Enoch is held up as an example in scripture for 3 things

Seeking for the help of the Lord, I direct your prayerful attention to Genesis chapter 5 and read from our text, verse 24. And Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took them. Genesis 5 and verse 24. We have here in this chapter a long list of the generations from Adam right through to Noah.

And though they lived very long lives, many hundreds of years, many over five or nine hundred years, yet after each one of them, except one, except Enoch, we read these short words, and he died. We have many reminders, not just in the Word of God, we have in our lives of death. We have the graveyards, around the churches, we have every time a wedding is performed, till death us do part. And yet with Enoch here, we have a difference.

He did not die, but he was translated. God took him without death. And in Enoch, and in Elijah, who also was taken, not seen death, but divided asunder from Elisha, taken up by a whirlwind into heaven in a chariot of fire, and his body not found upon earth, It is the time of the church when the Lord comes a second time. Paul is very clear that they and we which shall be alive and remain, we shall be caught up with the Lord and his people in the air. The dead in Christ shall rise first and we shall be caught up, we shall be changed. He sets it forth in Thessalonians and also in his letter to the Corinthians in that beautiful 15th chapter of the first epistle of Corinthians where he deals with the resurrection and we have the change that is to be wrought at that resurrection, the dust raised but those who are alive changed and Enoch and Elijah for those who stand in the Word of God as examples of what the Lord will do.

But here we have said that Enoch, that he walked with God. And we read in the Prophets, in Micah, we read that what doth the Lord require of thee that thou dost do justly that thou walk humbly with thy God. Amos he asked the question, how can two walk together except they be agreed? And we have then with Enoch here, and this is why we read the three portions this evening, three things that really stand out in his life. that we, though we may die and not be changed as he did, yet we may be brought to copy, emulate what is said of him in three ways. The first one is this, as held up as an example of his walk with God. It's said here that he not walked with God.

The second one is his bold testimony of coming judgment. This is where we read in the epistle of Jude. And we would remember that Enoch here is living in the days before the flood, days that were wicked days, days in which the Lord says, shall have a mirror image coming to the end of time. And then we have, lastly, his faith. His faith in readiness to be taken up to be with the Lord.

That's why we read the portion in Hebrews 11. Hebrews 11, that leaves out many figures that we might think, why is David not there? Why is Solomon not there? Why are there not some of those great giants, you might say, of scripture but he not his, none but amongst those of faith.

So I want to look first then of his walk with God. And the first thing that I would notice if we are to be like him, if we are to walk with God, the first thing is that we be converted, that we actually have the new birth, We are born again, we have been given faith by the Lord Jesus Christ who is the author and finisher of faith.

It's vital if we are to be rightly walking with God that the beginning is right and we're not just going to, in a natural way, try to outwardly copy the people of God, just to be an imitator and yet not be a possessor of the actual grace of God. And so that is vital first. The next of course goes close within, that we first walk with the Lord in our hearts. It's an inward disposition of our hearts, a renewed heart. the very spirit and desire of the soul, is that our whole being, our whole conversation, our whole walk before the world that knows the Lord not, and before the Lord's people, is really flowing forth from our heart.

And of course, this is the gospel that provides and works this in poor sinners' hearts. It is of the grace of God, as Paul says, that I am what I am. And Enoch would say the same, by the grace of God, I am what I am. And so we would look to the Lord and to the provision at Calvary for this life. The Lord says, I am come that they might have life, that they might have it more abundantly.

And so the death of the people of God were due eternal death, eternal wrath, that is what the Lord himself endured. The Lord died, and when we read a chapter like this where we have and he died and he died, and we think our Lord came as the second Adam, but he did not need to die, not for himself.

As Daniel says, he was cut off, but not for himself. He was not, as it were, Himself under the curse. He was made a curse for us, and to bear the sin of many. But as the Lord said, no man taketh my life from me, and there is no cause of death in Him. And Pilate stated this, I see no cause of death in Him. But in God's sight, there was not. And He came that He might lay down His life, that He might be a substitute offering for His people, endure the wrath of God for them, and then give to them eternal life.

And let's always remember the cost. Of course, it said forth in the ordinance of the Lord's Supper, in the precious blood shed and broken body of our Lord, is the reason for any soul to be quickened into life, to have a hope of life, to be born again. The Lord it is that makes the way, makes it possible, and then He is the executor of His own will, and He bids each one of His people to life in that appointed time. I pass by thee when thou wast in thy blood, And when thou wast in thy blood, I bid thee live. He which hath begun a good work in you will perform it unto the day of Jesus Christ. We should seek, we should ask and pray for that work that is the work of God. He being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children. How much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him?"

What would we think of someone that had something that they desperately wanted done here below, and yet they couldn't do it themselves, but they were told of someone that could do it for them. And you think, why don't we go and ask? Why don't you ask them to do it for you? And they refuse to do it, they refuse to ask. You say, but don't you really want that thing done? Don't you want it performed? Why don't you ask?

Our Lord is very clear on this. Ask and it shall be given thee. Seek and ye shall find not, and it shall be opened unto you. Let the wicked forsake his way, the unrighteous man his deeds and let him turn unto the Lord. It is the Lord that is exalted to give repentance and remission of sins unto Israel.

And so this is, when we look at Enoch and look at his walk, and we want to walk that way, then we need that new birth first. I often think of my own son, before he ever had a concern of spiritual things at all, and he said, Mum and Dad, if I get married, I'd like to bring up my children like you brought us up. And we said to him, but Tom, you can't do that unless you know the Lord, because we can only have brought you up as we have feared the Lord and obeyed his word and walked in his way. You cannot have the end result without that also in the heart and without you knowing the Lord yourself. Whether or not he has ever thought of that, but he bless God, he now does know the Lord.

But we do need to realize that we don't just skip this part and say we like to be like Enoch. We want to have the fruits, we want to walk that way, we want to appear before men to be as if we are God's people, but skip the heart. skip that which we cannot possibly do ourselves and we need the Lord sovereignly to do for us. It may be a real encouragement to us if this evening it finds us and we say the Lord has begun, the Lord has blessed us with faith, he has given us the new birth, he has given us that which is vital for a walk with the Lord and to he found at last with him. And so when we then look at Enoch's walk, may we be persuaded of this first, and if we are found knowing the Lord, to thank the Lord for it, and ask him that from that blessing, he will work all our works in us, and he'll bless us with that outworking of what he has brought in.

It is very vital that Especially whenever we speak of a walk or of conduct or outward deeds or performances, we make it very clear we are not saved because of those words. They are fruits of salvation, but they are not required or necessary for salvation. It's very careful to make this distinction.

We would say that wherever the work of grace is, wherever there is the new birth, there will be a change of walk. There should be fruits. We would look for fruits. And if there are not the fruits, you would doubt the work of grace. But we are not saying that those fruits are actually then the cause of salvation.

It is the Lord's work, the finished work of Calvary, with nothing added to it. It is all of grace, it is not of works, lest any man should boast. And so when we maybe get into a low position or lacking assurance, it is not to get ourselves back to the law and to try and work works so that the outside is looking clean, but rather to go back to the Lord, work inwardly, revive the heart, revive inwardly.

Now this is what David in Psalm 51 did. Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation. Create in me a clean heart, O God. That's what he wanted renewed. He realised that the murders, the adulteries, the things that come out were because of the malady was inward. He needed his heart put right and renewed again before the Lord. The Word of God, what He does with His people is for forever, but sometimes we can backslide and go far off from the Lord, and then without His help, without His grace, then we'll fail.

Well, so these are the first things. But what is then that walk with God? Well, of course the Word of God is the lamp unto our feet, a light unto our path. All that we do, and all of our guidance to our walk is to be in the Word of God. In Deuteronomy, we have again and again the words that are really impressed upon the children of Israel, impressed on us, that they were called to walk in the ways of the Lord. In other words, not the ways of the world, learn not the way of the heathen, but to walk in the way of the Lord. I think in that summary is something to be really realized, because with Enoch here, he was living in a midst of the world where all the way around him was the wickedness, the departing from the Lord, and he then was walking with the Lord. And if we are to be like Enoch, then we also, in the midst of this world, are to be like him.

We have a different guide, a different standard, a different way of walking. And there will be many times that we can think that the way I am going is different than the world would take in this circumstance. We have a different guide, a different instructor, a different standard than the world. Be not conformed unto this world.

And when we think of eventually we have Noah, who also incidentally is said walked with God, that Noah himself, you think of, you've got eight souls in that ark, and you've got all of the rest, however many millions are in the world, and they were all destroyed, but one walked with the Lord, which should be a real encouragement to us.

When we feel to be in a minority, We feel that there's so few that know and fear the Lord or walk in His ways. Remember Enoch and remember Noah and remember the Lord has said that their days were the same as what is going to be towards the end of the world. It's very important for us that these characters then we look at and we learn from them and how they walked. To the Lord, to the testimony, They speak not according to these things, it is that there is no truth or no light in them.

And we are to walk according to the Word. Again, right through the Word it is spoken in this way, that we are to walk after the Spirit, or in the Spirit, and those that are born again are indwelt by the Spirit of God. And so in that sense they walk with the Lord, as the Lord is with them. and His presence is with them.

And through the scriptures, especially we think of Romans 8, where we have the flesh, walk after the flesh. We walk after the flesh, we shall die. We walk after the spirit, we shall live. To be calmly minded is death, to be spiritually minded is life and peace. And we have set before us, we are to be like Enoch, and we walk after the spirit and the fruits of the Spirit. Another thing that will distinguish the walk is in newness of life.

The word sets before us that a newborn creature, the way that they walk, is not according to their form of conversation. Paul, when he writes to the Ephesians, is like that. He says, such were some of you, and he lists out all of the things that were done. and the practices of the heathen and the sins of those that know not the Lord. And he says of the Lord's people, you were like that once, but now you're different.

You walk in newness of life. Again, that is something to be praised, to thank and bless the Lord for if he has brought us to walk in newness of life. Not as we once were, but now by the grace of God walking not according to the course of this world, but according to the Word of God and after the Spirit.

John, when he writes in his epistles, he writes to one that he loved in the truth and that their children, and greater joy he had that his children walked in truth. That will be one mark as where we walk with God as with Enoch, we walk according to truth, not according to what this world goes after, which the truth to them is measured by their feelings or by how they understand things. For the people of God, the truth is reality as perceived by God, and that is shown us in the Word of God. God tells us what He sees when He looks upon this world, when He looks on our hearts, when He sees the churches, When he sees this world he tells us what he sees and that is how we know what the truth actually is.

Also we are to walk in obedience. As obedient children, again, not fasting yourselves according to your former conversation in your ignorance. have that fruit immediately as Paul did when he was converted, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? I'll show him what great things he shall suffer for my name's sake. And for the first time, perhaps, in our lives, have the desire not just to do what we want, but what the Lord wants. And Paul, he says, ye are not your own, ye are bought with a price, therefore glorify God in your body. and in your spirit which are His.

Another very frequent exhortation in the Word of God is to walk in the light. Walk in the light as He also is in the light. And the Lord said that those that would not come to Him because their deeds were in darkness, they would not come unto the light.

And some of us may be aware of our own wicked, deceitful heart when we've wanted to do something, we've known inwardly the Word of God condemns it, and we've avoided that part of the Word of God. Yes, even in the ministry, we know what it is when the Lord discovers to us the heart, it begins to work in His deceit and His plans to get its way around the Word of God and to get it to do what it wants to do. And it's a good thing that we start to go along that way, and the Lord opens our eyes, and we see the deceit, and we see what our heart is doing, and He stops us. Those are blessed times, where the Lord may intervene, even in Providence, where we're trying to do something, and our conscience has said no, and we've taken no notice of it, and then the Lord has used something to stop our way, to hinder us in it, And it's been such an encouragement thing, the Lord thinks more of my soul even than I do. And he, like a good parent, seeing a child start to do things that are wrong, will take steps to stop that child, not say, well, I'm just gonna let you go.

If you see the difference between Esau and Jacob. Jacob, he had chasing after chasing after chasing. Esau, the Lord let him go. He had all the promises that he was promised. When Jacob comes back, he says, I have enough, my brother. He didn't want anything from Jacob. Enough? He didn't have the Lord. He didn't have God. But that didn't trouble him. He was just from the things of this world. In Hebrews 12, that is, those who are chastened have the mark of sonship, not those who have just left. A child left to itself bringeth his mother to shame. Another one in Nehemiah where he speaks of walking in the fear of the Lord. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. And if we're to be like Enoch, then we fear the Lord.

He's a very real reality to us. In our hearts, we know, we feel that his eye is upon us. Thou God, seest me. And as David in Psalm 139, speaks of that wherever he goes the Lord's eye is upon him. For God's people that is a comfort. But to have a sense of the reality, if we are walking with someone, we are close to them, we have communion with them, we see them, they see us, we are together. And in that sense we walk in the fear of the Lord, believing that he is, and having a real sense of his reality in our lives and that he is able to intervene, he's able to instruct, he's able to restrain, he's as real to us as those that we can see and those that we walk with in a literal sense. Then we have the attitude of heart that is mentioned And we quoted that from Micah, to walk humbly with thy God. I think the more that we feel our sinnership, and he not was a sinner, the more that we feel it, the more humble it will make us, the more loved. And I say, why me? Why was I made to hear thy voice, to enter by this room? Millions make a wretched choice, rather starve than come.

And you see it only for the sovereign love of God, the mercy of God. And as we go through life, even if we are like Enoch walking with God, we won't cease to sin. And we'll have those things that we're amazed at, that the Lord has lengthened out his mercies, hasn't dealt with us as our sins have deserved, and shown us blessings in spite of all what we are. especially when we view it as that we are viewed in the Lord Jesus Christ.

When Bala brought the Lord's Word and instead of a curse he brought a blessing to the children of Israel, he says that God had not seen perverseness in Israel or rebellion in Israel. What? You know Israel's history through the wilderness, they've done nothing else but rebel and perversion. But what does he mean? He's looking at his son, he's looking at his righteousness, he's looking at Israel through that lens, not through themselves. And that is vital for us to realise, that when we see ourselves, we are like in Song of Solomon 1, I am black, but come round.

God's people are not to forget what they were. But as Paul says, he never forgot that he persecuted the people of God. It was always a sense of humbling yourself, not worthy to be called an apostle because I persecuted the people of God. But then he says, forgetting those things which are behind, reaching forth unto that which is before, I pressed toward the mark of the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

Our past sins or our sins even day by day should not hold us back from a walk with God. It should make us humble and should bring us to walk with humility, with repentance, with godly sorrow. That is a proper walk with God for a sinner. And of course, to walk before the Lord and walk before Him in love.

The Scriptures are full of how we are to walk before God, in obedience, in love, with His dear people, and so when we read Enoch walked with God, our manual is the Word of God. And a blessed thing if the Lord has given us a desire that we might walk with God, might Enoch.

Ontolik then, secondly, of his bold testimony of coming judgment. We read of that in Jude, and when we think of the generations that have passed, and in spite of all of that time, we have Enoch still mentioned, still brought forth, the seventh from Adam, yet this is coming, the New Testament, and Enoch here was a preacher.

There was no one, a preacher, but he was one that was clearly setting forth that God would come with his Son not just pointing, remember this is before the flood, so God came in judgment of the flood, but this is pointing even beyond that, to when the Lord comes the second time, when our Lord says, as it was in the days of Lot, as it was in the days of Noah, and Enoch is looking right past all of these occasions to when the Lord comes. And even when he named his son, Methuselah, and one remembering of the name of Methuselah is, it means when he dies, judgment shall come. Now Methuselah died the year of the flood. And so with even naming his son in that way, he was seeing what was coming.

He was seeing the world around him and the wickedness and evil that it was in, and he was not silent. He was prophesying He was speaking, He was warning, to execute judgment upon all, to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him. In every generation, the Lord has His people, has His servants, has those that raise up warnings, the same instructions.

It's important for us to realize that there is the same gospel, the same way of escape from the wrath to come. We are under the same condemnation as Adam and all those generations that died. We need the same mercy, the same grace. And in our day and generation as well. we need to preach in the same way.

I think it was perhaps in the news in just the last few days, a council in England that had forbidden a preacher to preach hell because he was preaching publicly on hell. I believe that has been overturned. But what a day that that would be if we are not allowed to openly and publicly, and maybe we should much more clearly, the warning of the wrath to come and warning of the judgment of God. We need to, if we walk as Enoch did, we are Lord's people and we are preachers, then we should preach as he did. And of course, Noah was a preacher of righteousness as well and warning. And you say, well, what fruit did he have?

How many were converted? How many were brought? Well, we don't know. How many before the flood, 120 years did he preach while the ark was preparing? And the Lord says, shall we find faith upon the earth? We should be reminded, if we're gonna walk like Enoch as a preacher, we're not looking at results, we're looking at faithfulness. We're looking at warning and what we actually see in the world. We are seeking to walk by the grace of God in that way, and we see that the majority of mankind is going that way, the broad way, and to warn them of it, to be a candlestick, a witness of what we actually see. So if we are to be like Enoch, and to be a preacher, as a bold testimony of the coming judgment of God.

The third point is this, that his faith was in readiness to be taken by the Lord. He is numbered amongst those, in Hebrews 11, by faith enough. those are numbered in this list, it always begins in that way, was translated that he should not see death. We say, did not God come and take him? Yes he did, but here we're told it is by faith.

We think of in Peter where it says about the keeping of the people of God who are kept by the power of God. through faith, unto an inheritance undefined, to be revealed in the last day, kept for you, but is by faith. And so it is with Enoch that he was walking by faith in readiness for the Lord to come We read in the Thessalonians that when they were converted, when they were born again, one of the evidences, one of the fruits of it was to wait for his son from heaven. When we think of our Lord speaking of the parable of the five wise and five foolish virgins, they were waiting.

They were all sleeping. And some, they had a lamp of profession, we might say, with nothing in their vessels, they did not have a changed heart, they only had an outward performance. But those who had their oil in their vessels with their lamps, they had the roots of the matter, they still slept, but they had the roots of the matter in them. When the bridegroom came, they were ready, they could go straight in.

And with Enoch here, when the Lord came, He was taken and He was ready. We read of those that have died with hardly any warning, those in a car accident or those that have had a heart attack, and there's been no warning. There's a later theme where we realise that they have been ready, they have been waiting, and sometimes that they have actually said things beforehand that indicate that the Lord had given them that premonition that He was to take them. But sometimes it's not that, not at all.

And so we walk by faith. We know that in that fifth chapter, we shall one day be either amongst the anti-died or amongst those like Enoch of whom the Lord takes us. And so if we are to be like Enoch, if he is to be our example, then we also must walk by faith.

They're told that without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he that cometh to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him. Here below it is vital for us. We don't walk according to sight, according to how things appear to be. that we walk according to faith, and faith is based upon the Word of God. Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.

It's not a blind faith, it has a substance to it, it has the evidence of the Word of God. And a blessed thing then, when the Lord does come, and either we are changed, or our soul is brought straight to God, and we await that glorious resurrection day, and we shall see him and clothed in our own body again, perfect, no sin, spotless, not compassed like Enoch and like we are now, with a world of iniquity and sin, but compassed with the Lord's faithful only, and with no curse and no sin. Enoch bought with God. He was not, for God took him. May it be said of us that we also walk with God, it be our desire, it be our prayer, that this might be the case. We'll be called by grace, and instead of having to always look back to that beginning when the Lord began, we might say we have a daily token. a daily knowledge of it, those of us that are married, we can think back to our wedding day, we can remember that time, but then we can look back over 30, 36 years of marriage or more, and realize all that time that we've had together, we've walked together, and we don't need to think of one day, we can think of many days, and many years, and many tokens, And that's a blessed thing to have that, have that token with the Lord, that we have, since the time the Lord converted us, called us by grace, that we have walked with the Lord. And may the Lord bless us with that walk, in the comfort of it, the enjoyment of it, and in one day, not by faith, but with sight, to be with the Lord. Amen.

Enoch is held up as an example in scripture for 3 things

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Enoch is held up as an example in scripture for 3 things

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