Genesis 7:16

And they that went in, went in male and female of all flesh,....

There is much of our gospel duty and privilege to be seen in Noah's preservation in the ark. The apostle makes it a type of our baptism, that is, our Christianity, 1 Pet. iii. It is our great duty, in obedience to the gospel call, by a lively faith in Christ, to come into that way of salvation which God has provided for poor sinners.

The Lord shut him in - This seems to imply that God took him under his especial protection, and as he shut Him in, so he shut the Others out. God had waited one hundred and twenty years upon that generation; they did not repent; they filled up the measure of their iniquities, and then wrath came upon them to the uttermost.

NOAH was a very different man from the rest of those who lived in his time, for the Grace of God had set a division between him and them. They forgot God and Noah feared Him. They lived for things seen and temporal and he lived in sight of the invisible. When he was building the ark, he was in a miserable minority, as men count heads. And, even after 120 years of ministry, when his ark was built and his family entered it, they were eight against many millions—an insignificant few, as men would say—a pitiful sect among mankind.

and the Lord shut him in--literally, "covered him round about." The "shutting him in" intimated that Noah had become the special object of divine care and protection, and that to those without the season of grace was over (Mt 25:10).

quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — starts-lowercase

NOAH was a very different man from the rest of those who lived in his time, for the Grace of God had set a division between him and them. They forgot God and Noah feared Him. They lived for things seen and temporal and he lived in sight of the invisible. When he was building the ark, he was in a miserable minority, as men count heads. And, even after 120 years of ministry, when his ark was built and his family entered it, they were eight against many millions—an insignificant few, as men would say—a pitiful sect among mankind. Who could imagine that the eight would be right and all the millions wrong? Where God is, there is the majority! But very clearly there was a very marked distinction between Noah and his household and all the rest of mankind. Yet, great as that distinction was, throughout 120 years there was no impassable gulf between the two parties. Although Noah could not, would not go to them, yet they that would, might pass to him. If they would hear, believe and obey, they, too, might be among the company whom God had blessed and whom He would surely preserve from destruction. When the 120 years were over and God's Spirit would no longer strive with men, there stood the great ark with its vast door wide open and Noah still continued to preach and to declare that all who would pass within that open portal into the ark of safety should be preserved from the coming destruction. Outside that door death would reign universally, but all would be peace within. When the last seven days of Grace had come to a close, the Lord began His work of justice by separating Noah. "The Lord shut him in." Then there was a more marked difference between Noah and the rest of mankind. He that opens and no man shuts. He that shuts and no man opens—even He had interposed an impassable barrier between Noah and those that believed not.