Genesis.
It came to pass, when men began to
multiply on the face of the earth, and
daughters were born unto them, that the sons
of God saw the daughters of men, that
they were fair, and they took them wives
of all which they chose.
And the Lord said, My spirit shall not
always strive with man, for that he also
is slave.
Yet his days shall be a hundred and
twenty years.
And God saw that the wickedness of man
was great in the earth, and that every
imagination of the thoughts of his heart was
only evil continually.
And it repented the Lord that he had
made man on the earth, and it grieved
him at his heart.
And the Lord said, I will destroy man
whom I have created from the face of
the earth, both man and beast, and the
creeping things, and the fowls of the air.
And it repented me that I have made
them.
And the earth was corrupt before God, and
the earth was filled with violence.
And God said unto Noah, The end of
all flesh is come before me, for the
earth is filled with violence through them.
And behold, I will destroy them with the
earth.
Make thee an ark of gopher wood, a
room which thou shalt make in the ark,
and shalt pitch it within and without which
pitch.
In the six hundredth year of Noah's life,
in the sixth month, second month, in the
seventeenth day of the month, the same day
were all the fountains of the great deep
broken up.
And the windows of heaven were opened, and
the rain was upon the earth forty days
and forty nights.
And all flesh died that moved upon the
earth, both of fowl and of cattle, and
of beast, and of every creeping thing that
creepeth upon the earth, and every man.
And every living substance was destroyed which was
upon the face of the ground, both man
and cattle and the creeping things and the
fowl of the heavens.
And they were destroyed from the earth, and
Noah only remained alive, and they that were
with him in the ark.
And God remembered Noah and every living thing
and all the cattle that was with him
in the ark.
And God made a wind to pass over
the earth, and the waters assuaged.
And the fountains all closed adeep, and the
windows of heaven were stopped, and the rain
from heaven was restrained.
And the waters returned from off the earth
continually.
And after the end of a hundred and
fifty days, the waters were abated.
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.
Also he sent forth a dove from him
to see if the waters were abated from
off the face of the ground.
But the dove found no rest for the
sole of her foot, and she returned unto
him into the ark, for the waters were
on the face of the whole earth.
Then he put forth his hand and took
her and pulled her in unto him into
the ark.
And he stayed yet seven other days, 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 plucked off, so Noah knew
that the waters were abated from off the
earth.
And he stayed yet other seven days, and
sent forth the dove, which returned not again
unto him any more.
The verse I have particularly in mind is
a part of verse 9 of chapter 8.
But the dove found no rest for the
sole of her foot.
I say this is an illustration rather than
a type, but I believe the Holy Spirit
put it here.
And I don't wish to enter this strange,
beautiful region of the Genesis world, for the
landscape is as mysterious as it is lovely,
but its scenes are sketchy and fragmentary.
And I'll leave close exegesis for somebody else
tonight, and I want to illustrate why the
Holy Spirit does not fill his Church.
First we notice the world as God saw
and judged it before the flood.
God searched into the hearts of men, it
says here, and he saw that mankind was
corrupt and wicked, filled with evil thoughts and
imaginations continually.
Now, the Holy Spirit says this, that man
is corrupt, wicked, evil of thought and of
imagination.
And God saw the ways of men, that
they were corrupt, violent, and engrossed with transitory
interests, even amid their corruption and violence.
The result of what God saw among men
was grief to God's own heart.
It grieved him at his heart.
And as I said on another occasion, only
love can grieve.
You cannot grieve unless you love.
And God loved the man whom he had
made, and the degenerate and corrupt race that
had descended from him, and God's love caused
him to grieve.
And it killed him with anxious terror.
The result was a sentence.
You see, the kind of thing a physician
or surgeon can do sometimes is to take
off the leg.
The kind of thing he can do is
to remove that which otherwise would kill the
patient, however shocking it may be, and however
terrible the news might be to the patient.
The best news for him is amputation.
Otherwise it would be best.
So the dear God who loved mankind looked
upon man and saw that moral corruption had
gotten such a hold on men, it had
gone out into all the bloodstream and was
in all the tissues and cells, and he
knew that the patient would die unless he
sent a kindly judgment to destroy it and
saved a few to start over so that
the race might not perish, borne down by
the spongy, corrupt weight of its own sin.
So God sent a judgment on the earth
and the waters covered the earth as they
had formerly covered the sea.
And after the passing of a great many
days, great numbers of days, 150 days, the
ark of God still floated there with eight
persons aboard and with the animals and birds
and all the creatures that would drown and
did not die, didn't take fish or the
aquatic animals because they could live in the
water, but all that which would die by
the waters of the flood there where they
were in the ark.
And of course after the passing of so
many days, it had long passed the flood
stage where people and things were simply dead.
Corruption had already started to set in.
And Noah opened the ark which had settled
upon Ararat.
He opened the ark and turned the bird
out to see.
The windows of the ark were upward toward
heaven and there were apparently no portals out
so that no one could look down.
So Noah decided to find out from the
birds whether there was dry ground below, whether
the waters of judgment had assuaged, as it's
called here.
And he opened the window and pushed the
raven out.
And there we have a sight the like
of which it is probably very hard to
visualize or understand, but there it is, that
sight of a dark bird sailing across the
desolation.
Now what was that desolation?
What did it amount to?
What did it add up to?
It added up to the judgment of God
because the angry displacer of God was on
the world and the waters of the judgment,
the boiling filth and the floating corpses and
all dead things and bits of flotsam and
geptam that were there over the waters, they
were a mark of the judgment of God
upon the world.
And the dark bird sailed across the desolation
and his dark heart felt at home there,
for he was a carrion eater and he
felt at home among the carrion.
And as that raven sailed away from the
warm lighted ark and from the presence of
Noah, he croaked with delight because out there
now swollen with internal gases until their heads
were topped as a drum and then wetted
with the waters of the flood, these floating
things, cattle and all creatures and corpses, human
corpses floating there in the waters.
To everything and everybody else it would have
been a repulsive and horrible sight, but the
raven was built for it.
Something in his dark heart loved it because
he lived on it.
So he immediately sailed down and lighted on
a near and likely corpse and began to
tear with his great claws and with his
huge beak great hunks of half-rotten flesh
he tore away and ate until he was
low geese and sleepy with overeating and then
fastened his claws down into the floating things
and being happy and restful, he went to
sleep croaking a good night word to the
happiness that he found what his heart wanted,
corruption and desolation and filth and flotsam and
rotten flesh and dead things.
For I say this fitted his disposition and
his temperament.
So he said on the floating death and
so my friends this is if not a
type at least a brilliant illustration of how
things are in the world today.
When man sinned and God deserted him and
he deserted God and he went out from
the place that had been Eden, the garden
eastward in Eden and began to propagate himself,
man had the judgment of God upon him.
The day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely
die.
The point is then the man wants to
die and after that the judgment says God
and God says that he's displeased with every
man and that unless we repent we shall
all perish and all the nations of the
world shall be turned into hell.
God is displeased with the nations of the
world.
He's displeased not only with the east, he's
displeased with the west.
He sends his judgment not only upon the
iron curtain country but he sends his judgment
upon the so-called three nations of the
world of which this is one so that
the great judgment of God is upon mankind.
All the stock of mankind, red and yellow,
black and white, educated and uneducated, cultured and
uncultured, cavemen and learned men around the world
and yet you know that because man has
in him that thing we call sin it
doesn't seem to bother people.
It doesn't bother them at all because just
as the raven was at home in the
desolation his dark heart had an affinity for
the judgment and desolation so it is that
men find themselves at a home in a
world under the judgment of God.
The only one good man that ever came
to the world could only manage to stay
alive 33 years and then they took him
out and nailed him on the cross and
the better men are the worse they're despised
by those who love the desolation and the
darkness that is the sin of the world
and just as the raven never came back
to the ark but lived out there in
the desolation so men have built their civilization
upon floating death and you'll find it everywhere.
We like to think otherwise we're proud of
our culture and we're proud of our bridges
and our roads and our foot mix and
all the things that we can do but
God looks on the heart and God says
the world is filled with violence and it's
filled with violence now and it's filled with
corruption now and filled with iniquity now just
as it was then but the woeful thing
is that we accept it men accept it
as such instead of being horrified by it
they accept it and they accuse it and
they write books to call it something else.
I think for instance of sodomy of homosexuality
that the plain name is sodomy that brought
the fire of God down on Sodom and
Gomorrah.
I have seen books and read books that
have been written to excuse this and say
that it's quite the proper thing and that
if a man is born with a yin
for another man instead of a woman he's
natural and he ought not to be criticized
he's living his own nature and they ought
to call it not something bad but it's
his way of living so we have books
and learned professors rise and rattle their degrees
and stand up and and argue in favor
of sodomy and every other vice under the
sun so the judgment of God is upon
the world to this upon floating death everywhere
well the judgment now God sends out the
raven and the raven never comes back because
the raven is pleased with what it sees
but God sends out the dove Noah sends
out the dove acting for God sends out
the dove and you know have you ever
heard a dove or a pigeon a dove
and how to where their wings have how
they cling to your wrist and he put
her up on his wrist and she took
off and world banked and turned and banked
and turned and pretty soon he heard the
whir of the wings again he put out
his wrist and she hopped on his wrist
and he pulled her back in she had
something in her that couldn't stand corruption she
couldn't stand filth she couldn't stand bloated corpses
she couldn't stand what the raven loved because
she had in her not the dark heart
of the raven but she had in her
the heart of the dove it was not
for nothing that when the holy ghost came
down upon jesus he came in the form
of a dove the pink feet and the
round bright eye of the dove yeah those
pink feet will never land on anything dirty
those pink feet will never land on anything
filthy and those round bright eyes will never
look with allowance upon anything that is filthy
the dove is the type and picture of
the holy ghost harmless and pure and meek
and sensitive and loving and so she came
back she couldn't stand it the judgments of
god were everywhere and the filth and the
filth and the flops and were too much
for her dove heart so she came back
and asked to get in the best she
could fluttering against the edge of the window
and he pulled her in and kept her
there for a while now why did jesus
say when he spoke of the holy spirit
whom the world cannot receive whom the world
cannot receive because it seeth him not neither
knoweth him there is one thing absolutely that
christians ought to get in your mind it
is that the world knows nothing about the
holy ghost the world knows nothing about the
spirit the world knows about good men the
world the world appreciates a good man if
he gives to colleges and hospitals and goes
over and runs the clinic to take care
of her lepers they'll write books about him
and celebrate him the world knows about good
men but the world has absolutely no affinity
for the holy spirit because even good men
are under the judgment of god and the
best that we have in the world our
universities our oratorical societies the best we have
apart from the new birth apart from from
the presence of god in the life of
a man is only corruption and the wrath
of god is upon it the world cannot
receive it and i think that's the most
i think that's the most most awful most
the most terrifying thing that the sensitive christian
heart can hear is the wearing of the
wings of god god wants to come down
he wants to get into our houses of
parliament he wants to get into our congresses
and senate he wants to get into our
united nations he wants to get in to
our groups that play baseball and hockey god
wants to get in but he can't get
in because the judgment his wrath is upon
men his fury is upon a corrupt and
violent and vicious world so the holy spirit's
restless and he can't come down and he
would come down for he loves mankind he
loves the blackest sinner in all the world
it might be your me because sin is
of the heart as well as of the
body and and and upon that now it
would be something else again and i suppose
i wouldn't preach this sermon tonight if all
i had to say was that the world
could not receive the holy spirit but that
which gives me the most concern is that
the holy ghost cannot even light upon christians
now every christian has a measure of the
holy spirit let's get that straight except the
man has the holy spirit he's none of
his and when the holy spirit converts the
man regenerates the man there's a deposit of
the holy spirit in the life of that
man that is one thing i want you
to know my theology is quite sound indeed
in fact i preach this same sermon at
moody bible institute and i'm teaching college in
two other places so it's not heresy and
it's not pentecostalism i'm trying to get through
to you a truth that i want you
to hear and it is that the holy
spirit is in some measure resident in the
breath of everybody that's converted otherwise it wouldn't
be converted the holy spirit doesn't stand outside
the man and regenerating he comes into regenerating
that is one thing and we're glad and
and grateful for that that is one thing
but it's quite another thing for the holy
spirit to come down with his wings outspread
uninhibited free and pleased and to fill lives
and to fill churches and to fill denomination
that's quite another thing that some measure of
the spirit is in the breast of every
man is good and right and real but
that the holy spirit wants to come down
as the dove wanted to land on the
earth on the dry ground and could find
no place for the soul of her foot
that is also true now the spirit seeks
i say among us a resting place for
his feet the holy ghost seeks a resting
place for his feet and we have called
these lightings down these comings down comings down
of the holy ghost we have called them
revivals and we're languishing for the lighting down
of the spirit i will i say this
to you now you know i i can't
hope to continue to please people very long
because i have to tell the truth and
truth is not very well received not even
by the saints but the simple truth is
unless we have a lighting down upon evangelicalism
upon fundamentalism upon such churches as our life
churches unless we have a lighting down unless
the dove of god can come down with
his wings outspread and make himself known and
held among us that which is fundamentalism today
in 25 years will be liberalism you can
be a certain of that and liberalism will
be unitarianism because this vile world is not
a friend to grace to lead us on
to god we're going the other direction have
you thought about it my brother have you
thought about it or are you simply running
around being entertained have you thought about all
this you and i are going to face
judgment one of these days you and i
are going to stand before the man whose
eyes are like fire and out of whose
mouth there comes a sharp two-edged sword
and we're going to have to talk to
him about deeds done in the body and
we're going to have to face what they
call the greatest time and there will be
judged for the deeds done in the body
not the great white throne judgment which is
for sinners but another judgment which is for
christians and we're going to have to show
him that we've been serious about all this
we weren't out to be entertained we were
out to be that we might be holy
and the spirit is seeking a rest for
the soul of his truth he's seeking it
and yet i hear the fluttering of holy
wings and i hear the morning sound of
him who is grieved and clenched i see
him looking about for signs of repentance for
signs of sorrow of heart and the lynching
of the judgment of god from the church
when god judges the world it will be
terror and fire but god wants to judge
the church he wants to judge you and
me his children he wants to begin at
the house of the lord and he wants
to begin to judge us and the absence
of the full power of the holy ghost
is perpetual condemnation now what are the marks
of of god's displeasure upon his people what
are the marks of them well let me
name a few of them for you plain
sins which nobody can deny sins of acts
and of habits sins of selfishness such as
reveling in wealth while the world's powers living
like kings while millions perish sins of the
heart such as lust you know you can
be a christian or at least you can
belong to a good church and still have
lust in your heart you can belong to
a good church and still have spite in
your heart because you go to the pastor
or the elders or the deacon or whoever
takes them in in your church and they
can't look in your heart and know whether
you've got lust in there or not we've
all cultivated the religious brim and we all
manage to look pious when the occasion comes
up so when we apply for membership we
smile piously and they say he's a fine
young man but in his heart there is
lust and god hates it and the dove
won't come down he can't look in the
woman's heart and see that she's spiteful there
because the woman across the street has a
longer car than she has or a fur
coat that costs more she can't see resentment
that's in the hearts of people and blame
there there are churches where deacons and elders
sit on the same board for years with
unconfessed resentment in their hearts and resentment in
the heart of the man is just as
bad as a dove and resentment in their
spite in the heart of the woman is
just as bad as the world we make
ourselves very holy and we laugh at Elvis
Presley I don't think he's worthy of even
being laughed at myself I think he should
go get lost that's the way I feel
about him but I wonder after all a
poor hillbilly from where is it Mississippi or
somewhere he never had a chance in his
life and all he learned to do was
to look pretty and wiggle and well he
made a million at it he made a
million at it they wanted him here in
Toronto and he asked for fifty thousand dollars
and the fellas was signing him up said
I can't stand the spent and I can't
stand Elvis so they didn't bring Elvis but
why should we look down our holy noses
at that hillbilly he's doing the only thing
he knows to do and I wonder if
Elvis when he goes into a coma and
begins to swing and sing I wonder if
Elvis is any worse than some of us
pious people that have spite in our heart
and resentment and jealousy well I hope it's
not so in your choir and I have
no reason to think it is but you
know what they call the choir the war
department because up there's where the fights take
place well why don't you ask me to
sing well chiefly because you can't you know
that's the case but uh we uh we
have this kind of evil thing in our
hearts resentment I've met people that just lived
with resentment you know friends I just won't
stay mad at anybody I refuse absolutely I
come from a fiery nervous english strain my
father could his temper was was like the
trigger on an atom bomb and he could
blow up I've seen him take a shovel
and beat a wheelbarrow in anger you know
just beat a wheelbarrow and I got it
but I won't stay sour at anybody I
refuse to do it I refuse to have
to have resentment and uh ill will and
unforgiving spirit eat at my vitals forgive the
guy for god's sake forgive him sister he
didn't know any better anyhow and if he
did he's sorry now forgive the power and
you'll feel better inside yet we've got it
spite we got jealousy and we got envy
they've got pride pride of person and pride
of creed and pride of possession and pride
of race and pride of accomplishment and then
there's coldness of heart toward the godhead we
sing about god and we pray but it
lacks one and we worship but coldly and
stiffly and toward the languishing church back in
israel the man of god warned the jews
he said woe unto them that are these
in zion stretch themselves on beds of ivory
and make instruments of music like david but
they're not green for the judgments of israel
and that's where we are we're fundamental sure
we are carry our soul feel bad about
sure we do and we're evangelical but we
the church is languishing and we don't care
at least we don't care very much and
then there's the poor sick world out there
I for my part as I've said again
before I don't want to be happy while
the world cares nobody loves the world quite
enough the man who loved the world enough
to die for it died for it and
the man who loved israel enough to want
to perish for israel cried out he wanted
to be a curse for for for israel's
sake that was paul but I don't know
we don't seem to have it much these
days much of our christianity is social instead
of spiritual we should be a spiritual body
with social overtones instead of that most of
our churches are social bodies with spiritual overtones
the heart of the church always ought to
be christ and the holy spirit the heart
of the church always ought to be heaven
and god and righteousness and they that loved
the lord spoke often one to another and
what they spoke about the spiritual thing I
have met men I have met men that
you couldn't talk to about anything but god
you had a canadian right here in this
city by the name of jaffray I wrote
his life I called it let my people
go robert jaffray used to be part owner
of your golden mail and he became a
christian pulled away from his family at this
over their protest they got over it later
and everybody was happy but at first he
pulled away and went to the mission field
that man of god that that good godly
man and after a few years of searching
for the lost and winning them and reading
maps and going where no man in his
condition should ever have gone because he was
overweight and he had diabetes so that it
was difficult for him to eat right and
yet he went and went and went and
lived on whatever he could find to eat
and lived among the poor and the miserable
peoples of the world always saying to the
god let my people go and winning them
well that man got to a place where
you couldn't talk to him I sat beside
him in a in a home in chicago
and I tried to discuss his common things
with him you couldn't do it he he
looked down and uh answer and then begin
to talk about god and mission I have
met people who who were so interested in
the things of god that nothing else mattered
now my brother and sister the holy spirit
loves people like that he loves that kind
of spirit and he's put to come and
fulfill and to take over and to take
charge I'd hope that at least an olive
leaf that we might find at least an
olive leaf but I don't know I don't
know I thought I could come to Toronto
and that I could perhaps spend my time
writing during the week and then spend saturday
getting ready for sunday preach on sunday and
then go back but I find I can't
do it I carry the burden of it
and the load of it on my heart
and if the people aren't going to aren't
going to obey if they're not going to
follow god if they're not going to surrender
right to their waste of time are god
looking for a people of people who want
to be right he's looking for a little
spot at least where the waters of his
displeasure are dried up where there's no more
judgment no no no more death where there's
filth and flops and gorgon cleaned away and
where the blessed holy spirit can come and
come down in power he wants to do
that at avenue road church he wants to
do that beginning with we were on the
platform maybe I don't know he doesn't always
and going to every everybody in the church
he wants to do that for us now
I close by telling you an honest story
this a man was on the train once
I don't remember where I was traveling from
but he got on and he sat down
with me and I knew the man he
was a missionary from one of from India
and he seemed very tender and broken and
he said that I'd like to ask you
something because I'm troubled I'm bothered and I'd
like to ask you something and I said
I'm so used to it and just another
one I thought but he said this is
my problem now he said about he named
a number of years back he said a
strange thing happened on our mission compound in
India he said we had been having blessing
and people were blessed and everything was going
all right but he said the missionaries got
together for a little conference in this field
in India and the native Christians were there
and we were all sitting around together and
he said a Presbyterian preacher a missionary got
up to preach it and he preached and
he sat down and he said I suppose
I'll never be able to describe what happened
and I don't know why it happened but
he said suddenly there came down on that
assembly something like the like like like a
like a wave of love and light and
he said it broke it up completely and
he said one missionary ran to another one
said forgive me forgive me and another one
ran to the other and they wept and
hugged each other now he said a strange
result has been this has had a strange
result it is this he said in my
home it's been completely transformed now he said
my wife and I were getting on perfectly
well normal Christian home but he said oh
they're different since that time home is heaven
now but he said now that didn't bother
me but here's what bothered me he said
since that time I am so tender and
I weep so easily that it bothers me
he said when I get up to preach
I am just as likely as not to
break down and cry now I said never
was that way before but he said since
the coming down that day that sudden wonderful
visitation in India he said I just cry
so easily that my heart tender and he
said that I get up to preach and
there it goes again he said now coming
across on this ship I had this experience
so they asked me to take chapel on
shipboard one morning and I did and he
said they told me there were some communists
who would be present in the church and
he said I took my check and there
it came again he said this memory of
all the glory came down on me he
said I just began to cry like couldn't
finish my sentence I said what did communists
think of it did they make fun of
you oh no he said they were very
reverent about it I'm not saying anything good
about a communist I can't but at least
in this case the holy ghost had cut
them out even of a communist and then
I said to my friend Bert you've asked
me for advice how can you overcome your
tender heart he said for God's sake father
don't cry we got so many dry preachers
in the United States now down there we
got so many and of course you have
them here we got so many dry preachers
and we got so many men who couldn't
shed a tear I said if you can
keep the tears of God on you and
keep your heart tender keep it brother you've
got a treasure I'd never give up but
you know how he got that away the
coming down the lighting down now I don't
think that first-team preacher had anything to
do with it he might have you know
God knew this but they got right with
each other they got cleaned up they got
uh trouble out of their heart and they
got their sins put away even missionaries got
their sins put away and when when there
was no more evidence of the displeasure of
almighty God the holy ghost came back you
know what I believe I believe that this
church and you who are now in this
building I believe that we could have and
enjoy a sense of the divine presence so
sweet so beautiful so tender that it would
change our whole personality that it would change
our attitude toward each other that it would
clear up a lot of things some of
you are troubled with inside of you that
it would be like the coming of spring
to a landscape sweet and fresh and warm
with birdsong and sunshine and there'd be no
fanaticism and there would be no wild doctrines
and there'd be no supported wonders there would
just be a coming back we could find
no place for the souls of each people
and I wonder if that isn't the trouble
now with motion you want to be filled
and blessed but you're not willing to pay
the price of letting your life get cleaned
up so you're not only a Christian you're
not only accepted Christ but you've gotten right
so God can do it are you concerned
are you interested next Sunday night I want
to talk about how to be filled with
the spirit but unless unless the impurities and
the things that God hates our sins out
of our lives we won't be able to
do anything about it you say are you
tired in this church what's wrong doing no
I just know people I know people you're
just people you're nice people they're just people
and I don't think too much maybe that's
the reason he just isn't at home he's
here he'll always be here oh I miss
you always but he's not free and he's
not happy in a minute as he could
be and would be if we'd all push
to put away dishonesty and impurity and spite
and jealousy and envy and hate and unforgiving
spirit and pride immediatism and vanity or any
other thing and say