THE DAY OF REST. COME THOU INTO THE ARK. An Address by D. L. Moody.

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 175, 23 October 1886, Page 8 (Supplement)

THE DAY OF REST. COME THOU INTO THE ARK. An Address by D. L. Moody.

I want to call your attention to a verse whiclTyou will find in Genesis vii. 1, «• And the Lord «aid unto Noah, Comethou and all thy house into the ark." It is a loving invitation from a loving God, and* it is a personal invitation to every one. It is true that text was addressed to Noah ; but today the gospel is to be proclaimed to every creature, and the" ark ha? been provided, and all can go in if they will. One hundred and twenty years before this communication came to Noah, he received a message from God ; and it was really the most awful tidings that ever came from heaven to earth. It was the most awful communication ever received by any man in this world. God told him that He was going to sweep the earth of its iniquity ; that all men upon the face of this earth would perish ; that His Spirit would not always strive with man ; and that at the end of 120 yearß God would sweep away theeo workers of iniquity. Although less than HOOO years ha,d rolled away, these men had turned away from God their Creator They did not know htm. God was not in all their thoughts and in none of their deeds. As He looked down from heaven, He could see every conceivable wicked thing done by man. They had forgotten their God; they had forgotten their Creator. They had turned away from Him, and now He caused this warning to be given ; and wherever you find a judgment threatened, you fiod before the judgmenC there is always a warning given. These antediluvians had a warning. God told Noah to build this ark, aud all these 120 years while the ark was being built it waa a warning to them. And you will find, it you will read the Bible carefully, that warnings always precede the judgments. God comes to men first and calls them to Himself. If they will not come, then the blood of their soula must be required of their own hands. There will be no one to blame but themselves. You will find that when Christ was on the earth He came in grace and offered meroy . Forty years afterwards destruction came upon Jerusalem. He wept over Jerusalem : He pleaded with the inhabi tants ; he begged of them to come to Him There is gi eat interest felt in religion now. More people are talking about religion at this period of the world's history than ever before. All the missionaries tell us that there is an interest springing up in foreign lands I cannot help believing that it is God calling to us in mercy now, jußtasHecame to these antediluvians and gave them 120 years' warning. Our loving Father came to Noah, and told him to build the ark; It waa to be 500 feet long, about 80 feet wide, and about 50 feet high. Or, in other words, it would be so high that they could make three stories of it ; or, if it were put on one level, ifc would be about 1,500 feet long. If on one levol, it would be 1,500 feet long, 240 feet wide, and 16 or 17 ieet high. To construct^ such a building was no small undertaking in those days. Every nail Noah drove into that ark was a warning to them. Every time he took up his hammer to use it on that ark it was a warning that God was going to appear in judgment. At that time the world ridiculed Noah. Undoubtedly, when he received that communication he knew how he was to be put to ridicule, how men would scoff at him. I can imagine him walking down the streets, and their calling him "That lunatic !" I suppose this was a common thing for Noah during those'l2o years ; and if there had been insane asylums at that time, no doubt they would have put him in one, if God had not protected him. No doubt they thought him mad. The great men of that time— their statesmen, their astronomera, their mighty men— -all prophesied against Noah, andjmoreoverthere wae no sign of the coming deluge. I can imagine some of them said; "If this prediction is true, why did not Methuselah, who died a few years ago, tell ua of it 2 Why did not our forefathers tell us of it ? How did tbis man come to know so much of it ?" It was the came way with the men who worked on the ark — Noah's carpenters. They were jeering and laughing a* him They would say : "jHe pays good money, and pays ua promptly, we are justj ust as willing to work for him as for any body. But we do not believe in the lunatic : we do not believe in the coming deluge." No doubt many of them knew as much about that ark as Noah did • and at the present day many know about Christ, and know that Chrißt alone can save. So Noah's carpenters knew all about the ark and what its purpose was, and yet did not avail themselves of its protection. So the years went on, I can imagine that once in a while the work upon the ark ceaeed ; and he called upon them, and pleaded with them, and urged them to flea from the wrath to coma. But they mocked on. They sneered on. They did not believe it. Just so it is in the present day. Some people say now : " Why, you do net believe there was ever such a thing as a flood, do you ? I thought we had outgrown all this. That is something that used to terrify our forefathers; but we have got wiser and more intelligent. We do not believe it." Don't you know that there are some people now who don't believe the firat five j books of the Bible ? But if you take that Book and tear one book out of it you destroy the whole of it. There is not one part of it but what is endorsed by another part. If you take out the flood you must take Christ out of the Word. The moment you take out the flood, you make out Christ a • deceiver. For he said : "as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be at the coming of the Son of man." He put His divine seal upon all Noah's history. I believe it just as much as I believe any part of it, I believe the flood came upon them suddenly and took them all by surprise. Because they did not believe the flood was ooming, that did not change the fact ; the flood did come. Undoubtedly if it bad been in these days most' people would have been against Noah. They would have gone with the popular current, and thought that there was no deluge coming. > But bear in mind, if you take up this Bible you must believe every wofrd of it.- Nevermind what others say. I can' imagine the philosophers and great men of that day said : "It ia contrary to reason. 'There is no sign of a flood." The astronomers who were reading the heavens did not see any eigns of the coming j Htprm. They simply said it was impossible ihat, God was going to drown the world. Many of them, I think j believed there was rio r God, who was. going to judge ,the "tfbrld. The wickedness /kept, going on ; it >as triumphant.' But that did! not change the fact. The flood was still to come. . 'A hundred years had rolled away, and, see 'their merriment. It increases.' .They make more sport of Noah and bis ark than ever. It is nearly done. His contract is drawing to' a close. Within twenty years every oontraot will be closed on that ark. The work will be finished. Noah becomes aoro and more earnest, He pleads with

bis .relatives, , and he pleads with his friends. He tells them it is a truth. God has revealed it to him, and God is surely* going to destroy the world. The old men and young laugh on. They do not believe it, , and tbey, ask him where is the sign of its coining. I can see the ridicule' keep increasing. Now, in like manner, they laugh at the idea of people coming out, to hear the Gospel. Many people say it is. dead, and we have outgrown ifc. Thanks' be to God it has the same power to-day as it ever had. We can never outgrow it. I am one of those who believe we are living in perilous times—" When men are lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God." And the sceptics now say : Where is the sign of Christ coming'? They laugh and cavil if we talk about God coming to judge the world. The word of God tells us " the world is to be destroyed " It was destroyed once by water. It will be destroyed again by fire. The apostle tells us to live soberly and righteously, and keep our loins girded ; to be watching j for we do not know when Christ. may personally return. But now the ark is done. The one hundred and twenty years have expired. And now Noah moves into the ark. "Ah!" they say now, "truly he is gone mad." It may have been in the spring of the year that he moved in ; when his neighbours were planting, ploughing, and sowing. Noah does not plant any this spring. He tells them the world is going;, to perish. This is the last spring. Tire day of grace is closing. I can imagine some of his neighbours aeking him " what he is going to do with his house." He says: "Any of you can have it, if you want it." And if his ark had been put up at auction, it would not have brought as much as it was worth for kindling wood. What a change soon came over the people. It was not long before the ark was wo>th more than the whole earth. And the time is coming when Christ will be worth more than ten thousand worlds like this. These scoffing infidels are now trying to keep you out of the ark. Oh, may God open your eyes to-day and make you wise ! Noah moves in. I can imagine the first thing that alarms and arouses them, although they had made great sport of it— he had made it so large. When he had only three sons, with their wives— only eight souls— what did he want such a big building for ? He tells them there were to come into the ark all kinds of animals and fowls of the air, and the creeping things of the earth. I can imagine the sceptics wanting to know how he was going to get them in —how he was going to get the wild beasts of the forest, the lion and the tiger, into that ark. But that he has nothing to do *vith. God is going to do that. He has simply to make room for them. I can imagine the first thing that arouses them. One morning they rise, and, lo and behold ! the heavens are black with the fowls of the air. They ayea y e flying into the ark, two by two. They come from the desert. They come from the mountain. Tbey come from the four corners of the earth. There they are going into the ark. It must have been a curious sight. I can hear them say, " Great God ! what does this mean ? Merciful God ! what does this mean?" And tbey look down on the earth, and with great alarm and surpriae they see little insects crawling into the ark, two by two, coming from all parts of the world. And lo and behold ! there come the elephant, the lion, and the tiger; and they come from the different parts of the world. They move in two and two. The lion and the lamb walk in together. " What does it mean ?" cry the poople. I can imagine some of them get a little alarmed. They go to the wise men, and say, " What does this mean ?" The wise men say : "We can't account for it. It is a sti ange freak of Nature. We do not understand it. We know it is contrary to reason ; but we j really cannot believe that there is going to be a deluge. We are not going to be guided by this insane man. We do not know how to explain it. There is no sign of a coming storm. What has made these insects and these wild beasts of the forest go into the ark we do not know. We cannot understand it. We cannot explain it ; but there is no danger. Don't you see the sun shines as bright as it has ever done ? Don't you see that business is better than it has been for hundreds of years ? We never were more prosperous If God was going to destroy this world, He would not let us go on and have such prosperity. But the lambs are skipping upon the hill eide, and every thing moves on as it has always been moving. You can hear children playing in the street ; you can hear the voice of the bride and bridegroom in the land, and all is as merry as ever." They are not alarmed. Or, if they are alarmed, when they sco all these animals moving into the ark, they soon get over it. They go on again with their iniquity. But now the door is shut. Did you ever read that, nay friend 1 God shut that door. We sing about the gate ajar ; but the time is coming when the Master of the house will rise up and shut to the door, and you may knock and knock for admittance, and it will be too late. The door is shut. So the door of the ark is shut. They mock on. They are not alarmed. They laugh on ; but God gives them seven days' grace. After all is done to that ark, there is no sign of a coming storm. I can imagine one night, as they retired as usual, the sun goes down behind the mountains, and they will never see it again. They have seen that sun for the last time. The last month has gone. The last week has gone. The last day has gone. Yea, the last hour is fast rolling away. Solemn thought ! ■ Did you ever stop and tnink, dear friends, that the last week is coming to you ; and the last day is coming ; and the last hour ; yea, the last minute? It was coming to them. That night I can see the mothers putting their children to bed as usual. Perhaps some of them were mocking and laughing at the thought that Noah was shut up in that old ark. " But at midnight," we read in the New Testament, the cry arose, "Behold, the bridegroom cometh 1" It may be that to-night death will come' to you. But this change does .not take place gradually. It is one shock after another. Instead of one flash of lightening after another, it is one blinding sheet of lightening. The earth is beginning to roll and rock. The foundations of the deep are breaking up. Tho great sea breaks its borders and leaps over its walls, The great rivers begin to swell. Those living in the lowlands begin to escape to the mountains, and to flee np on the hillsides. Undoubtedly the great men of that day said, " We have had great floods like thn before. We have had storms like this. It will soon be over."' But some of them said, " Noah told us it waa to last forty days and forty nights." And they say, ** If this lasts forty days and forty nights, what will become, of us ?" I seem to see them under trie ark. , They [leave their palaces, they le^ve their homes now. They come to that ark. Hear them cry J, Hear them pound on that ark! ," Noah ! lSoah !' Noah ! Let us in !" There comes a voice from; within, " God has Bhut the door. I cannot "open it." Ah ! God shut that door. It had been open one hundred and twenty years. God had pleaded with them. God had invited them. They, mocked at the invitation. They scoffed and ridiculed the idea of a

deluge. Now it is too late. Now they wpuld enter ; but they cannot. Have yoa ' read. your Bibles ? >If you have* you hare rend in the New Teetament of a scene like this. "As it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be in, the days when the Son of man cometh." They were eating and drinkiDg. The flood came and took them all away. Soshall it be in the coming of the .Son of -man. 'Do you know why God' put but one window into the ark, and that not one out of which Noah- could look upon uh.e drown* ing world ? It was put in the top of the ark. He could not look out and see the judgment of God on the world. There wasno one left to tell of the destruction that came upon the world. There was no oue left to tell what destruction came upon hia property. There was no one, left to tell what happened, ' There was not onesolitary one loft to tell us the cad ending of these antediluvians. I do not believeany, man can picture those scenes. I think I pot a glimpse of it in imagination. Ah, what a scene the flood was ! At that time hundreds and thousands of parents saw their children perishing before th« ir eyes, and had no way of helping them. Their mookery is gone now. Their scoffingis all ended. They are crying for mercy j but it is too late. The day of grace has passed. ■ , There was a time when the Lord would have saved them if they had called upon Him ; but they have neglected salvation. They have neglected that open door in the ark. You can see them climbing up the dark mountain. You can see them swept away as the waves dash up against them. You can see the father parted from his loved child. Yeu can Bee the wild beasts going up the mountains to save their lives. I can imagine 1 see them going up on the house ; and by-andby the foundation gives way, and down goes; tbe whole family. Others climb upon the trees ; and the waves come up nearer and nearer, and at last they are dashed off. Did you ever think what would have been Noah's feelings if he had left out any one of his children ? ' Mothers, just for a few minutes think, what would have been Noah's feelings in that ark, as those judgment waves rose higher and higher, and bore that ark safely upon its bosom, if one of his children had been left out. What a terrible blow, if one he had loved had been lost in that day. But his children had confidence in him ; and when God said, " Come thou and all thy house into the ark," they followed him. Every member of his family went in ; there waß not one left out. Now I want to ask you, Won't you come into the ark, and invite ypur children in? Won't you accept of the invitation, and come into the ark, and let yoar children follow you ? Just think again for a moment. What would have been N ah's feelings, as he rode away on the judgment waves, if one of those sons had been left out on the dark mountains, as he thought of his loved boy and of those judgment waves, how they were dashing over the lifeless corpse of his loved boy ! Oh, mothers ! will you not come into the ark to-day, and as the eternal ages roll on, be sure that your children are saved 2Be sure that you are not only in the ark yourselves, but the children God has given you. For the promise is not only to us, but to'our children. Oh, do not stand in the way of your children. Some may be gone from amongst my hearers before.another year has rolled round. Some years ago I was in Edinburgh. The * last night of the old year I was pleading with my audience to come to. Chris b and settle the question then and there. There was a young lady going to return home that week. She had finished her education, and she was going back to Aberdeen. , The Spirit of God touched her heart, and she entered the kingdom of God. The next day she went to one of the ministers, and said, "Can't you give me something to do ?" He gave her some tracts to distribute. She went to work, and the next day she came to the meeting for the last time. She got all her things packed the next morning and was going back to Aberdeen. Sbe got into the railway carriage. She had one of our little hymn-books open at her favourite hymn — "There is a gate ajar for me." At Manuel Junction there was a collision, and poor Maggie Lindsay wa3 crushed. I was at Dundee, had just gone there, and heard the sad news that one of the young converts *of Edinburgh had already got home. We found her own blood had marked the hymn, and that she died singing thesweet hymn, " The gate s ajar for me, for me." These were her last words. Is it not glorious news? The gates are ajar even now. sTou can enter if you will. All of you can enter now. I do not know when these gates will be closed. Ido not know when the day will end for you. Yo« can be saved now, if you will accept the invitation. Come into the ark now. Accept salvation as a gift. Christ stands at the very door of your heart. Hark ! ready and willing to come in and save you, if you will let Him. Accept Jesus as your Saviour now.