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[0:00] Well, verses 21 to 24. 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.

[0:13] Thus all the days of Enoch were 365 years. Enoch walked with God and he was not, for God took him. And our subject this evening is Enoch and walking with God.

[0:28] Now I'll just say a word or two to the young people first so they just know roughly what we're going to be talking about and thinking about and if you like where we're going to go from the beginning. I'm going to say to you, I'm going to say one or two things about Enoch and what was happening at the time that Enoch lived and then I'm going to make a point to say that for all of us, Enoch is a huge encouragement.

[0:52] Enoch is a huge encouragement because of what he tells us and in particular what he tells us about having faith in God but also with what it means to walk with God.

[1:07] I don't know if you've ever thought about the idea of walking with God. I mean that's not something, we know that God is the Spirit, don't we? So we can't really walk with him in a sort of physical way, can we?

[1:17] We can't walk side by side along a pavement with God. That's impossible of course. But the Bible does use this idea of walking with God to tell us how Christians, indeed how everybody, but Christians especially, especially, how they should live and it describes it by saying they walk with God.

[1:39] Now as well as Enoch, there's somebody else that you might remember who walked with God. Anybody like to suggest who it was? Remember Abraham.

[1:50] Two things about Abraham. Abraham was the friend of God and the Bible tells us also that he walked with God. And as we shall see, the New Testament tells us that we should walk with God as we should walk with the Lord Jesus as well.

[2:07] So we need to think, don't we? We all need to think, not just young people, but old people too. Me too. We have to think about what it means to walk with God. So that's what the sermon is going to be about.

[2:19] So try not to go to sleep and you'll hear more things, but if any of you do go to sleep, then you'll at least hear what it's going to be about and you can check up with mums and dads and brothers and sisters what we actually were talking about.

[2:32] Okay? Now the first thing we need to note is that there's something that this chapter as a whole tells us. If you read in the chapter before, there's quite a bit about what we would call development, economic development, personal development.

[2:48] We find out about the way in which metalworking developed and music developed and all that sort of thing. Now we also know, of course, that there was sin in the world and in the previous chapter before that we have a really bad example of sin where Lamech, an earlier Lamech, actually killed the man who injured him and we know, of course, about Cain who killed Abel.

[3:12] So there is, in society at the time, at this point, there was a huge amount of just plain awful sin. And, but here, but at the same time there's big developments of one sort and another.

[3:28] And I think we, there's a question which comes to the mind probably of all of us. In spite of sin, if there was so much progress, what in fact had happened to the curse which God had put on the land after Cain had killed Abel and even, sorry, rather before that when Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit.

[3:48] So what had become of the curse? Well, the answer is that in spite of human achievements and they were very considerable human achievements death reigned from Adam down through the generations.

[4:01] You can't get away from it. The human race, living under the curse multiplied continually and died just as regularly. In fact, I suppose you could say that the predominant theme of chapter 5 would appear to be about death.

[4:18] Death is actually, the phrase and, of course, and he died is actually there eight times in chapter 5. But there's also something else to note.

[4:30] And that is that at the beginning of chapter 5 what do you find? You find blessing. This is the book of the generations of Adam. When God created man he made him in the likeness of God.

[4:42] That is a stupendous sentence, isn't it? When God created man he made him in the likeness of God. And we here as human beings must never let ourselves get away from that.

[4:54] We have been created in the image of God. Now, I'm not going to even try to begin to say in one sermon what that means. But this is a really productive thing to think about.

[5:05] It's something which all the Lord's people should be constantly thinking about. What actually does it mean to be created in God's image? What does that mean? What does that mean in terms of privilege?

[5:16] What does that mean in terms of responsibility? The fact that we are created in God's image is hugely important. And it's something which perhaps not few young people right away.

[5:27] But certainly, before you get too much older, start to think about what it means to be made in God's image. To be made in God's likeness. But let's read on.

[5:38] Verse 2. Male and female he created them and he blessed them and named them man when they were created. And there's blessing at the end of it too because here comes Noah.

[5:52] When Lamech lived 182 years, he fathered a son and called his name Noah, saying, Out of the ground that the Lord has cursed, this one shall bring us relief from our work and from the painful toil of our hands, Noah appears.

[6:07] The first covenant is made. Remember the rainbow. That's why there's a rainbow because God promised never again that he would actually destroy the earth and destroy the people in it by means of the flood.

[6:18] But there's also something else. And that's verse 21. This is Enoch. As well, there's something which is profoundly significant because it's a profound alternative to the theme of the rest of the chapter to do with the cycle of living and dying.

[6:37] Because here we find that this alternative to the cycle of living and dying is walking with God. After he'd lived 65 years, he fathered Methuselah and Enoch walked with God after he fathered Methuselah 300 years and had other sons and daughters and so on.

[6:54] So the family of Adam, through Seth, not through Cain of course, but the family of Adam, through Seth, were actually closer to the truth than the whole rest of the world was and the man who was closest of all to God's truth was actually Enoch.

[7:10] So we need to think about Enoch. But can I also say for you young people especially, don't be afraid to be different. Don't be afraid to be different. Don't be afraid to be someone who loves the Lord Jesus.

[7:22] Don't be afraid to be somebody who prays to God. Don't be afraid to be somebody who keeps the Lord's Day special. Don't be afraid of these things which mark out Christians from other people.

[7:33] Because one of the things which is clearly in Scripture is that if you do what God commands and what pleases God, then he will take note of it and he will bless you.

[7:43] It doesn't mean to say you won't have difficult times. It doesn't mean to say you won't have sad times. It doesn't mean to say you won't have trouble at school or anything like that. But it does mean that God has his eye on you for good and he will bless you when the time comes.

[7:58] Never, ever, ever lose sight of that. So, we come to our first point then really. Enoch was an encouragement at the time and he is an encouragement for us as well.

[8:12] Notice first of all verse 21. When Enoch had lived 65 years, he fathered Methuselah. But then look at verse 22. Enoch walked with God after he fathered Methuselah 300 years and had other sons and daughters.

[8:28] In other words, Enoch didn't begin, it would appear, to be eminent for piety, for fearing God and walking closely with him until about the time that he fathered Methuselah.

[8:41] I say that because it doesn't say that about any of the others, but it does say that about Enoch and there must be some significance to it. At first, it would appear that he was just like the other men were.

[8:55] These other men, so far as we know, absolutely all of them are godly men. They're in this godly line coming through after Adam from Seth down through to Noah.

[9:05] These are the, this is the family line of God's people. But it does say this different thing about Methuselah, sorry, about Enoch, and it must mean that he was notable for this.

[9:19] And that means, at the very, very least, that Enoch wasn't as godly and as close with the Lord by around the time he fathered Methuselah and afterwards, as he'd been earlier.

[9:34] Earlier, he was more or less, would appear just like other people. And this does mean, I think, at the end of the day, that God's saints reach their eminence, reach their particular notability by degrees.

[9:48] You know, it's so prone for people, it was so prone, aren't they, to look at their godly parents or their godly grandparents and they say, oh, I'll never be like that. And they never try really to be like that.

[10:00] They never seek to walk closely with the Lord like that. That's something which I think is tempting for us all. I can remember in a previous congregation of mine that there was a woman, a godly woman, and it was years before she made a profession of faith.

[10:13] Why? Because she never thought she could be as godly as her grandmother. And that stopped her making a profession of faith and sitting at the Lord's table. So that's perhaps an extreme example.

[10:24] But it's worth remembering that saints don't, well, very rarely, do they hit the ground running, as we say, and they're eminent saints from day one. They're not like that.

[10:35] You can see young people, some young people, can show the signs but there still needs to be spiritual maturity. That's encouragement for us all. We should see ourselves as making steady progress in things of God.

[10:50] That, I think, is the first quick lesson that we can derive from this record of Enoch, short as it is.

[11:01] So, he seems to have come to his eminence for godliness around the time he fathered Methuselah or shortly thereafter and it just got better and better.

[11:14] But I want you also, this is something which, I must confess, this is not my own arithmetic, but there are some very interesting things if you actually work out the details of what's happening here.

[11:29] You young people, anybody who's a maths genius or really good at maths, here's something that you could occupy yourself a wee while by working out. There's some really interesting things if you do all the additions.

[11:41] All the patriarchs, as we call them, all the fathers of the Lord's people, here in this chapter, at the time that Methuselah disappeared, sorry, keep on saying Methuselah, Enoch, the time that Enoch was taken by God to be with him, all of them were alive except Adam who had died 57 years before and except Noah who was born 69 years after.

[12:13] The events recorded here in verses 21 to 24. Now why? Now why? This is, they're all alive, they're all living at the time presumably pretty close to each other except Adam and except Noah who wasn't yet born.

[12:33] And I want to suggest that the reason for that is this. Every single one of these patriarchs, these fathers of the Lord's people, Enoch gave them tangible evidence of what it means to be blessed by God.

[12:55] Adam knew because he had walked with the Lord in the garden, remember. Adam knew what it was to have fellowship with God. He lost it of course in great measure but he didn't know it.

[13:06] And Noah at the end of it also knew the Lord gave Noah instructions to what he'd do. That's tangible evidence. They knew about the Lord and they knew that God rewards obedience and blesses his people.

[13:19] But here in the case of Enoch what happened I think was that all the rest of these fathers who were there at the time they actually had a tangible encouragement to stay faithful to the Lord, to believe the Lord's promises, to obey his commandments.

[13:37] They had a tangible encouragement from Enoch as to that effect. And also they were given hope about the future state.

[13:49] Enoch was taken. Let's not think he fell down a well or he got lost and wandered off in the desert and was never found again because these men would have known the area that they were living in and their families as well.

[14:03] They would have looked for Enoch because that's what Hebrews tells us he couldn't be found. He couldn't be found means that they looked for him thoroughly but they couldn't find him.

[14:13] So Enoch was not found because the Lord took him and presumably from what we have here because the scriptures tell us they knew that the Lord took him. They knew that there was a purpose.

[14:25] They knew that if they remained faithful to the Lord he would take them as well as Enoch. Now you young people, there's a lot of people who believe there's nothing after death at all but the Lord's people know that there is.

[14:38] The scripture tells us and there's particular pieces in scripture which tell us that there is and Enoch I guess is the very first one isn't it? So be encouraged, all of us, we all need to be encouraged.

[14:51] The next world is coming, there is one and it's going to be a place where the Lord's people have inexpressible blessings, blessings so great that we can't even put them into words.

[15:04] And do notice also that not only do we have Enoch, we also have Elijah, we also have the Lord Jesus, remember the Mount of Transfiguration, they all had been translated one way or another, the Lord Jesus was ascended, Elijah was taken up in a chariot of fire, Enoch was taken by the Lord not able to be found, so they're all really evidences that the next world is one of blessings for the Lord's people.

[15:31] And one other thing too, all these righteous people, they actually died before the flood. Lamech, the father of Noah, died five years before the flood.

[15:47] So he didn't see, he didn't experience what happened to the rest of the ungodly. So that's really a remarkable providence, isn't it?

[15:59] There we are. It does show God's mercy. But there's one other thing, and that's why I read Jude verses 14 and 15. It tells us that Enoch preached judgment to the ungodly.

[16:14] He actually spoke to the ungodly people around him who didn't believe, who had no time for the Lord and his commandments. He actually told them that there is a judgment coming and if you don't actually make peace with God, then you have no hope at the judgment.

[16:32] And that's something which is hugely important. Now it must have been hard for Enoch, it's no reason why it should have been easy for Enoch and hard for us. But that's one of the things which the Lord's people have to be quite clear about.

[16:45] We have to be willing to say, there is a judgment and it's coming. And you'll be judged by your works. The Lord's people will be judged by their faith. They have to give an account of their works.

[16:55] But the wicked, the ungodly, the unbelieving will be judged by their works and they won't measure up. Judgment is coming. There's Enoch in the very early days of mankind preaching judgment.

[17:07] And this is part of the responsibility of the Lord's people. Let's never forget it. We all have a responsibility to do it sensitively but perceptively and with God's blessing persuasively as well.

[17:22] And it is the case also that we're required to keep on doing it. The verse 6 of Hebrews 11 that we read, God rewards those literally who keep on seeking him.

[17:34] God has never said seek my face in vain. Sometimes he requires the Lord's people to seek him for a while, sometimes for a long time before finding him.

[17:44] But they do find him and he does not require anybody to seek and not find. So, so much about the technical details of what we've got here.

[17:56] But I want to suggest secondly that Enoch was also, is also an example. Enoch was a man who walked with God and God took him.

[18:08] That's what the scriptures tell us. He was a man who lived in obedience to and friendship with God and served as God's example and served as God's spokesman and for him in the Lord's providence and mercy he overruled death.

[18:26] But he's still a model for all of us to follow. You see, Enoch didn't just live. He walked with God. He's different.

[18:36] He's a step above everybody else. And can I suggest it's still the case that walking with God is a step above just living. Notice, first of all, it was commanded, Israel was commanded to walk with God.

[18:53] Leviticus chapter 26 verse 3. The Lord says, If you walk in my statutes and observe my commandments to do them, then I will, and follows a whole list of blessings.

[19:04] I will bless you in this way and that way and the next way. Same chapter, Leviticus chapter 26 verse 12. And I will walk among you and will be your God and you shall be my people.

[19:18] That's what he promised. Old Testament Israel, and that's what he promises us here too as well. It's still the standard for the believer's life. Why do I say that?

[19:29] First of all, for example, Colossians chapter 2 verse 6. There Paul says, Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught abounding in thanksgiving.

[19:47] So walk in him. Revelation chapter 3 verse 4, to the church in Sardis. Yet you still have a few names in Sardis, people who have not soiled their garments, and they will walk with me in white, for they are worthy.

[20:04] So here, there in Revelation, the blessing of heaven is described as walking with the Lord in white. So I think it's clear, isn't it, I hope it is, that this idea of walking with God is something that we all must think about and try and work out what it actually means.

[20:22] It's a way of putting it, it's a metaphor which scripture uses and we have a responsibility to grapple with it and seek to understand it. So here's the second point, Enoch is an example which we all have to follow and then we have to ask ourselves, what is involved in walking with God like Enoch and that's what I want to do for the remaining part of our time this evening.

[20:47] Some of you will have noticed, perhaps you all have noticed, that we do have a slightly different translation of that, this thought, in Hebrews chapter 11. It's not just Hebrews, the Greek version of the Old Testament, the Septuagint.

[21:02] Here's one for you young people, can you tuck this away in your memories? Septuagint, that's a difficult, word, isn't it? It's just the Greek word for 70. Do you know why it's used?

[21:13] It's because the first Greek version, Greek version, not Hebrew version, Greek version of the Old Testament was written by a team of 70 scholars and they translated it from Hebrew, Old Testament Hebrew, into Greek, the 70 minutes, called the Septuagint, which is the Greek word for 70.

[21:33] If you want to write it down, ask me afterwards and I'll spell it out for you. But the Greek version, the original Greek version, the Syriac version, which originally was what people spoke in Syria and Hebrews, they all, when they're quoting Genesis chapter 5, they all say Enoch pleased God.

[21:54] And Hebrews 11 then goes on to talk about Enoch as pleasing God because of his faith. Enoch was a man of faith. He believed what God had told him.

[22:06] He believed what had been passed on to him about what God had told his fathers and his grandfathers right back to Adam presumably. And Enoch represents, and we're also told that without faith it's impossible to please God.

[22:22] It doesn't matter what you do, no matter how good you are, if you're not a person of faith then you can't please God. So Enoch represents the effectiveness of faith in obtaining benefits, obtaining blessings.

[22:40] And we need to remember that none but a believer can be the object of the particular favour of God. Because by faith alone can a man or a woman or a young person as well actually please God.

[22:55] So righteousness, being righteous, begins with faith. And that's why we have it here said that Enoch's faith pleased God.

[23:08] So that's the first thing that we need to note. Faith is required to please God and we all have to ask ourselves, do we have it? Do I have it? Do you have it? You young people, nothing wrong with you asking yourselves have I got faith in the Lord Jesus?

[23:24] Am I trusting him? Am I trusting the fact that he died on the cross to save me from my sins? That really works. I'm trusting that. You know, one of the old Scottish ministers from the 17th century, I can't remember if it was James Durham or one of that sort of period, before he died he actually went through a period where his faith was sort of shaking, it was quite shaky.

[23:48] And a lot of his fellow ministers used to come and try to encourage him and they say how can you who has been such a greatly blessed by the Lord and people have been converted under your preaching? How can it be that your faith has gone or you're not sure about it?

[24:04] And they did this for several weeks and then one day one of the men, one of the ministers went to see him and he said, ah, my faith has returned. And the man said, how did it happen?

[24:17] And he said, I took my sins and I took my so-called works of righteousness, the good things he was thinking he'd done and he said, I laid them both at the feet of the Lord Jesus and I just trusted him.

[24:33] That's a great thought actually because so many people, it's case we all sort of think, don't we, that for some reason or other perhaps the Lord is going to be, to view me a bit more favourably than perhaps he ought to or he might because of what we've done.

[24:50] And you know, it's just not true. We need to take our works of righteousness because their so-called works of righteousness, they don't compare to what the Lord Jesus has done for us on the cross.

[25:01] And so James Durham or whoever it was said, I've taken my works of righteousness, I've taken my sins and I've laid them both at the cross, at the foot of the cross. And that's what brought his confidence and assurance back.

[25:14] It's a great thought, a really great thought. The best that we can do is not remarkably to be compared to what Christ has done. We don't need to do anything. We mustn't even think that we need to.

[25:27] We mustn't think with any purpose in it. We lay everything at the feet of the Lord Jesus. But I want to suggest that there's one thing which I think we can actually suggest was what Enoch's faith led to.

[25:47] It led to what we might say is preparedness to act. Enoch's faith led him to do two things I think. It led him first of all to witness and to speak to the people around him who were ungodly about the coming judgment.

[26:03] Of course for them the judgment came much sooner than they anticipated it because the flood came and they were drowned. But it led as well as that. It led to him walking with God and we need therefore to think really hard about what actually does it mean to say that Enoch walked with God or that we should walk with God as well.

[26:25] Now can I suggest that what it means is if you like being God's friend, liking his company and therefore going the same way.

[26:42] Being God's friend, liking his company, well not just therefore we're going the same way, it's actually circular because we are going the same way. That's something that you young people I think you can understand can't you?

[26:56] You know, being God's friend, you've got your friends, you like being with them don't you? You like walking home from school with them or walking around the playground with them and you do the same things don't you?

[27:10] You tend to like the same things. People tend to like people who like the same things as they do, don't they? Usually you get of course what's called a traction of opposites but most people like people like themselves and I think that's the key to what I'm going to suggest to you this evening, that's the key to walking with God.

[27:32] And I want to suggest there's three things, agreement, familiarity and affection. Agreement, familiarity and affection.

[27:47] Agreement in this context. If we agree with God, what does it mean? What does it mean that we do? It means that I think that we have a persistent endeavour to hold all of our lives open to the Lord's inspection and a desire to conform ourselves to his will.

[28:09] we want to do what pleases him, we want to obey his commandments, we want to be as good as we can at obeying his commandments.

[28:22] That's the first thing. It's this, there's a willingness to say, Lord, show me how you see me and what's wrong with my life and what I should be doing better and what I should be seeking to get rid of in my life, all these sorts of things.

[28:37] things. And then, with his assistance, with his spirit's assistance, make ourselves more and more in line with what he wants us to be.

[28:49] And I think there's a sort of colliery at the same time. It's also a readiness to give up whatever it is that causes misunderstandings between us and the Lord, if we can put it like that.

[29:00] Are we willing to give up what we know the Lord doesn't like? What might cause, if you like, putting it in human terms, misunderstandings between us and God?

[29:14] That's what agreement is. And you young people, I think, if you think about when sometimes, because sometimes friends fall out, don't they? We all fall out with our friends over something. And real friends will actually try to work it out and sort out what the problem is and become friendly again.

[29:31] Well, it's like that with us and God. So that's the first thing, agreement. Second thing is familiarity. Familiarity. Can I tell the young people a story?

[29:43] I've got a feeling I might have told this story in this congregation before. This is when I was a minister in Loch Kilted. And the secondary school there ran into a problem.

[29:57] They didn't have any RE and there was inspection. The inspectors were coming and the law of the land said they had so much RE and so many assemblies and things like that. And they realised that they were nowhere near what they were supposed to be doing.

[30:09] Suddenly there was a call for all the local ministers and we were all made chaplains for one year group. And there were assemblies and the idea was the chaplains are. Each lunch one of the ministers went to the school and anybody it wanted.

[30:23] School pupil, staff member could actually come and talk to us about their problems or whatever they wanted to talk about. And I was going in and it was the second time my second chaplains hour at lunchtime.

[30:35] And as I walked up the steps to the front of the school I heard this girl's voice say I hate Jesus. And I sort of looked around and I couldn't work out who it was at all.

[30:48] So I thought I'll just keep one guy. And the voice came again I hate Jesus. I found out actually afterwards that she was the daughter of a local witch who did things like reading tarot cards and telling people's fortunes and stuff like that so it wasn't surprising.

[31:06] Anyway, there was a Bible study that night and I went to the Bible study and I was telling the people at the Bible study what had happened. And one of the ladies in the congregation said I know what you should have said.

[31:19] I said what? She said you should have said back how well do you know him then? And that's really what familiarity is about. This girl didn't know Jesus at all or she would never have said that even if she wasn't a Christian.

[31:35] She's very unlikely to have said it. Atheists might say it. In fact there was a famous atheist, some of the older people might have heard of him. Kingsley Amos was a novelist I think and a journalist.

[31:48] He was being interviewed one day on television or radio or something and the interviewer said now Mr. Amos I understand that you're an atheist. It's not just that he said.

[31:58] I hate it. But he didn't know it. Familiarity with the Lord is one of the things which really characterises the Lord's people.

[32:10] What's it mean? Well I think first of all it's something like having God in all our thoughts because he's naturally suggested to us by whatever we're thinking about or whatever we're doing.

[32:27] It's like when a person or a plan or an idea or something becomes really important you keep on thinking about it. I suspect that young people, perhaps older people and mothers well too, one of the things that characterises them is that they're always thinking about the person they love.

[32:44] That's a challenge for all of us who are married isn't it really? All of us too who are children. Do we love our parents? Do we love our husbands and wives like we should? Are we always thinking about them?

[32:54] Well are we always thinking about the Lord? When we do things does it naturally mean that we think about the implications for the Lord, for God? And I would suggest that for the godly man or the godly woman or the godly young person as well, everything has a connection with God.

[33:13] We're familiar with him. He's part of our lives. Another thought, when our circumstances change or there's a change that we're thinking about in our lives or is our first thing to consider how this is going to affect our relationship with the Lord?

[33:31] Is it going to really mean we've got to change our plans perhaps? Or will the connection with the Lord still be absolutely strong? Will our consciences be clear?

[33:44] Will we still be on the same friendly terms with God? That's what I mean when I say familiarity with the Lord. Familiarity with the Lord is something which all the Lord's people should be saying, yes, that's part of my relationship with him.

[34:00] And that's part, I would suggest, that's the second part of what it means to walk with God. And then the third thing that comes to mind, I'm sure there's more in this connection but here's three. When we fall into sin we shouldn't rest until we've resumed our place at God's sight.

[34:17] You know, sin is talking about falling off the narrow road and going off a tangent and often down side tracks and things like that. Well if somebody's familiar with the Lord and you realise that you've gone off the road, you're no longer walking with him, you really want to get back as quickly as possible.

[34:35] That's what happens when you're familiar with the person. And then the last thing is this, I think, affection. We've got agreement, we've got familiarity, we've got affection and can I suggest that we can think about affection in this context of walking with the Lord.

[34:52] When we don't hold fellowship, when we're not in fellowship with him, do we feel lonely, do we feel desolate, do we feel cold as it were?

[35:03] Because we are conscious of doing something which displeases him. Well if we have the Lord in affection, I think that's true. Are we instinctively trying to please him?

[35:15] Do we repress thoughts that we know he disapproves of? Are we seeking to develop attitudes in our lives and in our relationships which reflect God's own nature?

[35:26] love? So walking with God I think is to be on thoroughly friendly, familiar, affectionate terms with the Lord.

[35:38] If you want to put it simply, how well do we love God? How well do we love the Lord Jesus? And also there's a sort of second question that follows from that. How do we show it?

[35:49] How do we show it? Because if you love somebody, you show it, don't you? If you like somebody, you show it. Well, if we're the Lord's people, we should be constantly showing it and thinking about how well we show it.

[36:06] Results. What are the results of walking with God? Can I give you four of Matthew Henry's? I don't know how much people read Matthew Henry in one of my previous congregations.

[36:19] If I didn't quote Matthew Henry, I got told after the evening service what Matthew Henry had said. A great 17th century Puritan commentator. Sometimes I have three or four people telling me what Matthew Henry had said.

[36:32] But here's what he said. Walking with him pleases the Lord. We cannot walk with him so as to please him but by faith. God will honour those who walk with him.

[36:45] He will own them. He will acknowledge them as his own before angels and men at the last day and even now. those who walk with him in this world shall find their removal out of it truly happy.

[37:00] So there's four things. Some of them obvious, some of them really quite profound. Especially that last one. Those who walk with him in this world shall find their removal out of it truly happy.

[37:14] But it's true. It's true. So I want to suggest to you this evening that we should be encouraged by Enoch's translation as it's called, his removal from this world and taken by the Lord to be with him.

[37:28] It gives us evidence of the future state of the Lord's people in heaven. It gives us evidence of our bodies existing in glory in heaven.

[37:39] It encourages all those who walk with God that in due course they shall be forever with him. But there's still the time being isn't there?

[37:51] For the time being we have to acknowledge that life under the curse is difficult and hard and sometimes sad and often uncertain and all these things. And human life under the curse is not pleasing to God either.

[38:06] We need to remember that. That's why he appointed Noah to be part of his plan to actually end the pain. But what we need to notice this evening is that first of all Enoch walked with God and he escaped the curse of death.

[38:24] Enoch was created by God to represent him on earth and to show the way of blessing. And the church and the Christian believer today are really in that same position or similar position.

[38:38] We have to exemplify or to embody God's message message to the world and in the world and at the same time we look for our translation into glory for relief from the curse.

[38:53] We groan at the moment as does all of creation waiting as we do for the day of redemption. But can I suggest to us all that in the meantime we need to think carefully about what it means to walk with God like Enoch did like Abraham did as well and like all the Lord's people have done in varying degrees but that's what we're aiming for and that's what God will surely bless.

[39:21] May we all be able in our particular situations to be grappling with and having in the backs of our mind always this great challenge of what it is to walk with God.

[39:31] You young people too will be able to remember about Enoch when you know not forget about Enoch is really quite important. Just a few verses but he's worth thinking about and remembering. So if ever some years God willing down the line I come here and I say remember when I was preaching about Enoch you'll nod your heads won't you?

[39:49] May the Lord bless us all. Let us pray. We pray Lord that you would apply to us these things from your word that we would always be people who read your word and then go away seeking with your aid to do it.

[40:01] We call to mind how the Lord Jesus himself said that those who are blessed are not just here. his words but who actually do them. May we be people who implement the things that we hear from your word.

[40:14] God Lord that you would give us zeal in these things and diligence because we know that sometimes these things can be hard and sometimes we lose sight of the destination at the end of the road.

[40:27] Sometimes even we feel that you do not see us. We call to mind your servant Martin Luther who said that the Lord it's like the sun that the sun is always there even when it's obscured by clouds and that is true too of you and your blessing.

[40:42] We pray Lord that we would see the radiance of your blessing and love shining down upon us all as we seek to walk with you. We pray Lord that you would be with this congregation be with its minister and its office bearers and its members as well and the adherents too who come week by week and we pray Lord that you would draw them to yourself and might they too be soon walking with you.

[41:05] Go with us and we pray in this week which has begun bless us all give us the strength that we need for the particular things that we will be facing keep us in safety and keep us always reflecting on how what we are doing relates to your will and your presence with us.

[41:21]  Forgive us for our sins which we acknowledge again in Jesus name we ask it. Amen. Amen.