGRITY IN SUCH A GENERATION?
1. Because of God’s faithfulness in His promise (Matthew 16:18).
2. Because God will not leave Himself without a witness in an
apostatizing generation.
3. Because therein the power of His grace appears most
illustriously.
4. The Lord preserves them for a seed to better days.
Use 1. Whatever
encouragement such have, that turn their back on the way of religion and
seriousness, and take a sinful latitude to themselves from the multitude going
their way, there is a witness against them still left, that will rise up in
judgment against them, and condemn them.
2. However bad the days are, let none pretend it cannot be better
with them, because their lot is cast in such an evil day.
3. Be exhorted not to conform yourselves to the ways of the
declining generation wherein our lot is cast: but be among the few who cleave
to Him and keep His way. It is hard, yet it is possible. Doctrine 2--God takes
special notice of them for good, who in a declining generation retain their
integrity, and keep right, cleaving to Him and His way in the face of a
generation departing fast from Him.
I. The first thing
is to show what this rare attainment is, this perfection in such a generation;
or, How men keep right, like Noah, in such a generation. It is then to be,
1. Sincere, and not a hypocrite.
2. Downright for God, without going aside to the ways of carnal wisdom.
3. Tender in one’s private walk and conversation, as under the eye
of the all-seeing God.
4. Watchful against snares and temptations, that one be not led away
with them.
5. Proof against ill example, which is the great engine of Satan for
carrying on apostasy in such a day and generation.
6. A mourner for the sins of others.
7. An opposer of the sinful courses of the day and generation
wherein he lives, as he hath access. Hence is that exhortation (Ephesians 5:11).
8. In a word, it is to be rowing against the stream of iniquity, and
endeavouring to draw the nearer God that others are going from Him.
II. The second
thing is, to show what are the advantages of this course, in which the Lord
takes special notice for good, of those who follow it in a declining day.
1. Sweet peace of conscience in keeping the Lord’s way, while others
are disregarding it. Hence said the apostle (2 Corinthians 1:12).
2. Communion with God, and access to Him in duties. Hence saith our John 14:21).
3. A sweet allowance of furniture, strength, and support, for the
duty called for (Proverbs 10:29).
4. Seasonable providential appearances for them. God has a watchful
eye for good over them who keep His way; and He will protect them in it, while
He has use for them in that way (Psalms 121:2-3).
5. Special favour in a suffering time, when the Lord ariseth to
plead His controversy with the sinful generation. Hence saith the prophet
Habakkuk Habakkuk 3:16).
USE. I exhort you
to be perfect in this generation, to be persons of integrity, downright for
God, rowing against the stream of this sinful generation. And in order to that,
1. Purge your conversation from the gross pollutions of the outward
man.
2. Be Christians indeed, in the inner man. Such an one is described Romans 2:28-29).
3. Be of a public spirit (Psalms 137:5-6).
4. Be of a Gospel spirit, having high thoughts of the free grace of
God, and deep impressions of the nothingness of man and all that he can do Galatians 6:14).
5. Be accurate observers of your duty to God, whom the generation we
live in has much cast behind their back.
6. Be nice observers of justice and truth in your dealings with men;
for both these are rare to a marvel in this generation, as they were of old
(See Isaiah 59:13-15; Micah 7:1, etc.).
7. Oppose and set yourselves against sin and wickedness in others,
as ye have access; and so endeavour to stem the tide of the apostasy of the
generation (Ephesians 5:11).
8. Do your endeavour to get a right set in the young generation, who
are in great hazard at this day. I shall give you the following motives to
press you to be perfect in this generation, as you have been exhorted.
Consider:
1. It will be a great discovery of your sincerity, and unfeigned
love to the Lord and the way of holiness.
2. It is a noble, heaven-like disposition, to be perfect in such a
generation; to cleave to Christ, when the generation is so generally turning
their back on Him (John 6:66-68).
3. It will glorify God very much; and that is the great business we
have to do in the world, agreeable to what is said (1 Corinthians 10:31).
4. It is the best service ye can do for the generation, like David,
who “served his own generation by the will of God” (Acts 13:36).
5. Suppose it should not be effectual to stop the career of any in
their sin, yet it would leave a conviction of sin in their consciences.
6. It is a debt we owe to posterity. Hence says the Psalmist (Psalms 45:17).
7. It is an honourable thing. It is to be a witness for God; and
this is one of the characters of His people (Isaiah 43:10).
8. It is the best course ye can take to be safe in the evil day,
when the Lord calls the generation to an account.
9. It will be most comfortable in a dying hour; as it was to the
good king Hezekiah, when he said, “Remember now, O Lord, I beseech Thee, how I
have walked before Thee in truth and with a perfect heart, and have done that
which is good in Thy sight” (Isaiah 38:3). (T. Boston, D. D.)
Noah
I. NOAH’S EARLY
LIFE.
II. NOAH’S TIMES.
III. NOAH’S WORK.
IV. NOAH’S SECRET.
What was it that made Noah different from other people? What was
it that made Noah a strong and valiant man--a hero, in fact? Why, his faith. He
did not see the deluge approaching, but he believed in it; he was sure it would
come, because God had told him so. And his belief in God’s Word made him
despise all the opposition he had to encounter; made him begin the work, and
carry on the work, and end the work; made him bold to tell people the truth,
although there was at the time no proof or evidence to back his words. (G.
Calthrop, M. A.)
That the power and providence of the most wise and most gracious
God doth preserve and provide the best of men for the worst of times
I. How IT IS SO.
‘Tis most manifest in sacred history, that God ordered the best of prophets to
be born and to officiate in the worst of times; oh what a degenerate age was
that wherein Moses appeared! Israel was in the bondage of Egypt, and in the
worst part of that bondage, their tale of brick and mortar work was doubled
upon them, and that without straw Exodus 1:11; Exodus 1:14; Exodus 5:18-19, etc.). Then God
sent Moses their deliverer. And what a degenerate age was that wherein Samuel
was born, where there was no open vision (1 Samuel 3:1, etc.). No
better, but far worse, were the times of Elijah, who, in his own computation,
was left alone of all the Lord’s prophets, when the prophets of Baal were many
(1 Kings 18:22). This is also
remarkable in the civil or secular history (complying with that of the sacred
aforesaid) that the best of human laws have been gained in the reigns of the
worst of kings, as a happy counter-balance to their exorbitant and extravagant
actings.
II. This leads me
to the WHY IT IS SO. Herein appeareth the wisdom and graciousness, as well as
the power and providence, of God to reserve a little remnant for royal use in
the worst of times, that he might not ruin the whole work of His hands at once:
saints are called the salt of the earth Matthew 5:13). Oh, how dark would the
world be in the night of degeneracy if God had not some orient stars sparkling
and bespangling the world, though not in every part, yet in every zone and
quarter of it. Such an one was our Noah here. Some good men in bad times, a
holy remnant kept for a reserve. Good husbands cast not all their corn into the
oven, but reserve some for seed. God kept His Mithe-Mispar, a small few, here
to replant the world.
III. AFTER WHAT
MANNER IT IS. ‘Tis as the chaff is kept from burning while the corn is amongst
it. As in all times God hath a few pearls to preserve the many pebbles, and a
few jewels to preserve the lumber from being destroyed, so the Holy Seed. (C.
Ness.)
The preacher of righteousness
I. NOAH’S
CIRCUMSTANCES. The earth was filled with “violence,” i.e., oppression,
tyranny, persecution of good men, injustice, cruelty. How difficult for Noah to
be faithful! How he would be taunted, scoffed at, ridiculed!
II. NOAH’S
CHARACTER. “Just,” i.e., righteous, trying to do that which was right in
God’s sight, and right towards his fellow men; and “perfect in his
generations,” i.e., living a blameless life among those of his own day
and his kinsfolk. He also), like Enoch, “walked with God,” i.e., loved,
trusted, and served God. He also “found grace in the eyes of the Lord,” i.e.,
was pleasing to the Lord, and was accepted by Him.
III. NOAH’S WORK.
To warn the people of his generation.
1. By preaching God’s truth.
2. By preparing an ark.
LESSONS:
1. Our day and opportunity is now and here. We must prepare now for
the unseen future.
2. Being warned ourselves, we must both by what we say, and by what
we do, proclaim God’s truth to those around us.
3. Let us pray God to give us Noah’s faith and Noah’s fear. (W.
S. Smith, B. D.)
Lonely moral goodness
I. THE CHRISTIAN
MAN IS SOMETIMES SOLITARY IN HIS COMPANIONSHIP. It was so with Noah. No
companionship for him in the violent men of his age.
1. His was not fancied loneliness, like Elijah’s.
2. His loneliness was not the result of an exclusive spirit.
II. THE CHRISTIAN
MAN IS SOMETIMES SOLITARY IN HIS CHARACTER. Noah was alone in moral goodness.
The real king of the age his sceptre a holy life.
III. THE CHRISTIAN
MAN IS SOMETIMES SOLITARY IN HIS WORK. (J. S.Exell, M. A.)
Solitary excellence
1. It is painful to find but
one family, nay, it would seem but one person, out of all the professed sons of
God, who stood firmly in this evil day. Some were dead, and others, by mingling
with the wicked, had apostatized.
2. It is pleasant to find one upright man in a generation of the
ungodly: a lily among thorns, whose lovely conduct would shine the brighter
when contrasted with that of the world about him. It is a great matter to be
faithful among the faithless. With all our helps from the society of good men,
we find it enough to keep on our way: but for an individual to set his face
against the whole current of public opinion and custom, requires and implies
great grace. Yet that is the only true religion which walks as in the sight of
God, irrespective of what is thought or done by others. Such was the resolution
of Joshua when the whole nation seemed to be turning aside from God: “As for me
and my house, we will serve the Lord.”
3. It is encouraging to find that one upright man was singled out
from the rest when the world was to be destroyed. If he had been destroyed with
the world, God could have taken him to Himself, and all would have been well
with him; but then there had been no public expression of what he loved, as
well as of what he hated. (A Fuller.)
Noah’s piety
Standing on the seashore on a calm summer morning or evening, the
vessels in the far distance appear to be sailing in the sky and not on the sea.
So doubtless did Noah appear to these worldling spectators of his age, to be
walking in the sky, and not on the earth. He was a marked man, secretly to be
admired, but openly to be avoided. They took notice of him that be was unlike
themselves, living a life of faith, traversing his spiritual way to the glory
of God. (W. Adamson.)
Noah’s perfection
The perfection here ascribed to Noah, and elsewhere to other
servants of God, is to be understood as being a perfection, not of degree, but
of extent--not of height, but of breadth. He is perfect--not as having reached
on earth the full maturity of holiness which he is to attain in heaven, nor as
being immaculate and exempt from liability to sin--but as having the entire new
man formed in him, and no affection of the old man willingly allowed. For it is
this completeness and consistency of character that is to be understood by
perfection. It is opposed to a partial and insincere devotion of the heart and
life to God--to everything like compromise, or evasion, or reservation in the
obedience that is rendered to Him--to the idea of doing many things to please
Him, but yet something to please self or the world. It implies the dedication
of the whole man, soul, and body, and spirit, absolutely and unequivocally to
God--and the keeping of the whole law, without offending in any one point or
breaking one of the least of its commandments. In short, it is the wisdom which
cometh down from above--whose distinguishing characteristic is, that it is
perfect--complete and compact in all its parts--being “first pure, then
peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits,
without partiality, and without hypocrisy.” To this wisdom is opposed that
which “descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish” James 3:15-17). The bitter fruits and
characteristics of that wisdom are envying and strife, confusion, tumult,
unquietness, and every evil work in one word, “violence”--such as then filled
the earth. Now, the perfection which has been described naturally attends upon
a heart right with God--a mind calmly fixed in a righteous peace with heaven.
To have got settled, upon just terms, the dread controversy which sin has
caused, the angry strife of conscience, the impatient struggle against
judgment--to have this warfare ended, in that blessed tranquillity which a
sense of saving mercy and justifying righteousness inspires, through “the love
of God being shed abroad in the heart, by the Holy Ghost, which is given” to
the believer Romans 5:5)--to have the heart thus
established with grace Hebrews 13:9)--this, this alone, and this
effectually, disposes to universal holiness and love. (R. S. Candlish, D. D.)
Grace not defiled by contact with sin
As all the water in the salt sea cannot make the fish salt, but
still the fish retains its freshness, so a]l the wickedness and filthiness that
is in the world cannot destroy, cannot defile true grace; that will bear up its
head, and hold up itself forever. (J. Caryl.)
Grace will show itself
Grace in the heart will appear in the life. If there be a new
spirit, a tender heart, there will be walking in the statutes. A new spirit
cannot be imprisoned within; but it will break out into action. When the seed
is sown in good ground, it will not lie long under ground, but spring forth.
Grace is light, and will manifest itself. (W. Greenhill.)
All grace is from God
Not only are the first beginnings of grace from God, but also the
daily increase and progress of grace in every degree and step from the lowest
to the highest. (J. Ferguson.)
Three wholesome fears with respect to grace
Happy art thou if thy heart be replenished with three fears--a
fear for received grace, a greater fear for lost grace, a greatest fear to
recover grace. (Quarles.)
Grace progressive
Trace back any river to its source, and you will find its
beginnings small. A little moisture oozing through the sand or dripping out of
some unknown rock, a gentle gush from some far away mountain’s foot, are the
beginning of many a broad river, in whose waters tall merchantmen may anchor
and gallant fleets may ride. For it widens and gets deeper, till it mingles
with the ocean. So is the beginning of a Christian’s, or a nation’s, grace. It
is first a tiny stream, then it swells into a river, then a sea. There is life
and progression towards an ultimate perfection when God finds the beginning of
grace in any man. (J. J. Wray.)
The perfect life pleasant
Matthew Henry, shortly before his death, desired his friends to
take down, and remember, as his dying saying, that, “A life spent in the
service of God, and communion with Him, is the most comfortable and pleasant
life that any man can live in this world.”
Noah begat three sons
Lessons
1. Fruitfulness in body is an
effect of grace, to continue God’s Church.
2. The holiest parent cannot bring forth a holy seed; that is, born
of grace. Noah could not.
3. Little or small may be the visible Church; father and sons and
wives but eight.
4. In the visible Church may be such as are not saints, indeed; but
far from it.
5. Grace puts the last before the first, and the younger before the
elder.
6. Mixtures in the Church not destructive to its being, were
permitted not to divide, but to put them upon purging it. (G. Hughes, B. D.)
The earth also was corrupt
Corruption and violence, twin evils
If succeeding generations inquire, wherefore hath the Lord done
thus unto the work of His hands?
What meaneth the heat of this great anger? Be it known that it was not for a
small matter: The earth was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with
violence. Here are two words used to express the wickedness of the world,
corruption and violence, both which are repeated, and dwelt upon in Genesis 6:12-13. The former refers, I
conceive, to their having debased and depraved the true religion. This was the
natural consequence of the junction between the sons of God and the daughters
of men. Whenever the Church is become one with the world, the corruption of
true religion has invariably followed: for if wicked men have a religion, it
must needs be such as to accord with their inclinations. Hence arose all the
heresies of the early ages of Christianity; hence the grand Romish apostasy;
and in short every corruption of the true religion in past or present times.
The latter of these terms is expressive of their conduct towards one another.
The fear of God, and the regard of man are closely connected; and where the one
is given up, the other will soon follow. Indeed, it appears to be the decree of
the eternal God, that when men have cast off His fear, they shall not continue
long in amity one with another. And He has only to let the laws of nature take
their course in order to effect it; for when men depart from God, the principle
of union is lost, and self-love governs everything: and being LOVERS OF THEIR
OWN SELVES, they will be covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to
parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, truce breakers, false
accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors,
heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God. Such a flood of
wickedness is at any time sufficient to deluge a world with misery. If these
things did not then break forth in national wars as they do with us, it was
merely because the world was not as yet divided into nations; the springs of
domestic and social life were poisoned, the tender ties of blood and affinity
violated, and quarrels, intrigues, oppressions, robberies, and murders pervaded
the abodes of man. (A. Fuller.)
Lessons
1. Apostasy from God and
pollution of worship, is the corruption of men.
2. Such corruption in God’s face is high provocation.
3. Violent injury to man accompanieth apostasy from God.
4. Fulness of such iniquity makes a world ripe for judgment (Genesis 6:11).
5. God must see and mark iniquity done in His face.
6. God layeth open all corruption of men, which He seeth.
7. Man is a self-corrupter; he pollutes his own way.
8. The habitation of sinners aggravates their corruption (Genesis 6:12).
9. God revealeth His wrath before He strikes. (G. Hughes, B. D.)
Corruption of man
Salter used to say: “In regard to our corruptions we may learn
something from the difference of glasses. You behold yourselves in your common
looking glasses, and see yourselves so fine that you admire your persons and
dress. But when you view yourself in a microscope, how much may you behold in
that fine skin to be ashamed of; what disfigurement to the eye! and instead of
smoothness, irregularity, uncomeliness, and even impurity. So, if you will look
upon yourself through the glass of faith, that glass would show you much of the
corruption of your sinful nature still cleaving to you, your tempers crooked,
your graces misshapen and deformed, and so much corruption cleaving to every
action of your lives that would make you sin sick that you have known God so
long, and are like Him so little.”
The earth must be destroyed
The earth was corrupted, and full of violence, and all flesh had
depraved its way upon the earth; therefore the end of all flesh was resolved,
together with the earth. The earth is, in the Bible, not considered as a mere
passive object; it is the habitation of man; it beholds his deeds of virtue and
of baseness; it is, therefore, like the eternal heavens, invoked as a witness
in solemn exhortations; it cries up to heaven if it is soiled with blood; it
“vomits out” the wicked inhabitants. But the earth has also furnished the
matter from which man was framed; there is, therefore, a certain mutual
relation between both; if man is corrupted, the earth shares his degradation;
if the one is exterminated, the other participates in the ruin; Sodom and
Gomorrah were destroyed together with their impious inhabitants; the Israelites
were threatened, that when they should be led away as captives for their
iniquity, their once blooming land would be converted into a dreary desert of
thorns and thistles; whilst, at the return of the pious and penitent into their
land, even the inhospitable wilderness would be changed into beautiful gardens
and proud cedar forests; and just as the first parents were, after their fall,
doomed to exhaust their strength on a curse-laden soil; thus the generation of
Noah was annihilated, together with the earth which had seen and suffered their
iniquity. The Persian faith teaches that, in whatever country the sacredness of
matrimony is violated, that country perishes, together with its inhabitants.
The nearer man is to the state of nature, the more mysterious and inseparable
appears to him his connection with the earth and its silently working powers;
the earth is the “great mother” of all men, who produces, nourishes, and may
destroy them; and the heathen nations have based upon these conceptions many of
their most beautiful myths, too universally known to require a detailed
allusion. But the animals must perish, because they had also beheld the
iniquity of man; every witness of the degradation was to be removed; the
history of man should commence a new epoch. If crimes were committed through
the instrumentality of animals, the latter were also killed: an ox which had
caused the death of a man, was destroyed; if a Hebrew town adopted idolatrous
worship, its inhabitants were destroyed with their cattle; whilst piety and
faith were attended by prosperity among the beasts; the avarice of Achan was
punished by death, and the destruction of his family and his property; when the
Amalekites were to be extirpated, the animals were included in the fatal
decree; and when the Ninevites did penance by fasting and humiliation, the
beasts shared the same acts of external grief. The horror against bloodshed was
so intense, that every reminiscence of it was to be eradicated; some Indian
tribes pursue with their united force the wild beast which has killed a man,
and the family of the murdered is an abomination and a disgrace till they have
killed that or another beast of the same species; and other ancient nations
went a step still farther, and doomed even inanimate objects (as an axe) with
which a crime had been perpetrated to ignominious treatment, if the author of
the misdeed could not be discovered (see notes on Exodus 21:28-32); and if, among the
Hindoos, a man is killed by an accidental fall from a tree, all his relations
assemble, cut it down, and reduce it to chips, which they scatter to the winds.
(M. M. Kalisch, Ph. D.)
Make thee an ark of gopher wood
Noah and the ark
Sometimes God seems to create a colossal figure in the moral world
for after ages to gaze at and pattern by, as the sculptor chisels a statue of
heroic size for some high niche in temple or civic hall, that those below may
be inspired by its beauty and its grand proportions.
Or, as God Himself has sculptured the Old Man of the Mountain on the naked
cliff, high up in the air, for the traveller far down in the notch to gaze at,
so he sometimes creates a man, sublime in his moral proportions, for all the
ages to study--a character not for a generation, but for all the centuries.
Yet, if we carefully study such a character, we shall find that, though the
dimensions are heroic, they are not out of proportion. Each feature is true to
common life, just as the “Guardian of the Notch” is no grotesque caricature of
a man, but a faithful image. Such a colossal figure of the ages is Noah. And
yet, as we carefully study this Scripture likeness, we shall find that his
leading traits of character are common traits and imitable traits.
1. In the first place, we find that he was moved to the great work
of his life--the building of the ark, at the command of God--by the same
motivethat leads many men to turn to God today. He was “moved by fear,” says
the apostle. There was nothing derogatory in this either to the power of God’s
love or the human heart. If the storm is coming, it is the part of wisdom, not
of cowardly fear, to prepare for it.
2. In the second place, if Noah was moved, aroused by fear, he was
actuated by a sublime faith. When he began to build the ark the flood was one
hundred and twenty years in the future. How dim and distant is any event
removed from us by the space of six-score years!
3. Again, we are impressed with the fact that Noah’s difficulties
and obstacles must have been very much the same in essence as those of the
modern Christian. He was in the minority, as the Christian is today, only it
was a far more hopeless and overwhelming minority. He was engaged in a most
unpopular cause. The earnest Christian does not find that his best work obtains
the plaudits of the world. Noah was not, so far as we know, openly persecuted
and hindered in his work any more than is the Christian of the nineteenth
century; but doubtless all the artillery of sarcasm and ridicule was trained
upon him, just as the modern Christian, when he conscientiously does anything
out of the ordinary course, anything that attracts attention, the utility of
which the world does not understand, finds that the same weapons are in use
today. And yet we do not know that the work was interrupted, or that its
completion was delayed a week by the fun and raillery which were doubtless
heaped upon the project.
4. Another imitable trait in the character of this grand
antediluvian was his obedience, strict and implicit. “Thus did Noah; according
to all that God commanded him, so did he.” Witness his ready obedience and
minute performance of every command of God in the slow construction of the ark.
Obedience was the same thing five thousand years ago that it is today. (F.
E. Clark.)
The divinely achieved safety of the good, and its connection with
the life-giving agencies of the material universe
I. THAT GOD IS
NEVER AT A LOSS FOR A METHOD WHEREBY TO ACHIEVE THE SAFETY OF THE GOOD (Genesis 6:14).
1. We find that the good are often in imminent peril.
2. We find that the good are often in peril through the prevalence
of sin in the world around them.
3. We find that when it is the purpose of God to save the good from
peril, He is never at a loss for means whereby to do so.
II. That in the
working out of these methods for the safety of the good, THE GOOD ARE DESIRED
TO RENDER THEIR MOST EFFECTIVE COOPERATION (Genesis 6:15).
1. This cooperation involves an utter self-abandonment to the Divine
teaching.
2. It involves self-sacrifice.
3. It involves much ridicule.
III. That in the
working out of these methods for the safety of the good, THE DIVINE PROVIDENCE
CONNECTS THEM WITH THE TEMPORAL NEEDS OF THE FUTURE. (Genesis 6:19-22). LESSONS:--
1. Let a remembrance of God’s care for the good inspire comfort
within the hearts of those in perilous circumstances.
2. That good men should be thoughtful and devout in their
cooperation with the Spirit and providence of Gad.
3. That by such cooperation men enhance the temporal interests of
the world. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)
The ark a type of the scheme of human salvation
I. That like the
ark, the scheme of human salvation was wrought out AFTER A DIVINELY GIVEN PLAN
AND METHOD.
1. Like the ark, the scheme of salvation was not conceived by any
human mind.
2. Like the ark, the scheme of salvation was originated by God, and
was the outworking of a Divine plan.
II. Like the ark,
the scheme of human salvation was ANTECEDENTLY VERY UNLIKELY AND IMPROBABLE FOR
THE PURPOSE.
III. That as the
ark had a window, so the scheme of human salvation is ILLUMINED BY THE LIGHT OF
GOD.
1. The scheme of human salvation is illumined by the Holy Spirit.
2. This illumination of the scheme of salvation is the abiding
comfort and joy of man.
IV. That as the
ark had a door, so into the scheme of human salvation THERE IS BUT ONE METHOD
OF ENTRANCE.
1. That like the ark, the scheme of salvation has an entrance.
Christ is the way to eternal safety.
2. That like the ark, the scheme of salvation has but one entrance.
V. That like the
ark, the scheme of human salvation is EFFICIENT TO THE ACCOMPLISHMENT OF THE
DESIGNED PURPOSE.
VI. That like the
ark, the scheme of human salvation is NEGLECTED BY THE VAST MULTITUDE.
LESSONS:--
1. That a Divine method of salvation is provided for the human race
from the future retributions of the universe.
2. That this salvation is equal to all the need of the case.
3. That men who neglect or despise it are sure to perish.
4. The holy wisdom of entering the ark at once. (J. S. Exell, M.
A.)
God’s provision for salvation of His saints
1. In pouring out indignation
on the wicked world, God provideth for His saints.
2. God alone knoweth how to deliver the just from destruction to
come.
3. Man must use God’s means in order to salvation according to His
prescript.
4. In God’s command of using means, there is implied a promise.
5. Means of salvation to sight are but mean and despicable, a little
timber and pitch.
6. Several nests and mansions are in the ark of the Church (Genesis 6:14).
7. All Church work for salvation must have its line and measure from
God.
8. Sufficient dimensions doth God give to the means of salvation for
His people. Breadth and length, etc. (Genesis 6:15).
9. Light must be in the means or instrument of man’s salvation.
10. A door or entrance must be for souls to come into the ark of the
Church and live.
11. A due proportion of place is designed by God for all creatures
admitted into the Church ark for salvation (Genesis 6:16). (G. Hughes, B. D.)
The preaching of the ark
I. MEMORIAL OF
DIVINE GOODNESS.
1. It reminds us of His saints. Amongst the thousands of the world,
Noah stood alone, firm in faith, dauntless in courage; God does not forget him;
the innocent shall not suffer with the guilty. “God waited . . . while the ark
was a-preparing” (1 Peter 3:20).
2. It reminds us of His regard for the families of His saints.
3. It reminds us of God’s goodness to the world. All are invited to
enter the ark.
II. A TESTIMONY TO
NOAH’S FAITH (Hebrews 11:7).
III. A SYMBOL OF
THE SAVIOUR.
1. The ark was a refuge. “Thou art my hiding place” (Psalms 27:7).
2. The ark was a home. “Lord, Thou hast been our home in all
generations” (Psalms 90:1).
3. The ark was a temple. There Noah and his family worshipped. We
must be in Christ if we would be acceptable worshippers (Revelation 21:22).
4. The ark was a conveyance. So to speak, it bore Noah from the old
to the new world; from the valley of his labours and sorrows to the mountain of
rest and plenty. “I am the way,” said Jesus.
IV. A BEACON FOR
THE SINNER. The ark warns sinners of their danger. It points out the awful
nature of unbelief, of voluptuousness, of pride. It warns us that, “though hand
join in hand, the wicked shall not be unpunished.” That numbers cannot shield
us from Divine wrath.
1. The ark proclaims the wilfulness of sinners. Who built it? Were
not many of its builders destroyed? We may be the means of insuring safety for
others, and be ourselves lost (1 Corinthians 9:27).
2. The ark warns us of the power of sin. How long was it building?
Month after month it was surveyed by hundreds, still they continued in sin.
Beware of the deceitfulness of sin. Listen to the strange and varied story this
silent ark so eloquently tells. Hear its attestation of the goodness and
faithfulness of God; hear, too, its awful revelation of His power to punish and
destroy. (Stems and Twigs.)
The ark a type of the Lord Jesus Christ
I. The ark was a
type of the Lord Jesus Christ, by being A MEANS OF ESCAPE OF GOD’S OWN
PROVIDING.
II. The ark was
THE MOST UNLIKELY MEANS OF ESCAPE.
III. The ark was
MOCKED BY THE WORLD.
IV. THERE WAS MORE
THAN ROOM IN THE ARK for all its inhabitants.
V. The ark was A
PRESERVER OF LIFE.
VI. The ark had
but ONE DOOR AND ONE WINDOW. VII. The ark was DELUGED BY GOD. (R. Jessop, M.
A.)
The ark a type of the Church
I. IT WAS BUILT
BY HUMAN INSTRUMENTALITY BUT THE FASHION OF IT, AS WELL, AS THE MATERIALS OF
WHICH IT WAS TO BE MADE, WERE OF DIVINE APPOINTMENT.
II. THE ARK WAS
BUILT BY DEGREES.
III. The ark was A
RECEPTACLE FOR ALL.
IV. THE ANIMALS
THAT ENTERED THE ARK WENT IN OF THEIR OWN FREE WILL, AND YET WERE DIVINELY
GUIDED TO IT.
V. THE FIERCE
PASSIONS OF THE ANIMALS WERE RESTRAINED WHILE IN THE ARK.
VI. TILL THE ARK
WAS BUILT, THE WORLD COULD NOT BE DESTROYED. (R. Jessop, M. A.)
Noah’s warning, preparation, and deliverance
I. THE WARNING
THAT NOAH RECEIVED.
1. Only one received it. Noah found grace, favour.
2. To him a most unprecedented and unlikely thing. Beyond that
vision, what was there to strengthen his faith? While the evidence to him was
so slight, the proofs to us are numerous.
3. Imagine Noah after receiving this warning, with what different
feelings he would regard the world, etc.
II. THE
PREPARATION THAT NOAH MADE. By faith. He believed God more than nature, which
preached stability; or than men, who must soon have begun to argue thus--
1. Who is Noah that he should have this warning?
2. But where is the promise or sign of this flood? Nature does not
change.
3. The old man will never live to complete his task.
4. If he does, how are the animals, etc., to be collected?
5. Even if they are, is it likely that so cumbrous a vessel will
float?
6. But where will all the water come from? To such men, Noah’s ark
would be Noah’s folly. (Christ, our Ark, is a folly to many, 1 Corinthians 1:23).
7. If the worst comes to the worst, we will fly to the hills. Faith
overcomes all arguments. 480 years of age when he began, he toiled on for 120
years. While others were growing rich or spending their time in pleasure and
sin, he spent his substance about the ark.
III. THE
DELIVERANCE THAT NOAH EXPERIENCED.
1. The ark finished. The world comes to look, and wonder, and laugh.
Science and selfishness have furnished their arguments, and begin to launch
them. On a huge platform of timber stands the ark.
2. Noah examines his work, and compares it with the plan. He has
done his part and enters.
3. God now collects the animals, etc. The astonishment of the world
at that strange sight. Misgivings. Noah, a wise man after all.
4. Seven days’ pause. Time yet for repentance. Mercy in the midst of
wrath.
5. Noah shut in, and the world shut out.
6. The flood.
7. The waters rising.
The ark swings round from its resting place, and floats out on the
bosom of the great waste of waters. LEARN--
1. To take heed to the warning and invitation that we have had.
2. To work out our salvation with fear and trembling.
3. Noah made the ark to save his life; what are we doing to save our
souls?
4. Let us fly for refuge to the hope set before us. (J. C. Gray.)
Noah was a type, and Christ the antitype, in sundry particulars
1. As Noah’s name signifies
comforter and restorer, which shows Lamech’s faith to put that name upon him (Genesis 5:29; Genesis 8:21). Herein he typified Christ,
our grand Comforter and Restorer of the new world, as Noah was of the old.
2. Noah was a preacher of righteousness (2 Peter 2:5). So also is Christ both
preaching and purchasing, yea, procuring everlasting righteousness Daniel 9:24).
3. As Noah found grace in the sight of God, both for himself and for
all his family (Genesis 6:8; Genesis 7:1; Hebrews 11:7), so did Christ for Himself Matthew 3:17; Matthew 17:5), and for all his household
of faith, for so many as God hath given him (John 17:2), they are all accepted in the
beloved Ephesians 1:6). Yea, He is the Saviour of
all men, especially of them that believe (1 Timothy 4:10; Luke 2:52).
4. As Noah was the builder of the ark, so is Christ of the Church,
which is called His workmanship (Ephesians 2:10, etc.). Is not
Christ the carpenter (Mark 6:3), to hew, plane, cement, and
clinch us close together? etc.
5. As Noah was long in building the ark, even a hundred and twenty
years, so is Christ long in building His Church, even some thousands of years.
6. As Noah used many carpenters that were instrumental to save
others, but not themselves, so likewise doth Christ (Matthew 7:22-23). Some ministers Christ
employs that may save--
7. As when Noah had finished the ark, the destruction of the old
world by water followed immediately; so when Christ hath gathered in all His
elect, and completed His Church, then will the destruction of this present
world by fire presently pass upon it. Add unto all these--
8. As Noah’s presence in the ark did secure his household all the
time of its tossing, and landed them safely (after the destruction of the old
world) in another; so Christ’s presence with His Church, while she is tossed
with tempests and not comforted (Isaiah 54:11), doth secure her from
allevil, for He keeps the ensuring office.
As there is congruity ‘twixt this type and antitype, to wit,
Christ and Noah, so there is some disparity.
1. As Noah preached to the old world and converted none, but Christ
converted many in this new world.
2. Noah saved his household, but only temporarily, but Christ saves
the household of faith, spiritually and eternally.
3. Noah had no better to send out than a raven and a dove, but
Christ sent out better things, such as the law and the gospel, the former to
work fear and the latter love.
4. Noah was insufficient to complete salvation for his family, as he
was unable of himself to shut the great door of the ark after him; but Christ
sayeth to the utmost, by His own power (Hebrews 7:25), rebuking storms and
procuring calms, all in His own name.
5. As Noah’s self was a type of Christ, so was his ark, wherein
alone salvation was found from that deluge of waters, accordingly in Christ
alone can be found salvation (of all sorts, temporal, spiritual, and eternal)
from the deluge of Divine wrath and justice of God for the sin of man. Beside
Him, there is no Saviour (Isaiah 43:11). As there was but one ark,
so there must be but one mediator; no cock boats were to attend this ark Acts 27:30). (C. Ness.)
Dimensions of the ark
Much needless ingenuity has been wasted on the calculation of the
exact space in the ark, of its internal arrangements, and of the accommodation
it contained for the different species of animals then existing. Such
computations are essentially unreliable, as we can neither calculate the exact
room in the ark, nor yet the exact number of species which required to be
accommodated within its shelter. Scripture, which sets before us the history of
God’s kingdom, never gratifies such idle and foolish inquiries. But of this we
may be quite sure, that the ark which God provided was literally and in every
sense quite sufficient for the purposes for which it was intended, and that
these purposes were fully secured. It may perhaps help us to realize this
marvellous structure if we compare it to the biggest ship known--the Great
Eastern, whose dimensions are six hundred and eighty feet in length,
eighty-three in breadth, and fifty-eight in depth; or else if we describe it as
nearly half the size of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. It should be borne in
mind that the ark was designed not for navigation, but chiefly for storage. It
had neither masts, rudder, nor sails, and was probably flat at the bottom,
resembling a huge floating chest. To show how suitable its proportions were for
storage, we may mention that a Dutchman, Peter; Jansen, built in 1604 a ship on
precisely the same proportions (not, of course, the same figures), which was
found to hold one-third more lading than any other vessel of the same tonnage.
To sum up Noah’s life of faith, Noah’s preaching of faith, and Noah’s work of faith
in the words of Scripture: “By faith Noah, being warned of God,” etc. Hebrews 11:7). (Dr. Edersheim.)
I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy
all flesh
The flood
I.
The
first fact that strikes us in the story of the flood is this: that God, on
account of the wickedness to which the world had grown, had made up His mind to
sweep it away, once and for all.
II. Out of the seed of Noah
God had determined to people the earth once more with a race that would not be
so wicked as the one He destroyed.
III. Noah was told to go into
the ark because his life was to be saved from the flood. God has provided
another ark for us; He tells us to go into it and be saved.
IV. Noah’s family was taken
with him into the ark, showing the value God sets on family life.
V. God gave it as a reward
to Noah for his righteousness that his children went with him into the ark. A
holy and loving example preaches a sermon to those who watch it, and remains in
the memory of the godless son and the godless daughter long after the parents
have been laid in the grave. (Bp. Thorold.)
Lessons from the flood
A long period elapsed between the commencement of the building of
the ark and the actual flood. During that period we notice--
1. The strength of Noah’s faith. God has told him of a deluge of
which there is no appearance; He has commanded him to build a strange vessel
for no apparent purpose; He has told him that one hundred and twenty years of
toil must elapse before the vessel can be of any use to him. And yet, in the
face of all these difficulties, Noah forms and keeps his resolution to obey
God.
2. Notice the reception which Noah’s work and message probably met
with. The first feeling excited would be one of derision and mirth, then would
come wonder, then pity, then disappointment and disgust, and lastly, perhaps, a
silent contempt.
I. THE FLOOD SHOWS US--
1. How absolute is God’s control over the natural world.
2. The evil of sin, and the light in which it appears to the eye of
God.
3. It reminds us of another deluge, of which all unreconciled
sinners stand in jeopardy.
II. Consider THE VARIOUS
PURPOSES THAT WERE SERVED BY THE DELUGE.
1. It swept away an effete and evil generation, which had become of
no use, except to commit sin and thus deprave and weaken the general stock of
humanity.
2. The flood was calculated to overawe mankind, and to suggest the
idea that other such interpositions might be expected when they were required.
3. The flood furnished an opportunity to God of coming more nearly
and closely to men.
4. The flood brought the human family nearer to the promised land of
Canaan. (G. Gilfillan.)
The history of the deluge
The history of the deluge is alleged in the New Testament as a
type of the deep waters of sin, in which a lost world is perishing, and from
which there is no escape but in that ark which God has prepared for us. The
eight souls saved from the deluge are types of that little flock which rides
safely and triumphantly, though the floods lift up their waves and the billows
break over them. And their safety is assured to them, because they are in
Christ.
I. At the root of all
Christianity lies THAT DEEP MYSTERIOUS TRUTH, THE SPIRITUAL UNION OF THE
REDEEMER WITH THOSE WHOM HE REDEEMED. To this truth most emphatically witnesses
all the New Testament teaching about the ark as a symbol and a prophecy. For--
1. The ark is a figure of Christ. The ark floated over the waste of
waters, as Christ dwelt and toiled and suffered in the wilderness of this
world, and amid the waters of affliction.
2. The ark is a figure of the redeemed of Christ. The Church, which
is Christ’s body, is also the ark of refuge from the wrath of God. This life is
still to the Church a conflict, a trial, a pilgrimage, a voyage. The crown
shall be at the resurrection of the just.
II. The practical thoughts to
which this subject leads us differ but little from the doctrinal. Is not the
substance and the end of all--safety in Christ, rest in Christ, and at last
glory in Christ? Those only who have rested in the ark will rest upon Mount
Ararat. The life of the Christian is begun on earth; it is perfected in heaven.
When the voyage is over, the Saviour, who has been to us the ark upon the
waters, shall be to us, in the eternal mountains of the Lord, rest and peace
and light and glory. (Bp. Harold Browne.)
The record of the flood
I. Consider the record of
THE FLOOD AS A HISTORY: a history having a two-fold aspect--an aspect of
judgment, and an aspect of mercy.
1. “God,” St. Peter says, “spared not the old world,” He “brought in
a flood upon the world of the ungodly.” He who made can destroy. Long trifled
with, God is not mocked: and he who will not have Him for his Father must at
last know Him as his Judge.
2. The record of judgment passes on into a record of mercy. Mercy
was shown:
II. Consider THE FLOOD IN ITS
USES: AS A TYPE, AS A PROPHECY, AND AS A WARNING.
1. The water through which Noah and his family passed into their ark
was like the water of holy baptism, through which a Christian, penitent and
believing, finds his way into the Church of the living God.
2. St. Peter exhibits the flood to us also as a prophecy. The flood
of waters becomes in its turn the prediction of a last flood of fire. He who
foretold the one--and notwithstanding long delay the word was fulfilled--may be
believed when He threatens the other; and no pause or respite can defeat the
certainty of the performance.
3. There is one special warning appended by our Lord Jesus Christ
Himself to the Scriptural record of the great deluge: “As the days of Noah
were, so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be.” (Dean Vaughan.)
Flood of waters
Mythology tells how Jupiter burned with anger at the wickedness of
the iron age. Having summoned a council of the gods, he addressed them--setting
forth the awful condition of the things upon the earth, and announcing his
determination to destroy all its inhabitants. He took a thunderbolt, and was
about to launch it upon the world, to destroy it by fire, when he bethought
himself that it might enkindle the heavens also. He then resolved to drown it
by making the clouds pour out torrents of rain:--
“With his
clench’d fist
He squeezed the
clouds:
Then, with his
mace, the monarch struck the ground;
With inward
trembling earth received the wound,
And rising
streams a ready passage found.”
(W. Adamson.)
The impotence of floods
The Almighty is about to do here what some of us in our imperfect
wisdom have often wished to see done: we have supposed that if all notoriously
bad people could be removed at a stroke from the world the kingdom of heaven
would be at once established on the earth. The idea may be put roughly thus:
Bring together all prisoners, all idlers, drunkards, thieves, liars, and every
known form of criminal; take them out into the middle of the Atlantic and sink
them there, and at once society will be regenerated, and paradise will be regained.
Now this is substantially the very course which the Almighty took in the days
of Noah, with what results we know only too well. All our fine theories have
been tested, and they come to nothing. The tree of manhood has been cut down to
the very root, and it has been shown in every possible way that the root itself
must be cured if the branches are to become strong and fruitful. If you were
today to destroy all the world, with the single exception of one household, and
that household the most pious and honourable that ever lived, in less than half
a century we should see all the bad characteristics returning. Water cannot
drown sin. Fire cannot burn out sin. Prisons cannot cure theft and cruelty. We
must go deeper. In the meantime it was well to try some rough experiments,
merely for the sake of showing that they were not worth trying. If the flood
had not been tried there are some reformers amongst us who would have thought
of that as a lucky idea, and wondered that it had never occurred to the Divine mind!
After all, it is a very elementary idea. It is the very first idea that would
occur to a healthy mind: the world is a failure, man is a criminal and a fool,
sin is rampant in the land; very well; that being the case, drown the world.
There are persons who seriously ask, Do you think the flood ever did occur? and
there are others who find shells on hilltops, and show them in proof of a
universal deluge. O fools and slow of heart! This flood is occurring every day;
this judgment upon sin never ceases; this protection of a righteous seed is an
eternal fact! How long shall we live in the mere letter, and have only a
history instead of a revelation--a memorandum book instead of a living Father?
That there was a flood exactly as is described in the Bible! have not so much
as a shadow of a doubt; but even if I took it as an allegory, or a typical
judgment given in parable, I should seize the account as one that is far more
profoundly true than any mere fact could ever be. Look at it! God morally
angry, righteousness asserted, sin judged, goodness preserved, evil destroyed;
it is true, it must be true, every honest heart demands that it be taken as
true. (J. Parker, D. D.)
Verse 18
With thee will I establish
My covenant
God’s covenant with Noah
1.
The leading ideas
suggested by a covenant are those of peace and goodwill between the parties,
and if differences have subsisted, forgiveness of the past, and security for
the future. Such were the friendly alliances between Abram and Abimelech, Isaac
and another of the same name, and between Jacob and Laban. God was highly
displeased with the world, and would, therefore, destroy that generation by a
flood, but when He should have done this, He would return in loving kindness
and tender mercies, and would look upon the earth with a propitious eye. Nor
should they be kept in fearful expectation of being so destroyed again; for He
would pledge His word no more to be wroth with them in such a way, nor to
rebuke them forever.
2. In covenants wherein one or both the parties had been offended,
it was usual to offer sacrifices, in which a kind of atonement was made for
past offences, and a perfect reconciliation followed. Such were the covenants
before referred to; and such, as we shall see at the close of the eighth
chapter, was the covenant in question. “Noah offered sacrifices, and the
Lord smelled a sweet
savour, and promised to curse the ground no more for man’s sake.”
3. In covenants which include a blessing on many, and they unworthy,
it is God’s ordinary method to bestow it in reward, or for the sake of one who
was dear to Him. God loves men, but He also loves righteousness: hence He
delights to bestow His blessings in such a way as manifest His true character.
If there had been any dependence on Noah’s posterity, that they would all have
walked in his steps, the covenant might have been established with them as well
as him; but they would soon degenerate into idolatry, and all manner of
wickedness. If, therefore, He will bestow favour on them in such a way as to
express His love of righteousness, it must be for their father Noah’s sake, and
in reward of his righteousness. To say, “With thee will I establish My
covenant,” was saying in effect, “I will not treat with thy ungodly posterity:
whatever favour I show them, it shall be for thy sake.” (A. Fuller.)
Verse 22
Thus did Noah, according to all that God commanded, so did he
Noah’s obedience
I.
THE
OBEDIENCE RENDERED BY NOAH.
1. The circumstances in which he was placed.
2. The means he was directed to use for the preservation of God’s
chosen remnant.
3. His perseverance in the use of these means till he had completed
the work assigned him.
II. THE OBEDIENCE
REQUIRED OF US.
1. The danger to which we are exposed is similar.
2. The means provided for our escape are similar.
3. The distinction that will be made between the believing
unbelieving world will be similar.
Learn:
1. The office of faith. Not to argue, but to believe God.
2. The necessity of fear.
3. The benefit of obedience. (C. Simeon, M. A.)
The Divine commands
I. THE DIVINE
COMMANDS ARE SEVERE IN THEIR REQUIREMENTS.
II. THE DIVINE
COMMANDS ARE EXTENSIVE IN THEIR REQUIREMENTS.
III. THE DIVINE
COMMANDMENTS ARE INFLUENTIAL TO THE WELFARE OF MAN. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)
Noah’s obedience
I. THE RULE OF
NOAH’S OBEDIENCE. “All that God commanded.” Mankind need a rule for their
conduct.
1. It should come forth from God, and have the Divine sanction.
2. It should be practicable in its requirements.
3. It should be plain and circumstantial in its phraseology.
4. It should be beneficial in its results.
II. THE NATURE OF
NOAH’S OBEDIENCE. “So did he.”
1. Noah’s obedience was pious in its principle.
2. Prompt and decided in its acts.
3. Laborious in its exercise.
4. Universal its extent.
5. Persevering in its course.
6. Successful in its object.
Learn from the subject--
1. What terrible desolations sin makes in the world, and how the
severity of God was displayed in making the very elements conspire to the
destruction of those who had slighted the Divine counsels.
2. How tenderly God cares for His servants, and how easily He can
provide means for their safety.
3. How much human security depends upon human exertion. The way of
duty is the way of safety. (Sketches of Sermons.)
Noah, the model worker
I. Noah was--A
READY--worker. And in this respect he is a good model to set before us. It was
a very hard thing that Noah was commanded to do. He was told to build an ark,
or a ship, that was very remarkable for its size. But Noah was not a ship
builder himself, neither were his sons. He did not live in a seaport town,
where the people were familiar with the business of building ships. He lived in
an inland country, far away from the sea. We do not know that he, or anyone
else then living in the world, had ever seen a large ship. And this must have
made the work that Noah was told to do very hard indeed. How easy it would have
been for him to make excuses when God commanded him to build that huge ark! He
might have said, very truthfully, “I do not know anything about the work of
building ships. I have no ship carpenters to help me, and know not where to get
any.” And if, for reasons like these, he had begged to be excused from
undertaking a work of so much difficulty, it would not have been at all
surprising. Instead of this he went out to work at once. No doubt he asked God
to help him. And when we get such help as He can give, nothing can be too hard
for us. The apostle believed this fully, when he said, “I can do all things
through Christ which strengtheneth me.”
II. But Noah was a
model worker, because he was--A PERSEVERING--worker. If we have anything hard
to do, or anything that will take a long time in which to do it, we never can
succeed in doing it without perseverance. And no one ever had so much need of
perseverance as Noah had in the work he was told to do. From the day when God
first spoke to him about building the ark, until it was finished, one hundred
and twenty years passed away. All that time he was engaged in the work. How
strangely Noah must have felt when he laid the first piece of timber in the
keel of the ark, and knew how many years were to pass away before that great
vessel would be completed! We read of men who have become famous by the
discoveries or inventions they have made, such as the art of printing, the use
of steam engines, and other things. Some of these men were working away for
seven, or ten, or fifteen, or twenty years, before they finished their work.
And when we read about the difficulties they had to overcome before they
succeeded in what they were trying to do, and how they persevered in overcoming
these difficulties, we cannot but wonder at them. And yet, how short the time
was in which they did their work, compared with the hundred and twenty years
through which Noah had to go on labouring! His perseverance was the most
wonderful ever heard of in the history of our world. How much trouble he must
have had in getting the right kind of wood with which to build the ark! And
when the wood was found, how much trouble he must have had in getting the right
sort of workmen to carry on the building! And how many other difficulties he
must have had, of which no account is given! But, notwithstanding all these
difficulties, he went patiently on, for a hundred and twenty years, till his
work was done. How well we may speak of Noah as a model of perseverance! Let us
study this model, till we learn to persevere, in all the work we try to do, for
God, or for our fellow men. After a great snowstorm, a little fellow about
seven or eight years old was trying to make a path through a large snow band,
which had drifted before his grandmother’s door. A gentleman who was passing by
was struck with the earnestness with which he was doing his work. He stopped to
look at him for a moment, and then said: “My little man, how do you ever expect
to get through that great snow bank?” In a cheerful tone, and without stopping
at all in his work, the little fellow’s reply was: “By keeping at it, sir.
That’s how.” “By keeping at it” Noah was able to get through with the great
work he had to do. And it is only “By keeping at it” that we can expect to succeed
in any good work in which we may be engaged.
III. Noah was a
model worker because he was--A THOROUGH--worker. We see this in our text when
it tells us, “Thus did Noah; according to all that God commanded him, so did
he.” Some people are willing to obey God just so long as He tells them to do
what they like to do. But if He commands them to do anything that is
disagreeable, they are not willing to obey Him. But this was not the way in
which Noah obeyed God. And it is very important for us to follow the example of
Noah in this respect, because this is the only kind of service that God will
accept. It was what David taught us when he said, “Then shall I not be ashamed
when I have respect unto all Thy commandments.” And this was what Jesus taught
us when He said: “Ye are My friends if ye do whatsoever I command you.” And it
is always pleasant to meet with persons who are trying to serve God as
thoroughly as Noah did. A religious meeting was once held among some working
men. One after another of them rose up to speak of their experience on the
subject of religion. This was the way in which one of them spoke about himself:
“I used to be an odd-job Christian; but now, thank God, I’m working on full
time.” This was very expressive. There are a great many “odd-job Christians.”
They work for Jesus just when it suits them. For the rest of their time they
are pleasing themselves. But Noah was not one of this kind. He was on full
time.
IV. Noah was a
model worker, because he was--A COURAGEOUS--worker. If we had a history of all
that took place while Noah was building the ark, how interesting it would be!
It was such a strange work that he was engaged in! Nothing like it had ever
been heard of in that country. People would come from all quarters. They would
look on in wonder.
They would call him an old fool, and make all sorts of fun of him.
And this is something which it is always very hard to bear. Many men who have
courage enough to go boldly into battle, and face the glittering swords or
roaring cannon of their enemies, have not courage enough to go on doing a thing
when men laugh at them, and ridicule them for doing it. But Noah did not mind
this at all. He let them laugh as much as they pleased, while he went quietly
on with the work that God had given him to do.
V. Noah was a
model worker, because he was--A SUCCESSFUL--worker. He laboured on through all
those long years until the ark was finished. And then, when the flood came, he
was saved himself, and his family was saved, while all the rest of the world
was swept away in its wickedness. And who can tell how much good Noah did by
his successful work on the ark? That good has extended to all who have lived
since then. And this is a thought that may well encourage us in working for
God. We never can tell how successful our work may be, and what great good may
follow from it. And we shall find prayer a great help to success in all the
work we have to do. (R. Newton, D. D.)
Obedience
I would rather obey than work miracles. (Luther.)
Wicked men obey for fear, but the good for love. (Aristotle.)
“All God’s biddings are enablings,” says an early Christian
writer. An obedient soul is like a crystal glass with a light in the midst,
which shines forth through every part thereof. (T. Brooks.)
A soul sincerely obedient will not pick and choose what commands
to obey, and what to reject, as hypocrites do. (T. Brooks.)
He praiseth God best that serveth and obeyeth Him most: the life
of thankfulness consists in the thankfulness of the life. (W. Burkitt.)
The knowing of God, that we may serve Him, and the serving Him,
that we may enjoy Him, take up the whole duty of man’s obedience. (Herle.)
Jesus Christ intended, when He opened your eyes, that your eyes
should direct your feet. Light is a special help to obedience, and obedience is
a singular help to increase your light. (J. Flavel.)
A man sincerely obedient lays such a charge upon his whole man as
Mary, the mother of Christ, did upon all the servants at the feast: “Whatsoever
the Lord saith unto you, do it.” (T. Brooks.)
Obedience to God’s will
It ought to be the great care of every one of us to follow the
Lord fully. We must in a coarse of obedience to God’s will and service to His
honour, follow Him universally, without dividing; uprightly, without
dissembling; cheerfully, without disputing; and constantly, without declining:
and this is following Him fully. (M. Henry.)
Loving obedience
As fruits artificially raised or forced in the hothouse have not
the exquisite flavour of those fruits which are grown naturally and in their
due season; so that obedience which is forced by the terrors of the law wants
the genuine flavour and sweetness of that obedience which springs forth from a
heart warmed and meliorated with the love of God in Christ Jesus. (H. G.
Salter.)
Obedience to God’s will
Some of the members of the household of Tiberius were so attached
to their master that they obeyed all his commands with the most implicit care.
One of them had such perfect faith in him that, when he declared he never
failed to do what Tiberius commanded, and was asked, if he had been ordered to
burn the Capitol, whether he would have done it, he answered that Tiberius
would never have given him the order; but, when the question was repeated, he
declared that, had it been commanded, he should have thought it right, for
Tiberius would never have laid such a command on him if it had not been for the
advantage of the Roman people. When we render allegiance to the Saviour, it is
with the express understanding that He bids us do nothing but that which is
essentially right; that if anything is cruel in its nature He cannot order it;
but that, if He appears to do so, there is some hidden good beneath the action
that He bids us perform.
──《The Biblical Illustrator》