C. H. SPURGEON,

at the metropolitan tabernacle, newington.

“And, behold, there was a woman which had a spirit of infirmity eighteen years, and was bowed together, and could in no wise lift up herself. And when Jesus saw her, he called her to him, and said unto her, Woman, thou are loosed from thine infirmity. And he laid his hands on her: and immediately she was made straight, and glorified God.”-Luke 13:11-13.*

Our text commences with a “behold,”-“behold, there was a woman,” and, as it was often remarked by the Puritan writers, whenever we see the word “behold” in Scripture, we are to regard it as a nota bene, as a mark in the margin calling our particular attention to what follows. Where Christ worked wonders we should have attentive eyes and ears. When Jesus is dispensing blessings, whether to ourselves or to others, we should never be in a state of indifference.

I shall use this miracle as a type, as it were, for doubtless the miracles of Christ were so intended. Our Lord was declared to be “a prophet mighty in deed and word.” He was to be a prophet like unto Moses, and he is the only one who was like unto Moses in these two respects. Many prophets followed Moses who were mighty in “word”-such as Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, and Isaiah, but then they were not “mighty in deed.” Many, on the other hand, were “mighty in deed”-like Elijah and Elisha, but they were not “mighty in word.” Our Lord was mighty in both respects, and a prophet in both respects, “a prophet mighty in deed and word.” I take it, therefore, that his miraculous deeds are parts of his prophecies. They are the illustrations of his great life-sermon. The words which fell from his lips are as the text and the letter of the book, but the miracles are the pictures from which our childlike minds may often learn more than from the words themselves. We shall so use the picture before us now, and may the Holy Spirit give us instruction!

In the first place, this woman, bowed down with a spirit of infirmity, typifies to us the case of very many,-very many whom we have seen, and some of whom are listening to these words,-(oh, that the same miracle might be wrought in them as in her!) persons who are depressed in spirit, who cannot look up to heaven, and rejoice in the Lord Jesus Christ; persons who have a hope, a good hope, too, but not a strong one, a hope which enables them to hold on, as the men did in Paul’s shipwreck, when on boards and broken pieces of the ship they came safe to land, but not a hope which gives them an abundant entrance into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. They are saved, like this woman, who was a true daughter of Abraham, notwithstanding all her infirmities; who was truly of the promised seed, notwithstanding that she could not lift up herself; so these are genuine Christians, truly saved, and yet constantly subject to infirmity.

In some, it takes this shape. They believe in Christ, and rest on the precious blood, yet they are afraid sometimes that they have sinned the unpardonable sin. Though their better and more reasonable selves will do battle against the delusion, still they hug it to their hearts. Seeing that the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost is a sin which is unto death, and that when a man has committed it his spirit dies, and that repentance, the desire to be saved, and all good emotions cease to be when that dreadful spiritual death occurs, I say that they can thus reason with themselves in their better moments, and see that their fear is a delusion, but anon they fall back again into that dreadful slough. They see not signs of grace, but they think they see signs of reprobation.

Many have I met with,-I may say that I meet with such people every week,-who are afraid that they are hypocrites. When I encounter persons troubled with this fear, I cannot help smiling at them; for, if they really were hypocrites, they would not be afraid of it, and their fear of presumption argues very strongly that they are not living in it.

Then this infirmity will take another shape. If you drive them from the other errors, they say they are afraid that they are self-deluded. This is a very proper fear when it leads to self-examination, and comes to an end; but it becomes a very improper fear when it perpetually destroys our joy, prevents our saying, “Abba, Father,” with an unfaltering tongue, and keeps us at a distance from the precious Saviour, who would have us come very near to him, and be most familiar with his brotherly heart.

Supposing this difficulty should be met, still there are tens of thousands who are very much in doubt concerning their election. What if they should not be elect, they say? This, of course, results from ignorance; for, if they read the Word, they would soon discover that all those who believe in Christ may be certain of their election, faith being the public mark of God’s privately-chosen people. If you make your calling sure, you have made your election sure. If you know yourself now to be a lover of God, resting upon the great propitiation which he has set forth for sin, then you may know that this is a work of grace in your soul. God never wrought a work of grace where he had not made an election of grace. That fear, therefore, may be easily driven away, and yet thousands are in bondage to it.

Others are afflicted with the daily fear that they shall not persevere. They say, “After all our professions and prayers, we fear we shall yet be castaways.” The apostle Paul was not afflicted with this fear. He strove lest this fear should ever come near him. He so lived, with holy diligence, that he might ever be in a state of blessed assurance, lest, after having preached to others, he himself should be a castaway; but he could say, “I know that my Redeemer liveth,” even as Job could, and he could also say, “I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day.” Still, tens of thousands are subject perpetually to that form of bondage. They cannot reach, in fact, the full assurance of faith. They have scarcely even the glimmering of assurance. They do trust; they trust as the publican did, “standing afar off;” but they have never yet come with John to lean their heads upon the bosom of the Saviour. They are his disciples and his servants, but they can scarcely understand how he can call them his friends, and permit them to enjoy close intercourse with himself.

Now, beloved, this woman thus bowed down was very like to these persons for the following reasons:-

Her infirmity much marred her beauty. The beauty and dignity of the human form is to walk erect, to look the sun in the face, and gaze upon the heavens. This woman could do nothing of the kind. She was, no doubt, very conscious of this, and shrank from the public gaze. So unbelief, distrust, mistrust, suspicion,-these direful infirmities to which some are subject, spoil their spiritual beauty. They have the grace of humility. In this respect, they very often excel others; but the other graces, the noble graces of faith and holy confidence and courage, these they cannot display. The beauty of their character is marred.

Moreover, this woman had her enjoyment spoiled. It must have been a sad thing for her to go about the world bent double. She could not gaze on the beauties of nature as others could, and all her motions must have been, if not painful, yet certainly exceedingly inconvenient. Such is the case with the doubting, distrustful soul under infirmity. He can do but little. Prayer is a painful groaning out of his soul. When he sings, it is usually in a deep bass. His harp hangs upon the willows. He feels that he is in Babylon, and cannot sing the songs of Zion.

This woman, too, must have been very unfit for active service. Little of household duty could she perform, and that with pain; and as to public acts of mercy, she could take but small part in them, being subject to this constant infirmity. And so is it with you who are “Much-afraids” or “Fearings”, you who have troubled spirits; you cannot lead the van in the day of battle. You can scarcely tell others of the Saviour’s preciousness. You cannot expect to be great reapers in the Master’s harvest. You have to bide by the stuff while others go forth to fight. There is a special law which David made of old concerning those who tarried there, so you do get a blessing, but you miss the higher blessing of noble activity and Christian service.

I might thus enlarge and show the likeness more clearly, but I think you can draw the picture for yourselves. You see the woman come into the synagogue, and your pity is at once excited. But if you love the souls of men, and God has made you to be tender as a nursing mother over others, you will pity yet more many of the true seed of Abraham who are bowed down with infirmity.

It appears, from our Saviour’s words, that this woman’s infirmity was coupled with Satanic influence. “Whom Satan hath bound,” said he, “lo, these eighteen years.” We do not know how much Satan has to do with us. I do know that we often lay a great deal on his back which he does not deserve, and that we do a thousand evil things ourselves, and then ascribe them to him. Still, there are gracious souls, who do walk in the paths of holiness, who do hate sin, who for all that sometimes cannot enjoy peace. We cannot blame them; we must believe that the Satanic spirit is at work, marring their joy, and spoiling their comfort. Dr. Watts says,-

“He worries whom he can’t devour,

With a malicious joy,”-

and doubtless that is true. He knows he cannot destroy you because you are in Christ, and therefore, if the dog cannot bite, he will at least bark. Like Mercy, in Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, you will often be alarmed by the evil ones, and all the more so because these evil ones know that, in a little while, you will be out of gunshot of all the powers of hell, and beyond the hearing of all the bellowings of the fiends of the pit. Satan had much to do with this poor woman’s infirmity.

It appears, too, very clearly, from reading the passage, that the woman’s weakness was beyond all human art. “She could in no wise lift up herself,” which implies, I think, that she had tried all ways within her reach and knowledge. “She could in no wise.” Neither by those mechanical operations which have sometimes been found effective in such diseases, nor by those medicines which were much vaunted in that age, could she receive the slightest relief. She had done her best, and physicians had done their worst, and yet, notwithstanding all, she could by no means lift up herself; and, truly, there are many in this condition spiritually. Have you ever been, as a Christian pastor, utterly baffled in dealing with some cases of spiritual distress? Have you ever been driven to pray, feeling the blessedness of prayer all the more because you have proved the futility of your own efforts to comfort a sin-distressed, Satan-tossed spirit? Often has that been my case. There has been the promise to meet the case, but the poor soul could not lay hold of it. There has been the cheering word which has been efficient enough at other times, but it seemed to be a dead letter to this poor bondaged spirit. There has been the case in point, and the experience of somebody else just like the case in hand, which we tried to tell with sympathy. We tried to work ourselves, as it were, into the position of the sufferer with whom we were dealing; but, still, for all that, we seemed to be speaking to the winds, and trying to comfort one who was so inured to sorrow that he felt that for him to cast off the sombre weeds would be a sin, and to cease to mourn would be presumption. Many a time has such a case come before us, and we have thought of this woman, and could only pray that the Master would put his hand upon the person, for our hand and our voice were utterly powerless.

Poor soul, she had been a long time in this case! Eighteen years! Eighteen years! Well, that is not very long if you are in health, and strength, and prosperity. How the years trip along as with wings to their heels! They are scarcely here before they are fled! But eighteen years of infirmity, pain, and constantly-increasing weakness! Eighteen years she dragged her chain until the iron entered into her soul. Eighteen years! Two long apprenticeships to sorrow till she had become the acquaintance of grief! Yes, and some such persons, though prisoners of hope, are kept in bondage as long as that. Their disease is like an intermittent fever, which comes on sometimes, and then is relieved. They have times when they are at their worst,-the ebb-tide; and then they have their floods again. Now and then they have a glimpse of summer, and anon the cold chilly winter comes on them apace. Sometimes they half think they have escaped, and leap like the emancipated slave when his fetters are broken, but they have to go back very soon again to the gyves and the manacles, having no permanent relief, being still prisoners year after year. I know I am describing a case which is known to some of you, perhaps I am photographing you yourself.

Yet for all this, this woman was a daughter of Abraham. The Lord Jesus knew her pedigree, and assured the ruler of the synagogue of it. She was one of the true seed of Israel notwithstanding all her failings. “Ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, to be loosed even on the Sabbath day?” demanded the Master. Yes, and you, poor anxious spirit, though your faith be but as a grain of mustard-seed, yet, if you have a simple faith in Christ, you are safe. You, troubled and tossed one, though your bark seems ready to be swallowed up by the waves, if you have taken Jesus into the vessel, you shall come safely to the land. Poor heart, thou mayest be brought very low, but thou shalt never be brought low enough to perish, for underneath thee are the everlasting arms. Like Jonah, thou mayest go to the bottoms of the mountains, and think that the earth with her bars is about thee for ever, but thou shalt yet be brought up, and thou shalt sing Jonah’s song, “Salvation is of the Lord.” God does not cast off his people because of their dark frames and feelings. He does not love them because of their high enjoyments; neither will he reject them because of their deep depressions. Christian is dear; Father Honest is dear; Valiant-for-Truth, too, is dear to the King of the pilgrims; but Ready-to-Halt, upon his crutches, is equally dear, and Mr. Fearing and Miss Much-Afraid, though they may lie in Doubting Castle till they are almost starved, shall surely be brought out, for they are true pilgrims, and shall at length safely reach the Celestial City.

But we must pass on to our second point, namely, that the example of this woman is instructive to all in her case.

Observe that she did not tamely yield to her infirmity without effort. The expression, “She could in no wise lift up herself,”-an old Saxon form of saying, “She could in no ways lift up herself,”-shows, as I have said before, that she had tried her best. I believe some of you might stand upright if you liked. I am quite certain that, in some cases, people get into the way of surrendering to depression, until at last they become powerless against it. Some stimulant is given them in the form of a sick husband, or a dying child, and they grow quite cheerful. Under some real trouble, they become patient; but when this real trouble is taken away, they begin manufacturing troubles of their own. They are never happy, I might almost say, except when they are miserable, and never cheerful except when they have something to cast them down. If they have a real trouble, they get strength to bear it; but, at other times, they are morbidly troubled in spirit. Now, let us imitate this woman, and shake off our doubts and our unbelief as much as possible. Let us strike up the hymn,-

“Begone, unbelief, my Saviour is near,

And for my relief will surely appear;

By prayer let me wrestle, and he will perform,

With Christ in the vessel, I smile at the storm.”

Let us say, with David, “Why art thou cast down, O my soul, and why art thou disquieted within me? Hope thou in God, for I shall yet praise him.” Do not so soon yield to the shafts of unbelief. Hold up the shield of faith, and say unto your soul, “Nay, as the Lord liveth, who is the rock of my salvation, my castle and my high tower, my weapon of defence and my glory, I will not yield unto unbelief. Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him; and though all things go against me, yet will I stay myself upon the mighty God of Jacob, and I will not fear.” The woman, then, had done her best.

Note, next, that, although bent double, and therefore having an excellent excuse for stopping at home, yet she was found at the synagogue. I believe she was always found there, from the fact that the length of time during which she had been sick was well known,-not merely known to Christ because of his Godhead, but known as a matter of common talk and common knowledge in the synagogue. Probably, during the whole of the eighteen years she had been an attendant there. “Ah!” she thought, “if I miss the blessing of health, yet I will not be absent from the place where God’s people meet together for worship. I have had sweet enjoyments in the singing of the Psalm, and in listening to the Word, and I will not be away when such grace is being dispensed.”

O mourners, never let Satan prevail upon you to “forsake the assembling of yourselves together, as the manner of some is.” If you cannot get comfort, still go to the sanctuary. It is the most likely place for you to get it. One of the sweet traits of character in mourners is that they do love to go to the assemblies of God’s people. I knew one aged woman who had year after year been in this mournful state, and after trying long to comfort her, but in vain, I said to her, “Well, what do you go to the house of prayer for? Why don’t you stop at home?” “Why, that is my only comfort!” said she. “I thought you told me you were a hypocrite,” I answered, “and that you had no right to the promises or any of the good things?” “Ah! but I could not stay away from the place where ‘my best friends, my kindred, dwell,’ ” she replied. “And do you read your Bible?” I asked her. “I suppose you have burned that.” “Burned my Bible!” she said in horror. “I’d sooner be burned myself!” “But do you read it? You say there is nothing there for you; if you were to lay hold upon the promises, it would be presumption; you are afraid to grasp any one of the good things of the covenant!” “Ah! but I could not do without reading my Bible; that is my daily bread; it is my constant food,” she responded. “But do you pray?” “Pray! Oh! yes; I shall die praying.” “But you told me that you had no faith at all, that you were not one of God’s people, that you were a deceiver, and I know not what beside.” “Yes, I am afraid sometimes that I am; I am afraid now that I am; but as long as I live I’ll pray.” All the marks of the child of God were in her private character, and could be seen in her walk and conversation, and yet she always was bowed down, and could by no means lift up herself.

I remember a brother-minister who was the means, in God’s hands, of comforting a woman when she lay dying in this plight. He said to her, “Well, Sarah, you tell me you do not love Christ at all; you are sure you do not?” “Yes, sir; I am sure I do not.” He went up to the window, and wrote on a piece of paper, “I do not love the Lord Jesus Christ.” “Now, Sarah,” he said, “just put your name at the bottom of that.” “What is it, sir? I do not know what it is.” When she read it, she said, “No, I’d rather be torn in pieces than I’d put my name to such a thing as that!” “Well,” said he, “but if it is true, you may as well write it as say it,” and this was the means of convincing and persuading her that there really was love to Christ in her soul after all. But, in many cases, you cannot comfort these poor souls at all. They will still say that they are not the Lord’s people, yet they cling to the means of grace, and, by-and-by, we trust they will get deliverance.

Observe another thing, that, though we are not told it in so many words in the narrative, we may be sure it is true, when the Lord Jesus called her, she came at once. She was called, and there was no hesitation in her answer. Such speed as she could make in her poor, pitiable plight, she made. She did not say, as another said, “Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst;” she did not doubt his will. Nor did she imitate another, and say, “If thou canst do anything.” She doubted not his power. She said nothing, but we know what she felt. There is not a trace of unbelief; there is every sign of obedience here. Now, soul, when Christ does call thee by his grace, make haste to run to him. When, under the preaching of the Word, thou feelest as though the iceberg were beginning to melt, do not get away from the sunlight, and go back to the old waiter gloom. “Make hay while the sun shines,” says the old proverb; take care that you do the same. When God gives you a little light, prize it. Thank him for it, and ask for more. If you have got starlight, ask for moonlight. When you have got moonlight, do not sit down and weep because it is only moonlight, but ask him for more, and he will give you sunlight; and when you have got that, be grateful, and he will give you yet more. He will make your day to be as the light of seven days, and the days of your mourning shall be ended. Think much of little mercies since you deserve none. Do not throw away these pearls because they are not the greatest that were ever found, but keep them, thank God for them, and then soon he will send you the best treasures from the casket of his grace.

As soon as this woman was healed, she was in another respect an example to us, namely, that she glorified God. Her face did it. With what lustre was it lit up! Her whole gait did it. How erect she stood! And then I am sure her tongue did it. The woman might well be pardoned for speaking this once in the midst of the assembly. Restored as she was on a sudden, she could not help telling out the joy she felt within. The bells of her heart were ringing merry peals; she must give glory to God who had wrought the cure. Some of you profess to have been cured, but have you given glory to God? Why, some of you profess to be Christians, and yet you have never come forward to avow it! You have been afraid to unite yourselves with the Christian church. Your Master bids you confess him. The mode of confession which he prescribes is that you be baptized in his name, and yet, though he has saved you, you stand back, and are disobedient. Take care! “That servant, which knew his lord’s will, and prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes.”

I was, this week, by the bedside of a dying man, an heir of heaven, washed in the precious blood of Jesus, I believe, and rejoicing in that fact too, but yet he could not help saying, “I ought, years ago, to have taken my stand with God’s people. You have often given me many hard blows in the Tabernacle, but never too hard. Tell the people, when you speak to them again, when they know anything is a duty, never to postpone it, for that word is true, ‘That servant which knew his lord’s will, and did it not, shall be beaten with many stripes. I am not condemned, I am not cast away, for I am in Christ, I am resting on his precious blood, and I am saved; but, though saved, I am being chastened.” And he was sorely chastened with many doubts and fears, and troubles of soul. If you are God’s child, any duty neglected will bring upon your soul some chastisement. If you are not God’s child, you may do very much as you like, and your punishment will, perhaps, not come upon you until the next world. But if thou art one of the King’s favourites, thou must walk very tenderly, and very attentively, or else, as surely as thou art dear to the heart of God, thou shalt feel the rod upon thee to chasten thee, and to bring thee back into the path of obedience.

This woman glorified God. Brethren and sisters, can we not do something more to glorify God than we have yet done? If we have done that which seemed to be our duty on certain occasions, may there not be yet more for us to do? There is very much land yet to be possessed for King Jesus. This wicked city is given over to sin, and we are doing so little! Ah! some of you do what you can, but we who do what we can might do more if we had more strength with which to do it, and more strength is to be had for the asking. Oh, that we could enlarge our desires for the glory of King Jesus! Oh, to set him upon a glorious high throne, and to crown him with many crowns, to prostrate ourselves at his feet, and to bring others, too, to lie prostrate at his feet, that he might be King in Jeshurun, King of kings and Lord of lords, reigning in our souls for ever and ever! Imitate this woman. If you have been bowed down, and yet restored to comfort, see that, like her, you instantly fall to glorifying God.

And this brings us to the last point,-the woman’s cure is exceedingly instructive to persons in a like case.

She went to the synagogue, but she did not get her cure alone by going there. Means and ordinances are nothing in themselves. They are to be used, but they are only dry skin bottles, without water, unless there be something more than these. This woman met with Christ in the synagogue, and then came the healing. May we, too, meet with Jesus! That great encounter is possible here, or anywhere, for-

“Where’er we seek him, he is found,

And every place is hallowed ground.”

The great matter is to meet with him; and if we meet with him, we meet with all we want.

Now, observe the woman’s cure. In the first place, it was a complete cure. No part of the infirmity remained. She was not left a little crooked, but still much restored. No, “she was made straight.” When Jesus heals, he heals not by halves. His works of grace may have it said of each one of them, “It is finished.” Salvation is a finished work throughout.

In the next place, the woman’s cure was a perpetual and permanent one. She did not return, by-and-by, by a terrible relapse, to her former posture. Once made to walk upright, she remained so. When Jesus sheds abroad life, love, and joy in the soul, it is ours for a perpetual inheritance, and we may hold it till we die, nor lose it even then.

Notice, too, that the woman was healed immediately. That is a point which Luke takes care to mention. The cure did not take days, or weeks, or months, or years, as physicians cures do, but she was cured immediately. Here is encouragement for you who have been depressed for years. There is yet a possibility that you may be perfectly and speedily restored. Yet may the dust be taken from your eyes; yet may your face be anointed with fresh oil; yet may you glow and glisten in the light of Jesu’s countenance, while you reflect the light that shines upon you from him. It may happen to-night; at this moment! Gates may be taken from off their hinges, for the mighty Samson, whom we serve, can tear up Gaza’s gates, posts and bars and all, if he wills, to set his captives free. If you be bound by all the fetters that self can forge, yet at one emancipating word from Christ, you shall be entirely free. Doubting Castle may be very strong, but he who comes to fight with Giant Despair is stronger still. He who has kept you beneath his power is mighty, but the All-mighty is he who conquered at Bozrah, and who will conquer everywhere else when he comes forth for the deliverance of his people. Take down your harps from the willows. Be encouraged. Jesus Christ looseth the prisoners. He is the Lord, the Liberator. He comes to set the captives free, and to glorify himself in them.

I recall you to the thought with which we commenced this third point, namely, that the woman’s restoration was effected by Jesus Christ, by his laying his hands upon her. Many of his cures were wrought in this way, by bringing his own personality into contact with human infirmity. “He laid his hands upon her.” O soul, Christ came in human flesh, and that contact with humanity is the source of all salvation! If thou believest in Christ, he comes a second time into contact with thee. Oh, that thy soul might get a touch of him to-night! He is a man like thyself, though he is also “very God of very God.”

In order to save us, he suffered pangs unutterable. The whole weight of our sin was laid upon him, till he was bruised as beneath the wheels of the car of vengeance. Beneath the upper and the nether millstones of divine vengeance, the Saviour was ground like fine flour. God knows, and God alone knows, what agonies he bore. All this was substitutionary for sinners. Let not thy sins, then, depress thee. Hadst thou no sin, thou wouldst not need a Saviour. Come, with thy sin, and trust in him. Let not thy weakness distress thee. Hadst thou no weakness, thou wouldst not need a mighty Saviour. Come, and take hold upon his strength, for all his strength is meant for the weak, the hopeless, and the helpless. Sitting on the dunghill of thy sin, yet trust thou in Jesus, and thou shalt be lifted up to dwell among the princes of the blood-royal. There must be power to save in God when he becomes man to bleed and die. Nothing can be impossible to him who built the world, and who bears the pillars thereof upon his shoulders, and yet gives his hands to the nails and his heart to the spear. Nothing can be impossible to Immanuel, God with us, when he smarts, and groans, and submits to the bloody sweat, and then empties out his heart’s blood that he might redeem men from their iniquities.

“O come all ye in whom are fixed

The deadly stains of sin!”

Draw near to the Crucified. Let your souls contemplate Christ. Let your faith look to him. Let your love embrace him. Cast away all other confidences as mere vanities that will delude you. Away with them! Trust in nothing but the Lord Jesus Christ, his person, his work, his life, his death, his resurrection, his ascension, his glorious pleading before the throne for sinners such as we are. Ah! when you come to die, you that are strong and you that are depressed will be very much alike in this matter, that you will have to come back where Wesley was when he said,-

“Jesu, lover of my soul,

Let me to thy bosom fly!

“Other refuge have I none;

Hangs my helpless soul on thee.”

Look to the wounds of Christ; they will heal your wounds. Look to the death of Christ; it will be the death of your doubts. Look to the life of Christ; it shall be the life of your hopes. Look to the glory of Christ; it shall be the glory of your souls here, and the glory of your souls for ever and ever.

May God add his blessing, and bring many of his bondaged ones out of prison! This shall be to his eternal praise. Amen.

Exposition by C. H. Spurgeon

LUKE 13:1-13

Verse 1. There were present at that season some that told him of the Galilæans, whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices.

This was a matter of common town talk, so of course they brought the news to Jesus. Notice how wisely he used this shameful incident. You and I too often hear the news of what is happening, but we learn nothing from it; our Saviour’s gracious mind turned everything to good account; he was like the bee that gathers honey from every flower.

2. And Jesus answering said unto them, Suppose ye that these Galilæans were sinners above all the Galilæans, because they suffered such things?

“Do you imagine that there was some extraordinary guilt which brought this judgment upon them, and that those who were spared may be supposed to have been more innocent than they were?”

3. I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.

There would come upon them also, because of their sin, a sudden and overwhelming calamity. When we read of the most dreadful things happening to men, we may conclude that something similar will happen to us if we are impenitent; if not in this world, yet in that which is to come.

4, 5. Or those eighteen, upon whom the tower in Siloam fell, and slew them, think ye that they were sinners above all men that dwelt in Jerusalem? I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.*

This was a foreshadowing of the overthrow of Jerusalem, and the razing of its walls and towers to the ground, which happened not long after; and even that overthrow of Jerusalem was but a rehearsal of the tremendous doom that shall come upon all who remain impenitent.

6. He spake also this parable; A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came and sought fruit thereon, and found none.

He had a right to seek fruit upon the tree, for it was planted where fruit-bearing trees were growing, and where it shared in the general culture that was bestowed upon all the trees in the vineyard.

7. Then said he unto the dresser of his vineyard, Behold, these three years I come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and find none: cut it down; why cumbereth it the ground?

This was sound reasoning. “It yields nothing, though it draws the goodness out of the ground, and so injures those trees that are producing fruit; ‘cut it down; why cumbereth it the ground?’ ”

8, 9. And he answering said unto him, Lord, let it alone this year also, till I shall dig about it, and dung it: and if it bear fruit, well: and if not, then after that thou shalt cut it down.†

He asks a respite, but only a limited one. “After that, thou shalt cut it down.” If, after the trial of another year, it shall still be fruitless, then even the pleader will not ask for any further respite.

10, 11. And he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the sabbath. And, behold, there was a woman which had a spirit of infirmity eighteen years, and was bowed together, and could in no wise lift up herself.

If she was there when Christ was speaking about the fruitless fig tree. I feel pretty certain that she said, “That must mean me; I am the fruitless fig tree;” but the Master did not mean her; he had other words and more cheering tidings for her.

12. And when Jesus saw her, he called her to him, and said unto her, Woman, thou art loosed from thine infirmity.

Oh, what glad news this must have been to her! How it must have thrilled her whole body! As she learned that she was to be restored to an upright position, what delight must have filled her heart!

13. And he laid his hands on her: and immediately she was made straight, and glorified God.

What expressions of fervent gratitude, what notes of glad exultation came from that woman’s joyful lips! Surely, even cherubim and seraphim could not more heartily and earnestly praise God than she did when “she was made straight and glorified God.”

NOAH’S EMINENCE

A Sermon

Published on Thursday, May 5th, 1910, delivered by

C. H. SPURGEON,

at the metropolitan tabernacle, newington,

On Lord’s-day Evening, October 19th, 1873.

“And the Lord said unto Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the ark; for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation.”-Genesis 7:1.*

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 so 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 not see, 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.

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, … “thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation.”

Noah was a gracious man, one to whom the Lord had shown great favour, for he had put 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 the 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 well-spring from which flowed the righteousness for which he was so remarkable. Grace is the root of every righteous character, so let grace have the honour and glory of it.

In the chapter preceding our text, we are told that “Noah was a just man.” It is specially 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 specially 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 sceptre, 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 neighbours 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 honour 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 in your street who comes to the house of God; well, mind that you come boldly, be not ashamed of being singular; and when, in your workshop, you hear the cursing and reviling of the wicked, let them know whose colours 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 amongst 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, “Thee 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, and he had practically 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 traveller in a land where 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.”

But the special point about Noah’s character is that we are not only told that he was righteous, but that he was righteous before God. The Lord said to him, “Thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation.” As I have turned that expression over in my mind, I have thought of the various tribunals before which we all have to stand, and as I try to take you, in imagination, before them one after another, I wonder how many of you will be able to pass them all, and to endure the supreme test so that, like Noah, you may be righteous before God.

First of all, there is the common tribunal of ordinary society and public repute. I hope that, without any conceit, the most of us can say that we believe we are reckoned as righteous by our fellow-men. They trust us in business matters, they do not suspect us of dishonesty; we hope we have not given them occasion to do so. Yet, in so large an assembly as this, there may be some who dare not say that, even in the opinion of their fellow-men, they are righteous. But if it is so, my dear hearers, if you are justly condemned by your fellow-creatures, how can you expect to stand before the tribunal of God? If you cannot dispute the justice of man’s verdict, you may well tremble at the thought of appearing before the bar of God. You are evidently unrighteous; but, oh! thank God that there is a Saviour for the unrighteous, “for when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.” That last word describes you; you know that you could not stand without a degree of shame before those who are acquainted with your character; well then, fall down upon your knees before God, tell him that you are sinners, but also quote Paul’s “faithful saying” that “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” Do not be afraid to do so. Christ did not come to save sham sinners, but real sinners such as you are. Go to God in all your sinfulness, without attempting to make yourselves better first, and cast yourselves upon his infinite mercy in Christ Jesus.

There is another tribunal a little further on: a man may have a pretty good character among his fellow-men who do not know him intimately, but how does he stand in the opinion of his more immediate friends? Those who know us well, those with whom we constantly trade, those whom we meet in our daily work, our employers, our servants, our fellow-workers, what do they think of us? If any of them think badly of you because you try to do what you believe to be right, you need not mind that, but rather rejoice that you are counted worthy to suffer for Christ’s sake. But, on the other hand, if friends, who judge you as favourably as they can, are obliged to regard you as far from upright, how will you stand before the all-seeing eye of God? Let the painful fact that you do not stand well before those who know you drive you to humble yourself before the Lord, and to seek pardon and peace through Jesus Christ, the sinner’s Saviour.

Suppose we have been able to pass those two barriers of public repute and our more immediate acquaintance, how do we stand in the inner circle at home? Occasionally, when I have spoken well of some young man or woman, I have been grieved to hear the parent say, “I wish, sir, your judgment had been correct; my son (or daughter) may behave very well before strangers, but it is very different at home.” Sometimes, I have thought a good deal of certain men whom I have met here, but I have afterwards discovered that they had broken-hearted wives whom they had not treated with the love and kindness they ought to have shown towards them; and I have also known professing Christian women who have not studied the comfort of their husbands, and have not made their home the little paradise it ought to be. If we have a good character in the church, and a reputation for sanctity there, what is the verdict of those who know more about our private life? What is the verdict of the servant concerning his master? What is the judgment of the wife concerning her husband? What does the parent, or the brother or sister say? I solemnly fear that there are many professors of religion who cannot pass this test, and I am deeply sorry when this is the case; for if there is any place where Christianity should be best seen, it is in the home circle. Rowland Hill used to say that he would not give a penny for the religion of the man whose cat and dog were not the better for it, and there was much good sense in that homely remark. I do not know anyone here whom this cap will fit, but if there is such a person, I hope he will put it on, and wear it. This is the sum and substance of the matter,-if our character cannot endure the scrutiny of those who are around us in our home, how can we hope to stand at the bar of God when all that we have done shall be published before the assembled universe?

Supposing that we can satisfactorily pass that ordeal, how do we stand before our enemies? “Before our enemies?” asks someone. Yes, for you remember what was said by the jealous presidents and princes of Babylon concerning Daniel, “We shall not find any occasion against this Daniel, except we find it against him concerning the law of his God.” He was such a godly man that they could not find a flaw in his character however closely they examined him. There he stood fully clad in the armour of righteousness; and before they could lay hold of him, they had to get the king to make a new law ordaining that any man who should pray should be cast into the den of lions. Look too at our Lord Jesus Christ when he was accused by his enemies; they brought various charges against him, but they could not substantiate them; and even when they bribed two witnesses to give evidence against him, even they did not agree with one another as to what he had said. His life had been so perfect that there was nothing that could be truthfully laid to his charge. “Ah!” says one, “that is a test, so to live that even our enemies cannot truthfully find any fault in us.” It is no dishonour to a man to be wrongfully accused, it is rather a mark of honour to have bad men plotting against him; but it is a subject for gratitude to God when one can run the gauntlet of our enemies, and remain unabashed before the cruel, wolfish eyes that are always on the watch for anything wrong or inconsistent with a Christian profession. “Well,” says one, “that is a test that I could not pass.” If so, dear friend, remember this,-there is no enemy whose eye is so clear and so keen as that of God. Even the great arch-enemy could not detect a thousandth part of the imperfections and infirmities that lie open before the Most High. How important it must be, then, to be found righteous before God!

Then, further, I wonder whether all of us, who profess to be Christians, could pass the test of being adjudged righteous before our own conscience. I do not mean that we should be self-righteous,-God forbid that we should ever be that!-but I mean that we should have so lived that our own conscience would declare that we had not been hypocrites, nor liars, nor deceivers, but that, through the Lord’s upholding and restraining grace, we had been true to our profession, and had done that which we sincerely believed to be right. You remember how the apostle John, taught of the Spirit, writes concerning this matter: “If our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things. Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God.”* Can we all of us pass this test? Happy and blessed are we if we can; but even then, we must remind ourselves and one another that there is a still sterner test which Noah was able to pass, for he was righteous before the Lord.

This brings us to the second part of our subject, in which we are to try to find out wherein the eminence of Noah’s character consisted. He was distinguished for his righteousness before God, for the Lord expressly said to him, “Thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation.”

So the eminence of Noah’s character consisted in this, his righteousness must have answered to the divine standard. God would not have called Noah righteous if he had not been righteous, and we cannot suppose that God’s standard is anything short of perfection. Then did Noah live a perfect life? No, speaking popularly, and as the Scripture often speaks, we may say that Noah’s character was a righteous one. There must have been flaws in it; and, certainly, after this time, there was one great sad flaw, of which it is not necessary now to speak more particularly; still, God regarded him as righteous, and that must settle the question so far as we are concerned.

Noah had the righteousness which is of faith, and that faith of his enabled him to look forward to Christ’s atonement. Do you ask how I know this? Well, when he came out of the ark, he “built an altar unto the Lord, and took of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings on the altar.” Those sacrifices were acceptable unto the Lord, for he “smelled a sweet savour”-“a savour of rest”-in them, and they were among the many types of the one great sacrifice that was afterwards to be offered upon Calvary’s cross. It was in this way that Noah’s faith enabled him to look forward to Christ as the sin-atoning Lamb of God, and his faith, like that of Abraham, “was counted unto him for righteousness.” God looked upon him, in Christ, as a perfectly righteous man; and his righteous life was the exponent and outflow of the inward righteousness which God had imputed to him in answer to his faith. He was righteous before God, and no man ever was that in his own naked character. Job’s friend Bildad said concerning God, “The stars are not pure in his sight. How much less man, that is a worm? and the son of man, which is a worm?”

I have set forth the character of Noah before you, and commended it to the utmost; yet I know that, in the sight of God, the patriarch’s character was not in itself perfect. There must have been innumerable imperfections, infirmities, and faults which God’s omniscient eye could see in it. How then could he be said to be righteous before God? Why, God looked at him in Christ, he became heir of the righteousness which is by faith, or, as Paul puts it, he was “accepted in the Beloved.” Then, in consequence of that acceptance, he was “righteous” in the modified sense in which all the Lord’s people are righteous when the grace of God has taught them to walk uprightly, and so made them, at least in a measure, like their righteous Father who is in heaven.

But let me add to this, in order to clear the gospel of anything like legal defilement, that the eminence of Noah’s character appears in the fact that he was righteous before God, that is to say, his righteousness had respect to God. When he dealt with his neighbours, he did not say to himself, “Now I must deal righteously with these men, or I shall lose my reputation as an honest, upright man.” Oh, no; he dealt righteously with men because he desired to be righteous before God. He did not ask himself, “What will my neighbours think or say concerning the building of the ark?” His great concern was to be obedient to the commands that the Lord had given him, and therefore we read again and again, “according to all that God commanded him, so did he.” He fashioned his life by the will of God, not by the will of his fellow-men, nor by his own will; and, beloved, this is the way for us to be righteous before God, when he brings us, by his grace, to desire to live according to his will, and to his praise and glory. I fear that many professors go blundering on, not stopping to pray, “Lord, show us what thou wilt have us to do.” Noah did not act thus, he was righteous before God, righteous with respect to God, righteous in God’s sight.

I would like to have, in this Tabernacle, a band of men and women who will be just, and fear not; who will do the right even though all others are opposed to them, or though no one else shall know anything about it. Are any of you seeking to please men by your religion? If so, such religion is of little or no worth. Be not the servants of men, but the servants of God; take your orders from him, and from him alone. Do not shape your course and character according to the fashion of society. If you are truly born of God, you belong to a noble race which should never stoop to such degradation as that, so be righteous before the Lord. You have already had the righteousness of Christ imputed to you, so may the Spirit of God impart that righteousness to you, that you may live unto God, and before God, fearless and careless of what men may say against you so long as you are right in the sight of the Most High. May the Lord graciously give us such a righteousness as this! And, beloved, we must have it, we must have it, for without holiness shall no man see the Lord. Our own righteousness can never save us, we must have the righteousness of Christ.

But remember that we must be purified in heart, and character, and conduct, or else, where God is we cannot go. How searching will be that test which we shall have to endure at the last! When we are judged by our fellow-men, they may be deceived; but when we shall be judged by God, he will never be deceived. Men may accept fair words as signs and tokens of grace; but God will not so much regard our words as read our hearts. If men hear us pray, they say, “What good men they must be!” Yet God knows what hypocrisy may be lurking behind those pretty sentences. Men judge us by our actions, but God can read the motives that prompted us to those actions. You know how righteous men have appeared to be in the eyes of their fellow-men, yet they have proved to be false after all. God grant that none of us may ever be like that, but may we have a character that will bear holding up to the light; a character concerning which, when the eye of God examines it, he will say, “Here is truth in the inward parts; my Spirit has wrought truth and integrity within this heart and life; this man is weighed in the balances, and is not found wanting.” I am speaking these solemn words to myself, to the deacons and elders around me, and to you who have long professed to be Christians,-not to you outsiders, but to the very best people here. None of us are any better than we ought to be, and I cannot help fearing that some of us are not what we seem to be. Do not let us imagine that what we seem to be in the sight of our fellow-creatures will have any weight in the judgment of God. We may be reckoned righteous by our neighbours and friends, but if we are not washed in the precious blood of Jesus, if we are not robed in the righteousness of Christ, if our lives have not within them the evidences of the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit, our friends’ favourable judgment will avail us nothing when the all-seeing eye of God beholds us as we really are. I pray, with all my heart, that we may each one of us be righteous before God even as Noah was in his generation.

I have no time left for dealing with the third part of my subject, which was to have been the gracious reward given to Noah because of the eminence of his character.

You all know that the Lord will bless the righteous for ever and ever, but the great question that we all have to answer is, are we righteous? Oh, what searching sermons, what tremendous blows hypocrites will endure without showing a sign of feeling anything! I usually notice that, if I preach a sermon that is more than ordinarily searching, there are sure to be some tender-hearted souls crying out at the close that they are hypocrites. Dear creatures, I wish I had no hearers more hypocritical than they are! Those who take such discourses most to heart are often those who have the least reason for doing so, while the real hypocrite is no more moved by it than is the marble in our baptistery. I might almost point him out with my finger, for he would not stir; he would be as bold and brazen as Judas was when he sat with the rest of the apostles just before going out to betray his Lord. Oh, the dreadful presumption, the terrible hardness of heart to which men may come! Lest this should be the case with any of us, let us each one now pray David’s prayer, “Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me, and know my thoughts: and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” Let each one also pray, “Lord, let me know the truth about my case! Let me be neither self-deceived nor a deceiver of others! Let me know the worst of my case; open my eyes even though the sight of my position before thee should be horrible to the last degree! Do not let me go down to hell dreaming that I am going to heaven! Let me know what I really am; and if my heart has never been broken, break it now; if I have never been washed in the precious blood of Jesus, wash me in it now! Jesus, the sinner’s Saviour, I come to thee this moment; I cast my arms around thy cross, O frown me not away! Look in mercy and love upon me, and tell me that my sins, which are many, are all forgiven.” Let the most trembling soul in this whole congregation cling to the cross, crying to him who hung upon it,-

“Nothing in my hand I bring;

Simply to thy cross I cling;

Naked, come to thee for dress;

Helpless, look to thee for grace;

Foul, I to the fountain fly;

Wash me, Saviour, or I die.”

If we cannot cling to Christ’s cross as the sailor clings to the mast, let us cling as the limpet clings to the rock; and the more the devil tries to detach us from it, the more closely let us cling to it. Let us come, either as saints or sinners, whichever we may be, to the foot of the cross, and look up at that dear head crowned with thorns, at those blessed hands and feet and side so rudely pierced, and as, by faith, we see the precious sin-atoning blood flowing from the Saviour’s cruel wounds, let us each one sing as we have often done before,-

“There is a fountain fill’d with blood,

Drawn from Emmanuel’s veins;

And sinners, plunged beneath that flood.

Lose all their guilty stains.

“The dying thief rejoiced to see

That fountain in his day;

Oh may I there, though vile as he,

Wash all my sing away!”

Then, though you have not hitherto been righteous before God, as Noah was, you shall be so for the future; the blood of Christ and the righteousness of Christ shall make you so; and then a new heart and a right spirit shall be given unto you, God’s own Spirit shall be put within you, and God shall be glorified in you even as he was in righteous Noah. May it be so, for his dear Son’s sake! Amen.

Exposition by C. H. Spurgeon

GENESIS 7

Verse 1. And the Lord said unto Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the ark;-

Notice that the Lord did not say to Noah, “Go into the ark,” but “Come,” plainly implying that God was himself in the ark, waiting to receive Noah and his family into the big ship that was to be their place of refuge while all the other people on the face of the earth were drowned. The distinctive word of the gospel is a drawing word: “Come.” Jesus says, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest;” and he will say to his people at the last, “Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” “Depart” is the word of justice and judgment, but “Come” is the word of mercy and grace. “The Lord said unto Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the ark;”-

1. For thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation.

Therefore God drew a distinction between him and the unrighteous, for he always hath a special regard for godly people.

2, 3. Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male and his female: and of beasts that are not clean by two, the male and his female. Of fowls also of the air by sevens, the male and the female; to keep seed alive upon the face of all the earth.

Of the clean creatures which might be offered in sacrifice to God you see that there was a larger proportion than there was of the unclean, that there might be sufficient for sacrifice without the destruction of any species. The unclean beasts were mostly killers and devourers of others, and therefore their number was to be less than that of the clean species. Oh, that the day might soon come when there would be more of clean men and women than of unclean, when there would be fewer sinners than godly people in the world, though even then there would be the ungodly “by two” like the unclean beasts.

4. For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights; and every living substance that I have made will I destroy from off the face of the earth.

It is the prerogative of the king to have the power of life and death, and it is the sole prerogative of the King of kings that-

“He can create, and he destroy.”

But what destructive power is brought into operation because of human sin! Sin must be a very heinous thing, since God, who despiseth not the work of his own hands, will sooner break up the human race, and destroy every thing that liveth rather than that sin should continue to defile the earth. He has destroyed the earth once by water because of sin, and he will the second time destroy it by fire for the selfsame reason. Wherever sin is, God will hunt it; with barbed arrows will he shoot at it; he will cut it in pieces with his sharp two-edged sword, for he cannot endure sin. Oh, how foolish are they who harbour it in their own bosoms, for it will bring destruction to them if they keep it there!

5. And Noah did according unto all that the Lord commanded him.

Here was positive proof of his righteousness, in that he was obedient to the word of the Lord. A man who does not obey God’s commands may talk about righteousness, even the righteousness which is of faith, but it is clear that he does not possess it, for faith works by love, and the righteousness which is by faith is proved by obedience to God. “Noah did according unto all that the Lord commanded him,” and so proved that he was righteous before God.

6. And Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters was upon the earth.

He was nearly five hundred years old when he began to preach about the flood,-a good old age to take up such a subject. For a hundred and twenty years he pursued his theme,-three times as long as most men are ever able to preach; and now at last God’s time of long-suffering is over, and he proves the truthfulness of the testimony of his servant by sending the flood that Noah had foretold.

7, 8. 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. Of clean beasts, and of beasts that are not clean, and of fowls, and of every thing that creepeth upon the earth,

This largest and most complete menagerie that was ever gathered together was not collected by human skill; divine power alone could have accomplished such a task as that.

9. There went in two and two unto Noah into the ark, the male and the female, as God had commanded Noah.

They “went in.” Noah had not to hunt or search for them, but they came according to God’s plan and purpose, even as, concerning the salvation which is by Christ Jesus, his people shall be willing to come to him in the day of his power; with joyfulness shall they come into the ark of their salvation.

10, 11. And it came to pass after seven days, that the waters of the flood were upon the earth. In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.

Perhaps the world was in its prime, when the trees were in bloom, and the birds were singing in their branches, and the flowers were blooming on the earth, “the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.”

12, 13. And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights. In the selfsame day entered Noah, and Shem, and Ham, and Japheth, the sons of Noah, and Noah’s wife, and the three wives of his sons with them, into the ark;

These eight persons are very carefully mentioned. “The Lord knoweth them that are his;” “and they shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in that day when I make up”-or, shut up-“my jewels,” as he was about to do in this case. In similar fashion, God makes a very careful enumeration of all those who believe in him; precious are they in his sight, and they shall be preserved when all others are destroyed.

14. They, and every beast after his kind, and all the cattle after their kind, and every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind, and every fowl after his kind, every bird of every sort.

“Every bird of every sort,” that is, every kind of bird; they are all mentioned over again. God makes much of salvation; oh, that we also did! We may recount and rehearse the story of our rescue from universal destruction, and we need not be afraid or ashamed of repeating it. As the Holy Ghost repeats the words we have here, you and I may often tell out the story of our salvation, and dwell upon the minute particulars of it, for every item of it is full of instruction.

15, 16. And they went in unto Noah into the ark, two and two of all flesh, wherein is the breath of life. And they that went in, went in male and female of all flesh, as God had commanded him: and the Lord shut him in.*

Now the jewels are all in, and therefore the casket is closed.

17. And the flood was forty days upon the earth;

Just as it had been foretold, for God’s providence always tallies with his promises or with his threats. “Hath he said, and shall he not do it?”

17. And the waters increased, and bare up the ark, and it was lift up above the earth.

You can see it begin to move until it is afloat. The same effect is often produced on us; when the flood of affliction is deep, then we begin to rise. Oh, how often have we been lifted up above the earth by the very force that threatened to drench and drown us! David said, “It is good for me that I have been afflicted,” and many another saint can say that he never was floated until the floods were out; but then he left the worldliness with which he had been satisfied before, and he began to rise to a higher level than he had previously attained.

18, 19. And the waters prevailed, and were increased greatly upon the earth; and the ark went upon the face of the waters. And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered.

If Moses had meant to describe a partial deluge upon only a small part of the earth, he used very misleading language; but if he meant to teach us that the deluge was universal, he used the very words which we might have expected that he would use. I should think that no person, merely by reading this chapter, would arrive at the conclusion that has been reached by some of our very learned men,-too learned to hold the simple truth. It looks as if the deluge must have been universal when we read that not only did the waters prevail exceedingly upon the earth, but that “all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven,” that is, all beneath the canopy of the sky, “were covered.” What could be more plain and clear than that?

20-23. Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered. And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man: all in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died. And every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground, both man, and cattle, and the creeping things, and the fowl of the heaven; and they were destroyed from the earth: and Noah only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark.

This is the counterpart of what will follow the preaching of the gospel; those who are in Christ shall live, shall rise, and reign with him for ever; but none of those who are outside of Christ shall so live. “Noah only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark.”

24. And the waters prevailed upon the earth an hundred and fifty days.