Enoch, The Man who Pleased God
Part 5, More Applications of Enoch’s Walk
2004 : Week 16  |  Printer Friendly Version  

Last week we began looking at the practical applications of Enoch’s walk and how we could apply them to our own lives. We’ll continue by looking at three more practical applications today.

3. Run a Marathon, Not a Sprint

Are you a hundred-meter Christian? Do you think of your life as a short series of sprints on your way to heaven? Mark 4:3-6 records the thoughts of Jesus regarding the hundred-meter Christian:

Hearken; Behold, there went out a sower to sow: and it came to pass, as he sowed, some fell by the way side, and the fowls of the air came and devoured it up. And some fell on stony ground, where it had not much earth; and immediately it sprang up, because it had no depth of earth: but when the sun was up, it was scorched; and because it had no root, it withered away.

Jesus interprets these verses in Mark 4:16-17:

And these are they likewise which are sown on stony ground; who, when they had heard the word, immediately receive it with gladness; and have no root in themselves, and so they endure but for a time; afterward, when affliction or persecution ariseth for the words sake, immediately they are offended.

If you are trying to sprint through the Christian life, you need to stop, reassess, and let Jesus Christ take full control. The only way to genuine happiness in the Christian life is to give yourself fully to the Lord and plant yourself deeply in His word. There are a lot of hundred-meter Christians; they used to come to church but are on the sidelines now. Maybe the trials or the difficulties of life distracted them. Maybe it was soccer; maybe it was basketball, Girl Scouts or football, or something else that distracted them. Maybe it was long hours of work that distracted them from serving God. If so, if they’re still out today, they’re hundred-meter Christians; they only ran with Jesus a short time, and then they fell by the wayside.

Enoch would plead for you to be a marathon Christian. I don’t know of anything more physically draining than to be a marathon runner. It takes stubborn determination to force the body to run for twenty-six miles. It takes strength of will and strength of spirit to force yourself onward. It takes strength and control of the mind when you want to give up after eight miles, or after sixteen or seventeen miles. The challenge is to keep on going forward, no matter what.

Do you know what the most difficult part of pasturing is? It’s not preaching; it’s not counseling. It’s trying to keep the volunteer army moving forward for God. It’s the endurance challenge.

The apostle Paul knew what the marathon was like. Toward the end of his life, in one of the last written statements we have from him in 2 Timothy 4:7-8 he said,

I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.

If you’re ready to give up, think of Paul and all that he endured. Or imagine Enoch standing on the sidelines, cheering you on, encouraging you towards the finish line, shouting, “Come on now, don’t give up. This is a marathon, not a sprint! You’re almost home. You’re almost to the finish line!”

4. Speak up for the Lord

Speaking up for the Lord is one of the most difficult things to do, but Enoch would tell us to do it in spite of the difficulty. Indeed, it’s easier to speak up if we are walking with love for the Lord as our motivation. For if are walking in full communion with Him and have caught a glimpse of His awesome character, then sometimes it’s all we can do to keep our testimony silent. But the fact that even believers who are walking with a proper motivation are not taking every opportunity afforded them, attests to the difficulty of witnessing.

Certainly witnessing must have been difficult even for Enoch. The verses in Jude tell us that Enoch was preaching a message of judgment. And that’s what we are doing, too, though we don’t always voice the judgment in bold terms. The truth is, if somebody rejects Jesus Christ, they’re going to die in their sin and go to hell. People don’t want to hear that. It’s extremely unpopular, and somehow the ungodly know exactly what you’re going to say about judgment even before you say it. They immediately back away and reply on the defensive: “Who are you to tell me how to live! Who are you to tell me I need to be born again! I’m fine in my own religion and in my own church.” Yet Enoch would tell us to persist. He persisted for three hundred years.

As we think of how this applies to our world today and to the future, one of the things that concerns me is that many young believers are more concerned about community and acceptance than they are about righteousness. Please understand: you may be the only restraint standing between someone you know and destruction. Follow Enoch’s example. Be bold in your testimony for God.

5. Look Forward to Your Reward

What’s the one thing mankind fears more than anything else? It’s death. As a whole, mankind is terrified of the grave. How would it make you feel today if you knew that your walk was so pleasing to the Lord that He would take you to heaven without having to pass through death? Incredible! That was Enoch. He walked with God in a world that was filled with wicked people whose thoughts were evil continually before God every day. Finally God said, ‘That’s enough; I’m taking you out of this place.’ And Enoch was not. God took him. The word took, in Hebrew, means to carry away. It means to fetch, to receive, and to seize. Wow, what’s that a picture of? If the rapture comes in our lifetime, someday as we are walking with the Lord, He may say, ‘That’s it! Blow that trumpet. I’m bringing them home, because I’ve had enough of that world! The judgment is coming. Bring my children home!’ And as quickly as Enoch was translated, we’ll be brought into the presence of Jesus Christ.

Years ago F. B. Meyer, a great preacher in the 1900s, lost a friend. He spent all night searching and studying the New Testament. He came away with this great truth. He said that he found that after the resurrection of Jesus Christ, there was no more of that ugly word death for the believer; instead, it was asleep in Jesus: ‘Absent from the body, present with the Lord’. How true this is for every believer! Some like to say that we are immortal and cannot die before God wills us to die. If you lay hold of that truth, it will do something to your soul. Fear will no longer reign, no matter whether you are brought under the surgeon’s knife or you are facing a terminal illness or you are headed across the world to a dangerous mission field. If you claim that truth as your own, you will know deep in your soul that God is in control of it all.

God’s faith and grace is real. Let us walk by faith as Enoch did.

Pastor Ralph E. Wingate, Jr.

**Words of Jesus Christ appear in red.



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