Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 3196
“And the LORRD said unto Noah, Come you and all your house into the ark, for you have I seen righteous before Me in this generation.” Genesis 7:1.
[Another Sermon by Mr. Spurgeon, upon verses 1 and 7, is #1336 in, Volume 23—A FAMILY SERMON.]
GOD keeps His eyes upon the sons of men and He searches among them for certain individuals upon whom He delights to fix His gaze. These are not the kings and princes. These are not the men of talent or of fashion. These are not the men who are regarded by their fellows as famous. When God speaks of having seen Noah, He speaks of having seen one of the kind of men for whom He was looking, namely, a righteous man. There is not a righteous man upon the earth whom God does not see. He may be in a very obscure position, his circumstances may be those of poverty, he may be anything but famous. But as long as he is righteous, God delights to look upon him. He looks upon him so as to take care of him so that if destruction is to come upon the face of the earth, an ark is to be prepared for the preservation of righteous Noah and his family. “The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, and His ears are open unto their cry.” Whoever else He does notsee, He is sure to see the righteous! But “the face of the Lord is against them that do evil, to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth.”
Now, what God delights to look upon, we should delight to look upon, so we will fix our mind’s eye upon the righteous man mentioned in our text and notice, first, the eminence of Noah’s character. Secondly, try to find out wherein that eminence consisted. And, thirdly, consider the gracious reward given to him because of that eminence.
I. So, first, we are to notice THE EMINENCE OF NOAH’S CHARACTER. He was a righteous man in the sight of the Lord. The Lord said unto Noah…“you have I seen righteous before Me in this generation.”
Noah was a gracious man, one to whom the Lord had shown great favor for He had put Divine Grace in his heart and had given him faith, for it was by faith that Noah “prepared an ark to the saving of his house, by which he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith.” The Grace of God was within him and became the source and wellspring from which flowed the righteousness for which he was so remarkable. Divine Grace is the root of every righteous character, so let Grace have the honor and glory of it!
In the Chapter preceding our text, we are told that “Noah was a just man.” It is especially noticeable that in an age of violence and oppression, Noah was a just man. He was no oppressor. He dealt justly and fairly with his fellow men. Noah was also “perfect in his generations.” The marginal reading is that he was “upright.” He was not one who leaned this way for advantage, or who leaned that way for gain. He stood upright in conscious integrity before his fellows. Acting in accordance with the Grace of God which was in his heart, he had learned to do that which was just towards others. He was also a devout man, for we read that “Noah walked with God.” Like his ancestor, Enoch, he lived in communion with God, in prayerfulness and pious meditation—and his life before his fellow men was in consistency with that walk before God.
It is especially mentioned that Noah was righteous in that generation, and this is the more remarkable as that generation was so unrighteous and ungodly! The darker the night, the more brightly shine the stars—and good men are never more precious than in evil times! There are plenty to go the way the stream is running. When godliness is in the ascendant, and the Puritans rule the realm, they are Puritans, too, but when ungodliness comes to the front and the Cavalier holds the scepter, they scoff at everything that is good! Like dead fish, they must go with the stream—they have not the power of the living fish to swim against the current. They go the way their neighbors go. But Noah was a righteous man
in an unrighteous generation. It may be that you, dear Friend, are seeking to serve the Lord among most ungodly men. Well, if it is so, be all the firmer for the right because of all the wrong that is around you! Remember how much honor it brings to the Grace of God when it produces a righteous Noah in the midst of an evil generation. You, working man, are the only one on your street who comes to the House of God—well, mind that you come boldly—be not ashamed of being different! And when, in your workshop, you hear the cursing and reviling of the wicked, let them know whose colors you wear and who is your King. But be careful that your life is so consistent that they cannot pick holes in it—and then you need not mind being a speckled bird among them, as Noah was in his generation!
What makes the character of Noah all the more remarkable is the fact that he was almost alone as a righteous man. The Lord said to him, “You have I seen righteous before Me in this generation,” as though he was the only righteous one in that generation! When the flood came, his ancestors had all passed away and the members of his own family were not all that they ought to have been. He practically had to stand alone and standing alone is not easy work. You know how we are all helped by the company of godly people, how good it is for us to be where the Word is preached with power, or where we can listen to the gracious talk of Christians who are more advanced in Divine things than we are. But to stand quite alone—to be the one white man amid a nation of aborigines, to be the one traveler in a land which all the inhabitants are your foes, to be in a community where there is no one to help you—it is only the Grace of God that can make a man of this sort and enable him to say, “If the world, itself, is to be destroyed, one honest man shall be found upon its surface. The Grace of God has so settled me in the fear of the Most High that whatever others may do, as for me and my house we will serve the Lord.”