Today's encouragement comes from Genesis 7:16b, which says this:
"And the LORD shut him [Noah] in [the ark]." (ESV)When, in time and space, God redeems His elect people, He "shuts them in[to]" the Lord Jesus Christ, and His holy church. The sealing power of the Holy Spirit "shuts us into” the Redeemer; and the baptism by water shuts us into the church covenant (so long as we remain faithful, by grace). Think about it: in his natural state, Noah would have wanted to *leave* the ark, and take a "deep sea dive" into the sins of his age—plunging himself into perdition with the condemned humanity that was destroyed in the flood. Only God’s sovereign grace made him even desirous of being "shut into" the ark.
Where are we, today: floundering, without an anchor, in a sea of iniquity; or riding high over the rough waves of the world's destruction, (in Jesus' ark of His church)?
[Puritan quote of the day: "Saul's sparing Agag lost him the kingdom, and our sparing sin will lose us the kingdom of heaven.” —Thomas Watson, in "The Mischief of Sin"]
