The Bible says that Enoch walked with God. Have you ever wondered what that looked like? Is it possible for us to walk with God as well? Today, on Turning Point, Dr. David Jeremiah answers those questions as he considers Enoch's walk and what it means for believers today.
As he continues his series in Hebrews, here's David to introduce the conclusion of his message, he walked with God. You know, wouldn't you love to have somebody say that about you because it was true? Because they watched you and they observed you and they... Maybe went home and told their spouse, you know, that guy, he walks with God. That was true of Enoch.
His life was Different. than others. With whom he walked each day. Yes, he walked with his friends, his family, his Neighbors, but most of all, he walked with God, and that's what set him apart. And I want to tell you, it's possible to do that today.
We can walk with God in such a way that while we are not mean and spirited to those who are not like us, We live with love and kindness and joy, and the fruit of the Spirit. People see that we are different, and the Bible tells us that when that happens, they will ask us a reason for our faith. We love this man, Enoch, though there's not much about him in the Bible, there's just enough. To help us understand, he was a great man and he made the cut. When they edited the book for the Hall of Faith.
And we're glad to have his story. We'll take part two of that in just a moment. We have some other great people we're going to meet this month. We'll tell you about them as we get to them. Hey, don't forget to get your copy of this month's resource, which is a brand new publication of Turning Point called Where to Go in the Bible, and it is a 270-page book with reference.
To many, many subjects. I know that one of the things that people tell me is: I know there's a verse in the Bible, but I don't remember where it is, or if I could just find it.
Well, you will find it in this book because it's organized to direct you to the right passages for the subjects you're concerned about. This beautiful book is yours for the asking when you send your gift to Turning Point during the month of November. I love to make these resources available to you. I know from seeing you on the road and talking to you in different places that you use them and sometimes you even carry them with you to our events and have me sign them. It's the coolest thing to see how these resources are making a difference in your life.
I promise you, this one will do that for you. It will help you as you fight the fight and walk the walk.
So be sure and ask for it when you send your gift to Turning Point this month. Here is part two of He Walked with God. Couldn't 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'll 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 hard 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's 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. There's a passage in the book of Malachi that I can imagine God saying about Enoch. This passage is in the Word of God, and here's what it says. The law of truth was in his mouth.
and injustice was not found on his lips. He walked with me in peace and equity, and turned many away from iniquity. Enoch had been walking with God for so many years that when it came time for him to go to heaven, it was barely noticeable that he'd made a transition. And then the second thing that we learn about Enoch, apart from the fact of him walking with God, was that Enoch pleased God. By faith, Enoch was taken away, so that he did not see death and was not found, because God had taken him.
For before he was taken, he had this testimony. That he pleased God. Ron Dunn has written that the great miracle about Enoch is not that he bypassed death to get to heaven, but that he pleased God. That's the miracle. Here's a man who pleased God.
As I got out of seminary and Don and I got into ministry, we went first of all to the Haddonites Baptist Church in New Jersey, where I was the youth pastor. We had about 300 kids. We lived right next to the church in a parsonage, sort of thing. It was sort of like an open house policy. Kids were there all the time.
I had a Bible study on Wednesday night. I taught the class on Sunday morning and did a few other things in the church.
Well, one of the things that happened a lot when I was a youth pastor. Is kids would come up to me and they'd want to know, could they do something they were afraid wasn't right, how much trouble they'd get in with God if they did it. They wanted me to explain that to them. You know, Pastor, you know, how serious is it if I do this? And you know, I had been to seminary and I had all the stuff in Corinthians about doubtful things, and I wish I had known what I know now, because I would have had a much simpler answer.
I would have just said Will it please God? That's the gold standard, isn't it? Will it please God? And it makes it so simple. Will it please God?
Do you want to please God? Do you think this will please God?
Well, that doesn't seem fair. No, it's not fair. It's just absolutely accurate and right. The Bible says in verse 6 that without faith it's impossible to please God. Our goal as God's people ought to be to please God.
And we understand that in our human relationships, don't we? My great goal is to please Donna. Her goal is to please me. We work at that. We want to do that with all our hearts.
Why would it seem so strange that the God who has created us and has provided salvation for us and meets the needs we have in our life, wouldn't it be normal and natural that the God you love would be measured in your own heart by whether or not you were living to please Him? Let me ask us all the question. Let me ask me this question: Am I doing in my life what I do to please others, to please myself, or do I long to please Almighty God? Let me tell you, it won't always come in conflict, but there will be times when pleasing others and pleasing God won't be on the same page. And the Bible says that Enoch pleased God.
The Bible is filled with the truth about the importance of this. 1 John 3:22 says, And whatever we ask, we receive from him, because we keep his commandments and do those things that are pleasing in his sight. Colossians 1:10 says, in a prayer that you might walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him. And the example of this has been given to us in the Bible in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. And the Bible says in John 8:29 that Jesus' goal was to always do those things that pleased the Father.
And Paul committed his life encouraging believers to do this very thing. To the Thessalonians, he wrote, We urge and exhort in the Lord Jesus that you should abound more and more, just as you receive from us, how you ought to walk and to please God. Let me remind you that the reason Enoch could walk with God. is because his whole purpose in life was to please God. Do we have that purpose?
You know, I get the impression from a lot of Christian people that they want to live their lives so close to the edge of approval. that there's no onus on them as a Christian. Should not that be the thing we would dread more than anything else? Should we not want to live our lives in such a way that, without question, we know? That God is pleased with what we do.
The next time you're tempted to do something that seems like it's in the gray area and you don't know if you should do it or not, just ask yourself this question or ask God this question. God, I'm about to. Will this bring pleasure to your heart? I'll tell you one thing, it'll keep you out of a lot of trouble. Keep you on the road where you can walk with God.
And then in Jude, verses 14 and 15, we have this whole issue of Enoch witnessing for God. The Bible says That Enoch prophesied The coming judgment. God used Enoch as a prophet. a testifier of things to come. Finally, we have the most commonly known thing about Enoch, and that is Enoch going to be with God.
We have him walking with God, pleasing God, witnessing for God. But the thing that's quite amazing about Enoch was He just went to be with God. It says in Hebrews 11:5, By faith Enoch was taken away so that he did not see death. and he was not found. Because God had taken him.
Now, the interesting thing about this is you read the Bible. Let's suppose you never read the Bible before. You didn't know anything about Genesis or anything about the Bible. And you're reading Genesis 5. Here's what you're going to read.
And he died. And he died. And so-and-so was born, and he lived so many years, and he died.
So-and-so was born, and he begot so-and-so, and he lived so many years, and he died. And all of a sudden, in the middle of this, you read Genesis. And it says And God took him. And he didn't die. There was no cemetery plot for Enoch.
He went from walking with God on the earth to walking with God in heaven. There's a hint in verse 5 that when Enoch disappeared, people went looking for him. If that happened, then it was a parallel to what happened when God took Elijah in a similar way through the fiery chariot. Look now, it says in 2 Kings, there are 50 strong men with your servants. Please let them go and search for your master, lest perhaps the Spirit of the Lord has taken him up, cast him upon some mountain into some valley.
Therefore they sent 50 men and they searched for Elijah for three days and they couldn't find him because he didn't fall down on a mountain. He went way past the mountains to be with God. There was no finding Elijah, and there was no finding Enoch. The Bible says Enoch was walking along one day. And God took him.
Maybe he was having lunch with a friend. And all of a sudden, his friend looked around, and Enoch was gone. Maybe he was with his family or his grandchildren. And all of a sudden he disappeared from the living room. Where's Enoch?
He's gone. He was nowhere to be found. The Lord took him. And of course you know where I'm going with this. Enoch is the first illustration in the Bible of the rapture.
Just what happened to Enoch is going to happen to the people of God someday. You know how I know that? The Bible tells me so. The Bible says in 1 Thessalonians, This we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain, Until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who are asleep. For the Lord will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, with the trumpet of God.
The dead in Christ shall rise first, and we who are alive and remain, watch this, shall be caught up, shall be taken. The same concept. In fact, Enoch, Elijah, the Lord Jesus. All are prefiguring the rapture of the church. One of these days, if you're a Christian.
You'll be with your friends who don't know the Lord Jesus, and you will do a disappearing act from which they will never recover. They will never see you again on this earth because you will be taken. And you will not be. I love the phrase, and he was not. Where is old Enoch?
Well, he's not. He's in heaven. He's gone. And that's the way it will be for us. If we put our trust in Jesus Christ, the Bible says that when you put your trust in Jesus Christ and you become a Christian, that one day the Lord Jesus Christ is going to come back before the tribulation hammers the earth and he's going to catch up everybody who has put their trust in him.
There will be an evacuation from this world like nothing that's ever happened before. And the Bible says, if you're not ready, you will be left behind. Enoch prefigures the rapture. A little girl came home from Sunday school. Her parents Or talking to her, I don't know if you do this, but I know my kids do, and I remember doing it myself.
Usually at the dinner table on Sunday, we'd say, So, what did you learn in church today? You can come up with some pretty creative ideas about what the Bible says if you do that with your kids. Because sometimes things get lost in the translation, as you know.
Well, this little girl came home after Being in Sunday school, and her mom said, What did your teacher tell you about today? And she said, she told us about this man. whose name was Enoch. And the mother said, Well, what about Enoch?
So the little girl told her mother the story the best she could remember it, and this is what she said. She said, Enoch lived a long time ago, and God would come by his house every afternoon and say to him, Enoch, would you like to take a walk with me? And Enoch would say, Sure, God, let's take a walk. And so every day God would come by Enoch's house, and Enoch would go walking with God. And one day, God came by and said, Enoch, let's take a long walk today.
I got a lot of things I want to tell you.
So they started out and Enoch got his coat and even brought his lunch. And they started out on their walk. And they walked. And they walked and they walked and they walked. And Enoch said, You know, God, it's getting kind of late, and I'm a long way from home.
Maybe we better start back. And God said, Enoch, You're closer to my home than you are to your own. Why don't you come home with me? And Enoch went home with God.
Now, I don't know if there's a better way to understand that story than that little girl got from Sunday school. Because one day Enoch was walking with God. And God just said to him, Enoch, Don't go home. Just go home with me. And you know, for every Christian that you and I know who's gone on to be with the Lord in heaven, if they've walked with God, that's the way it's been.
One day God just says, It's time to come to my house. And he takes them home. And one day that'll be true for all of us if we put our trust in Jesus Christ. We'll be walking as Christians with God. And then he'll just say to us, Why don't you come to my house?
Some of you lost loved ones this year. They've been believers, and maybe you're still sorrowing for them. I hope that little story by that little girl will help you realize what a precious thing it is to be invited to go home to God's house.
Now I don't know how good your house is, but I want to tell you something. God's house is better. It's better. And he's got so many things planned for us in his house. He's preparing places for us even now.
where we can go. and be with him. I hope that I can walk with God in such a way. That when it's time for me to go to his house, it won't be a major, major transition for me. I don't think it was much of a deal for Enoch.
I think he Woke up the next day in heaven and it was just like So what do we do today, God? And here's what you need to take from this. Number one. As I mentioned back at the beginning, you can't walk with God unless you're on the right road. And some of you will never be able to walk with God because you haven't made your commitment to his Son, Jesus Christ.
You say, what does that have to do with walking with God? It simply says in the Bible that Jesus made this statement: I am the way, the road. The truth and the life, and no one comes to the Father except through me. The only way you can get on the road to go to heaven is by putting your trust in Jesus Christ. But how easy it is for us in this culture to kind of move away from this whole concept of walking with God.
And I want to encourage you, no matter how old you are, Enoch was 65, and I know we have to make concessions for how long people lived back then. But my impression is that no matter how old we are or where we are in our walk with God. When we come to the place when we want more than anything else to please God and to walk with God, we will make the choice. And God opens up His arms to us to make that choice any place along the way. And thank you so much for joining us today.
We have had several days of study in the discussion of Hebrews chapter 11, and we began week two of this study here on this Monday with The discussion of Enoch's life Thank you so much for being a part of all of this. We long for the opportunity to impart the Word of God and nurture you up in the truth of God's Word, and thank you for letting us do that. During this month, we are making available to you. For a gift of any size, this beautiful book called Where to Go in the Bible. It's 89 topics that will help you grow in your faith and answer the questions that people ask you or questions that reside in your own heart.
It's organized in such a way that it's easy to get to, a beautiful index in the front. And we want you to have a copy of it so that you can use it every day. It's a usable book, and it's yours for the asking when you send a gift of any size to Turning Point in November. And don't forget to join us as we continue our study tomorrow on this good station. The message you just heard originated from Shadow Mountain Community Church and Dr.
David Jeremiah, the senior pastor. If you're growing because of this ministry, we'd love to hear from you at Turning Point PO Box 3838 San Diego, California 92163. By visiting our website at davidjeremiah.org/slash radio or calling 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 download the free Turning Point mobile app to instantly access our content. Or search in your app store for the keywords Turning Point Ministries. Visit davidjeremiah.org slash radio for details. This is David Michael Jeremiah.
Join us tomorrow as we continue the series Ordinary People: Extraordinary Faith on Turning Point.
