Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1336
“And the Lord said unto Noah, Come you and all your house into the ark…And Noah went in, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons’ wives with him, into the ark, because of the waters of the flood.” Genesis 7:1, 7.
GOD in infinite Grace had entered into Covenant with Noah that He would preserve him and his family alive. The tenor of that Covenant you will find in the 18th verse of the 6th chapter. “With you will I establish My Covenant; and you shall come into the ark, you, and your sons, and your wife, and your sons’ wives with you.” There was a positive foretelling of Noah’s coming into the ark and finding safety. The thing was fixed and ordained so to be, and yet, when the time came, Noah was not carried into the ark by force, nor lifted into it against his will by a benevolent violence. He was bid to come into the ark in the most natural manner possible and he entered it voluntarily and cheerfully. He and his family left their houses to find a home in the ark, and so they were saved.
The Covenant promise and purpose were fulfilled, but Noah acted in perfect freedom, as much choosing to go into the ark as others chose to keep out. Now, Beloved, there is a decree in Heaven ordaining the salvation of the Lord’s chosen people. It is useless to deny that decree, for even if it were not so, yet no difficulty would be withdrawn, it would only be shifted to another place. Some of us, instead of denying predestination, like to think upon it and find rivers of consolation springing from the everlasting purpose of the living God.
But, albeit that God has purposed and decreed the salvation of His elect, yet this by no means prevents our speaking, in the Lord’s name, to all men. Nor does it set aside the necessity that those men should cheerfully accept the Gospel of God and awaken themselves to obey its command, by the power of Grace. My Hearer, I cannot tell whether your name is written in the Lamb’s Book of Life from before the foundation of the world, but I can assure you that to you is the word of this salvation sent and that it bids you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ with this assurance—that if you do so you shall be saved, for so has the Lord most solemnly declared!
The method of the Divine arrangement involves an active consent on our part and a willing obedience to the Gospel command. The purpose is sure, but it is unknown and unrevealed till the Gospel is made known and brought home with effectual power so that the heart accepts it, the spirit obeys it and the man is saved—saved as a free agent. He is saved as a voluntary being, yet not saved apart from the secret, almighty purpose of the Most High—nor without the effectual working of His Grace. And so we come here, at this time, believing that there are some in this house concerning whom the Lord has purposed that they shall be Christ’s in the day of His appearing.
We address you all hoping that the Spirit of God will apply the Word with special power to the chosen, that they may see that they, themselves, must believe in Jesus—that they must be actively awakened to repentance, to prayer, to a change of life, to confidence in Christ. When this shall happen, then shall the Covenant purpose be known to them and fulfilled in them, for they shall be saved from the wrath to come! Not knowing, therefore, who is to come into this net, we cast it into the sea, believing that Christ knows every fish in the sea and what fish will come to the net. We do not wish to know this, ourselves, for it is quite enough for us to know how to cast in the net and to be fishers of men.
The practical work belongs to us, but the result we leave with the Lord. There are two things in the two texts. The first is the call—“The Lord said unto Noah, Come you and all your house into the ark.” The second is the obedience to the call—“And Noah went in, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons’ wives with him, into the ark.”
I. First, then, THE CALL. We remark, at the outset, that it was a call from the Lord. “The Lord said unto Noah.” You see, Noah was familiar with other forms of calls, for he had been the instrument of many. For many years he was a preacher of righteousness, and the principal office of a preacher is to herald his Master, to make proclamations and to
call upon men in the name of the Lord to obey the Lord’s Word. “To you, O men, do I call, and My voice is to the sons of men.”
But it was not by such calls as Noah could give that men were to be brought into the ark. For albeit we cannot doubt that he was a faithful minister and an earnest preacher. And, no doubt, he pleaded with the people day and night, yet, sad to say, not one beside his own family entered into the ark through Noah’s labors. Perhaps his preaching may have been useful to his wife and to his sons’ wives. If so, he had no mean reward for his pains. But to all outside of his family his word seems to have been powerless as to delivering them from death by the devouring flood. But now he was to know something of another call, differing in many respects—a call from the Lord of Heaven and earth whose Word is with power.