Genesis 5:1-27
Genesis 5:1 This is the book of the genealogy of Adam. In the day that God created man, He made him in the likeness of God.
He created them male and female, and blessed them and called them Mankind in the day they were created.
And Adam lived one hundred and thirty years, and begot a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth.
After he begot Seth, the days of Adam were eight hundred years; and he had sons and daughters.
So all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years; and he died.
Seth lived one hundred and five years, and begot Enosh.
After he begot Enosh, Seth lived eight hundred and seven years, and had sons and daughters.
So all the days of Seth were nine hundred and twelve years; and he died.
Enosh lived ninety years, and begot Cainan.
After he begot Cainan, Enosh lived eight hundred and fifteen years, and had sons and daughters.
So all the days of Enosh were nine hundred and five years; and he died.
Cainan lived seventy years, and begot Mahalalel.
After he begot Mahalalel, Cainan lived eight hundred and forty years, and had sons and daughters.
So all the days of Cainan were nine hundred and ten years; and he died.
Mahalalel lived sixty-five years, and begot Jared.
After he begot Jared, Mahalalel lived eight hundred and thirty years, and had sons and daughters.
So all the days of Mahalalel were eight hundred and ninety-five years; and he died.
Jared lived one hundred and sixty-two years, and begot Enoch.
After he begot Enoch, Jared lived eight hundred years, and had sons and daughters.
So all the days of Jared were nine hundred and sixty-two years; and he died.
Enoch lived sixty-five years, and begot Methuselah.
After he begot Methuselah, Enoch walked with God three hundred years, and had sons and daughters.
So all the days of Enoch were three hundred and sixty-five years.
And Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him.
Methuselah lived one hundred and eighty-seven years, and begot Lamech.
After he begot Lamech, Methuselah lived seven hundred and eighty-two years, and had sons and daughters.
So all the days of Methuselah were nine hundred and sixty-nine years; and he died.
Some of my heroes of the faith had very short things written on their tombstones. A.W. Tozer’s tombstone simply reads, “A Man of God”. One of the great heroes of the Bible has no more than a few verses in all of Scripture. His tombstone could simply read, “He walked with God.” And yet, what a thing to be said of you! What if your tombstone read, “He walked with God”?
Genealogies are not usually the most interesting reading. A list of names, this one begetting this one, living to this age, and dying. Someone said that Genesis 5 sounds like the tolling of funeral bells, a monotonous refrain of so-and-so lived, begat, and he died. And he died, and he died, and he died. Genesis 5 is proof of God’s words – in the day you eat of this, you shall surely die. Here is the truth of God’s words played out in repetitive cycle.
That’s why when verse 22 suddenly breaks the cycle, we sit up and notice. Here we find something new added. Here was a man who did not merely live, beget children and died, but the account says:
Genesis 5:22 After he begot Methuselah, Enoch walked with God three hundred years, and had sons and daughters.
Enoch walked with God for three hundred years. And then, verse 24 makes this man even more outstanding:
Genesis 5:24 And Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him.
Instead of being part of the sad cycle of birth, life, begetting and death, Enoch did not die. Enoch was taken straight to God’s presence, and was one of only two men who did not face death – Elijah being the other.
Once this little tidbit of information is given to us, the cycle begins again – birth, life, begetting and death. We wish the writer would stop and tell us all about Enoch. Instead we are left with just a few phrases about Enoch, and two New Testament Scriptures which tell us a little more.
What was Enoch’s secret? What can we learn from this few verses about Enoch that can enable us to also stand out from the world and be pleasing to God? To consider Enoch is to consider a short but powerful example of what the Christian can be. He’s mentioned just three times in Scripture, but from those three places, we can glean quite a bit about him. As we gather up the evidence, we’ll see Enoch’s world, Enoch’s walk, and Enoch’s welcome.
I. Enoch’s World
You might be tempted to think that Enoch lived in a purer, more innocent world than you do, and that it was easier for him to walk with God.
This much we can put together from the book of Genesis. Enoch was the seventh from Adam. He was born 622 years after the Fall, and 1034 years before the Flood. He lived at a time when human lifespans were enormous by today’s standards, most of those mentioned in this genealogy averaged around 800 years. If you work it out, Adam was still alive for the first 300 years of Enoch’s life.
Some of the massive cities and enormous monoliths were being built during this time, using methods and technologies we still don’t understand. Some of the blocks that were lifted into place were so heavy that in the 21st century, we don’t possess a crane strong enough to lift them. When people are living for 800 years, they can learn a lot. And in the 1656 years between Adam and the Flood, there was no doubt enormous development and innovation. During Enoch’s life, some of the great cities in Mesopotamia, Egypt, Northern and Western Europe and India were beginning. 1000 years later, they would be at a climax of evil. We read in chapter 6 what God thought of the state of society:
Genesis 6:5 Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
Genesis 6:11-12 The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. So God looked upon the earth, and indeed it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth.
This was no clean and welcoming world. This was no conservative culture. This was a society which God was prepared to wipe off the face of the Earth with a flood. It was also a world in which false doctrine and apostasy abounded. Look at Jude:
Jude 1:14-15 Now Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about these men also, saying, “Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of His saints, to execute judgment on all, to convict all who are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have committed in an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him.
It was in this world that Enoch lived. It was in this society that Enoch stood out like a diamond in the rough. Like us, he lived in a world given over to evil, in rejection of God. Enoch lived an outstanding life. What was his secret?
II. Enoch’s Walk
We would have to guess at what the writer of Genesis meant in saying that Enoch walked with God, were it not for the book of Hebrews. In the book of Hebrews we find some verses which become like an inspired commentary on these verses in Genesis, explaining them for us.
Hebrews 11:5-6 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. But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.
The secret of Enoch’s life was that his walk with God was a walk of faith. Enoch lived by faith, and it was a life of faith that made up his ongoing walk with God. That should encourage us. If Enoch had been pleasing to God because of some extraordinary gifts and talents, we might feel discouraged and despair; but if he was pleasing to God through faith, that same faith which saved Abraham, and Isaac, and David, that same faith which has been wrought in you and in me, then the way is open to us too! If we have faith we may enter into fellowship with the Lord. How this ought to endear faith to us!
Enoch, like all Old Testament saints, was made pleasing to God by his faith in God. Those saints believed God’s Word, trusted in what He had revealed to them and God justified them. God declared them to be righteous through the future death of His Son on the cross.
That’s what begins this walk. A walk assumes there is an established relationship. If you have ever walked where there are crowds of people walking, perhaps in a mall, or in a busy street and you find yourself walking right next to a complete stranger, what do you do? Do you keep pace with that person? No, you typically slow down or speed up, because the only person that you will keep walking with, side-by-side, is with someone you know.
Enoch was one of the few in his world who had believed on God, and God had counted it to him for righteousness. He was one of God’s children, one of God’s people.
But there is more to a walk than a relationship. If two people walk side-by-side, it’s usually because they know each other. When two people like that walk together, what do we expect will happen while they walk together? We expect that there will be continual conversation. We expect that two people who walk together will talk together. There will be communion.
This takes faith. Instead of just thinking about God, or talking about God, by faith, we engage with God Himself. The writer of Hebrews says that faith believes that God is, and that He is a rewarder of those that diligently seek him. If you only believe that God is, your faith is incomplete. Your faith must believe not just in the reality of God, but also in the responsiveness of God. That’s what Enoch did. He believed God is, and He believed that to speak with God and commune with God and live in God’s presence would be rewarded with more experience of God.
This is walking with God – choosing, by faith, to share all of life with God. To live it before Him and with Him and in front of Him, because you believe He is, and He rewards the diligent effort to seek Him.
Communion is sharing life with God and in God, as you would with a physical person who lived with you – it means communicating, observing, thanking, praising, asking. This is life lived in a state of continual prayer. By continual I don’t mean continuous – non-stop, or uninterrupted. I mean as you would with someone you live with. The communication is free, easy, natural, and ongoing. Sometimes you simply do activities together without talking. But they are shared in each other’s presence, done with each other, with the easy comfort of being with one you love.
Oswald Chambers said, “The test of a man’s religious life and character is not what he does in the exceptional moments of life, but what he does in the ordinary times, when there is nothing tremendous or exciting on.”
Think of how long Enoch did this for – our text in Genesis says for three hundred years. When the company is none other than the Lord, it is understandable that he would not want any other company.
Maybe someone says – only a hermit could walk with God for three hundred years. My life is far too busy with family concerns to ever walk with God. Well, notice what the text says about Enoch in Genesis 5:
Genesis 5:22 After he begot Methuselah, Enoch walked with God three hundred years, and had sons and daughters.
Enoch was a family man, he conducted this walk surrounded by the noise of sons and daughters. He raised a son, Methuselah, who would go on to be the longest living human being in history. And if his long life was partly a reward for honouring father and mother, then we can infer that Enoch was not simply a begetter, but a good father.
Enoch lived in this communion with God for three hundred years. But make no mistake, Enoch was a sinner like we are and like us, he sinned. How then did he keep walking with God?
Amos 3:3 says, can two walk together except they be agreed? Once we start walking with God, we soon find that it is not always easy to keep in step with Him.
As we live with God in communion, something happens. His holy nature begins to identify ways that we displease Him. We do things, think things, or desire things that are offensive to our heavenly Indweller. So, He does the work of conviction. Conviction is where God identifies something He wants us to confess to Him so that we can keep enjoying the joy of communion. Now when God convicts us, He does not convict us of all sin in our lives. To do so would utterly crush and discourage us. We are only faintly aware of how many ways we offend God, and it is through the complete work of Christ that He dwells with us and we remain acceptable to Him. But since He is committed to progressively growing us, He puts His finger on a particular area of sin that needs to be dealt with. This conviction is not God identifying the only sin in our lives, but it is the sin God wants you to become aware of and confess at that time. Given your growth and level of maturity, God decides it is no longer tolerable, and He makes you aware of it.
After all, we put up with crying for food in our one-year-old children, but we would not accept it in our eleven-year-olds. We put up with some immature desire sin our four-year-olds, that we do not tolerate in our seventeen-year-olds. As our children grow, we expect them to put away certain ways, and grow up. So it is with living with God. As we commune with Him, He makes us aware of something which has now become a sticking point in the abiding relationship.
That then leads to the third stage, which is confession. Confession is where we own up to our wrongdoing. What God wants here is not some kind of work from us which will appease Him. Our tears or sorrow cannot atone for sin. We step up to more maturity, and claim ownership for our sins. We call sin – sin, we agree with God, we identify something in our lives as offensive to God, as unfitting for one in whom God dwells and bring it to God as sin. Confession involves an attitude of forsaking. If we agree with God that it is wrong and evil, then we agree it must go. This confession leads to the fourth stage: cleansing.
1 John 1:9 tells us that the blood of Jesus Christ His Son has done and is always doing its cleansing work. We are no less, nor more justified when we confess our sins. But what does happen is that our conscience, that part of us which senses and experiences our closeness to God, is cleansed. Our consciences sense the Fatherly displeasure at our sin, and when we confess it, we know that the ongoing cleansing power of Christ’s blood is true of us and that God is pleased that we have recognised and owned up to our sin. Boldness to commune with God is restored.
That leads to the fifth stage of abiding in Christ, which is conforming. As we forsake our sin in confessing, we are replacing it with a new set of behaviours, attitudes, thoughts, desires. These new ways of living conform to the character of God. The more like Him we become in practice, the more we know and experience and enjoy Him in practice. Just like a child who becomes much like his father, becomes more like his friend as he grows up, so our conformity to Christ makes the communion with God closer, sweeter and deeper. We are now even more in step with God. Our walk has strengthened.
You see, when we are walking with someone, we are making progress. We are going forward. The longer we walk with God, the further along we are in knowing and loving God.
For Enoch that meant a testimony of pleasing God. It meant being a bold prophet who exposed the lies and ungodliness of His age. It meant raising a godly family, and a son whose own name was perhaps a warning to all. Methuselah possibly means, “When he is dead it shall be sent’ or “When he dies, judgement”. Quite possibly, Enoch was told of the coming judgement of the Flood and testified to the world in the very name of his son- a son who lived for 969 years.
Enoch walked with God, for at least three hundred years of communion, conviction, confession, cleansing and more conformity to the God He loved. Walking, adjusting, and getting more in step with God. This kind of life led to Enoch’s welcome.
III. Enoch’s Welcome
And Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him.
Hebrews 11:5-6 By faith Enoch was taken away so that he did not see death, “and was not found, because God had taken him.”
Enoch did not only walk with God, but God chose to extend a special welcome to Him. He took Enoch to glory personally.
When you consider how long people were living at that time, it seems that Enoch was taken while still relatively young. Three hundred and sixty five would be comparable to someone in his early thirties today – like the age of our Lord when He died. It seems that Enoch lived such a life of communion with God, such a life of abiding in God, that there came a point when God chose to favour him with a gift that Christians, living when the Lord returns, will experience – direct catching up into God’s presence, without seeing death.
Spurgeon said of Enoch, “But this man did his work so well, and kept so close to God that his day’s work was done at noon, and the Lord said, “Come home, Enoch, there is no need for you to be out of heaven any longer; you have borne your testimony, you have lived your life; through all the ages men will look upon you as a model man, and therefore you may come home.” God never keeps his wheat out in the fields longer than is necessary, when it is ripe he reaps it at once: when his people are ready to go home he will take them home.”
Notice something in verse 5 of Hebrews 11. It says that Enoch was not found. Now if Enoch was not found, what does that imply? People were looking for Him. There came a day when Mrs Enoch waited and waited, and he did not come home. There came a day when Methuselah heard the news that his father was nowhere to be found. There came a day when all the other sons and daughters wept for their father who had now gone from them. There came a day when the people Enoch had taught, and those who had heard his preaching, searched for him, but he could not be found. Enoch had lived a life that had profoundly affected others, and when he was gone, people knew it. John Wesley said, “Live so as to be missed”. Enoch was missed but Earth’s loss was Heaven’s gain. The one who had gotten so used to walking with God, would now walk with Him for eternity.
“To walk with God for three centuries was so sweet that the patriarch kept on with his walk until he walked beyond time and space and walked into paradise, where he is still marching on in the same divine society. He had Heaven on Earth, and it was therefore not a wonder that he glided away from Earth to Heaven so easily.”
The writer of the book of Hebrews holds up these heroes of faith, like Enoch, not to overawe us but to encourage us to do the same.
Hebrews 12:1-2 Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
Enoch was a man of like passion as we are, and he walked with God. He walked with God in a wicked age. He walked with God in a busy life. Enoch is in the stands now, watching you run your race. Compared to his life, your lifespan must seem like a sprint. But he is not scoffing, but cheering. You too can walk by faith. You too can learn to get in step with God, communing with Him and, when God convicts you, confessing, experiencing His cleansing, and so getting more in step with God’s character for an even closer walk.