Devotions

“Before his translation [Enoch] had this testimony, that he pleased God. But without faith it is impossible to please him” (Hebrews 11:5-6). What was it about Enoch that pleased God so much? It was that his walk with God produced in him the kind of faith God loves.

Throughout the Bible and all of history, those who walked with God became men and women of faith. If the Church is daily walking arm-in-arm with God, continually communing with Him, the result will be a people full of faith.

Some conduct faith seminars, distribute faith tapes, quote faith scriptures — all trying to produce faith. And it is true, “Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Roman l0:17). But Jesus is the Word. “The letter killeth,” Scripture says in 2 Corinthians 3:6. Without intimacy with Jesus, the letter produces a dead, selfish, demanding emotion that is not faith at all — and God hates it. Faith comes by hearing His Word and walking close to Him. Not by talking without walking! This intimate walk with God is missing from the Church today. Faith is really knowing who God is, becoming familiar with His glory and majesty. Those who know Him best, trust Him most.

Show me a people walking closely with Him, hating sin, becoming detached from this world and getting to know His voice, and you will see a people who will not need much preaching and teaching about faith.

Enoch’s walk with God would not have been worthwhile unless it produced a corresponding faith that was constantly growing. “By faith Enoch was translated” (see Hebrews 11:5). What an incredible truth! All his faith was focused on one great desire of his heart: to be with the Lord!

Elijah and Enoch, the only two prophets to be translated, had something in common. They were both haters of sin and cried out against it. They both walked so closely with God that they couldn’t help sharing His hatred for ungodliness.

The undeniable effect on all who walk with God is a growing hatred for sin — and not only hatred, but separation from it. If you still love this world and are at home with the ungodly — if you are a friend to those who curse Him — you are not walking with the Lord but sitting on the fence, putting Him to open shame.

“Enoch walked with God; and he was not; for God took him” (Genesis 5:24). We know from Hebrews that this speaks of Enoch’s translation, the fact that he did not taste death. But it also means something deeper than that: “He was not” as defined in Genesis 5 also means, “He was not of this world.”

In his spirit, in his senses, Enoch was not a part of this wicked world. He was taken up in his spirit to a heavenly realm. Like Paul, he died daily to this world while he cared for his family, worked, ministered, occupied. But “he was not” — he was not earthbound! The Lord consumed Him. Every waking moment his mind came back to Him. His heart was attached to God with what seemed like a huge rubber band. And the more you stretch a rubber band, the quicker it springs back when you let it go. Enoch’s heart always “sprang back” to the Lord.

As mankind grew more ungodly all around him, as men changed into wild beasts full of lust, hardness and sensuality, Enoch became more and more like the One with whom he walked. 

In this day, many Christians are running to hide from mounting calamities. So-called prophets are telling people to come to their safe havens. Christian Jews are being warned to get back to Israel to escape the financial collapse anticipated in America.

I know where I want to be when things fall apart. When the financial market crashes, I want to go back to Wall Street where I was during the crash on October 19, 1987. I want to be there like a modern Enoch, walking and talking with God, without fear — a peaceful, fearless witness, preaching Jesus to a people whose world has collapsed.

Jesus did not tell us to hide, He said, “Go ye!” I want to be where the Holy Ghost is — and you can be sure He will be on the frontlines of the battle, calling the troubled and fearful to Himself.

Enoch saw that his own society was wicked, and as he looked down to the very last days, all he could say was, “Ungodly!” Enoch, the seventh from Adam, also prophesied of these, saying, “Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints, to execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him" (Jude 14-15).

Are you walking with the Lord? Then you must see the world as Enoch saw it: ungodly and full of the spirit of Antichrist. How can you be a part of what is ungodly? How can you associate with those He is coming to judge? He is coming with ten thousands of His saints to judge a sinful, lost world. Which side are you on?

“By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was not found, because God had translated him: for before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God. But without faith it is impossible to please him” (Hebrews 11:5-6).

“And Enoch walked with God.” The Hebrew meaning for walked implies that Enoch continually conversed with God. He lived three hundred sixty-five years — or a “year” of years! He introduces to us a new kind of believer, for he is a type of the dedicated believer in Christ.

Enoch learned to walk with God in the midst of a wicked society. He was no hermit hidden away in a wilderness cave. He was an ordinary family man with the same problems and burdens we carry — involved in everyday life with a wife, the obligations of children, household responsibilities. 

Those who walk with God are translated out of Satan’s reach, out of his kingdom of darkness and into Christ’s kingdom of light. “Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son” (Colossian 1:13). We are translated right now out of the devil’s snare and into the very heart of Jesus.

The Greek word for translate suggests that Christ personally came and carried us away from the devil’s power and set us in a heavenly place. But God only translates those who walk close to Him, as Enoch did. Those who are held captive at Satan’s will cannot be taken up and delivered from darkness. You are not truly saved until you firmly set your heart on walking with God. 

Paul urged Timothy to stay in Ephesus even though it appeared Timothy didn’t want to (see 1 Timothy 1:3-4). We believe the reason may have been because of problems the Ephesian church was facing. It seems the church was living in self-righteousness, trying to look good. When you are self-righteous, you often are deceived and you become greedy and ambitious; you may even start to hoard things.

At this time there was a famine in Macedonia and also in Jerusalem, resulting in extreme poverty. While Macedonia and Jerusalem were struggling, the economy in Ephesus was good; they had a lot of resources but they were clinging to them for themselves.

Paul says in 1 Timothy 6:17-18: “Charge them not to be haughty, nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy. They are to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share.”

Paul’s first word, charge, means to “command or give strict orders.” In some translations we read, “Command those who are rich in this present age to be generous.”

Why would Paul tell them to command people to be generous and to no longer cling to things for themselves? It sounds so legalistic and it is — it’s the Law. The Law shows us where we are off grace, where we are wrong. The command that Paul said Timothy should give to the Ephesians was not to get them to give an offering only, but to get them to see that something of grace was missing in their lives.