just keep walking

Walking with God is far better than passively sitting, hoping something will happen. Our Text records this stunning statement about the man who landed as the seventh out of the first ten generations of antediluvians (those who lived before the flood). The genealogy of Gen. 5 begins
with Adam and ends with Noah. It repeats a pattern of a father who lived, who had a firstborn at a certain age, which lived a certain many years afterwards, and who died . . . except for Enoch.

Setting:

There is a crucial point to be made and understood about Enoch’s pre-flood time. It will rise in
significance above all else, drawing us back to the very moment of the fall of man. It is the Prophecy given by God to Eve’s deceiver, the snake of Gen. 3:15: “And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed: he shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.” Peaking ahead, the seed of the serpent is the antichrist, and the seed of the woman is Jesus Christ. And so from the beginning, to each succeeding generation, sprang this prophetic hope: is this baby now just born destined to be the prophesied Seed to come, who would crush the head of Satan’s seed? The promise of God refuses to disappoint. For these first ten fathers hold a mysterious clue about the future, as this prophecy of hope begins to grip every reader of Genesis.

There is something unusual about the names of the first ten antediluvian fathers. Others have
noticed this too and wondered about the meaning of their names. What would happen if you recited those name-meanings in order? You might just get a hidden message. In them is a revelation that complements the prophecy in Gen. 3:15 and is divine commentary on what happened to the human race when it fell and God’s solution to it. Let’s take a closer look at each father and their name meanings in order from Genesis 5.

‘Man-[Adam] set in-[Seth] incurable-[Enos] lamentation-[Cainan] the Praise of God-[Mahalaleel]
descended-[Jared] to instruct, to consecrate-[Enoch] a sent-man stretched out his hands-[Methusalah] became poor-[Lamech] to give us rest-[Noah].’ Once more: ‘Man is set in an incurable lamentation, but He who is the praise of God descended down to instruct and consecrate us, who is the sent-Man with stretched out hands crucified, and became poor in order to give us rest from the curse.’ It is simply profound how directly, with trembling and awe, we are now brought face-to-face before the ancient and unmistakable Gospel.

Nobody saw this coming, not even us. It is the record of the first lineage, and by that, the
meaning of Messiah’s earliest connection to human history. As we view this list, what immediately jumps out is the description concerning Enoch (Gen. 5:22 & 24), and then Noah (Gen. 5:29 & 6:9). Noah is like Enoch. Noah was a branch which ran with the same venerable sap, the same faith. His root reached back in time to his hoary great grand pappy Enoch, as alive in Noah as his old kin’s campfire tales, the first who ‘walked with God.’

Application

‘Enoch walked with God.’ It is not that God walked with Enoch. God led the way, Enoch
followed. God had an aim, Enoch pursued him. This simple statement is loaded with the same simple encounters found throughout Scripture. Compare: Jesus had a man in mind in Galilee and sought him out, saying to Philip, “Follow me” (John 1:43), and he did. Enoch’s story was written to also be our story
Both Enoch and Noah lived in a time when the culture was accelerating in wickedness. Yet
they determined to swim against the stream and not conform themselves to it. They did not fit in. Do it.
God’s goal first and foremost with Enoch was communion. Implicit to this meaning of
communion is: spontaneous, casual, or intense conversation; fellowship, trading ideas, comparisons that inspire more understanding, focus on the other in their setting, getting relief from being taken up with yourself, and friendship (how great is that, just having a friend!). It’s an environment that creates communion and intimate sharing that validates the other person; it’s a two way street. This is the way God wants it with us mortals.
Enoch walked with God. He didn’t walk away from God, or go around Him, against Him, by
Him going the other direction. These are prepositions and are important. He did not passively hang about like a piñata waiting to get wacked. God is on the move and so was Enoch. Walk.
Enoch did not allow himself to get distracted by being a stationary point, where he’d be
unable to respond to an ocean of possibilities around him that only come from walking with God. He realized that if he wanted a relationship with God, he had to walk with Him. And that he had the capacity to walk with Him. So do you. As Jesus said to the impotent man, “Rise, take up thy bed, and walk” (John 5:8).
Don’t associate walking with boredom. Walking lends itself to clear thinking.
Walking (used in a figurative way as do the Scriptures use it) allows you to slow down,
respond to cues, and adjust to new contingencies in new territories. When you’re walking with God your focus isn’t on the performance of your walk, but only with God. You want to be unobserved as far as you’re concerned and not caught up with yourself, so you can get in range of what others passed right by, which is the mission God is on. Make yourself second, small, insignificant, and minimalist, so you are capable of the keen vision that humility produces. Be like a scout who tucks in at times when he’s on hold, but not wasting time. In these moments there gets built an innate, intuitive discipline to wait on God, not in passivity and navel-gazing, and never like a bored college kid experimenting with tattoos and
piercings. I think this is just how Enoch, the undistracted, rolled.
It must be said, Enoch’s walk with God wasn’t because he had his act all together. Something
was acting upon his soul to enable his walk. If we look at the Hebrew word for ‘walk,’ we notice it has an important prefix attached, which is called the Hiphil stem, which in grammar is known as a causative. Something or Someone was working to inspire him ‘to walk with God’; this caused him to do it. Of course, it was God himself who instilled it, who breathed this walk in Enoch.
As Enoch must have learned, walking with God will train you in faith, to see in a new way, as
never before, and to instinctively anticipate where God is going. It will require faith to perceive the Lord’s path, as Paul said, “while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are unseen are eternal . . . . For we walk by faith, not by sight” (II Cor. 4:18; 5:7).
Enoch’s walk with God was eschatological, i.e. it was connected to the end of the age. It’s
like, towards sundown one evening God said to him, Son, we’re closer to my house than yours. How’d you like to see mine? Enoch did, and it was his last day as he was snatched right up into heaven alive! (Elijah was the only other person who experienced this in II Kings 2:11). It’s like Enoch forgot all about the fall of man by walking with God, and lived like one who ‘walked in the Spirit’ (Gal. 5:16) before the Spirit was given. Like the Spirit acting on Enoch, to cover the terrain God will take you through, you’ll have to pay close attention to the wind, and keep it in your face so you know what you’re coming to, i.e. the wind of the Spirit, whose way is not comprehended by this world (John 3:8)

Like a man living, but not in his time, Enoch’s walk with God was oriented to the end of the age,
but he’s in Genesis! He is living as if he were “quickened together with Christ, and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Eph. 2:5-6). It’s like Enoch had read (!), “Then we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord . . . shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord” (I Thess. 4:16-17). All this is what will happen to you . . . if . . . you . . . walk . . . with . . . God – or – you can love this world and get slammed with multiple life sentences without him. For what Enoch teaches us is that the Lord cherishes your communion with him, above all other things. It comes by walking with God.