0994. The Deliverance of Noah
The Deliverance of Noah
"Until the day that Noah entered into the ark" (Luk_17:27)
God not only warned Noah of the coming of the flood, but "by faith Noah, * * moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house." In this act he condemned the world. The safe shelter of Noah seemed to say, "You might all have had a like refuge, had you entered in."
Noah is occasionally taken as a type of the raptured Church–and in the story there are many, many parallels pointing that way. However, we will speak of Noah as typical of the preserved of Israel and, in our next division, of Lot as typical of the "taken out" of the Church.
Noah and those with him in the ark experienced all the fury of the flood; they passed through its fiercest powers, but they passed through protected, housed, sheltered.
In the 12th of Revelation the Man-child is caught up. The devil is afterward cast down to the earth, and immediately he "persecuted the woman which brought forth the Man child." He "cast out of his mouth water as a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away of the flood" (Rev_12:13-17). But the Lord helped the woman. He gave her two wings of a great eagle that she might fly into the wilderness "where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time." The earth helped the woman against the flood and then satan turned to make war against the remnant of her seed.
We may not be able to fathom all the depths of these words. But we know that when the day of wrath comes, there will be many of Israel who will be protected in a marvelous way from the overflowing tribulations. One hundred and forty-four thousand, twelve thousand from each of the twelve tribes, will surely be sealed against satan's destructive power. Thus will the promise: "When thou passest through the waters, they shall not overthrow thee," be fulfilled.
Christ has given explicit instructions to the Jews to keep out of Jerusalem as those days come on. Let us ponder Mat_24:15-18 :
"When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the Prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand:)
"Then let them which be in Judea flee into the mountains:
"Let him which is on the house top not come down to take any thing out of his house:
"Neither let him which is in the field return back to take his clothes."
No wonder Christ says: "Pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the Sabbath Day."
In and around Jerusalem, satan and the antichrist center their fiercest fury. It will be a day of tribulation, the day of Jacob's trouble. And unless those days be shortened no flesh would be saved.
Autor: R.E. NEIGHBOUR