THE DOOR IS SHUT

Gen. 7:16

Morning Meditation 8/11/16

Verse 16 says, “And they that went in, went in male and female of all flesh, as God had commanded him: and the LORD shut him in.”

There was one door in the ark. When God told Noah how to build the ark, He said, “A window shalt thou make to the ark, and in a cubit shalt thou finish it above; and the door of the ark shalt thou set in the side thereof; with lower, second, and third stories shalt thou make it” (6:16). The door to the ark was evidently three stories high. It reminds us that God has provided ample entrance to the place where there is plenty of room for all who will come. God’s grace is truly amazing. It is the broad way that leads to destruction and the narrow way that leads to life. But the words “narrow way” does not suggest that there is not room for everyone. Because everyone who WILL come CAN come. It is not “everyone who CAN come WILL come.” Some get this turned around. I suggest that we keep it in the Biblical order. Jesus died for all and all can be saved. The problem is that the “broad way” describes the way most people choose to go.

Our text says, “. . . and the LORD shut him in.” What a wonderful truth that is. What security for Noah and his family! When God shuts the door, you won’t be getting out. That is, until the time His providence provides. Col. 3:3 says, “For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.” God has shut us in. Jesus is our Ark.

There is also another side to this truth because there is another side to that door. What about the people who were on the other side of that door after the LORD shut Noah, his family and all the animals in? The door was as secure against opening from that side as it was from Noah’s side. When the LORD shut Noah in, He shut the rest of the world out. There is a thin line that separates the condemned from the uncondemned. But there is an eternal difference. Noah was safe on the one side of that door and those on the other side were eternally condemned. The LORD had shut the door.

Have you discovered that you cannot exceed God’s boundaries? God has shut the human race out to some things. Nimrod tried to build a tower that would reach into the heavens. God came down and saw what was going on. He interrupted the building program. This is recorded in Genesis chapter 11. God knows what is going on in the space program today. We know that. The boundaries are still there. Man thinks he has accomplished a lot when he says, “we have gone to the moon,” and, “we have gone to Mars with our space probes.” But in comparison to the omniscience of God, if you took all the scientist’s brains and put them together and put them on the head of a needle, you would have room left to build a football stadium and a Walmart Superstore and still have undeveloped territory! We have no idea how infinitely dumb all the intelligence’s of the earth are in comparison to the omniscience of God. Yet modern intelligence dares to deny His existence and promote the lie of Satan that man just happened. Man is not even smart enough to come up with the evolutionary hypothesis. He is simply a dupe of Satan repeating his lie.

Moses said, “ . . . and the LORD shut him in.” The door is shut and the LORD shut it. The LORD has shut the door to the unsaved outside. Something happened when man sinned in the Garden of Eden. God drove the man out. And all of Adam’s children have been born outside of Eden. And that door is securely closed by the LORD Himself for all of Adam’s race. Only God can open that door for re-entrance. In his natural state, man cannot know what is on the other side of that door. He cannot discover it by science. Paul said, “For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe” (1 Cor. 1:19-21). Note the words: “ . . . hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?” It is still a valid question where the answer is obvious. But it is not obvious to the natural man because “ . . . the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Cor. 2:14). God is still shutting those in who have entered the Ark (Christ) by faith and shutting the door against those who reject His message. A man will never find God by science.

The door is shut against those who would know God by education. The unsaved man will never learn enough to find God. He is a natural man and the door is shut to the natural man. With all his colleges and universities and all the books he has written, he is still as far from God as he was before he emerged from his ignorance and superstition and now has his degrees in academics. There is a fine line between him and those in the Ark. But it is a line he will never cross now or in eternity by education. The LORD has shut the door.

The door is shut against the unsurrendered. Have you discovered that there are a lot of Christians, at least those who profess to be, who are walking in darkness? They really do not have a clue about what is going on. They profess to believe in Jesus and I have no right to say they have not. But I can say that they do not understand what God says in His Word. They have not progressed beyond the understanding of the basics of salvation itself. These kinds of Christians are mentioned in Hebrews. The Holy Spirit says, “Of whom we have many things to say, and hard to be uttered, seeing ye are dull of hearing. For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat. For every one that useth milk is unskilful in the word of righteousness: for he is a babe. But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil” (Heb. 55:11-14).

What causes these to live outside the door? Jesus tells us in John’s Gospel: “If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself” (John 7:17). It is the WILL TO DO not the WILL TO KNOW that lets us through the door. We will not be judged for what we know at the Judgment Seat of Christ. We will be judged for what we have done with what we know. If we are going to KNOW the doctrine, WE MUST SURRENDER TO DO WHAT IT SAYS BEFORE WE KNOW WHAT IT SAYS. The man who says, “Let me find out what God wants me to do then I will decide.” That is not God’s way. If you want to know what is on the other side of that door, you must be willing to put your life and all the consequences of full surrender, by faith, into the hands of the Lord. Noah and his family are not the only ones whom the LORD has shut in and shut out. And those in Noah’s day who died outside the door are not the only ones shut out. Jesus said, “I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture” (John 10:9).

May the Lord bless each of you.

In Christ

Bro. White