Psalm 1, the first of the Psalms, reads, Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law doth he meditate day and night. And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season. His leaf also shall not wither in whatsoever he doeth. shall prosper. The ungodly are not so, but are like the chaff which the wind driveth away. Therefore, the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. For the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous, but the way of the ungodly shall perish." And then we come to Genesis chapter 5, the verse 22. And Enoch walked with God after he begat Methuselah 300 years, and begat sons and daughters. All the days of Enoch were 360 and five years. And Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him. Amen. We know that God will bless the readings of his word to our hearts. Let us pray. Father in heaven, we come into your holy presence in the name of our savior. We thank you for your word and your truth. Help us as we consider this tonight. Pray that you would speak right into all of our hearts. May the spirit lead us along. May the words of my mouth, meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight. Oh Lord, my strength and my redeemer. Amen and amen. We have been thinking about Enoch, the man who walked with God over these past Sunday evenings, we thought about his conversion. He didn't always walk with God. In fact, he didn't start walking with God until he was 65 years of age, and he begat Methuselah. And at that point in time, he was given this remarkable insight into what was going to happen to the world of which he was a part. God's judgment was going to fall upon that world. And Methuselah would remain alive just as long as it would take for God to be long-suffering. And so all of those 969 years were years of God's patience and long-suffering with that old world. And when Enoch saw that, he was converted, and he turned to the Lord. And for the next 300 years, he walked with God. And then we thought about his preaching. We thought about the proclamations of Enoch, and the book of Jude tells us that he preached the judgment of God. He preached the necessity of preparation. He preached man's accountability before the Lord. He preached not so much about the flood that was coming. He preached about that ultimate day of judgment. when Christ would return. And here was a man who lived in the years before the flood, and yet he foresaw what would happen beyond the coming of the Messiah, beyond the incarnation, beyond the cross, beyond the atonement, beyond the giving of the spirit of Pentecost. He foresaw an event that hasn't yet happened. the coming again of Christ and the great judgment throne that John talks about. This man would spend 300 years warning, preaching, exhorting, pleading with men and women around him to turn from their wickedness and to turn to God. Tonight, we're going to focus in on his devotion. We are simply told that he walked with God. And yes, we have pondered a little what this means. Only a converted person can walk with God. Are you converted? Do you know the Lord? Has there been a time in your life when you have come to Christ? Are you born again of the Spirit of God? Do you know that you're saved tonight? Because you cannot walk with God unless you first of all know Him as your Savior. And so, we have that. And also, walking with God meant obedience. It meant doing what God required of him. It meant being that witness, being that burning and shining light in a very dark world. And while that world, for the most part, turned away from the message of Enoch, yet There were those who listened. Methuselah listened. Noah listened. The world was saved. And Noah, who of course was a relative of Enoch's, he too would walk with God. He would find grace in the sight of the Lord. And he would be given the means whereby humanity could be saved. And so humanity really was saved and delivered through this man who walked with God and through the message that he preached and presented. I think as we look at Enoch, we are caused to ask the question, what is success in this world? What is success? You think of what the world calls success. The secure job, the growing business, the money in the bank, retirement income, popularity. All of these things are badges of success, and yet, are they really? And yes, God may bless you with wealth, and he may bless you with a growing business, but if you don't know the Lord, I want to tell you something. Jesus said, it's a solemn and a sober question, what shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul? What shall it profit you? A view of everything in this world. But you lose your soul. Many of the greatest and most successful people to walk the stage of human history, they lost their souls. Alexander the Great conquered all of those lands from Macedonia right through to India. And he left empty handed. Died a young man, not yet 30 years of age. There were no more worlds to conquer, but the gospel didn't conquer as hard. Success never ever means that that's real success. Success in the world cannot be the barometer of success. cannot be. Success, in the eyes of God, is something deeper, something that has roots. It's not a shallow rooted tree that blows with the wind and will be toppled so easily. It's a tree that has real good roots, a slow growing tree, a tree that eventually has a great trunk and strong boughs, and a tree that is stable. Enoch was that kind of individual because we are told that he walked with God. That's not a very fashionable thing. You come over to the Gospel of Matthew, chapter five, and you read the opening words of the Sermon on the Mount. What does God bless? The pure in heart, the meek, those that hunger and thirst, of the righteousness. Those aren't the things that the world would say are badges of success. And yet in the eyes of Christ, that's real success. That's what it means to walk with God. And this is something worthy to aspire after. Everything else in life fades. Everything else in life has a sell-by date and a use-by date. Everything else will disappear, but this one thing will not disappear, having a relationship with God. That's all that counts. And Enoch was one. that had a relationship with God. He walked with God. And so let us take a few moments tonight and think about this phrase and what it means, what it means to us. Walking with God is a walk of intimacy. The Christian life begins by entering into a relationship with God. And the Christian life continues through the developing of this relationship, the deepening of this relationship. God knows everything about us. There's nothing that's hidden from Him. That's an amazing thing, a comforting thing. It's also a deeply challenging thing because there's things about our lives that we would not want others to know. But He knows them. It's comforting. Because there are tears, and there's burdens, and there's thoughts that we feel we can't share, we can't produce the words, but He knows. It's an incredible thing to know that there's no limit to the way in which God knows us, and how He knows us. O Lord, the psalmist said, thou hast searched me and known me, thou knowest my uprising, thou knowest my down-sitting. There is not a word in my tongue, but O Lord, thou knowest it altogether. Nothing is hidden from Him. That's Psalm 139. But yet there are many things about God that we do not know. There are many things about God that we do not understand. Our knowledge of God is always going to be finite. And so the Christian life is about growing this relationship with God from our perspective, knowing more about Him, knowing more of Him, knowing the one that knows everything. about us, it's the most intimate of all relationships. In John chapter 17, verse three, the Lord said, this is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. Life eternal is knowing God. That's life eternal, knowing God. Life eternal isn't something that we experience after we die. Life eternal begins for the Christian now. The Lord here was talking about his apostles, and in talking about his apostles, in praying for his apostles, because John 17 is a prayer, he was praying for all of his people. And as he prayed for all of his people, he said, this is life eternal that they might know thee. When we know God, We have eternal life, for eternal life is knowing God. Eternal life doesn't begin when we die. Eternal life begins in the here and now. Whenever you come to a knowledge of the Lord through the new birth, through conversion, through having a new nature within, whenever that takes place, it's not the papering up of the cracks of an old life that we need. It's a new life, it's a brand new life. It's a total renovation of the nature. It's the new birth. God doing something radical within us. And whenever that happens, we have eternal life knowing God. Knowing God is eternal life. And whenever you come to a knowledge of the Lord, you know where you're going. You might not know what's going to happen tomorrow, and we certainly do not know even what's going to happen one minute from now. But we do know that whenever we die, we're going to be with Christ, which is for better. That's the value, that's the power of this intimate relationship with God. It's the very guarantee of eternal life. Do you have this guarantee of eternal life? Can you look at death in the eye? Can you look at eternity in the face? Can you say, I know where I'm going? Enoch knew where he was going because he started out on this walk of knowing God. The Apostle Paul, he prayed in the book of Philippians chapter 2. He said, that I may know him, that I may know him, the power of his resurrection, the fellowship of his suffering, that I may know him. We might say that Paul knew more about God than we do. He knew more of God than I do, but yet he did not know the Lord enough. There was this hungering and thirsting after righteousness, this thirst for God. It consumed this whole life. This is the trouble with many professing Christians today. We do not have the thirst for God that we should have. We have goals and ambitions for many, many things, but where's the desire for God? To know more of Him. To open the Word, to delve into it, to cry out for a word, to come to God's house with that thirst within your soul, I need to know the Lord. I need direction from God. It's a walk of intimacy, a growing thing, that I may know Him. The Scriptures give us rich pictures of the God who invites us into this communion, and God takes on these very human pictures to show us what it means to know Him. a shepherd. He's the shepherd of Israel. The Lord is my shepherd. That's Jehovah, the holiest word for God. Jehovah is my shepherd. I shall not want one who guides the steps of a sheep, one who leads gently, one who leads patiently, yet one who leads firmly. He's always there supplying all of our cares. You see, if you're not saved tonight, you don't have the benefit of this. You don't have the benefit of a good shepherd. You are the lost sheep. All we like sheep have gone astray. But the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. Christ on that cross, he was that shepherd who gave his life for the sheep, that you might come to the fold. Knowing God intimately is knowing the shepherd. And the word shepherd, it speaks of pastoral care. Pastoral care speaks of a God who's interested in every part of my being. He's a shepherd. He's a Lord, you're a shepherd. He's a Father. Whenever the Savior taught his disciples to pray, he said, Our Father, which art in heaven, Surely, there can be nothing more human than to describe God as a father, as a parent, who watches over the little one, who watches every breath, who watches every footstep, who watches over that little one with such intense interest. And that love, that care that a parent has for the child, It never leaves. It's always there. And likewise, God does not separate himself from our children, from his children. He's always looking after us, looking over us, providing for our needs, our wants, our cares. He is a father. The psalmist said he pities his children. And He is there with us in everything that we experience, in everything that we experience. The Father is there. Even when we don't realize He's there, even when we don't feel that He's there, He's still there. Because it's never about our feelings, it's about His promise, His guarantee. Christ is a brother. That's one of the great pictures of our relationship with God, because after all, Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and being the Son of God, he is the second person of the Trinity, and he's our older brother. We are heirs of God and joint heirs with Jesus Christ. We share an inheritance with Christ. He became man for us. He took upon Himself the very bone and flesh of humanity. He became man for us. He was tempted for us that He might succor those that are tempted. He was in all points tempted as we are yet without sin, and therefore He gives grace to help in time of need. Whenever we're walking with God, we know this to be the case. Then the Holy Spirit is a comforter. So we have these remarkable pictures. God is a father and a shepherd, Christ is a brother, and the Holy Spirit, Christ said, is a comforter. The Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity, and here we have the three persons of the Godhead actively involved in developing this intimate relationship with Him. And the Comforter is one that reaches our heart, that speaks to us in the stillness of the night season, that comes to prick our conscience when that conscience needs to be pricked. He is one who cries, Abba, Father. term of endearment, He comes and He whispers into our hearts, Abba, Father. He enables us to pray. We are told that He makes intercession for us with groanings that cannot be uttered. Many times we wonder, what should we be praying for? What word should you be using? And the Spirit, He comes and helps us to pray. Ultimately, all of this gives us assurance. You see, this intimate walk with God, it's a walk that gives us assurance. Assurance. To know God, we're sure of it. The word of God was given that we might know that we have eternal life. I want to tell you, dear child of God, you can stake your eternity on the word of God. You can't stake it on your feelings. You can't stake it on your own successes because you don't have success. None of us have. You can't rest upon yourself. You can't rest upon what you do or what you say. You can't even rest upon your own prayers. But you can rest upon the word of God, the unchanging word of God. And the Holy Spirit comes and speaks to us and writes that word upon our hearts and teaches us. to walk with God. It's an intimate walk, it's a very special experience. If you don't know the Lord tonight, you need to start out in this life. And you will be changed absolutely and completely for the rest of your life. Because you will have learned to know God. Let's also think about the consistency of this walk. We are told that Enoch walked with God for 300 years, verse 22. That's 300 literal years. That's a long time by our reckoning, but whenever you look at the early chapters of Genesis, you discover these people lived very long. They were very close to creation. Man had not degenerated as much as he degenerated now. Whenever the flood came, something catastrophic happened to the world, happened to the world's atmosphere, and suddenly man became more of a broken creature and people started to live lives that were much shorter. But in these days, they lived 300 years. It was still a long time. This was not the fizzy bottle Christian. You know what happens to a fizzy bottle? You shake it and the can, it explodes, it bubbles up, it froths up because you've shaken it, but then it goes flat. And sadly, some people's spiritual experiences seem to be like that. It's a burst of emotionalism, and then it's flat. That's not consistency. God calls us to walk with him and to do so day by day, moment by moment, month by month, year by year. That's what it is to walk with God. Enoch dead. And there will be problems along the way, there will be pitfalls along the way, there will be feelings on the way. There will be all of that, like John Bunyan's Pilgrim, there'll be Bypath Meadow, and there'll be Giant Despair and Doubting Castle, and there'll be the attacks of the Evil One, and there'll be Dark Valleys, there'll be all of that! But still, we keep going. We keep plotting. We keep serving. We keep following. We keep walking with God. The Christian life isn't so much of a sprint as a marathon, and it's even longer than that. It's a walk whereby we walk with God faithfully and patiently, and it does require patience. Patience means that not everything works out the way that we thought they would work out, that every situation is resolved the way that we would plan, but yet that walk with God teaches us just to be faithful. And remember, it's never about us, it's about Him. Consistency. To walk with God with consistency means direction. Enoch, as he walked with God, well, there was a purpose to this walking. There was a purpose to his life. His life had real purpose, real meaning in the world. There was a direction in which he was going. And yes, he was going to heaven, and we'll look at that when we come to the last of these studies and how God took him into his presence. There was a purpose where he was going, but there was a purpose in his life. Only Christianity will give you purpose. If you don't know the Lord tonight, you have no purpose. And if you're a professing Christian and you're not walking with him and you've lost out, you're not living the purpose that God has for you, and you'll be the most unhappy of all people until you realize that purpose. So it's time to get right with God, dear backslider. There's direction. There's repentance. It's striking as we look at the Psalm number one, and I read the Psalm number one a very specific purpose, because the psalm begins with these words, blessed or happy is the man. It actually means more than that. It doesn't just mean happy is the man. It means, oh, the happinesses of the man. Doesn't really translate very well into the English, but that's what it means. It's a multitude of happinesses. This is somebody who is really, really helping. Blessed is the man. Blessings upon the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, that standeth not in the way of sinners, that sitteth not in the seat of the scornful. You see, that's what happened to Enoch. Once he walked with the children of Cain. Once he was with their company. Those that defy God, But then at 65 years of age, something happened, something changed. There was a transformation. And he started walking with God. His life was different. That's the point. And whenever we look at this man in the Psalm 1 verse 1, his walk is defined by the negative, what he's not doing. He's not in the counsel of the ungodly. He's not standing with the sinners. He's not sitting in the seat of the scornful. The word walk denotes steady progress. Are you making steady progress for God or are you making steady progress for the world? You learn a lot about person by the friends that they keep. Standing, when you're standing somewhere, you're there for a while, standing in the way of sinners. That's not a good place to be. Sitting in the seat of the scornful, sitting with those that scorn God, that mock God. There is no blessing upon such a person. The blessings are upon the people who repudiate this lifestyle, who enter a relationship with God. You cannot have a relationship with the world and with sin and have a relationship with God. The two things are incompatible. You're either with the Lord or you're not. You're either walking with God or you're not. If you're holding on to sin, you haven't confessed that sin, you haven't turned from that sin, you know it's sin. If you're holding on to that, then you're not walking with God. Because repentance is about God revealing to us, I'm a sinner. I've done wrong. My life's a failure. I need to turn from that sin. I need to turn to God. And I'm gonna walk with him. So what about it tonight? That's the challenge. That's the real challenge of Enoch. He had a different kind of walk. You cannot hold onto your sin and hold onto Christ at one and the same time. Some of the ways in which this word walk is used in the Old Testament are interesting. For example, it's used of water flowing. Water flowing, walking. Except the translation gives flowing. It's used of the land that flows with milk and honey. It's the same word. We wouldn't necessarily use the same word, but the fact that in the Hebrew the same word is used, that's very instructive. You think of water flowing, you stand by the banks of a river, and you have the constant, steady progress of the water. And it starts in that little spring, and it becomes that stream, and it gushes down the mountain and down through the ravines until it opens up in a great river and then empties itself out to the sea, but there's a constant flow. That's how it is for the person who walks with God. You come to the Lord, you seek Him, you cry unto Him for salvation, the little spring is born in your heart, and then the trickle becomes a stream, and the stream becomes the river, and then you're emptied out into the vast ocean of eternity, seeing Christ face to face. It's a flow, it's a constant flow. The land flowing with milk and honey, that's a different kind of picture, because we know that the land didn't literally flow with milk and honey. But yet, the fact that the bees produced the honey in abundance and the fact that the cows produced the milk in such a plentiful way, well, it was as if the whole land was flowing with produce, productivity, fruitfulness, life-giving, nourishment. That's what it is to walk with God, to be steadily nourished by Him. Enoch was one who was wholly and completely committed to his God. The Christian life is one of commitment. It has to be one of commitment. But yet, is it worth it? Is it worth being committed to God? Is it worth serving God? Is the Christian life about waiting until you die and then doing what Billy Sunday described? lightening your candle for the world, and blowing the smoke into the face of God, depending on a deathbed conversion. And I want to tell you something. Most people never see a deathbed, or if they do, they have the mental capacity. They have the mental capacity to do anything about their soul. And some people, their hearts are so hard. Even in death, they don't want to seek the Lord. Where in earlier years, they would have come and come gladly. Tonight, when God is stirring your heart, you need to come now and enjoy this new life. Finally, let's think about this walk as a walk of submission. To walk with God is to be yielded to God. And here we have somebody who walked with God. He didn't walk ahead of God, and he didn't lie behind God. That's a slightly different picture than the picture we have of the sheep. They followed the shepherd. They came behind. They followed. That's a picture of submission, too. They knew the shepherd's voice. They heard the shepherd. They followed the shepherd. But this picture is of a man who is the companion with another man, and he's walking side by side. You see, if you're going out for a walk with someone and they're going on ahead and you're lagging behind, it doesn't say much for the relationship, does it? When you go out for a walk with someone, you walk together. You talk. You share things. You use the opportunity to confide in each other. You perhaps talk about what you see along the way, but there's this companionship, this friendship that is developed. And this was the submission that Enoch had in that God certainly was the one that took the lead, but Enoch was there by God's side the whole way. The prophet asked, can two walk together except to be agreed? Enoch was wholly agreed to God. He had a spirit that was agreeable to the Lord. Remember what the book of Hebrews chapter 11 says about Enoch. He had this testimony that he pleased God. Now there's success. having a testimony, that we please God. Not that we please the people around us, not that we please the world, not that we become popular in the sight of others, but that we please God. Surely there's nothing better than that. This was what Enoch lived for after his conversion, pleasing God. Now, submission simply means that we're willing to be changed by God, and that's the challenge, isn't it? Human nature The cause of the idea that I've messed up. Human nature doesn't like to admit that. There's a spirit of pride within us all. But yet we all have a nature, we all have a heart, we all have a soul that needs to be shaped by God. And Enoch was shaped by God for 300 years. He was as the clay in the hands of the potter, and his life was shaped by God. The psalmist, he said, as for the Lord, his way is perfect. Remember the Psalm 23, there was the dark valley. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. The walk with God will lead us into dark places, difficult places, but yet we have to accept that God knows best. The walk with God will bring surprises along the way. It's such an adventure, you know, walking with God. Walking with God is a real adventure, because here we have this great God of glory, who is our father and our shepherd, Christ, who is our older brother, the Holy Ghost, who is our comforter. He knows exactly what tomorrow brings. He knows where he's going to lead us through the course of a week. There's nothing that's hidden from him, and he is our best interest at heart. What can be better than to live a life with him? Nothing more wonderful than that. Oh, dear friend, without the Lord tonight, you don't know what you're missing out on. walking with God. And so, in the quietness of this meeting, as we come to an end, will you lift your heart to the Lord and say, Lord, I'm going to start walking with you. I'm giving to you my life. I'm going to trust Christ. Remember, Christ is the elder brother of all of God's people. He was that good shepherd who died on that cross to take the penalty of our sin And that's why we can be forgiven. That's why we can have this relationship with God. It's because of Christ, who loved you so much that he offered himself on that cross as a man for you, that you might have this special relationship with God. And so will you come to him today, listen to the words of Solomon, who said, give me thy heart. Let's bow for prayer. You're here tonight without the Lord. Will you give the Lord your heart? Will you lift your soul to the Lord where you're at? Perhaps you're listening online. The Lord has been speaking to you, stirring your soul. Lord, I want to walk with you, giving you my life. Take my life and use it for your glory. I'm turning from my sin. I'm coming to you. Give your life to Jesus tonight. Father, write your truth upon every heart for Christ.