In Genesis 5:21 and following we read “When Enoch had lived 65 years, he became the father of Methuselah. After he became the father of Methuselah, Enoch walked faithfully with God 300 years and had other sons and daughters. Altogether, Enoch lived a total of 365 years. Enoch walked faithfully with God; then he was no more, because God took him away.”

If you read the whole chapter of Genesis 5, you get the sense that there was a whole lot of life happening back then – lots of babies being born, people living a really long time, cities being constructed, farms, civilizations etc. But what is VERY absent is man reaching out for God. In fact, in the very next chapter we read “The LORD saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time. The LORD regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled. So the LORD said, ‘I will wipe from the face of the earth the human race I have created—and with them the animals, the birds and the creatures that move along the ground—for I regret that I have made them.’”

But one guys stands out from the crowd – Enoch. Look carefully at the text. In verse 22, it says that “After he became the father of Methuselah, Enoch walked faithfully with God…” Something happened in Enoch’s life that broke him. Enoch, though he couldn’t see or hear God, suddenly became aware of God and began to have a relationship with Him. Consider the timing. What event caused him to look up?

Enoch spent the next 300 years pursuing God, and then something totally strange happened (strange like out of a Star Trek movie!); he simply disappeared! Could it be that his relationship with God had gotten so close, God decided He wanted to “graduate” Enoch to a heavenly realm? Is there something in Enoch’s life we need to take away?

But this isn’t the last we hear of Enoch in the Bible. Thousands of years later his story is retold in the famous 11th chapter in the New Testament book of Hebrews. The writer of Hebrews pulls something sweet for us out of Enoch’s life – see if you can catch it…

“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. And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.”

Using this verse, describe in your own words, what a “life of faith” looks like: