FAITH || Lesson 3 

FAITH

Text:  Hebrews 11

Lesson Three – V.5

Examples of the ancients who were commended for their faith: (Cont’d.)

ENOCH – [Part 1]:  V.5 – By faith Enoch was taken from this life, so that he did not experience death; he could not be found, because God had taken him away. For before he was taken, he was commended as one who pleased God.

Original account:  Genesis 5:18-24 – ¹⁸When Jared had lived 162 years, he became the father of Enoch. ¹⁹And after he became the father of Enoch, Jared lived 800 years and had other sons and daughters.  ²⁰Altogether, Jared lived 962 years, and then he died.

²¹When Enoch had lived 65 years, he became the father of Methuselah.  ²²And after he became the father of Methuselah, Enoch walked with God 300 years and had other sons and daughters.  ²³Altogether, Enoch lived 365 years.  ²⁴Enoch walked with God; then he was no more, because God took him away.

Enoch’s Quantity of Years:  V.23 – Altogether, Enoch lived 365 years.

Compare:  V.20 – Altogether, Jared lived 962 years, and then he died.  V.27 – Altogether, Methuselah lived 969 years, and then he died.

It is inferred that if he had not been translated, Enoch would have lived to a similar number of years.

Regarding the longevity of the people of that era, the Halley’s Bible Handbook states: “The Great Age to which they lived is ordinarily explained on the theory that Sin had only begun its malign influence on the race.”

The continuation of sin’s “malign influence on the race” resulted in the reduced lifespan and accompanying difficulties experienced in later generations.  This was lamented by:

Jacob – Genesis 47:7-9 – ⁷Then Joseph brought his father Jacob in and presented him before Pharaoh. After Jacob blessed Pharaoh, ⁸Pharaoh asked him, “How old are you?”

⁹And Jacob said to Pharaoh, “The years of my pilgrimage are a hundred and thirty. My years have been few and difficult, and they do not equal the years of the pilgrimage of my fathers.”

Jacob lived seventeen years longer.  Genesis 47:28 – Jacob lived in Egypt seventeen years, and the years of his life were a hundred and forty-seven.

Job – Job 14:1-2 – “Man born of woman is of few days and full of trouble.  ²He springs up like a flower and withers away; like a fleeting shadow, he does not endure.

After the reversal of Job’s situation, he lived a further 140 years.  Job 42:16-17 – ¹⁶After this, Job lived a hundred and forty years; he saw his children and their children to the fourth generation.  ¹⁷And so he died, old and full of years.

Moses – Psalm 90:7-10 – ⁷We are consumed by your anger and terrified by your indignation.  ⁸You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your presence.  ⁹All our days pass away under your wrath; we finish our years with a moan.  ¹⁰The length of our days is seventy years–or eighty, if we have the strength; yet their span is but trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly away.

Note that the “seventy years—or eighty” was not a pronouncement of the human life span but was due to what had been declared in Numbers 14:26-35 – ²⁶The LORD said to Moses and Aaron:  ²⁷“How long will this wicked community grumble against me? I have heard the complaints of these grumbling Israelites.  ²⁸So tell them, ‘As surely as I live, declares the LORD, I will do to you the very things I heard you say:  ²⁹In this desert your bodies will fall–every one of you twenty years old or more who was counted in the census and who has grumbled against me.  ³⁰Not one of you will enter the land I swore with uplifted hand to make your home, except Caleb son of Jephunneh and Joshua son of Nun.  ³¹As for your children that you said would be taken as plunder, I will bring them in to enjoy the land you have rejected.  ³²But you–your bodies will fall in this desert.  ³³Your children will be shepherds here for forty years, suffering for your unfaithfulness, until the last of your bodies lies in the desert.  ³⁴For forty years–one year for each of the forty days you explored the land–you will suffer for your sins and know what it is like to have me against you.’  ³⁵I, the LORD, have spoken, and I will surely do these things to this whole wicked community, which has banded together against me. They will meet their end in this desert; here they will die.”

Compare:  Deuteronomy 34:7 – Moses was a hundred and twenty years old when he died, yet his eyes were not weak nor his strength gone.

Numbers 33:39 – Aaron was a hundred and twenty-three years old when he died on Mount Hor.

Let us thank the Lord for the following promises of a healthy life, as was the case with Moses, and let us ask Him to help us fulfill the criteria for obtaining the promises.

Psalm 34:11-14 – ¹¹Come, my children, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the LORD. ¹²Whoever of you loves life and desires to see many good days, ¹³keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking lies.  ¹⁴Turn from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it.

1 Thessalonians 5:23-24 – ²³May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.  ²⁴The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it.

(Contemporary English Version) ²³I pray that God, who gives peace, will make you completely holy. And may your spirit, soul, and body be kept healthy and faultless until our Lord Jesus Christ returns.  ²⁴The one who chose you can be trusted, and he will do this.

3 John 1:2 – Dear friend, I pray that you may enjoy good health and that all may go well with you, even as your soul is getting along well.

Moreover, let us thank the Lord for the promise of eternal life.   John 3:16 – “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

John 17:1-3 – After Jesus said this, he looked toward heaven and prayed:   “Father, the time has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you.  ²For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him.  ³Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.