The Fa ith o f N o a h
by Dr. John Linton
building of the ark. The ungodly world had concrete evidence of Noah’s faith by his daily conduct As he worked on the ark and hammered the nails into the wood he was preaching a warning of coming judgment, and every blow of the hammer said in the ears of men, “ I believe God,” “ I believe in a coming flood,” “ I believe in every man’s need of a refuge.” Noah preached the longest sermon ever heard, and he preached it with a hammer! The ark took 120 years to build, and it was a sermon on salvation. It spoke of the fact of sin, a day of judgment, the grace of God, and man’s need of a refuge. My friends, the faith God commends is an active faith that proves its genuineness by works. If we believe the message of God concerning the future life, a Heaven to gain, and a hell to shim; our belief in those eternal reali ties will be evidenced in the way we live before our fel low men. If we are idle in God’s work, and silent before our unsaved loved ones, friends, and neighbors, are we not giving them concrete evidence that we do not really believe that the soul out of Christ is lost? n . NOAH’S FAITH WAS BASED ON DIVINE REVELATION. Noah was “ warned of God.” Noah’s faith rested upon the Word of God. When God promised the flood, it never occurred to Noah to doubt the divine prediction. Had not God spoken? Could God lie? He took God at His word, and he believed that what God had said He would certainly fulfill. My brother, does this day in which you and I live find you with an unshakeable, unquestioning faith in the truth of God’s Word? To us, as certainly as to Noah, God has spoken. In this Bible we are told that this age of grace will end, like every age before it, in human failure and in consequent judgment. The fundamental fact of history is man’s inability to produce a just and righteous civilization. But where man has failed, God will succeed, and He will do it through the coming of His Son. Do you believe this? Are you living with this revealed fact T H I KINO'S BUSINESS
“ D T f a it h N o a h , being warned of God of things not JU seen as yet . . . prepared an ark to the saving of his house” (Hebrews 11:7). This verse in Hebrews 11 is from a page out of God’s book of remembrance. The divine record of the believer’s faith and works is being kept in Heaven to be revealed in the great day of awards. This is a page from that book read out beforehand. God will have some thing to say about each one of us in that great day. What will it be? I wonder. When God undertakes to write a man’s epitaph we can count on the inscription being true. A little girl walked with her mother through a cemetery and read the gentle epitaphs and innocently asked, “ Mamma, where do they bury the wicked people?” I have no doubt that the words “ Rest in Peace” were chiselled on the tombstone of the rich man whom Jesus said went into a place of torment. But it is not what our friends think of us that will stand in that day. It is the divine record that will count. The text is Noah’s epitaph, not chiselled in crumbling stone, but written in the Book of God to stand forever. The text is of special interest to us living in these days as we near the end of the age. “ As it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be in the coming of the Son of Man.” Noah’s day will be repeated in the days pre ceding the coming of Christ, and since all the signs of the times indicate the approaching end of the age, the possibility exists that Noah’s day will find a repetition in our own. The faith God commended in Noah is the kind of faith we need today. 1. NOAH’S FAITH WAS A WORKING FAITH. “ By faith Noah prepared an ark.” The faith of Abel was a worshipping faith; the faith of Enoch was a walk ing faith; the faith of Abraham was a waiting faith; the faith of Noah was a working faith. God predicted the coming flood, and Noah’s faith was demonstrated by the
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