If you would this morning, turning
your Bibles to the book of Genesis, the book of Genesis chapter 5,
I want to read verse 24, and then we'll turn to the 11th chapter
of the book of Hebrews. I changed the message this morning
as I began to reflect upon what the Lord would have me to
say, I believe I'm on the right track here, and so you follow
with us as we attempt to go this morning. Genesis chapter 5 and
verse 24, and the scripture says, And Enoch walked with God, and
he was not, for God took him. Remember that, Enoch walked with
God. And then turn in your Bibles
to the book of Hebrews chapter 11. Hebrews chapter 11 and I
want to read beginning with verse 5 and read down through verse
6. 5 and 6 of chapter 11. By faith Enoch was translated
that he should not see death and was not found because God
had translated him For before his translation he had this testimony,
that he pleased God. But 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."
We read these two passages of scripture, which certainly is
a challenge to my soul and When I read that Enoch walked with
God, and when I read that he had this testimony that he pleased
God, I said to myself, that's just exactly what my ambition
is. It's exactly what I desire in
my life. I would like to walk with God,
and I would like to please God. And I believe that every true
believer here this morning would say that's exactly my ambition. That's what I'm about. That's
my purpose in life, is to walk with God and to please God. Now if that be the case this
morning, if I am here privileged to speak to people who have that
as their ambition, who has that as their desire, then I feel
just that somewhat of the weight is already taken off. of me as
I stand before you today. I want us to try, if we can,
to understand how we can do this. How can a man walk with God?
This is an astounding statement here when it says, when it tells
us that Enoch, that he walked with God. It is an astounding
statement because this man was sinful, he was mortal, he was
a man of flesh and blood, but this man walked with the holy,
with the infinite, with the eternal God. And not only did he walk
with God, but before he was taken up to glory, as we said, and
you know the story, how that this man was translated, he did
not see death, as other men, but he was translated. God took
him out of this world and took him right up to glory. He was
taken up to heaven. And then this testimony that
he pleased God. Well, how can these things be?
How can a man walk with God? How can a man Please God. I think everybody here then this
morning would desire to have the answer to these questions.
How can I walk with God? How can I please God? I'm a sinful man. I'm just flesh. and blood. But how can I walk
with the Eternal, with the Almighty God? How can I walk with the
thrice holy God, adopted and so holy that He cannot look upon
sin? How can I walk with God? How can I please Him? Now I know
that Enoch did not always walk with God, nor did he always please
God. Somebody might think by reading
the scriptures that this man was born a saint of God. He was born into the world as
a saint, but he was not. This man was born into the world
like all other men, fallen and depraved. He was the son of Adam.
And he did not know the Lord when he came into this world.
He did not. Now we know that because we know
something about the teachings of the Word of God. The Bible
teaches us that an individual comes forth from their mother's
womb speaking lies. The Bible teaches us that when
we're born into this world, that we're born with a fallen nature. That we come into this world,
we're sinners by nature when we come in. We don't come in
as believers, we don't come in as those who are already children
of God. We come in having been created
by God, but we're not children of God, except when we grow up
and come to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now he did not
simply decide one day, that is Enoch, did not simply decide
one day that he was going to walk with God, that he was going
to start doing things right and he was going to start walking
with God because he was born in spiritual death and like all
others Like all others, he needed to be born again. He needed to
be born from heaven. He needed to have regeneration. He needed to be made alive in
the Lord. And this had to happen to Enoch.
Even though he was an Old Testament character, this had to happen
to him. It has to happen to everybody
that would walk with God. You must be born again. You must
be regenerated by God's Spirit. You must be made alive by the
Spirit of God. Because no man can walk with
God unless he has the very nature of God implanted in him. And
so the day had to come when Enoch had an experience with God, when
God touched him, and when he was born from heaven, born from
above, and when the nature of God was planted in his very soul. And he was given the desire,
he was given the ambition to walk with God and to please God. Now Enoch was a sinner who needed
pardon, he had to be forgiven, he needed to be cleansed, and
he needed justification. He needed to be given a right
standing before God, just like all other sinners needed. His
was not a special case. By nature he was just like everybody
else. He could neither walk with God
nor please God until his sin was removed and righteousness
had been imputed unto him. Now in order to have these things,
Enoch must believe God. We read there in Hebrews 11 and
verse 6 that without faith it is impossible to please God.
The man that comes to God must believe that God is and that
God is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him. Now beloved,
listen, Enoch believed God and it was not possible that he could
have this walk with God unless he would trust God. unless he
would rely upon God, unless he had faith in his soul toward
God, unless he believed that the God of the Bible is and that
God will reward those who seek Him with all of their hearts. It was by faith that Enoch walked
with God then, and that he pleased God. Now, Enoch was not pleasing
to God by virtue of his conduct. I know that some people think
that that's the way he was pleasing to God, because there was something
special about his conduct. But that's really not true. And
his works and his disposition, his personal character before
God. This is not what pleased God. This is not what enabled him,
as it were, to walk before God. It was faith. that enabled him
to walk before God, and it was faith that pleased God. It was
faith that pleased God. Now, this is very important for
us to see that. Now, Enoch was a sinner. He was a saved sinner, but he
was still a sinner. And sinners cannot, by anything
they do in their own personal character, left entirely to themselves
do anything that's going to please God. This is the one thing, beloved,
that we must see. If we're to understand what it
is to walk with God and to please God, then we must understand
that it's not our conduct, that it's not our disposition, but
it's faith in God, and it's faith in the God-man mediator, the
Lord Jesus Christ, that pleases God. Enoch walked with God by
faith, and Enoch pleased God by faith. And you can do whatever
you want to do, but if you don't have faith in the living God,
it's not going to please Him. It is impossible to please God
without faith. You can't please Him unless you
believe Him. Abraham believed God. There was
a lot wrong with Abraham, just like there's a lot wrong with
every man. But Abraham believed God. He
was fully persuaded that what God promised, he was able to
perform. And Enoch believed the same thing. Enoch believed God.
And that's how he walked with God. He got up every day believing
that there was a God in heaven who ruled and overruled all things,
the God of creation, the God of providence, the God that manages
this world and runs this world, and he believed personally that
this God was his own God. that God lived with him and dwells
in him, and God led him and directed him in the way of his life. And
he believed that God had provided for him that which he had demanded
of him. He believed God. And so this
is very important that we see this. Now, walking with God is
neither more nor less than believing God. It's not more, it's not
less than believing God. That's what constitutes a walk
with God. Now, pleasing God, let me say
this clearly, is neither more nor less than believing God. pleasing God is nothing more
than you believe God. Now it is true that if a man
believes God, he's going to reverence God, he's going to respect God,
he's going to obey God, he's going to follow the Lord as the
Lord directs him and leads him because faith moves a man to
obedience and moves him to honor God. But that's where it begins. It begins by faith and that's
how We walk with God and how we please God. Doing the works
of God is neither more nor less than believing God. You can read
that in John 6 and 28 and 29. This is the work of God, that
you believe on Him whom I have sent, Jesus said. That's what
the Father was saying, that this is God's work, that you believe
on Him. Jesus said, I'm the one the Father
sent, and the work of God is you believe on me, you believe
on Christ, you believe Him. When the Holy Spirit tells us
that Enoch walked with God, He means for us to understand that
Enoch, that he had this faith, that he believed God. That's
what it's telling us. The only way that man can walk
with God, and please God, is as He has the ability given to
him by God to trust, to trust the way of God as it's revealed
in the scripture and what God has revealed about himself in
the person of his Son. We read this morning in Colossians
chapter 2 that Jesus Christ is the manifestation of the Godhead
bodily. Jesus is God manifest in flesh. And for a man to please God,
he must believe on the God-man mediator, as I said earlier.
That is the Lord Jesus Christ. And to please Him, all who trust
God's Son are, I think, are walking with god and they are walking
pleasing to god because the scripture says we're perfect in christ
and we're accepted in the lord jesus now he had this testimony
then that he pleased god and he walked with god by faith we've
we've explained that let me let me point out some things to you
that nothing nothing this morning pleases god uh... except his son There isn't anything
that pleases God except His Son. No one born into this world pleases
God. Only one man ever lived in this
world that pleased God perfectly, and that was the Lord Jesus Christ.
He's the only one. Now, beloved, if we are going
to please God, we must be in Him. We must find ourselves in
Him. We must be put in Him by a sovereign
act of God. God must place us in His Son. Now, if He puts us in His Son,
then we stand before God. well-pleasing in God's sight,
because we're in Christ. And as we explained to you last
week, when God looks upon us, He doesn't any longer see us,
but He sees our representative, our substitute, He sees the second
Adam, the Lord from heaven, Jesus Christ, and as we stand in Him,
we stand pleasing to God. Now, I recognize that some people
have difficulty with this because they want to themselves, some
way or another, have a part in this business of walking with
God and pleasing God. They want to feel that they somehow
or other uniquely contribute something that is acceptable
and pleasing to God. Beloved, we do away, we take
away from the blessed Lord Jesus Christ when we imagine that we
have a contribution to make ourselves. I would draw your attention away
from yourself and draw your attention to the Lord Jesus Christ and
as you stand in Him, as you worship Him, as you follow Him, it is
then, beloved, that you walk with God and you please God Almighty. The only way you and I can come
to God and please Him is by faith in His dear Son. John 14 and
6 says that, as Jesus says, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man can come to the Father
except by me. I'm the way, I'm the truth, I'm
the life, and you can't come to the Father except by me. And
so, beloved, to get to God, we come through the Lord Jesus.
It's the merit of Christ that makes our worship of and our
service to God acceptable and pleasing in His sight. So when
we talk about the things that we might do, we worship God,
we come daily, try to, and worship our Lord. We know that anything
else that we do, the scripture talks about offering the sacrifice
of praise to God. That is the fruit of our lips
giving thanks to His name. The Scripture talks about other
sacrifices that we can make, and that these sacrifices are
well-pleasing in God's sight. But turn with me to I Peter,
if you will, the book of I Peter chapter 2. I'd like to read to
you a Scripture here that has been a blessing to me. I Peter
chapter 2, and I read verses 4 and 5. It says, To whom coming as unto
a living stone, Christ is the living stone, disallowed indeed
of men, but chosen of God and precious. The Lord Jesus, while
he was rejected of men, he was chosen of God. He was chosen
of God and appointed by God to be the official representative
of all of those that were chosen of God in election in old eternity. Jesus was chosen of God to be
our surety, our representative. And the scripture says he's precious. He's precious not only to God,
but he's precious to all believers. And to you that believe He is
precious, Peter tells us later. So we have here the Son of God
and we're coming to Him. He's the living stone. He's the
rock of our salvation. Now in verse 5 it says, You also
as lively stones, living stones. You also, after you've got to
Christ, and you've believed on Him, you are alive now in the
Lord, and you stand in Him, you're a living stone, and you're built
up a spiritual house. All God's people make up this
living temple. This living temple. And God dwells
in that temple. In His calling, the Bible, His
body, His church. And the Spirit of God lives in
that temple. But we make up that temple. And
every one of us as individuals are the temples of God in that
God lives in every one of His people. So everyone here this
morning that's a believer in Christ and that is in the Lord
Jesus, By faith, every one of them is a temple of God. God
lives in them. So we're lively stones and we're
built up a spiritual house and we are a holy priesthood. It
says we are a holy priesthood. Now we don't need a priest on
earth. We don't need a priest on earth.
We don't need one that we go to and can make confession of
our sins and ask them to forgive us and to pray that we will be
forgiven. We don't need that. Because we're
all, all of us are a holy priest. We make up a holy priesthood
to God. And that means that we all can
pray. It means that all of us have
that, as Larry mentioned in his prayer, there's a way being open
under the throne of God, and that way is through Christ. And
as we believe in Him, and as we stand in Him, and as we complete
His merit, and we complete His intercessory work on our behalf,
then we can approach God ourselves. And so you see in this, we follow
the way of the Lord. Now look here, it says that we
can offer up spiritual sacrifices. We can offer up spiritual sacrifices
that are acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. I want you to understand
that these, whatever sacrifices that we would offer up to God,
they would not be acceptable if it was not for Jesus Christ. God accepts whatever sacrifice
that we might make and we might offer like praise and thanksgiving
as we would adore Him, as we would glorify Him with our voices
in praise. God accepts that as we are alive
in Christ and as we offer it in Jesus Christ. That's why our
prayers, beloved, must begin with Christ and end with Christ. Because it is His, it is the
merit of Christ, the loveliness of Christ, it is the righteousness
of Christ that gives meaning to and enables God to accept
our prayers. And so, I wanted you to see this,
that Enoch, as he walked with God, whatever was involved in
his walk, whatever was involved in ours, our prayers and our
obedience to God, everything we offer to God, but we offer
it by Jesus Christ. and we offer it through His merit
and His blood. It is the merit of Christ that
makes our worship of and our service to God acceptable and
pleasing in His sight. If you learn this, I think that
you will learn something that will help you immensely. If you
will just learn this, that what you are, apart from Jesus Christ,
is not worth talking about, and is not worth us dedicating a
service to. We dedicate this service to the
Lord Jesus Christ, whom God is pleased with, and you will never
please Him until you're in Him, and until you offer to Him to
God Almighty, praise, sacrifice in His lovely and whole name. Now, I want you to see this,
that the highest form of sanctification is exactly the same as the earliest
beginnings of salvation. It is believing God. It is believing God. We never
get past that. We never get past simply believing
God and trusting Him. To grow in grace is to grow in
faith. It's to grow in faith toward
God and toward the full sufficiency of the sacrifice of the Lord
Jesus Christ, the person and sacrifice of Christ. Now, the
strongest believer lives exactly as the weakest babe in Christ. He lives by faith. You never
get beyond living by faith. Somebody, I've heard much talk
in my life about victory. We hear a lot of people that
always talking about, oh, victory, victory, victory. And everybody
would like to have victory and more of it. Beloved, there's
only one victory in this world for believers, and that is the
victory of faith. You just believe God, and you
go on. It's like the man who went to
the stake and was burned at the stake. That man, he had a victory. Somebody said, well, he ended
up burning on the stake. He did. But his victory was in
faith. He believed that he conquered,
even though his body was burnt at the stake. And do you believe
he conquered? I believe he conquered. I believe
he conquered. It's hard to believe that, but
nevertheless, if a man believes God and that God is going to
raise him from the dead, and that he's going to stand and
be forever with the Lord, and absent from the body, the scripture
says, present with the Lord. If a man believes that, then
he's got to victory. He's got to victory, because
he knows that when he departs this life, and one of these days,
we're going to drop over dead. And when we do, men are going
to pick up our bodies, and they're going to call our bodies corpses
after that. They're going to call us corpses,
and they're going to take it out and bury that body. Well,
if you die in faith, my friend, then you're going to be resurrected.
You're going to be resurrected out of that grave and you're
going to be forever with the Lord. You're going to be forever.
Your soul leaves your body and you're forever with the Lord.
The only victory is the victory of faith. You believe the Lord. You trust God. in this world. And so the weakest believer as
well as the strongest believer, they do the same thing. That's
the way they live. They just live every day by faith
in God. And so our standing before God
is one of faith. We grow strong in grace only
as we know ourselves to be weak and nothing ourselves and as
we lay hold of the strength of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now the
believer's life is a life of faith. That's what it is. Enoch's
life was a life of faith. And our life, if we are a child
of God, is a life of faith. The scripture says four times
over, the just shall live by faith, by confidence in God. Now, I want to stress this point
because it needs to be stressed. Enoch walked with God by faith.
He pleased God by believing God, by trusting God, and we are sometimes
tempted to strive after some imaginary higher ground or deeper
life than just simple faith toward God. We often feel that there
must be something else. There must be something more
than this. There's got to be a deeper, a
deeper experience. Well, beloved, listen. I think
that if we look to our feelings and look to our experiences,
if we look to our efforts and our works, we're going to be
disappointed. We're going to be very disappointed.
if you want to have some rest and you want to have some peace
and if you want to be comforted believe that when you stand in
the Lord Jesus Christ that you're walking with God and you're pleasing
God and that's as much as any mortal on this earth can possibly
please God it's walking with Him in faith well it's wrong
then for us to have this to believe that there's some imaginary or
something, some higher ground out here that we can get on.
Higher ground. We can have a deeper, deeper
experience. It's wrong for us to believe
that. It's wrong, I say. Now, we're to look to Christ
alone. And any, listen to me, any religion or any doctrine
or any sermon that leaves you looking to yourself is not of
God. Now, you remember that. Any sermon
that leaves you taking a look at yourself, causing you to look
within, causing you to dissect your innermost being and causing
you to look at your imperfections and your sins and leaves you
there and doesn't take you past that, to full acceptance and
perfection in another in the Lord Jesus Christ, it's not of
God. Now you hear me, any man that
gets up and preaches to you and tells you that sooner or later
you'll get good enough to please God and sooner or later you're
going to get good enough that it can be said of you, wow, that
man really walks with God. My friend, there isn't any truth
to that. Only as we stand in Christ can that be said of us. And then the glory is not ours. It's the Lord Jesus Christ. It's
His glory. And so I say to you this morning,
as the old hymn writer said, my hope is built on nothing less
than Jesus' blood and righteousness, and I dare not trust the sweetest
frame, but wholly lean on Jesus' name. And so, beloved, Jesus
Christ alone is our acceptance with God, and we're accepted
in Him, and apart from Christ, We have no acceptance with God,
whatever. Now then, we've established that
Enoch walked with God by faith, and that he pleased God by faith,
and this all was because he stood in the mediator, the God-man,
the Lord Jesus Christ, with whom God is well pleased. Now, beloved
unbelief, just the opposite of faith, just the opposite of believing
God. We need to understand something
about the character of unbelief. Now, there are two things that
are always found... ...to you this morning is because
I would, I'm saying it to myself, I'm saying this because if you
want to walk with God, we've established that you can only
do so by faith, by believing God. If you want to please God,
you can only do so as you believe God. Now, there are two things,
then, in unbelief. Two things that you'll always
find in the life of a lost man, in the heart of a lost man, as
well as in the heart of the believer. You'll always find this where
unbelief is present. These two things, number one,
a good opinion of oneself, and number two, a bad opinion of
God Almighty. Now, those are two things that
you'll find. You hear this morning that are
lost outside of Christ. You have no hope in the gospel. You have no standing in Christ.
You're not in Him. Let me tell you something. You
have this morning a very high opinion of yourself. You are
trusting yourself. There's something about you that
you believe that as you hold on to it, and you're getting
older by the hour, you were born into this world and you've been
dying ever since you were born into this world and you believe
that there's something about you that sooner or later is going
to blossom or that somehow or other that God Almighty is going
to take account of it and that he's going to like it so well
that he's going to accept you into heaven at last. You've got
a very high opinion of yourself. You think you're somebody. You
really do. You think what you do is special
and that there's something unique about you and that God is going
to favor that at the last and he's going to let you into heaven
because of who you are or because of what you've done. That's a
high opinion of yourself. Now let me tell you this, that
in the believer, the believer and he's plagued with unbelief.
Every day, I think that we all have difficulties in believing
God as we are. In just believing God and accepting
the will of God in our lives. I'm talking about the children
of God. And there are many, many of us that have many doubts about
ourselves. Some of us feel at times that
we don't have an ounce of grace about us. And we're like much
afraid and despondency in the book of Pilgrim's Progress. They
felt that they would eventually go back to the city. And they
had this awful fear of going back. And many of us feel that
way in our hearts. We don't feel we We feel that
we probably will turn back before it's all over and go back in
our hearts. But you know how it was with
Much Afraid and with Despondency. They never did go back to the
city and everything turned out alright in the end. And it will
also with us. We're plagued with many doubts
and many fears, but Let me tell you this, in our hearts, when
we are plagued with unbelief, we know that these two things
are present. One, a high opinion of ourself,
and two, a low opinion of God. Now, what I mean by that is this,
that when a man, a believer, is struggling, he's having difficulty
believing God, accepting the things in his life that God has
sent into his life, He has many problems along those lines. Many
times he feels, well, you know, I just don't think that things
ought to be with me and things in my life ought to be like they
are because of who I am. I mean, after all, I've tried
to live right, I've tried to do right, I've tried to walk
with God, I've tried to do this and that, something else, and
so why should things be so bad with me? Why are they that way? Why am I bereaved? Why am I suffering
like I am? Why do I have this awful and
terrible affliction? Why do I have this disease? Why,
why, why? All these questions. And we just
can't accept sometimes some of the afflictions that God sends
into our lives. We can't do it. And that's unbelief. And we have this high opinion
of ourselves that if God could see us like we really are, He
would never let things be like they are in our lives. that's
a high opinion of yourself, unbelief. And it's a low opinion of God.
God's not as smart as I am. God don't see as well as I see.
God doesn't know what I know. And so therefore, he's allowing
this to happen in my life. That's a low opinion and low
view of God. That, my friend, is unbelief. That's what it is. Now you that
are lost this morning, you have this high opinion of yourself,
you've never been brought to the place where you feel that
you need what God says you need. You do not understand that you're
the sinner God says that you are. You don't understand it. You may agree that you are a
sinner, but you don't understand that you're as much a sinner
as God says that you are. Now let me tell you this. You
are such a sinner that you need a whole Savior. You need all of Jesus Christ. God says that you're such a sinner
that you need the blood that was shed on Calvary to wash you
from your sins. You're such a sinner that you
need a substitute to take your place before God. You're such
a sinner that you cannot provide any of what God demands of you. That's how much of a sinner you
are. You're such a sinner that if you get to heaven, it'll only
be because somebody took your case and said, I'll stand for
them in their place, and I will assume their debt, I'll be their
surety, I'll go their note before God, and I'll satisfy God on
their behalf. You need a whole Savior. Now
as long as you entertain this idea that you can save yourself,
and that you've got something that God's going to admire so
much, He's going to let you into heaven without a Savior, my friend,
you're blind. Unbelief is a lie. Let me tell
you that. When unbelief tells you that
you've got something God's interested in and that He's going to accept
on your behalf, that's a lie. That's a lie. And whenever you
say, well now, you got low opinions of God, and God says you need
the cross, and God says you need the blood, and God says you need
to be justified, and you need a substitute, and you need to
be born again, and you say, I ain't true, that ain't true, that ain't
true, you're calling God a liar. My friend, listen to me. This
morning I want you to see that unbelief, this unbelief which
is a lie, This unbelief, which would cause you to look upon
yourself as being something and somebody, and God as being nothing. This unbelief. You know, only
God can change that in your life. Only the Spirit of God can change
that. It's an extremely difficult thing
for an individual ever to come up saying, I am the sinner. God says I am. And I agree with
God, I need what He has provided. Only God can do that in your
life. This preacher can't do it, I can't persuade you of that.
I can tell you here this morning, you are such a sinner, but until
God the Holy Spirit takes that home to your heart, you will
not believe it. You will not believe it. Now
let me say this, this is something that I want you to understand
that the only way that you'll ever get peace and the only way
that you'll ever get to the place where you really can rest in
your soul and be assured of salvation and be assured that your walking
with God and pleasing God is for you to come to the place
where the Spirit of God will give you a view of God's True
character and a right view of yourself and when you come to
the right view of yourself You're going to believe on Christ and
you're going to trust him and then God will give you peace
and then you'll have a standing Where in God will accept you
and where you'll be blessed of God because you stand in that
one that God is pleased with Now then let me say this And
this is so important that we see this. We hear a lot of people
talking about what the Spirit has revealed to them, what the
Spirit has said to them. I want to tell you something.