Part 13
force of what David says. He is using no exaggerated expressions.
There is no indication of hyperbole throughout the whole Psalm.
He is a broken-hearted man on his knees. He is confessing his own
sin with Bathsheba and is not likely either to bring any accusation
against his own mother or to use exaggerated terms! Beloved it is
so. We, all of us, the best of us still have to bear about with us the
marks of the unclean thing from which we sprang.
Take Paul again–was there ever a man who knew more of what
sanctity of nature means, or who was brought nearer to the image
of Christ? Yet he cries out, "Oh, wretched man that I am! Who shall
deliver me from the body of this death." He finds no joy until he
can say, "I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord." Still I think
we have another proof, namely, our own observation. We have
lived long enough to observe with our own eyes and by our reading
that sin is the universal disease of manhood. Is it not certain,
according to observation, that man's heart is evil? They used to tell
pretty tales about the charming innocence of men dwelling in the
wooded bowers of primeval forests, untainted by the vices of
civilization, unpolluted by the inventions of commerce and art.
The woods of America were searched and no such sweet babes of
grace were discovered. The ferocity and cruelty of the Indians
justify my saying that they were hateful and hating one another.
The blood-red tomahawk might have been emblazoned as the
Redman's coat of arms and his eyes glaring with revenge might be
taken as the true index of his character. Travelers have penetrated
of late into the center of Africa where we may expect to see nature
in its primitive excellence and what is the report that is brought
back to us? Why, it is nature in its primitive devilry, that is all!
Let such abominable tyrants as Messrs. Grant and Speke describe
to us indicate to us what man is when he is left in his primeval
state, untainted by civilization–he is simply a greater devil–he is
naked and he is not ashamed! In this, only, is he like our unfallen
parents. Again, try the mildest races. There is the mild Hindu. You
look into his gentle face and you cannot suppose him capable of
cruelty. Trust well that mild Hindu, subdued by British arms so
speedily and so cheerfully bowing his neck to the yoke. But you
may as well trust the sleek and cunning tiger from his jungle–let
the story of the Sepoy rebellion of a few years ago show us the
gentleness of the mild Hindu!
Live among the mild Hindu and if you dare read the first chapter
of Paul's Epistle to the Romans, remember that it is a decent
account of what, in ordinary life, is practiced among the Hindu but
which could not be more clearly described, because the mouth of
modesty would refuse to speak it and the ears of modesty would
tingle at the hearing of it. The life of the most respectable Hindu is
tainted with vices too vile to mention. "Yes, but still," says one,
"we must look at children, because sin may enter into us through
education–let us look at children."
Very well, I am willing to look at children and I am unwilling that
anybody should say a word that is harsh or severe against
children's nature. But I will say that any man who declares children
to be born perfect never was a father! If he would only watch his
own child–not merely when that child has its toys around it and is
pleased and happy, but when its little temper is ruffled–he would
soon perceive evil nestling there. Your child without evil? You
without eyes, you mean!! If you will only look and listen you will
soon discover, if no other fault, this one, "they go astray from the
womb, speaking lies."
One of the earliest vices of children which needs to be corrected
with most constant and wise rigor is the tendency towards
falsehood. It is all very pretty for people to talk about the innocence
of children. But I would like them to have to keep one of the
nursery schools like those at Manchester, where the children are
left while the mothers are at work in the mills! They would soon
discover in their pulling one another's hair, and scratching at one
another's eyes, and such like pretty little diversions and innocent
freaks, that they are not altogether the sweet babes of innocence
they are supposed to be!
"Well," says one, "still, human nature may have some spiritual
good in it. Look at the men who make illustrious the page of
history–look at Socrates, for instance–religion did nothing for
Socrates, but yet what a fine character he was." Who told you that?
I will venture to say that the philosopher's character would not bear
description in a decent assembly. We know from undoubted
authority that the purest philosophers at times indulged in bestiality
and filth. Solon and Socrates were no exceptions. When Infidels
hold up these sages as being such patterns of what human nature
might become, they have history dead against them. "The whole
head is sick and the whole heart faint. There is no soundness in it."
And this, be it remembered, is without an exception in the long
history of humanity, say six thousand years. There is not one that
has escaped contamination, not one who has come into the world
clean, not one who dares go before his Maker's bar and say, "Great
God, I have never sinned, but have kept Your Law from my youth
up."
II. Now I want you to notice, in the second place, a most
extraordinary thing–when I noticed it yesterday I was surprised and
overwhelmed with grateful admiration–that is, GOD'S
EXTRAORDINARY REASONING. Good reasoning, but most
extraordinary. He says, "I will not again curse the ground anymore
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! Strange reasoning!–to be accounted for by the
little circumstance in the beginning of the verse, "the Lord smelled
a sweet savor." There was a sacrifice there–that makes all the
difference! When God looks on sin apart from sacrifice, Justice
says, "Destroy! Destroy! Smite! Curse! Destroy!" But when there
is a sacrifice, God looks on sin with eyes of mercy and though
Justice says, "Destroy," He says, "No, I have punished My dear
Son. I have punished Him and will spare the sinner." Mercy looks
to see if she cannot find some loophole, something that she can
make into an excuse why she may spare mankind.
Is then, natural depravity, an excuse for sin? Does God use it as
such? No, Beloved–that our heart is vile is rather an aggravation of
the vileness of our action than any excuse for it. Yet there is this
one thing–we are born sinners and God sees there, I will say, a sort
of loophole. Rightly, upon the terms of Justice, there is no
conceivable reason why He should have mercy upon us. But Divine
Grace makes and invents a reason. O may I be helped, while I try
to show you where I think the ground of mercy lies! Devils fell
separately–we have every reason to believe that every fallen angel
sinned on his own account and fell. And it is very likely that on this
account there was no possibility, as we know of, of their
restoration–every separate fallen spirit was given up forever to
chains and darkness and flames of fire.
But men! Men did not fall separately and individually. Our case is
a somewhat different one from that of fallen angels. We, all of us,
fell without our own consent, without having, in fact, any finger in
it, actually. We fell federally in our covenant head–it is in
consequence of our falling in Adam that our heart becomes evil
from our youth. Now it looks to me as if God's mercy caught that.
He seemed to say, "These My creatures have, according to my
arrangement of federation, fallen representatively. Then I can save
them representatively. They perished in one, Adam. I will save
them in Another. They fell not by their own overt act, though,
indeed, their own overt acts have added to this and deserve My
wrath, but their first fall was not through themselves. They are
sinful from their very infancy. Therefore He says, "I will deliver
them by Another as they fell by another."
I do not know whether I can make it clear. I do not think that this
was any reason before the bar of Justice why God should save us,
for I believe that He might justly have condemned the whole race
of Adam on account of Adam's sin and their own guilt. But I do
think that this was a blessed loophole through which His mercy
could, as it were, come fairly to the sons of men. "There," He says,
"I made them not distinct individuals but a race. They fell as a race,
they shall rise as an elect race–'As in Adam all die, even so in
Christ shall all be made alive.' 'As by the transgression of one
many were made sinners, so by the righteousness of one shall many
be made righteous.' "
I think you see the drift of it, then. Man's being sinful, is in the
logic of justice, a reason for punishment. Man's being sinful from
his youth by inheritance from his federal head becomes, through
mercy, a reason why Sovereign Grace should light upon men while
fallen angels are left to perish forever. Oh, I bless God that I did not
fall first of all myself. I do bless the day, now, that I fell in Adam,
for it may be if I had never fallen in Adam I should have fallen in
myself and then I must have been, like fallen angels, shut out
forever from the Presence of God and in the flames of Hell! One of
the old Divines used to say of Adam's sin, "Beata culpa"–"Happy
fault!"
I dare not say that, but in one sense I will say, blessed Fall that
renders it possible for me to rise! Blessed way of ruin which
renders it possible for the blessed way of salvation to be brought
about–salvation by Substitution! Salvation by Sacrifice! Salvation
by a new Covenant Head, who for us is offered up that God may
smell a sweet savor and may deliver us! I hope nobody will
misconstrue what I have said and make out that I teach that human
depravity is an excuse for sin–God forbid! It is only in the eyes of
Divine Grace that it becomes the door of mercy.
You know if your child has offended you, you do not want to
chastise him and yet you feel he deserves it. How you do try, if you
are a loving parent, to find some reason why you may let him go.
There is no reason–you know that. If you deal with him in terms of
justice, there is no reason why having sinned he should not smart
for it. But you keep casting about for an excuse–perhaps it is his
mother's birthday and you let him off for that. Or else there was
some little circumstance which softened the offense for which you
may have him excused.
I do not know whether the story is true, but it is said of Queen
Victoria when she was just queen–just a girl–she was asked to sign
a death warrant for a person who, by court martial, had been
condemned to die. It is told that she said to the Duke, "Cannot you
find any reason why this man should be pardoned?" The Duke said,
"No, it was a very great offense, he ought to be punished." "But
was he a good soldier?" The Duke said he was a shamefully bad
soldier, had always been noted as a bad soldier. "Well, cannot you
invent for me any reason?" "Well," he said, "I have every reason to
believe from testimony that he was a good man as a man, although
a bad soldier." "That will do," she said, and she wrote across the
warrant, "pardoned"–not because the man deserved it–but because
she wanted a reason for having mercy.
So my God seems to look upon man and after He has looked him
through and through and cannot see anything, at last He says, "He
is evil from his youth," and he writes "Pardoned." He smells the
sweet savor first and His heart is turned towards the poor rebel.
Then He turns to him with mercy and blesses him.
III. But now, thirdly, by your leave and patience, I shall have to
lead you to a few inferences from the doctrine of the depravity of
man. If the heart is so evil, then it is impossible for us to enter
Heaven as we are. We cannot suppose that those holy gates shall
enclose those whose imaginations and thoughts are evil, and evil
continually. No, if that is the place into which nothing shall enter
that defiles, then no man being what he was in his first birth can
ever stand there!
Another step. Then it is quite clear that if I am to enter Heaven no
outward reform will ever do, for if I wash my face, that does not
change my heart. And if I give up all my outward sins and become
outwardly what I ought to be, yet still, if it is true that my heart is
the villainous thing which Scripture says it is, then my outward
reformation cannot touch that and I am still shut out of Heaven. If
inside that cup and platter there is all this filthiness, I may cleanse
the outside, but I have not touched that which will shut me out of
Heaven.
I go, then, a little farther and I observe that I must have a new
nature–not new practice only, but a new nature–not new thoughts
or new words, but a new nature so as to become a totally new man.
And when I draw the inference, I have Scripture to back me at
once, for what does Jesus say to Nicodemus? "You must be born
again." But what is to be born again? To my first birth, I owe all I
am by nature. I must get a second birth to which I am to owe all I
am as I enter Heaven. Multitudes of persons have been saying,
"What is Regeneration?" Here they have been writing hundreds of
pamphlets and no two of them agree upon what Regeneration is
except that they say that a man may be regenerated and not
converted.
Here is an extraordinary thing! An unconverted man who is
regenerated? One who is an enemy to God and yet he has in
himself a new nature? He has been born again and yet is not
converted to God? What? A Regeneration that does not convert? A
Regeneration, in fact, that leaves men just where they were before?
But to every babe in Christ the word, "regenerate," is as plain as
possible–he wants no definition, no description. "To be born again?
Why," he says, "I comprehend that it is to be made over again, a
new creature in Christ Jesus! My first birth makes me a creature–
my second birth makes me a new creature and I become what I
never was before."
I must remember that what is needed in me is not to bring out and
develop what is good in me, for, according to God's Word in the
sixth of Genesis, there is nothing good, it is only evil. Grace does
not enter to educate the germs of holiness within me, for there is no
germ of good in man at all–he is "evil continually"– and every
imagination is "only evil." I must, then, die to sin! My old nature
must be slain, it cannot be mended! It is too bad, too rotten to be
patched up–that must die. By the death of Jesus it must be
destroyed. It must be buried with Christ and I must rise in
resurrection life to conformity with my Lord Jesus.
Well then, advancing one step further–It is clear if I must be this
before I can enter Heaven that I cannot give myself a new nature. A
crab tree cannot transform itself into an apple tree! If I am a wolf I
cannot make myself a sheep. Water can rise to its own proper level,
but it cannot go beyond it without pressure. I must have, then,
something worked in me more than I can work in myself and this,
indeed, is good Scriptural doctrine. "That which is born of the
flesh"–what is it? When the flesh has done its very best what is
it?–"That which is born of the flesh is flesh"–it is filthy to begin
with and filth comes of it–only "that which is born of the Spirit is
spirit: marvel not that I said unto you you must be born again."
My soul must come under the hand of the Spirit. Just as a piece of
clay is on the potter's wheel and is made to revolve and is touched
by the fingers of the potter and molded into what he wishes it to be,
so must I lie passively in the hands of the Spirit of God and He
must work in me to will and to do of His own good pleasure. And
then I shall begin to work out my own salvation with fear and
trembling, but never, never till then. I must have more than nature
can give me, more than my mother gave me, more than my father
gave me, more than flesh and blood can produce under the most
favorable circumstances. I must have the Spirit of God from
Heaven.
Then comes this inquiry, "Have I received it? What is the best
evidence of it?" The best evidence of it is this–Am I resting upon
Christ Jesus, alone, for salvation? You generally find on potters'
vessels that there is a certain mark so that you can know who made
them. I want to know whether I am a vessel fit for the Master's use,
molded by His hands and fashioned by His Spirit. Now, every
single vessel that comes out of God's hands has a Cross on it. Have
you the Cross on you? Are you resting upon Christ's bloody
Atonement made on Calvary? Is He to your soul your one rock of
refuge–your one only hope? Can you say this morning–
"Nothing in my hands I bring,
Simply to Your Cross I cling–
Naked, come to You for dress;
Helpless, look to You for Grace.
Black, I to the fountain fly,
Wash me, Savior, or I die!"?
Then, my Brothers and Sisters, you have a new heart and a right
spirit! You are a new creature in Christ Jesus, for simple faith in
Christ is what the old Adam never could attain! A simple faith in
Jesus is the great, sure mark of a work of the Holy Spirit in your
soul by which you are made to be a partaker of the inheritance of
the saints in light. "Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is
born of God." Do you believe that Jesus is the Christ? Do you take
Him to be God's Anointed to you? Do you trust yourself to Him to
plead for you, to work for you, to fulfill the Law for you, to offer
Atonement for you?
If so, if Jesus is the Christ to you–you are born of God. The Spirit
which is in you now will drive out the old nature, slay it utterly, cut
it up root and branch and you shall one day bear the image of the
heavenly, even as you have till now borne the image of the earthly.
May God bless these words of mine to your souls' good.
"Eternal Spirit, we confess
And sing the wonders of Your Grace!
Your power conveys our blessings down
From God the Father and the Son.
Enlightened by Your heavenly ray,
Our shades and darkness turn to day.
Your inward teachings make us know
Our danger and our refuge, too.
Your power and glory works within,
And breaks the chains of reigning sin,
Does our imperious lusts subdue,
And forms our wretched hearts anew.
The troubled conscience knows Your voice,
Your cheering Words awake our joys;
Your Words allay the stormy wind,
And calm the surges of the mind."
Ge 8:22 • The Sermon of the Seasons
ERMON 1891
The Sermon Of The Seasons
"While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, and cold and
heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease."
Genesis 8:22
OUR Savior constantly taught the people by parables and I think
He would have His ministers do the same. The condition of things
just now, both as to weather and business, furnishes a very plain
and instructive parable which it would not be wise to pass over.
Every morning when we wake, we hope for a change of wind, a
glimpse of the sun and the end of the frost and we still moan with
the poet–
"Oh, the long and dreary Winter!
Oh, the cold and cruel Winter!"
We say to ourselves, Will Spring never come? In addition to this,
trade and commerce continue in a state of stagnation–crowds are
out of employment and where business is carried on, it yields little
profit. Our watchmen are asked if they discern any signs of
returning day and they answer, "No." Thus we bow our heads in a
common affliction and ask, each man, comfort for his fellow, for as
yet we see not our signs, neither does the eastern sky grow gray
with the hopeful light of the long-expected morning. Having faith
in God we faint not, but believe that a lesson of love for us is
written by His hand in these black characters. Let us spell it out
with childlike confidence.
Our text takes us back to the time when the waters of the Flood
had just receded and God opened the door of the ark and bade
Noah and his family come forth into a new world. For a time there
had been confusion–the seasons were mixed up, the perpetual
downpour of the rain had almost turned day into night and whether
it was summer or winter could scarcely be told. The frame of
Nature seemed to be out of joint, her order suspended. And now the
Lord, in making a promise to Noah that He would never destroy the
earth again with a flood, also declares that while the earth remains
there shall be no more of the confusion of the seasons and mingling
of day and night which had brought such destruction upon all living
things. As there should be no more a general deluge, so should
there be no more a serious disarrangement of the course of the
seasons and the temperature appropriate thereto. Seedtime and
harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter and day and night are to
succeed each other in their perpetually unchanging change so long
as the present reign of forbearance shall last.
Till comes the close of time, the rolling year, made up of alternate
day and night, shall pass through cold and heat in due order. We are
grateful to God for thus settling in His mind that so it shall be. We
are at ease because we know that He will not, again, lift His hand
to destroy every living thing with a flood of water. He will deal
with men in longsuffering, tender mercy and forbearance. He will
not use the stern weapons of destruction, but will try the tender
ministrations of patience and Grace–that men may be led to
repentance. There will come an end to this dispensation, but while
the reign of forbearance lasts, Nature shall keep her appointed
marches and we need not fear a disorderly rush or a destructive
chaos. "Four seasons fill the measure of the year." In their
mysterious round, they come and go, and all combined display a
moving harmony of wise design most glorifying to our God. Fear
not in the day of tempest, for the rain shall not deluge the earth.
The Lord sets His rainbow in the cloud as the symbol of His
Covenant with mankind. Fear not in the black midnight–God will
rekindle the lamp of day and chase away the darkness!
It is very singular that when the Lord thus ushers in the reign of
forbearance He gives as His reason the following statement–"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." This is very
amazing because this seems to have been the powerful reason why
the Lord had already destroyed the guilty race from off the face of
the earth! In the fifth and sixth verses of the sixth chapter we
read–"God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth,
and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only
evil continually. And it repented the Lord that He had made man on
the earth, and it grieved Him at His heart." Here we have almost
the same words! Can the reason for judgment become the argument
for mercy? Assuredly it can! God who changes not absolutely, yet
changes His hand in His dealing with men. He had left them to
themselves and permitted them to live through centuries, but the
longer they lived, the more wicked they grew, until sin reached to a
horrible degree of infamy! Man becomes a bad enough sinner when
he lives to be 70, but what he became at 700 or more it is
somewhat difficult to guess!
We wonder not that there were giants in those days–giants in
crime as well as in stature. The Lord saw that however long man
lived, he only grew greater adept in sin, for the imagination of his
heart remained evil and even grew to an intolerable height of
iniquity–and, therefore, God said that He would destroy the race
and begin anew. But when the Lord looked down upon those whom
He had spared, who were to be the parents of a new race, He saw
that in them, also, there was the same fountain of evil and that their
hearts, also, yielded evil desires and devices continually. Then He
resolved to shorten the life of man so that no individuals might ever
arrive at so horrible a ripeness and cleverness of iniquity. But at the
same time He said, "I will bear with them. I have dealt sternly with
them, but they do not change; the few whom I have snatched from
a watery grave are still inclined to sin. This dreadful expedient has
not washed away the rebellious tendencies of the human heart.
Therefore I will deal leniently and gently with them, manifesting a
long forbearance, that man may have space for repentance. I will
no more destroy every living thing, because destruction itself does
not avail to banish sin." Thus it is not difficult to see how that
which, to Divine holiness was a reason for judgement, may be used
by Divine pity as a reason for mercy!
But what do you think could have made the reasoning assume this
new form? I attribute it to one thing never to be forgotten. Read the
verse which precedes our text–"And Noah built an altar unto the
Lord; and took of every clean beast and of every clean fowl and
offered burnt offerings on the altar; and the Lord smelled a sweet
savor." The sacrifice is the turning point! Without a sacrifice, sin
clamors for vengeance and God sends a destroying flood. But the
sacrifice presented by Noah was typical of the coming Sacrifice of
God's only begotten Son and of the effectual Atonement in it
provided for human sin. The very shadow of the one great
Propitiation changed the state of the world! Now the Lord pleads
with Himself for Grace as once He argued for doom. He speaks, of
course, after the manner of men–it is only to our apprehension that
these things are so–for Jehovah changes not and He is always Love
and Wisdom. For the sake of the sacrifice, God resolves to bear
with man as with one who is incurably unwise, or desperately sick.
He determines to look upon the evil tendency of man's imagination
rather as an inveterate disease than as an unbearable provocation.
He deals very patiently with the race and no more sweeps it away
in His wrath. See what the Lord will do when a sacrifice is
provided! I think I hear Him say of the earth, "Deliver it from flood
and bid the seasons keep their round of beneficence, for I have
found a Ransom."
Thus I introduce to you the text and I would have you notice, dear
Friends, that in that text there is, first of all, a hint, A SOLEMN
HINT OF WARNING. It begins thus–"While the earth remains." I
hear a sound in the heart of the text like subterranean thunder! The
voice of the text is a voice of mercy, but there is an undertone of
"terrible things in righteousness." "While the earth remains"
implies that the earth will not always remain. There is an end
appointed by the Most High and it will surely come–then the
seasons will melt into the endless age and time shall be promoted
into eternity. The earth has remained, now, century after century,
but alas, it has but little changed towards God! The whole world
still lies in the Wicked One–darkness covers the earth and gross
darkness the nations. Jehovah has a people, "a remnant according
to the election of Grace," and for their sakes the earth remains yet a
little while, but its end draws nearer every hour. "God has
appointed a day in the which He will judge the world in
righteousness by the Man, Christ Jesus."
An hour is set when mercy shall no longer hold back the axe from
the barren tree and forbearance shall no more restrain the angel
with the sharp sickle from reaping the vintage of the earth! Love
now journeys to and fro among the sons of men, with the voice of
trembling pathos, pleading with them to be reconciled to God. But
her mission will come to an end–the day of Grace will be over–and
the reign of judgment will come. Let us not reckon too much upon
this world's enduring even for a little while! Let us not set our love
upon anything that is upon it, for here we have no continuing city.
"The things which are seen are temporal." The world shall pass
away and all the works that are in it shall be burned up–even "the
elements shall melt with fervent heat." There is a day coming when
floods of fire shall be let loose–they shall fall from above and burst
upward from below–and all material things shall be melted in one
common conflagration. Poor world, you, too, are surely doomed!
God is gracious to you, but you are as a wreck drifting upon the
rocks, or as a tree waiting for the axe! Believers in the testimony of
God can joyfully say, "We, according to His promise, look for new
heavens and a new earth, wherein dwells righteousness." Therefore
we are not dismayed.
I would have you notice again, dear Friends, that the time when
the earth shall no longer remain is not mentioned. The warning is
left indefinite as to time, though definite enough as to fact. The
expression, "While the earth remains," is proof enough that it will
remain only for a season, but it is dumb as the tongue of death as to
the date when that season shall close. "The whole creation groans
and travails in pain together until now." But when the hour of her
deliverance shall come, the best instructed cannot tell. Do not
attempt to prophesy and especially do not venture upon dates. "It is
not for you to know the times or the seasons which the Father has
put in His own power." "Of that day and hour knows no man, no,
not the angels of Heaven, but My Father only." The uncertainty of
the end of all things is intended to keep us continually on the
watch. We are to remain upon the tiptoe of expectation and never to
dream that we can reckon upon a certain length of time before the
great and terrible Day of the Lord. If you knew when Christ would
come, you might be tempted to spend the interval in neglect and
wantonness. But, as it is written, "In such an hour as you think not,
the Son of Man comes," it is the Lord's intent that you should stand
with your loins girt and your lamps trimmed, waiting for the
midnight cry, "Behold, He comes!"
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, seedtime and harvest shall
not cease." The "while" of the earth's remaining is counted by
days–months or years are not mentioned, much less centuries. The
earth seems gray with age to us, but in the language of Inspiration,
the present stage of its history is reckoned by days. There will, one
day, come a last day and let us not reckon that the time is distant,
for Peter says, "The end of all things is at hand." And he adds, "Be
you, therefore, sober and watch unto prayer." "The Lord is not
slack concerning His promise, as some men count slackness." One
day is with the Lord as a thousand years and a thousand years as
one day.
If geologists speak correctly concerning the history of the world,
it has lasted many myriads of years, already, and passed through
many periods before it came to that which is described in the first
chapter of Genesis. The era of man is that which God describes to
us by the Inspired Penman and we are led to believe that this era
will be a very short one. From the day when God fitted up this
earth for the abode of man to the time when He shall consume it
with fervent heat, there will be comparatively a very short space of
time. God lives by millions of years and, therefore, a few thousand
years to Him are but as a watch in the night. Let it be thus far
understood by us that this dispensation is not to be a protracted one
and that the duration of the world in its present state is to be
exceedingly brief as compared with preceding and succeeding ages.
The life of this present evil world is but a span–it is also of few
days and full of trouble. But I must also add that the era of sin and
Grace is crowded with marvelous manifestations of the Glory of
God in infinite love and mercy.
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 remains, seedtime 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 has about it the smell of a field that the Lord has blessed!
This promise has been kept. It is a long time 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. Seedtime and harvest have been
threatened, but they have come. The harvest may not have been
abundant, but yet there has been a harvest sufficient to sustain the
race. Days have been dark and hardly discernible from night, like
the gloom of Egypt's plague, but still, taking things as a whole, day
and night have divided time between them. The ordinances of
Heaven have continued with us as with our fathers. No student of
Nature can doubt that to this hour, despite occasional extremes of
heat and cold, the seasons are unchanged and, notwithstanding
occasional absence of sunshine and diminution of light, day and
night have followed the diurnal revolution of the earth. Since the
fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were. One great
interruption occurred at the deluge, but the Lord has kept His
promise to prevent any other.
So long-continued is the fulfillment of this promise that even this
race of unbelievers has come to believe in it. We look for the
seasons as a matter of course. I do not suppose that anyone in this
audience doubts the coming of spring. The limbs are bare, the buds
are not eager for their bursting, the crocus and the daffodil are
afraid to show themselves–but yet the birds believe in the coming
spring, for I hear them in sweet chorus every morning singing their
songs of expectancy! Brothers and Sisters, you are also expectant.
Long observation has begotten in you an unwavering faith. When
the sun goes down at night, not even a little child fears that God has
blown out the sun and that the great candle will never be lighted
again! No, we look for the morning! When winter has chilled us a
while, we look for the spring and the summer. And when summer
has browned our faces, we expect the falling of the leaf and the
descent of the snow!
I want you to ask yourselves–Why do we not believe God's other
promises? Why have we not as solid a conviction of the Truth of
God in other statements which our God has made as we have upon
this point? Is it that we have experience in this case? O Brothers
and Sisters, we have had experience concerning other matters, also!
If we were to deal with the weather with the same short-sighted
doubt which governs us in our thoughts of Divine Providence, we
might be doubtful about summer and winter! We might say, "It
really does not look very likely that spring will come. Look at our
meadows and mark how the cold has literally burned the grass!
Look how many of our hardy evergreens are dead and others sadly
cut to pieces–look what mischief the cold has worked. Will there
ever be leaf and flower again? Is it possible that I shall ever wipe
the sweat from my smoking brow on some blazing noontide? Can
these frozen brooks leap into liberty? Today we crowd around the
fire, hardly keeping ourselves alive from the bitter cold–shall we
yet bask in the hay field, or fan ourselves amid the golden
sheaves?" Had we less experience, it would seem highly
improbable. Yet we enjoy a full assurance as to the revolution of
the seasons and the succession of day and night, do we not? Why
this assurance of one promise and why such frequent distrust of
others equally true?
When God's promises appear to be difficult of fulfillment, why
do we doubt them? They are fulfilled in due season–which of them
has ever failed? They come to pass without difficulty–why should
we suspect them? When deliverance looks as though it could not
come, it is, none the less, sure, for the Lord has promised it. The
absence of visible means need not enter into the account–He who is
Almighty God has infinite resources!
So, too, dear Friends, we have to remember that if the Lord,
Himself, does not send spring and summer, we cannot create either
of them. Here we are out of the field. When the sun goes down, if
the Lord did not cause it to rise again, we could not open the doors
of the morning. I love to get into the field of Nature on a large
scale, for there one is rid of man and the Lord, alone, is seen
working all things according to His will. The heavens and their
ordinances know no Presence and Power but God alone. As far as
we are concerned, we cannot lift a finger to change the seasons.
What could all our Parliament–King, Lords and Commons–do with
all their Acts towards bringing on springtime or hastening summer
and harvest? Nothing at all! These matters are out of man's power
and yet they are none the less sure! So, my Brothers and Sisters,
when you get into such a condition that you can, by no means, help
yourself, you are not, therefore, to doubt that God can achieve His
purpose and fulfill His promise without your help! When has He
asked your aid? Good men have gone very wrong when they have
thought of aiding in the fulfillment of promises and prophecies. See
how Rebecca erred in trying to get the promised blessing for Jacob!
We had better leave the Lord's decrees in the Lord's hands. When
any case comes to its worst and you can do nothing whatever in it,
you may safely stand still and see the salvation of God! At this hour
you feel sure that springtime and summer will come, though you
cannot move the sun an inch beyond his predestinated course. Be
as much at ease about the other promises of God as you are
concerning the cycle of the year.
Remember, also, that every coming of summer–yes, and every
rising of the sun–is a great wonder. Only our familiarity leads us to
think of these things without marveling. A real miracle is every
break of day and every sunset! A world of wonders bursts forth in
every springtide! Each blade of grass and ear of corn is a display of
Divine Omnipotence! We are surrounded with works of almighty
power and goodness from morn till eve and through the watches of
the night! From the first day of the year until its close, the Lord is
about us. Unseen by us, His hands propel the silent spheres which
no force within human calculation could move in their orbits. That
same Power sustains and animates and perfects all things. God is in
all and in all wonderful! If God continues, thus, to work the
pleasing changes of the year as He promised to do, why do you
doubt Him concerning other things, O you of little faith? Will He
not keep His Word to His children if He keeps it to the earth? Will
He not fulfill His every promise to His own elect if He is true to
sun and stars? Seedtime and harvest, summer and winter have
come according to His Word without our aid and, amazing as these
changes are, they have never failed! And will the Lord forget in
other things? Will He forswear His Covenant and deny His promise
to His Only Begotten? God forbid!
Brothers and Sisters, we have come not only to believe this
promise as to the seasons and to be 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–and what is sowing but a burial of good store?
Why do farmers hide their grain in the earth? Because they feel
sure that seedtime will, in due time, be followed by harvest! They
put their grain into the ground hoping to receive it, again,
multiplied a hundredfold! 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. When faith asks of God, it
believes that it has the petition which it has asked of Him. Many
prepare their thinner garments in prospect of warm weather, or, at
the close of summer, provide household flannels for the winter
because they reckon upon the season. Why do we not, also, prepare
ourselves to receive the Lord's blessing in the time appointed? Why
do we not reckon upon every Word of Scripture being fulfilled? We
ought to take the promises into our matter-of-fact estimate and act
accordingly.
Let me go further–If a man did not act upon the declaration of
God in our text, he would be counted foolish. Suppose a man said,
"I do not feel sure that there will come a harvest and, therefore, I
shall not sow"? His neighbors would look upon his uncultivated
fields and reckon him out of his mind! If another should say, "I
shall lay by no stores for the winter because I believe that we have
arrived at perpetual summer, wherein there will always be corn in
the sheaf and fruit on the trees," we would regard him as fit for a
lunatic asylum! 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. The masses of our fellow men never
search the Word of God to find a promise suitable to their cases
and, even if such a promise were laid before them, they would only
regard it as a matter of imagination or meaningless jargon. What
shall I say of those who thus trifle with eternal Truths of God but
that madness has carried away the heart of man? What God has
promised ought to be a clear indication to us of the future and a
hint as to how we should act! Let us act in faith upon the Divine
promise. If the Lord says, "Seek you, My face," take care that you
seek His face. If He says, "Ask, and it shall be given you," be sure
to ask and expect to receive! If the Lord promises pardon to those
who believe on His Son, let us believe on His Son and receive
mercy! He keeps His Covenant with day and night. Let us,
therefore, believe that He will keep His Covenant with us and do
even as He has said. Oh that this lesson, simple as it is, may be
learnt by every Believer and by every unbeliever, too!
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! An unbeliever
declares that there will be no summer and, therefore, he will not
sow nor prepare a barn. Will his foolish skepticism prevent the
coming of harvest, miserable farmer that he is? He will secure a
harvest of thorns and thistles to reward his own practical unbelief,
but a harvest will come to the rest of the land to his confusion! The
year will go on in spite of whomever plays the fool! So, too, will
the sun rise, regardless of whomever prophesies an endless night!
God's purpose and God's promise will stand fast though the hills
are removed! If you believe in the Lord Jesus, you shall be saved,
but if you believe not, you must perish! In either case, the Law of
God will not change for you. God's great Laws in the spiritual
world hold good with a certainty as great as those which govern the
natural world.
We cannot suspend the force of gravitation, but if we could, we
would not, even then, be able to change the veracity of the Most
High, who must be true so long as He is God. Has He said and shall
He not do it? Yes, that He shall! Though we believe not, He abides
faithful–He cannot deny Himself–therefore, you sons of men, be
wise and take heed to the Word of the Lord. As in the summer you
prepare yourselves for winter. And as at springtime you sow your
seed that you may gather your harvest in the summer and thus you
obey the voice of God in Nature, I pray you, also, have respect to
that Voice as it speaks in the pages of His Book–and shape your
conduct by that which the Lord has revealed.
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. Holy Scripture is intended not to
teach us natural, but spiritual things. I conclude, therefore, that
there is an analogy here well worthy of being worked out. May the
good Spirit guide us in it!
While the earth remains there will be changes in the spiritual
world. Read the text laying a stress upon the words of change and
see how it rises and falls like the waves of the sea–"While the earth
remains, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and
winter, and day and night shall not cease." Not one of these states
continues–it comes and goes. The seasons are a perpetual
procession, an endless chain, an ever-moving wheel. Cold flies
before heat and soon summer is chased away by winter. Nothing is
stable. Such is this life–such are the feelings of spiritual life with
most men! Such is the history of the Church of God! We sorrow
and we rejoice. We struggle and we triumph. We labor and we rest.
We are not long upon Tabor, neither are we always in the valley of
Baca. Let us not be amazed, as though some strange thing
happened to us, if our day darkens into night, or our summer chills
into winter! From joy to sorrow, from sorrow to joy, from success
to defeat, from defeat to success, we pass very rapidly. It is so–it
will be so while the earth remains and we remain partakers of the
earth.
Yet, there will be an order in it all. Cold and heat, summer and
winter and day and night do not come in a giddy dance or
tumultuous hurry-burly, but they make up the fair and beautiful
year. Chance has no part in these affairs! God compels winds,
storms, sun and sea to keep the order of His house, and none rebels
against His command. 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. In our seasons there is an order visible to God, even
when we walk in darkness and see no light. We have our winters in
which the sap is prepared in secret to produce the clusters of
summer. We have our colds, in which we lose the superfluities bred
of our heat. Expect the changes and believe that they come by rule!
Great rules will stand while the earth abides, in the spiritual as
well as in the natural world. For instance, there will be seedtime
and harvest, effort and result, labor and success. There will be to
you, dear Brothers and Sisters, a time in which you will chiefly
have to receive–it is your seedtime and God is sowing you, by
instruction and sanctification, in order that in due time you may
yield Him a harvest to His Glory. Sometimes we lie passive, like
the plowed fields, and then our Divine Sower casts into us the
living seed. But soon other days arrive, when we are active and
yield unto God the results of His Grace experienced in former days.
It ought to be so. To you, beloved workers in the Mission Hall, or
the Sunday school, there will be a time of sowing. Not much may
be accomplished though a great deal of effort may be put forth. To
me in preaching there are times for sowing and nothing else but
sowing–few seem to be the green blades which spring up around
me. Perhaps a year may intervene before the worker shall see any
reward for his toil–"The farmer waits for the precious fruits of the
earth." The missionary upon his district, the Bible-woman on her
rounds may see no manifest effect produced by daily teaching–but
harvest and seedtime are tied together in a sure knot! "He that goes
forth and weeps, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again
with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him." Brothers and
Sisters, believe that and be of good cheer! "Your labor is not in
vain in the Lord." While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest
will take, each one, its turn.
So, too, while the earth remains, there will be the interchanges of
cold and heat. Where there is life there must be change! Only in
death is there monotony. There will be times in your experience
when you will feel the awful withering of that convicting Spirit
who dries up the Glory of the flesh. "Who can stand before His
cold?" Soon there will be a melting season of contrition and
repentance and then the Holy Spirit will have warmed your heart
into hope and faith and love and joy and delight in God! Cold and
heat come to the Church. I have oftentimes noticed her bitter cold
and I have cried to God about it. But the heat has come–we have
felt the glow of revival–enthusiasm has been kindled, zeal has
abounded! I wish we could always keep at one glorious summer
heat, walking in the Light of God as God is in the Light. It ought to
be so with us. Some of us labor to be always zealous and full of
fire, but should times come when we, or others, are not in the
fullness of the blessing, we will not despair–we will rather cry
mightily unto the Lord to send His Word and cause the waters of
His Grace to flow–and make our winter to be over and gone while
flowers appear on the earth and the time of the singing of birds
comes!
So, too, have I seen in our mortal life, summer and winter,
prosperity and adversity. Do not expect, dear Brothers and Sisters,
while you are in this world, to always dwell among the lilies and
roses of prosperity. Summer will come and you will be wise to
make hay while the sun shines by using all opportunities for
usefulness–but look for winter. I do not know into what trade you
can enter to be secure against losses, nor what profession you could
follow in which you would escape disappointments. I know no
corner of the earth without its night, no land without its stones, no
sea without its storms. As to spiritual and mental experience, it
seems to me within myself that while the earth remains I shall have
my ebbs and flows, my rising and my sinking. Do not, therefore,
begin to kick and quarrel with the dispensations of God's
Providence. When it is summer, say, "The Lord gave and blessed
be His name." When it is winter say, "The Lord has taken away and
blessed be His name." Keep to the same music, even though you
sometimes have to pitch an octave lower! Still praise and magnify
the Lord whether you are sowing or reaping. Let Him do what
seems good to Him, but to you let it always seem good to praise!
Beloved, labor will be followed by rest, for while the earth
remains there will be day and night. In the day man goes forth to
his labor. At night he lies down. Let him bless God for both. There
comes a night wherein no man can work–to us this is not dreaded,
but expected! I do not know for which I thank God the more, for
day or for night. Our young people praise God for day, with its
activities, but we, who are older, are more inclined to bless the
Lord for night, with its repose. The gray beard, the man of many
years and sad experiences, looks forward to that night wherein the
wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest. If we regard
death as night, we look forward to an endless day which will follow
on–when the sun shall go no more down forever! Jesus our Lord is
the Sun of that glorious country to which we wend our way! While
the earth remains, there will continually be a variety of
benedictions, a change ringing upon the silver bells of mercy.
When you are on high, my Brothers and Sisters, remember you
must descend–and when you are cast down, expect a cheerful
lifting up! When it is broad day, let us travel swiftly, for night
comes on. But when it is dark, let us watch hopefully, for the
morning comes. As sojourners in a changeful country, let us spend
the days of our pilgrimage in a holy fear which shall preserve us
from love of the world. I need not further work out the analogies of
the text–many more will rise before the meditative mind.
IV. Last of all, I want you to regard my text AS A TOKEN FOR
THE ASSURANCE OF OUR FAITH. "While the earth remains,
seedtime 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 bid to see the seal and token of the Covenant. Look at the
passage we read this morning in the 33 rd Chapter of Jeremiah.
Here is the security of the King in whom we rejoice. "If you can
break My Covenant of theday, and My Covenant of the night, then
shall David not have a son to reign upon his throne." God has
promised never to change the royal line, but while the earth
remains and day and night are seen, the Son of David shall reign
King of kings and Lord of lords! Until all enemies are under His
feet, He must reign. So, then, as I wrap my garment about me,
feeling the cold of winter, I will say to myself, "God has, by
sending cold, confirmed His Covenant with Jesus, our Lord and
King." Every morning light salutes my eyes and declares that "His
name shall be continued as long as the sun." And when the shades
of evening fall and the stars look forth from their houses, I hear a
sound of "abundance of peace so long as the moon endures." His
dominion is an everlasting dominion and of His Kingdom there is
no end! The Lord Jesus is King in Zion and Head over all things to
His Church while the earth remains!
The abiding of the ordinances of Heaven is equally a token of the
continuance of the priesthood. Under the type of the tribe of Levi,
the priesthood is vested in the Person of our Lord. He is our
Melchizedek, who is Priest as well as King and of His Priesthood
there is no end. While winter chills and summer burns, while day
calls to labor and night to rest, our great High Priest abides in His
office, still able to cleanse us, to make intercession for us and to
present our offerings unto God. His one Sacrifice is perpetually a
sweet savor unto God and shall be till moons shall wax and wane
no more. As I tread the soil which seems frozen into iron and as I
shiver in the bitter northeast wind, I say to myself, "The Priesthood
of our Lord abides, for cold has not ceased to visit us and heat will
come in its appointed months." As I go to my bed, or as I rise from
it, day and night are to me a pledge that the Lord Jesus is a Priest
forever according to the Law of an endless life.
A third thing was also assured by the same token. The Lord said
that as long as His Covenant with day and night remained He
would not put away the seed of Abraham. Since a son of David
must rule them, they must exist to be ruled. There will forever be a
chosen people–a people for whom Jesus lives as King and Priest.
The Lord has not cast away the people whom He did foreknow, nor
will He do so, come what may. While seedtime and harvest, cold
and heat abide, the Lord will maintain a Church, against which the
gates of Hell shall not prevail! What a mercy is this! Alas, men
whom I hoped were faithful have turned aside from the Truth of
God. Ministers who were regarded as pillars have fallen and
persons esteemed to be saints turned out to be hypocrites. Yet,
"there is a remnant according to the election of Grace." The Lord
has a reserve of men who have not bowed the knee to Baal!
Therefore, let us be of good courage and never tremble for the Ark
of the Lord.
To end all, let our prayer be that the Lord would abide with us
and then the heat shall not smite us, nor the cold molest us. The
Presence of God makes fair weather! Let us sing with quaint John
Ryland–
"Rise then, Sun of Righteousness,
Me with Your sweet beams bless!
Winter then may stay or flee,
Lord, 'tis all alike to me."
Oh, you that know not our God, I feel heartily sorry for you! To
you all seasons must be blank, for God is not in them. Oh that you
knew Jesus! The world is a bleak house, a chill and empty corridor
without God! And men are orphans, life is hopeless and death is
starless night if Jesus is not known and loved! He who trusts his
soul with Jesus has found the key of the great secret, the clue of the
maze! He sees in all that smiles or rages around him in our
changeful weather, pledges of the love of the Father, tokens of the
Grace of the Son and witnesses of the work of the Holy Spirit! To
the one God be Glory forever! Amen.
Ge 9:16 • The Rainbow
ERMON 0517
The Rainbow
"And the bow shall be in the cloud and I will look upon it, that I
may remember the Everlasting Covenant between God and every
living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth."
Genesis 9:16
THE story of Noah's preservation in the ark is a suggestive
representation of salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ. It is, we think,
especially intended to depict that part of our salvation which lies in
the washing of regeneration. In the same way as Baptism is the
outward symbol of regeneration, so also is the ark, "wherein few,
that is, eight souls were saved by water." The ark was immersed in
those dreadful rains and awful waterfalls which deluged the earth,
and Noah's family were buried in that ark to all the world.
But by this burial they were floated out of the old condemned
world into the new world of life and Divine Grace. Death to the
world and burial in the ark were the means of their safety. "The like
figure whereunto," says the Apostle Peter (1 Peter 3:21), "even
Baptism does also now save us, (not the putting away of the filth of
the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God), by the
resurrection of Jesus Christ." Baptism is a most significant picture
of regeneration, but it is in no sense the cause of the new birth. And
the blunder of the Puseyites lies in considering the outward
manifestation of an accomplished fact, as though it were the means
of creating that fact.
Baptism saves no one, except, as Peter says, in figure. But as a
figure, it is eminently full of Divine teaching, for it sets forth the
great Truth of God that the Believer, standing today in the old
world, is buried to that world, "buried with Jesus Christ by Baptism
into death." And his rising from the liquid tomb is the figure of his
resurrection in Christ, into a new world, as a new man, "that like as
Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even
so we also should walk in newness of life" (Rom. 6:4). Would to
God that we thought more of being dead with Christ, buried with
Him and risen with Him. Brethren, let Noah in his ark preach the
work of righteousness within the heart to all of us this morning.
Do you not think, dear Friends, that the history of Noah, when he
left the ark, in all its items, may be viewed as typical and
instructive? Noah came out of the ark no longer cooped up and
penned within its narrow limits. He walked abroad and the whole
world was before him where to choose. Was not that a picture of
the freedom of the Believer who has been "buried with Christ," and
enjoys the possession of God's free Spirit? For him there is no
spirit of bondage, he is free as a child in his father's house. All
things are his, by gift of God, to use and to enjoy. He has learned
the liberty wherewith Christ makes men free, and if the Son make
us free, we are free, indeed.
When Noah slew the bullock and the other clean beasts and
offered them upon the altar, did he not show forth the Believer's
employment? We also offer acceptable sacrifices of prayer and
praise unto God, and we, ourselves, are living sacrifices unto God.
Did he not as much say to all generations of saints, "You being thus
delivered from a death which you deserve, are to spend your lives
as priests unto your God"? When the Lord was pleased on that day
to bless Noah and his family, bidding them be fruitful, did He not
therein set forth the fruitfulness which belongs unto Believers, so
that, abiding in Christ, they "bring forth much fruit"? May not that
benediction teach us how earnestly we should seek to be spiritually
the parents of immortal souls, travailing in birth till Christ is
formed in them?
When the Divine Father gave them dominion over the fowl of the
air, and the fish of the sea, and over all cattle, did not this portray
the power which Believers have over lust, and sin, and evil? And
did it not prophesy the subjugation of all things by the power of
their faith, so that they who become "priests," in sacrifice, become
also "kings," by virtue of the charter of dominion which the
heavenly Father bestows upon them? What do you think, Brothers
and Sisters? When He enlarged the grant of food, and permitted
them to eat flesh, did He not set forth that food on which true
Believers feed, who now eat His flesh and drink His blood who has
become the spiritual Food of our souls?
Is it straining the allegory, is it carrying it too far, if I close this
spiritualizing by observing that the very same security which God
then gave to Noah and his descendants is that security under which
we stand? He gave them a Covenant–a Covenant embellished with
a Divine symbol and ratified with His own signature written out in
all the colors of beauty. We, too, stand under a Covenant which has
its own faithful witness in Heaven, more transcendently illustrious
and beautiful than the rainbow–the Person of Christ Jesus our Lord.
Leaving, however, all those points, which I have only started to
excite thought among you, we come to this: we have Scriptural
reason for asserting that this venerable Covenant–that the world
shall no more be destroyed by a flood–is typical of a yet more
ancient compact which God made with Christ. That being that He
would be unto His people a God, and they should be His chosen
ones, world without end. In the fifty-fourth chapter of Isaiah, (vv.
8-10), we find such language as this–"In a little wrath I hid My
face from you for a moment. But with everlasting kindness will I
have mercy on you, says the Lord your Redeemer. For this is as the
waters of Noah unto Me: for as I have sworn that the waters of
Noah should no more go over the earth; so have I sworn that I
would not be wroth with you, nor rebuke you.
"For the mountains shall depart and the hills be removed. But My
kindness shall not depart from you; neither shall the Covenant of
My peace be removed, says the Lord that has mercy on you." The
covenant of Noah, then, is typical of the great Everlasting
Covenant made with Christ on behalf of His people. And the
rainbow, as the symbol of the Covenant with Noah, is typical of our
Lord Jesus, who is the Lord's witness to the people. You read in the
fourth chapter of the book of Revelation, in the third verse, "there
was a rainbow round about the Throne," showing that the bow is
not a temporary symbol for earth only, but is a symbol of
everlasting and heavenly things.
And in the tenth chapter of the book of Revelation, if I mistake
not, in the first verse, you will find that the mighty angel with a
little book in his right hand, who shall put one foot upon the sea
and another upon the land, is described as having his head crowned
with a rainbow. In this place, our Lord Jesus Christ, in His
mediatorial capacity, wears the symbol of the Covenant about His
brow. And in the other passage our Lord, as King, is represented as
sitting upon the Throne, surrounded with the insignia of the
Covenant of Grace which encompasses the Throne, so that there
are no goings forth of His majesty and His power and His Grace,
except in a covenant way and after a covenant sort, since the
rainbow must be passed before the bright rays of His power and
love can reach the sons of men.
This brings us now into the center of our discourse. We have to
talk of two things–first, the tenor of the Covenant and secondly, the
token of it–running a parallel all the way through between the two
Covenants. The tenor of Noah's Covenant is the tenor of the
Covenant of Grace (Everlasting Covenant)–just as the rainbow
represents, and in some sense is, the token of the Covenant of
Grace, also.
First, then, the Covenant itself–WHAT IS ITS TENOR? We reply,
that it is a Covenant of pure Grace. There was nothing in Noah why
God should make a covenant with him. He was a sinner–and
proved himself to be so in a most shocking manner within a few
days. He needed a sacrifice, for he afterwards became drunk. He
was one of the best of men. But the best of men are but men at the