The Gospel in Genesis No.4 Plotting the Faith Walk

The epistle of John in the first chapter. Some verses I'd like you to follow from this passage and then I'll look up and perhaps you would just listen to three other verses. 1 John chapter one and verse five.

This is the message we have heard from him, our Lord Jesus. And declare to you, God is light in him, there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth.

But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus his son purifies us from every sin. If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.

If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives. When Enoch had lived 65 years, he became the father of Methuselah and after he became the father of Methuselah, Enoch walked with God 300 years and had other sons and daughters. Altogether, Enoch lived 365 years.

Enoch walked with God, then he was no more because God took him away. 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. Enoch the seventh from Adam prophesied about these men. See, the Lord is coming with thousands upon thousands of his holy ones to judge everyone and to convict all the ungodly of all the ungodly acts they have done in the ungodly way and of all the harsh words ungodly sinners have spoken against him.

The chapter from John spoke to us about walking with God. Genesis five tells us about a man who walked with the Lord. Hebrews 11 made further comment about that walk and the epistle of Jude supplies a little more information and it's that walk with God that we're going to be considering in a moment or two this evening.

And now Mrs. Dorothy Stoner is going to sing to us. Thank you, Dorothy. ♪ You see my silver, it shall be no longer mine ♪ ♪ It is my home, my self and I will be free ♪ If I was to give a title to my address as we come to this series once more on the gospel in Genesis, I think I would call it Plotting the Faith Walk.

Plotting the Faith Walk. You know what it is to plot using the word in the area of direction. Let's imagine that you want to get from here, shall we say, to Guilford.

You stretch out a map in front of you. Let's assume that you have a Honda motorcycle and you want to head off in safety. So you make certain marks on the map and possibly you commit them to memory and give it an hour, an hour and a half and you should arrive in Guilford pretty safely.

There would be a beginning to your journey and in the grace of God, a safe end to your journey and along the way you'd be fine. Your direction would be just right. Well, similarly this evening, I want to talk to you, as I say, about plotting the faith walk.

It's a good thing to walk. If you can't jog, walk. Thomas Jefferson said in 1780 that walking was the best exercise available and as he was an American and a president at that, it must be right advice that he offers.

There's a Hindu proverb which says that he who would live for a long time should go for equally long walks which seems, again, to underline what Jefferson had to say and I did read of one elderly, actually American lady who was asked to what cause he put down the fact that she lived such a long time and she said she had recourse to two doctors. One was her right leg and the other was her left leg and as she took good, regular exercise, so she retained health and strength. Now, in the spiritual life, we are called to walk, to walk with our Lord Jesus Christ.

That's the reason why I directed your attention earlier to a statement in John's Gospel which says that if we walk in the light as Jesus is in the light, then we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanses us from every sin. I make no apology this evening for saying this. I want you to be good walkers for God.

I want you to know what it is to walk in the company of the living God for that's really what it means to be a Christian. Now, let's take this very simply so that all shall understand. There's a man whose story is recorded in the opening chapters of the book of Genesis and he stands out as being a remarkable fellow.

His name is Enoch and by coincidence, if you push it back into the Hebrew and try to translate it into English, that very word Enoch means beginning and he was a man who in his life as I shall seek to show you, had a new beginning. There was a time when he didn't walk with the Lord and then there was a time when he kept company with God. He changed direction in his life and perhaps as a result, he changed his companions and I tell you afresh that this evening, I'm out to get for you in your life the greatest companion who can walk down the years with you and be of help to you wherever you go.

You see, a Christian is a person who is closely related to the Lord Jesus Christ. He walks on and on with the Savior and at the beginning and indeed in the middle and right at the end, it requires sustained and determined effort. It's not easy to walk with Jesus Christ but he grants the enabling.

He helps you along the journey. So I declare tonight, it's my argument that you can look at a man with the weird name of Enoch. I better rephrase that in case there are some people who like a particular politician with the rather unusual name of Enoch.

In the Bible here, we can learn a great deal from him. There's only, what, four verses which tell us anything about the story of Enoch and in those four verses which I think if I remember right when I added up the words in the NIV version of the Bible, came to 38 words twice were told by the Holy Spirit who inspired the book of Genesis, Enoch walked with God. So this was the outstanding characteristic in his life.

He walked with God. Let me tell you something for starters. He walked with God in a day when it wasn't easy to walk with the Lord.

If you drop your eyes down to the sixth chapter in the fifth verse, you will find there a description of life when Enoch was around on planet Earth. The Lord saw how great man's wickedness on the Earth had become and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. You see, it wouldn't be true to say that I can't run an analogy, an illustration from Enoch to you, from you to Enoch because it was easy in those days to walk with God.

It wasn't then and it isn't now. The lifestyle of Enoch was different to other people because of the direction along which he decided to go. The majority of his contemporaries were not going the same way.

Earlier on in Genesis in the fourth chapter, there's reference to the sort of thing that was happening on the Earth in those days. It may not be so obvious to you who are reading from the authorized version of the Bible, but if you've got the NIV in the fourth chapter from the 23rd verse and through to the 24th verse, there is the first Hebrew poem that you'll come across in the Bible. And what is it dedicated to? Well, it talks about a man who kills another, a man who in a boastful fashion says that if anyone attacks him, he will slay 77 other people.

It's a boastful, arrogant man who writes the first poem. It's an ungodly generation in which Enoch finds himself when he decides, by God's grace, to walk with the Lord. If you were to check the verse that I read from the final verse that I gave to you earlier from the book of Jude, you would discover that four times references made in Jude to the type of society in Enoch's day.

And the word that is repeated on those four occasions is ungodly. Enoch lived at a time when ungodly men peopled planet Earth. And when you've got ungodly men going in one direction and you're going in a different direction, it's very hard.

It's always hard to fight against current opinion, to swim against the tide, to be the oddball person in your class, in your factory, on your street. Difficult to walk in a way when all the other people are coming in the opposite direction. And that's what Enoch did.

He commenced his walk at a difficult time. I remember on one occasion when I was in Calcutta, I'd been lecturing at the Cary Bible College. And after finishing my ministry there, I had to catch a train.

And the train was going to take me to a place called Ballasore, where I was to commence a campaign for a week. And would you believe it, that when I was through the ministry at Cary College in the heart of Calcutta, it happened to be rush hour. Now, rush hour in Calcutta is a site that needs to be seen, to be believed.

It appeared as though thousands and thousands and thousands of people in all shapes and varieties of vehicles were coming down the main roads, all trying to get to different directions. And everyone, it appeared, was moving away from the center of Calcutta, where there was the railway station. I tried to get a taxi, but it was impossible.

Tried to get on a bus, and there were more people hanging outside on the buses than what were actually inside. And I didn't feel like joining them. And then I managed to stop a rickshaw waller.

A waller is the term that's given to a man who pulls a rickshaw along. A rickshaw's like a tricycle without a front wheel and pedal. Instead of that, you've got a man.

Now, there are two types of rickshaw wallers in Calcutta. There is the quick, and there is the dead. And when I climbed on this fellow's rickshaw, I knew I'd gone for the wrong chap.

He was pulling me against all that traffic that was pouring out of the heart of Calcutta. Not that I was afraid. The fact that I was singing quietly to myself, nearer, my God, to thee, had got nothing to do with the fearful emotions that lesser men might have experienced.

It's difficult, I say, to drive against the traffic, to swim against the stream, to be the odd person in your generation. And that's the story of Enoch. He walked with God at a time when it was difficult.

But let me say something else about Enoch. His walk with God was stimulated by a significant event. If it commenced at an awkward time, I argue secondly, it was stimulated by a significant event.

Will you come back to the 22nd verse? And after he became the father of Methuselah, Enoch walked with God 300 years. It seems as though the birth of his son had something to do with Enoch's change of direction. I've never had the privilege myself, but I reckon it must be a fantastic experience as a father to hold on the first occasion your young son, your young daughter in your arms.

There you were, with your wife, watching the weeks of the pregnancy go by. I'm told that some husbands have such a concern for their wives that they suffer even more than the women folk, but maybe that's a bit exaggerated. But the first time to cradle in your arms some being being that in one sense you have been responsible for giving life to must be a remarkable experience.

And possibly it was that that stopped Enoch in his tracks, that made him think a little bit about life and society which was so sick around him. Maybe he thought that there must be a better way for me to proceed. There must be a better lifestyle for me to adopt as an example to my boy.

Sometimes conversions are brought about by significant happenings in our lives. Maybe it's fear that stops you in your track and makes you think. What's this whole business of living all about? Here we were, the beginning of last week.

The assassination of the Egyptian president, the Middle East in a state of jeopardy. Would there be a war? Would Gaddafi keep his finger off the trigger? Why were the American services on a state of red alert? What was the Soviet Union going to do? And in all this, where do I count? What's the significance of me in these events that could well lead to the outbreak of third world war? Thank God some people are beginning to stop and to think about this mad rush down the Gadarian slopes to extinction in these days. 250 or 350,000 people in Germany last weekend protesting against missile bases in that country concerned about the manufacture of a neutron bomb and so on and they have a right, I say, to be concerned.

Would to God, however, their concern, direct them as this significant event directed Enoch to thoughts of God as their creator. Peter, I pray God in his grace that he might arrest some of us this evening. Yes, it's difficult to walk with the Lord.

It was difficult for Peter to leave his nets and follow Jesus, to give up the security of all that his fishing enterprises on the Galilean Sea brought for him and to risk everything for Jesus Christ. It's never been easy. It wasn't easy for Enoch.

It wasn't easy for Peter. It's not been easy for any missionary, for any pastor, for any Christian down the whole of the story of the church. But thank God for those who determined after a significant event happened in their lives that they'd turn away and they'd walk in a different direction.

So here's Enoch, and he starts to walk with God. And his walk commences, as I said, a difficult time. His walk is stimulated by a significant event.

And what's more, it seems to me that it's punctuated by repeatable blessings. It's punctuated by repeatable blessings. Enoch walked with God 300 years.

That's a pretty long time, isn't it? He didn't run, he didn't rush. He just walked, walked with the Lord. And there were blessings that Enoch received in that faith walk which I argue are repeatable for men and women today who walk with God.

You can't walk with someone unless you've had the blessing of reconciliation. I don't know how many marriages I must have conducted here in the tabernacle, quite a large number. But generally speaking, as those who have entered into wedded bliss in this sanctuary will testify, they get a grueling interview.

In fact, three interviews are the prescribed minimum. Now can you imagine two coming to see me in my vestry and immediately they walk in, they start to squabble. He likes rock music, she's hooked on Beethoven.

He wants to keep his car, she says no, my Honda's all right. And so it goes on. He doesn't want to invest in a mortgage.

He thinks the town hall ought to provide a house and she's a thrifty person. He's not too concerned about prayer meetings and what have you and she's deeply committed to the Lord. The Old Testament prophet says can two walk together unless they be agreed? I'd be insane as a pastor to give whatever blessing I can upon that sort of union.

It has to be agreement. 300 years is a mighty long time. There has to be an agreement between Enoch and God for them to walk together.

And here at the beginning of the Bible, and it's wonderful, Enoch the seventh from Adam, the man who comes between creation and the flood is an illustration of what God in his grace can do for anyone who will trust him. Why did Jesus come onto this earth? He came for one royal reason, to reconcile men and women to God. What is it that stops you walking with God? Well, it's your sin.

Enoch did not have recourse to our Lord Jesus. His ministry was thousands of years in the future, but we have. And what's the essence of the gospel? Be reconciled to God.

How are you reconciled? Well, through the shedding of the blood of Jesus Christ. It's that, says John, when he advises us to walk with God, it's that that cleanses us from all sin. You see, I can't be in agreement with God if I've got sin in my personality.

I can't walk with him and embarrass him throughout the days of my pilgrimage. He won't take me on those terms. But he's made a way whereby I can be reconciled to him.

And it's such a wonderful way that a little child can understand. And as a result, more children put their faith in God through Jesus than adults. Because it's a simple act to say, God forgive me because of Jesus.

I want to be reconciled with you. I want to walk on and on in my life with you. Enoch walked with God and he knew blessings which I argue are repeatable.

The blessing of reconciliation. And what about the blessing of communication? Jesus said on one occasion, when he's talking to his disciples, you know, I don't any longer think of you as servants. Because a servant doesn't know what his master does.

I think of you as friend. Because I'm able to tell you the secrets of my own heart. The Bible describes Abraham as being a friend of God and God spoke to Abraham.

And he shared things with Abraham that he couldn't trust to nobody else. Pastoral confidences on one side, and that's the only exception. I don't know of anything that affects my life personally that my wife doesn't know.

I've got no secret diaries, no secret file, no second or third life she is open to and familiar with everything that affects me. Obviously so. We walk together and we talk even though we've been married for 14 years or so.

Still communicate. The blessings of communication on the spiritual level are even more wonderful and more intimate. I tell you without wanting to make any sort of attempt to theater this evening in the pulpit that my walk with God is more precious to me now than it was 10 years ago or 11 years ago when I came to this church.

When our baptismal candidates were immersed last Sunday on that great evening service, we sang that hymn. When we walk with the Lord in the light of his word, what a glory he sheds on his way, on our way. And I thank God 10,000 times for the glory of just knowing him.

I wish I had words to convince those of you who are skeptical of what I mean. To walk with God is an intoxicating experience. Everything else pales into utter insignificance compared with walking with the Lord.

And here is Enoch at a difficult time. He starts to walk with the Lord, stimulated by an important event, he walks with the Lord. And there are repeatable blessings, blessings of reconciliation, blessings of communication that you and I can experience also in our walk with God.

What's another blessing? Freedom from fear. We live in a world that's saturated by fear. I really mean that.

Two years ago, I thought I was gonna die. It was Christmas morning. And I was on the Upper Brighton Road where it gets to a section that's almost like a motorway, some of you know it, by Lansing Airport.

I was traveling about 60 mile an hour to pick up a dear friend of mine there, a wife of a pastor, pastor now being in glory. I wanted her to be here at our family service and to spend Christmas Day with Rowena and myself. 60 miles an hour, I hit black ice.

Never go on that road again without reliving the experience. Straight across the middle section, oncoming traffic. And I thought, and it's amazing how the mind slows down and can remember what couldn't have taken longer than a few seconds.

Well, Lord, I always wondered how I'd go to meet you. I thought about death before, not in a melancholy fashion, but in a realistic fashion, would I be terrified? And I can still see, catching the glimpse of my own face in the driving mirror, the car completely out of control, went across the middle part of the dual carriage straight through the oncoming traffic and landed eventually on the bank. I can still see my face in my eyes.

There was no terror at all, just peace. I couldn't understand that. I would have thought that I would really have been frightened to death, but I tell you, I wouldn't lie to you.

There's no fear at all. Yea, when I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil, for thou art with me. Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.

You see, the blessings of Enoch are not only repeatable, they are for those of us who have experienced similar things beyond compare. There's no substitute for them. Now do you know this? Do you know this, walk with God.

It's not easy to be a Christian. The sixth form college, college of technology, the art college, not easy to be a Christian in your office, not easy to be a Christian in your shop or wherever you find yourself living out your life Monday through to Saturday. Yes, it means that you have to get your way through opposition, like my driver had to get our vehicle through Calcutta Street's rickshaw and arrive eventually safely at the railway station.

But it's much better to walk, even if you walk alone, with God, than to walk in company with thousands of others traveling in the wrong direction. Enoch walked with God. The final thing I want to share about him is this, that his life was ended in a most unique way.

Listen to my text, Enoch walked with God, then he was no more because God took him away. Have you noticed, and had David White agreed to do the reading of scripture, I was going to get him to read the fifth chapter of Genesis. I didn't risk it myself because there were so many difficult words to pronounce that he opted for the prayer and not the reading.

But have you noticed in the fifth chapter how many times you read just one phrase, look at the fifth verse. Altogether, Adam lived 930 years and then he died. Look at the ninth verse.

Altogether, Seth lived 912 years and then he died. Drop down to the 11th verse. Altogether, Enoch lived 905 years and then he died.

He died, he died. Seven times, eight times in this chapter, reference is made to death. Romans five says that from Adam to Moses, death reigned because men were sinners.

But Enoch had a most unusual ending to his life. Sometimes I like to go to Chichester, to Chichester Cathedral. I'm fascinated by that place.

I have a sort of tendency towards high Anglicanism in some of its forms, in its musical forms rather than its theological forms. And I love even song in an Anglican church. In fact, some of our youth fellowship are aware of my love for Gregorian chant.

When the psalms are chanted, I think it's absolutely beautiful. Tried to convince them it was at one YPF meeting and got absolutely nowhere. Can't understand it.

But another reason why I like to go to Chichester Cathedral and wander around its precincts is because it brings back to my mind the poems of a man who was a favorite of mine when I was at school. I refer to a fellow by the name of Keats, John Keats, who died in his 30s of tuberculosis. He used to wander around those cloistered precincts at Chichester and gain inspiration.

On one occasion, Keats, as he was mulling around, he saw a nightingale that was in the branches of one of the trees. And for Keats, that nightingale had the thought of immortality. And he addresses in one of his great poems a bird.

And he says, thou wast not made for death, immortal bird. And he goes on in the next verse to say, away, away, for I would fly with thee. Here in this chapter, men are recounted time after time as dying as a consequence of their sin.

But physical death was not in God's mind originally when man was created. Man was not originally born to die. He dies because of sin.

He dies because of rebellion. He dies because he has broken the laws of the holy God. But in the beginning of the story of the Bible, in this fifth chapter, there is an illustration of one man for whom the gates of Sheol were never flung open.

And his name is Enoch, because we read that after Enoch had lived 365 years, God took him, and he was not. He never died. God took him to be with himself, as though at the beginning of the Bible, God wanted to have on record what he in his grace could do for any man who would trust him, who would seek out his company.

And Jesus Christ has made it possible for you and for me not to bypass death physically, but spiritually, to know the Lord now and to experience him in a more wonderful way in the eternity that is yet to be. Plotting the faith walk, Enoch changed his direction early on, relatively so, in his long life. He did so at a difficult time, stimulated by a significant event, and his faith walk was, God was punctuated with repeatable blessings, and ultimately, Enoch was to know a unique departure from this world.

I'm through. What about you? Do you walk with God? Are you reconciled to the Heavenly Father? Have you trusted Jesus as your Savior? It's possible, because of God's provision through Christ at the cross, for you to be so linked up with God that you can know him day by day.