REST IN VIEW OF GOD'S SERVICE
REST IN VIEW OF GOD’S SERVICE
There is peculiar freshness to be found in opening the holy page so early; that is, Genesis 8, and particularly in this section, because whilst in the main God is saying things to a man or to men, we have here the initiative taken by Noah. He had acquired a great place with God, and God had opened the way for him early in His records, for Noah’s name was to enter into all these things, between God and His great creature, that is Noah. His name was given to him by his father rightly. There is a good reason given for it, for it has meaning; it means repose — rest. That one should be found in this early stage of the history in the Holy Book, that one should be found equal to giving rest to God, was a matter of great importance. God remembers these instances, for He tells us in later years that on the seventh day He was refreshed. He rested from His labours and was refreshed. It was remarkable that God should speak thus, but it is really not remarkable as we pursue the book and see it had reference to the Lord Jesus, who provided rest for God. We know that the birds that were sent out from the ark had certain meanings and the dove, pointing to the rest that God has in Christ, could not find a place for the sole of her foot, such was the situation on the earth, on God’s earth; there was no rest. God had in mind, too, the thought of refreshment, and so He refers to it later in regard of the sabbath, that He rested on the seventh day and was refreshed. Think of that! He found refreshment Himself. Noah found rest for God and in saying this I have in mind that others should be stirred up, as to what each of us may yield to God, and as to whether there is with each one anything yielding to God something in the nature of restfulness or refreshment.
[p. 319] You will remember that in Genesis 5:28,29 we are told, “And Lemech lived a hundred and eighty-two years, and begot a son. And he called his name Noah”, which means, as we read in the note, repose. Lemech lived a hundred and eighty-two years and begot a son. “And he called his name Noah, saying, This one shall comfort us concerning our work” Genesis 5:29. Not my work, but our work. He links himself with others. It was the time; the time had come for it. “This one shall comfort us concerning our work and concerning the toil of our hands, because of the ground which Jehovah has cursed” Genesis 5:29. So that the name was prophetic. The name given by his father to Noah was prophetic and God bore that in mind. He bears everything in mind that is the fruit of love, that is love towards Him. He never forgets anything that is the fruit of love towards Him. There are many that do not love God. I say many, although there are many that do love God, and one is encouraged to think that there are not many, indeed very few, in this room that do not love God. We read of persons who are lovers of themselves, rather than of God. That should challenge each one, but Lemech was not one of those. He belongs to the divine family, such as are spoken of throughout this book. Noah was one of them and Lemech was one of them and he gave his son a name which was prophetic. It means repose, not exactly for God, but “this one shall comfort us concerning our work and concerning the toil of our hands, because of the ground which Jehovah has cursed” Genesis 5:29. That is, he had one added to his family that was a great acquisition to him and his family because he would comfort us, he says. It was to affect the whole race, we might say, but it was going to narrow down to very few, because according to the New Testament there were only a few saved; that is eight persons. We have to come down to that. We have to come down to that — [p. 320] small numbers. We have to come down to it, and we do well to be content in it, and yet not content, but to carry on in our prayers so that there may be greater things for God.
Well now, the prophetic word as to Noah was borne in mind by God; no doubt by others too who heard it, and the word in the New Translation would indicate that this offering of Noah called up into the mind of God the meaning of Noah’s name. It is said: “And Noah built an altar to Jehovah; and took of every clean animal, and of all clean fowl, and offered up burnt-offerings on the altar. And Jehovah smelled the sweet odour”. Notice the article in the passage. It is not simply a sweet odour, but the sweet odour here; it is as if God would say, ‘The thing that his name means is not wanting’. The sweet odour is there. After six hundred years from the birth of Noah the sweet odour, the odour of rest, was there. And so one reminds oneself as to these matters, as what should characterise a Christian. If one loses this character and drops into the world’s ways, in effect that which was indicated at the beginning is not there. That could never be said of Jesus. He was never other than Himself. “This is my beloved Son, in whom I have found my delight”, (Matthew 3:17). God could always say that. But with others, alas, we have to say at times, it is not there; what used to be there is not there any more; or if it is there it is intermittent, and, of course, you are thankful for that; yet this odour is the primary idea of God for any one of us. If the world gets in, one loses one’s character and that which is so precious to God. As regards Noah in Genesis 8, it is there. The sweet savour is there; he had not lost it.
Well now, dear brethren, you will be thinking that what I have read has the character of suggestive ministry, but if it is not that, it is not much. There [p. 321] may be some young one here who is turning to the world to some extent, so that God is not finding what He used to find in him. Demas, for instance, was a man who lost character; he lost colour in his worldliness. He loved this present world. Notice that it is this present world, not that one, but this one, the one all around us, urging itself upon us. Paul says, “For Demas has forsaken me, having loved the present age”, (2 Timothy 4:10).
Well now, our passage says that “Noah built an altar to Jehovah; and took of every clean animal, and of all clean fowl, and offered up burnt-offerings on the altar”. Notice that word ‘every’; it would mean that some of every kind of clean creatures were in the offering. He did not selfishly keep any. Perhaps there is selfishness in our givings to God; perhaps we keep what is considered choice in our minds, and give something else in its place, but that is not found with Noah. He gives of every clean beast and all clean fowl. Nothing selfish in his nature; I am speaking of his nature as of God. Believers now are made partakers of divine nature, Peter tells us, and as of that nature there is what is unselfish. God had wrought in men from the outset, even in Adam and Eve, and after sin had come in, so as to bring about what was for His pleasure. He had wrought in Noah, and had wrought early I would think; possibly from the time the name was given to him by his father. God honoured his father by pointing to him as a man of repose; the savour was there. Noah would, no doubt, count the creatures there after the flood. We may be sure, too, that God counted. He counts good and bad. “For we must all be manifested before the judgment-seat of the Christ, that each may receive the things done in the body, according to those he has done, whether it be good or evil”, (2 Corinthians 5:10). There would be the counting on this remarkable day as Noah came [p. 322] out of the ark with his wife and his sons and their wives with him. We are told of this coming out at the end of Genesis 8, before chapter 9 when God makes the covenant with him. That is particularly in view in the chapter. The counting was going on. God would look at all that was going on. We are reminded of God’s pleasure in Christ; and God would call our attention to what pleases Him in a man like Noah. He found rest there. Later on God tells Abraham to take certain creatures and certain birds, and Abraham went and did it and brought them back to offer them to God. There is the counting in Abraham’s case, and the counting in Noah’s case of every clean beast and all clean fowl. There they are set out for God’s pleasure. We have to do with a God like this; one who counts His people. He takes account of us as coming up on the first day of the week. We may think, it does not matter much if we give this or that, but it does matter, for God counts. So we are told that God will count by and by (Psalm 87:5,6). Where was this man born? He was born where God had rest. And was this man born there? It is for each to challenge himself as to these countings of God.
Think of what there was on this peculiar day. These creatures come out with Noah and there they are, and Noah offers a burnt offering of every clean creature. Jehovah says, There is no mistake, the savour is there. That is the point in the thing, and one challenges oneself as to it. So “Noah built an altar to Jehovah; and took of every clean animal and of all clean fowl, and offered up burnt-offerings on the altar. And Jehovah smelled the sweet odour”. He smelled it. It was for God, and it is as if God was saying, ‘It all speaks of what pleases Me in Noah’. In chapter 9, following this, there is the covenant. God says, “And I, behold, I establish my covenant with you” Genesis 9:9. God is saying, ‘I have made no mistake,
Noah is the man’; he is true to his name. Hence the odour is there. There are the creatures, look at them. Noah brought them to offer to God, speaking to God’s heart of His great creature, the man of the sweet odour, that which ministers a sweet odour to God. All this points to the Lord Jesus. It is He who yields to God in this way, and only He. We come in with Him. Sometimes we quote that verse of Scripture: “This is my beloved Son, in whom I have found my delight” (Matthew 3:17), and very often we put in the word ‘all’, but it is not there, because God is leaving room for us to come into this by the gift of the Spirit. Along with His beloved Son, the Father has made room for every one of us. He that has anointed us is God. There are other things, too, that He has done. He that has sealed us is God, and He that has anointed us is God, and He that has given us the Holy Spirit is God. We are brought in under the same Head. It is not ‘all’, it is, “in whom I have found my delight”(Matthew 3:17). The omission of ‘all’ makes room for us. In the anointing of the Lord Jesus the Father has made room for us. How far and wide and blessed is the thought. We are brought into the anointing, the savour of Christ.
So here, every creature is counted in the offering, that is offered to God. Noah, what a creature he was; his name means repose. Well now, there are other thoughts in the passage. “And Jehovah said in his heart”. This is the second point, the matter of God’s heart. What He says in His heart. I have been clearing the ground for what I am about to say now. The ground clearly refers to God and His doings and consequently makes a way for God to say things, to intimate things that He is going to deal with later. He is saying things in His heart, not saying them out loud yet. Remarkable reference! How much God has said in His heart, and one is thinking of positive things, such as the mystery. The mystery was before [p. 324] the world, and was kept in God’s mind all the way down from Adam and Eve until the time of Paul, the time of the Spirit, who kept things without saying anything about them. “It is the glory of God to conceal a thing”, (Proverbs 25:2). That is remarkable! How long did He conceal the mystery, the mystery of the gospel, the mystery of the assembly? He concealed it from the very beginning of time, in His counsels. He kept certain things and said nothing about them. They were the very best things that He had. Such is our God! Because we all should remember that we are speaking of our God, not my God, and of course my God, too, but our God. The God we have. We share the blessed God, so to say, in common, dear brethren. The God we share and love and dwell with, that very One, has certain things in His heart, but the things He is speaking of here in Genesis are not just as great as the things He has in His heart for us.
I want to point out what surrounds this matter of what is in God’s heart; it comes out after Noah had made his offerings. God is going along with us, and He is waiting at times for what we are doing. God does everything, you say. Well, He does not do everything; He expects us to do some things, and if we do not do them, then He must do what we leave out, but He is expecting us to do them. So here He did not tell Noah to build an altar, but Noah did it, and what he did God was pleased with, showing that there are things that we may do without God saying anything to us about them, but as done they please God. We must learn of the blessed God to be able to do things that please Him. How do we learn it? We learn it from others. We learn it from God and from Christ. The Holy Spirit operating in our hearts brings out things from our hearts. So here there is not a word about God telling him to build an altar, but as Noah did so, it gave room for [p. 325] God, for the magnitude of His thoughts. What a man Noah was! What an understanding with God He had! What liberty with God!
God would speak to us about the matters relative to Noah and what he was. All showed what love was doing here. Noah picks out these clean creatures, and offers them to God, and God said in His heart, “I will no more henceforth curse the ground on account of Man”. God knows His creature. He knows the work of Christ, and He knows the work of the Spirit. What the Holy Spirit does is not the work of redemption, but He accomplishes other things. Christ accomplished redemption. He is our Saviour, our Lord. The Spirit does certain things in us that please God, and He did certain things in Noah. At this particular time all these clean creatures were presented to God on the altar. God says, I am delighted with this matter. It opens up much. God waits for us to do things and that is the idea in the assembly at the present time in our dispensation. That is what God is looking for in us, and the Holy Spirit operates in us to this end. He works out with us the will of God, the things that God is pleased with, things like this. And so Noah can do this, and God is pleased with it, and now He says things in His heart because of it. What does He say in His heart? “I will no more henceforth curse the ground on account of Man, for the thought of Man’s heart is evil from his youth; and I will no more smite every living thing, as I have done”.
Now that is what God is saying in His heart. This was written many years later by Moses, not by Noah. I do not suppose Noah heard a sound from God about what He was going to do. It awaited the time for God to tell His creature what He was going to do. It was a negative thing; He knew what kind of heart man had — unregenerate. I know that. God is not going to do anything like this again. He [p. 326] said that in His heart, not aloud. Who can tell what God is saying at this very moment? What God is saying on account of the war? What He is saying on account of the happenings abroad? For God is not neglectful of these things. The worst things that ever happened are happening today. God knows it and feels it. He does feel it. Is not He saying something about it, saying something is going to happen? It is not a bad thing, but a good thing. The present dispensation is a time of good. God is not talking about bad things. Is not God going to have a wonderful crop from those who have suffered so much? What a lot of people are suffering! Europe is suffering. Germany is suffering. You say. They should. Do not say that too quickly, because there are saints in Germany, and they love God and God loves them, and God has them in His mind, has had them in mind during the last five or six years. He is saying something in His heart, and maybe it will come out in our prayers. He has a way of saying things. Here He is saying something in His heart, and it alludes to what is in Man’s heart. “I will no more henceforth curse the ground on account of Man, for the thought of Man’s heart is evil from his youth; and I will no more smite every living thing, as I have done”. That is. He has changed His mind. Why should not God change His mind? “And Jehovah repented that he had made Man on the earth ... for I repent that I have made them” (Genesis 6:6,7). God repented that He made Man on the earth. Why should He not do that? You say. Did God make a mistake? No, He made no mistake. Did God not change His mind? God is sovereign, and we want to be in line, and intercede with God to change His mind. Isaiah 62:6,7 says, “Ye that put Jehovah in remembrance, keep not silence, and give him no rest”. I am not speaking loosely, but am quoting Scripture. God says to you. Keep asking;
[p. 327] keep praying; do not give up; ask and it will be given to you.
So the one we read of in Luke that petitioned the unjust judge is a disturbing cause to him, and because of the disturbance she is, he will grant her request. So I would urge upon each one here if there is anything you want from God, ask God for it. In fact, it is said that God is ready to give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him. It is the greatest possible gift. He is ready to do that; there are some here who have not the Spirit. You are hardly a Christian at all if you have not the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is given to them that ask Him. “How much rather shall the Father who is of heaven give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?”, (Luke 11:13). How great that is! Does not every one of us, who are lovers of God, want to be like Jesus, to move on this earth like Jesus, to follow in the steps of Jesus, the very steps? The Holy Spirit makes us do it. It grieves Him when people have not the Holy Spirit. Almost before one can have part in this one must get the Holy Spirit, for you are hardly fit for heaven or for the assembly. You must have the Holy Spirit and you can have it, because, “How much rather shall the Father who is of heaven give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?” (Luke 11:13). Get on your knees about it. Ask with both your knees on the ground, and something will happen. God will answer. “For this reason”, says Paul, “I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom every family in the heavens and on earth is named, in order that he may give you according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with power by his Spirit in the inner man; that the Christ may dwell, through faith, in your hearts, being rooted and founded in love, in order that ye may be fully able to apprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height; and to [p. 328] know the love of the Christ which surpasses knowledge; that ye may be filled even to all the fulness of God”, Ephesians 3:14 - 19. I would urge any person here who has not got the Holy Spirit to ask God for It. I plead with you, and yet I am indignant with you for neglecting to see to these things. I would say. Do not be neglectful in getting the Holy Spirit.
Now to get to the point immediately before us. “Henceforth, all the days of the earth, seed time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night, shall not cease”. He is saying that He will not send a deluge again. He is not saying anything about the lake of fire. Terrible thought! God is not saying anything about that here. It is going to happen. Here He is saying, “Seed time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night, shall not cease”. That is what He is saying, and it is all negative. God is not going to have day and night eternally, or cold and winter eternally, but He is saying these things about the provisional time. It is a provisional matter, but He is not saying this out loud yet, but He tells Moses later on. Most of the important things that come out from God throughout the Old Testament come out much later; that is they are secret. God has His man to disclose them.
He is speaking of “all the days of the earth”. It is going to terminate; the present earth and heavens shall pass away; but as to these days of the present earth and the years and months, God is saying at this particular juncture that these things are to continue “all the days of the earth”. So we are to pay attention to this chapter, this passage, as to the matter of the present earth, the present heavens. We read of these things in 2 Peter. Peter deals considerably with this matter I am dealing with. As to what happens, and is going to happen to Israel in relation to the millennium, we have the whole truth [p. 329] now, but God is going to have new heavens and new earth in which righteousness dwells. What a thought that is! And we shall be there. All believers will be there. As to the present earth and heavens, God is telling us here that it is a short-lived matter; now it is a question of days and years. “Henceforth, all the days of the earth, seed time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night, shall not cease”. Let nobody try to alter the matter. Some men at times have tried to change days and years, but they cannot do it. God says they cannot do it. In the presence of such activities therefore, dear brethren, it is a time of suffering for the saints of God; this time of days and years. “Henceforth all the days of the earth” means that the time is very limited. The time mentioned is limited. It is not eternity. I hope the brethren are seeing the thing and understanding intelligently. God discloses what is in His heart for a provisional period after the deluge. Christianity had not come yet, but it came in its time. We are dealing with the thought of time, and so in the New Testament we are told that the time is short. If a man live sixty, seventy or eighty years, that is a very few days really. We may as well face these things. We are not going to live long. Look at the first commandment with promise: “Honour thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be prolonged in the land that Jehovah thy God giveth thee”, (Exodus 20:12). That is for the young people, not old ones, we are not looking for days on the earth, but better days above; that is, above the earth. That is what we value, we who are real Christians.
We have here what God is saying of mankind, not publicly in Noah’s time, but through Moses. You may say that you thought the millennium was a long period — one thousand years. But it is not very long, you know, the life of one man; Methuselah [p. 330] nearly used up all those years. God is telling us that there is not much to look for in time. God says, I am using time, the first day of the week, the Lord’s day, and I want you to be in that, in the knowledge of that. I want to give you the mystery in those days, however short they may be. We have the days, all the days of the earth. There are times of cold and heat, and some do not come out to the meetings, some for the cold and some for the heat. Summer and winter, and the brethren do not come out, sometimes because of the heat, sometimes because of the cold, and yet God has made both cold and heat, summer and winter. Let us remember that God made them.
This is a day when the earth is feeling the suffering and sorrow and God is looking for something from His people that they may, like Noah, always be ready to yield to God. Every true lover is ready to yield to God; he does not keep back anything, not keeping back a clean beast because it is a big or fat beast. It is a time now of service to God and God is looking for service. “For we are the circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God, and boast in Christ Jesus, and do not trust in flesh”, (Philippians 3:3). That is the time we are living in. I want you young people to think it over — the days of the earth; not simply the generality of the thing for the actual days are very short. But while the earth remains there will be such time; there will be provision, day and night. The principle is that God is merciful. It is nothing like eternity, that which we are going into as through the redemptive work of the Lord Jesus. We are going into eternity, to our place with Christ. But in this provisional time of days of the earth, these things come into it; “seed time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night, shall not cease”. And God is saying to us that He is looking for our love to be such that His [p. 331] service may go on in all these years, days and months, especially the first day of the week, the day God claims for Himself.
May God bless the thoughts to us!