4. NOAH (Heb. 11:7).

We have had acceptance by faith, and the walk of communion; now we have in Noah the testimony of faith, and its inheritance:"By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, prepared an ark unto the saving of his house; by which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness" which is by faith."

We have, then, faith's testimony. Let us observe, then, that it is the testimony of practical conduct, not merely of words. No doubt there was the testimony of his lips also. No man so possessed with the reality of that of which he had been warned could refrain from it. But the testimony of his acts is what the Spirit of God insists on here:"he prepared an ark to the saving of his house." Thus he condemned the world, and thus alone. His ark spoke out decisively his faith in coming judgment, his own assurance of what was his beyond it.

We have before seen what faith is. The apostle puts it after righteousness in his exhortation to Timothy:"Follow righteousness, faith, love, peace." Except a thing be righteous, it cannot be faith; and thus righteousness begins and guards the whole path. But righteousness alone is not enough for us. Faith it is sets the soul before God to be guided by His word, and controlled by the unseen things into which it enters. Noah's ark spoke plainly of judgment coming for the world; but it spoke of it in revealing the way of salvation in which his own soul confided. Noah had "found grace in the eyes of the Lord," and of this grace he was a witness:but it was inseparably united to this other testimony, so that he could not bear, witness to the one without testifying to the other also.

So, surely, it is for us. The maintenance of salvation for the believer cannot be separated from the condemnation of the world. The enjoyment of our own things cannot be without the solemn realization of that which hangs over the soul unsaved. If "we know that we are of God, the whole world lieth in [the power of] the wicked one."

Already for the believer, then, the separation is begun, which foreshadows and goes on to the dread final one. An Enoch life unites with a Noah's testimony. Sanctification is separation. Heavenliness alone is holiness. "The world passeth away with the lust thereof, but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever."

Are we, then, giving the testimony that Noah gave? the testimony, too, not of our lips only, but of our lives? Do men see in us that the coming judgment of the world is a reality? Do they see people preparing for a long stay on earth, or making ready to be gone? Do they understand that ours is an inheritance beyond the flood, and which belongs to the "righteousness which is of faith" alone? How serious is false witness in a case like this! How grave an indication as to the state of our own souls! How ruinous to the souls of others! How dishonoring to the "Lord Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us from this present evil world, according to the will of God even our Father"!