“It’s a Miracle: Enoch walked with God”
Genesis 5:24
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus.
History has had more than its share of strange and unexplained disappearances, of those who, for one moment, were here, and the next, were gone.
When District Attorney Ray Gricar vanished in 2005, people knew something was wrong. The last time anyone had heard from him was when he called his wife, telling her he was driving through Brush Valley. Eventually, police found his car beneath a bridge. Now, in and of itself, that wasn’t strange. But what was strange was that his county-issued laptop was found deep in a river. It was so badly damaged, no one was able to find anything of value. More than ten years later, still no one knows what happened to Ray Gricar.
In 1967, Harold Holt, (the Prime Minister of Australia no less!), decided to go for a swim at a beach when he suddenly and completely disappeared. Supposedly, he was a strong swimmer and had no trouble holding his breath underwater. So when he disappeared, people began to wonder—was it a shark or was it strong currents? Or maybe it was a Soviet assassination or a Chinese submarine! Whatever happened that day in the ocean, no one’s seen him since.
And in 1978, military pilot Fred Valentich was on a training mission, when he suddenly radioed to report that an unidentified aircraft was following him at around 4,500 feet. He said he could see four bright landing lights as the craft flew closer and closer to his plane. Then, stranger still, when the control tower asked him to identify the aircraft, he said it wasn’t an aircraft. That’s when his transmission was interrupted by a scraping, metallic noise. Then neither he nor his plane were ever seen or heard from again.
And that’s nothing to say of a man in Seattle, Washington, this past February, whose last words to a friend were, “My luck has run out,” or Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 in March of 2014, with its 239 passengers and crew. Where did they go? What did they do? We may never know.
In the book of Genesis chapter 5, the Bible also tells of a strange and mysterious disappearance, of a man whose name was Enoch.
Listen to what it says: “When Enoch had lived 65 years, he fathered Methuselah. Enoch walked with God after he fathered Methuselah 300 years and had other sons and daughters. Thus all the days of Enoch were 365 years. Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him.”
It’s been said that Genesis chapter 5 is not one of the most exciting chapters in the Bible. It’s as if Moses wanted to “bridge the gap,” if you will, to tell us something of the “who, where and why,” of Genesis, between the time of the first man, Adam, and Noah and the flood. One author even called it the “and he died” chapter.
If you’d take a moment to look at it, you’d see what I mean. Verse 5 says, “Adam lived 930 years, and he died.” Verse 8 says: “All the days of Seth were 912 years, and he died.” Verse 14: “All the days of Kenan were 910 years, and he died.” Verse 17: “All the days of Mahalalel were 895 years, and he died.” And verse 20: “Thus all the days of Jared were 962 years, and he died.”
But when we get to verse 21, we find something different. That’s where we hear of a man named Enoch.
Now Enoch was different than all those who lived before him. For out of all the names of those listed in the words of Genesis chapter 5, “and he died…and he died…and he died,” he’s the only one of whom it says, “And he walked with God.”
Why is that so strange? You’ll have to remember that, in those days, they didn’t have Bibles like we do today, and neither did they have the written Ten Commandments. Moses wouldn’t live for another couple thousand years. There was no “fellowship of believers,” no prophets and no preachers. And so, year after year, and decade after decade, men’s hearts slipped further and further away from God. In fact, by the time of Noah, the Bible says: “Every thought of the human heart was only evil all the time.”
But somewhere and sometime in the midst of that unfaithful, ungodly bunch of women and men, there was one who was faithful—a man named Enoch, a man who walked with God.
What does it mean to walk with God? What does it mean to walk with anyone? It means you walk together, close by one another, maybe even arm-in-arm and hand-in-hand. You talk, you laugh, you listen, you love, and you share your hearts. Sure there’s a world around you with its sights and sounds of all kinds. But you focus your attention on that one person to the exclusion of almost everything else. You’re at peace. You’re in harmony.
And walking with God is just like that. And so it should be, for He’s not only our God—He’s our Brother and Friend. Meeting with Him is not just something we do on Sunday morning. It’s a life of unbroken worship and fellowship. As Jesus Himself once said in the book of John: “I know My sheep, and My sheep know Me.”
That’s what it means to walk with God.
If you don’t mind, I’d like to ask you a rather personal question. You don’t have to answer, at least not out loud. But if you could, I’d like you to think, for just a moment, about this question--how do you want to be remembered?
The truth is, someday, when you’re no longer here with us, your place in the pew will be empty and we will remember you. We remember so many others. And just like them, we’ll remember you too. But the question is, how will we remember you?
Author Daylle Schwartz writes of a woman she knew who passed away suddenly at the age of forty-one, a woman whose name was “Cindy.” She was strong and healthy and never expected to be killed in a car accident. One moment she was here. The next, she was gone.
And she writes that, at her funeral, she spoke with her friends about the woman they knew and loved. And the things they said about her had such an impact on her, she said she didn’t want people to remember her the way they remembered “Cindy.”
They didn’t say anything bad, really. She was a nice person, they said. She meant well. Someday, she had plans to write a book, and to make time for a local charity. But she kept putting it off for the future, which for her, was suddenly and tragically over.
She was practical, they said. She waited for prices to go down before she took that trip to Europe she longed for. She kept up with her chores rather than help at that charity event. She was always waiting for the right time to do all the things she wanted to do. Then came the accident and, then, she couldn’t do any of the things she wanted to do.
When others have been asked how they wanted to be remembered, this is what they said: “I want to be remembered as the girl that always brought a smile, the one you could always count on for a cry, a hug, an ear, a laugh and a memory…for making marriage work till death do us part, raising a gorgeous family, and always setting an example in my relationship with Christ.” Another said, “I want to be remembered as a great father and loving husband, as an honest man that put others before himself, and made a difference in this world that will last after death.” A woman wrote, “I want to be remembered as my husband’s best friend.” One simply wrote, “I want to be remembered as awesome!” And a man in his 40s wrote, “I’d like to be remembered for being extremely old.”
But of all the ways we could remember you and will remember you, probably the best is the way we’ll remember this one whose name was Enoch: “He walked with God.”
Sure, some might say we were never perfect. We had more than our share of flaws and failures of all kinds. But above it all and through it all, may it be said of us that, just like Enoch, we walked with God.
The story is told of a little girl who came home from church one Sunday and her mother asked what she had learned in Sunday School. The little girl said, “We talked about Enoch.”
“You did?” her mother asked. “What did you learn about him?”
The girl answered, “Well, apparently, Enoch was a man who used to walk with God. God would come by Enoch’s house every morning and say to him, ‘Enoch, would you like to go for a walk with Me today?’ and Enoch would go with Him.
“Well, I guess this went on for a really long time, and every day they would walk a little farther. And one day, they walked so far and it got so late in the day that God told Enoch, ‘Enoch, we really walked a long way today, and it’s getting really late. We’re a lot closer to My house than we are to yours. Why don’t you come home with Me?’ So Enoch went home with God.”
As you believe in Jesus, know that this world is not your home. It never has been and it never will be. And know that the day is coming when the Lord will turn to you and say, “Come with Me to My house.”
Will you be ready?
Dear Lord, help us to walk with you, just like Enoch did. And when You choose to, please come and call us home. This we ask in Jesus’ name. Amen