11 5-6

Hebrews Series - Fellowship Baptist Church

Passage:     Hebrews 11:5-6

Theme:       The Faith of Enoch

Proposition:   Enoch’s Demonstrated Faith that His God is Real and Rewards the Heart that Seeks Him

Introduction:

Last week we learned from the life of Abel that our worship of God reflects our faith in God. 

The greater my faith in God, the greater the value of my worship towards Him.

The weaker my faith in God, the less I am willing to invest of my time, abilities, and possessions in worship of Him.

Where your heart is, there will be your treasure also.

Today we will look at the life and faith of the second individual mentioned in Hebrews 11.  Enoch, the one whose faith pleased God. 

While we won’t get through all of the material on Enoch today, what I would like for us to look at is who he was and what it meant that he “pleased” God.

Who was Enoch?

(S)He was the son of Jared, the father of Methuselah. Gen 5:18, 21

(S)He represented the 7th generation of man from the creation.

Jude 14 (ESV) It was also about these that Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied,

(S)He was part of the godly line of Seth Gen 5:6

(S)He lived to be 365 years old Gen 5:23

(S)He prophesied of God’s coming judgment on evil and evil doers

Jude 14-15 (ESV) 14 It was also about these that Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied, saying, “Behold, the Lord came with ten thousands of his holy ones, 15 to execute judgment on all and to convict all the ungodly of all their deeds of ungodliness that they have committed in such an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things that ungodly sinners have spoken against him.”

What was special about Enoch?

(S)According Hebrews 11:5, his faith resulted in his being taken up to God

 without the process of dying.

(S)According Hebrews 11:5, God testified that Enoch pleased him.

(S)According Hebrews 11:6, it was a result of faith that Enoch was able to

please God.

What does it mean to please God?

(S)Does this refer to God liking me better or accepting me more person because

of what I do?

(AS)No, because it is the faith that pleases God, not my works.

(S)Also, my ability to please God is bound up with my belief in and about

God.

(AS)So this has nothing do with my works or efforts

(S)The answer is found in a comparison of Genesis 5:22-24 and Hebrews 11:5.

(AS)

When we compare modern translations, we find that only Hebrews lists that he was not found and that he pleased God.  There is no mention of either of these concepts in Genesis. 

This is because all of our modern translations worked primarily from the Hebrew manuscripts of Genesis and all of them say the same thing.

But, there is one translation, from which the writer of Hebrews quotes, that is not a Hebrew manuscript and this is where we find the answer of what it means to please God.

The writer of Hebrews quoted from the bible translation which he obviously used and which was the standard bible of the early church—the Septuagint.

(AS)

(AS)So we can conclude that the phrase Pleased God = walked with God

Next week we will consider three important questions related to this truth:

Why did the LXX translators substitute pleased God for walked with God?

What does it mean to walk with God?

Why does walking with God require faith?