This sermon emphasizes the importance of walking with God and living a life that pleases Him, drawing inspiration from the examples of Enoch and Noah. It challenges young people to have a radical conversion like Enoch, to desire to prophesy, and to condemn the world by their way of life. The speaker highlights the need for strict yet loving parenting, involving children in building the church, and responding wholeheartedly to the call of God.

I want to turn again to Hebrews 11, I was mentioning that we can rise higher than all God has provided something better for us when reading the last verse So whenever you read about any old man or saint, you must always think, I can rise higher than that When we read about the humility of Moses, he was the humblest man on the face of the earth I say I can rise higher than that The fearlessness with which Elijah faced all those false prophets We can rise higher than that That should be what we bear in mind every time we read about some old testament saint God has provided something better for us Because our example is Jesus I remember once I was speaking to a preacher He was saying how even Elijah was depressed, so we are not better than him So I said, if Elijah is the author and finisher of your faith, then you must be depressed If Elijah is the author and finisher of your faith, then you must be depressed But we read in Hebrews 2 that Jesus is the author and finisher of man's faith We read in Hebrews 11 that these people had faith Which could not help them to overcome depression Or overcome anger Or overcome the spirit of revenge against one's enemies like you read in the book of Psalms There were many things they could not overcome So their faith was at a lower level And there are many Christians who look at these old testament saints to find comfort for their sins I want to tell you that God has not given you this book to find comfort for your sins If that is what you are looking for, then you will find it You will not find comfort in the life of Jesus or Paul, you will find it in the old testament So it is very important that you young people have the faith of Jesus and not what is being proclaimed nowadays So it is very important that you young people have the faith of Jesus and not what is being proclaimed nowadays Now I want to look at a passage in the book of Genesis 5 And here it gives the length of time each of these people lived, right from Adam onwards And I was once looking at all these pages And I found something interesting which I would like to share with you Adam walked with God, we don't know whether it was for one day or more than one day We certainly know that he walked with God on that first day of his life, which was the Sabbath day You see the first day of Adam's life was the day he walked with God For God it was the seventh day, for Adam it was the first day Because he was created at the end of the sixth day So before God sent him to work in the garden, he said you must spend one day walking with me And that was to be the pattern of his life, that he was to walk with God And that is the meaning of the Sabbath Many people haven't understood the meaning of the Sabbath You see our Seventh-day Adventist friends, they believe that you are to literally keep a Sabbath Saturday and don't work on it They haven't understood it That is only a picture of an inner Sabbath that God has for his people In Hebrews 4, the word of God says there is a Sabbath rest for God's people A life of perfect rest That is how God wants us to live And that rest can come only if we walk with God And it is God's will that we live in rest all the time There is only one day a week in the Old Testament And you young people must strive, like it says in Hebrews, to enter into that rest All of our service and our life must come out of a life of rest in God Very few Christians enter into this life So strive to enter into that rest So how do we come into that rest? Let me show you a verse in Isaiah 58, verse 13 Isaiah 58, verse 13 If you just think of this one verse, you will understand what the New Testament Sabbath is If you just focus on this one verse, you will understand what the Sabbath is This is what the New Testament Sabbath is And if you live out this life, it will result in the worst So to keep the Sabbath means not to do my own pleasure And that every day I shall treat as a holy day of the Lord And I will not seek my own way or my own pleasure Or even speak what I feel like speaking That is the Sabbath Do you think the Israelites understood it? They only thought, I don't light a fire, I don't cook any food, I don't travel And I don't do this and that It's so easy for Christians to be taken up in these outward things And not go to the depth of the meaning of what God is saying And the Lord was telling them, this is the real Sabbath, that you don't do your own will That when you are tempted to say something to somebody When you are tempted to say something to somebody, that you don't speak your own words And that is where we learn why we get into so much unrest All unrest comes from us doing the opposite of what is written here If I speak my own words and speak what comes to my mind And choose my own way Then my life will be in unrest and I deserve to be in unrest But if I choose this way, the way of the Sabbath Walking with God Says in verse 14, then I will take delight in the Lord Says in verse 14, then I will take delight in the Lord And I will let you go forth over the land of the high That means that I will live a heavenly life and not a earthly life So I saw that this is how God wanted man to live Where man was to walk with Him So after Adam, we don't read of anybody walking with God until the time of Enoch And there were so many other people mentioned in Genesis 5 And there were so many other people mentioned in Genesis 5 But then we read about Enoch And in Genesis 5 verse 21 it says that Enoch lived for 65 years Then he had a child I don't know what exactly happened at that time But there was some type of crisis that took place in Enoch's life when his first child was born And from that moment, it says in verse 22, he began to walk with God And it says, from that time, it says here, he began to walk with God It is very significant that the child that was born led all the way to the day that God sent the flood He named his son Methuselah And some revelation, I believe, he got from God that when this child dies, I'm going to judge the world See, the reason I say that is Because in the book of Jude We read that Enoch was a prophet And he prophesied of judgment that God was going to bring on the earth Enoch was obviously living in a world that was very corrupt and full of sin In the book of Jude, in verse 14 to 15 And in the book of Jude, in verse 14 to 15 Enoch spoke about the second coming of Christ He didn't know that that was more than 4000 years later And he didn't know about the first coming of Christ or Calvary or anything like that But he saw and considered all these sinners around him and he took them as prophets But he didn't do that for 65 years Because for 65 years he was a godless sinner just like everyone else Just like many of us were in our unconverted days So Enoch, at the age of 65, experienced something like we experience when we are born again But unlike many believers, Enoch walked steadfastly to the end of his life from that time on But unlike many today, Enoch walked steadfastly with God for the rest of his life That means that his conversion was radical Today, many young people convert, but their conversion is not radical They don't come into the Sabbath type of life that we read in Isaiah 48 Where I don't speak my own word anymore and I don't do my own pleasure and I don't walk my own way It's a very sluggish type of conversion Where I get baptized and I go to the meeting and I read the Bible It's not a radical conversion But Enoch's was radical And that's how your conversion must be Lord, from now on I don't want to live for myself I don't want to live like other believers I don't want to say whatever comes to my mind I want to put a restraining force on my tongue like the bridle of a horse Yeah, that's what Enoch did And when God sees a person like that He makes him a prophet He can put his words into the mouth of a person who will not speak his own words I believe that God wants his sons and daughters to prophesy That's written twice in Acts 2 My sons and daughters will prophesy when I pour out my spirit on them On my bond slaves, men and women, I'll pour out my spirit and they will prophesy They will speak the words of God to other people And one of the most important requirements to prophesy is that you stop speaking your own words You just try that from today Say, Lord, your word says You want me to prophesy And I want to prophesy I want your spirit to come upon me I said that to God when I was 22 I said, Lord, I want to prophesy If you don't have a desire, God won't do it It is the most useful gift of the Holy Spirit More than tongues, more than healing, more than miracles And the Bible says, we got to 1 Corinthians 14, 1 We must earnestly desire the prophets And one of the greatest griefs of my own heart Is that so few people earnestly desire to prophesy God wants all his children to prophesy Not one or two Everyone That is in Acts 2, 17 Acts 2, 17 If you are a son or a daughter of God, that is your birthright But it won't come unless you earnestly desire it So Enoch walked with God He didn't have a Bible, he didn't have Acts 2, 17 or any such thing But he longed to speak forth the words of God Even if you don't have a Bible And you don't have any promise If you walk with God like Enoch, you will long to share his word with others So Enoch preached judgment on June 15 And he said, God is going to execute judgment on everybody On those who have done ungodly deeds in an ungodly way And the harsh things they speak Words and deeds, that's what he convicted people to do To punish all the ungodly for all the ungodly deeds they have done Because of the harsh words So it's deeds and words that he speaks about here He was the first prophet in the Old Testament And he had a nose and a leg as hard as one And that has been a hallmark to all the prophets throughout the world A prophet speaks against sin And he speaks about God hating sin And God's judgment against sin If a person doesn't speak on that, he's not a prophet And if you prophesy, you're going to speak against sin And you will not be popular If you want to be popular with your friends Don't ask God for the gift of prophecy You may not even be popular in the church Enoch walked alone Enoch walked alone I don't know if you've noticed But Enoch, it was an overlap of 300 years When Enoch walked, Adam was left behind And Adam lived up to 930 years And Enoch was born just after Adam was 600 years old So when Enoch had his son Methuselah Then Adam was still alive He must have known that Adam had walked with God in Eden I can imagine that he went up to Adam and said Tell me, how was it there? And Adam would have told him a little How wonderful it was How he had lost everything by listening to his wife and son And Enoch must have had a longing in his heart I want that He got a little taste of what he had heard The old Adam was not interested But Enoch, who represented the new generation He was There were so many others among them who were not interested See, when you read about godly men in another generation Who walked with God Do you find a desire in your heart to walk with God like them? When I was young, I used to read about the biographies of godly men And that's what stirred a desire in my heart When I was very young, I said, Lord, I want to walk with you I want to hear what you say, I want to walk very close to you And I want to speak to others what you tell me And I believe that God wants you young people to have that type of desire When you hear about a man who walked with God There are not many living like that I think I met only one or two in my whole life, in my younger days But I was so challenged by the one or two I met Because there was a freshness about them Even if I heard a brother like that speak the same message the tenth time There was a freshness about it And I knew that was because he walked with God So like me, now, God had a little desire when he heard about Adam We hear about how God Walked with God and how God used him There should be a desire in your heart for the same thing And so, as I said, God showed him that he's going to judge the world And that's what he prophesied And that seemed to happen when his child was born Now, nobody knows exactly the meaning of Methuselah Because we don't know Because we don't know what language Enoch used in his day Because all before the Torah and the Bible, they were all speaking one language And it wasn't Hebrew, we don't know what it was But I read in one of my old Bibles That maybe the meaning of the word Methuselah That when he dies, judgment will come Imagine naming your child like that When he dies, judgment will come And you know, every time Methuselah got sick, Enoch would have been worried He never knew that he was going to live up to 936 years And you have a baby, you don't know how long it's going to live But I see that Enoch lived every day Recognizing judgment is going to come upon this earth And that's what challenged him And that's what challenged him to walk with God I can guarantee you, if you believe that the kingdom of God is going to walk over this world and the way it lives Then you will also be challenged to start walking with God I meet young people everywhere Who are disappointed with the sad state of Christianity They are disappointed with the ungodliness they see in their parents and their leaders They are disappointed with the hypocrisy they see in many who preach such a high standard and live with such a low standard And they are disappointed with the divisions and strife among Christian leaders And I tell them, don't look at these bad examples Just remember that this world is going to pass away pretty soon And then you will have to stand for God Then you can't come to him and say, God, there were no good examples There is one good example that we all have, and that is Jesus We have more than Enoch can Enoch had no example His father, grandfather, great-grandfather, none of them walked with God He had to go all the way to seven generations to talk to Adam, to know a little bit about what walking with God means And even then, Adam could only tell him about one day he walked with God But that sparked a desire in young Enoch's heart And he said, I want to walk with God And if God can spark a desire in your hearts now that I want to walk with God And if he can convince your mind like he convinced Enoch his world is going to be judged completely And if he can convince you like he convinced Enoch that soon it will be over with this world and it will be judged That will change your whole life Imagine Enoch, every time he shouts at his child How does he shout at him? What does he call him? Hey, judgment will come when you die, come here Hey, judgment will come when you die, come here Imagine saying that ten times a day, judgment will come when you die God made sure he never forgot it with that little child in front of him God made sure he never forgot it with that little child in front of him Paul says, because we know we shall stand before the Lord, we know the fear of God, we have given account to Him And that's what enabled Enoch to walk with God And he's the first person we read of who didn't die And he's the first person we read of who didn't die And I want to say that possibility exists for all of us I don't look forward to death, I look forward to Jesus coming Even if I'm a hundred years old, I will not look forward to the grave I lift to the skies There are only two places on earth mentioned in relation to the last days One is Jerusalem Jesus said Jerusalem will be trampled down until the time of the Gentiles are full Luke 21 Also in Zechariah 14 All the armies around Jerusalem And we see, you know, about a hundred years ago, even sixty years ago, nobody spoke about Jerusalem But now, almost every day, Jerusalem is in the Bible And the second place mentioned in the Bible Is in Revelation 9 and Revelation 16 Is the land around the river Euphrates And that's Iraq You can translate that as Iraq And there will be war And we never heard about war in Iraq until about ten years ago Or even less than that So, every day it's in the papers now, Jerusalem? But you can read about it in the newspapers every day. How can you explain that people don't wake up? Don't we understand the times we live in? And that we are excited? To think that the Antichrist is on earth somewhere already? I don't know who he is. I have a feeling he's already born. And that excites me. And that challenges me that I don't have time to waste now. And there's no time for you young people to waste. Christ is coming soon. Time is very short. This is not the time to seek pleasure and to listen to useless music. This is not the time to sit back lazily. This is the time to seek to be filled with the Holy Spirit. And to study the word of God. And to seek for the gift of prophecy. And to walk with God like Enoch. And to share the word with others. That's how Enoch lived for 300 years. And then Methuselah, we don't read about him walking with God. And we don't read about Methuselah, that he walked with God. That's what happens sometimes. That a man can walk with God, but it turns out that his own son doesn't show much interest. Imagine seeing your father walk with God for 300 years and taken up to heaven. And you don't seem to have much interest to walk with God. And then Methuselah had a son called Lamech. Lamech also had no interest about his grandfather. But then Lamech had a little boy called Noah. Noah's grandfather was Methuselah. And I can imagine little Noah sitting on his grandfather's lap. And said, Grandpa, I heard that your father walked with God. And said, Grandpa, I heard that your father walked with God. Maybe a 12-year-old boy asking his grandfather about Enoch. And so it is. And so the grandfather would tell him about Enoch. So in that little boy, he was born the longest after walking with God. And his grandfather could talk about someone, but didn't have that longing himself. I find, you know, people talk about somebody whom they knew when they were young, who walked with God and all that. I do hear stories, somebody says, I knew this brother, he's dead now, but oh, he used to walk with God. I do hear stories, somebody says, I knew this brother, he's dead now, but oh, he used to walk with God. But this man himself did not walk with God. I remember the first time I came to Norway 38 years ago. I was only about 31 years old then. And I heard these stories of different men who had walked with God. I met one or two of them. And in my heart, there was a longing. I didn't know much. I didn't know whether God would ever do anything through me in India. I never wanted a ministry. But I got a little longing to walk with God. And the examples that I heard of some of these men challenged me. But I was surprised that so many other people around me who were here for years, who were talking about it, didn't seem to have that same desire. But what surprised me was that there were many people here who had lived with these men. They were there, but they didn't show any interest. They just talked about it. Just like Methuselah and Lamech. But Noah, he had the desire. It grew, and he didn't let that desire die out. It just grew and grew. You can have a desire in your heart to walk with God. And then you can look around at older people like Lamech and Methuselah who talk about it and don't walk with God. And then you can get discouraged. Oh, these people talk about it. They don't do it. You must not get discouraged. You must say, Lord, I don't want to judge them. You are their judge. But I hear something about some men before their time who walked with God whom I never met. Haven't you young people heard your fathers or grandfathers talk about some man of God whom they knew who walked with God here? They refer to some God-fearing people who lived in old age homes. That's exactly what little Noah heard. And he didn't let that desire die out. What was the result? Let me read to you. Genesis chapter 6. First of all, the condition of the earth. There was a lot of sexual sin. Terrible sexual sin. Abnormal sex. Verse 4. The sons of God saw the daughters of men. I don't know all that's involved there, but it's some type of abnormal sex. And then there was a lot of violence. It says in verse 5, the wickedness of man was great on the face of the earth. And the thoughts of men. Every single thought was evil. Abnormal sex. Abnormal sex and violence. Violence and evil thoughts. Evil. It's almost like the description of the 21st century. Jesus said the last days will be like the days of Noah. Oh, listen to these sad words. Verse 6. The Lord was sorry. The Lord was sorry that he made man on the earth. Is he sorry that he made you? I think about that. I say, Lord, you brought me to the earth nearly 70 years ago. You brought me to the earth. Are you sorry about the way I'm living? I don't want to make you sad. I mean, there were a lot of people you were sorry with at that time. You were sorry that you even allowed some people to be born. When you read words like that, you must apply it to yourself. Forget the others. Lord, are you sorry that you brought me to this earth? Does it grieve your heart like it says the way I live? But in the midst of all that wickedness, verse 8, God found delight in one man. God found delight in one man. And that was Noah. Because he did not let that desire to walk with God die in his heart. And what was the result? In the midst of all that wickedness, he lived. He was a righteous man, verse 9, and blameless. And listen to these wonderful words. The second man who walked with God, Noah walked with God, verse 9. He did not walk with God. In a couple of generations, nobody did. And then comes a new generation. He walked with God. Many of you are in that type of situation. Maybe some of you are the fourth generation after a person who walked with God. Do you have a desire? Lord, I want to walk with you. I want to walk with you like all the people I see around me. We are living in such times. If the world is going to be like Noah's time, it also means that God wants a few people on the face of the earth like Noah. It says in verse 12, God looked on the earth. It was corrupt. All flesh had corrupted its way on the earth. And in verse 11, the last part, the earth was filled with violence. And then Noah became a prophet. We read in 2 Peter 2. Verse 5. It says, Noah was a preacher of righteousness. 2 Peter 2.5. And he preached judgment. He said, God's going to judge the world with a flood. The second man who walked with God was also a spokesman for God. And he also preached judgment against sin. Another verse, Hebrews 11. And verse 7. Noah, it says about Noah in verse 7 in the middle of that verse that he condemned the world. What does that mean? When everybody else in the world was thinking of making more money and building bigger houses and doing all these other things, and enjoying themselves, Noah condemned the world by a completely different way of life. His way of life was a judgment. To the world around him. Is your way of life a judgment to the world around you? And he had a good support from his wife. Otherwise he could not have brought up three sons to fear God. You don't read much of Mrs. Noah, but I'm sure she was a God-fearing woman who supported him completely in the building of the ark and did a tremendous job at home to bring up his children so that all his three children were saved. That's the amazing thing about this man. In the midst of a wicked world in the midst of a world that is so evil, all his children were saved. Because they saw that what daddy preached on the streets, he was living at home. That's the type of life we must live. That our children see that what we speak in the church, we live at home. And that we don't live for the world. That our way of life condemns the world. We're not here to please our relatives or please our neighbors. We're only here to please God. And we're willing to offend all our relatives and all our neighbors if we have to please God. It says about Enoch also in verse 5, Before he was taken up, he had a testimony that he was pleasing to God. One of these days, we will be taken up. And that verse should be written about us. Before he was taken up. Before she was taken up. He had a testimony that he pleased God. I believe with all my heart that God is looking for such young people throughout the world. But I find very few who are responding to that call. I hope, I hope God will find some here. The Lord is sorry when he sees the condition of many believers. It grieves his heart that he's given so much revelation of his word to his children but they don't live like that. Don't you think it grieves the heart of the Lord today when he sees all the division and fighting and backbiting that's going on among Christians? He's looking for young men like Brother Noah. And young sisters like Sister Noah. Whose way of life will condemn their generation. Say, Lord, even if no one walks with you, I'm going to walk with you. Can you imagine the delight that God had when he brought up his family right? Who lived right and brought his family upright. I'm sure he was as strict with his children. His children must have been just like children today. With all the temptations in the world around him. But he was a strict loving father. And he got his children involved with him in building the ark. To get us and even to get involved with our children in building the church. That's a great need. Some of you young people get married from childhood. You've got to work with your children. They must look at your life and see what a wonderful thing it is to live for Jesus. And the peace and joy in your heart because Jesus Christ is Lord. Your child must see it from the time he's two years old. That's right. Like I say every time, we need to respond to the word of God we've heard. And whatever the Lord has spoken to you and challenged you, just say Lord, I respond to it wholeheartedly. You've sparked a desire in my heart today and I don't want to ever lose it. I don't want to be challenged only when I hear a message. I want the Holy Spirit to challenge me every day. Lord, fill me with your Holy Spirit. It's not enough I was filled yesterday. I want to be filled again today. Thank you, Father. You love us beyond what we understand. You will give us the power of your Spirit to live for you in these days. Help us to be witnesses for you in our generation. In Jesus' name we pray.