HOW did Enoch please God? Jesus is preparing for us a place—what is it like? Who is taken, and who is left?

<p>HOW did Enoch please God? Jesus is preparing for us a place—what is it like? Who is taken, and who is left?</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Ouachita Hills College

Scott Burgess

Let’s Not Get Carried Away!

In like a rather curious title right there.

If we're gonna be talking about the second coming.

So we'll find out what, what are we talking about here?

Everything, everything that is truly truth will harmonize.

All right, let's go ahead, let's take a look here at the experience of Enoch right here.

Our opening text this morning was Hebrews 11.5, which reads, by faith, Enoch was translated that he should not see death.

And he was not found because God had translated him, for before he had his translation he had this testimony that he pleased God.

Now we might think that's a beautiful text because it reminds us of the hope that is before us, but also it's 1 of those things that we might get so accustomed to as Christians that We forget that those who are not yet Christians may not know Christian jargon.

How many of you, as Christians here, how many of you on a daily basis use the word translation?

And I don't mean in the sense of translating 1 language to another.

Anybody here did not use that word this week?

And so I thought a fair question might be this.

So Let's just see if we can figure this out.

You don't need to know all the ins and outs of that word, But we just want to figure out a good, solid English understanding of it.

So on this, we're just going to consult the usual resources.

And it means something like a change of place or placement, change of location.

So then if we plug that into our verse we get something like this.

By faith Enoch was relocated that he should not see death and he was found because God had relocated him.

For before his relocation, he had this testimony that he pleased God.

Now that may seem just a little bit funny because it's not the usual word that we use.

It almost sounds like Maybe in the business world, you know, maybe you're doing well at a company, they value you, but they need you in a new position, they will relocate you, they're happy to do so.

And so we're not trying to cheapen the text, we're just trying to get the idea that translated, sometimes I get the idea it just means like, whoop, I just go up.

Really, it's just focusing on you were here, and now you're over here.

You might wonder, what's that got to do with anything?

Yes, that's what that word means and you just go to, you know, whatever reference and you'll look up, you'll find it means something like that.

It turns out that Enoch doesn't appear a whole lot of places in the Bible.

He's mentioned for a couple of verses here in Hebrews 11.

There is, yeah, there's 1 mention of him in Jude, that's right.

This reference here in Hebrews 11 though is drawing on, I believe it's 4 verses, that's all that said about enoch in the book of Genesis.

That's all that's mentioned in the entire Old Testament.

And so what we do here is we say, well, all right, that's drawing on the story in Genesis.

Let's go back there just very briefly and I'll show you what we're after.

You understand that the Old Testament is written in Hebrew.

Thankfully we have English translations so that those of us that don't read Hebrew can know what it says.

But years ago there was also a Greek translation made.

You think, oh, this is getting all technical.

Don't worry, we're not going to overwhelm you.

So this will read a little different than if you get the King James today.

Genesis 524 Septuagint says this, "...and Enoch pleased God and was not found for God translated or as we just learned, relocated him.

Let's look at your King James right there, which is Going off of the Hebrew, not the Greek, let's just see what it says.

Genesis 5.24 in our familiar version says this, and Enoch walked with God, and he was not for God, took him, right?

Now you're thinking, okay, so what are we doing here?

It says God took him, that is what the original says.

But sometimes when you're reading in 1 language, words don't quite carry over to another 1.

Sometimes the meaning isn't clear, And so there's a little bit of interpretation involved there.

And so what they did here is said, well, look, when it says God took and we're just understanding that means He's taken to heaven.

So we're just gonna say He was relocated and it's very plain what that word take means.

It's kind of like if you use expressions.

If we use the expression, let the cat out of the bag, well for English speakers, we know that just means you let a secret, you know, you told everybody.

But if you tried to translate that word for word in another language, people would say, What's cats and bags got to do with anything?

You know, you have to say, well, what they meant was this.

And that's, this is an example of what happened here.

When Hebrews 11 and the Greek of Genesis 5, when they say translated, it's getting the Hebrew idea across of God taking him.

Now, if we go backwards, we just do 1 more little substitution.

We figure out that what it's saying is that by faith Enoch was taken, that he should not see death and he was not found because God had taken him.

For before he was taken, he had this testimony that he pleased God.

Next question, how exactly did Enoch please God?

There's many things we do that are displeasing to God, right?

Does it say here that because he pleased God enough that God said, ah, you're finally making a sweet enough aroma, I'm going to take you home.

No, I don't think any of us can do enough there, right?

The fact that we have indulged sin at any point in our life, God says, that's beyond your power to fix.

Nevertheless, it does say Enoch pleased God.

Let’s Not Get Carried Away!

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