Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1613
Delivered on Lord’s-Day Morning, August 14, 1881
“The Lord shut him in.” Genesis 7:16.
NOAH was a very different man from the rest of those who lived in his time, for the Grace of God had set a division between him and them. They forgot God and Noah feared Him. They lived for things seen and temporal and he lived in sight of the invisible. When he was building the ark, he was in a miserable minority, as men count heads. And, even after 120 years of ministry, when his ark was built and his family entered it, they were eight against many millions—an insignificant few, as men would say—a pitiful sect among mankind. Who could imagine that the eight would be right and all the millions wrong? Where God is, there is the majority!
But very clearly there was a very marked distinction between Noah and his household and all the rest of mankind. Yet, great as that distinction was, throughout 120 years there was no impassable gulf between the two parties. Although Noah could not, would not go to them, yet they that would, might pass to him. If they would hear, believe and obey, they, too, might be among the company whom God had blessed and whom He would surely preserve from destruction. When the 120 years were over and God’s Spirit would no longer strive with men, there stood the great ark with its vast door wide open and Noah still continued to preach and to declare that all who would pass within that open portal into the ark of safety should be preserved from the coming destruction.
Outside that door death would reign universally, but all would be peace within. When the last seven days of Grace had come to a close, the Lord began His work of justice by separating Noah. “The Lord shut him in.” Then there was a more marked difference between Noah and the rest of mankind. He that opens and no man shuts. He that shuts and no man opens—even He had interposed an impassable barrier between Noah and those that believed not. Mercy’s gate was shut! The time of long-suffering had come to a close. Brothers and Sisters, the Church of God stands, at the present moment, in the world very much in the same condition as Noah and his family! The door of the ark is still wide open and it is our business to persuade, constrain and compel men, with all our might, to come in!
Not without success have our entreaties been, for many have entered the ark of salvation which is found in the Person of our Divine Lord Jesus. These make up with us the chosen family of God who shall be safe when the world is deluged with the last devouring fire. But the time comes—it comes to each man in death and it will come to the whole company of the ungodly in the day when the Lord Jesus shall descend from Heaven with a shout—that the door shall be shut and it shall be said, “Between us and you there is a great gulf fixed; so that they which would pass from here to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from there.”
Character will become unchangeable! He that is unjust will be unjust, still, and he that is filthy will be filthy, still. My heart trembles as I think of this matter! There is a joy in being shut in with the saints, but a great grief in knowing that many will be shut out. I shall labor so to set forth this Truth of God that, perhaps before the door closes, a goodly company may cry, “We will come with you, for we perceive that the Lord is with you.” Surely in the floods of great waters they shall not come near unto the Lord—but until those water floods break forth they may come—and they shall find a glad welcome! For it is written, “Him that comes to Me I will in nowise cast out.”
Our meditation will be arranged under two heads which may readily be remembered—shut in and shut out. They stand in very distinct contrast and admit of no third condition.
I. First, let us think of Truths of God which range themselves under the head of SHUT IN. This is a blessed text. Oh that the Spirit of God may help me to preach from it and you to enjoy it! Observe, then, that Noah was shut in—shut in the ark. Noah’s condition as to an evil world was now one of permanent separation. He was severed from the world and his separation was beyond recall. There is a time in the human character when it has some good thing in it towards the
Lord God of Israel and yet that good thing may be lost. But there is another and happier time when the truly converted have stepped over the boundary and shall never go back to corruption. They are dead and their life is hid with Christ in God—hidden beyond further damage or death. They are, from then on, kept by the power of God unto salvation— crucified unto the world and the world unto them.
There was a time when, speaking after the manner of men, Noah might have given up his testimony and sided with the ungodly mass. But that possibility is all over, for the door is shut—the Lord has shut him in. There was no wish in Noah’s heart to come out and he could not come out. The deed was done and could not be undone—the bolt was turned and could not be withdrawn. Noah was shut in by a hand which is not given to undo its own work! I believe that this blend of character and condition has happened to all Believers who can truly say that they are dead unto the world. Dying unto the world is the way of our salvation! By this process we pass into newness of life. I dare say when that door was shut, the men of the world said, “Look at old Noah! He has gone into his coffin. He is as good as dead and buried.”