Enoch: A Faith Filled Walk (Hebrews 11:5)

Kootenai Church

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Hebrews chapter 11, let's begin with a word of prayer before we look at this passage.

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Our Father, it is our desire that you would speak to us through your word, we pray that our eyes may be opened and our hearts would be attentive to your word.

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Help us to see here another element or aspect of what saving, sanctifying, and securing faith means for us, your people, and we pray that you would give us grace to live in obedience to that and energize and encourage our hearts together through your word.

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We pray in Christ's name, amen. We are back in Hebrews chapter 11, and though we left for three weeks to look at Simeon in Luke chapter two, we didn't really leave the theme of Hebrews chapter 11 since the theme of Hebrews chapter 11 is the theme of faith, and really, we could take

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Simeon and pull him out of Luke chapter two and drop him right into Hebrews chapter 11. Of course, not in the early part of Hebrews chapter 11, but we could drop him in there and he would fit right in because he was a man of faith.

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Luke two says he was righteous, which meant that he was a man of faith. He was devout and careful in his obedience to the law of God, to scripture, so he obviously, faith informed his obedience to the

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Lord. He was waiting expectantly for the hope and consolation of Israel, so that is a forward -looking, trusting in God's promise, that God would fulfill his promise to his people, and he was walking in the power of the

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Holy Spirit, so all of those elements are wrapped up with what it means to be a man of faith. So Simeon fits our context, he kind of fits our theme, though we haven't been in Hebrews chapter 11.

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So now we're transitioning to Enoch, and he is the next in our series of Hebrews, heroes of the faith in Hebrews chapter 11.

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Let's begin reading at verse three, Hebrews 11, and we'll read through the end of verse seven.

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By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible.

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By faith Abel offered to God a better sacrifice than Cain, through which he obtained the testimony that he was righteous,

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God testifying about his gifts, and through faith, though he is dead, he still speaks. By faith

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Enoch was taken up so that he would not see death, and he was not found because God took him up, for he obtained the witness that before his being taken up, he was pleasing to God, and without faith it is impossible to please him, for he who comes to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of those who seek him.

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By faith Noah, being warned by God about things not yet seen, in reverence prepared an ark for the salvation of his household, by which he condemned the world and became an heir of the righteousness, which is according to faith.

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There is a chronological order that is given to us here in Hebrews chapter 11. The chronology begins with Abel, he's the first example drawn from the

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Old Testament, and then we can trace the chronology of these first few characters very easily through Hebrews 11 as we parallel it with the first few chapters of Genesis.

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We have Abel, and then we have Enoch, and then we have Noah, and of course you can trace each one of those men in the early chapters of Genesis.

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The chronological order is intended to show us that, as the argument of the author of Hebrews is, faith was required in the very beginning.

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It goes all the way back to the beginning. There was never a time at which men were accepted by God or pleasing to God on the basis of anything other than faith in God's promises and in God's word.

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So the chronology goes all the way back to the beginning to show us that even right after the fall, God demanded that men come to him on the basis of faith.

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There's also a logical order, not just a chronological order but a logical order to these characters in these first few verses of Hebrews 11.

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The logical order is this. We begin with Cain, who worshiped God, who approached God in faith.

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And Cain shows us that before we can even walk with God, before we can serve God, before we can do anything else with God, we have to first come to God on his terms, embracing and accepting what he says by faith, trusting that having offered the sacrifice or that a sacrifice having been offered for our sin, we can come and approach

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God on the basis and the terms in which he demands that we approach him and that we can be accepted on those terms.

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Abel worshiped in faith. His was a faith -filled worship. So even in approaching God, he had to have faith.

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Enoch is a faith -filled walk. Enoch is a man who walked with God. And before you can walk with God, you first have to worship or approach

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God rightly through the means that God has laid out for him. Noah is a faith -filled work.

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So Noah's the next one. We're gonna get to him not next week but the week after that. Noah is a faith -filled work. His work was informed by his faith.

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So first we approach God, then we can walk with God and then we can serve God or work for God. There's a logical order and progression of this.

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Abel shows us a faith -filled worship. Enoch shows us a faith -filled work. Sorry, walk and Noah shows us a faith -filled work.

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So now Enoch, and he is mentioned to us in verse five. He is the next example in our Hebrews Hall of Faith.

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By faith, Enoch was taken up so that he would not see death and he was not found because God took him up for he obtained the witness that before being taken up, he was pleasing to God.

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He is an intriguing character. Enoch is an intriguing character because something so significant is said about him, so unique, in fact, it's so unique that this only happened to one other person in all of recorded history, that he was taken up bodily, physically into heaven having never suffered death.

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That is very unique. Do you know anybody that that has happened to in your lifetime? You've known a lot of saints, a lot of righteous people.

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You don't know anybody that you could say that of and yet so little is recorded about him that he's just an intriguing character.

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He did not see death, Hebrews 11 verse five says. He was taken up because by faith, he pleased the

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Lord or he walked with the Lord. Enoch is only mentioned in three places in all of scripture. He's mentioned back in Genesis five where we're gonna turn to here in a moment.

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He's mentioned here in Hebrews chapter 11 and of course he's mentioned in Jude chapter one, verse 14 and 15,

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Jude verses 14 and 15 where Jude records a prophecy that Enoch spoke. Jude says this, it was also about these men that Enoch in the seventh generation from Adam prophesied saying, behold, the

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Lord came with many thousands of his holy ones to execute judgment upon all and to convict all the ungodly of all their ungodly deeds which they have done in an ungodly way and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against him.

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Apparently Enoch loved that word ungodly. It must have characterized somebody that he had in mind when he spoke those words. But Jude's quotation of Enoch, his mention of Enoch raises an entirely other issue that is perplexing to us.

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And it is this, that Jude calls him a prophet but back in the book of Genesis we have no words that are recorded from the mouth of Enoch.

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We don't have any record of anything he said in the book of Genesis and yet Jude cites him as a prophet. And even more perplexing and disturbing is the fact that Jude quotes a prophecy of Enoch contained in an apocryphal book, 1st

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Enoch. Now we have 1st Enoch available to us. You can download it, you can read it. I downloaded this last week and I plan on reading it at some point.

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I didn't read it this last week obviously but it is a book that is available to us. It is not a book that either the

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Jews or the early Christians regarded as scripture. It is not quoted authoritatively as scripture by Jesus or the apostles.

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Jude cites it or mentions it but he doesn't quote it as if he is quoting scripture. He quotes it as if he's simply quoting another historical document known as 1st

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Enoch. So here's the perplexing question. Should we regard 1st Enoch as a canonical book that belongs in our

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New Testament? I would argue that we should not regard 1st Enoch as a canonical book.

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Now you might be thinking to yourself, Jim, 1st Enoch, that kind of implies that there is a 2nd

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Enoch, yeah? And there is a 2nd Enoch. Now the fact that there is a 2nd

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Enoch does not necessarily imply or indicate to us that there is a 3rd Enoch but there is.

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There's 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Enoch. Now 3rd Enoch does not necessarily imply to us that there is a 4th

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Enoch and as luck would have it, there is no 4th Enoch, at least not that we have. But we do have 1st, 2nd, and 3rd

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Enoch. So here are three books that are apocryphal. They're outside of our canon. They're not included in the

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Old Testament. They're not included in our New Testament and yet here we have these books which were allegedly written by Enoch or record the prophecies and the life of Enoch, those three books.

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One of them is quoted by Jude. That's really perplexing, isn't it? Here's what we would say about that.

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Let me just, and I wanna dismiss this because it's intriguing and it raises kind of an interesting thing that we have to think through as Christians.

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Just because Jude quotes a historical book that records the words of a prophet of God who spoke that does not mean that Jude regarded that historical book as inspired.

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It simply means that Jude regarded what was said about Enoch as accurate and by inspiration of the

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Holy Spirit, Jude is recognizing that what this other historical writer said in 1st Enoch was an accurate representation of something that Enoch actually said.

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And Jude includes it and therefore we can be confident that Enoch said these words, he uttered this prophecy, even though the prophecy that he uttered is in a book, though recorded accurately, the book itself is not inspired, infallible, or inerrant.

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And so we don't include it as scripture. Now will you please turn back to Genesis chapter five and though we're only gonna be here for a few moments, actually probably longer than that, but we are gonna be coming back to Hebrews chapter 11 so don't lose your place there.

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As if it's possible for you to lose your place in Hebrews because your Bible just falls open to Hebrews by this point. But turn back to Genesis chapter five and we're gonna look at this genealogy, of course not all of it because I don't enjoy preaching on genealogies per se.

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Genesis five, this genealogy that starts with the generation that starts with Adam in verse one and takes us all the way through Noah in verse 32.

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I want you to notice that, notice the pattern of how Moses records this genealogy in Genesis chapter five.

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This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day when God created man, he made him in the likeness of God. He created them male and female and he blessed them and named them man in the day when they were created.

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It just all harkens back to Genesis one and two. Moses is simply summarizing what he taught there regarding the creation of man in two genders, male and female.

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Verse three, when Adam had lived 130 years, he became the father of a son in his own likeness according to his image and named him

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Seth. Then the days of Adam after he became the father of Seth were 800 years and he had other sons and daughters.

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So all the days that Adam lived were 930 years and then he died. Now that pattern is followed for each one of these patriarchs in Genesis five.

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Each one, the author tells us how long he lived and then he had this son and then after that, had that son, he lived

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X number of years and he does this for every last one of them, telling us and picking up with the previous one that he mentioned, giving us the lifespan, how long they lived, had a son, et cetera.

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That's the pattern that he follows all the way through here. The intention of the author, unmistakably, the intention of the author is to give us a chronology of the universe.

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He starts in Adam and these long lifespans, don't let that bother you. That shouldn't disturb you at all.

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If you understand, have a biblical worldview and understand what sin has done and how we are created perfect, the idea that there were long lifespans after the fall, before the flood, should not disturb you whatsoever.

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These long lifespans, 800 years, 100 years, 150 years, 969 years from Methuselah, those are not allegorical, they're not metaphorical, they're not symbolic, they're not whatever else that you might put in there to try and soften that up to make it palatable to the modern age.

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They're none of those things, this is history. And the author is intending, just so you're all clear, there is no point in Genesis that I do not regard it as history.

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From Genesis 1, 1, this is the history of the universe all the way through. So the author is intending to give us, to date for us, these events.

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And he gives us a chronology beginning at Adam, taking us all the way through to Noah, to the flood. And when we, and after the flood, there is a precipitous drop -off in the lifespan of the patriarchs.

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And here's why. The entrance of sin into a perfect creation caused in the mutations in the genetic code as people were dying and people began to decay.

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And that took a long period of time when there was the genetic mutations were few and far between, and people had a lot of other people to choose from.

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And even though Cain would have married his sister, yes, but there was not the genetic mess -ups that are in our genetic code today.

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But what you have happening at the flood is you have a genetic bottleneck where all of these mutations come together and they're condensed down into these eight people.

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So then you do not have the dispersion of all of these different kinds of genetic variations. Instead, you have those variations and those genetic copying mistakes that take place in our human

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DNA. They begin just compounding at that point and the lifespans drop off. I don't think it has anything to do with the topography or the geology or anything regarding the world before the flood and after the flood.

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It's a genetic bottleneck that takes place at the flood where those copying mistakes are then just boiled down and condensed into eight people.

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And that's all the genetic material you have to go with. So when you start looking at the lifespans of these people in Genesis chapter five, there's a few interesting details that I think are essential for us to understand in order to appreciate who

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Enoch was. Enoch was the great -grandfather of Noah. I'm not gonna read through the whole genealogy, but you can do this on your own time.

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Enoch was the great -grandfather of Noah. Now, Noah never would have known Enoch because Enoch was taken up before Noah was born.

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So Enoch and Noah would never have known each other. Noah's lifespan overlapped all of the other patriarchs in Genesis chapter five except Adam and Seth.

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Okay? Noah's lifespan overlapped all of the other people listed in Genesis chapter five except Adam and Seth.

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Adam's grandson, Enoch, his lifespan would have overlapped

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Noah's for 100 years. Seth, who was Adam's son, died only 16 years before Noah was born, and Adam died only 126 years before Noah was born.

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Noah could have known Enoch, sorry, Noah could have known Enoch, Adam's grandson.

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So you had Adam, Seth, and Enoch. Noah could have known him. Now, if you do the math and you figured out going backwards through Genesis chapter five, you would find out that Enoch, that's

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Adam's grandson, was the great, great, great, great, one more, great, grandfather of Enoch.

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Because Enoch and Enoch, sorry, Noah and Enoch, get them right now,

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Noah and Enoch, their lives would have overlapped by 100 years. Do you think it's possible that Noah and Enoch, Adam's grandson, could have known each other?

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Possible, isn't it? We don't know for sure if they did or not because Scripture doesn't say that they did. But if you knew that for the first 100 years of your life, your great, great, great, great, great, grandfather was alive and he was the grandson of Adam and could give you a merely secondhand account of what life was like before the flood, would you not take some time to go visit your great, great, great, great, great grandfather and hear those stories?

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You probably would. And listen, it becomes even more intriguing when you get past the flood and you start to look at the rest of the patriarchs in Genesis 11.

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There's another genealogy that's given in Genesis 11 that traces us from Noah all the way through the line of Shem to Abraham.

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And here is something interesting. Shem and Abraham overlapped their lives by 150 years.

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Shem died only 25 years before Abraham died. That is Shem, the same one who was on the ark,

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Noah's son. He died only 25 years before Abraham died, which means that their lives overlapped by 150 years.

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Noah died only three years before Abraham was born. That means that Abraham could have received from Shem details that Shem would have got, let's be really super generous and say it, from Noah, and Noah could have gotten those from Enosh, Adam's grandson.

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So you're covering a long span of human history, but because of the lifespan, these people's lives overlap by sometimes centuries, and we need to keep that in mind.

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Now, Enoch was the seventh from Adam. He was the seventh from Adam. That's what Jude says in Jude 14, verse 14, that he was the seventh generation from Adam, and that sets him apart from another

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Enoch that is mentioned at the end of Genesis 4, verse 27. He is there called

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Enosh, and he's the son of Cain. So that is Jude's way of telling you which Enoch that he is talking about who was the prophet.

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This is the Enoch who was the seventh generation from Adam. His father, in verse 18, is named

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Jared. Jared lived 162 years and became the father of Enoch. Then Jared lived 800 years after he became the father of Enoch, and he had other sons and daughters.

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So all the days of Jared were 962 years, and he died. Enoch lived, here's the entire account of Enoch's life in Genesis, beginning at verse 21.

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Enoch lived 65 years and became the father of Methuselah. Now, Methuselah is the one who lived 969 years.

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Any one of these patriarchs you could say this about, but Methuselah's one of those guys that you just wish you could have the compounding interest of his life, right?

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Invest, say, $1 ,000 when you're 10 years old, and then just watch it compound until you're 969 years old.

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You could buy the ark. You could buy all the materials for the ark if you could do that. He lived 969 years.

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In fact, Methuselah died the year that the flood came. So Enoch is Methuselah's father.

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Methuselah had Lamech, and Lamech had Noah. So Enoch is Noah's great -grandfather.

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And again, Noah would not have known Enoch because Noah was not born until after Enoch was taken up. Enoch lived a relatively short life.

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It says at 65 years old, he fathered Methuselah, who then went on to live 969 years.

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He was the oldest lifespan recorded in Scripture. Methuselah died the year that the flood came.

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Then after 300 years, it says that Enoch was taken up, and he was walking with God.

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Verse 21, then Enoch walked with God 300 years after he became the father of Methuselah. And he had other sons and daughters.

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We do not know how many sons and daughters he had, but he was a family man with a wife. He had a family. And he walked with God for 300 years.

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By the way, that is a walk you can have with somebody who would never get old. I could spend 300 years with a lot of people in this room, and honestly, it would get old after a bit.

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Probably everybody but my wife, it would get old after a bit. But you could, even with my wife, I think maybe after 1 ,000 years or so, there might be nothing else to kind of talk about.

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But with God, you can walk with God for 300 years, and you never get tired of that fellowship. You can never get tired of that company.

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You and I are gonna stand face to face with the Lord for all of eternity, and we are going to learn of him and learn about him and learn from him, and there will never be an end to that, because he is an infinite being, whose all of his attributes are perfect and infinitely perfect.

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And so there is no ability to pursue any one of God's attributes and ever get to the point where you think, okay, I've learned everything

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I can learn about that attribute. The only thing that makes us bored with such things is our limited intellect, our limited ability to appreciate those things.

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That's the effect of sin. The fact that Enoch walked with God, you'll notice is mentioned twice in the text. Verse 22, then

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Enoch walked with God. Verse 24, Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him. The was not there is just a reference to he was found not.

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The author of Hebrews says he was not found, indicating that they may have looked for Enoch and then didn't find him, or he was taken away, and people searched for him, but they did not find him.

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From the book of Jude, again, we find out that Enoch was a prophet. He prophesied, this Enoch, the seventh generation of Adam, prophesied about ungodly sinners and a judgment that was to come, a judgment that would be accompanied by angelic hosts upon ungodly sinners over their ungodly ways for all the ungodly things that ungodly people did amongst the ungodly.

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Remember the repetition of the word ungodly? Enoch was a prophet who spoke the truth in his own generation, and the judgment that he prophesied was probably the flood, though the indications from the text seem to indicate that the judgment that he talked about was the flood, which would be seen within a few hundred years after he was taken up, but that beyond that, there is another judgment that is to come that they would fit in really well with.

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In fact, Jude says that Enoch was speaking of these men, and the people in Jude's own day, when

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Enoch said that these people would be judged, indicating that Enoch's prophecy was probably not just of the flood, the judgment that was to come at the time of the flood, but also a prophecy describing the ultimate judgment of which the flood is only a picture.

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See, the global flood in the Old Testament just reminds us how God feels about sin, and that no sin goes unpunished, and that God keeps a reckoning of all the sin, and it reminds us that God is going to judge the world again.

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Next time, it's not gonna be by water, it's gonna be by fire, but there is a judgment that is to come, and so Enoch's prophecy probably had a double fulfillment.

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So that's all we get about Enoch from the book of Genesis in chapter five. Now turn back to the book of Hebrews.

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Turn back to the book of Hebrews chapter 11. I wanted you to read of Enoch in his context, and understand a little bit about him and his lineage.

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Hebrews chapter 11, and we're gonna be back in verse five. The focus of the author of Hebrews in the life of Enoch is on Enoch's faith, and the role that it had in him walking with God.

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Again, verse five, by faith Enoch was taken up so that he would not see death, and he was not found because God took him up, for he obtained the witness that before his being taken up, he was pleasing to God.

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And here's why the author of Hebrews is citing Enoch. Enoch's faith is notable because it was a faith that pleased

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God. This is something of which God was pleased. He obtained the witness, verse five says, that he was pleasing to God.

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And the idea of a witness, that theme, is something that we see all the way through Hebrews 11, particularly here in the early verses.

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Remember, it's the idea of a martyr or a testimony, one who bears witness to something. Who is the one who is witnessing that? Verse two, these heroes of faith gained approval, they gained the testimony.

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Verse four says, Abel obtained the testimony, God testifying about him that his gifts were acceptable.

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Who is the one who does the testifying in Hebrews chapter 11? Who's the one who gives witness or accreditation to that? It's God.

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When God embraced Cain, or sorry, when God embraced Abel and his gift as opposed to Cain, it was God testifying concerning Abel's gifts that they pleased him.

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When God walked with Enoch, it was God's testimony that Enoch's faith pleased him. When God preserved

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Noah, it was God's testimony that Noah's faith preserved him, and that what Noah was doing was an act of faith. These men were righteous, and God's embrace of these men, his walking with these men, his acceptance of these men, was in fact the testimony that God was given that their faith pleased him.

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Just that it had always been faith that pleases God, and these men are evidence of that. The language that he walked with God is not taken from, sorry, the language that he pleased

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God is not taken from Genesis 5. Genesis 5 says twice that he walked with God, but you'll notice that the author says that he obtained the testimony, he obtained the witness that before his being taken up, he was pleasing to God.

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That's different language, because the book of Genesis doesn't say that Enoch was pleasing to God. It says he walked with God. So why does the author of Hebrews change the wording to saying that he pleased

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God when Genesis says he walked with God? Is there a difference between those two things? Not in the minds of those who translated the

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Septuagint, which is the Greek translation of the Old Testament that the author of Hebrews was familiar with. He's quoting here the language that the

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Greek translation of the Old Testament used. The Septuagint translates that idiom, walking with God, as he pleased

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God. So he's simply citing the Greek translation of the Old Testament, and he's using the language, God was pleased with Enoch, rather than Enoch walked with God.

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Now I ask you this, is it possible for anybody who does not please the Lord to walk with the Lord? Does the Lord walk with those with whom he is not pleased?

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Does God lend his intimacy and his fellowship and his faithfulness and his blessing to those who are at enmity against him, who are at odds with him, who live in their sin and walk in darkness?

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Does the Lord do that? Does the Lord draw near to those who are far from him? He doesn't. So the very fact that Enoch walked with God is an evidence that he pleased

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God. And that's the take that the book of Hebrews says, that he pleased God, his faith was pleasing to the

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Lord. So the Lord extended his friendship and his fellowship, his intimacy, gave

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Enoch joy and delight in his walk with God. And these two, these things, this intimacy, this fellowship, the faithfulness between these two persons,

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Enoch and the Lord, that cannot exist apart from faith that pleases the Lord. Because verse six, which really gives us a comment on Enoch's example, verse six of Hebrews 11, without faith it is impossible to please him.

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You could read that, but without faith it is impossible to walk with God. Because he who comes to God, in order to walk with him, you have to come to him.

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In order to come to him, you must believe that he is, that makes sense, right? You don't come to people that you don't think exist.

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None of you go to the Easter bunny. None of you go to the spaghetti monster. None of you go to a troll beneath a bridge.

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You don't think these entities exist. So you don't approach them. He who comes to God must believe that he is and believe that he is the rewarder of those who seek him.

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People who do not believe that God exists or do not believe that God rewards with blessing and joy and delight and eternal life, those who seek him, they don't walk with him.

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And Enoch did. Enoch was somebody who not only believed that God existed, but he believes as an action of his faith that God rewards those who seek him.

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And so it is on the basis of faith that Enoch walked with God. Now, I think that that is an encouragement to you and I.

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One of the things that we have seen all the way through this section, the end of chapter 10 and into chapter 11 about faith is that the faith that the author is talking about that is evident in the lives of the patriarchs that he is listing in Hebrews chapter 11, it's the same faith that saves you and sanctifies you and secures you.

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Remember, it's not a different faith. If you and I were to read that Enoch pleased

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God because of his natural abilities, because he was born less of a sinner, because he was more pious, because he didn't sin as much, he was less depraved, he was less fallen, he had some natural talent, some great spiritual gift, some ability that he had to please

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God. If that's what we read and we thought our walk with God and being pleasing to God is gonna be dependent upon some natural capacity that we have, you and I would have cause for despair because we can say, well, then we're not like Enoch.

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I can't have that kind of a walk with God because I don't have Enoch's natural talents. I don't have his abilities. I wasn't born into a privileged family.

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I couldn't go back and talk to my great -great -great -great grandfather and hear about life before the fall. I didn't come from a godly lineage like Adam and then

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Seth and then Enoch and the rest of that line. I didn't come from them. Therefore, I can't have that kind of a walk that pleases the

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Lord. But if you and I understand that the walk that Enoch had with the Lord was on the basis of his faith and that it was his faith that pleased the

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Lord, then you and I can have hope, can't we? Because the faith by which Enoch was saved and the faith by which

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Enoch walked with God and pleased God is the same faith that saves and sanctifies and secures you everlastingly.

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It's the exact same faith. You might be tempted to read of Enoch's faith that pleased the Lord and think to yourself,

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I need the secret recipe to that faith, right? Is this a secret, a super -secret, special type of faith?

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No, the same faith that brought you to Jesus Christ, the same faith that God has granted to you so that you might know him is the same faith by which you walk with him.

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It's the exact same faith. There's no secret to it. His nearness, Enoch's nearness to God was such that God took him.

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That's the record of Scripture. He walked with God and he walked from this world into the next.

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That creates some theological questions for us, some serious ones. This is unprecedented because nobody else did this.

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There was another person who was taken up into heaven without dying and it was Elijah, 2 Kings chapter two.

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Elijah was taken up, he didn't die, he was taken up in a flaming chariot and Enoch, no, Elisha saw that.

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So there's only two people who it is recorded have gone into heaven without suffering physical death.

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This testimony is not made of Paul or Peter or John or Daniel or Isaiah or any other saint in all of Scripture.

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So if your hope sitting here today is you're thinking to yourself, if I walk with God close enough,

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I won't have to suffer death. I'll just be sucked up into heaven.

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Now I happen to believe the church is gonna get sucked up into heaven at some point. It's called the rapture. But I don't think that that is the function of us walking with God in nearness really closely.

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This is a very unique situation that Enoch enjoyed. He did not see death, he never walked through death.

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He never laid down and had his grandchildren gathered around the foot of his bed watching him pass from this life into the next.

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He was translated at the age of 365 years, which by the way is a comparatively young and short life compared to the other patriarchs.

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His son Methuselah lived 969 years. So that means that basically Enoch was taken up having lived only a third of the life that his son lived.

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So for us, that would be like one of us being taken up into heaven at the age of 35 or 40 years old, something like that.

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He was relatively young. 365 years doesn't sound that young to you, but it was young comparative for Enoch.

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Now the fact that he was taken up into heaven in his body without suffering death, this causes, this raises a few theological issues.

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Let me give them to you. What happened to him? What happened to his body? That's the big issue. What happened to Enoch's body?

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Was he taken up to heaven in his body? Well, we know that he didn't leave his body behind because when people are taken to heaven and leave their body behind, we have a word for that, right?

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We call that death. All of us are gonna do that. So Enoch isn't unique by that measure.

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So we know that he didn't leave his body behind. We know that his body was taken up into heaven. So then this is another theological question.

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Is he still in that same physical body? Did he walk to the earth in here? Does he have that physical body in heaven now?

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Or did he go to heaven and then die in heaven and something happened to his body in heaven?

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Did Enoch die in heaven eventually? The author of Hebrews says he didn't die.

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And do people die in heaven? That doesn't seem right, does it? So is it possible then that Enoch's body was taken to heaven and that he was translated on the way to heaven and that his mortal body became an immortal body, that he was transfigured as we will be someday when we see

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Christ at the resurrection. We were given resurrected bodies. So did Enoch then be taken up to heaven and then his earthly natural body become a spiritual heavenly body so that he has a resurrected or a glorified body now in heaven?

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Is that possible? If that's what happened, then Jesus Christ is not the first fruits of the resurrection,

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Enoch is. That's the problem. So what do we do with Enoch and Elijah for that matter?

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Because there happens to be two Old Testament saints who went into heaven without suffering death, Enoch and Elijah. I'm not gonna start a new denomination over this, but this is possible and it's been suggested that those two,

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Enoch and Elijah, will come back during the Great Tribulation and they are the two witnesses mentioned in Revelation that end up dying.

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And then therefore, they will end up dying at some point, their body is being preserved in a natural state now in heaven, that they will die at some point and then they will be just like the rest of us, appointed unto man once to die and after this comes the judgment.

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So that they will end up suffering death as well. That's possible. Once again, I'm not starting a denomination on it. I don't think it's all that big of an issue.

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Here's the short answer to the question, we don't know. We don't know what happens to their bodies. We don't know what's gonna happen.

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That's gonna be fun to find out, but at this point, we just simply do not know. I do think that we can assume that they didn't leave their bodies behind.

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I think we can assume that they didn't die in heaven and I think that we can assume that their bodies were not translated on the way to heaven, which means that if you eliminate all the possibilities, the one you're left with, right?

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The one you're left with is the answer, which means that they must be in heaven right now with the same bodies that they lived on this earth.

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And for every atheist and agnostic who might hear those words, they think, man, you guys are all a bunch of Looney Tunes. You're all crazy to believe something that absurd.

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From the book of Jude, we gain another detail about Enoch's life and it tells us a little bit more that he prophesied of a judgment that was to come and he spoke of ungodly sinners doing ungodly deeds in an ungodly way and being judged for their ungodliness.

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The fact that Enoch prophesied that tells us a little something about the times in which Enoch lived. Remember, his grandson was

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Noah. By the time Noah gets on the boat, there's eight people on the face of the planet amongst millions who believed.

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I think Enoch lived in some very dark times. In fact, I would suggest to you that probably the days in which Enoch lived were darker than the days in which you and I lived.

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So you can never use the excuse, I can't walk with God in a world like this. Yeah, he walked with God for 365 years in a world like this.

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In fact, I would suggest that he walked with God in a world that was worse than the world that we live in. In many ways, we are shielded and protected from some of the wickedness and by the restraining influences from some of the wickedness that I think

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Enoch would have had to live through. Like his great -grandfather, Noah, he was a preacher of righteousness.

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Noah was called a preacher of righteousness in 2 Peter chapter two, verse five. Noah preached repentance and faith toward God and turning from sin.

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All the while, he was building the ark. He was mocked and ridiculed by the people around him who remained in unbelief. Noah simply following in the tradition of his great -grandfather,

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Enoch, who also preached of judgment. He prophesied of the judgment that was to come. I think probably warning about the flood and eventually warning also to us about the judgment that is also to come upon this world still yet.

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And you are called to do this very thing. And I think this is encouraging for us and for the audience of Hebrews. See, he's mentioning

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Enoch here. Enoch was a man who prophesied and preached the truth and confronted the sin, the hostility, the rebellion, the wickedness and the ungodliness of his age and he did so faithfully for 365 years.

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I promise you that God is not calling you to do that in this world for 365 years. At best, he might be calling you to do that in this world for 100.

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If Enoch did it for 365, you can do it for 100. And the audience to which the author of Hebrews is writing, these were people who had already experienced a great hostility, a great conflict of suffering over their faith.

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These were people who were standing in the midst of a hostile and unbelieving world and they were called to go out and to proclaim the truth and to stand strong in the face of that opposition and to be unbending and unyielding and unwavering in their faith.

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What a perfect example Enoch is of that very thing. So then what does it mean to walk with God?

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Don't you wish the scripture would give us a better description of that even from Genesis chapter five? I can tell you generally what it means.

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We know that Enoch approached God by faith and that he was righteous, that he was justified, that he came to God in the same way that Cain did, believing that on the basis of a sacrifice that his sins would be covered and that he could have a fellowship and a relationship with God.

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He walked in obedience to God, faithful to speak the truth in a hostile world. And there's obviously an intimacy and a fellowship and a joy that is part of walking with God.

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But see, all of that is just general stuff. That's not specific details. You and I, we want the details, don't we?

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I wanna know what time Enoch got up every morning to spend time with God. Was it four, was it 4 .30, was it five?

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How many hours before work did he get up to pray? How long did he pray? How long did he spend reading his

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Bible? Did he read it once a day, twice a day, morning, evening? See, I want the secret sauce. Did he have family devotions?

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What did those look like at every stage? I wanna know that. Did he pray with his family? Did he sing with his family? How many times a week was he in church?

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In what ways did he serve the Lord? How did he serve the Lord? I want the details of this, right? I promise you that if I were to write a book called

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The Walk of Enoch, or Enoch's Walk, Enoch's The Secret to Intimacy with God from the

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Life of Enoch, I could sell millions of copies of that book. Not to anybody here, because there would probably be some cerebral palsy -crippled

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YouTube celebrity somewhere who would call me out for making a big deal out of just a few little scant passages of Scripture somewhere.

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But I promise you that books have been written on far less biblical detail than we have of the

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Life of Enoch. So I could write Enoch's Walk, or The Walk of Enoch, and the title would need to be worked a little bit, and I'd have to work everything in between as well.

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But I could write that title, and it would sell across evangelicalism, The Secrets to Intimacy with God, because we want the details of that.

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I think Scripture gives us all the details that we need. Not necessarily the details that we want, but the details that we need.

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We know that Enoch was a family man, right? He had sons and daughters. So if you think that you can't walk with God because you have small children, or because you don't have children, or because you have lots of children,

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Enoch would say differently. Yeah, I can't walk with God because I have a spouse, and this requires too much. I have a job,

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I'm too busy. Enoch would say differently. I think what we see in Enoch is he had a right relationship with the

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Lord. He trusted God in his word. He spoke the truth to others. He was faithful in his generation. And honestly, a walk with God for every saint is gonna look different.

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For every person in this room, a walk with God is gonna look different than from every other person in this room. If you don't have children, your walk with God looks different than the family with young children.

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If you have young children, your walk with God looks different than family with older children. From family with older children, your walk looks different than it will from the grandparents in your life.

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Your walk with God is gonna look different at every stage of your life, depending on what your background has been, and how you grew up, and what your level of understanding is, and what your job demands are, and what your physical capabilities are.

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It's gonna look different for every person. See, it would be wrong for me to say, these are the secrets to intimacy with God, and then to give you some pattern to fill.

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Some recipe, some secret sauce, some secret to intimacy. It doesn't work that way. We approach

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God with faith. We believe God and his word. We take him at his word.

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We serve him in our generation faithfully. We do what he asks us to do. We walk in obedience to him, believing his word, trusting that he will use us in our day and in our time.

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And we walk in humility with the Lord. That is what it means to walk with God. You wanna know why it doesn't, you don't know what it looked like for Enoch, specifically?

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Because it wouldn't matter if he gave you all the details, if the author gave you all the details of what that looks like, all of the specifics.

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It wouldn't necessarily apply to your life, specifically. We do know this, that without faith, it is impossible to please the

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Lord, to walk with him. Because we first must believe that he is, and that he rewards those who diligently seek him.

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And then it is up to us to diligently seek him, given everything that we have to deal with, and to walk with him faithfully, and to be faithful to him, to be obedient.

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The same faith that brought you to repentance and trust in Jesus Christ is the same faith that keeps you there.

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It's the same faith by which you walk with him each and every day. Colossians 2, verse six, is just as you received

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Christ Jesus as Lord, so walk in him. How did you? How did you receive him as Lord?

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By faith. Guess what, that's the secret to your walk, by faith. I believe that God is, I believe that he will reward me, and so I will diligently seek him.

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Because you and I must trust that what we do not see is actually true, and we must live with the confidence that what is unseen to us and intangible now, what is only in promise form now, is a reality in the future, is a reality in eternity.

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And we live in light of that, that's what it means to walk in faith. That's what it means to walk with God. And the person who does that, whatever that looks like in your life, that is what pleases the

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Lord. With that faith, God is well pleased. Let's pray. Our Father, we do love you and thank you for your grace to us.

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We thank you that your word gives us all that we need to know, not necessarily everything we want to know.

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And Lord, we have this example here of somebody who just simply obeyed you in the generation in which they lived, and we are in similar situations.

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We're in a similar generation in that the wickedness around us seems to increase daily and weekly and monthly as time goes on.

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We cry out, how long, O Lord, till you will judge, till you will bring that judgment. And we long to see you glorified and honored in this world and in our lives.

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And we pray that it would happen quickly and speedily, and also that you would keep us faithful in the midst of these dark times, to live in a way that is honoring and glorifying to you, to proclaim the truth and to be faithful in our generation that you may be glorified through us in your church, both now and forever, we pray in Christ's name, amen.