St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1877-04-06
Come into the Ark.
MIR. MOODY AT THE TABERNACLE,
MARCH 25.

Come into the Ark.
MIR. MOODY AT THE TABERNACLE,
MARCH 25.
You will find my text in the 9TH
chapter of Genesis, LIST verse: "And
the Lord said unto Noah, come thou
and all thy house into the ark" When
God speaks we want to listen. This
text is from His own lips, these are His
own words. 1t was the voice of grace,
twas the voice of love, it was the voice
of mercy, it was God calling Noah out
of the world which was to be destroyed.
One hundred and twenty years before.
Noah had received the most awful com
municatiOn that ever came from heaven
to earth. God had told him He was
going to destroy the world. There was
no kind of sin that man could imagine
but he had committed, the world was
corrupt, men lived longer than they do
now, and they had time to get into all
manner of sin, and there was not any
conceivable sin but that men were
plunged into. They gave up God en-
tiIely, they cared for none OF his laws,
and now God is going to rise i'll judg-
ment. But you will find all through
Scripture that before God comes in
Judgment, he comes i'll mercy and with
warning. These antedeluvians were
warned.
All those 100 years that Noah was
building that ark it was warning to
them. But they did not believe the
voice of God they did not believe that
Noah had received any such communi-
cation. Undoubtedly, they said, as
men say now, that God could not de-
stroy the world if he wanted to, that it
would be contrary to the laws of nature,
and that God works only through GER
tain ways. There was no sign of COM
ing Judgment. Undoubtedly Noah
knew when he commenced how he
would become the butt of ridicule, how
he would become the song of the drunk
ard, and that there would be a great
opposition, and yet the old man toiled
on, for lie believed what God said. He
believed that God was going to judge
the world in righteousness, and un
doubleday during these 100 years he
preached righteousness to the people.
You might, perhaps, go up to that ark
at times and hear no sound of carpen
tering, he was off on Il preaching tour
to warn his cOuntrymen, and Yet not
one outside his own family believed
him. You can see these carpenters,
perhaps, at night, in some brilliant hall
or drinking saloon, making sport of
their master, and saying, But he pays
as good wages as any," and it was his
money they were after.
After the ark was partly built, un
doubleday there were many visitors
came to see the ark, and they had IL
great deal of sport about that ark ; and
if they had theatres in those days, and
| have no doubt that they did, you
would find the ark on the stage in riui- |
cule; and doubtless there were many
public lecturers going about warning the |
people not to believe what that fanatic |
said. They thought truly he was mad.
Some one has said that Noah must have
been deaf to all SCOTS, but surely, if he
was deaf, he could hear the voice of
God. But 100 years rolled away and |
there is no sign of the coming deluge,
aud men go on soothing and laughing.
The sun shines as brightly as ever, and
they say, "Where is the sign of His
coming? Noah has been telling us for
a hundred years that there is going to
be great deluge, but where is the sign
of the coming storm 2" Undoubtedly
they had astronomers and they were
reading the stars, and they could see
no sign of the coming storm. Every
thing went on as it had for 1000 years.
Methuseeh died, but he told them
nothing about it, and they said, eff this
is true, why haven't some of our fore
fathers told us p Yet the old man
tOiled on and the ark was finished. One
hundred and twenty years had expired,
and undoubtedly they said that they
never were so prosperous before, and if
God was going to destroy them, why
should He let them prosper as they
had
So time rolled on and the ark was
finished. Now they think surely he
has gone mad. They thought as long as
he kept out of the ark and kept plant
ing and reaping, he would get on, but
if he put up the ark at auction, no one
would have given him enough for it to
pay for the timber. Now, they say, the
poor man is going to put his wealth in
that ark, and is not going to plant any
more; his family will soon come to
want, and undoubtedly some of his
neighbors wanted to know what he was
going to do with the old homestead.
Any one can have it, he answered, for
God is going to destroy this world. He
probably pleaded with his relatives and
friends to escape the coming storm, but
they would not believe him. So men
reason now. If these things are true,
why doesn't the whole world believe
thema They think that because the
world does not believe the truth God
will not do what He says, and these
warnings are only to Brighten few
weak-minded persons. Undoubtedly
these antedeluvians talked in the same
way.
But Noah moves in. and the first
thing that alarms them, | can imagine,
is one morning the heavens were black
with the fowls of the air. They were
coming from the forests and caverns of
the earth to that ark and Noah was tax
ing them in. They made all manner of
sport of him for making the ark so large,
and when he told them that the Lord
was going to preserve the cattle and
fowls and insects they said, undoubted-
ly, How are you going TO get them in
But on he went working. He knew that
Cod wOuld take care nf His nwn xrorly |