By all appearances, he was just a regular guy, mentioned only briefly in scripture. But today, on Turning Point, Dr. David Jeremiah explains why Enoch is a name among the heroes of faith in Hebrews 11. An unassuming man with an unwavering trust in his Creator. Continuing his teaching series, Ordinary People, Extraordinary Faith, here's David to introduce today's message, He Walked with God.
And thank you so much for joining us this Friday edition of Turning Point. We welcome you to our circle of study as we open our Bibles together. This man, Enoch, is intriguing to me because this is what the Bible says about him. He walked. By faith.
And he was not. because God took him. One of the first illustrations of the rapture in the Bible is This man, the Bible says God took him. One of these days, God is going to take us who have trusted in Him. If He comes before we die, we'll be taken up.
That's what the word rapture means. Enoch is a unique individual, and there's a lot more about Him than you think. We're going to talk about that today and again on Monday.
So open your Bibles to Hebrews chapter 11 and be ready to join us as we study the man Enoch on our program today. We have a wonderful resource that we are telling you about for the month of November. It is our Wonderful opportunity to put materials in your hands that we know will add value to you as a person and to your faith and to your. Interaction with others. This time it is a book called Where to Go in the Bible: 89 Topics: A Scriptural Reference Guide that will help you find the passages of Scripture that speak to the issues you are dealing with.
These wonderful tools Usually get found someplace with the pages well worn because this is a book you will use. You will use it many times as you go to find the truth that you are looking for as you deal with the subjects of life. You can get a copy of Where to Go in the Bible. This wonderful, beautiful. 270-page book.
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So you send a gift of any size. Do the best you can, and when you do that, you say, Please send me the scriptural index book, and we'll send it to you right away. We have them here, ready to be shipped and ready to send to you when we get your request. Here is the first part of our discussion of the man Enoch. We call this he walked with God.
Let's listen as we see what happens to Enoch. The story of Enoch is told in just nine verses in the entire Bible. Those verses are found in Genesis, Hebrews, and Jude. In fact, Genesis 5, which provides for us the most information about Enoch in the entire Bible, describes Enoch's life in 48 words. Throughout history, many people have made mysterious and some of them reverent.
Comments about Enoch. And many of these perspectives perhaps have been helpful.
Some of them have been speculative. What we do know from the Bible, however, is that Enoch, whose name means dedicated or initiated. Was the seventh in line from Adam. Enoch was the father of Methuselah. and the great-grandfather of Noah.
And more importantly, He is the first man in the Bible of whom it was said that he walked with God.
Now there is nothing about Enoch that would make us believe he was anything other than an ordinary man. I mean, he was not an administrator like Moses or a statesman like Daniel. His experience is a reminder to us that the book of Hebrews, chapter 11, is not about. extraordinary people who had faith. It's about ordinary people who had extraordinary faith.
And Enoch was just the kind of person who might live next door to you. He was an ordinary person. Hebrews tells us that he pleased God. Genesis tells us that he walked with God. And Jude tells us that he witnessed for God.
We begin by looking back in the Bible to the fifth chapter of Genesis where the story of Enoch is recorded. And here we read, first of all, about Enoch walking with God. Enoch lived 65 years and begot Methuselah. And after he begot Methuselah, Enoch walked with God three hundred years. and had sons and daughters.
So all the days of Enoch were 365 years. And Enoch walked with God, and he was not. For God took him. This is one of the things about our marriage and my life and my challenge with Donna. I walk fast, and she walks slow.
So, you could be saying that we're walking through the mall, but quite often I'm walking in my own world and she's coming behind me, and she's usually reminding me to slow down.
So, you have to be going to the same place, you have to be on the same path, and you have to be going at the same pace. And the Bible says that Enoch walked with God.
Now the cause of his walk with God is quite interesting. For it says in Genesis 5, 22, after he begot Methuselah Enoch walked with God. Apparently, he did not walk with God for the first 65 years of his life. And then something happened that changed everything. He had his first son.
Something happened to him that caused him to change. How many of you know children will cause you to walk with God like nothing you've ever tried before? And that has been the experience of many folks. I've noticed as a pastor that there are two times when people are uniquely sensitive to what God wants with them. The first one is when you get married.
Oh, what an awesome responsibility that is. When you get married, you realize I'm not just responsible for me anymore, I'm responsible for me and one other person. It's a very sobering thing, especially for men. The other time is when you have your first child. I remember how incredibly challenging it was for me to realize that I am a young pastor with a wife, and now we have a little girl.
One commentator has reflected on what it must have been like for Enoch, kind of bringing it into our culture today. Said, one day Enoch went into the nursery and looked down into the crib at that little fellow who was kicking and cooing. His name was Methuselah. And we always think of Methuselah as being an old man who had such a long beard that it got in his way and that he walked on it. But at this time, Methuselah was just a little baby.
And when this man Enoch looked down at that little baby, he recognized his responsibility and it changed his life, and he started to walk with God. J. Vernon McGee, who's one of my favorite people who's in heaven now, said: if the presence of a baby in your home won't change your life, nothing will. Even the preacher won't be able to say much that will affect you. But these little ones have a way of speaking for God.
And even though they don't say a word, they come out of the everywhere into the here, and they seem so fresh, and somehow or other, they bring a message from God. And certainly, Methuselah did this for Enoch. It changed his life completely. After Enoch's son was born, Enoch began to walk with God, but there's more to it than that. Enoch named his son Methuselah.
Which means When he is dead, it shall be sent. That's exactly what the word means. When he is dead, it shall be sent. When this boy's name is placed next to the information that we have about him from the book of Jude, we begin to see what was going on in Enoch's life. Here's what Jude wrote.
Now Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about these men, also saying, Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of his saints to execute judgment on all, to convict all who are ungodly among them of their ungodly deeds, which they have committed in an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against him. Apparently what happened was this. When Enoch Was given his first son, God told Enoch to call him Methuselah. And that Would be a signal that when Methuselah died, God would bring judgment upon the earth. When he is dead, it shall be sent.
Now, first of all, this demonstrates the kind of environment that Enoch lived in. He lived in an environment that deserved the judgment of God. The environment before the flood. Would make what's going on in our culture today seem like a Sunday school picnic. It was a time of wickedness and rebellion against God that ultimately brought the judgment of the flood and destroyed the whole world.
And it shows also the grace of Almighty God. Listen to this. The man who lived the longest in the history of the world. Is the man Methuselah? As you know, he lived 969 years.
And the man God chose to be, the bridge between his warning and his judgment, was Methuselah, who lived 969 years. God said, until Methuselah dies, the judgment won't come. And then God gave Methuselah 969 years of life, as if to say, I want to be as gracious to you as I can be. God is a God of grace and mercy, and He extends His mercy over and over again. Methuselah's life was a period of grace before the judgment of the flood.
And who was the oldest man who ever lived? Methuselah, he lived nine hundred and sixty nine years.
Now, there's an interesting little mathematical Exercise that we can do with regard to this that's quite interesting. And I want to ask you to put on your thinking caps for a moment and follow me. If we make the creation of Adam year one, And we calculate the years that are recorded in Genesis 5. We discover that Methuselah was born in the year 687. From the creation of Adam.
If we add nine hundred and sixty-nine to six eighty-seven. The total we get is 1656. The number of the year in which Methuselah died was 1,656. That includes 687 years from Adam to Methuselah, 969 years of Methuselah's life.
Now just hold that for a moment. I'm sure you got all these numbers If we continue our calculation, listen to this. We discover that Noah was born in the year 1056. From the creation of Adam. And since Noah was 600 years old when the flood came, according to Genesis 7:6.
It means that the flood came in the year 1656, the exact year that Methuselah died. The Bible's pretty incredible, isn't it? Exactly as God told him. God made Methuselah a prophet. by virtue of his own name and his life.
That's the cause of Enoch's walk with God.
Now, notice the circumstances of his life. Enoch lived in a time of great depravity. I know that's not a pretty word. If I were to say to you, you live in a depraved world, you would say, oh no, Pastor, we're not depraved. Let me tell you how early depravity starts.
Did you know it starts real early? Depravity starts with our kids. Here's a list I found. of the depravity of man as expressed in the life of a toddler. You ready for this?
These are their property laws. If I like it, it's mine. If it's in my hand, it's mine. If I can take it from you, it's mine. If I had it a little while ago, it's mine.
If it's mine, you must never appear to allow it to be yours in any way. If I'm doing or building something, all the pieces are mine. If it looks just like mine, it's mine. If I saw it first, it's mine. If you are playing with something and you put it down, it automatically becomes mine.
If it's broken, it's yours. That's pretty funny, isn't it? Except if you have toddlers. It's exactly the way it is. expressed in the life of children.
Enoch lived in a very difficult time. I've been writing books about what's going on in our culture, so I'm pretty familiar with what's happening. It doesn't even measure up to what's here. Genesis chapter 6 and verse 5 is a descriptive verse of life as it was during the days of Enoch before the flood. Listen to what it says.
And the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, And that every intent of the thoughts of his heart. Was only evil continually. Peter describes this period of time in 2 Peter 2:5. And did not spare the ancient world, but saved Noah, one of eight people, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood on the world of the ungodly. And then let me go back once more and read to you Jude verses 14 and 15.
And I want you to watch for one word: the word ungodly.
Now Enoch The seventh from Adam prophesied about these men also, saying, Behold, The Lord comes with 10,000 of his saints to execute judgment on all, to convict all who are ungodly. Among them of all their ungodly deeds, which they have committed in an ungodly way. And of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against him. Four times in two verses. This was an ungodly generation.
And you say, why is that important to us today? It's important to us for this reason. This forever rules out the excuse that so many have today. That They can't walk with God because it's such an ungodly period. I hear that all the time.
You know, Pastor, you can't really walk as a Christian today. There are too many things that are against you. The pressure in our culture is too great. You just can't do it. But Enoch did it.
The Bible says by faith he lived before the Almighty God in a righteous and noble way. And the circumstances of his life were not used as an excuse not to walk with God. Let us agree that maybe walking with God is a challenge in our culture, but our circumstances and our culture can never be allowed to be an excuse for us to just say, well, nobody can do it, so I'm not going to do it. Philippians chapter 2 and verse 15 reminds us that children of God without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, is our mantra. What are we?
We're children of God, without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, and we're to shine as lights in the world. Men and women, we got to quit complaining about the time in which we live. I hear this everywhere I go. I wish I could have lived in the good old days, whatever they were and whenever they were. You're here on earth today because God put you here and he wants you here.
Could have put you anytime, any place. He could have dropped you down in the Renaissance if he had wanted to. But he put you here. He put me here. And we need to embrace our culture and say, Lord God, thank you for allowing me to be alive in such a time and to help me, Lord God, be a shining light in the midst of the darkness.
One thing you need to recognize is one of the reasons why the Word of God, especially the New Testament, is so relevant to our days is because the New Testament was written to a group of Christians who were living under the domination of the Roman Empire and under great stress and pressure and wickedness and evil. And the Word of God is filled with encouragement. through them to us. That we can be the kind of people God wants us to be no matter what's going on around us. Our faith does not depend on our circumstances.
Our faith depends on Christ. And that's a good lesson to take from these early experiences that we see in the life of Enoch. I want to ask you to walk with me to the next step in Enoch's life, and that's the choice of Enoch's walk with God. It says in verse 22, after he begot Methuselah, Enoch, walked with God. And again in verse 24, and Enoch walked with God.
Twice in this passage we are simply told that Enoch walked with God. In the crisis of his life, At the birth of his son, and perhaps because of a special revelation from God, Enoch determined to walk with God. There's no evidence that he was pressured to do this. He simply decided to do this. He decided to put God first in his life and to separate himself from the wickedness of his culture, and he made a decision to walk with God.
And sooner or later, all of us will come to that place either to decide for or against such a life. We decide to accept Christ as our Savior, yes. But sometime later on, usually for most of us, there's a point in time where we decide we don't want to be also ran Christians, just the average Joe that accepts Christ and floats all the way to heaven. We decide we want to walk with God. We want everything God has for us, and we know that that requires everything we have.
For God. I don't know when it was or how it was. But one day, shortly after the birth of Methuselah, Enoch began to recognize the need he had in his life for a closer relationship with God. And one day, he just made the decision. He just made the choice.
He just said, from this moment on, I am going to walk. with God. And many have followed in his footsteps. Perhaps you have. This whole matter of choice.
Often gets lost in our discussion of the Christian life. We are so much of the time what we choose to be. You know, if you take a look at some of the bestsellers, you will see that our society is fascinated by the idea of choice and decision. I've been reading the book by Jim Collins, and its title is Great By choice. It's a book about companies that make it through hard times and ones that don't.
We write books about choice and we read books about choice. But the bottom line is this, we don't like to make choices. Many people's lives are marked by indecision. In fact, That seems to be one of the things that's very characteristic about the world in which we live today. When I first started out in the ministry, Decisions seem to be much easier for people to make.
Today, decisions are harder because everybody wants to maintain the opportunity to keep as many options open as possible. Isn't that true? We're a multiple choice generation. One young writer, speaking of the younger generation, And I'm sure not speaking for everyone in that generation, but just giving an opinion about his own. This is not me saying this, this is one of that generation.
He said, our grandparents built and our parents boomed. In my generation, we tinker. We're seeing a generation of young people who grow up, who tinker with doctrines, who tinker with churches, who tinker with girlfriends and boyfriends, who tinker with college majors and tinker with living in and out of their parents' basement. We're not consistent, we're not stable, we don't stick with anything, we aren't sure we're making the right decisions most of the time. We can't even make decisions.
I know a lot of people in that generation that that wouldn't apply to at all. We have some incredible young families and young couples, and they know what God wants them to do, and they're pursuing it with all their hearts. But across the broad spectrum of what's happening in the younger generation, that's a pretty accurate description from what I understand. That's why some of the younger guys who teach They tinker with the Bible. They don't like something the Bible says, so they change it.
They move and groove with whatever is happening in the day. Don't like hell today, let's do away with it. Don't like marriage, well, maybe we can modify that. You don't think that you can get to heaven just by one way through Jesus Christ?
Well, let everybody come. And the Bible tells us we have to make a choice. Here's what we learn about Enoch. There was a day in his life. when Enoch chose to walk with God.
And then notice the communion that he had with God. Just imagine this now. We know that the Bible says no one knows when Jesus is coming back except the Father.
So you understand that God is very, very careful with information about what's going to happen and when it's going to happen. But Almighty God chose to tell Enoch. that at a certain time after a certain event, God was going to bring judgment to this earth. He chose to share that with Enoch. Like Abraham, Enoch was a friend of God.
They communicated and they had communion together.
Now Here's one that's almost off the chart for me.
Sometimes I read the Bible and I'm encouraged.
Sometimes I'm just overwhelmed.
Sometimes I'm just intimidated. Have you ever intimidated by the Bible?
Well, here's one of the most intimidating things you'll ever read in the Bible. It's in Genesis 5:23.
So all the days of Enoch were 365 years, and he walked with God for 300 years. Enoch walked with God for three centuries. His unbroken communion stretched out over these many years so that he could demonstrate his faith and his faithfulness. His life was his walk, and his walk was his life. And he didn't depart from the right hand or to the left hand.
He just walked with God for three centuries. And we wonder, can we walk with God for one more week? Enoch did it for three centuries. Go, Enoch. And there must have been many times when he felt quite alone.
Because he was walking with God when many others weren't. And he pronounced God's judgment on people when others. wouldn't touch that. Have you ever noticed that when somebody is walking with God? You can tell.
They sort of stand out among others. They don't necessarily have to be preaching all the time, but just their life, their pace. their attitude They're dealing with others. You know that that person is walking with God. Enoch had this testimony that he walked with God.
Oh, that God could say that about us, that he could say that about me. He walked with God. And uh boy, that's a great journey when you start out doing that. Hey, we have a wonderful magazine that I've been telling you about over the years, and many hundreds of people now receive Turning Points Magazine and Devotional mailed out every month, and it coincides with what you're listening to on the radio or what we're emphasizing at Turning Point. You can get your copy of this magazine sent to your home every month if you just ask for it.
Get in touch with us and say, please send me the magazine. We're happy to do it, and you'll be happy to get it, I promise you. And we'll see you again right here on Monday after the weekend. Thanks for listening. Have a great day.
Uh The message you just heard originated from Shadow Mountain Community Church and Dr. David Jeremiah, the senior pastor. Turning Point is also on radio and TV this weekend. To learn where to find it, visit our website davidjeremiah.org slash radio. That's davidjeremiah.org slash radio or call 800-947-1993.
Ask for your copy of David's newly updated scripture reference guide, Where to Go in the Bible When. It's yours for a gift of any amount. You can also purchase the Jeremiah Study Bible in the English Standard, New International and New King James Versions. available in a variety of handsome and resilient cover options. Let us know how this ministry is helping you grow by writing to Turning Point, PO Box 3838, San Diego, California, 92163.
This is David Michael Jeremiah. Join us Monday as we continue the series, Ordinary People, Extraordinary Faith, on Turning Point.
