In Genesis Chapter 5, we read the expression 'and he died' eight times. But right in the middle of that chapter, we read of one who did not die at all!! That was Enoch. He walked with God and God took him to heaven alive. That is a picture of resurrection life in the midst of death. Enoch was a man who lived in resurrection power, overcame death and was taken up to heaven - a picture of a godly church living in the midst of spiritual death, overcoming by resurrection power and finally being raptured.

Enoch was probably a godless man for the first 65 years of his life. But at 65, he got a son. He named the boy "Methuselah", by Divine revelation. "Methuselah" means "At his death, the waters will come forth." That seems to indicate that God gave Enoch a revelation when his son was born. God told Enoch that when that son died, the world would be judged by a flood of waters. That revelation of judgment came first to Enoch and not to Noah. So he named his son Methuselah.

Now when you have a baby, you don't know how long he will live. So every time Methuselah was sick, Enoch would have wondered whether the time for judgment was near. Can you imagine a baby having a name that means, "At his death the flood will come"? Each time you called him, you would be reminded of judgment. And that fear of God's judgment made Enoch walk with God and realize that the things of eternity were more important than the things of time. That was the crisis that made Enoch walk with God every day for the next 300 years.

The Bible says, "The world will pass away" (1 Jn.2:16). If we believe that, we too will realize, as Enoch did, that the things of eternity are more important than the things of time.

God's tremendous longsuffering with man is seen in the fact that He allowed Methuselah to live longer than any other human being - 969 years. For 969 years, whenever people heard Methuselah's name, they heard a message of judgment to come. But the people rejected the message. It was not only Noah who preached about this judgment. Enoch preached it for 300 years too and Methuselah preached it by his name for another 669 years.

Noah also walked with God and preached about judgment for the last 120 years of Methuselah's life. Enoch and Methuselah did not know the details of the flood as clearly as God later revealed to Noah. But they knew that some type of judgment connected with a flood of waters was going to come when Methuselah died.

Jude tells us that Enoch prophesied judgment against all the ungodly people of his time (Jude 14,15). Enoch was a prophet and he walked with God. Adam was622 years old when Enoch was born and died at the age of 930(Gen.5:5-23). So Enoch must have known Adam for 308 years. I can imagine that Enoch must have often asked Adam about how things were in Eden where Adam himself had once walked with God. And Enoch must have had a great longing to walk with God himself. Enoch became the first man to prove that one could walk with God outside Eden too. Even after sin came into the world, man could walk with God.

I've met a lot of great preachers in my life, but I have met very few who walk with God. But it is those few who produced a longing in my heart from my younger days, to walk with God myself.