A Man Who Walked with God

The Context of Enoch's Life: The Two Seeds and the Bittersweet Genealogy

0:00 The following sermon was delivered at the 1993 New England Baptist Family Conference. As you listen, please keep in mind that Pastor Martin's audience for this sermon consisted of adults and teenagers. We believe that the blunt language used in parts of this sermon would not have been appropriate were young children listening, but that it was appropriate for the teenagers and adults who were present. We are giving this explanation so that you will not be unnecessarily offended and will use discretion when using this tape with children.

0:33 Now, in our initial study yesterday, I suggested under the imagery or analogy of a picture frame and its border or matting that biblical history and biography ought to be read, studied, and preached in a threefold perspective. It ought to be read, studied, and preached in the light of Jesus. In the light of Genesis 3.15, secondly, in the light of 2 Timothy 3.14-17, and in the light of the principles exemplified by our Lord in His use of biblical history and biography. Now, as we begin to look at the biblical portrait of Enoch, with that triangular frame and matting setting off that portrait, it is, it is particularly crucial to remember the first of those three perspectives, namely, that which Genesis 3.15 sheds upon the light of Enoch. If you will turn to the book of Genesis with me, and by way of introduction,

1:53 spend just a few moments attempting to have our eyes fixed upon the life of Enoch with a fresh awareness, of that triangular framework and matting, you will remember that in Genesis chapter 4 there are basically four main units of thought. There is the unmistakable emergence of the two seeds in the persons of Cain and of Abel. The opening verses of Genesis chapter 4 are a very powerful commentary on God's commitment having injected enmity to perpetuate that enmity, and we see it coming to unmistakable emergence in Cain and in Abel. Secondly, we see the wicked murder of Abel, the seed of the woman, and the apparent triumph of the seed of the serpent in that Cain slew his brother, Abel. And then thirdly, we have, beginning particularly with verse 16 and going all the way down to verse 24,

3:13 the detailed account of the progress, activity, and nature of the seed of the serpent through Cain and his progeny. And that comes to its culminating expression in the character upon whom the Holy Ghost throws the most light in the world. And that is the character upon whom the Holy Ghost throws the most light in the world. This section, namely, this man, Lamech, the seventh, from Adam through Cain.

3:43 And in this man, godlessness from God, bigamous society, comes to a full-blown expression. And I would urge you, if you have not done so in some time, to read that section in the light of that summation. But then the fourth major unit of thought, in Genesis chapter 4, is the re-emergence of the seed of the woman, or the godly line in the birth of Seth. And notice how the Holy Ghost underscores this. This is 25 and 26. And Adam knew his wife again. And she bare a son, and called his name Seth.

4:38 For, said she, God hath appointed me another seed in the world. Instead of Abel. She was holding that one of her seed would be the one who would bruise the head of the serpent. And she knew that Cain was not that seed.

5:03 He was indeed manifesting his identity, as John tells us, he was of the evil one. He was of the seed of the serpent. But she sees in Seth, God's gracious fulfillment of the promise. And very interestingly, we read, Then began men to call upon the name of Jehovah.

5:29 And in conjunction with the birth of Seth, and the re-emergence of the seed of the woman, in terms of the promise of Genesis 3.15, social worship begins to be manifested as an institution, as an institution, as an institution, as an institution, as an institution, as an institution, as an institution, in human society. Then as we come to Genesis 5, we encounter a bittersweet genealogical record of the patriarchs from Adam up until the time of Noah. And if you've never looked at a chart that shows the overlapping with these lengthy ages of those patriarchs, I would commend to you finding someone who has such a chart, but it's striking when you see the tremendous longevity and realize the overlapping of so many of these from Adam until the time of Noah. But now, why have I said it's a bittersweet genealogical record? Well, it's bitter because each person who is introduced to this common denominator, the words begin with the fact that so-and-so lived, but every account, ends with the words after enumerating the number of his years, and he died.

6:57 And Seth lived,

7:00 he died. And Enoch,

7:05 he died. And Kenan lived, and he died. And Mahalahu lived, and he died. And Jered lived, and he died.

7:20 I say it is a bitter, genealogical record because it records the death of Adam and all of the sons of Adam, and that horrible threat pronounces its fulfillment in the reality of death. And in those days when people were living seven, eight, and nine hundred plus years, death would have an even more bitter sting. Think of the tremendous, extended families formed by that longevity. The massive network of relations, and with those relations hallowed memories sanctifying associations only to have the tallest men eventually toppled by the sharp ax of death. Some of us who have experienced the death of a parent understand, perhaps, with a little more insight how when the grave is opened and the body of that loved one is placed in the grave, the tremendous sense of loss and some of us who come from a large family where our parents have been given

8:45 great longevity into their 80s or 90s can appreciate even perhaps a little more what it would have been like to have had that network multiplied on out into seven, eight, and nine hundred years only to one day hear the news great, great, great, great, great, great granddad has died and with him and with grandma all of those solemn realities. But I say it is a bittersweet genealogical record because tucked away in the midst of this record of this one who lived and begat children and lived so many years after he begat children and died we have verse 21 and Enoch lived sixty and five years and begat Methuselah and Enoch walked with God after he begat Methuselah three hundred years and begat sons and daughters and all the days of Enoch were three hundred sixty and five years and Enoch walked with God and Enoch was not for God took him. No word said of Enoch and he died but in its place

10:13 and he took him. And as surely as godlessness intensified concentrated expression in the seventh from Adam through the line of Cain in the person of Laman so it is interesting this one designated by Jude as the seventh from Adam but the seventh through the line of Cain that godliness not only to enact me of expression in the biblical record thus far but in an expression that perhaps is nowhere in all exceeded by any other description of a godly life. And so it is though God directing Moses to deal with the raw materials of the early history of the human race is setting before us the great truth of Genesis 3.16 by concentrating by pointing the floodlight of the influence of divine inspiration on the seventh from Adam through the line of Cain this boastful, bigamous, secular,

11:36 A man called Lamech, who composes a poem in which he celebrates his bigamy, celebrates his brutality and heartlessness, and celebrates his impiety by his sarcastic remark about the avenging of Cain. And yet, in the seventh generation from the same that Abed given in the place of Abel, God sets before us the life of this man, Enoch, who walked with God, who was not for God to kill. Midway from the fall to the flood, we have the record of this man, Enoch. And as I suggested yesterday, we're going to contemplate his life, having just looked briefly at that part of the framework and matting, which is of greatest significance as we contemplate Enoch in this first message. We contemplate him as the man who walked with God, the man who witnessed for God, and the man who went to God. Today, we take up the first of these aspects of the life of Enoch.

The Significance of 'Walked with God'

12:58 Namely, the man. The man who walked with God. And we'll consider this subject under three headings. First, the significance of the term, walked with God.

13:12 The significance of the phrase, walked with God. It is found twice with reference to Enoch. Verse 22, and Enoch walked with God after he begat Methuselah 300 years. And verse 24, and Enoch walked with God.

13:39 Now, you might think that a phrase that epitomizes covenant, communion, and fellowship with God, introduced so early in the book of Genesis, would be one of those things like the fear of God and similar terms that would be found many times in the Scriptures. But if you search your Bible carefully, you'll find that this precise in the whole of Scripture. It is found used with reference to Noah in chapter 6 and verse 9. These are the generations of Noah.

14:19 Noah was a righteous man and perfect in his generations. Noah walked with God. And the only other book of the Old Testament, and though the proper name of God is not used, it is indeed the subject of the pronoun in Malachi, where Malachi describes the idea. He described him.

14:47 In this way, Malachi chapter 2 and verse 6. The law of truth was in his mouth.

14:59 He walked in peace and in uprightness.

15:07 Now, granted, there are parallel terms such as to walk.

15:19 And again, in chapter 24 and verse 40, there is the phrase, but the term walked once of Levi in the ideal.

15:53 And to 12, Enoch walked because he was his friend.

16:41 Because he was. He had no desire for anything but what lay in God's path. You're looking at the most technical comments. To the more you'd like to take this, put them into Martin.

17:26 And hopefully have beginning with D that will help fast.

17:35 Meant for in the company. He had delight in the company.

18:02 Distain.

18:07 You may take a force. You're in the military.

18:27 And you're going to be able to pick out that and say, hey, let's go together. You pick out the person. In whom you take your walk. And when it is said then of Enoch that he upon where he found in the company of God did not.

19:16 He was that we walked with God until God himself becomes your chief delight with God.

20:37 If you only have the actings of and still make you will have with him until you know delight in the company of God. But then secondly, Enoch walked with God because he not only had delight in the company of God, but he had a determination to means to meet out here on the. You go that away and I go together. It cannot be said that I walked with you or that you walk with me. One or the other must say, hey, let's go this way.

22:01 And the other must in honor preferring one another say, sure, let's go that way. Now, if they're both so determined in honor to prefer one another, they may end up in a fistfight because they can't agree who should submit to the other. But seriously, if you're going to walk together, someone must determine.

22:20 And when it is said of Amos three shall to walk together, except they have agreed. And the answer is obvious. And if Enoch walked.

23:35 But then thirdly, if Enoch walked with God determination to go in the ways of God detested that would take him away from God. He had a deep every ant that crawls.

24:14 Every bird that splits a tree. It's the most tedious thing. They're constantly here and chase the other. If you are to walk together, they're your companion in walking.

24:42 And if it is said of Enoch that he walked with God and did this for a hundred years, surely the man by the grace of God. It was his enemy in God and his company detested that would take him away from God. Now. I want to amplify this every enticement in the walk of a man or woman, boy or girl with God is a fork. Every temptation is a fork in the road.

Application: Detesting Sin and the 'Forks in the Road'

25:44 God will always lead in the path of righteousness to go in where he was confronted with the sin that would please my flesh.

26:42 That would bring me into control of the devil.

26:56 You know, that fork is in this place.

27:04 I'm going to get there. You know where that for wherever it is, because I ain't been there and I won't be there.

27:21 And there's some of you. Among men who know from your past experience that you cannot be in that kind of an intimate mixed bathing situation where young women are not just in the water, half naked, but out on the fringe of the pool and walking around with this much of their thighs showing and in the activities, their cleavage showing. You know, you can't be in that situation without committing mental adultery. You know it from your past experience who said adultery already and adultery, I would be willing to say without being afraid of being contradicted, has been committed mentally by perhaps more than we would like to acknowledge already on this campus this week in this family conference.

28:22 I want to ask you something, young man. You say you love God. You say you want to walk with God with all your heart. You want to walk with God.

28:33 Bad enough. In a heart. To stay.

28:39 So that you might walk.

28:49 Walk with God. Bad enough.

28:56 Every man's conscience and any man who swims don't have the strength that some of you apparently have to be around all that bared flesh and still walk with God in the way of uprightness in the light of the seventh commandment.

29:18 And if you want it, there are a lot more of you that are like me than perhaps you're willing to admit.

29:26 And you young women, you can't find a modest bathing suit. That's a cop out. But listen, even if you couldn't. Then you'd rather stay out of the pool than be the occasion of sin to another.

29:41 For Jesus said, it is necessary that offenses come, but woe unto him through whom the offense cometh. It were better that a millstone be hanged about his neck and he be drowned in the sea.

29:56 There's the fork.

30:24 Did you get cooled off in the shower?

30:30 Sebastian Martin took out a big set of tweezers this morning. Yes, I did. But are you prepared to tell me I'm overstating the case? Is there anyone who will come to me with an open Bible and an honest heart?

30:54 The fact that that pool is a fork.

31:02 You think I forgot what it was like to be your age?

31:08 If a happily married man was drunk from the well of his own wife for 37 years and knows the delight, see, of the marriage bed and all. Knows that pool is a fork.

31:26 Come on, guys, don't try to con me. Can't keep your eyes off all that flesh and you know it.

31:39 Who are you trying to kid?

31:43 Walking with God doesn't mean as much to me as seeing bared thighs. That's what you're saying.

31:52 You want to walk with God bad enough? It's crunch time.

32:00 You want to walk with God bad enough? You've worked. You've labored. You deserve to be the TV guide or given program over public television or occasionally over network television.

32:17 You say, surely this is something I can watch with innocent laughter or education.

32:28 Put everything in your mind. And will seem desires. There's a fork and God isn't turning, flipping off the television, clicking it off with your remote control or turning in the direction of watching the rest of the program at the expense of having no fellowship with God in that period of indulgence of iniquity.

33:12 Enoch walked with God and no one can walk with God in this sinful world who does not hide in the company of God. No matter how innocent. It may be in itself. You say, well, well, well, have you been a killjoy?

33:48 No, no, my friend. I want you to kill sin before it kills you. I'm not out to kill anybody's joy. Because in thy presence, there is fullness of joy.

34:00 At thy right hand, there are pleasure forevermore. And the young person here who's so determined to walk with God who sits there and says, as much as my faith. As much as my faith. As much as my flesh hates to admit it.

34:13 Pastor Martin's right. I have indulged mental adultery. I see that I've been the occasion of stumbling to fellows.

34:25 The time you'd spend at that pool, you spend walking about God's creation or sitting in your room alone, crying out. You'll find that in his presence, there is fullness of joy. And you'll come away saying, whatever fun and cooling of my body I could have had at the pool. What I've known.

34:49 What I've known of God's presence is infinitely worth any price I've paid.

34:59 And I want to tell you something. I'm not talking as an old man who, quote, had his fun and now is trying to spoil yours. When God saved me at age 17 as a kid who grew up on Long Island Sound, the Connecticut side, whose earliest childhood memories are those of being carried by my dad and thrown in the water. When I was about five, saying, son, it's time you learned to swim.

35:27 Spent hours, a five-minute walk from the ocean.

35:33 God implanted that in my breast up in Connecticut. Not down in parts of the South where mixed bathing was a no-no culturally. But in a part of the North where I was.

35:54 And at that time, those bathing suits would be laughed out of existence. Now they covered so much. There was still so much flesh there. That I said.

36:05 That if I'm going to walk with God in uprightness, that's the end of my time. So don't tell me you're an old man who had your fun. No. I was a young man when I tasted delight in God.

36:25 And that was worth far more than sun and surf and sands of God. You're as lost as when you faced it and owned up to where you are.

36:49 Enoch walked with God.

The Setting of Enoch's Walk: Limited Light, Increasing Wickedness, and Domestic Pressures

36:58 Significance of the term. Now then. Consider with me in the second place. The setting in which he walked with God.

37:09 We've looked at the significance of the term. Walked with God. But you say. Maybe.

37:14 Maybe he was able to do so in a setting so radically different from our own. Oh no. The Holy Ghost emphasizes three aspects of the setting in which he walked with God. And the parallels are far more than are the discrepancies.

37:32 First. It was an age of relatively little spiritual light and special revelation that Enoch walked with God.

37:45 Enoch had no five books of Moses, no book of Psalms, no Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Galatians, Ephesians, book of Revelation. He did have Adam who lived until 57 years before Enoch was translated. That's the accuracy. He was translated in 980.

38:05 He was translated in 937 after creation. Adam died in 930 after creation. So Enoch had this whole period, the first 300 years of his life, overlapping with Adam and the other patriarchs. And from Adam, the living progeny of Adam, who constituted the godly line, Enoch would have learned the basic truths revealed by God to Adam concerning creation, innocence, fall, and death.

38:36 Fall. Curse. Promise of redemption through the seed. The place of sacrifice in approaching God.

38:45 The history of righteous Abel. The birth of Seth as the special seed. Enoch would have had all the revelatory data hidden to Adam. And it would have been accurate because Adam was still alive until 57 years before he was translated.

39:02 When his life and walk with God was well established. So his walk with God was...

39:08 Not some mystic fight into Never Never Land with no doctrinal framework or content. No, he had revelatory data. Creation. Innocence.

39:19 Fall. Redemption and mercy through the promised seed. The place of sacrifice. The history and end of righteous Abel.

39:28 The emergence of Seth. But compared to the light we possess. Compared to the realities of a manifested self. Compared to the realities of a manifested self.

39:38 Compared to the realities of a manifested self. A savior. An outpoured spirit. A completed Bible.

39:43 And centuries of the fruit of godly men. Studying this Bible and the church wrestling with its truth. And coming more and more to an accurate understanding of it. I say by comparison he had relatively little light.

40:03 Yet he walked with God. The context of his walk with God was an age of relativism. Relatively little spiritual light. Secondly, it was in a society of increasing wickedness and moral degeneration that Enoch walked with God.

40:25 Remember, the seventh from Adam through Cain was this man Lamech. And though God had raised up the godly seed through Seth. And the people of God began to circle the wagons and be identified by...

40:42 And the people of God began to circle the wagons and be identified by... Public calling upon God.

40:46 Nonetheless, there is no indication that there was such a geographical separation of the two seeds. That Enoch did not feel the pressure of that secularized, but in many ways cultured society of Lamech. It's always fascinated me. And I still don't have the answer.

41:07 And even when I preached on that section and gave some tentative explanations. Why does God underscore that all of those who are engaged in what we would call the arts and music. And perhaps sculpturing and pottery as well as engineering are said to have come out of the godless line of Lamech. And with that was this secularized brutality.

41:40 And this despising of the sacredness of marriage. And he becomes a bigamist or a digamist. He has two wives.

41:55 And then this society that the wickedness of men is so great that God says I'm going to blot them all out.

42:09 The tendencies that ripen into the state before the flood. And it must have risen to such a height that when we study God willing tomorrow. The man who witnessed for God. The word ungodly.

42:24 And again, even from Adam's folks. And their ungodly deeds. And they're not living in a goal. In an age of great revival.

42:37 He wasn't even living in a blessed age when there were great remnants of common grace. He was living in what Jesus would describe in Matthew 24 and verse 12. An age in which lawlessness began to multiply.

43:10 Listen. The holy.

43:13 In chapter 6 and verse 1. As the first explicit statement of how this ungodliness came to. Oh God help me. To see a form is such that there is a sense of being drawn and attracted.

43:53 No, no. They didn't care about character. Form was everything.

43:58 It was Jack LaLanne day.

44:04 Bally's day.

44:14 And indifference to cast. That's the kind of day this man walked with God. So don't let anyone say oh well you can't walk with God.

44:26 The age in which Enoch lived. Yet he walked with God. An age of relatively little spiritual light. An age of increasing wickedness and moral degeneration and thirdly it was in the midst of the ordinary domestic pressures privileges joys and sorrows that Enoch walked with God.

44:50 That was the setting. And isn't it interesting. It's that aspect that the Holy Ghost emphasizes. Look at the text.

44:57 Enoch walked with God after he begat Methuselah 300 years. And he continued to begat sons and daughters. And all the days of Enoch were 360 and five years. And Enoch walked with God.

45:17 God marks the beginning of his experience of walking with God.

45:25 The birth of Methuselah. Then for the next 300 years he continues to begat sons and daughters. Now think for a minute. When you live that long how many kids do you bear?

45:39 How many? How many go through the quote terrible twos and the frightening fours and then the convoluted pre-adolescence and then the zits come and they think they're ugly and feel the whole world is looking at the latest zit that comes out on the end of the nose.

46:06 The young women come into puberty and some are ashamed of the identifying marks that their women didn't begin to stoop.

46:14 Maybe others have gotten into the wrong crowd and they begin to strut. My friends you think human nature. Is radically different in this age? No, it's one of the curses of so much of the thinking and preaching that this is some peculiarly unique, utterly special age.

46:32 It's nothing but stinking rotten pride.

46:36 There is no new thing under the sun.

46:40 And in that age when people are beginning to degenerate into body worship and be attracted to their life partners not on the basis of grace and of character but fair. He's keeping him awake at night knowing what it is. To rejoice the first time the kid sleeps for six hours and man you're ready to call the whole city to a celebration. You say a night's sleep?

47:08 Finally. And if you've had colicky kids, Paula Moore, he went through all of that how many times? And then imagine all the fights he had to sort out. I mean it's one thing to have two or three kids come in and daddy this, mommy this, daddy this.

47:23 How many did he have to sort out? Imagination work folks, the Holy Ghost doesn't write this for nothing with all the domestic pressures. Seeking to provide. By the sweat of his brow under the curse pronounced upon Adam with an unyielding earth with thorns and briars trying to choke the fruit of his labors to provide.

47:58 As a man who walked with God no doubt as soon as his sons were able to hold a rake in a hoe they weren't sitting around watching the boob tube while dad sweated. They were out in the field with him. And God have mercy on you dads that provided the sweat of your brow and make a lazy bum out of your son. And you mothers.

48:15 Savoring. Sweating. Even sweating. In the kitchen while your daughters treated like some queen waiting to ascend her throne.

48:25 Not made to enter into domestic duties and taught domestic responsibilities. This man walked with God and surely he incorporated into the family life and efficient use of the talents and energies and all the rest. But stink what it meant with all and all of the ages of development through which so many children would have passed. Walked with God.

48:52 Walked with God. Not off on a hill somewhere in a tent all by himself, meditating like a monk.

49:03 Maybe his wife had an intense case of PMS. And she went wacko once a month. Five days before her period, from the most sweet, reasonable woman, she went out of her tree.

49:18 At the end of it, she'd come and say, I'm so sorry.

49:25 No, dear. I'm trying to dwell with you according to knowledge. It ain't easy at times. Dear people, do you read?

49:48 He walked with God. And they were all by nature fallen daughters of Adam. They could lie as well as anybody else's kids. They could come to family worship with that look.

50:03 That if it ever were translated into words, they'd have the thrashing of their lives. They know just where that line is. They know where the line is where if they set the face, you'll be disciplined because you're cussing with your face. They know just where that line is.

50:18 That if you read that into it, you say, I'm being overbearing. They know right where that line is. To show disinterest, lack of desire, lack of hard engagement, but restrained enough that they know you're fair enough that you're going to give them the benefit of the doubt that maybe they're just preoccupied. You kids didn't think we knew you that well, did you?

50:43 We were there once.

50:48 Yeah. You know right? He walked with God. There were times.

50:56 And had to ask the child and realize he was too indulgent. And had to ask the child to forgive him for his overindulgence. And take him in the back room and wail the tar out of him. In the midst of all of those pressures, he walked with God.

51:18 Do you see the glorious possibilities that statement sets before us? What was the context in which he walked with God? The context was one of relatively limited spiritual life. And moral.

51:38 And generation. And there we have great parallels. In the midst of ordinary pressures, privileges, joys, and sorrows of ordinary domestic life, he walked with God. Well, having looked at the significance of the term, he walked with God.

The Source of Enoch's Walk: Reconciliation and Faith

51:56 The setting in which he walked with God. I want to take my remaining 15 minutes to focus your attention now upon the source of his experience. Of walking with God. The source of his experience of walking with God.

52:15 Was this something native to him? No. For we know from scripture that from the time Adam sinned, Romans 5.12 says, Through the one man Adam, sin entered into the world, and death passed upon all men, for that all sinned in Adam.

52:35 And Enoch could pray David, saying, And Enoch could pray David, saying, And Enoch could pray David, saying, David's prayer, equal conviction and truth, behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. He was by nature, in solidarity with Adam, a condemned, fallen, rebel, marred image-bearer of God. He was from conception, a sinner. And that being true, Romans 8.7 was true of him by nature.

53:11 Romans 8.7 was true of him by nature. The carnal mind is enmity against God. It's not subject to either indeed, can it be?

53:18 He had no delight in God. If God said, hey, anyone want to go with me? Enoch by nature would have said, God, if you're going to have company, it ain't going to be me. The carnal mind is enmity against God.

53:32 And God says, I'm taking a walk. As Enoch would have said, count me out. It's not subject to the law of God. All we like sheep have gone astray.

53:43 We've turned everyone to his own way. We drink iniquity like water. But apparently, in events surrounding the birth of Methuselah and what they were, we do not know. The commentators speculate.

53:58 Was it the wonder of birth itself? Was it the pressure of feelings he held this child? If I cannot give this child more than what I have, God have mercy on him. If all I've given him is what I've inherited from my great-great-grandfather Adam, if all I give him is what I am, then woe, woe be to this son.

54:22 Maybe it was that that turned him to seek God. For remember, men were calling upon God. There were places of instituted public worship. And no doubt with Adam as the chief patriarch, occasionally checking in to see if the oral tradition about creation, innocence, fall, and the promise were being kept accurate.

54:42 He learned, perhaps, by coming upon such a society, were men called upon God. Maybe it was the preaching that got to his conscience. I don't know. But if we may use the term, his conversion was somehow linked in with verse 22.

55:01 He walked with God after he begat Methuselah 300 years.

55:09 What happened? The source of his experience of walking with God was not in himself natively. Two things happened to him. He was brought into a state of reconciliation.

55:22 He was brought into a state of reconciliation with God. And he was made a penitent, believing sinner by the grace of God. He could only walk with God if he first defiled a God.

55:45 Dear people, the most beautiful being in all the universes.

55:51 Next to him, everything else is ugly, including angels.

55:58 He is beautiful. The sum total of all that is glorious, all that is admirable. And somewhere, through some means unrecorded, he was brought into a state of reconciliation with God. And his feet were taken out of the way of rebellion and self-centeredness and self-will and indifference.

56:24 And he was put on the path in which he began to walk with God. And that only happens when someone is made a penitent, believing sinner by the grace of God. And here I ask you to turn to Hebrews 11 as we close. Because here we do not speculate, argue from the analogy of Scripture in general.

56:47 But here we have a specific commentary on the source of his walking with God.

56:56 By faith, Enoch was translated that he should not see death. And he was not found because God translated him. For he had witness born to him that before his transgression, he had been well-pleasing unto God, and without faith it is impossible to be well-pleasing to God. For he that cometh to God, and you can't walk with him until you come to him, must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that seek after him.

57:37 See, that text comes in close conjunction with the description of Enoch. And before his translation, he had witness born to him that he was well-pleasing to God. He was accepted with God. He came into the path of his travel and said, Enoch, I count it a privilege to link arms with you.

57:59 I saw two of our own church members yesterday walking over, I think, to supper or the evening meal. And it was just as natural to walk between the couple and stick my arms out. And they linked arms and we walked together. Why?

58:15 Because we were going in the same direction. And before I would ever dared to do that, I know that we have a relationship of friendship. It would have been cheeky for me to walk up to strangers and say, who's this guy think he is? But it was as natural as breathing for the woman to slip her arm here and the man in there, and to walk arm in arm.

58:36 Why? Because before that encounter, we have borne witness to one another of our mutual friendship and acceptance. And before God said, Enoch, you're going to walk with me until one day you can take the last step and we're going to change our path from earth to heaven. He had witness borne to him that he was accepted, well-pleasing.

58:57 And the writer says, without faith, it is impossible to please him. And then he focuses upon this dimension of the actings of faith, the conviction that God is, and he rewards those who seek him diligently. You see, we're right in the language of seek the Lord while he may be found. Call upon him while he's near.

59:16 Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return where? Let him return unto the Lord, for he will have mercy upon him and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. It was in the knowledge of a reconciled God, as a penitent believing sinner, that the source of Enoch's walk with God is to be found. And from that point on, he was diligent.

Maintaining the Walk and Its Exploits

59:47 In the means of maintaining that communion with God, he kept a tender conscience. He learned the disciplines of trust. He learned the flesh-withering disciplines of ongoing, continuous repentance and restitution and confession, Godward and manward, and all that is essential, not only to enter in the walk with God, but to maintain that walk with God. And the more we walk with God in the light of his countenance, illuminates our hearts and educates our consciences, the more sensitive we are to our sin, and the more we must seek forgiveness in the way of his appointment, the more we become like God, the more sensitive we are to human relationships. Therefore, the more we must go to people whom we have offended, and if not offended, in whose presence we know we have not conducted ourselves as men and women and boys and girls who walk with God, so that, far from any stupid notion of perfection, he was a man whose penitence increased as he walked with God, but wonder of wonders, so did his faith increase. And the confidence he had in the friendship of this God, they did not know their God shall be strong and do exploits. What were his exploits?

61:08 Raising a large family in a wicked age. That is the only one the Holy Ghost talks about. All the rest God took care of. He did not say one day, .

61:17 I want to go down in history as the man who avoided death and fast and pray for sixty days and have the Lord take him home. This was all God's business. All he did was raise kids and walk with God. All he did.

61:31 Oh, may God help you at this family conference to realize that in this age of abounding wickedness, in this age of increased lamech mentality, of secularism suffused with increasing preoccupation on the one hand, with the brutal in the base and yet the aesthetic and the arts, music in such an age, you may see the nobility of walking with God in the plain Jane context of the domestic sphere. You men being the kind of man described yesterday who have the spirit is planted in the four corners of this house and on the front door. And God's laws obtain in this place. And if you get to, big for your britches to where you can't live with those, there's the front door. I grieve to see the parents that are unwilling to take God's side against the children.

62:43 God's made you his vice regent in your home. Why is that? The my grown married children no more think of seeing me and not hugging me and kissing me and saying, I love your dad. Then spitting in my face, the unsaved as well as the same in my home. It is. I will. Already.

63:37 I impose his ways upon my household. I'll all the way praying. God will implant them in their hearts. I can't put them in their hearts, but I can and must impose them upon the framework of their lives.

Parental Responsibility and Modesty

63:53 I'm going to close getting in trouble again, but I got to do it and I've not doing this off the cuff folks. I pleaded with God alone. I pleaded in concert with my brother with whom I'm rooming this week. Frankly, it's a shame that I should have to speak of the things I did.

64:12 Under my first heading. What is wrong with some of you fathers? You know, how horny we men are by nature that you will let your daughters expose as much flesh as you allow them to expose. You ought to be ashamed of yourself.

64:36 First day. My daughter said they were going to go over to the mall and they had begun to be young ladies and no longer sticks and began to have hips and breasts and said, dad, we're going over and mum to the wall. I said, dress like that. You are.

64:51 They were in the jeans that they wear when they're working around the house. Is it what you mean that I said, you're not going over the mall like that. Why not that? I said, sit down.

64:59 I'll tell you and I won't use in mixed company. The R rated language. I use this is, you know, all the guys that stand around the mall. Yeah.

65:06 So, you know, they're going to say when you pass by. No. And I told him, they daddy. I said, that's what they're going to say.

65:13 And I said, I'm not going to contribute to it. And as long as you're under this house, when you go out in public, you go dressed in such a way that a man's got. To be utterly perverse to lust after you end of discussion. Someday you'll understand.

65:29 And you'll thank me. And both daughters have come back and said, thank you, dad. Now we know what's wrong with you, man. What's wrong with you?

65:42 You afraid of your daughters? Are you out of touch with reality? And if your wife in her naivety doesn't know, it is struck the bathing suits. Her standards been conditioned by your instruction from the word of God, their people to walk with God, to be his vice regent, to be those who by his grace reconciled to him, are determined to walk with him, to know him, to deal brutally with anything that would cut into our communion with him. What our generation needs is a society of Enoch's who walk with God, whatever your calling in life may be. Yes, he was a prophet and a preacher on the side. I know that we take that up tomorrow.

The Call to Walk with God and Future Hope

66:45 He witnessed for God, but the emphasis in the text in Genesis falls upon the ordinariness of his call in which he walked with God. Can you walk with God? Not unless you first of all, been reconciled to God and you won't be reconciled to God unless you repent and we beseech you in Christ. Be reconciled to God.

67:17 And if you would walk with God, then you've got to cultivate delight in God. You've got to be determined to know and to walk in. The ways of God and pray that you'll have a cultivated detestation of anything that would take you away from him. And though we may not go as spectacularly, though those alive at the second coming will, we too, one day it will be said of us, we were not and our spirits will make their way into the presence of the Lord Jesus, the God and Savior of Enoch and the book of the Revelation, which describes the whole redeemed community walking with God and in God for all eternity. For it says God himself will be the tabernacle in which they live. Think of it. We'll live in God.

68:12 Explain that. I can't. Oh, I long to know it. Tabernacle of God is with men.

68:20 God himself will be our dwelling place. And we shall follow the Lamb whithersoever he goes. Does that get you excited? If it doesn't get you excited, down here, it isn't waiting for you out there.

68:34 I close with that simple statement that I've written down and couldn't call to memory. So I want to read it in your hearing. No man. I better read it because I've lost it in my head.

68:48 If you will not be a saved sinner on earth, you'll never be a glorified Saint in heaven. We've got to become a saved sinner like Enoch on earth. If you be a glorified Saint in heaven, with Enoch. Let us pray.

69:13 Our Father, we thank you for the record of this man, Enoch. But more than that, we thank you with the display of your grace in this man's life. We do not build a shrine to Enoch, but we fall down before you, Enoch's God, and worship you for your work in him, and pray that that work will be wrought in us. Seal your word, where there is any resistance to its truth and to the applications that have been legitimate.

69:48 O Lord, break down that resistance and bring every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. Whatever has been man's word and not yours, blow upon it and bring it to naught, but seal your word to every heart, for Jesus' sake. Amen.