In the sermon titled 'Seth to Methuselah,' Jason Dohm explores the genealogy from Genesis 5:6-24, highlighting its significance in tracing the lineage from Adam to Jesus Christ. The sermon emphasizes the repeated phrase 'and he died' in the genealogy, underscoring the biblical truth that sin brought death into the world. However, Enoch's story breaks this pattern as he 'walked with God and was not, for God took him,' suggesting a life beyond physical death. Dohm explains that this genealogy is not about listing firstborns but about tracing a lineage that leads to Noah and ultimately to Jesus Christ, fulfilling God's promise to send a Savior. The sermon also delves into what it means to walk with God, arguing that it involves a relational, intentional, and ongoing commitment to align one's life with God's will. Enoch's faith and walk with God serve as an example for all believers, illustrating that faith is integral to a relationship with God. The sermon concludes by affirming that God knows the entirety of our lives, urging believers to trust and obey Him within the fixed number of our days.

The title of the message this morning is Seth to Methuselah. I didn't waste a lot of creativity on the title. It's just the starting point and the ending point of the genealogy. Last week's title was The Genealogy of the first and last Adam, pointing to the fact that this is Adam's genealogy. God formed Adam out of the dust to breathe life into him.

That starts the genealogy, but this is actually taking us to the last Adam. I'm borrowing a term from 1 Corinthians 15 where Jesus Christ is called the last Adam. So this is really going to Jesus Christ. It's a family line that takes us to the Savior that God promised to send. In verses 1-5, last week's text, the genealogy started with Adam, who was formed from the dust of the ground.

God breathed life into him and he lived 930 years. We don't have a frame of reference for that. We might live a tenth of that. If you lived in 93, you're doing pretty good, so we might get a tenth of that lifespan. So this is different.

Adam lived in 930 years, and He died. So this is the first of the drumbeats of the chapter. The drumbeat of the chapter is definitely, and He died, and He died, and He died. God had said, If you eat, if you disobey me and eat this fruit, you'll die. And chapter 5 just beats the drum that what God said was true, that sin has brought death into this world.

It actually occurs eight times in this chapter, so last time we heard that drumbeat for the first time, and he died. This week's text, we get the next seven generations following Adam, Seth to Methuselah, and of course we know Methuselah because he's the oldest one on record. If you don't know anybody else in this genealogy, you know Methuselah because he lived in 969 and there's never been a record of anyone living longer than that. So there's the oldest man in the Bible, Methuselah, 969 years old. As we go to the text, let's ask God to help us.

God, we are coming to a text of scripture knowing that you have given it to us. Even the genealogies have come from you. Even the genealogies have such value. We have them because you wanted us to have them. There's great benefit there.

I pray that you would help us to squeeze every last drop of good from this text. Not to read over the top of it and rush on to the next text, but to get all that you meant for us to have from it. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen. So we're subdividing, but just barely, this week. We have two subdivisions.

The first subdivision is verse 6 through 20 I'm not even going to reread it because it's names that largely you won't encounter again anywhere in the Bible I'm going to describe what you find there, but I'm not rereading 6 through 20 We'll just say Bob did a great job and leave it at that. And in these verses, these 15 verses, we are given five generations in the line of Adam. So Adam's not mentioned this week, but he was mentioned in chapter 5 in last week's text. And these are the five generations that succeed him starting with Adam's son, Seth. In these five sets of verses, meaning we subdivided the subdivision and then broke verses 6 through 20 into section is really easy to do.

Three verses, three verses, three verses, three verses, three verses. There are five sets of three verses here that absolutely go together in sets of three. In those five sets of three verses, we have a pattern that is perfectly adhered to, meaning it's never broken in these five sets of verses. You always find the same pattern in each set of three, and there are five of them. Here's the pattern.

A name. Each set of three starts out...the first word of the set of three is always a name. In the first set, that is first set that starts in verse 6, that name is Seth, but every set has a starting point that is a name. And in the first set, it's Seth. Then you have a number of years lived before fathering a certain named son.

So all five sets are this. You have the name, then you have a number of years lived before fathering a certain named son. In the first set, it's 105 years that Seth lived before he fathered Enish. So you have a son named by name. Seth lived 105 years and this certain named son is Enish in the first set, but every set has that.

Then you have a statement of the number of years lived after the certain named son. So in the first set, Seth lives 105 years. He has Amish and then he lives 807 years. You're given the number of years that he lives after having that certain name son. Then you have a statement that there were other sons, plural, multiple sons, and daughters plural, multiple daughters.

All five cases, this dad has multiple sons, a plurality of sons, and multiple daughters, a plurality of daughters. It's true of all five. None of these other sons and other daughters are ever named. We have no idea who they are. We're not given any visibility, no other names.

It's just said that these fathers beget or father other sons and daughters. So they all have a plurality of sons, multiple sons, and they all have a plurality of daughters, multiple daughters. Then, we're given the total number of years lived. Now, we could have done the math ourselves because we're given the number of years they lived before the certain name Sun and the number of years after that. So we could do the math, add those two numbers, and we would get the math is always right in all five of these sets.

The math, it all adds up in all five of the sets, but we're not left to do the math. We're given the total number of years lived, the total lifespan in the first set. All the days of Seth were 912 years. So if we add the first two numbers in that set, we would get the 912 years. Each of the five sets perfectly conforms to that pattern.

Zero exceptions. They all conform to that pattern. Now, two observations about these five sets and the pattern of the five sets. Number one, two observations. Number one, don't think of these as firstborn children.

For the longest time I read this and I assumed that the named child in the set was named because that was the start of the children, but that's not so. I found it odd. I couldn't understand what was going on biologically that the first child would be often after a hundred years. What is going on with these bodily systems that they can't have children until they get to a hundred years. But my confusion was these are not firstborn children.

How do we know they're not the firstborn children? Because Seth, at the very beginning, is not a firstborn child. We know that because there are chapters leading up to this where Adam and Eve have Cain and Abel and Seth is the third, but now we're given a genealogy in chapter 5 where Adam is the first. He ought to be the first. God made him out of dust.

Breathe life into him. Adam's the first. Cain and Abel are skipped over and not even mentioned in this genealogy, but Seth is mentioned. So you cannot assume these are firstborn. Almost certainly none of these are firstborn.

So the purpose isn't to catalog firstborns. Can't be, because Seth isn't. He's the second one named after Adam. So That's the first observation. Don't think of these as firstborn children.

The first name in our text isn't a firstborn child. Probably none of them were. We don't know for sure. Number two. These are the names we are given because they get us to Noah.

What's this genealogy about? It's to get us to Noah. It's the bridge that gets us from Adam to the generation of God destroying the world except for eight people by a global flood. So we're being taken from Adam to Noah to get us to this generation of the flood and to get us to Jesus. So if all we had was Genesis, we wouldn't know that necessarily, but we have more than Genesis.

We know that the immediate purpose and objective of this genealogy is to get us to Noah and the generation of the flood and the man whose family would survive the flood, the only man whose family would survive the flood. That's the immediate objective, but the more distant but even more important objective is to get us to Jesus Christ. In chapter 3 verse 15 we had this promise that there would be a seed of the woman who would crush the head of the serpent. In other words, the great enemy of humanity would ultimately be defeated because God is going to send the Savior. Now I'm importing all sorts of New Testament language and thoughts into that.

If all you had at the time was Genesis 3 15, you wouldn't know that with specificity, but we can look back to the Old Testament through the lenses of the New Testament and the complete revelation that we have and see that's exactly what is being talked about here. So these names are the names we are given, Not firstborns, not a catalog of firstborn names, but we're given these names because they get us to Noah, the immediate objective, but even more importantly they get us to Jesus Christ and the Savior that God is going to promise over and over and over and over and over in the Old Testament to sin to save us from our sins. Again, I think I read this a couple of weeks ago. Read it again now. Luke 3 verses 37 and 38.

Now this is going to be awkward because I'm starting at the very end of a long genealogy and I'm starting midstream so it only makes sense if you know that, but this genealogy in Luke 3 starts with Jesus and then works all the way down to Adam and I'm just reading the very, very end of a long genealogy, Luke 3 verses 37 and 38. The son of Methuselah, the son of Enoch, the son of Jared, the son of Mahalalel, the son of Canaan, the son of Enosh, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the Son of God. So in Luke 3, 37 and 38, you have all and only the names in our text. Every one of the names in our text is in what I just read, Luke 3, 37 and 38, and it's only those names. There's no extras.

It's exactly the same list of names. Now these two genealogies, Genesis 5, our text, and Luke 3, are traced out in the opposite directions. Let's talk about that and the significance of that. Genesis 5 starts with the beginning point. God made a man out of dust and breathed life into him.

That's Adam starts there and then goes down the family line. It starts with the person who lived first and then goes to the person who lived next, and the person who lived next, and the person who lived next. Adam after him, Seth after him, after him, after him. That's the direction of the genealogy. Luke 3 starts with the ending point, the termination point of the genealogy, Jesus, and goes up the family line.

Jesus didn't have any physical children, so this line ends right there at Jesus. There are no other names to be added to that genealogy. Jesus didn't have any physical children, so the Luke 3 genealogy starts with the person who lived last in time, Jesus, and then works up. His father was, not his son was, but his father was. His grandfather was, his great-grandfather was, and all the way up to Adam.

So Jesus before him, and So Jesus before Him, and then before Him, and then before Him. Now, the significance. This is worth thinking about. Thinking about the genealogies going in different directions. The whole Bible is about Jesus, the promised Savior.

There's all sorts of other things in the Bible. It's not the only thing in the Bible, but it's all about Jesus. Mark Dever has written a two book set summarizing every book of the Bible. So there are 66 books in the Bible. Volume 1 is thicker because it's summarizing all the books in the Old Testament.

There are 39 of them, and he names it Promises Made. And Then the second volume, thinner because the New Testament has less books and some of them are smaller, has the 27 books of the New Testament. He names that volume, Promises Kept. The Old Testament is the making of promises by God. The promises are ultimately fulfilled in Jesus Christ.

If you just have to boil the Old Testament down to the irreducible, can't get any more out of it, bullet all the way down, what is it? God is making promises to save sinners. Promises made. And then what's the New Testament about? It's about just God keeping those promises in Jesus Christ.

So is that an oversimplification of the Bible? Probably, but it's helpful to know. What is this book about? This is a big book. What's it about?

There's a lot of truth in here, but is there a framework for this truth? The answer is absolutely. Jesus Christ is the framework for all that truth. The Old Testament promises redemption of sinners and the New Testament is the fulfilling of those promises. Promises made, promises kept.

Now, how did Moses, the author of Genesis, know this would be the genealogy of Jesus? Moses wrote the Pentateuch, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, the first five books of the Bible. Moses wrote these books in the mid to early 1400s BC, meaning 14 centuries before Jesus's early fourteen hundreds BC, meaning fourteen centuries before Jesus' birth, meaning fourteen one hundred year periods before Jesus was even born? The answer, of course, is that Moses was fully inspired by God to author these books of Scripture. Moses actually isn't the author of the Pentateuch in the ultimate sense.

God is the author of the Pentateuch in the ultimate sense. So yes there was a man with a pen and he did write these words for us, but every word was given to him and through him to us by God. God is the author of these books. So it would be quite a trick indeed for Moses to know things that were happening 1400 years in the future and to plant this here where it would ultimately end in Luke chapter 3, but it's nothing to God. You understand that?

Nothing to God. Moses, I trust, had no idea that what he's writing when he's actually authoring Genesis chapter 5, that this would be the end of Luke chapter 3. All of these names and only these names, Moses probably had no idea, no matter. God knew. God knew.

Listen to Isaiah 46 verses 9 and 10. If you're looking for your next memory text, this would be a great one. We should know this one by heart for sure. Isaiah 46 verses 9 and 10. This is the voice of God.

This is actually God speaking in the first person. In these verses he's going to say, I am God. So you don't have to wonder who's speaking here. It is God. God says, remember the former things of old, for I am God and there is no other.

I am God and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things that are not yet done saying my counsel shall stand and I will do all my pleasure." So in the first verse here, God claims that there's not anybody like Him. In all of the universe, you can't find another being remotely like God. Well, God? In what way? In this way.

He declares the end. He says what the end is going to be from the beginning. So before he ever promised a Savior, all the names on the genealogy are fixed. So Moses can write in the early 1400s BC, 14 centuries before the birth of the Savior, he can start the family line not even knowing that he's writing the names of the family line, but it's okay. God knows this is how the genealogy will end in Luke chapter 3.

Moses would say, Luke chapter what? What's Luke? What is this Luke of which you speak? This is our God. He declares the end, he says what the end is going to be before he ever starts the first domino in motion.

He declares from ancient times, Times that we don't even know about, things that are not yet done. So, we didn't know about them in that direction in the past, and we have no idea what's coming in the future. It's okay, God has already set them in place. He declared from ancient times, times we don't even know about things that are future. They haven't happened yet.

We don't know about either end of it. But God is sovereign over it. That's how God is so unlike us. God says there's no one like me. No one else can do this.

This genealogy should give us such confidence in the Word of God. Why? Because these things were written and studied and memorized by people who never knew really where they were leading, but now that they've come and been accomplished, you can look back and say, those are the names. Those are the names. God already planned to send this Savior.

God already knew about the fall of humanity into destruction and knew how to redeem us and plan to redeem us and fulfilled all of those promises. We should have such joy and such confidence when we study this genealogy, because it's the genealogy of Jesus and Moses had no way to know these things as he was writing them. So there you have five generations in the line of Adam, these five sets of verses, each having three verses with a pattern that is perfectly adhered to and never broken. The pattern is completely intact. Why does that matter?

Oh, because he's getting ready to break the pattern. And all the deviations are so significant. So back to Genesis chapter 5, now verses 21 through 24. I will reread these. Follow along as I reread Genesis 5, 21 through 24.

Enoch lived 65 years and begot Methuselah. After he begot Methuselah, Enoch walked with God 300 years and had sons and daughters. So all the days of Enoch were 365 years and Enoch walked with God and he was not for God took him. In these four verses we have a man who walked with God. If you're taking notes on the handout, walked fills in the blank.

A man who walked with God. Enoch walked with God. This is a set of four verses. All these go together too, but it's four verses, not three, so the pattern is broken for sure. It does not conform to the pattern, it breaks the pattern.

Verse 21, Enoch lived 65 years and begot Methuselah. So we start with the name Enoch, and then we have a number of years lived before fathering a certain named son, 65 years, then he fathered Methuselah. So far so good. We're right on the pattern so far. But now in verse 22, the pattern would be that Enoch lived 300 years and had sons and daughters.

But the pattern is broken and the text says that Enoch walked with God 300 years and had sons and daughters. But the pattern is broken and the text says that Enoch walked with God 300 years and had sons and daughters. So if this were one of the earlier sets, it would be he lived with God, but no, here it says instead he walked with God. The others that came before Enoch lived. Enoch walked with God.

He lived, he was living, but there was something that characterized him even more than just being alive. There was something in addition that characterized this man's life. It is that he walked with God. It was so noteworthy that you should replace, he lived with something that more characterizes him than just existing, he walked with God. Then verse 23, So all the days of Enoch were 365 years.

We're back on the pattern. That's exactly what each of the other sets would say. A total of all the days of his life on earth. But then verse 24 is off pattern again. The pattern would be, and he died.

But the text says, and Enoch walked with God and he was not, for God took him. So we're in the sixth set. We've had, and he died, and he died, and he died, and he died, and he died, and he walked with God and he was not because God took him. We have the repetition that Enoch walked with God. So again, we think of the Bible as a big book, But now let's say this is cataloging 4, 000 years of history.

Actually it's not a big book. It's actually a very small book. So anytime we see something repeated, our radar goes up because this is really important. There's no space to waste in this book. It's 4, 000 years of history.

But God takes the time to give it to us again. If you missed it, Enoch walked with God. You get it again. Enoch walked with God. This is what characterizes this man.

This is what is important to know about this man and his life. He walked with God. Instead of, and he died, we are told that Enoch simply was not. He was until he was not. What?

Until he was not. What? Yeah, God took him. God took him Where? God took him how?

We'd love to know. We're not going to know. God doesn't tell us. Where's Enoch? Has anyone seen Enoch?

We have divine revelation to tell us what happened to Enoch. Otherwise, I'm not sure anyone knew. This is set number six. The first five left a body. There's Seth, dearly departed.

Dearly departed. There's Enush, dearly departed. Kanan, Mahalala, Jared. Where's Enoch? Three observations.

Number one. It's tempting to think that Enoch walking with God is unique. I think this is a temptation of the text. Just viewing it in isolation, we'd be tempted to think Enoch walking with God is unique. Long list of names.

He's the only one who's said to walk with God, and his end is certainly unique. We're going to leave a body. Unless Jesus returns, you're leaving a body. But then we have Genesis 6 verse 9, Noah walked with God. So it hasn't been said so far in Genesis, but it will be said again.

We're coming to chapter 6. Genesis 6 verse 9 says, Noah walked with God. It was not just Enoch. And in Genesis chapter 24 verse 40, Abraham says to his servant, the Lord before whom I walk will send his angel with you. And in Genesis 48 verse 15, when Jacob is blessing his sons, Jacob says, God before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked, the God who has fed me all my life long to this day." And then he says things, other things.

He says, my dad and my grandfather walked before God. Okay, so it's not absolutely unique to Enoch. It's the big names of the faith. So we can add Noah, he's a big name, he's a draw. We can add Abraham and Isaac.

It's the heroes. But that idea is thrown down by the song we just sang, Micah 6, 8. He has shown you, O man, what is good, And what does the Lord require of you but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God? God requires of the human race that we walk humbly with him. He desires that we walk with him.

He requires that we walk with Him. He has shown you, O man, what is good. These are such helpful summary verses. What's good? He's shown you what's good.

Do justly, love mercy, walk humbly with God. What does God require of man? He's shown you what He requires a man. Do justly, love mercy, walk humbly with God. It's good and God requires it.

So we're not allowed to exempt ourselves from this as if this is for the big names, the heroes, the special people and not for us. No, God requires this of us. Now if you say there are levels of this and surely Enoch walked with God in a deep way, in a consistent way that set him apart. Okay, I'll concede that point. Okay, but walking with God is not just for Enoch, not just for Noah, not just for the big names, not just for the heroes, not just for the special people.

Here's what the Bible teaches us. There are no special people. There are no special people. There's a special God. There's a special God who reaches down into sinful people and raises them up to do this or that for His own glory.

Jesus was pretty special. I'll give you that one. That's number one. It's tempting to think that Enoch walking with God is unique. Only God requires it of mankind.

Do justly, love mercy, walk humbly with God. It is not unique to Enoch. Number two, we should think as deeply as we can about what it actually means to walk with God. If I said it means cultivating religious customs, Wouldn't you recoil at that? Wouldn't that seem woefully inadequate for the term walking with God?

Wouldn't that seem so mechanical, so sterile, so cold? God requires of you to cultivate religious customs. You should recoil from that. That surely will not do as a description of what it means to walk with God. Well then, what does it mean?

If God says it's good and God requires it of us, we should know what it means. I think it probably makes sense to start by just thinking about what it means to take a walk with someone. Figurative language is being used. It doesn't mean literally walking with God. This is figurative language, right?

Well, it's adopting something that's literal to get you thinking about what that's like. I mean, that's what figurative language is for. So, it's a good place to start by just thinking about what it means to take a walk with something. Taking a walk with someone, not something, someone, taking a walk with someone is intentional. You decide to do it.

If you were just in New York walking to work and there were a thousand people around you, you wouldn't say, I'm taking a walk with the person next to me. You just happen to be walking in the same direction on the same side. You wouldn't call that walking with them. If you're taking a walk with something, that's an intentional thing. It's something you decided to do.

It's relational. The whole point is taking a walk with someone is to be together. You don't have to be with anyone to go walk. The point, If you just want exercise, you don't need anyone else. You can just go walk.

The point is a relational point, unless you're trying to get in shape together. That's something different. It's relational. The point is to be together. It's directional.

If I walk this way and you walk that way, we don't say we're taking a walk together. We're both walking at the same time in different directions. That's not walking together. It's going in the same direction at the same speed so that you stay together. Direction matters.

Speed matters. I'm just talking about taking a walk. What does it mean to take a walk? It's intentional, we decide to do it, it's relational, the points to be together. Often on Sunday afternoons you'll see a pair of people walking around the property.

They're creating an opportunity to relate to each other, to talk. It's directional. They're going in the same direction and at the same speed so they stay together. That's the whole point. It's conversational.

It almost always involves talking. So in the figurative sense, so now we're coming out of the contemplation of a literal walk, taking a walk together into the figurative sense, It has the sense of being sustained. If you met someone once, and you never met with them again, you wouldn't say, oh yeah, we walked together in life. It would be inconsistent with the sense of what it means to walk together in life. If you met him a couple of times and then you said, we're walking together in life, someone would say, Who knew the situation that you'd only been together a couple times and say that's weird.

He doesn't really know what that expression means. It doesn't have the sense of being temporary at all. It has the sense of being steady and ongoing. So it is with walking with God. It has the sense of being steady and ongoing.

That's what it means. God and I have a relationship and it's steady. It's ongoing. Finally, let me offer Two... I shouldn't say finally.

I changed this in my notes, so I don't want to get your hopes up. It's not finally. Let me offer two texts of scripture that can help us think about what it means to walk with God. So let me give you two texts of scripture. Not finally.

Next. Let me give you two texts of scripture that can help us think about what it means to walk with God. The first is Amos chapter 3, verse 3. It's a question. Amos chapter 3 verse 3 is a question.

Can two walk together unless they are agreed? It's talking about the figurative sense. Can you walk together in life if you're not agreed? The whole point in the context of Amos is God saying, I can't walk with you. Israel, I can't walk with you.

How can two walk together if they're not agreed? You don't agree with me, I can't walk with you. That's the whole point. Is the prophet announcing for God he can't walk with them? Because they don't agree with him.

The people didn't agree with God and so he can't walk with So it is in walking with God. The start point is agreement with God. Okay God, you're right about all that. You're right about this stuff. Okay, we can walk together.

You're right about everything you said about me, and based on my feeling the weight of that, I repent. Okay, oh Now you can start to walk with God. There's no walking with God until you agree with what Scripture says about mankind, and you specifically, and you repent and trust in His Son. Second, Ruth 1.16. Ruth chapter 1 verse 16.

It's a well-known verse. It rarely applied, I'm sure it has been before, but it's usually applied to people. So it's indirect, but I think the essence of it applies to people walking with God. The context is Naomi and her husband fled Israel because there was a famine and they live in Moab. And Naomi's sons marry and then the husbands die and the widows are left.

And the famine ends, so Naomi's going home and she tells her daughter-in-law's, whose husbands are now dead too, they're all widows, go back to your father's home. This is what Ruth says. Ruth said to Naomi, entreat me not to leave you or to turn back from following after you, for wherever you go, I will go, and wherever you lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God, my God." That's walking together. Ruth, I'm going back home.

Famine's over in my homeland. You stay in your homeland. I'm going to my stone homeland. No, don't tell me to do that. I want to keep walking together.

You go, I want to go. You dwell, I want to dwell there. Whoever your people are, I'll go be part of that people. Your God will be my God. This is what it means to walk with God.

God, wherever you go, I want to go that same direction, that same speed. I want to walk beside you. When you stop, I want to stop. When you go, I want to go when you dwell, I want to dwell there. I want your people to be my people.

I won't have my own people. Your people are my people. I want to walk with you. Now Finally, let's get some help from some commentators. I keep quoting Alan Ross, his commentary, creation, and blessing.

I'll quote it again here, only it's Alan Ross quoting somebody else I don't know. So to attribute it properly, I'll tell you the guy's name. The guy's name is Marcus Dodds, and he was a Scottish Presbyterian of the middle to late 1800s, and Wouldn't appreciate being called a guy. Scottish Presbyterians don't go for that. But this is who's being quoted, Markistons.

He says this. Enoch walked with God because he was his friend and liked his company. I'm just going to reread that. Enoch walked with God because he was his friend and liked his company." I'm just going to reread that. Enoch walked with God because he was his friend and liked his company, Because he was going in the same direction as God and had no desire for anything, but what lay in God's path?

We walk with God when he is in all our thoughts, not because we consciously think of Him at all times, but because He is naturally suggested to us by all we think of. When He falls into sin, He cannot rest until he has resumed his place at God's side and walks again with him." So when that walk is broken, he can't stand it. It grieves him, and he won't rest until he comes back to God's side." He continues. This is the general nature of walking with God. It is a persistent endeavor to hold all our life open to God's inspection and conformity to his will.

A readiness to give up what we find causes any misunderstanding between us and God. A feeling of loneliness if we have not some satisfaction in our efforts at holding fellowship with God. A cold and desolate feeling when we are conscious of doing something that displeases Him. It is easy then to understand how we may practically walk with God. It is to open to Him all our purposes and hopes, to seek His judgment on our scheme of life and idea of happiness.

It is to be on thoroughly friendly terms with God. Things were not made easy to Enoch in evil days with much to mislead him, with everything to oppose him. He had faith and diligent seeking, as the Epistle to the Hebrews says, to cleave to the path on which God walked." So there's so much there. But he ends up talking about the times in which Enoch lived. So I mean this is the context for our text.

This is the bridge to the flood and the destruction of the earth because of the rise of sin. These are the times in which Enoch lived. It wasn't an easy time to walk with God. The flood was going in the other direction, pun not intended. That was the time when Enoch walked with God.

When sin was getting worse and worse, more prevalent, more prevalent. Rebellion against God was on the rise. Enoch walked with God. Here's what Matthew Poole says, Enoch lived as one whose eye was continually upon God, whose care and constant course in business it was to please God and to imitate Him and to maintain acquaintance and communion with Him. As one devoted to God's service and wholly governed by His will.

He walked not with the men of that wicked age, or as they walked, but being a prophet and preacher, as may be gathered from Jude 14 and 15, with great zeal and courage, he protested and preached against their evil practices and boldly owned God and his ways in the midst of them." So he wouldn't walk with that wicked generation, and he did walk with God and then he actually references Jude. We're coming to that. Which calls him a prophet against ungodliness. So he didn't hold his peace about what was happening around him either. Dodds referenced Hebrews.

Matthew Poole referenced Jude. So this brings us to the third observation here. Number three, we have New Testament commentary on Enoch. You can turn to Hebrews 11 if you'd like or you can just listen. I'm going to Hebrews 11 now.

Hebrews 11 verses 5 and 6. Hebrews 11 is about faith. It starts, Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen, for by it the elders obtain a good testimony. By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the Word of God so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible. So you've got to have faith to believe that everything that you see was made out of something that you can't see.

It's the nature of faith. Now listen to Hebrews 11, 5 and 6. Obviously Hebrews 11 has a listing of people who trusted God. They had faith in God. Enoch is one of them.

Enoch appears in this chapter. Hebrews 11, verses 5 and 6. By faith Enoch was taken away so that he did not see death. So that's not said explicitly in our text, but if you wonder, are you sure he didn't die? Yes.

Hebrews 11 makes it clear. He didn't die. He didn't see death. By faith, Enoch was taken away so that he did not see death and was not found because God had taken him." That's quoting our text. For before he was taken he had this testimony that he pleased God.

But without faith it is impossible to please him. For he who comes to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him." So here we're actually learning about Enoch and his walking with God. He didn't see death. By the way, there's one other person in the Bible who didn't see death. It was Elijah.

A chariot of fire came and got Elijah while he was alive and carried him to be with the Lord. We should see that faith and walking with God are unbreakably connected. Faith and trusting yourself to God, believing Him, trusting Him is unbreakably connected with walking with God. If we trace walking with God back to its roots, we end up at faith. Saving faith and sustaining faith.

Enoch pleased God by faith. Enoch walked with God by faith. So Enoch walked with God. The author of Hebrews said, that's faith. That's faith.

Walked out. Now Jude 14 and 15. This is the other place Enoch appears in the New Testament. Jude, there's only one chapter in Jude, so you just reference the verse numbers. Jude 14 and 15.

Two verses. Two verses. Now Enoch the seventh from Adam prophesied about these men also. So Jude is talking about ungodly men who creep into the people of God and harm the people of God with their ungodliness. So he's talking about these unbelievers who masquerade as believers who worm their way into the people of God and the people of God are harmed by these ungodly people working their way into the people of God.

That's what he's talking about. Now Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about these men also saying, quote, so this is the prophecy of Enoch, Quote, Behold the Lord comes with ten thousands of his saints to execute judgment on all, to convict all who are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have committed in an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against God. Jude, in talking about False professors who have worked their way into the people of God and harmed the people of God reaches back to a prophecy of Enoch. We have no idea how he had this prophecy of Enoch. We only know that he did.

So Enoch walked with God and God used Enoch as a prophet to thunder against the ungodliness of his age. Knowing where it is in Genesis, you know there was a lot of ungodliness to thunder against. The flood is almost upon them. Applications. Let me give you three.

Three. The first is Psalm 90 verse 12. Psalm 90 verse 12. Teach us to number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom. Got a genealogy, get their lifespan measured in days.

All the days of his life were this many years. You know there's a number? It's a number of your days. You don't know? But God has declared the end from the beginning.

There is a number. It's already known by God. You don't know. Unless Jesus comes back, our summary will end like theirs, and he died and she died. You're thinking about that truth that there's a number of your days helps you gain a heart of wisdom.

What if you were in the triple digits? So 999 days are under. It's less than three years. What if you're in the double digits. 99 days or under.

That's a little more than a week or under. That's what it means to be taught to number your days, to think that there is a fixed number. If you had all the gold on earth, you couldn't buy another second. You know that. All the gold in Fort Knox.

They're counting it now I hear. You couldn't buy another second. It's so fixed. God has given us days to flee to His Son and then walk with Him. It's a fixed number.

And if you live a long life, it's still a small number. Are you listening to what I'm saying? If you live a long life, it's still a small number. You might not live a long life, and then it's a smaller number. We have the days to flee to His Son and then walk with God.

And it's a small number of days. How many days will you give away? How many days will you squander? How many days will you resist gospel appeals? What do you think it's a big number?

You think you're gonna live forever? Flee to his son. Walk with him. To unbelievers we say, flee to his son. And then walk with him.

To believers we say, walk with him. There are levels to this. There are ways of walking with God that would be so much more satisfying than we've ever known. And we're trading it for practically nothing and acting like we're going to live forever. And we'll just walk with God tomorrow or next week or next month or next year.

You know tomorrow becomes next week and next week comes next month and next month comes next year. Number two, God already knows everything about your life. I'm breaking out the air quotes. Your life. In a sense it's your life, you're living it.

In a sense it's not your life. God gave you every breath you're breathing. He knows everything about your life, including all the things that haven't happened yet. From ancient times he has declared things that haven't happened yet in your life, but he knows all about them. He has declared the end from the beginning, from ancient times, things that are not yet done.

Isaiah 46, 10. So we should just trust and obey. We get so worked up. I do understand that. It is the human condition.

I get it. But if these things are true, we should just trust and obey. Those are the things we can know about, worry about, do something about, trusting God, like really consciously entrusting myself to God, trusting God, and obeying. We can actually rest. If you believe that God knows all the things about your life that haven't happened yet, that He knows every one of them already, and that our job is just to trust Him and to obey Him, you can actually rest.

God wants us to be able to do that. Number three. In this text, God sets before us something beyond physical death. I haven't really seen that. I don't think in Genesis yet.

Something beyond physical death. We've got the drum beat in the chapter, and he died, and he died, and he died, making sure that we know there's a connection between sin and death, between our condition and what must happen to us. Now God sets something before us beyond physical death. Here's what the Expositors Bible commentary says, in this brief episode the author uncovers a fundamental truth. Death is not the last word.

Amen. Praise God. Death is not the last word. In the face of death, one can, like Enoch, find life by walking with God. In his focus on Enoch's fate and faith, the author has found a door leading back to the tree of life.

How do we get back there? Oh, faith. Hence Enoch is an example for all who seek life. Walk with God by faith. God, I thank you for this text.

Thank you for these genealogies. Thank you especially for the example of Enoch, who walked with you. You can see so clear that there's this chasm between cultivating religious customs and walking with you. To have walking with you reduced to cultivating religious customs, We recoil at the thought of it. And I thank you for that impulse that makes us recoil from it.

We want something that is alive and real. I thank you that we have that in Jesus Christ. And I pray that we would set our mind on things above where Christ is. We would love your company, desire to walk with you. We would know you as a friend.

You are a great King. We never want to walk away from the reverence that you deserve, but you also hold yourself forth to be our friend. We marvel at this and thank you in Jesus name. Amen.