ENOCH.
In this series of Blogs I will be putting the spotlight upon various men and women who get a brief mention in the pages of our Bibles. The focus will not necessarily be upon famous people, but upon those who perhaps make an appearance, and then disappear from the narrative. In fact, one could say that we shall be looking at the “good, the bad and the ugly,” but can, nevertheless learn something to our advantage from each person.
As it says above, our first character is Enoch; Genesis 5:21-24, 1 Chronicles 1:3, Luke 3:37, Hebrews 11:5, and Jude 14-15.
We find two Enochs in our Bible; one who was the first son of Cain, Genesis 4:17-18. But him we will ignore. The second is the Enoch who is mentioned above and is well worth considering. Just think, Enoch talked with Adam; had a son whom he named Methuselah; was a prophet; walked with God; and was taken to heaven without dying. Let’s expand on each of these aspect of his life and see what a remarkable man he was.
Enoch talked with Adam. Adam was about six hundred and twenty-two years old when Enoch was born, which meant that for the first three hundred and eight years of his life Enoch would have known Adam. Can you imagine it? Sitting in the cool of the evening, talking, and asking Adam questions, and getting him to talk. Adam would tell Enoch of those first blissful days when there was no sin. All was at peace in the animal world. Perhaps God would come, and sit down and talk personally to Adam and advise him on the running of the Garden of Eden, and many other things.
Perhaps, as he talked with Enoch, Adam’s voice would sometimes go quiet and tears come to his eyes as he explained the change which had come over everything and himself and Eve when they disobeyed their Creator for that first time. The result of that first act of disobedience was with Adam every day of his life; especially when he saw the increasing level of sinfulness and depravity in the world, and thought of the first murder when his son Cain killed his own brother Abel. What a privilege Enoch had, and what an influence Adam may have had upon his life.
Enoch’s son. When he was sixty-five years old, Enoch’s wife gave birth to their first son, Methuselah. Methuselah became the oldest man who ever lived, finally dying at nine hundred and sixty-nine years of age. Significantly, one meaning of his name is, “when I die it will come,” or, “it shall be sent.” Shortly after his death the world was engulfed in the flood.
Enoch was a prophet. Enoch lived in a time when, especially those of the lineage of Cain were living and acting as though there was no God. As was said of Israel later, “everyone did what was right in his own eyes.” In the midst of this decadence and godlessness, Enoch prophesied judgement upon those who had rejected God. “It was about these men that Enoch, in the seventh generation from Adam, prophesied saying, ‘Behold the Lord came with many (ten) thousands of His holy ones, to execute judgement upon all, and to convict all the ungodly of all their ungodly deeds which they have done in an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him,’” Jude 14-15.
Jude applied this prophesy not only to various periods of historical ungodliness, but also to his own time when Gnosticism was invading the Church and leading many astray. Paul also takes up the same theme in 1 Thessalonians 3:13, “…..so that He may establish your hearts without blame in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all His saints, (holy ones).” So it would appear that the prophecy of Enoch will even reach into the future to when the Lord Jesus comes back to reign on the earth.
Enoch walked with God. There are several references in the Scriptures of men walking before God, and David was one of them. But there are only two references of people who walked with God among the Antediluvians, (those who lived before the flood). One was Enoch, Genesis 5:22,24, and the other was Noah, Genesis 6:9. Abel, Enoch, and Noah were the only ones referred to as godly during this period before the flood.
Enoch walked with God. Here we have four words which have a wealth of meaning. Enoch separated himself from the ways and the ungodliness around him and walked in self-denial and holiness. This does not mean that he lived by rules and regulations, no, he lived with guidance from his knowledge of God’s character. It is quite possible from the expression “walked with God,” that God may have visited Enoch in the same way He had visited Adam in Genesis 2:19 and 3:8. Through Enoch’s personal experience of, and with God, he would have been delighted to walk and live in separation from the world’s attitudes and standards. “He obtained the witness that before being taken up he was pleasing to God,” Hebrews 11:5. This is also what Christian holiness is. It is not a life of “Thou shalt not’s, etc.” but living in a way to bring pleasure to God because we love Him so much.
Enoch was taken to heaven without dying. “And he was not, for God took him,” Genesis 5:24. Along with Elijah in 2 Kings 2:11, Enoch was one of the two people ever to go to heaven without dying. We are told in Hebrews 11:5, “By faith Enoch was taken up so that he would not see death; and he was not found because God took him up.”
We have in the rapture of Enoch a living hope for the believing Church of which Enoch is a type. As Paul tells us in 1 Thessalonians 4:15-18, “For 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 not precede those who have fallen asleep (died). For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with Him in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words.”
There have been several descriptions of Enoch’s experience. One is, “Enoch went for a walk with God and didn’t come back.” Another is, “Enoch went for a walk with God and God took him home with Him.” Either way, should we still be alive at Christ’s return we too will have an Enoch experience.
Some have suggested that in the sacrifice of a lamb by Abel and the rapture of Enoch we see a type of the Cross and rapture. In other words, the course of the Church as it is in the world. Others see the two witnesses who are killed in Revelation 11:1-14 as Enoch and Elijah, because these were the only two people who had never suffered death. But whatever, whether we die or are raptured, our future is safely in God’s hands. Wonderful and mysterious as was the rapture of Enoch, the most important thing we can glean from his life is that “he walked with God,” in a sinful and ungodly world. By putting God first, and delighting in God in the world in which he lived, he was able to show us an example of godliness when all around him was falling into chaos.
God bless you
John