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Genesis Chapter
Eight
Genesis 8
Chapter Contents
God remembers Noah, and dries up the waters. (1-3) The
ark rests on Ararat, Noah sends forth a raven and a dove. (4-12) Noah being
commanded, goes out of the ark. (13-19) Noah offers sacrifice, God promises to
curse the earth no more. (20-22)
Commentary on Genesis 8:1-3
The whole race of mankind, except Noah and his family,
were now dead, so that God's remembering Noah, was the return of his mercy to
mankind, of whom he would not make a full end. The demands of Divine justice
had been answered by the ruin of sinners. God sent his wind to dry the earth,
and seal up his waters. The same hand that brings the desolation, must bring
the deliverance; to that hand, therefore, we must ever look. When afflictions
have done the work for which they are sent, whether killing work or curing
work, they will be taken away. As the earth was not drowned in a day, so it was
not dried in a day. God usually works deliverance for his people gradually,
that the day of small things may not be despised, nor the day of great things
despaired of.
Commentary on Genesis 8:4-12
The ark rested upon a mountain, whither it was directed by
the wise and gracious providence of God, that might rest the sooner. God has
times and places of rest for his people after their tossing; and many times he
provides for their seasonable and comfortable settlement, without their own
contrivance, and quite beyond their own foresight. God had told Noah when the
flood would come, yet he did not give him an account by revelation, at what
times and by what steps it should go away. The knowledge of the former was
necessary to his preparing the ark; but the knowledge of the latter would serve
only to gratify curiosity; and concealing it from him would exercise his faith
and patience. Noah sent forth a raven from the ark, which went flying about,
and feeding on the carcasses that floated. Noah then sent forth a dove, which
returned the first time without good news; but the second time, she brought an
olive leaf in her bill, plucked off, plainly showing that trees, fruit trees,
began to appear above water. Noah sent forth the dove the second time, seven
days after the first, and the third time was after seven days also; probably on
the sabbath day. Having kept the sabbath with his little church, he expected
especial blessings from Heaven, and inquired concerning them. The dove is an
emblem of a gracious soul, that, finding no solid peace of satisfaction in this
deluged, defiling world, returns to Christ as to its ark, as to its Noah, its
rest. The defiling world, returns to Christ as to its ark, as to its Noah, its
rest. The carnal heart, like the raven, takes up with the world, and feeds on
the carrion it finds there; but return thou to my rest, O my soul; to thy Noah,
so the word is, Psalm 116:7. And as Noah put forth his hand, and
took the dove, and pulled her to him, into the ark, so Christ will save, and
help, and welcome those that flee to him for rest.
Commentary on Genesis 8:13-19
God consults our benefit, rather than our desires; he
knows what is good for us better than we do for ourselves, and how long it is
fit our restraints should continue, and desired mercies should be delayed. We
would go out of the ark before the ground is dried; and perhaps, if the door,
is shut, are ready to thrust off the covering, and to climb up some other way;
but God's time of showing mercy is the best time. As Noah had a command to go
into the ark, so, how tedious soever his confinement there was, he would wait
for a command to go out of it again. We must in all our ways acknowledge God,
and set him before us in all our removals. Those only go under God's
protection, who follow God's direction, and submit to him.
Commentary on Genesis 8:20-22
Noah was now gone out into a desolate world, where, one
might have thought, his first care would have been to build a house for
himself, but he begins with an alter for God. He begins well, that begins with
God. Though Noah's stock of cattle was small, and that saved at great care and
pains, yet he did not grudge to serve God out of it. Serving God with our
little is the way to make it more; we must never think that is wasted with
which God is honoured. The first thing done in the new world was an act of
worship. We are now to express our thankfulness, not by burnt-offerings, but by
praise, and pious devotions and conversation. God was well pleased with what
was done. But the burning flesh could no more please God, than the blood of
bulls and goats, except as typical of the sacrifice of Christ, and expressing
Noah's humble faith and devotedness to God. The flood washed away the race of
wicked men, but it did not remove sin from man's nature, who being conceived
and born in sin, thinks, devises, and loves wickedness, even from his youth,
and that as much since the flood as before. But God graciously declared he
never would drown the world again. While the earth remains, and man upon it,
there shall be summer and winter. It is plain that this earth is not to remain
always. It, and all the works in it, must shortly be burned up; and we look for
new heavens and a new earth, when all these things shall be dissolved. But as
long as it does remain, God's providence will cause the course of times and
seasons to go on, and makes each to know its place. And on this word we depend,
that thus it shall be. We see God's promises to the creatures made good, and
may infer that his promises to all believers shall be so.
── Matthew Henry《Concise Commentary on Genesis》
Genesis 8
Verse 1
[1] And
God remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the cattle that was with
him in the ark: and God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters
asswaged;
And God remembered Noah and every living
thing — This is an expression after the manner of
men, for not any of his creatures, much less any of his people are forgotten of
God. But the whole race of mankind, except Noah and his family, was now
extinguished, and gone into the land of forgetfulness, so that God's
remembering Noah was the return of his mercy to mankind, of whom he would not
make a full end. Noah himself, tho' one that had found grace in the eyes of the
Lord, yet seemed to be forgotten in the ark; but at length God returned in
mercy to him, and that is expressed by his remembering him.
Verse 3
[3] And the waters returned from off the earth continually: and after the end
of the hundred and fifty days the waters were abated.
The waters returned from off the earth
continually — Heb. they were going and returning; a
gradual departure. The heat of the sun exhaled much, and perhaps the
subterraneous caverns soaked in more.
Verse 4
[4] And
the ark rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, upon
the mountains of Ararat.
And the ark rested —
upon the mountains of Ararat - Or, Armenia, whether it was directed, not by
Noah's prudence, but the wise providence of God.
Verse 5
[5] And
the waters decreased continually until the tenth month: in the tenth month, on
the first day of the month, were the tops of the mountains seen.
The tops of the mountains were seen — Like little islands appearing above water. They felt ground above forty
days before they saw it, according to Dr. Lightfoots's computation, whence he
infers that if the waters decreased proportionably, the ark drew eleven cubits
in water.
Verse 7
[7] And he sent forth a raven, which went forth to and fro, until the waters
were dried up from off the earth.
Noah sent forth a raven through the window of
the ark, which went forth, as the Hebrew phrase is, going forth and returning,
that is, flying about, but returning to the ark for rest; probably not in it,
but upon it. This gave Noah little satisfaction: therefore,
Verse 8
[8] Also
he sent forth a dove from him, to see if the waters were abated from off the
face of the ground;
He sent forth a dove — Which returned the first time with no good news, but probably wet and
dirty; but the second time she brought an olive leaf in her bill, which
appeared to be fresh plucked off; a plain indication that now the trees began
to appear above water. Note here, that Noah set forth the dove the second time,
seven days after the first time, and the third time was after seven days too:
and probably the first sending of her out was seven days after the sending
forth of the raven. The olive branch is an emblem of peace.
Verse 13
[13] And
it came to pass in the six hundredth and first year, in the first month, the
first day of the month, the waters were dried up from off the earth: and Noah
removed the covering of the ark, and looked, and, behold, the face of the
ground was dry.
Noah removed the covering of the ark — Not the whole covering, but so much as would suffice to give him a
prospect of the earth about it: and behold the face of the ground was dry.
Verse 14
[14] And
in the second month, on the seven and twentieth day of the month, was the earth
dried.
The earth was dried — So
as to be a fit habitation for Noah.
Verse 20
[20] And
Noah builded an altar unto the LORD; and took of every clean beast, and of
every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings on the altar.
And Noah builded an altar — Hitherto he had done nothing without particular instructions and
commands from God but altars and sacrifices being already of Divine
institution, he did not stay for a particular command thus to express his
thankfulness.
And he offered on the altar, of every clean
beast and of every clean fowl — One, the odd seventh that we read of, Genesis 7:2,3.
Verse 21
[21] And
the LORD smelled a sweet savour; and the LORD said in his heart, I will not
again curse the ground any more for man's sake; for the imagination of man's
heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more every thing
living, as I have done.
And God smelled a sweet savour — Or a savour of rest from it, as it is in the Hebrew. He was well pleased
with Noah's pious zeal, and these hopeful beginnings of the new world, as men
are with fragrant and agreeable smells. I will not again curse the ground, Heb.
I will not add to curse the ground any more — God had cursed the ground upon the first entrance of sin, Genesis 3:17, when he drowned it he added to
that curse: but now he determines not to add to it any more.
Neither will I again smite any more every
living thing — That is, it was determined that whatever
ruin God might bring upon particular persons, families or countries, he would
never again destroy the whole world, 'till the day when time shall be no more.
But the reason of this resolve is surprising; for it seems the same with the
reason given for the destruction of the world, Genesis 6:5. Because the imagination of man's
heart is evil from his youth. But there is this difference: there it is said,
the imagination of man's heart is evil continually, that is, his actual
transgressions continually cry against him; here it is said, that it is evil
from his youth or childhood; he brought it into the world with him, he was
shapen and conceived in it. Now one would think it should follow, therefore
that guilty race shall be wholly extinguished: No; therefore I will no more
take this severe method; for he is rather to be pitied: and it is but what
might be expected from such a degenerate race. So that if he be dealt with
according to his deserts, one flood must succeed another 'till all be
destroyed. God also promises, that the course of nature should never be
discontinued. While the earth remaineth, and man upon it, there shall be summer
and winter, not all winter, as had been this last year; day and night, not all
night, as probably it was while the rain was descending. Here it is plainly
intimated that this earth is not to remain always; it and all the works therein
must shortly be burnt up. But as long as it doth remain, God's providence will
carefully preserve the regular succession of times and seasons. To this we owe
it, that the world stands, and the wheel of nature keeps its tack. See here how
changeable the times are, and yet how unchangeable! 1. The course of nature
always changing. As it is with the times, so it is with the events of time,
they are subject to vicissitudes, day and night, summer and winter
counterchanged. In heaven and hell it is not so; but on earth God hath set the
one over against the other. 2. Yet never changed; it is constant in this
inconstancy; these seasons have never ceased, nor shall cease while the sun
continues such a steady measurer of time, and the moon such a faithful witness
in heaven. This is God's covenant of the day and of the night, the stability of
which is mentioned for the confirming our faith in the covenant of grace, which
is no less inviolable, Jeremiah 33:20. We see God's promises to the
creatures made good, and thence may infer that his promises to believers shall
be so.
── John Wesley《Explanatory Notes on
Genesis》
08 Chapter 8
Verses 1-5
The waters assuaged
The gradual cessation of Divine retribution
I.
THAT
IT IS MARKED BY A RICH MANIFESTATION OF DIVINE MERCY TO THOSE WHO HAVE SURVIVED
THE TERRIBLE RETRIBUTION.
1. God’s remembrance of His creatures during the cessation of
retribution is merciful.
2. God’s remembrance of His creatures during the cessation of
retribution is welcome.
3. God’s remembrance of His creatures during the cessation of
retribution is condescending.
II. THAT IT IS
MARKED BY THE OUTGOING AND OPERATION OF APPROPRIATE PHYSICAL AGENCIES. “And God
made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters assuaged.” There have been
many conjectures in reference to the nature and operation of this wind; some
writers say that it was the Divine Spirit moving upon the waters, and others
that it was the heat of the sun whereby the waters were dried up. We think
controversy on this matter quite unnecessary, as there can be little doubt that
the wind was miraculous, sent by God to the purpose it accomplished. He
controls the winds. The Divine Being generally works by instrumentality.
1. Appropriate.
2. Effective.
3. Natural. Anti in this way is the cessation of Divine retribution
brought about.
III. THAT IT IS
MARKED BY A STAYING AND REMOVAL OF THE DESTRUCTIVE AGENCIES WHICH HAVE HITHERTO
PREVAILED. Here we see--
1. That the destructive agencies of the universe are awakened by
sin.
2. That the destructive agencies of the universe are subdued by the
power and grace of God.
3. That the destructive agencies of the universe are occasional and
not habitual in their rule.
IV. THAT IT IS
MARKED BY A GRADUAL RETURN TO THE ORDINARY THINGS AND METHOD OF LIFE. This
return to the ordinary condition of nature is--
1. Continuous.
2. Rapid.
3. Minutely chronicled.
The world is careful to note the day on which appeared the first
indication of returning joy, when after a long period of sorrow the mountain
tops of hope were again visible. It is fixed in the memory. It is written in
the book. It is celebrated as a festival. Lessons--
1. That the judgments of God, though long and severe, will come to
an end.
2. That the cessation of Divine judgment is a time of hope for the
good.
3. That the cessation of Divine judgment is the commencement of a
new era in the life of man. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)
The ark rested in the
seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, upon the mountains of
Ararat
The village of the ark
On the slopes of Ararat was the second cradle of the race, the
first village reared in a world of unseen graves.
I. It was THE
VILLAGE OF THE ARK, a building fashioned and fabricated from the forests of a
drowned and buried world. To the world’s first fathers it must have seemed a
hallowed and venerable form.
II. The village of
the ark was THE VILLAGE OF SACRIFICE. They built a sacrificial altar in which
fear raised the stones, tradition furnished the sacrifice, and faith kindled
the flame.
III. The first
village was THE VILLAGE OF THE RAINBOW. It had been seen before in the old
world, but now it was seen as a sign of God’s mercy, His covenant in Creation.
IV. The village of
the ark gives us our FIRST CODE OF LAWS. As man first steps forth with the
shadows of the Fall around him, scarce a principle seems to mark the presence
of law. Here we advance quite another stage, to a new world; the principles of
law are not many, but they have multiplied. As sins grow, laws grow. Around the
first village pealed remote mutterings of storms to come.
V. The village of
the ark was THE VILLAGE OF SIN. Even to Noah, the most righteous of men, sin
came out of the simple pursuit of husbandry. A great, good man, the survivor of
a lost world, the stem and inheritor of a new, he came to the moment in life of
dreadful overcoming. (E. P. Hood.)
Mount Ararat; or, The landing of the ark
I. SIN PUNISHED.
Mount Ararat was a solemn witness to the severity of God’s judgments upon a
guilty world.
II. GRACE
REVEALED. Mount Ararat saw Divine grace displayed to sinful men.
III. SALVATION
ENJOYED. Mount Ararat beheld salvation enjoyed by believing sinners: This
temporal deliverance was a type of the spiritual. Immeasurably grander, however,
will be the salvation of the saints.
1. In respect of its character, being spiritual instead of merely
temporal.
2. In respect of its measures, being complete and not merely
partial.
3. In respect of its duration, being eternal, and not merely for a
brief term of years.
IV. GRATITUDE
EXPRESSED. Mount Ararat heard the adorations and thanksgivings of a redeemed
family.
V. SAFETY
CONFIRMED. Mount Ararat listened to the voice of God confirming the salvation
of His people. (T. Whitelaw, M. A.)
The resting of Noah’s ark
The ark of Noah, so far as man was concerned, was left alone upon
the waters--no human hand steered it, no human counsel guided it. It was like
many a poor soul which is struggling, perhaps, its heavenward way through
difficulties and fears, without one earthly friend to comfort it, or one heart
in all the world to which to turn for solace and advice. And yet not alone was
it tossed and heaved upon this solitary waste. There was an arm unseen
directing it, there was strength unseen supporting it, and love unseen that was
wafting it. The inhabitants of the ark, at that time, constituted the whole
body of God’s believing people. “Are there few that shall be saved?” asked one
of old. Yes, they are few, but they are all that can be saved; all that, by the
largest stretch of mercy, consistent with God’s justice, can be brought in,
shall be brought in. There is no class on earth, if I may so speak, which has
not got its representative in heaven. For 150 days--and when, we would ask you,
was waiting time stretched out so long?--for 150 days Noah was left without any
visible token of God’s care, when, as the narrative simply and beautifully goes
on, “God remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the cattle that was
with him in the ark.” Yes; for everything when it comes into covenant with God
becomes, from that moment, dear to God. You may be the least--you may be the
vilest of all His creatures, but if you are in the ark, if you are a Christian,
God must love you. If the whole world is crying in terror, to a good and
merciful God we must go: He has a store for His children. How many a man has
had reason to look back and say, “That long, tedious affliction which seemed to
me as if it would never end--what has it been to me but the saving of my soul?
It has been thesnatching of me from that destruction where thousands of my
companions have perished, and where perhaps I should have been this day, but
for God afflicting me”? The heaviest storm that follows you must one day be
calmed; the rudest wind that assails you must one day be hushed. The waters at
last began to assuage, and on the seventeenth day of the seventh month--it is
well for the mind to keep an accurate record of the date of mercies--the ark
rested upon the mountains of Ararat. But Noah was not so soon as this to be
released from his confinement, his term was not yet half completed: five months
he had been locked in the ark, but seven months more must he yet remain in it.
It is natural to imagine, that this last seven months must have seemed to pass
more slowly than all the time while they were lying on the waves. If the
troubled time of life brings its trials, so also does its calms. It is a hard
thing to sit still, and very often there are the greatest perils in the still
seasons of life. When is it that the soul of man is so tempted to presumption
and self-righteous confidence? When is it that we become careless? When is it
that the practical duties of life are neglected, and we sit down it a most
dangerous spiritual slumber? Is it not in seasons when we have been imagining
that we have reached a place of rest; when the soul, through an overweening
confidence, abandons its efforts as if the work were done, and settles down on
its lees? Oh, when I think of the dangers of life’s calms, I bless God, that
the voyage is generally a rough one! When I remember the trials of the resting
ark, I bless God that it is kept so long struggling in the storm! We look at
the ark resting seven months upon the mountains of Ararat. What a lesson have
we here against impatience! Did Noah and his family complain that they had to
wait so long? Oh, no; on the contrary, we know the feelings of the mariner,
after a long and dangerous voyage, when he is becalmed within sight of his
native land, how he looks at the land and longs to spring upon the shore,--and
much more than that, probably, was Noah’s felling;--but nowmark his conduct: no
impatient prayer escapes his lips, no restlessness seems to disturb his mind,
his faith--as God will expect all faith to be--was a waiting faith. Not even
when the least drop of water had dried away would he venture to leave the ark
unbidden. God had shut the ark, and God, Noah knows, must open it. Not till the
welcome word is given, “Go forth,” will he presume to leave the place, how dark
and how drearisome soever that place may be. Now learn, from Noah’s example,
your line of duty under many a similar dispensation. Let us learn not to be
impatient--I do not say of forbidden pleasures, that would be an easy thing;
but do not be impatient of pleasure which it is permitted, nay, of pleasure
which it is commanded you to enjoy; no, not for heaven itself. If God has shut
any Noah in, be content to wait patiently till God shall open. It is your
confidence to sit still. Take another lesson from the resting of the ark. The
flood--the type of this our present life--was not yet half completed when Noah
found a resting place on earth. From that hour he is, indeed, to wait for many
a day before he shall be permitted to come forth; but from that hour Noah is
safe. He can thus change no more, for he is anchored on a Rock. Now just so may
it be with us on life’s long voyage. The time when it shall be good for us to
land on the eternal shore, God alone has fixed--be it ours to wait for it. Long
before our sojourn is nigh full--ay, at any time in all the course--we may find
a safe anchorage under the Rock of Ages; and from the happy moment when you
shall have been received upon a better mountain than that of Ararat, you will
feel that you will move no more. There may be a rising of the deep waters
around you, but you will be settled and at rest; and oh, how triumphant will
you look down on the waters and floods of this world’s struggles, while your
faith, standing high on the mountain of God, can feel that the foundations of
eternity are under you. (J. Vaughan, M. A.)
The ark resting
What a splendid spectacle! The resting of an eagle who, after
soaring half-way to the sun, and stretching across whole provinces; at last,
the light of the evening gleaming on her golden feathers, folds on the crag her
unwearied wing; the resting of a ship of the line at anchor after contending
all day with the angry billows; even the resting of the great moon, as if tired
with her long journey through the ether, upon some mount of pines or some hill
of snow--are only faint images of the sublimity of the scene, when the Wanderer
of the Waters, the God-built ship, its journey done, its work accomplished, its
glory gathered, its crew safe, the commencement of a new era of hope for earth
through it secured, calmly, and one would almost dream, consciously, reposes
upon the proud summit which God has prepared to bear its burden and to share in
its immortal fame. (G. Gilfillan.)
Safety
Noah anchored his ark to the Providence of God. No sails were
unfurled to the breeze, no oars were unshipped to move the lumbering ark, no
rudder was employed to steer. The Providence of God was deeper than the winds
and waves and contrary current; and to that, he fastened his barque with the
strong cable of faith. Hence the security of the ark with its living freight. (W.
Adamson.)
Security
When Alexander the Great was asked how he could sleep so soundly
and securely in the midst of surrounding danger, he replied that he might well
repose when Parmenis watched. Noah might well be in peace, since God had him in
charge. A gentleman, crossing a dreary moor, came upon a cottage. When about to
leave, he said to its occupant, “Are you not afraid to live in this lonely
place?” To this the man at once responded, “Oh! no, for faith closes the door
at night, and mercy opens it in the morning.” Thus was Noah kept during the
long night of the deluge; and mercy opened the door for him. (W. Adamson.)
Tops of the mountains seen
The emerging world
To realize this, let us suppose ourselves standing on a hill on a
September morning, surrounded by a sea of mist. Nothing for awhile is visible
but wild, rolling waves of dripping darkness, till at last the sun looks out, a
wind begins to blow, and then there loom forth, peak after peak, the hundred
hills around, starting up, as if newly created, from the gulf below, their
bases still bathed in mist, but their tops crowned with light, and resembling
the islands of some “melancholy main.” It is one of the sublimest of
spectacles, reminding you of the worlds rising out of chaos, of God’s “calling
the things that were not, and they appeared,” and compelling you, the
spectator, to uncover, as the mountains have doge, in the presence of the God
of day, although you see in him, what they do not, only the vicegerent of his
heavenly King. And similar, but still more striking, must have been to Noah’s
eye, as he stood on the sides of the resting ark, the sight of the ancient
landmarks of nature reappearing, the ridges of Taurus heaving up like islands
through the waters, their shows for the time melted, and perhaps over them all,
in the remote distance, the “Finger Mount” arising, relieved against, and
pointing significantly to the calm blue sky! Sight reminding us of the rising
of great buried truths, as at the Reformation, out of the darkness of ages;
struggling, too, to free themselves from the incrustations of error, as the
lion from the impediments of the Daedal earth, Sight reminding us of the
resurrection of great reputations buried under loads of calumny, or whelmed in
deluges of oblivion, into the light of general appreciation, and the
consecration of long-denied reverence and love. Sight reminding us of the
resurrection of the dead from their sepulchres--specially, shall we say, of the
resurrection of aged and venerable patriarchs, having left their hoary hairs in
the dust, arising to the vigour and freshness of immortal youth. (G.
Gilfillan.)
Verses 6-8
Noah opened the window of the ark
The judicious conduct of a good man in seeking to ascertain the
facts of life and his relation thereto
We observe:
I.
THAT
NOAH DID NOT EXHIBIT AN IMPETUOUS HASTE TO GET OUT OF THE CIRCUMSTANCES IN
WHICH GOD HAD PLACED HIM.
1. We see that God does sometimes place men in unwelcome positions.
2. That when God does place men in unwelcome positions, it is that
their own moral welfare may be enhanced.
3. That when men are placed in unwelcome positions they should not remove
from them without a Divine intimation.
II. THAT NOAH WAS
THOUGHTFUL AND JUDICIOUS IN ENDEAVOURING TO ASCERTAIN THE WILL OF GOD IN
REFERENCE TO HIS POSITION IN ITS RELATION TO THE CHANGING CONDITION OF THINGS.
1. Noah felt that the time was advancing for a change in his
position, and that it would be necessitated by the new facts of life.
2. Noah recognized the fact that the change in his position should
be preceded by devout thought and precaution.
III. THAT NOAH
EMPLOYED VARIED AND CONTINUOUS METHODS OF ASCERTAINING THE FACTS OF HIS
POSITION AND HIS DUTY IN RELATION THERETO.
1. These methods were varied.
2. Continuous.
3. Appropriate.
IV. THAT NOAH
YIELDED A PATIENT OBEDIENCE TO THE TEST OF CIRCUMSTANCES WHICH HE HAD EMPLOYED.
V. THAT INDICATIONS
OF DUTY ARE ALWAYS GIVEN TO THOSE WHO SEEK THEM DEVOUTLY. The dove returned to
Noah with the olive leaf. Men who seek prayerfully to know their duty in the
events of life, will surely have given to them the plain indications of
Providence. Lessons:--
1. That men should not trust their own reason alone to guide them in
the events of life.
2. That men who wish to know
the right path of life should employ the best talents God has given them.
3. That honest souls are divinely led. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)
Lessons
1. God in wisdom sometimes
lengthens trials to the proof of the faith and patience of His saints.
2. Believing saints though God appear not, will stay contentedly
forty days, that is, the time fit for His salvation.
3. Lawful means believers may use for their comfort, when there is
no immediate appearance of God. Noah opens the window which God forbids not (Genesis 8:6).
4. Visible experiments of the ceasing of God’s wrath may be desired
and used by His people where the Lord sets no bars.
5. Unclean, or the worst of creatures, may be of use sometimes to
comfort the Church. As the ravens fed Elijah.
6. Instinct of creatures from God teach His people of His
providences to them. (Genesis 8:7). (G. Hughes, B. D.)
Noah’s messengers
I. MESSENGERS
SELECTED. After long floating, during which time Noah would know little of what
was passing in the outer world, save that he heard the rain and tempest, the
ark grounded. Doubtless he would often look forth on the waste of waters. The
rapid evaporation, etc., would very much intercept a distant view. Fogs and
mists, etc. Hence to know the state of things beyond the reach of his vision he
would send forth messengers. Birds. Birds of swift and strong wing, and clear
vision. Land birds. Aquatic birds would not have returned. Birds that may be
domesticated and having local attachments. Hence they would return to the ark.
II. MESSENGERS
SENT FORTH.
III. MESSENGERS
RETURNING. Though Noah might not follow their far flight, they could see the
huge ark, to which also their unerring instinct--perhaps supernaturally--would
guide them. The joy of Noah on looking once more upon a branch of olive. One of
the most beautiful and useful of trees also. Learn--
1. Gratitude for that reason which adapts means to ends.
2. God’s creatures thus employed in the service of man.
3. The ark a type of Christ; and the dove and olive branch, of the
soul hastening with peaceful feelings and first fruits to Jesus. (J. C.
Gray.)
Raven and dove
Noah sent out the raven first, probably because it had been the
most companionable bird and seemed the wisest, preferable to “the silly dove”;
but it never came back with God’s message. And so has one often found that an
inquiry into God’s will, the examination, for example, of some portion of
Scripture, undertaken with a prospect of success and with good human helps, has
failed, and has failed in this peculiar raven like way; the inquiry has settled
down on some worthless point, on some rotting carcase, on some subject of
passing interest or worldly learning, and brings back no message of God to us.
On the other hand, the continued use, Sabbath after Sabbath, of God’s appointed
means, and the patient waiting for some message of God to come to us through
what seems a most unlikely messenger, will often be rewarded. It may be but a
single leaf plucked off that we get, but enough to convince us that God has
been mindful of our need, and is preparing for us a habitable, world. Many a
man is like the raven, feeding himself on the destruction of others, satisfied
with knowing how God has dealt with others. He thinks he has done his part when
he has found out who has been sinning and what been the result. But the dove
will not settle on any such resting place, and is dissatisfied until for
herself she can pluck off some token that God’s anger is turned away and that
now there is peace on earth. And if only you wait God’s time and renew your
endeavours to find such tokens, some assurance will be given you, some green
and growing thing, some living part, however small, of the new creation which
will certify you of your hope. (M. Dods, D. D.)
The bird on the mast
A sailing vessel was driven before the hurricane--a white bird
suddenly descended on the mast: the hearts of the crewwere cheered; hope dawned
. . . Such consolation may be always mine! One bright, holy, faithful thought
is my dove upon the mast. However sadly I toss over the waves of this
troublesome, weary world, that gentle bird of paradise revives and strengthens
me. It tells me that the storm will soon be over and gone, and the green land,
with the singing of birds, is come. (Wilmott.)
Verses 9-12
But the dove found no rest for the sole of her foot and she
returned unto him into the ark
The dove’s return to the ark
I.
LOOK
AT THE DOVE SETTING OUT UPON HER VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY. Why did she fly away?
1. Because she had wings. Natural instinct. So it is with us. Our
soul has many thoughts and many powers which make the spirit restless. If we
were without imagination, we might be content with the few plain truths which
we have so well known and proved; but having an imagination, we are often
dazzled by it, and we pant to know whether certain things which look like solid
verities really are so. If we had no reason, but could abide entirely in a
state of pure and simple faith, we might not be exposed to much of the
restlessness which now afflicts us, but reason will draw conclusions, ask
questions, suggest problems, raise inquiries, and vex us with difficulties.
Therefore, because our souls are moved by so vast a variety of thoughts, and possess
so many powers which are all restless and active, it is readily to be
understood, that while we are here in our imperfect state, our spirits should
be tempted to excursions of research and voyages of discovery, as though we
sought after some other object of love besides the one who still is dearer to
us than all the world besides.
2. Possibly there was another reason. This dove was once lodged in a
dovecote. Yes, the dovecote still has its attraction. The best of men have
still within them the seeds of those sins which make the worst of men so vile.
I marvel not that the dove flew away from the ark when she recollected her
dovecote, and I do not wonder that at seasons, the old remembrances get the
upper hand with our spirit, and we forget the Lord we love, and have a
hankering after sin.
3. Yet it would not be fair to forget that this dove was sent out by
Noah; so that whatever may have been the particular motives which ruled the
creature, there was a higher motive which ruled Noah who sent her out. Even so
there are times when the Lord permits His people to endure temptation.
II. Now MARK THE
DOVE AS SHE FINDS NO REST. No rest outside of Christ for intellect, heart,
conscience
III. WHY THE DOVE
COULD FIND NO REST FOR THE SOLE OF HER FOOT.
1. The dove had a will to find rest for the sole of her foot, but
she could not. It is not from want of will that I am compelled to say I cannot
find anything beneath these stars, nor within the compass of the skies, that
can satisfy my soul’s desires; I must get my God and have Him to fill my large
expectations, or I shall not be content. I mention these things because people
are apt to suppose that Christians are all a set of melancholy dyspeptics, who
put up with religion because there is nothing else that helps to make them to
be so happily miserable, and therefore they take to it as congenial with their
melancholy disposition; but it is not so; we are a cheerful, genial race, and
yet for all that we are not resting the sole of our foot anywhere in earthly
things.
2. Again, the reason why the dove could find no rest, was not
because she had no eye to see. I know not how far a dove’s eye can discern, but
it must be a very vast distance, perfectly incredible I should think. We see
the dove sometimes mount aloft: we can see nothing, and yet she perceives her
dovecote, and darts towards it. I know many Christians who are as quick in
apprehension as refined in taste, and as ready to appreciate anything that is
pleasurable as other men, and yet these men who are not fanatics, who are not
shut up to a narrow range of things, but whose vision can take in the whole
circle of sublunary delights, these men who have not only seen but even tasted,
yet bear their witness that like the dove they can find no rest for the sole of
their foot.
3. Moreover, the reason why the dove found no rest, was not because
she had no wings to reach it. So the Christian has power to enter into the
enjoyments of the world if he liked. Now, what was the reason then? It was not
want of will, it was not want of eye, nor was it want of wing--what was it? The
reason lay in this, that she was a dove. If she had been a raven, she would
have found plenty of rest for the sole of her foot. It was her nature that made
her unresting, and the reason why the Christian cannot find satisfaction in
worldly things is because there is a new nature within him that cannot rest.
“Up! up! up!” cries the new heart, “what hast thou to do here?”
IV. Being
disappointed, WHAT DID THE DOVE THEN DO? When she found there was no contentment
elsewhere, what then? She flew back to the ark. Josephus tells us that the dove
came back to Noah, with her wings and feet all wet and muddy. Some of you have
grown wet and muddy. You have been trying to find rest in the world, Christian,
and you have got mired with it.
V. I want you now
to turn your eye for a moment to THE VERY BEAUTIFUL SCENE, So it seems to me to
be, at the end of her return journey. Noah has been looking out for his dove
all day long. Mark that: “pulled her in unto him.” It seems to me to imply that
she did not fly right in herself, but was too fearful, or too weary. Did you
ever feel that blessed gracious pull, when your heart has been desiring to get
near to Christ? Lord! pull me in. (C. H.Spurgeon.)
The homebound dove--a lesson of faith
God has designed but one resting place for the soul, and that is
the restoration of peace between it and Himself. On Jesus’ breast we may lay
our weary heads. Here at last the dove finds a sure perch.
I. AS IT WANDERED
TO AND FRO, IT COULD FIND REST NOWHERE SAVE BY RETURNING TO THE ARK. There, and
only there, was rest. Oh, weary soul, have you Bet come to that point? You will
not come until you give up all confidence in your self-power.
II. “When the dove
came back, IT CAME WITHOUT ANYTHING. Bring no excuse.
III. God had
provided but ONE ARK. Only one name under heaven given among men, whereby we
must be saved.
IV. That ark had
only ONE WINDOW AND THAT WINDOW WAS OPEN. A woman, who was striving to find
rest for her soul, was sitting in her summer house, when in through an open
door flew a bird. It was alarmed, and flew up toward the roof, and tried to get
out at this window and at that. It flew from side to side until it panted with
fright and weariness. The woman said, “Poor bird, why do you not come down
lower, then you would see this open door, and you could fly out easily?” But
the bird kept wounding itself against the closed windows and at every crevice.
At last its wings grew tired, and it flew lower and lower until it was on a
level with the open door, when quickly it escaped, and soon its song was heard
in the trees of the churchyard near by. A new light dawned upon the mind of the
woman: “I, like that poor bird, through my pride and self-sufficiency, have
been flying too high to see the door which stands wide open.” Her heart was
humbled, and soon she too was singing songs of gladness. (T. L.Cuyler, D. D.)
If we, cannot be as we would, we must be as we can
The ark to the dove was like a prison, a place of restraint, and
not according to her kind, which was to fly abroad; yet, finding no rest,
rather than she will perish, she returneth to the same again. It may teach us
this, that better is a mischief than an inconvenience, if we cannot as we
would, we must as we can. I speak it against all heathenish and unchristian
like impatience. The heathens, rather than they would serve, they would kill
themselves. And many in these days, rather than they will suffer what God
imposeth, will do what God detesteth. Let it not be so. If we cannot be abroad
and at liberty, because God’s judgment against sin hath taken away our footing
in such or such sort, whilst it shall please Him let us be content; return, as
the clove did, to the place appointed, and thank Him for mercy even in that,
that yet there we live, and are not destroyed as others have been. (Bishop
Babington.)
A quaint epitaph
The following quaint epitaph has reference to a little girl buried
at the age of five months: “But the dove found no rest for the sole of her
foot, and she returned unto him into the ark.” (Old Testament Anecdotes.)
An olive leaf
The olive leaf
I. Let us look at
the profound, far-reaching SIGNIFICANCE OF THE GREEN LEAF in the mouth of the
dove, as the first production of a new and regenerated world.
1. In the first plaice, the green leaf is the great purifier of
nature. This is one of the most important offices which it was created to
fulfil. In the early ages of the earth, long before man came upon the scene,
the atmosphere was foul with carbonic acid gases, so poisonous that a few
inspirations of them would be sufficient to destroy life. These formed a dense
covering which kept in the steaming warmth of the earth, and nourished a rank
and luxuriant vegetation. Gigantic ferns, tree mosses, and reeds grew with
extraordinary rapidity, and absorbed these noxious gases into their own
structures, consolidating them into leaves, stems, and branches, which in the
course of long ages grew and decayed, and by subtle chemical processes and
mechanical arrangements were changed into coal beds under the earth. In this
wonderful way two great results were accomplished at the same time and by the
same means--the atmosphere was purified and made fit for the breathing of man,
and animals useful to man, and vast stores of fuel were prepared to enable
future generations to subdue the earth and spread over it the blessings of
civilization. And what the green leaves of the early geological forests did for
the primeval atmosphere of the world, the green leaves of our woods and fields
are continually doing for our atmosphere still. They absorb the foul air caused
by the processes of decay and combustion going on over the earth, and by the
breathing of men and animals, and convert this noxious element into the useful
and beautiful products of the vegetable kingdom. They preserve the air in a
condition fit for human breathing. These considerations will show us how
significant it was that the first object of the new world that was about to
emerge from the flood should be a green leaf. It was a symbol, a token to Noah
that the world would be purified from the pollution of those unnatural sins
which had brought death and destruction upon it, and would once more be fitted
to be the home of a peculiar people zealous of good works. What the green leaf
is in nature the leaves of the tree of life are in the spiritual sphere. The
gospel of Jesus Christ, which the Heavenly Dove carries to the homes and the
hearts of men, is the great purifier of the world.
2. In the second place, the green leaf is the source of all the life
of the world. It is by its agency alone that inert inorganic matter is changed
into organic matter, which furnishes the starting point of all life. Nowhere
else on the face of the earth does this most important process take place.
Everything else consumes and destroys. The green leaf alone conserves and
creates. In this light how suitable it was that an olive leaf freshly plucked
should have been the first object brought to Noah in the ark! For just as the
green leaf is the means in the natural world of counteracting all the
destructive forces that are reducing its objects to dust and ashes, and
clothing its surface with vegetable and animal life, so the olive leaf in the
mouth of the dove spoke to Noah of the undoing of the work of destruction
caused by the flood, and of the raising up of a new and fairer creation out of
the universal wreck. And just as all this beautiful world of life and joy is
the product of the work of the green leaf, so all that mankind has achieved and
enjoyed since the flood--the great results of civilization and the still
greater results of redemption--arose out of the work of grace whose dawning the
green leaf intimated, and whose operation it typified. For sin and grace are in
constant antagonism--like the force of the fire that burns everything to ashes,
and the force of the green leaf that builds up life and beauty out of the
ashes; and God has suffered sin to continue because He knows that grace can
conquer it, strip its spoils, and convert its ruins into higher and nobler
forms of life.
3. In the third place, the green leaf is the best conductor of
electricity--that most powerful and destructive of all the forces of the earth.
A twig covered with leaves, sharpened by nature’s exquisite workmanship, is
said to be three times as effectual as the metallic points of the best
constructed rod. And when we reflect how many thousands of these vegetable
points every large tree directs to the sky, and consider what must be the
efficacy of a single forest with its innumerable leaves, or of a single meadow
with its countless blades of grass, we see how abundant the protection from the
storm is, and with what care Providence has guarded us from the destructive
force. And was not that green leaf which came to Noah in the ark God’s
lightning conductor? Did it not bear down harmlessly the destructive power of
heaven? Did it not assure Noah that the wrath of God was appeased, that the
storm was over, and that peace and safety could once more be enjoyed upon the
earth? And is not He to whose salvation that leaf pointed--who is Himself the
“Branch”--God’s lightning conductor to us? He bore the full force of the
Father’s wrath due to sin; He endured the penalty which we deserved; and having
smitten the shepherd, the sheep for whom He laid down His life are deathless
and unharmed. He is now our refuge from the storm; and under His shadow we are
safe from all evil.
4. In the fourth place, the green leaf is the source of all the
streams and rivers in the world. It is by the agency of the leaf that water
circulates as the life blood of the globe. And how appropriately in this light
did the green leaf come to Noah as the earnest and the instrument of the
rearrangement of a world which had been reduced to a desert by the punishment
of man’s sin! That leaf assured him that the old rivers would flow again; that
the former fields would smile anew; that the forests would, as in previous
times, cover the earth with their shadow; and that all the conditions of seed
time and harvest, and of a pleasant and useful home for man, would be present
as of yore. And is not the Heavenly Dove bringing to us in the ark of our
salvation a leaf of the tree of life, whose leaves are for the healing of the
nations, as a token that beyond the destructive floods of earth, beyond the
final conflagration in which all things shall be burned up, the river of life
will flow again; and amid the green fields of the paradise restored the Lamb
shall lead us to living fountains of waters, and God shall wipe away all tears
from our eyes?
5. In the fifth place, the green leaf is the type upon which the
forms of all life are moulded, All organisms, whether animal or vegetable, are
similar in their elementary structure and form; and the most complicated
results are attained by the simplest conceivable means, and that without the
slightest violation of the original plan of nature. Thoreau has said that the
whole earth is but a gigantic leaf, in which the rivers and streams resemble
the veins, and the mountains and plains the green parts: And did not He who
sent the dove with the olive leaf to Noah thereby assure him that out of that
leaf would be evolved the whole fair world of vegetable and animal life, which
for a while had perished beneath the waters of the flood; that it would be reconstructed
upon the old type and developed according to the old pattern? And did not He
who developed this great world of life out of the single leaf develop all the
great scheme of grace, all the wondrous history of redemption, out of the first
simple promise to our first parents after their fall? Amid all the varying
dispensations of His providence He has been without variableness or shadow of
turning, unfolding more and more the germinating fulness of the same glorious
plan of grace.
II. Of all the
green leaves of the earth it was MOST FITTING THAT THE OLIVE LEAF SHOULD HAVE
BEEN SELECTED as the first product of the new restored world. The olive tree
spreads over a large area of the earth; it combines in itself the flora of the
hills and the plains. It clothes with shade and beauty and slopes where no
other vegetation would grow. It extracts by a vegetable miracle nourishment and
fatness from the driest air and the barest rock; on it may be seen at the same
time opening and full-blown blossoms, and green and perfectly ripe fruit. Each
bough is laden with a wealth of promise and fulfilment; beauty for the eye and
bounty for the palate. No tree displays such a rich profusion and succession of
flowers and fruits. It is the very picture of prosperity and abundance. Its
very gleanings are more plentiful than the whole harvest of other trees. It
strikingly illustrates, therefore, the overflowing goodness of the Lord, to
whom belong the earth and the fulness thereof. What the olive leaf began in
Noah’s case was consummated under the olive trees of Gethsemane. He who
destroyed the antediluvian sinners by the flood endured the contradiction of
greater and more aggravated sinners against Himself. He who sent the flood as a
punishment for sin, now suffered it Himself in a more terrible form as an
atonement for sin. The olive leaf of Noah’s dove showed that God’s strange work
was done, and that He had returned to the essential element of His nature, and
love shone forth again. The olive leaves of Gethsemane, that thrilled with the
fear of the great agony that took place beneath them, tell us that “God so
loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in
Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” What sweeter message, what
dearer hope, could come to us in our sins and sorrows than this! (H.
Macmillan, D. D.)
Lessons
1. God’s delay of answer and
His saints waiting are fitly coupled.
2. God’s gracious ones are of a contented, waiting and hoping frame.
3. Faith will expect from seven to seven, from week to week, to
receive answers of peace from God.
4. After waiting, faith will make trial of lawful means again and
again. It will add messenger to messenger (Genesis 8:10).
5. Waiting believers shall receive some sweet return by use of means
in God’s time.
6. He that sends out for God is most likely to have return from Him.
7. Visible tokens of God’s wrath ceasing sometimes He is pleased to
vouchsafe to His.
8. It concerns God’s saints to consider His signal discoveries of
grace, to know them, and gather hope and comfort from them. (G. Hughes, B.
D.)
Servants good and bad
First, mark the often sending of the dove, when the raven goeth
but once. It showeth the difference of a good servant and a bad. The first is
often used, because he is faithful and true; the latter but once, because then
he is found to be a raven, more heeding the carrions that his nature regardeth
than performing his message which his sender desireth. The praise of these two
fowls, how they differ in this place for their service we all see, and it
should thus profit us as to prick us to the good and affray us from the evil.
In some place or other we are all servants, as these fowls were, to God, to prince,
to master, to some or other. Let us be doves, that they may often use us; let
us not be ravens, that they may justly refuse us. Secondly, in the dove’s not
returning any more let us mark a type of the saints of God, that having sundry
times discharged the truth of their places, as the dove did, at last have their
departure out of the ark--that is, out of this life and Church militant--and,
finding rest for their foot in God’s blessed kingdom, return no more to the ark
again, but there continue and abide forever. (Bp. Babington.)
The returning dove
Noah stayed upon this seven days, and then sent out the dove
again, saith the text, which returned to him in the evening, bringing in her
mouth an olive leaf which she had plucked, whereby Noah knew the waters were
abated. This dove may note the preachers also of the Word again, who bring in
their mouths some good tidings to the ark--that is, to the Church; and every
good news may be compared also to an olive leaf, and the tellers to doves. That
good news that the women brought to the disciples, that Christ was risen, was
like an olive leaf in their mouths, and they like this dove in this place. So
all others. Read 2 Kings 7:1-20, of the good news of
the lepers, and 2 Samuel 18:27. “He is a good man,”
saith David, “and cometh with good tidings.” So good men and women have words
of comfort in their mouths, when others have the poison of asps under their
tongues; they have olive leaves to cheer up Noah and his company withal, when
others have wormwood and gall to make their hearts ache with the bitterness
thereof. Such does God make us evermore, and if this be regarded of us, we will
endeavour it. (Bp. Babington.)
Verse 13-14
Noah removed the covering of the ark
Noah’s first consciousness of safety after the deluge
I.
He
would probably be impressed with the GREATNESS OF THE CALAMITY HE HAD ESCAPED.
The roaring waters had subsided, but they had wrought a terrible desolation,
they had reduced the earth to a vast charnel house; every living voice is
hushed, and all is silent as the grave. The patriarch, perhaps, would feel two
things in relation to this calamity.
1. That it was the result of sin.
2. That it was only a faint type of the final judgment.
II. He would
probably be impressed with the EFFICACY OF THE REMEDIAL EXPEDIENT. How would he
admire the ark that had so nobly battled with the billows and so safely
weathered the storm!
1. This expedient was Divine. Christianity, the great expedient for
saving souls from the deluge of moral evil, is God’s plan. “What the law could
not do, in that it was weak through the flesh.” Philosophy exhausted itself in
the trial.
2. This expedient alone was effective. When the dreadful storm came,
we may rest assured that every one of that terror-stricken generation would
seize some scheme to rescue him from the doom. “There is no other name,” etc.
3. The expedient was only effective to those who committed
themselves to it.
III. He would
probably be impressed with the WISDOM OF HIS FAITH IN GOD. He felt now--
1. That it was wiser to believe in the Word of God than to trust to
the conclusions of his own reason.
2. That it was wiser to believe in the Word of God than to trust to
the uniformity of nature.
3. That it was wiser to believe in God’s Word than to trust to the
current opinion of his contemporaries. (Homilist.)
Lessons
1. The giving in of one step
of mercy maketh God’s saints to wait for more.
2. God’s gracious ones desire to let patience have its perfect work
towards God.
3. The saint’s disposition is to have experience of mercy by trying
means, as well as to wait for it.
4. In the withholding of return of means may be the return of mercy.
Though the dove stay, yet mercy cometh.
5. Providence promotes the comfort of saints when He seems to stop
them, as in staying the clove (Genesis 8:12).
6. As times of special mercy are recorded by God, so they should be
remembered by the Church.
7. At His appointed periods God measures out mercy unto His Church.
8. The saints’ patient waiting would God have recorded, as well as
His performing mercies.
9. As mercies move to God’s Church, so He moveth His saints to
remove veils and meet them.
10. Manifestations of mercies God vouchsafeth His, as well as mercy
itself.
11. Several periods of time God takes to perfect salvation to His
Church.
12. After all patient waiting, in God’s full time full and complete
mercy and salvation is given into His Church (Genesis 8:13). (G. Hughes, B. D.)
Verses 15-19
Noah went forth
Man’s going forth after the judgments of God -
I.
THAT
HE GOES FORTH UPON THE DIVINE COMMAND (Genesis 8:15-17).
1. That Noah was counselled to go forth from the ark on a day ever
to be remembered.
2. That Noah was commanded to go forth from the ark when the earth
was dry.
II. THAT HE GOES
FORTH IN REFLECTIVE SPIRIT. We can readily imagine that Noah would go forth
from the ark in very reflective and somewhat pensive mood.
1. He would think of the multitudes who had been drowned in the
great waters.
2. He would think of his own immediate conduct of life, and of the
future before him.
III. THAT HE GOES
FORTH IN COMPANY WITH THOSE WHO HAVE SHARED HIS SAFETY.
1. He goes forth in company with the relatives of his own family.
God permitted the family of Noah to be with him in the ark, to relieve his
solitude, to aid his efforts, to show the protective influence of true piety;
and now they are to join him in the possession of the regenerated earth, that
they may enjoy its safety and aid its cultivation.
2. He goes forth in company with the life-giving agencies of the
universe. (J. S.Exell, M. A.)
Verse 20
And Noah builded an altar unto the Lord
Noah’s sacrifice
I.
THERE
IS AN EVIDENT DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE SACRIFICE OF NOAH AND THOSE OF CAIN AND
ABEL. Here, under God’s guidance, the mound of turf gives place to the altar
which is built. An idea is discovered in the dignity of the inferior creatures;
the worthiest are selected for an oblation to God; the fire which consumes, the
flame which ascends, are used to express the intention of him who presents the
victim.
II. WE MUST FEEL
THAT THERE WAS AN INWARD PROGRESS IN THE HEART OF MAN corresponding to this
progress in his method of uttering his submission and his aspirations. Noah
must have felt that he was representing all human beings; that he was not
speaking what was in himself so much as offering the homage of the restored
universe.
III. THE FOUNDATION
OF SACRIFICE IS LAID IN THE FIXED WILL OF GOD in His fixed purpose to assert
righteousness; in the wisdom which adapts its means to the condition of the
creature for whose sake they are used. The sacrifice assumes eternal right to
be in the Ruler of the universe, all the caprice to have come from man, from
his struggle to be an independent being, from his habit of distrust. When trust
is restored by the discovery that God means all for his good, then he brings
the sacrifice as a token of his surrender. (F. D. Maurice, M. A.)
I. That worship
should succeed every act of Divine deliverance.
Sacrificial worship
The text teaches--
II. That sacrifice
is the only medium through which acceptable service can be rendered. Noah’s
sacrifice expressed--
1. A feeling of supreme thankfulness.
2. A feeling of personal guilt.
III. That no act of
worship escapes Divine notice.
IV. That human
intercession vitally affects the interests of the race. (J. Parker, D. D.)
The devout conduct of a good man after a special deliverance from
imminent danger
I. THAT NOAH
GRATEFULLY ACKNOWLEDGED HIS DELIVERANCE AS FROM GOD.
II. THAT NOAH
DEVOUTLY OFFERED TO GOD A SACRIFICE IN TOKEN OF HIS DELIVERANCE.
1. This sacrifice was the natural outcome of Noah’s gratitude.
2. This sacrifice was not precluded by any excuse consequent upon the
circumstances of Noah.
III. That the
sacrifice of Noah was ACCEPTABLE TO GOD AND PREVENTIVE OF FURTHER EVIL TO THE
WORLD.
1. It was fragrant.
2. It was preventive of calamity.
3. It was preservative of the natural agencies of the universe. (J.
S.Exell, M. A.)
Noah’s offering on coming forth from the ark, and its results
I. THE OCCASION
ON WHICH THIS OFFERING WAS MADE.
1. How impressively would Noah and his family be reminded of the
Divine forbearance which had been displayed to the whole world.
2. With what solemn awe would Noah and his family now view the earth
bearing on every part of its surface the marks of recent vengeance.
3. With what adoring and grateful feeling would Noah and his family
view their own preservation on this occasion.
II. ITS NATURE.
1. An expression of gratitude.
2. An acknowledgment of dependence.
3. A lively exhibition of his faith in the future atonement, as well
as an appropriate testimony that his recent preservation was owing to the
efficacy of that atonement.
III. ITS RESULTS.
1. The offering was accepted.
2. The promise which was given.
3. The covenant which was made. (Sketches of Sermons.)
Priest, altar, sacrifice
1. A believing priest.
2. A sanctified altar.
3. A clean sacrifice.
4. A type of Christ. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)
Fragrant offerings
I. NOAH’S
SACRIFICIAL OFFERINGS.
1. Observe WHAT HE OFFERED.
2. See how he offered.
II. THE LORD’S
GRACIOUS ACCEPTANCE THEREOF.
1. The Lord accepts a limited offering, if it be our best.
2. It is the sacrifice of faith which pleases God.
3. The Lord loves gratitude in return for mercies received.
4. The Lord visits the remnant of His people where there is family
devotion.
5. In seeking to please God, the Christian secures richest
blessings. (The Congregational Pulpit.)
Noah’s sacrifice blessing the world; and God’s decree for all
nature
I. THE ACCEPTANCE
OF NOAH’S SACRIFICE AND ITS TYPICAL IMPORT.
1. Look at the acceptance of Noah’s sacrifice.
2. Noah’s sacrifice was typical of Christ’s, and like His brought a
blessing on the world.
II. THE WISE
ECONOMY OF GOD, IN HIS WISE LAWS OF NATURE FOR TEMPORAL BLESSINGS.
1. The wisdom and benevolence of God are visible in the variety of
the seasons, and in the profusion of earthly blessings.
2. The wisdom of God is visible for faith in all His providential
arrangements for the good of the world.
III. PRACTICAL
REFLECTIONS.
1. Reflect that it is because of Christ’s sacrifice the whole world
is blessed.
2. Reflect how God deals with sinful men in great long suffering
mercy.
3. Reflect and remember that the Lord Jesus shall stand like Noah,
when a deluge of fire rolls over this world. (J. G. Angley, M. A.)
The worshippers of the new world
1. It was an altar of
obedience. With Noah the will of God was paramount. What is religion but
obedience?--“the obedience of faith”--of which the entire simplicity
constitutes its true perfection. Noah’s career in the new world began in the
spirit of essential obedience. At the command, “Go forth,” the Ark is deserted;
and, doubtless, in the spirit of faith the altar was erected.
2. It was an altar of gratitude and dedication. Noah was grateful to
his Almighty Friend; and, as gratitude is a quality which loses its fragrance
by delay, so he postponed every business and consideration to the thankful
acknowledgment of his mercies.
3. It was an altar of propitiation. This is its most important
feature. Worship and sacrifice are incorporated and identified from the
beginning of the world. Man was always a sinner. He could never approach his
Maker in any other character.
4. The altar of Noah was a family altar. He was the priest of his
family. He required their presence before the throne of grace. He persuaded
them to assist in praising God, and in making a covenant by sacrifice. A family
altar is, transcendently and incalculably, a family blessing. With Noah, the
worship of God was the first business he attended to. He lacked neither calls
of necessity nor momentous cares; but he postponed all ether considerations to
the service of God. Not like the majority amongst us, who fancy that they have
too much to do to devote any time to religion. In the patriarch’s worship there
was no trace of selfishness. Many think there is no worship like free worship,
and are most willing to pray where they have little to pay. What a reproof may
they find in Noah! The seventh part of his whole stock and substance he
dedicated to God. He reasoned not about future wants, but made an instant and
“a whole burnt offering” to his Maker. He did it because it was God’s appointment.
(C. Burton, LL. D.)
Verse 21
The Lord smelled a sweet savour
The sweet savour
How important is it, that this truth shall be as a sun without a
speck before us! Hence the Spirit records that, when Noah shed the blood which
represented Christ, “The Lord smelled a sweet savour.
” Thus the curtains of God’s pavilion are thrown back; and each attribute
appears rejoicing in redemption. The Lamb is offered, and there is fragrance
throughout heaven. First, let Justice speak. Its claim strikes terror. It has a
right to one unbroken series of uninterrupted obedience through all life’s
term. Each straying of a thought from perfect love incurs a countless debt.
Here Jesus pays down a death, the worth of which no tongue can reckon. Justice
holds scales, which groan indeed under mountains upon mountains of iniquity:
but this one sacrifice more than outweighs the pile. Thus Justice rejoices,
because it is infinitely honoured. Next, there is a sweet savour here to the
Truth of God. If Justice is unyielding, so too is Truth. Its yea is yea; its
nay is nay. It speaks, and the word must be. Heaven and earth may pass away,
but it cannot recede. Now its voice is gone forth, denouncing eternal wrath on
every sin. Thus it bars heaven’s gates with bars of adamant. In vain are tears,
and penitence, and prayers. Truth becomes untrue, if sin escapes. But Jesus
comes to drink the cup of vengeance. Every threat falls on His head. Truth
needs no more. It claps the wings of rapturous delight, and speeds to heaven to
tell that not one word has failed. Need I add that Jesus is a sweet savour to
the holiness of God. Sweet too is the savour which mercy here inhales. Mercy
weeps over misery. In all afflictions it is afflicted. Is tastes the bitterest
drop in each cup of woe. But when anguish is averted, the guilty spared, the
perishing rescued, and all tears wiped from the eyes of the redeemed, then is
its holiest triumph. (Dean Law.)
What does God see in the sacrifice of His Son to please Him?
1. The reflection of His own love.
2. The vindication of His righteousness. God prescribes the
sacrifice in order that He may be just when He justifies (Romans 3:25-26).
3. The willingness of the self-devotion.
4. The prospect of pure service. Human nature, in Christ’s obedience
and death, is purified and restored. Noah’s sacrifice might be compared to a
morning prayer at the dawn of a new epoch in human history. It was a dedication
of restored humanity to the service of God, the Deliverer. The hope of the
human race consists in possessing acceptable access unto God. This we have in
Jesus Christ, by the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 2:18; Ephesians 3:12; Hebrews 10:19-22). (W. S. Smith, B. D.)
The imagination of man’s
heart is evil from his youth
Man’s tendency to go wrong
I. These words
were said by our Maker more than four thousand years ago, and they have been
true ever since down to this very hour. There is so much more bad than good in
us that we should certainly go wrong if left to ourselves, and the bias of our
nature to evil is so strong that it can only be corrected by changing the very
nature itself; or, in the words of Scripture, by being born again of the
Spirit. Everything is properly called good or evil according as it answers or
defeats the purpose for which it was made. We were made for our Maker’s glory,
after His own image, that we should make His will the rule of our lives, and
His love and anger the great objects of our hope and fear; that we should live
in Him, and for Him, and to Him, as our constant Guide and Master and Father.
If we answer these ends, then we are good creatures; if we do not, we are bad
creatures. Nor does it matter how many good or amiable qualities we may
possess; like the blossoms or leaves of a barren fruit tree, we are bad of our
kind if we do not bring forth fruit.
II. Now, instead
of living to God, we by nature care nothing about God; we live as if we had
made ourselves, not as if God had made us. This is the corruption of our
nature, which makes us evil in the sight of God. Christ alone can make us sound
from head to foot. He alone can give us a new and healthy nature; He alone can
teach us so to live as to make this world a school for heaven. All that is
wanted is that we should see our need of Him, and fly to Him for aid. (T.
Arnold, D. D.)
Human depravity and Divine mercy
I. A MOST PAINFUL
FACT. Man’s nature is incurable. The statement of Scripture is corroborated
by--
1. The confessions of God’s people.
2. Our own observation.
II. GOD’S
EXTRAORDINARY REASONING. Good reasoning, but most extraordinary. He says, “I
will not again curse the ground any more for man’s sake; for the imagination of
man’s heart is evil from his youth.” Strange logic! In the sixth chapter, He
said man was evil, and therefore He destroyed him. In the eighth chapter, He
says man is evil from his youth, and therefore He will not destroy him. Strange
reasoning! to be accounted for by the little circumstance in the beginning of
the verse, “The Lord smelled a sweet savour.” There was a sacrifice there; that
makes all the difference. When God looks on sin apart from sacrifice, Justice
says, Smite! Smite! Curse! Destroy!” But when there is a sacrifice God looks on
us with eyes of mercy, and though Justice says, “Smite!” He says, “No, I have
smitten My dear Son; I have smitten Him, and will spare the sinner.” Rightly
upon the terms of Justice, there is no conceivable reason why He should have
mercy upon us, but grace makes and invents a reason.
III. INFERENCES. If
the heart be so evil, then it is impossible for us to enter heaven as we are.
Another step; then it is quite clear that if I am to enter heaven no outward
reform will ever do it, for if I wash my face, that does not change my heart. (C.
H. Spurgeon.)
Man’s natural imaginations
I. OF MAN’S
NATURAL THOUGHTS CONCERNING GOD.
1. Of this thought there is no God.
2. That the word of God is foolishness.
3. I will not obey God’s word.
4. It is a vain thing to worship God.
5. Of man’s thought of distrust--God will not regard, or be merciful
to me.
II. OF MAN’S
NATURAL THOUGHTS AGAINST HIS NEIGHBOUR
1. Thoughts of dishonour.
2. Thoughts of murder.
3. Thoughts of adultery.
III. OF MAN’S
NATURAL THOUGHTS CONCERNING HIMSELF.
1. Man’s proud thoughts of his own excellency.
2. Man’s proud thoughts of his own righteousness.
3. Man’s thought of security in the day of peace.
IV. OF THE WANT OF
GOOD THOUGHTS IN EVERY MAN NATURALLY.
1. Good thoughts about temporal things are much wanting.
2. In spiritual things they are much wanting.
3. The fruits of this want of good thoughts.
4. The timely preventing of evil thoughts by good parents and
teachers.
5. The repentance of evil thoughts.
V. RULES FOR THE
REFORMATION OF EVIL THOUGHTS.
1. They must be brought into obedience to God.
2. The guarding of our hearts.
3. The consideration of God’s presence.
4. The consideration of God’s judgments. (W. Perkins.)
Punishment not reformative
The first thing we learn after this solemn declaration is that
there is to be no more smiting of every living thing, plainly showing that mere
destruction is a failure. I do not say that destruction is undeserved or
unrighteous, but that it is, as a reformative arrangement, a failure as regards
the salvation of survivors. We can see men slain for doing wrong, and can in a
day or two after the event do the very things which cost them their lives! It
might be thought that one such flood as this would have kept the world in order
forever, whereas men now doubt whether there ever was such a flood, and repeat
all the sins of which the age of Noah was guilty. You would think that to see a
man hanged would put an end to ruffianism forever; whereas, history goes to
show that within the very shadow of the gallows men hatch the most detestable
and alarming crimes. Set it down as a fact that punishment, though necessary
even in its severest forms, can never regenerate the heart of man. From this
point, then, we have to deal with a history the fundamental fact of which is
that all the actors are as bad as they can possibly be. “There is none
righteous, no not one.” “There is not a just man upon the earth that doeth good
and sinneth not.” (J. Parker, D. D.)
The end answered by the deluge
It must have been a day of intense solemnity; and if ever men
could be struck with awe, if ever men could feel their spirits bowed down and
overwhelmed by the tremendousness of God--those who now presented that
sacrifice, the lonely wreck of anunnumbered population, must have crouched, and
trembled, and been full of the most earnest humility. And possibly they might
have thought that, since the wicked were removed, a moral renovation would pass
over mankind, and that themselves and their posterity would differ altogether
from the ungodly race which had perished in the waters. It could not have
seemed improbable that, after removing the multitude which had provoked Him by
their impieties, God would raise up a people who should love Him and honour
Him, seeing that, if there was to be the same provocation of wickedness, there
was nothing to be looked for but a recurrence of the deluge; and if this earth
were to be again and again the theatre of the same provocations and the same
vengeance, it would be hard to say why God spared a remnant, or why He allowed
the rebellious race to be continued and multiplied. Yet, however natural it
might have been for Noah and his sons to calculate on a moral improvement in
the species, it is certain that after the flood, men were just the same fallen creatures
that they had been before the flood. There had been effected no change whatever
on human nature, neither had God destroyed the wicked, expecting the new
tenantry would be more obedient and more righteous than the old. And it is
every way remarkable, that the reason which is given why God sent one deluge is
given as the reason why God sent not a second deluge. He sent one flood because
“the imagination of man’s thoughts was only evil continually”; and He resolved
that He would not send another flood because--or, at least, though--this evil
imagination remained unsubdued. Now, it is scarcely necessary for us to remark
that wickedness must at all times be equal in God’s sight; and that however
various the modes by which He sees fit to oppose it, He is alike earnest in
punishing it. Why, then, did He not follow the same plan throughout? Or why did
He administer once that punishment which He thought fit not to repeat? Such
questions, you observe, are not merely speculative. If God Himself had not
given the same reason for sparing as for smiting, we might have thought that
the flood had made a change in the moral circumstances of our race, and there
was not again the same intense provocation; but when we hear from the lips of
Jehovah Himself, that there was precisely as much after the deluge as before,
yea, that He refrained from cursing in the face of that very wickedness, we are
only endeavouring to be wise up to what is written in searching out the reason
for the change in God’s conduct.
I. SINCE A FLOOD WAS
AS MUCH CALLED FOR TWICE AS ONCE, WHY SHOULD IT HAVE BEEN SENT ONCE, THE
PROVOCATION BEING JUST THE SAME, AND YET THE DEALING MOST DIFFERENT? WAS ANY
END ANSWERED BY THE DELUGE? Now, our first thought on finding that there was
just the same reason for destroying the world twice as for destroying it once
is, that no end was answered by the deluge which might not have been answered
without a deluge. But though it is most certain that there was as much
provocation after as before the deluge, it is a most unwarranted conclusion
that no great ends were answered by the deluge. The deluge was God’s sermon
against sin, whose echoes will be heard until the consummation of all things.
We give no harbourage for a moment--we know there could be nothing more false than
the opinion--that the antediluvians must have been more wicked than ourselves
because visited with signal and unequivocal punishment: but if you infer from
this that the flood was unnecessary, that the antediluvians might as well have
been spared as their successors, we at once deny the conclusion. Had there
never been a flood, we should have wanted our most striking attestation to the
truth of the Bible. We are prepared to contend that, in bringing water upon the
earth, God was wondrously providing for the faith of every coming generation,
and was writing in characters which no time can efface, and no ingenuity prove
to be forgeries, that He hates sin with perfect hatred, and will punish it with
rigid punishment. But it is important to bear in mind that, when God visibly
interferes for the punishment of wickedness, there are some ends of His moral
government to be answered, over and above that of the chastisement of the
unrighteous. Ordinarily God delays taking vengeance till the last day of
account; and we judge erroneously if we judge from God’s dealings with man on
this side eternity. When there is a direct interposition, such as the deluge,
we may be sure it answers other designs besides that of punishing
unrighteousness: and before, therefore, we can show that there was the same
reason for a second deluge as for one, we must not only show there was the same
amount of wickedness, and the same evil in the imagination of the heart--we
must show there was the same end of moral government to be answered, over and
above that of the punishment of the rebellious. And here it is you will feel
established in the belief that a great lesson was recorded as to God’s hatred
of sin, and His determination to destroy, sooner or later, the impenitent. And
God furnished this lesson, so that ages have obliterated no letter of the
record, by bringing a flood on the earth, and burying in the womb of waters the
unnumbered tribes that crowded its continents. But the lesson required not to
be repeated; it was sufficient that it should be given once--sufficient, seeing
that it is still so powerful and persuasive that it leaves inexcusable all who
persist in rejecting it.
II. We propose to
seek an answer to the inquiry, WHETHER LONG SUFFERING CAN PRODUCE THE SAME
RESULTS AS PUNISHING. And this, after all, is the question most forcibly
presented in our text. Whether God smites, or whether He spares, we know He
must have the same objects in view--the promotion of His own glory and the
well-being of the universe. But how comes it, then, to pass that it was best at
one time to smite, and at another time to spare? We have given a reason for one
deluge, which could not be given for a second. The lesson of the deluge was to
be spread over the whole surface of time; and thus the one act of punishment
was to have its effect throughout the season of long suffering. Punishment was
a necessary preliminary to long suffering, to prevent the abuse of long
suffering. God is only taking consecutive steps in one and the same design; and
if we are right in saying that punishment was necessarily preliminary to long
suffering, than even a child can perceive that God was only acting out the same
arrangement when He said, “I will not spare,” and when He said, “I will spare,
for the imagination of man’s heart is evil.” It is as though He said, “I might
send flood after flood, and leave again only an insignificant fraction of the
population; but the evil lies deep in the heart, and would not be swept away by
the immensity of waters. I might deal with succeeding generations as I have
with this very one; and as soon as the earth sent up new harvests of
wickedness, I might come forth, and put in the scythe of My vengeance; but
after all there would be no renovation, and evil would still be predominant in
this section of the creation. Therefore I will be long suffering; nothing but
longsuffering can affect My purpose, for nothing but an atonement can reconcile
the fallen; and long suffering is nothing but the atonement anticipated. I will
not, then, again curse the ground, for man’s imaginations are evil. I will not
curse--the evil will not be grappled with by the curse--the evil would not go
away before the curse. If the evil were not in the very heart, it might be
eradicated by judgment; if it were not engraven into the very bone and sinew
and spirit, it might be washed out by the torrent; and I would again curse. But
it is an evil for which there must be expiation; it is an evil which can only
be done away by sacrifice, it is an evil which can only be exterminated by the
entering in of Deity into that nature.” It is thus that, so far as we can
judge, without overstraining the passage, the corruption of human nature will
furnish a reason why there was no repetition of the deluge. God’s object was
not to destroy, but to reconcile the world: and the reconciliation could not be
effected by judgments; the machinery must be made up of mercies. Judgments
might make way for mercies, but they could not do the work of mercies.
Punishment was preliminary to sparing, but punishment continued would not have
effected the object of the Almighty. So that long suffering was the only engine
by which the machinery could be mastered. The whole of Christ’s work was
gathered, so to speak, into long suffering.
III. But who can
give himself to an inquiry which has to do with the cause or reason of the
deluge, and not feel his attention drawn to the TYPICAL CHARACTER of that
tremendous event? The history of the world before the flood is nothing but the
epitome of the history of the world up to that grand consummation, the second
coming of the Lord. And if we wanted additional reasons why one deluge should
be sent and not a second, we might find it in the fact that all the affairs of
time shall be wound up by a single visitation. The antediluvian world had been
dealt with by the machinery of the most extensive loving kindness: the Almighty
had long borne with the wickedness of the earth; and it was not till every
overture had been despised that He allowed Himself to strike. Shall it not be
thus with the world of the unrighteous? Wonderful has been the long suffering
of the Almighty: and as there has gone on the building of the ark--as the
Church of Christ has been gathered and cemented and enlarged, the voice and
entreaties of ministers and missionaries have circulated through Christianity;
and the despiser has been continually told, sternly, and reproachfully, and
affectionately, that a day will yet burst upon the creation, when all who are
not included in the ark shall be tossed on the surges and buried in the depths
of a fiery sea. But as the time of the end draws near, the warning will grow
louder, and the entreaty more urgent, that all men put away their wickedness,
and prepare themselves for meeting their Judge. (H. Melvill, B. D.)
Verse 22
While the earth remaineth, seed time, and harvest, and cold and
heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.
The sermon of the seasons
I. In the text there
is A SOLEMN HINT OF WARNING. “While the earth remaineth.”
1. It is implied that the earth will not always remain.
2. The time when the earth shall no longer remain is not mentioned.
The uncertainty of the end of all things is intended to keep us continually on
the watch.
3. Let me further remark that the day when the remaining of the
earth shall cease cannot be very far off; for according to the Hebrew, which
you have in the margin of your Bibles, the text runs thus: “As yet all the days
of the earth, seed time and harvest shall not cease.” The “while” of the
earth’s remaining is counted by days; not even months or years are mentioned,
much less centuries.
II. Thus, then,
there is a hint of warning in our text; but secondly, there is A SENTENCE OF PROMISE,
rich and full of meaning: “While the earth remaineth, seed time and harvest,
cold and heat, winter and summer, and day and night shall not cease.” It is a
promise concerning temporal things, but yet it breathes a spiritual air, and
hath about it the smell of a field that the Lord hath blessed.
1. This promise has been kept. It is long since it was written, it
is longer still since it was resolved upon in the mind of God; but it has never
failed. There have been times when cold has threatened to bind the whole year
in the chains of frost; but genial warmth has pushed it aside. The ordinances
of heaven have continued with us as with our fathers.
2. So long-continued is the fulfilment of this promise, and even
this race of unbelievers has come to believe in it. We look for the seasons as
a matter of course. Why do we not believe God’s other promises?
3. Brethren, we have come not only to believe this promise as to the
seasons and to make quite sure about it, but we practically act upon our faith.
The farmers have sown their autumn wheat, and many of them are longing for an
opportunity to sow their spring wheat; but what is sowing but a burial of good
store? Why do husbandmen hide their grain in the earth? Because they feel sure
that seed time will in due time be followed by harvest. Why do we not act in an
equally practical style in reference to the rest of God’s promises? True faith
makes the promises of God to be of full effect by viewing them as true and
putting them to the test.
4. If a man did not act upon the declaration of God in our text, he
would be counted foolish. Equally mad are they who treat other promises of God
as if they were idle words; no more worthy of notice than the prophecies of a
charlatan.
5. Let me close this point by noticing that, whether men believe
this or not it will stand true. A man says there will be no winter, and
provides no garments; he will shiver in the northern blast all the same when
December covers the earth with snow.
III. There is also
in the text, I think, A SUGGESTION OF ANALOGIES. Reading these words, not as a
philosophical prediction, but as a part of the Word of God, I see in them a
moral, spiritual, and mystical meaning.
1. While the earth remaineth there will be changes in the spiritual
world. “While the earth remaineth, seed time and harvest, and cold and heat,
and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.” No one of these
states continues; it comes and goes. The seasons are a perpetual procession, an
endless chain, an ever-moving wheel. Such is this life: such are the feelings
of spiritual life with most men: such is the history of the Church of God. It
will be so while the earth remaineth, and we remain partakers of the earth.
2. Yet there will be an order in it all. Cold and heat, and summer
and winter, and day and night, do not come in a giddy dance or tumultuous hurly
burly; but they make up the fair and beautiful year. Chance has no part in
these affairs. So in the spiritual kingdom, in the life of the believer, and in
the history of the Church of God, all things are made to work for good, and the
spiritual is being educated into the heavenly.
3. Great rules will stand while the earth abideth, in the spiritual
as well as in the natural world. For instance, there will be seed time and harvest,
effort and result, labour and success.
IV. Last of all, I
want you to regard my text as A TOKEN FOR THE ASSURANCE OF OUR FAITH. “While
the earth remaineth, seed time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and
winter, and day and night shall not cease.” And they do not. In this fact we
are bidden to see the seal and token of the covenant. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The harvest
I. A TESTIMONY
FOR GOD’S FAITHFULNESS. The return of harvest speaks to you in language not to
be mistaken. “Hold fast the profession of your faith without wavering; for He
is faithful that has promised.” “My covenant will I not break, saith the Lord;
nor alter the thing that has gone out of My lips.” “But,” you will say perhaps,
“it is not God’s faithfulness I question--I doubt His mercy. The Word of the
Lord, that shall stand; but ‘Hismercy is in the heavens.’ It reacheth not to
me.” And why not? What but mercy, infinite mercy, so prevailed with the
Almighty that He should promise “seed time and harvest” so long as the earth
endureth!
II. THE HARVEST IS
A FIGURE OF THE CONSUMMATION OF ALL THINGS.
1. The end of the world is as sure as the harvest.
2. As in harvest the reaper casts aside the weed, so every false
professor will be “cast into outer darkness,” while the righteous will “shine
forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father.” “Whoso hath ears to hear, let
him hear.”
3. Again, it is in harvest we receive of that we have sown; and it
is in harvest we see the end of the husbandman’s labour--why he hath so long
“waited for the early and latter rain.” And so in the end of the world. Then is
it that we shall see the purposes for which the world was made, and wherefore
it has been sustained so long. Then we shall see the long suffering of God, and
wherefore He hath borne with us so long. (W. M.Mungeain, B. A.)
The duty of thanksgiving for the harvest
I. WHEN WAS THIS
PROMISE GIVEN? Immediately after the deluge. In wrath God remembered mercy.
II. WHAT WOULD
HAVE BEEN THE PROBABLE RESULT, IF GOD HAD GIVEN US JUDGMENT AND NOT MERCY? If
the covenant with the seasons had been suspended, all happiness and comfort
must have been instantly paralysed, and all animal life extinguished; existence
would no longer have been possible, and your palaces, mansions, and cottages
would have been mere sepulchres, full of dead men’s bones.
III. But thirdly,
let us inquire WHETHER A TIME IS NOT COMING WHEN SEED TIME AND HARVEST, HEAT
AND COLD, SUMMER AND WINTER, DAY AND NIGHT, WILL CEASE? Yes, the covenant in
the text is limited in time, it holds good only “whilst the earth remaineth.”
Let this consideration lead us to seek an interest in the better covenant,
founded on better promises, and which lasts for eternity; and let us rest our
hopes on that firm foundation. (H. Clissold, M. A.)
Lessons from the harvest
1. Every harvest teaches the
fact of God’s wise providence.
2. Every harvest teaches the fact of God’s definite purpose. One
vast magnificent purpose has kept everything in exact order during all these
years of Divine fidelity.
3. God expects every one of His creatures to be as faithful to a
purpose as He Himself has been. (C. S. Robinson, D. D.)
God’s goodness in nature
Once there was a peasant in Switzerland at work in his garden very
early in the spring. A lady passing said, “I fear the plants which have come
forward rapidly will yet be destroyed by frost.” Mark the wisdom of the
peasant:--“God has been our Father a great while,” was his reply. What faith
that reply exhibited in the olden promise, “While the earth remaineth,” etc.
Cold needful
A minister going to church one Lord’s Day morning, when the
weather was extremely cold and stormy, was overtaken by, one of his neighbours,
who, shivering, said to him, “It’s very cold, sir.” “Oh!” replied the minister,
“God is as good as His Word still.” The other started at his remark, not
apprehending his drift, or what he referred to; and asked him what he meant.
“Mean!” replied he, “why, He promised above three thousand years ago, and He
still makes His Word good, that ‘while the earth remaineth, seed time and
harvest, and cold and heat, shall not cease.’”
Spiritual winter
1. Spiritual winter is an
ordination of God. The true spiritual analogue of winter is not spiritual
death, not even feeble spiritual life. There is an orderly change in the soul.
Unseen, yet very really, God’s Spirit is at work, altering influences, changing
modes. He introduces a new state of spiritual experiences, seeking to
accomplish varied objects, and summoning to new modes of improving His
presence.
2. The objects of spiritual winter are:
Christian Church.
3. How are we to improve spiritual winter?
The moral significance of winter
The seasonable changes to which our earth is subject are of vast
importance to man. They serve--
1. To impress us with the fact of the brevity of life.
2. To keep the soul in constant action.
3. To revive the recollections of old truths. What are the truths
that nature reproduces in winter?
I. THE EVANESCENT
FORMS OF EARTHLY LIFE. Individuals, families, and nations have their
seasons--their spring, summer, autumn, winter.
II. THE STERN
ASPECTS OF NATURE’S GOD. Winter significantly hints that the Absolute cannot be
trifled with--that He curses as well as blesses, destroys as well as saves.
III. THE
RETRIBUTIVE LAW OF THE CREATION. Winter brings on men the penalties for not
rightly attending to the other seasons.
IV. THE PROBABLE
RESUSCITATION OF BURIED EXISTENCE. The life of the world in winter is not gone
out, it is only sleeping..
1. The resuscitation of Christian truth.
2. The resuscitation of conscience.
3. The resuscitation of the human body. (Homilist.)
Autumn tide
1. Something ought, by the
time we have arrived at autumn, to have been got ready to give to man. Have you
done it? What fruit have you borne in life for your brother men; how much wheat
will God find in you when He comes to reap your fields? We have read the answer
that should be given in the harvest time every year. Few sights are fairer than
that seen autumn after autumn round many an English homestead, when, as evening
falls, the wains stand laden among the golden stubble, and the gleaners are
scattered over the misty field; when men and women cluster round the gathered
sheaves, and rejoice in the loving kindness of the earth; where, in the dewy
air, the shouts of happy people ring, and over all the broad moon shines down
to bless with its yellow light the same old recurring scene it has looked on
and loved for so many thousand years. It is the picture of a fruitful human
life when its autumn tide has come; and blessed are they of whom men can feel
the same as when they share in a harvest home--of whom they can say, “He has
reached his autumn, we reap his golden produce, and we thank him in our
hearts”; and in whose own spirit glimmers fair the moonlight of peace in the
evening of life, the peace that is born of work completed, the humble, happy
knowledge that can say, “Men will feed on my thoughts, my work shall nourish
them, and God in whose strength I have lived, will garner all for me.” There is
no blessedness in life to be compared with that; it is the true, unselfish joy
of harvest.
2. There is a second aspect of autumn that follows upon the harvest.
A fortnight ago I went into Epping Forest in the morning. The wind blew keen
and strong through a cloudless sky: but a faint, fine mist was on the ground.
The air was full of leaves that fluttered to their rest on the red earth and
the dark green pools scattered through the wood. The grass was silver-sown with
frosted dew, and the birds sang cheerily but quietly. Things were just touched
with the breath of decay; one knew that the time of mirth, that even the
harvest time was gone away; but the light was too fresh and the sky too bright
for sadness. There was an inspiration of work in the air--of quiet, hopeful
work--though the ingathering of the year was over. And looking through the thin
red foliage of the trees, beyond the skirt of the wood, I saw the rest of the
autumn work of man--two dark-brown fields of rich earth, the upturned ridges
just touched with the bright footprints of the frost, and in one, looming large
through the light mist, two horses drew the plough, and tossed a darker ridge
to light, and in the other a sower was sowing corn. And I thought, as I beheld,
that our autumn life is not only production, but preparation; not only
harvests, but ploughing and sowing. It is not enough to have produced a
harvest: we must make ready for a new harvest for men and for ourselves, and
more for men than for ourselves. To do so for ourselves alone were selfish, and
would defeat its end, for work with that motive has from the very beginning the
seed of corruption in it, and the harvest it may reach will be cankered. To
begin with one’s self is to end in fruitlessness. Begin, on the contrary, your
work of sowing with the motive of Christ: “I do this for the love of men”; and
you will then find that, without knowing it, and because you did not know or
think about it, you have ploughed and sown in the noblest way for yourself. In
the new spring time of God’s paradise, where only summer’s fulness, but never
autumn’s decay is known, you will fulfil your being, and not one aspiration
shall fail of its completion, not one failure but shall be repaired, not one
yearning for truth but shall be satisfied, not one effort made here to bring forth
a harvest, to plough the land of the world, to sow the seed of good and truth,
but shall find at last a noble scope, and expand itself into an infinite sphere
of labour. These are the hopes of autumn.
3. There is yet another aspect of autumn, and it is the aspect of
decay. The evening falls, the damp air is chill, the mist rises, and the
leafless trees are hooded in its ghostly garment. Our feet brush in the avenues
through the thick floor of sodden leaves, and through the places we remember
green and bright as paradise a low wind sighs in sorrow for the past. (Stopford
A. Brooke, M. A.)
The doctrine of the harvest
I. THAT THERE IS
A CERTAINTY OF A REGULAR RETURN OF THE NATURAL HARVEST, RESTING UPON THE
UNCHANGEABLE PURPOSE OF GOD.
1. The harvest is a time of poetry, rich in meaning, full of beauty,
and set to music by God Himself, the poetry of nature smiling in her loveliness
and ripe fruition, accompanied by the music of the breeze, as it rustles among
the golden ears of bearded grain, and enlivened by sounds of human gladness.
2. Harvest is a time of joy. Then is seen the fruit of long and
arduous toil, the fulfilment of ardent hopes and doubtful promises.
3. It is not only the result of work and the triumph of work, but it
needs work to secure its golden spoils. Labour is the price of securing as well
as of cultivating the fruits of the soil? What more joyous occupation than
gathering the fruits of the soil? Man is here a worker with God.
4. Harvest is a time for thankfulness. Whose is the earth we till?
God’s. Whose the seed we sow? God’s. Whose the influences of the sunshine,
rain, and air? God’s. Whose are the appointed laws by which the seed develops
into the plant, and by which the plant bears the precious grain? God’s. Whose
gift is the intelligence that wields the reaper and drives the team afield?
God’s. All come from God.
II. THE NATURAL
HARVEST REPRESENTS OTHER HARVESTS IN WHICH MEN HAVE A PART. Nature is a picture
lesson for man to learn, and there are realities in the world of mind and man
corresponding to her images.
1. There is a seed time and harvest in the history of man, analogous
to that established by God in nature. Look over the record of the ages and do
you not find that the exertions, the struggles, the sacrifices of the men in
one age have produced results for the benefit of later generations? Who sowed
the harvest of civilization which we are now reaping? Was it not the sages and
the poets of ancient Greece, the lawyers and rulers of ancient Rome; the
prophets and apostles, the martyrs and evangelists of the Jewish and of the
early Christian Church? These were the men that sowed the seeds of law, of
learning, of morality, and of religion; and we today, in conjunction with other
Christian people, are reaping in our Christian civilization, with all its
faults and deficiencies, still great and glorious, the fruit of all their
toils, the rich results of their laborious exertions. To bygone ages, to bygone
men, how much, then, do we owe! Ah! you cannot separate the ages. One sows, another
reaps, and the world of man is richer.
2. There are seed time and harvest for every individual life. The
young especially ought to remember that they are now to make those preparations
without which age will bear but little fruit. Now is the season to deposit the
store of knowledge in their memories as into genial soil, there to take root
and germinate into blissful fruit, so that when future years come they may reap
the harvest of ripened wisdom and be enriched with the results of work which
has gone before, and looking into their minds, as into rich storehouses, they
may view the accumulated thoughts, facts, and principles, which form the
abundant harvest of their minds. Nor is it with knowledge and wisdom in secular
affairs that the individual seed time and harvest should be solely concerned.
The spirit requires cultivation. Seed time and harvest is also going on at the
same time in the sphere of Christian experience. No sooner do we know the
Saviour than we begin to reap the fruits of believing; every gain to our
Christian knowledge, or effort of the Christian life, procures for us a greater
benefit. We reap as we go on sowing and cultivating our immortal nature--sowing
truth, love, and holiness, we reap present satisfaction, delight, and peace, and
prepare the way for grander and richer harvests on high. And even in heaven the
cultivation of our powers of love and wisdom will go on forever, and bring us
increasing harvests of progress in all that is excellent and godlike--world
without end.
3. But there is, strictly speaking, a spiritual harvest. And this
spiritual harvest has a double aspect--as it respects the righteous, as it
respects the wicked. Have you never seen the drunkard, the sensualist, the
debauchee, sowing to the lusts of his flesh, nourishing, cultivating, pampering
his passions and the brute-like instincts of his nature, and reaping in like
kind, creating evil and degraded habits for himself, brutalizing and polluting
his thoughts and his imagination, destroying his strength, and health, and
manly beauty, and ruining his immortal soul? He is reaping what he sows. Have
you never seen, on the other hand, the noble Christian, sowing to the higher
life of the spirit, sowing love and kindness to all around him, to come back to
him in a harvest of gratitude and affection; sowing intelligence and wisdom to
be paid to him in happy thoughts, beautiful fancies, and glorious aspirations;
sowing piety, and adoration, and devotion to God, and reaping here the peace
that passeth understanding, joy in the Holy Ghost, sweet communion with God,
and in the world to come, life everlasting. Let us be thankful for nature’s
kindly law, the regular return of seed time and harvest, the ordinance of our
covenant Jehovah, our loving Father in heaven. (E. E. Bayliss.)
The revolving seasons
This promise still holds good. It has never yet failed. It cannot
fail, for it is the Word of God.
1. Common things are too often taken as matters of course. The
Source and Author of them all is forgotten.
2. God not only orders all these things, maintaining them in
constant succession, as He said He would, but He orders them in the best and
wisest manner. He takes in at a glance the wants of all His creatures, foresees
all the consequences, both near and far off, of what He does, and sends His
dealings accordingly. A labouring man used to say, when he heard people
complaining of the weather--“It is such weather as God sends, and therefore it
pleases me.”
3. But all this concerns the present life only. May we not learn
something from the text concerning the life to come? The very words carry our
thoughts on to the future state. “While the earth remaineth.” This promise,
then, sure as it is, is only for a time--“while the earth remaineth”; and the
earth will not remain forever as it now is. A great change will come--a new
heaven and a new earth. Then at length seed time and harvest will be no longer
distinguished.
4. Not only the promise of the text, but every other promise that
God has made, will be fulfilled. (F. Bourdillon, M. A.)
Lesson from God’s covenant faithfulness
One vast, magnificent purpose has kept everything in exact order
during all these years of Divine fidelity. And the single point you need to
observe most closely is this: He has expected every one of His creatures to be
as faithful to a purpose as He has been. Take one of the most insignificant
flowers in the meadow for an illustration. Let a naturalist tell you of the
private history it has wrought out since the spring opened. Let him show you
how the leaves were held out on either side, like palms of two hands, just to
catch the falling showers in their hollow; how they drew in unreckoned moisture
by a million ducts unseen, transmitting it hastily into their great laboratory;
how they distilled it and mingled and separated it and saturated it with
sunshine and with mould, until it was ready to be lodged upon the spot where it
was needed as an increment of growth; how they laboured on thus for months,
till the day arrived for a supreme effort to give forth a blossom; and then how
they borrowed this little substance from the soil, and received that little
substance from the atmosphere, and commissioned fluid messengers to go down to
the roots for help; how they mysteriously wrought with exquisite skill the
delicate tissues into new forms of beauty, until at last the petals and pistils
came forward into life, and the field grew brilliant with a fresh flower. That
entire meadow could go on repeating the lesson. Let us remember that each small
spear and leaflet, when it found that its parent stalk no longer had need of
it--indeed, would be better if it would put itself out of the way--quietly
sacrificed itself for the general good, dropped off the stem to let sunshine
come unhindered. So the seed--that one great, precious thing, the seed--had its
chance to be fashioned and ripened to fulness and grace. You may learn thus
very easily, by inquiring at each door of existence of Science, who is keeper
of them all, that God has given for every one of His creations its fixed work
in the orderly round of effort, as well as in the narrower circles of reciprocal
duties. (G. S.Robinson, D. D.)
──《The Biblical Illustrator》