Genesis 5:21-24–Daily Scripture Reading and Meditation

Posted by Seth on Jan 12, 2010 in Bible Study, Daily Devotions |

Genesis 5:21-24–Daily Scripture Reading and Meditation

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Welcome to today’s Daily Scripture Reading and Meditation covering Genesis 5:21-24 wherein we observe the interesting transport of Enoch, a man who walked with God.

When Enoch had lived 65 years, he fathered Methuselah. Enoch walked with God after he fathered Methuselah 300 years and had other sons and daughters. Thus all the days of Enoch were 365 years. Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him.

“It was his/her time to go.” This is a common phrase to hear recited during visitations, funerals, or in the later recalling of someone who has passed away. It’s really just our way of saying that the length of a certain person’s life was something out of our hands; there was nothing that we could have ultimately done to keep that individual alive. But it is usually death that leads us to make such statements, for death is the way that all of us go…almost. Here is one who lived a dedicated life unto the Lord, living for Him when much of the world was going in the opposite direction, storing up God’s wrath against them that would later be poured out through the flood. But not Enoch, for he walked with God. This likely meant that he stayed conscious of God’s presence, making decisions according to what God had made known to his fathers and to him, living not for himself but for his Creator.

But, “it was his time to go” would have been something said about Enoch that brought to mind entirely different things than it does when we say it today at funerals. Enoch, like the later prophet Elijah, had no funeral. He experienced the dying of his body, in a sense, through the decaying of his flesh over time just like any of us, but his body never ceased its functioning. God, who does as He pleases, took Enoch from this world, transporting him to paradise to be with Him forever. We have no certainty of why God chose to operate in this way with Enoch in such an unusual manner. It is only revealed to us elsewhere in the Scriptures that he was a man of faith, not tasting death and commended as having pleased God (Hebrews 11:5) and that He prophesied of the coming of Christ in glory (Jude 14).

God had a plan for Enoch, an unusual plan, but one that showed God’s care for him. Though we cannot expect to have such a sudden and joyous transport before our bodies cease to function, we are reminded in this that God is a merciful Lord who cannot be put into a box or fully comprehended. Enoch’s sudden removal from this earth also serves as a reminder that none of us really know when our days are up. You or I could be taken suddenly, even if not in the same manner as the man here observed. How then are we using our days? Are we walking with God, maintaining a faith pleasing to Him? Just as Enoch had special insight into Christ and so put trust in God’s sending of Him, so we have had Jesus made known to us as the One through whom we can know and be right with God. When it is said of each of us, “It was his/her time to go” may we have shown ourselves ready for departure. Confirm your faith in Jesus the Savior today.

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