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FOURTH SUNDAY

Morning

THE FLOOD

Passages to be read: Gen. vii. 1-16; viii. 15-22.

ITH the exception of some of the black tribes, there is no branch of the human race that has

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not a tradition of the flood. These traditions, of course, differ in many respects, and regard the event from many different standpoints, but in general features they are so unvarying that it is impossible to regard the story as a myth. You can picture a family of young children living in a cottage which on a winter's night, after long rains, is flooded. Some of their neighbours in the hamlet may be drowned, but this little family escapes on some hastily built raft. Well, the children grow up and they scatter through the world-one goes to Canada, another to South Africa-and there they face the trials and pass through the joys and sorrows that fall to the lot of every one of us. But always in some corner of their brain there lies the memory of that terrible hour of childhood. If you listened to the account of it from one of them, you would find that it differed from the other's story. There is nothing harder than to keep unsullied through long years the truth about the happenings of our childhood. But at least you would feel, as you passed from sister to sister, and heard the tale from brother after brother, that there must have been some hour of horror in the old home

to have grooved these separate memories so. Now so

is it with the story of the flood. The flood came before the family had scattered. God's children were still in their ancestral home when the hour of tragedy and death arrived. And when to-day the brothers and the sisters, scattered far and wide across the world, cherish the memory of that far-off hour, we cannot but think of that far-off hour as real. The flood then is not an idle story. It is the record of an actual event. And I wish to find out some of God's purposes in giving it this large place in His Word.

FIRST, then, it teaches us the truth that God is watching. Our Saviour has spoken of that, and so we put it first. For we are always tempted to think, as the years roll, that there is no eye fixed upon the scene. Day succeeds day, and night moves after night; men eat and drink and love and marry and die, and all is so orderly and uninterrupted that they almost forget the power on the throne. But the story of the flood

was meant to teach that the Lord God is not indifferent. He does not sit apart in royal state, unconcerned with human sin and sorrow. He seems to be idle, but the hour will come when He will bare His arm and work in majesty. Men were utterly vile before the flood, and God saw that. But among them there was one man who lived a holy life, and God saw that. Men thought they could live and sin just as they pleased, but the day dawned when they saw their tragic error. Let none of us think, then, that God does not see us. If we are struggling in evil surroundings to be good, He knows it all. No Noah can ever be hidden from the gaze of Him whose eyes go to and fro upon the earth.

AGAIN, it teaches us that we are saved by faith. The

writer to the Hebrews dwells on that. There is no more sublime faith in the world's history than the faith

of Noah in preparing at God's word. The skies were not dark when the first beams were laid. There was no murmur of uprising waters. The sun shone bright and all the flowers blossomed, and the dew was as sparkling as on the leaves of Eden. Do you not think that people laughed at Noah? Did not the schoolboys mock him as they passed? It was the work of a dotard, in that golden weather, to be getting ready for a deluge. But Noah had been taught to scorn appearances, and he toiled on undaunted in his faith. By faith, then, Noah was saved through grace, and that not of himself, it was the gift of God. He had nothing but God's bare word to hold to, but he held to it, though everybody mocked; and he found at last how wise it had been to walk by faith and not by sight. Do we know anything of Noah's faith? Are we ready to be true though others smile? Are we willing to pray and to believe that sin spells death, though all the appearances should be against us? God wishes us to learn that lesson very early.

ONCE more it teaches us that God saves by separating.

That is one of the greatest of all Bible truths. Let us never forget the care and the love and the patience wherewith God separated Noah from the world. The thought of the ark and the plan of the ark were God's. It was God who gave Noah strength to do the work. And at last, when all was ready for the voyaging, we read that it was God who shut them in. Did Noah grumble at his loss of liberty? Did he think it hard to lose the fair sweet world? Was it odious to him to be confined and limited after the long years in vale and meadow? I think he saw the wisdom of the limits when he stepped out to the large liberty of Ararat. So does God deal with every one of us. He draws us apart; He saves by separation. And at first, perhaps, when we are called to cross-bearing, we think it hard that our old liberty should go. But gradually through our separation

comes our freedom. The waters assuage, we pass out from love's imprisonment. Through our separation we have entered a new world, and where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.

THEN, lastly, it teaches us that God saves for service. It was for the world's sake that Noah was brought through. He was preserved that mankind might start again, and so was he a forerunner of the second Adam. God never saves us merely to enjoy. God saves us that we may do His will. A man is brought through the deep waters for the sake of others, and his first task is always to build an altar. Note, too, that of the beasts and birds that were preserved, some were immediately offered on that altar. They, too, no less than Ham and Shem, were saved for service, and they served best by being sacrificed. Is not that sometimes the case with all of us? Was it not so supremely with the Lord? He was brought through the deeps and billows of Gethsemane to serve mankind, and His crowning service was being sacrificed on Calvary.

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FOURTH SUNDAY

Evening

JOHN THE WITNESS-BEARER

Passage to be read: John i. 14-34.

'HE thought of witness-bearing finds ample expression in the Bible. Witness' is one of the keywords of the Scripture, occurring in the early records of Genesis, and in the writings of prophets and apostles. It makes an interesting study to collect the

passages in which the word 'witness' is found. Sometimes it is God who is the witness; at other times it is the arching heaven above us. Then we read that when Joshua had made a covenant with the people, he took a great stone and set it up under an oak-tree, and said, 'Behold this stone shall be a witness unto us' (Josh. xxiv. 26-7). Christ Himself is spoken of as a witness'Behold I have given Him for a witness to the people' (Isa. lv. 4); Paul tells us that God had never left Himself without a witness (Acts xiv. 17); and it was at the feet of that same Paul that the witnesses laid down their clothes, in the hour when Stephen cried 'Lord Jesus, receive my spirit' (Acts vii. 58). Let us remember, too, that when we believe on Jesus, there is a witness which we have in ourselves (1 John v. 10). Such passages as these help to make plain to us what a large place the witness has in Scripture. The Baptist is not isolated in his witness-bearing; he is one of a great and evergrowing company. Let us try, then, to gather up to-day some of the things to which John bore witness. It may be that we also, like the Baptist, may be sent to be witness-bearers of Christ Jesus.

FIRST, then, John bore witness to the presence of Christ.

The Jews were eagerly expecting the Messiah. They were thrilled with the hope that He was coming. God had awakened such a longing in their hearts that they knew the advent was not far away. So were they straining their eyes to the east and to the south; so were they anxiously awaiting some splendour of arrival; and John bore witness that the Christ they looked for was standing among them, even while he spoke (v. 26). He was not hidden in the clouds of heaven; He was not lurking in some far concealment; He would not burst upon them in any visible glory, nor with any credentials that would be instantly accepted. Even while John spoke the Christ was there, moving among

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