We shall now return to Noah, and contemplate him in a new position. We have seen him building the ark, we have seen him in the ark, and we shall now view him going forth of the ark, and taking his place in the new world.[13] "And God remembered Noah." The strange work of judgment being over, the saved family, and all in association with them, come into remembrance. "God made a wind to pass over the earth; and the waters assuaged; the fountains also of the deep and the windows of heaven were stopped, and the rain from heaven was restrained." The beams of the sun now begin to act upon a world that had been baptized with a baptism of judgment. Judgment is God's "strange work." He delights not in, though he is glorified by, it. Blessed be his name, he is ever ready to leave the place of judgment, and enter that of mercy, because he delights in mercy.
"And it came to pass, at the end of forty days, that Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made: and he sent forth a raven, which went forth, to and fro, until the waters were dried up from off the earth." The unclean bird made its escape, and found, no doubt, a resting-place upon some floating carcase. It sought not the ark again. Not so the dove. "She found no rest for the sole of her foot, and she returned unto him into the ark ... and again he sent forth the dove out of the ark: and the dove came in to him, in the evening; and, lo, in her mouth was an olive-leaf, pluckt off." Sweet emblem of the renewed mind, which, amid the surrounding desolation, seeks and finds its rest and portion in Christ; and not only so, but also lays hold of the earnest of the inheritance, and furnishes the blessed proof, that judgment has passed away, and that a renewed earth is coming fully into view. The carnal mind, on the contrary, can rest in any thing and every thing but Christ. It can feed upon all uncleanness. "The olive-leaf" has no attraction for it. It can find all it needs in a scene of death, and hence is not occupied with the thought of a new world and its glories; but the heart that is taught and exercised by the Spirit of God, can only rest and rejoice in that in which he rests and rejoices. It rests in the Ark of his salvation "until the times of the restitution of all things." May it be thus with you and me, beloved reader! May Jesus be the abiding rest and portion of our hearts, that so we may not seek them in a world which is under the judgment of God! The dove went back to Noah, and waited for his time of rest; and we should ever find our place with Christ, until the time of his exaltation, and glory, in the ages to come. "He that shall come, will come, and will not tarry." All we want, as to this, is a little patience. May God direct our hearts into his love, and into "the patience of Christ!"