- Enoch: Faith Takes Us to the Rapture

03 - Enoch: Faith Takes Us to the Rapture
THERE IS A GREAT COMPANY of believers within the Christian church in our day willing to take God at His word when He says our world is headed for judgment. On the other hand, t here are many who scoff at the idea of judgment and contend that everything around us will continue as it is forever and ever.
Some segments within the Christian church believe that God surely is a holy God and that it is possible for men and women of faith to live in a way pleasing to Him. Others presume God expects men and women to find happiness in their own devices. Thus they rule out the validity of the many scriptural warnings as well as the Bible’s appeals for godly living.
These observations bring to mind the faith of one man—Enoch—who lived near the beginning of our race. We can only wonder how he would have measured Christianity as we know it in the twentieth century!
One of the greatest Bible commentaries on godly faith is the single sentence in Genesis telling us that “Enoch walked with God; then he was no more, because God took him away” (Genesis 5:24). The New Testament assessment of Enoch’s faith is also brief—a single paragraph in the Letter to the Hebrews:
By faith Enoch was taken from this life, so that he did not experience death; he could not be found, because God had taken him away. For before he was taken, he was commended as one who pleased God. (Hebrews 11:5)
God has given us a faithful and trustworthy record. Any person who refuses to believe the overriding wisdom and illumination of God’s Holy Spirit will never have or hold a clear and proper estimate of the human race. In Enoch God has given us an example of faith and a model of daily fellowship with God.
God tells us about His presence
Anyone making even a quick review of Genesis will discover that God has told us more about His presence in creation and in history than about the details of human civilization. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. We believe that! That is our starting place. We believe that eternity dwells in the person of God and that the material universe came into being through God’s creation.
The first man and woman in the human race were created. They failed in their initial encounter with Satan, our arch enemy. Following that, the Genesis record becomes a narrative of human failure against the abiding backdrop of God’s faithfulness.
We are told of Cain and Abel, two sons of Adam and Eve, and of Cain’s refusal to honor God’s plan for the redemption and acceptance of lost humanity. On the very threshold of human culture and civilization, Cain murdered his brother, Abel. Later, as Cain’s wife was giving birth to his first son—an earlier Enoch than the one referred to in Hebrews 11—Cain was then building a city, and he named it after his son (Genesis 4:17).
The civilization founded by Cain was as evil as he. It would ultimately terminate in the judgment of the Flood. But in giving us the brief record of Cain’s oldest son, the Spirit of God, as Author of the Bible, binds in one bundle of life all the yesterdays of the race and reveals the organic oneness of all humans.
The information in Genesis is a revelation to our hearts. Through it we understand that all people born of Adam are of one blood. This means that we are bound up in a natural brotherhood throughout the earth. But that does not portray the full and final story.
God Himself, through the Holy Spirit, points out a universal human problem: the natural brotherhood of human beings is a sinful brotherhood. It is the brotherhood of all who are spiritually lost.
But the Bible has good news from the Holy Spirit concerning the human race. That good news is the revelation of a new brotherhood, the brotherhood of the redeemed. We know it in our time as the believing church of our Lord Jesus Christ in all nations.
It is plain that the natural brotherhood that dates back to Adam does not have a saving, redeeming bond. The record is clear for those who will pursue it. God in His love and concern prolonged the race after the Flood. Then in His own time, He called out of the race a chosen people, Israel, in order to ensure the coming of the Messiah-Savior with His gracious offer of salvation and renewal.
The new brotherhood among men is based on regeneration and restoration. Take away the coming of Jesus into the world, take away His redeeming death and His victorious resurrection, and there remains no basis for wholeness and oneness in the race. It is impossible to hold a proper view of mankind’s brotherhood without recognizing all that God has done to assure that the eternal brotherhood is the fellowship of redeemed men and women comprising Jesus’ church, His Body on earth.
Back to Enoch
But now we have met godly Enoch, seventh generation from Adam through Adam’s third son, Seth. We are impressed that he could resist the devil and find fellowship with his Creator-God, even in a worldly society headed for destruction. Enoch recognized the failure of men and women trying to live their lives apart from God and His will. By faith he walked with God on this earth at a time when sin and corruption were wildly rampant all around him.
Enoch’s daily walk was a walk of faith, a walk of fellowship with God. What the Scriptures are trying to say to us is this: If Enoch could live and walk with God by faith in the midst of his sinful generation, we likewise should be able to follow his example because the human race is the same and God is the same!
Space does not permit us to cover all the spiritual lessons we might learn from the life of godly Enoch. But I do want to make an important emphasis here for every Christian believer: Enoch reminds us that the quality and boldness of our faith will be the measure of our preparation for the return of Jesus Christ to this earth.
We Christian believers, walking by faith nearly twentieth centuries after Christ’s sojourn on earth, hold firmly to the New Testament promise that our risen Lord will return to earth again. Our ever-living High Priest in the heavens intends to return for His church—the brotherhood of the redeemed. We are neither ashamed nor afraid to confess our anticipation of Christ’s return.
Jesus promised His disciples He would return:
So, if anyone tells you, “There he is, out in the desert,” do not go out; or, “Here he is, in the inner rooms,” do not believe it. For as the lightning comes from the east and flashes to the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.(Matthew 24:26-27)
Jesus’ two appearings are contrasted in this Letter to the Hebrews. First, the writer states the purpose of Jesus’ first coming:
Now he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself. (Hebrews 9:27)
Then, the writer promises that Christ Jesus will return to bring ultimate salvation to the redeemed:
So Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.(Hebrews 9:28)
Enoch is a type
I have taken time to point up the Bible promise of Jesus’ return for a reason. It is my strong conviction that Enoch’s experience of translation into the presence of God is a type, or preview, of the coming rapture of the church, the bride of Christ, described in the Scriptures.
I can assure you that I have never been a preacher of obscure or curious texts. My calling is to preach the entire Word of God and all of its basic doctrines as revealed by the Holy Spirit of God. I confess that I have been shy about leaning too hard on Bible types or “pictures” in the Word.
I think some teachers have overemphasized the importance of such analogies. Some teachers have mistakenly tried to build doctrines on the types they discerned. It is my advice that we continue to faithfully preach the plain Word of God. We can trust the Holy Spirit to guide us.
In this instance, however, the faith and deportment of the man Enoch do compose a vivid picture—powerful object lesson—to encourage every Christian believer in his or her faith. Enoch speaks to us of our own troubled times—and that is the purpose of the Word of God. It should be our concern that we hear—and that we obey!
There is only one conclusion to be drawn here. Enoch was translated into the presence of God because of his faith, and thus he escaped death. It is very evident that there was no funeral for Enoch. Those who knew him best surely had to answer many questions. “Where is Enoch?” “What happened to Enoch?” “Why don’t we see Enoch around anymore?”
Perhaps members of his own family did not fully understand his walk with God, but they could answer with the facts: “He is gone! God has called him home. God has taken him.” I wonder if his contemporaries ever made the obvious comparison: “Enoch always advised us to walk with God—to put our trust in God. We though the was a fanatic. Now he is gone, he is at home with God, and we are still here in a troubled world!”
Our promised rapture is disparaged
In our own generation, many around us consider our hope in the promise of Christ’s return an extreme belief. As the current chapter of church history is being written throughout the world, the teaching of the return of Jesus Christ for His church is not popular.
There probably is no way that we can arrive at the number of believers throughout the breadth and scope of Christianity who consider the prophetic Scriptures seriously. We do know that those who believe and proclaim that Jesus is coming again are in the minority.
Personally, I do not worry or fret about being in the minority where the will of God is concerned. I am firmly persuaded that our Lord Jesus Christ is coming again for His believing people. Throughout my years of ministry, I have held to this teaching found in the Bible. I have had no reason to change my mind concerning it.
This much we know and can say: The general outlines of prophetic events as foretold in the Scriptures are accepted by conservative, evangelical Christians. Evangelicals are regenerated Christian believers who have experienced a life changing relationship with God through faith in Jesus Christ as their Savior and Lord. They are men and women who are committed to the Bible as the revealed, inspired Word of God.
That biblical record describes the ascension of our risen Jesus and preserves the words of the “two men dressed in white” who spoke to Jesus’ wonder-struck disciples:
Men of Galilee,” they said, “why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.” (Acts 1:11)
We have also the revelation given to the apostle Paul, and his inspired counsel to the Thessalonian church:
We believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. According to the Lord’s own word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage each other with these words. (1 Thessalonians 4:14-18)
Jesus could return soon
When it comes to the many details of Christian eschatology, we are not dogmatic and unbending. For instance, what I know about our promised heavenly home must be only a small and insignificant part of all that God has prepared for his children.
God has His own timing, and all of His plans are good plans for His children. There is an important point to make concerning God’s timing in the case of Enoch. Enoch was a man of faith, a child of God. We could call him one of God’s faithful few. God took him out of the earth and out of his race when the judgment of the Flood was not far away.
Jesus taught very clearly during His ministry that the flood came on earth as a judgment for sin and ungodliness. When he was asked about the signs of His coming and the events of the future, Jesus said:
As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. (Matthew 24:37-39)
All of us surely have moments when we wonder if we are seriously living in preparation for the coming of our Lord and for the eternity when we will be at home with Him. In our faith and trust, we know that God in His grace owns us and calls us His believing children, His saints. Yet, we do have times of discouragement concerning our shortcomings and failures.
The faith of Enoch continues to be an encouragement to walk with the King of heaven while we live down here. Then we know we will feel comfortable and at home when we get to heaven!
The facts are plainly spelled out. Enoch walked with God. He faced up to the devil and patiently bore the scoffing of those who lived like the devil. God honored his faith and took him into His divine presence forever.
I think we may draw the certain conclusion that when Enoch arrived in God’s presence—raptured, translated, changed—he was completely at home, completely satisfied.
An important personal lesson
Now, here is one of the great personal lessons for us: Enoch was a spiritual rebuke to his own generation. He fought off the wiles and the temptations of the devil. He purposed within himself: “I will walk with God by faith even if that means that I must be detached from my generation.”
Are you really detached from your generation because you resist the devil and walk in the fullness of the Holy Spirit?
Am I?
That is a very personal question, and we dare not try to answer it for each other.
Our generation in this world system claims that there is no personal devil, no enemy of our souls. Yet, all the while, Satan is busy. He is using a successful, age-old tactic with many people. He is assuring them in a variety of ways that there is no urgency in the matters of faith.
“Put off your decisions until a more favorable time,” Satan says. “Do not make a decision until your situation eases!” The devil gambles on the odds that men and women will never heed God’s warning that “Now is the accepted time.”
“Put off a decision until you feel you are ready.” That is the devil’s urging to those who are lost. As a result, millions have waited. And in waiting, they have never come to God in repentance and faith.
A closing warning
In closing, I must add a warning. Enoch could have written a book on human loneliness. We must make our choices even as Enoch did. Enoch refused to walk in agreement with the ungodly multitude of his generation.
There is nothing as meaningless as a shout from a crowd. The crowd may give a big cheer, but no one ever seems to quite know what the shout means.
Believing Christians with true faith in God know very well the meaning of loneliness. In most ways, they are already detached from their generation. Yet, in spite of the devil and the criticism of the crowd, they continue to serve their generation by doing the will of God.
I have heard stories of sheep in a flock blindly following leaders over the edge of a steep cliff. It seems that it is in the nature of sheep to follow the crowd. It is as though the word is passed along from one to another: “Don’t be a dissenter! Don’t try to be different! Just continue along with the crowd!” So they all go over the cliff, one after another—but they have stuck with the crowd!
Enoch determined that even if everyone in his generation was blindly moving toward the judgment of God, he would be the one man who refused to go over the cliff with the unbelievers. What did he do?
In faith Enoch detached himself from his generation. Then, by faith, he lived above all generations, pleasing to God.
The result? The life and testimony and victory of Enoch have become a benediction to all generations.
The warning? If we are satisfied to settle down and become weak victims amid the sins of our generation, we will die with our generation.
There is an alternative. If we will rise by faith above our generation, we, like Enoch, will prove to be a benediction to those who are yet to come!