A CHEERY WORD IN TROUBLOUS TIMES – Charles Spurgeon

The Call and the Obedience

Indeed, we are not told that it had ever been shut since it had been made. There it stood, wide open. We never hear of anybody that ever went in and was driven out. We never hear of a single beast, bird, or even a creeping thing that ever went in and was cast out. So long as the door was open, whoever came was welcome, but long-suffering was drawing to an end. The time was now come for Noah to go in, and the time was also near when the door must be shut.

When the Spirit of God comes to persuade men sweetly in effectual calling, it is always in the present tense. The Lord never called any man by effectual Grace to believe in Christ next week. He calls them to believe in Christ directly, and one of the ways by which the effectual call may be judged is its presentness and its pressing character. It is “now, now, NOW!” Oh, may the Divine Spirit be pleading in some heart at this hour, saying, “Come to Jesus now, before the next word has left the speaker’s mouth. Put your trust in Jesus before this service ends, and you shall go your way to your chamber and to your bed justified and saved.” The Spirit of God sweetly puts it, “Now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation.” Even as He did with Noah, who never dreamed of delays, but, when bid to come, came then and there.

“Come to the ark, the waters rise
The seas their billows fear!
While darkness gathers over the skies,
Behold a refuge near.
Come to the ark, all, all that weep
Beneath the sense of sin.
Without, deep calls unto deep
But all is peace within.
Come to the ark, before yet the flood
Your lingering steps oppose!
Come, for the door which open stood
Is now about to close.”

And now notice, once more—and that is a sweet part of it—that the Lord said, “Come you and all your house into the ark.” How good it is of the Lord to think of our children! That He should save us, oh, we must always bless Him for that! But that He should have a word for our wife, a word for our son, and a word for our daughter—this is overflowing mercy! I have heard of a man who was unkind enough to say that he married his wife, but he did not intend to marry all her family. And it sometimes happens that your love to a person is a good deal tried by that person’s relatives and friends—but when the Lord Jesus Christ takes to His heart the master or mistress of a house, He is willing to take all the household! He came to the jailor’s house at Philippi and He looked on him with love, but He did not stay with him only; He blessed all his household—so blessed them that they were all brought to believe in the Lord—and they were all baptized then and there! There have been other households upon which the Lord has looked in the same way. “Come you and your house,” is it not? Am I reading correctly? Look at the passage! Look at it! It is not merely, “Come you and your house.” We will read it again. “The Lord said to Noah, come you and all your house into the ark.” “ALL.” Oh, that blessed comprehensive word, “ALL!”

Then Ham was not left out! Japheth the elder, as he is called in Genesis 10:21—I know not much for him or against him, but he had faith enough to enter the ark, and he was saved like the rest. Shem, the second of the household, if I may judge from his descendants, was always a religious young man, devout and attached to the worship of the true God. He also entered the ark and was saved. As for Ham, the scoundrel of the family, it might have been feared that he would not come in—but notwithstanding all that the Scripture tells us against him, he was assuredly saved in the ark. And here was the mercy—that to Japheth, the elder, and to Shem and to Ham, the promise extended! “Come you and all your house into the ark.”

My dear Brother, when you are converted yourself, it is a blessing that you have so far a hold of the Gospel, but go on to grasp more of it! “What must I do to be saved?” asked the jailor. And Paul replied, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved, and your house.” Many cannot get to the second part of the promise. They seem satisfied if they, themselves, are saved. But oh, for that faith which takes all that the Gospel is prepared to give and pleads with God that not only I may be saved, but my house, yes, and ALL my house, without exception!

II. The Obedience

Here is the call, then. The Lord called effectually Shem, Ham, Japheth, and their wives, so that they all came into the ark. Of that, we are going to speak for a few minutes on the second head, which is THE OBEDIENCE. Noah came into the ark, and his wife, and his sons and their wives. Their obedience was unquestioning. We do not find them asking anything at all about the reason for the command—they came as they were bid. They passed through the doorway and they were all in the ark. Fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, sons and their wives, daughters and their husbands, and all of you, oh, that the blessed Spirit would put you, now, into such a frame of mind that you should at once yield to the Divine precept which says, “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved!”

Have you not asked enough questions? You have had some of them answered, but every answer has only helped you to invent another dozen! Oh, those questions! Those quibbles! Those debates! Those doubts! They are ruining thousands! Have you ever heard of the man who sat at the table and could not eat till he knew the pedigree of the bullock from which the joint was cut? And then he must know how it was cooked and comprehend the influence which fire has over flesh to make it eatable! Next, he must understand anatomy and know how the stomach acts upon the food and what the gastric juice is made of, and how food is assimilated. Unless he could get plain answers to every inquiry, he would not eat. He saId, “Plain answers, mind, plain answers to all my questions, or I will never put a mouthful between these lips again.”

Now, there was a poor countryman who came out of the field and saw the meat and potatoes, and he ate them all up while the man was asking the questions! And very wise he was, too. I suppose it was his hunger that made him so sensible. May the Lord give you a hunger after the Gospel! And when you have it, may He grant you Grace to feed upon it and receive it into your soul. May you take what is set before you by infinite love and leave quibblers to their own folly. I, myself, have a lot of questions, for the questions I have been asked by skeptics I have put away along with a lot more of my own which are far more difficult than theirs. I mean to bring them out one day, but not until I get to Heaven and carry all I can with me! We shall have light enough there to see! It is like reading in the dark down here. We will leave these questions till we get into the blaze of Glory and, perhaps, they will then answer themselves!

Noah and his wife and his sons and their wives did not worry themselves about mysteries, but obeyed the plain command and went into the ark and were saved. They went In at once, but I will not dwell upon that. The whole eight of them passed in at once! To get eight people to agree to go anywhere is a difficult thing. But here they were, all agreed and all ready to start. And they all went into the ark then and there.

It is wondrous that Mistress Shem did not say that she could not leave all her acquaintances and forsake her father and all her relations at once. How could she tear herself away? Good Mistress Japheth might have felt bonds which hold her to her bosom friends. But so it was—the effectual call went through all the family—men and women, and they took up their separated position, coming out of the world at once when the command came.

O, blessed Spirit, give such a call as that to whole families! All these eight people came away once and for all. They could each say—

“Farewell, vain world, I must be gone!
You are no home, no rest for me.
From now on my heart must dwell alone,
And have no fellowship with thee.
Farewell, poor world, for you must die!
Even now the floods begin to rise.
I die to you without a sigh,
Save that I mourn your blinded eyes.”

There was a closed door between the family of Noah and all the rest of the world. They went in to be the minority and turned out, before long, to be the majority! Oh, that men would be willing to be the minority in a wicked world and to be counted fools! People say, “If you join that Church, you just shut yourself out from all society. Nobody will ever know you anymore. You might as well be dead and buried.” But, truly, when a soul gives itself to Christ, it feels itself to be dead and buried to the world and says to it, “Adieu, we are, from now on, strangers.” The regenerate pass straight away from communion with this world to hold all their communion inside the ark—to have all their fellowship in connection with the Lord Jesus Christ!

Now to Noah and to his wife and to all the family, this was the most important event that ever happened to them. When all of them passed out of the world together to find their refuge where God had provided it—it was a great day with Noah’s household! What a glorious day it is with men and women when they come to Christ! Their birthday is noteworthy, but this is better!

They were only born to sorrow and death at first—now are they born to Heaven and eternal life! Their wedding day? This is better! They were but joined to a mortal in bonds that death will sever, but now they are married to Christ in everlasting wedlock! Moreover, simple as the act of going into the ark may seem, it was one of the most remarkable events in human history. When Noah and his family entered into the ark, it was a more important day than when empires rise or fall, for there would have been an utter end of the human race if it had not been for their decided action on that memorable day!

So, when men give themselves to Christ, they do not know what mighty things they are doing for their posterity and for those immediately around them. Time and eternity quiver with the force of their deed! These converts will be a blessing to the town in which they live, a blessing to the society in which they move! The salvation of that woman will be the salvation of her grandchildren and of their children and so forth! Who knows, when a man is born to God, but that there shall spring from him in future years a godly seed that shall become ministers of Christ and missionaries of the Cross? It is a grand event when a family is saved!

I heard some music in the street just now and it seemed to me to be playing in good time to keep tune with the joy we ought to feel when father, mother, sons, and daughters enter the ark of Christ and find salvation there! Oh, if households enter into Christ, the very bells of Heaven may ring again and again and again with a joy that has many joys within it!

Now let us go into details. The first fact is that Noah went in. This was right! Noah was the leader. The husband is the head of the household, or ought to be, and he should go to Christ first. Whether his wife comes in, or Shem, or Ham comes in, whoever will come in, or stay out, Noah goes in first, for he would obey the Lord. Head of the house, are you in the ark? Are you in Christ? You are a father. You have sons grown up around you, are you decided? You wish your family to grow up in the fear of God—I hope you do! But how can you expect it if you are not saved? If Noah had not gone into the ark, I should not expect to read that Shem and Ham and Japheth went in. O you that are heads of households, your position is very responsible! You will have to bear much blame if your children go astray. Unless your example is decided for the Lord, they will be able to say at the Last Great Day, “Our father was half-hearted and how could we be expected to give our hearts to God?”

Next, his sons are mentioned. “Noah went in and his sons”—three fine fellows. A happy father is he who has sons that will go with him in the things of God. Sons are called in Hebrew, “builders,” because they build up a man’s house. May the Holy Spirit build them into the Church! I would to God there were more young men joining the Church—that more sons were decided! You cannot expect, can you, to see the sons’ wives brought unless the sons are on the Lord’s side? But, I am sorry to say, they are often opposers and, when the women are brought to Christ, there are the husbands standing back and even acting as a hindrance to the religion of their wives! God grant it may not be so in any case here! O son of Noah, go into the ark with your father! O child of a godly parent, follow your father to Christ, that you may follow him to Heaven! Let Abraham’s son be an Isaac and Isaac’s son be a Jacob, and Jacob’s son be a Joseph—and so may it go on from generation to generation!

The next person who is mentioned is the old lady—namely, Noah’s wife. I give her that name because she was, no doubt, somewhere about 600 years old and she was assuredly an eminent woman. We usually describe persons who have grown sons by that name in our family circles. The wife of the father of three sons comes into the ark. I think of her as of a queenly dame with her sons and their wives. I see her coming boldly forward with a quiet grace and firmness to go with her beloved husband—to sink or swim with him. She is casting in her lot with him not only because he is her husband, but because he had cast in his lot with God.

Oh, beloved woman, advancing into years, with a grown family about you—if you have not come to Christ, I trust you may—that in your family the saved ones may be as Noah and his sons and his wife. Last came the son’s wives and what a happy circumstance for them! I was thinking, as I turned over the subject, how painful it would have been if one of the boys had not come in. And then how grievous it would have been if one of the wives had not come. If Noah had been obliged to know that one of them should be left out and he had to have the dreadful selection, whom do you suppose he would have left out? I cannot imagine!

I have heard of the Irishman with his seven or eight children, and someone was willing to adopt one. But the question was—which was it to be? One is to be taken out of the family and they are not to see it again. It is to be brought up and taken care of by a stranger—the father and mother could never agree which it should be. I hope, dear fathers and mothers, you will never agree to have one of your children lost. Make it your daily and nightly prayer, your incessant effort, your hourly desire that not only Shem and Ham and Japheth may be brought, but their wives, too—till not one shall be left behind—but the whole family shall be saved in Christ Jesus!

Now, all this was done by the sweet, effectual calling of the Divine Spirit. And let us pray tonight, each one, that the same call may be given to all our friends, kinsfolk, and all assembled here—that we may be all in Christ, both now and on the Last Great Day! Amen.

Charles Spurgeon