October 21 Daily Devotional

Bible Reading

Genesis 7:7–16

Devotional

Noah was shut in away from all the world by the hand of divine love. The door of God’s electing purpose comes between us and the world which lies under the power of the evil one. We are not of the world even as our Lord Jesus was not of the world. Into the sin, the merriment, the pursuits of the multitude we cannot enter. We cannot play in the streets of Vanity Fair with the children of darkness, for our heavenly Father has shut us in.

Noah was shut in with his God. “Come into the ark,” was the Lord’s invitation, by which he clearly showed that he himself intended to dwell in the ark with his servant and his family. Thus all the chosen dwell in God and God in them. Oh, what happy people to be enclosed in the same circle which contains God in the Trinity of his persons—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit!

Let us never be heedless to the Lord’s gracious call, “Come, my people, enter in and shut the door behind you, and hide yourselves as it were for a little moment until the indignation has passed.” Noah was so shut in that no evil could reach him. Floods could only lift him heavenward, and winds could only waft him on his way. Outside the ark all was ruin, but inside all was rest and peace. Without Christ we perish, but in Christ Jesus there is perfect safety.

Noah was so shut in that he could not even want to come out, and those who are in Christ Jesus are in him forever. They shall no longer go out forever because God’s eternal faithfulness has shut them in, and infernal malice cannot drag them out. The Prince of the house of David shuts and no one open; and when in the Last Day he will rise up as Master of the house and finally shut the door, it will be in vain for mere professors to knock, and cry, “Lord, Lord open to us,” for the very same door that shuts in the wise virgins will shut out the foolish forever.

O Lord, please shut me in by your grace in Christ.

[June 5, morning]

Extracted from C. H. Spurgeon, Morning and Evening (public domain), language modernized by Larry E. Wilson.