"Enoch walked with God" (Genesis 5:24)

“Enoch walked with God; then he was no more,
because God took him away.” (Genesis 5:24)

Yawn No More

I believe, by my own experience of course, that most want-to-read-Bible readers will find that the long lists of names of genealogies wills somewhat makes they want to yawn at every letters. Reading through Genesis 5 was like that for me… well, not until my sight landed on Genesis 5:21-24. My black coffee almost finished and my yawn stopped as I read;

“When Enoch had lived 65 years, he became the father of Methuselah; Enoch walked with God 300 years and had another sons and daughters. Altogether, Enoch lived 365 years. Enoch walked with God; then he was no more, because God took him away.”

What in the world happened?

What in the world happened? What is this? Enoch born at verse 18, Enoch became a father at verse 21, Enoch lived for 365 years in between of verse 22 and 23, and Enoch was ‘no more’ or ‘disappeared’ (NLT) or “was not” (KJV) or “simply gone” (MSG) – what in the world happened? So my eyes scanning around the chapter, but all I can find is another story, “When Methuselah had lived…”(v.25). No sequel. No follow up. No more. Just that, ‘he was no more’… what happened?

Why? How?

Many centuries later, the unknown writer of the Book of Hebrews explained Enoch’s mystery of ‘disappearance’; “By faith Enoch was taken from this life, so that he did not experience death; he could not be found, because God had taken him away. For before he was taken, he was commended as one who pleased God.” (Hebrews 11:5) No from outer space alien adoption, no deep magic involved, it was plain – it was God who ‘took him away’ (Genesis 5:24, Hebrews 11:5) God didn’t use conventional means – death – to take him. He was simply gone: God took him. Why? Because God was pleased with him. And how Enoch pleased God? By faith in God; Enoch believe that God exists and he earnestly seeks Him. (Hebrews 11:6) God must be very please with Enoch, his faith in Him, that He just ‘took him away’ without him endure illness or death.  

From Genesis to Today

Enoch was very difference from us yet he was somewhat very similar to us. Basically, he had sons and daughters. He was a family man. He had wife and home. He works for living, perhaps he might be a farmer or a carpenter… Okays my point is he had some kind of occupation like most of us have. He lived a life not much different from us; children bad behavior, wife complaints, pressure from work, struggle with his relationship with others etc. yet… YET he still when through it all while walking in close fellowship with God. [Oh I (we) have no excuses!] There is a difference between walking with God and merely living. The key word here is walking. In the book Saints & Scoundrels of the Bible, the authors write,

“Walking is a step-by-step process toward a destination. Each step matters. Each step moves us forward. Each step is intentional. Each step is a choice. If we want to have close fellowship with God, we must take each ‘step’ in our lives – each action, each choice, each decision, each thought – with the constant desire to please God.”

Continue Our Walks with God

Enoch did it for 365 years. Now we not gonna lives that long, right? But since Enoch was a mere human being, expose to temptations, weak and helpless as we are, but put right with God, pleasing to Him simply because of his genuine faith in God and continue walks with Him – do you thing that pleasing God through our faith in Christ today is unachievable? It is achievable, not by works but by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, that is God made visible for us today. The scripture says, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believe in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). The word ‘believe’ is not a onetime event but a continuous one. It means ‘to have faith’, ‘to entrust’, ‘put entrust with’. It means to continue to believe, trust in God. And to continue to believe you must continue your walk with Jesus.

What would it take for us to walk with God today, tomorrow, and for the rest of our lives?

THINK BIG. START SMALL. GO DEEP.