HEROES OF THE FAITH – ENOCH
DR. JIM DIXON
HEBREWS 11:1-6
GENESIS 4:21-24
SEPTEMBER 11, 1983
Sometimes they are simply referred to as I, II, and III Enoch. Those ancient writings describe Enoch’s mythological journeys through the seven heavens. They describe his encounters with angels, his views of the heavens, his prophetic dreams, his encounters with giants and his written similitudes. But most scientist and Biblical scholars today regard those ancient writings as pseudepigrapha. They regard them as falsely ascribed to Enoch because those three ancient writings were written during the Intertestamental Period between the writings of the Old Testament and the New Testament. They were written 1,900 to 2,200 years ago, and the true, historical, Biblical person called Enoch lived thousands of years before that. We know very little concerning the real man called Enoch. Certainly, he was nothing like the picture painted of him in those mythologies. The Bible tells us simply that Enoch was the seventh from Adam, that he was the father of Methuselah and that from his line came the Messiah, our Lord Jesus Christ. The Bible gives us three pieces of information concerning Enoch’s life. Only three.
It tells us that Enoch walked with God, that Enoch pleased God and that Enoch was taken up. First then, the Bible tells us Enoch walked with God. What does it mean to walk with God? I often take walks with Barbara. We walk almost every day—sometimes in the morning, sometimes in the afternoon, sometimes at night. We walk through the Sanford Development because they have green belts with walking paths and our kids bring their bikes. It’s a time when Barb and I can talk. Those walks are very important to us, but the Bible tells us that nothing is more important than our walk with God. As Christians, we’ve come into a relationship with God through faith in Jesus Christ, God’s son. The Bible tells us that we do not really walk closely with God even as Christians, until we learn obedience, until we begin to understand His ways, and begin to walk His paths. And sometimes the paths that God asks us to walk with Him are not easy. Sometimes those paths are tough. The Psalmist says “He leads us in the paths of righteousness for His own name’s sake. Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for though art with me.” He wants us to walk with Him through thick and thin. Enoch did that.
Last week Barb and I had breakfast with John and Guinn Haskells and their three children. John Haskells was a roommate in seminary fourteen years ago. I hadn’t seen John in eleven share the years. I was astounded and amazed as John began to share the walk that he had with God these last eleven years. John and Guinn are missionaries to the Southern Sudan in Africa. The Northern Sudan is primarily desert except for the banks of the Nile and the coast of the Red Sea. The Central Sudan is primarily grasslands, but the Southern Sudan is entirely jungle and swamp. Most of the wild animals that you think of when you think of Africa are found in the Southern Sudan. Many of the types of primitive tribespeople that you think of in connection with Africa are also found in that region of the world. It is there that John and Guinn work and minister. They work near a little village called Boma. There is disease. There are peoples who take clay, solid clay circles, and they stick them in their mouth to try to stretch out their bottom lips. They do the same with their ears. There is much disease and oftentimes John and Guinn live in tents with their three kids. And yet there is no place they would rather be because they sense in their spirit that God has called them to be there, and they want to walk with God.
Two and a half months ago, their walk with God was put to the test. It was June 23, and some of you may remember the TV newscast. It was in all the major newspapers—how 11 people in Boma, South Sudan were taken hostage. John and Guinn and their three children were five of those eleven hostages. They were taken by rebel revolutionary forces, and they demanded 120,000 Sudanese pounds for the release of Guinn and the children. After four days, Guinn and the kids were released but John and four other men were kept as hostages for 14 days. They were beaten, they were stripped, they were tortured. The leader of the rebels was a crazed man. He looked like Fidel Castro with sunglasses and his beard, but he would come up to John and he would bounce hand grenades in front of John’s face, take automatic submachine guns and fire bullets into the wall one foot above John’s head. They threatened his life. It is not possible for us know the kind of torture John and those four men went through, and yet, through it all, they were faithful to share the love of Jesus Christ with those who held them hostage. On the 12th day, John and the other four men were able to escape into the Sudanese jungle and they tried to make their way to Ethiopia, but they were caught by the rebel forces. They were lined up against trees with machine guns pointed at them. They thought they would be executed, but the rebels needed them alive for the sake of the ransom. They brought them back to Boma and they threw them in a basement, and they stripped them, and they tortured them and they beat them again. And John and his friends began to sing, “A Might Fortress is My God,” and “My Jesus, I Love Thee.”
It is through a strange set of circumstances that I don’t have enough time to share with you this morning—on the 14th day miraculously, John and those other four men escaped just as the Sudanese armies were coming against the rebels. Their lives probably would have been taken in the ensuing war, but John and his four friends escaped into the jungles, and they made their way to Juba, a little village where John was reunited with his wife. When John was sharing this story with Barb and I at this restaurant, his hands were literally shaking. It was only two months ago, and yet they long to go back there. They long to go back because they know that they are called there and they want to walk faithfully with God.
I look at the last 11 years of my life, since I last saw John, and at the path that God has taken me on. I’ve not had near the suffering, I’ve certainly not had the physical pain. I’ve not had the measure of sacrifice. I could almost feel guilty, and yet God has not called us to compare paths. He’s only called us to walk faithfully in the path that He has given us, to walk with Him. God calls some people to be missionaries. He calls other people to be pastors. He calls some people to be businessmen. He calls some to be businesswomen. He calls some to be homemakers. But the real issue is not what we do but it’s how we live. We are called to live faithfully, and we are called to walk with God. We are called to walk in obedience with His Word, to live within the boundaries of His will. The Psalmist says, “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly.” As Christians, we are called to walk in the counsel of the Lord and we are guaranteed that if we do that we will be blessed. It’s a mystery to me why we as Christians, sometimes go outside the walls of God’s will. Why we sometimes leave His fellowship and we cease to walk with Him and we go outside that fence of His Word and His Will.
About a month and a half ago, there was a big rainstorm here in Littleton. I think we had more than an inch and a half of rain in a short period of time. Barb and I were in the car and our kids were in the backseat. We could barely see. The rain was coming down that thick and that heavy. The kids wanted us to get home quick because our dog was in the backyard. Our backyard is fenced in but in a thunderstorm, with the lightning and thunder, our dog panics and he begins to dig like he would not normally be able to dig. He begins to climb like he would not normally be able to climb. So we rushed to get home. The rain was so bad that in the area near our cul-de-sac in Liberty Hill, it was almost a lake right in the middle of the street. By the time we got homes we went into the back yard and the dog was gone. At first, I felt kind of a sense of relief but Drew and Heather were crying. They love that dog. That dog means a lot to them and so I got in the car, and I began to drive all over, looking for that dog. And it was raining. I couldn’t see well but I drove everywhere. I couldn’t find him anywhere. I came home and I said “Kids, the dog is gone.” Barb took Heather and Drew, who were crying, upstairs. She sat down with them, and she said a prayer. She asked the Lord to protect the dog and said, “Lord, help someone to find him and give us a call.” It was only one minute later that the phone rang. Someone a mile away had picked up our dog and through the dog tag had located us and wanted us to know the dog was safe. Apparently, God loves our dog more than I do! But what that dog had done was totally irrational. I mean it left the protection of our home, the fellowship that it had had with us. We provided for it. We gave it love and affection—at least the kids did. We gave it food, we gave it shelter and yet, irrationally, it leaves that area of protection and friendship and goes out into the world in the midst of a storm where it could get run over by cars, it could get lost, never find its way back and sometimes as Christians, we’re just as stupid as that. We leave the walls of God’s will. It always results in tragedy when we do that. The Bible says, “Walk in the light as He is in the light. By this we know that we abide in Him if we walk in the way in which He walked.”
We are called to walk in His ways, to walk his paths, to have fellowship with Him, and we are promised, when we do, we will be blessed. Enoch walked with God, and we are called to do the same.
And secondly, we are told that Enoch pleased God. He was attested as having pleased God, the Bible says. What does it mean to please God and do you really long to please God? I love the story of Lou Little. He was coach at Columbia University—football coach a number of years ago. He had a 17-year-old boy, a freshman at the college, and he tried out for the team. He didn’t have much talent. In fact, he didn’t have any talent at all, and the coach knew he would never play any football, but there was something in this boy that Coach Little liked. He had determination, he had enthusiasm, and the coach thought even if he never plays a single play, it would be good to have him on the team sitting on the bench.
Maybe his enthusiasm and his determination will rub off on the rest of the players. So the football season began and the coach saw another quality in the 17 year-old boy that he also admired. He could see that this boy had a close relationship with his father, that he respected his father. His father often came to Columbia University to visit his son and the coach would see the boy and his father walking the the university campus, talking. Sometimes the boy would take the father by the arm. Every Sunday when the father was there, they would go the chapel together, the university chapel. They shared a deep, Christian commitment. They shared a common faith. The coach respected that in the boy. But one day the coach got a tragic phone call. He was told that this boy’s father had just died and would he tell the boy. So he went to that young man. He told him that his father was no longer on this earth. The boy left and he went to his father’s funeral which was in another town. Now that happened to be the week of the biggest football game of that season for Columbia University. The boy came back from his father’s funeral just two days before the game. The coach saw him, and he said, “Son I just would like to do anything for you. What can I do?” The boy said, “Let me start in the football game on Saturday.” Well, the coach was kind of taken back because he didn’t want this boy to play. He didn’t have any ability, but he knew he had made the boy a promise and so he said “Okay. We’ll start you on Saturday.” Now he was thinking he’d play him a few plays and then put him on the bench, but the first play of the game, this boy made a tackle against the other team’s running back and threw him for a three-yard loss. He played with that level of intensity the whole game through, and the coach left him in. Columbia University won the game, and that boy was named the Outstanding Player of the game. After the game, the coach went up to the boy and he said, “Man, what got into you?” He said, “Well, you know me but you don’t know my father. I’m sure you saw him come and visit the campus and we walked around the school together. You probably noticed that sometimes I took him by are. What most people don’t know is that my father was blind. But my father is in Heaven now and I believe he’s been healed, and I believe that he can see me for the first time. I believe he saw me play last Saturday. I wanted to play my best. I wanted to please him.”
Now I don’t theologically agree with that story. I mean I don’t think our loved ones in Christ who die are able to look down and watch our lives. I think they’d be pretty miserable if they could see some of the stuff that we do. It does say in the 12th chapter of Hebrews that we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses and there are many interpretations given to that passage, but I don’t think it means our loved ones are able to watch us. But we do know that God is able to watch us, and Christians, we have come into a relationship with the Living God through His Son Jesus Christ and we call God “Father.” He watches every action of our lives, and we must long to please Him as we live life in this world. Enoch longed to please God and he did. And, if you don’t long to please God, you never will.
How can we please God? We please God when we walk with God. We please God by faith. We please God by a faith that issues and obedience and also, we please God by a faith that issues in trust. It says Enoch was attested ts having pleased God and without faith, it is impossible to please God, for “he who would draw near to God must believe that he exists and hat He’s the rewarder of those who seek Him.” God loves to see in you a faith that issues in trust, that you really expect—in the midst of every circumstance of life—you expect God’s deliverances. You expect his protection. You expect His provision. You expect His care. God loves to see a faith like that. Enoch has a faith like that, and God was pleased.
There’s a third message in this passage, a third statement concerning Enoch. It is simply this. We are told that Enoch was “taken up.” He was not found for God had taken him. I’m sure that many of you have heard of Amelia Earhart. She was the famous woman pilot back in the early days of aviation. She was the first woman to make a transatlantic flight. She flew as a passenger in 1928 on a plane from Newfoundland to Wales. She wrote a book about her experiences on that primitive flight. She married her publisher, a man named George Putnam. In 1932, she became the first woman to make a solo transatlantic flight. She flew her own plane, alone, from Newfoundland to Ireland. In subsequent years, she became the first woman to fly from Hawaii to the Mainland United States, solo. She became the first woman to make a solo flight across the Continental United States. She went east to west and west to east. In 1937, she tried to become the first woman to make a solo flight around the world. Somewhere around Howling Island in the Pacific, she disappeared. They did not find her. They didn’t find her plane. They didn’t find her body. She simply was not. Some people think that she died alone somewhere in the sea. Others think that she went into hiding and seclusion. They do not know. She simply was not.
Throughout history, there have been people like that, but Enoch was not truly one of them. Enoch was not found, not because he died alone somewhere, or because he went into hiding or seclusion. The Bible says Enoch was not found because “God took him from the earth.” God took him from the earth to heaven. From this life to the next life, the Bible says Enoch was “translated.” Now to the Jew, Enoch became the very hope of resurrection from the dead, but Enoch is not really a symbol or a type of resurrection from the dead because Enoch did not die. He circumvented death. He went directly from this life to heavenly life. Enoch is actually a symbol and type of another biblical event, a biblical event we as Christians call the “rapture.” The Bible says, “There will come a time of great tribulation on this earth.” Jesus spoke of it as he prophesied in Matthew, chapter 25. He says it will be a “time of tribulation such as the world has never known.”
The Book of Daniel and the Book of Revelation have indicated that perhaps this time of tribulation will encompass seven years. It will be a time of famine. It will be a time of economic confusion. It will be a time of growing international hostilities. It will be a time like today. It will be a time when the Jews are regathered to their homeland and become a nation again. It will be a time when this little, reborn nation of Israel, the prophet said, will become the focus of the world’s attention. It will be a time when the nations of the earth will polarize themselves with respect to each other concerning the nation of Israel and will be a time which leads to Armageddon. But the Bible says, “For the Christian, it will be a time of rapture.”
Some Christians believe that we will be raptured before the tribulation. Some believe we will be raptured in the middle of the tribulation. Some believe that we will be raptured at the end of the tribulation. I have views on those things. We don’t have time to share them now. The simple truth that we want to proclaim is this: we will be raptured! Like Enoch, those who live until the return of Christ will simply be taken from this earth. Translated from this life to a heavenly life. From this body to a resurrected body. We will circumvent death.
All Christians are promised eternal life. Even those who die in this life or in past generations. Their souls and spirits go immediately into heaven, and at the second coming of Christ, they experience bodily resurrection. But there will be some who do not need bodily resurrection in the sense of having died because they will continue to remain on the earth until Christ comes and they will be translated. We live in a world that is in desperate need of translation.
Some time ago, I spoke of the Rosetta Stone. It was the very key that enabled linguists and philologists to translate the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics. You see, Egyptian hieroglyphics comprise a dead language. They had no meaning, no purpose. No one could understand them. They were simply scribblings on stone. But then in 1799, Napoleon’s soldiers discovered this mysterious Rosetta Stone in the mud on the banks of the Nile. The Rosetta Stone is kept in London today. The Rosetta Stone was inscribed 210 years before Christ. It was inscribed to commemorate the ascension of Ptolemy V to the Egyptian throne. He was sometimes called Epiphanes, sometimes Illustrious. But that inscription, that commemoration to Ptolemy VI was written in three languages. At the top of the Rosetta Stone, the inscription is written in ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics. In the middle of the Stone, it is written in the demodic text which was the common Egyptian language of the day. At the bottom of the Stone, it was written in Greek. Scientists and linguists were able to translate the inscription in Greek and demodic and thereby were able to translate the Egyptian hieroglyphics, and suddenly that dead language was translated to life. Suddenly, that useless, empty, meaningless scribble was translated to purpose and meaning.
We live in a world where people desperately need a Rosetta Stone. They need a translator. They need someone to change them from death to life. From emptiness and uselessness and purposelessness to meaning and purpose, and the Bible tells us there is one and only one Rosetta Stone. There’s only one translator and He is Jesus Christ. He translates us from death to life. The Bible says, “This is the testimony. That God has given us eternal life and that life is in His Son. He who has the Son has life, and he who has not the Son of God, has not life.” Jesus Christ. The source of resurrection, the source of translation, the source of life. The eternal life which Enoch provided a type and symbol of. As Christians we know that like Enoch, we will be translated. We will have eternal life, and through Enoch this morning, God gives us two exhortations.
He says to all of us, “Walk with me on this earth,” and He says, “Long to please me.” If you are like Enoch, and you long to have that day come when you will stand before the Living God, you will stand before the Risen Christ, and you long to him Him say, “Well done, my good and faithful servant.” Shall we pray?