Enoch's story is one of my favorites, even though it takes up like 2 verses in Genesis 5, 23,24, but it's intriguing none-the-less. If you notice, it looks like he wasn't really walking with God until his son Methuselah is born. THEN everything changes. Pastor Jeremiah explains that quite well, so I won't go over that, but he gives a lot of food for thought, as the saying goes. Although the account in Genesis is brief, and only tells us that Enoch walked with God for 300 years, that he lived 365 years, and that just one day, as he walked with god, he was no more, because God took him. I would imagine the shock of his family, and how they must have searched for Enoch, much as Elijah's friends did when God "caught up" Elijah in the chariot of fire into Heaven.
In Hebrews "Hall of Faith", 11:5, we are told a little bit more about Enoch, and how he "pleased God" and goes on in verse 6 to tell us that "without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to Him must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him. I totally believe and trust that promise, that as we seek His face, He will give us, fill us with the faith we seek, since true faith is a gift of God, and He is ever faithful to His word.
Also, Enoch is the FIRST example of the "Rapture" that we see, then Elijah, and even Jesus Himself being "caught up" all pre-figure the Rapture of the church before God's judgment falls on an unbelieving world, and He deals finally with Israel and their rejection of their Messiah, which all culminates in the coming of Christ to the earth from the same place He ascended, Mt Olivet, and Israel WILL BE restored, Salvation will come to the believing remnant as Paul explains in Romans 9-11. And Israel will indeed be a blessing to ALL the nations as prophesied so long ago to Abraham in the covenant that God made with him, an unconditional and eternal covenant to the Jewish people, Physical Israel, Jerusalem, and THE Jewish believing remnant that WILL emerge. WE serve a promise-keeping God, period. And He does not change His word or His promises just because Man wants to change it. Nope. He says what He means and means what He says, and in no way is that "dumbing down" the Scripture as I heard one "Catholic Jesuit" claim, who wants to approach it from "all sides" in some open, mystical, make up your own theology way. Excuse me, and with all due respect, but NO. God did not give us our own options and opinions to decide what Scripture means, that's how all the false teachings got into the church in the first place; man giving first place to MAN"S OPINION OVER GOD"S SPOKEN INSPIRED WORD! WE DON"T GET TO PICK AND CHOOSE OUR OWN MEANINGS FOLKS! GOD MAKES HIS COMMANDS AND HIS WORD PRETTY DARN CLEAR FROM GENESIS ALL THE WAY THROUGH REVELATION!
MAN DECIDING WHAT SCRIPTURE DOES AND DOES NOT SAY IS WHAT LED TO THE FALSE TEACHING OF "REPLACEMENT THEOLOGY" which wrongly teaches that the "church" has totally replaced Israel in God's plan, and that Israel has no further place or role as far as God is concerned, which is a stretch, and that's putting it mildly. You have to do a whole lot of Scripture twisting to get to that conclusion, and throw out EVERY Old Testament Prophet, each one of which prophecies the full restoration and salvation of PHYSICAL ISRAEL and PHYSICAL JERUSALEM, and the Jewish people, albeit a remnant, but saved. God stays the same, as I said. Man is the one who as time has passed, who has deemed it their "right" to mess with God's holy inerrant, infallible word, as if He needs OUR Help? Pretty presumptuous isn't it?
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