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Last week’s lesson in the October 16 WT, page 27 about exercising faith in Jehovah’s Promises brought out that Noah exercised faith by preaching to his neighbours. Par.7 "Hebrews 11:7 highlights the faith of Noah who, “after receiving divine warning of things not yet seen, showed godly fear and constructed an ark for the saving of his household.” Noah exercised his faith by building the gigantic ark. Without doubt, his neighbors must have asked him why he was building such a colossal structure. Did Noah keep quiet or tell them to mind their own business? By no means! His faith moved him to witness boldly and to warn his contemporaries of God’s coming judgment. Quite likely, Noah repeated to the people the exact words that Jehovah had spoken to him: “I have decided to put an end to all flesh, because the earth is full of violence on account of them . . . I am going to bring floodwaters upon the earth to destroy from under the heavens all flesh that has the breath of life. Everything on the earth will perish.” Also, Noah no doubt explained to the people the only means of escape, repeating God’s command: “You must go into the ark.” Thus, Noah further exercised his faith by being “a preacher of righteousness.”—Gen. 6:13, 17, 18; 2 Pet. 2:5". We have always understood that Noah witnessed to the inhabitants of that time, while he was building the ark. We say this because 2 Peter 2:5 calls Noah a “preacher of righteousness”. But it occurred to me that Noah must have been a preacher of righteousness BEFORE Jehovah asked him to build the Ark, as this was the reason Jehovah asked him to build the ark, to preserve him alive. Genesis 6:9 says: “This is the history of Noah. Noah was a righteous man. He proved himself faultless among his contemporaries. Noah walked with the true God”. Is there any scriptural proof that Noah witnessed to “his neighbours” about the impending destruction while he was constructing the ark, or are we simply assuming he did? And wasn’t Noah exercising faith mainly by building the ark, rather than preaching destruction to the people? The only scripture that I can think of that would indicate that Noah may have talked about the destruction is in Matthew 24:39 where it says that “they took no note until the Flood came and swept them all away”. But this could also mean that they took no note of him building the Ark rather than any reasoning from Noah. Or Heb 11:7...after receiving divine warning of things not yet seen, showed godly fear and constructed an ark for the saving of his household; and through this faith he condemned the world. This seems to indicate that it was because he acted and constructed the ark.....or was it that he actually voiced a condemnation to the people?