Enoch Had This Testimony... That He Pleased God

By David J. Stewart

Hebrews 11:5-6, “By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was not found, because God had translated him: for before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God. But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.”

I love this Scripture in Hebrews 11:5... “he had this testimony, that he pleased God.” What a beautiful Bible Verse! What a wonderful thing to be said of any man or woman. Before he was translated (raptured you could say) to go be with the Lord, Enoch had this testimony: THAT HE PLEASED GOD!

The next Verse in Hebrews 11:6 tells us “HOW” Enoch pleased God—by faith—for without faith it is absolutely impossible to please God the Bible says. Faith is everything that a believer does for Jesus Christ. It is by faith that we share the Gospel with others. It is by faith that we sing unto the Lord. It is by faith that we give to the poor in Jesus' name. It is by faith that we look for the Rapture of the saints. It is by faith that we pray and fast. It is by faith that we walk with God. Faith is obeying God's Word.

Faith is never passive, but active. Faith is what compels a believer to accomplish things for God. By faith we BUILD. By faith we FIGHT the good fight of faith, contending for the Christian cause. By faith we make SACRIFICES for the cause of Christ, to feed the poor and support Gospel ministries. By faith we FORSAKE the wicked world and choose rather to suffer persecution for our faith (2nd Timothy 3:12).

The Christian life is lived BY FAITH—the same way that we are saved BY FAITH. We are saved by placing our faith in the Gospel. Then we please God in our personal life (as believers) by obeying God's Word; not living by bread alone, but by every Word of God (Deuteronomy 8:3; Matthew 4:4). Faith is obedience to the Scriptures.

Again, obeying the Bible on a daily basis has nothing to do with going to Heaven. Heretics like John MacArthur and false religions like Seventh Day Adventists teach that we are saved by obeying the Bible throughout our life. That's a false plan of salvation that leads to the Lake of Fire. We don't live right TO GET saved, we live right because WE ARE saved.

Enoch was a man who walked with God. His testimony was simply that HE PLEASED GOD. I love that! Isn't that beautiful? The personal application is obvious and speaks volumes. We were all put here on earth to please God. The Bible confirms this truth in Revelation 4:11, “Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.” God created mankind to please Him. Do we please God in our daily lives? The Bible tells us how to please God, that is, by faith (Hebrews 11:6). One of the reasons (amongst hundreds) that I am convinced the Bible is God's inspired Words is because It tells us exactly what God expects of us. God didn't leave us to wonder, guess or figure out what He expects of us.

The Bible says that the Lord taketh pleasure in them that FEAR Him. Amen! Do you want to PLEASE God as did Enoch? Then fear the Lord. The Bible says that fearing the Lord causes men to depart from evil. Proverbs 16:6b, “by the fear of the LORD men depart from evil.” Hebrews 11:7 says that Noah moved with fear, after being warned by God, and built the ark. Fear compels men to obey God, whether it be departing from sin or serving the Lord. Fear is a great motivator. Hebrews 12:28-29 commands us to “serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear: For our God is a consuming fire.” A child obeys their parents at a young age for fear of being disciplined (spanked); but when they grow older they should fear breaking the heart of mom and dad.

That's the same way our growth in grace should be. When we first get saved we're like king David, who said in Psalms 119:67 and 71, “Before I was afflicted I went astray: but now have I kept thy word. ...It is good for me that I have been afflicted; that I might learn thy statutes.” Instead of becoming bitter and angry, David praised God for his afflictions that taught him to live for God and opened the eyes of his understanding to the Scriptures. Amen! Then David began to serve the Lord from a loving heart, desiring not to hurt his God ever again. That's the way every Believer should be.

Psalms 147:11, “The LORD taketh pleasure in them that fear him, in those that hope in his mercy.”

Our society is so screwed up that we don't even know which way's up. Psalms 146:9, “The LORD preserveth the strangers; he relieveth the fatherless and widow: but the way of the wicked he turneth upside down.” God has confounded the fool in his own folly. Men in their self-proclaimed wisdom have become total fools without God.
 

God's Secret Verses Revealed Will

I hear so many people talking about seeking God's will; but we already have God's will written in the Bible. I couldn't find even one Scripture that commands believers to seek God's will; but rather, to understand God's will and do it. Ephesians 5:17, “Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is.”

Although we all struggle at times in life with the hidden (or secret) will of God, the revealed will of God is abundantly clear in the Scriptures. The way to find the secret will of God is to first obey the revealed will of God. Proverbs 3:5-7 confirms this truth... “Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths. Be not wise in thine own eyes: fear the LORD, and depart from evil.” If we don't obey the revealed will of God, then we have no right to expect God to show us His secret will. You don't need to seek God's secret will if the Bible already tells us God's revealed will on the matter.

For example: A young woman auditioned nine times to become a Dallas Cowboy Cheerleader. She said she knew it was God's will for her to be hired, but she hadn't yet. She's not obeying the revealed will of God concerning modest dress and morality. 1st Timothy 2:9 commands women to dress modestly. Matthew 5:28 condemns lust as being equivalent to adultery. Colossians 3:5-6 prohibit sexual uncleanness, filthy communication and immorality. Immodesty is a sin because it causes lust. Only a wicked person would defend immodest clothing on women, which is destroying our nation.

1st Peter 2:11 warns that fleshly lusts war against the soul. Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders are whores!!! Many of them have posed in Playboy magazine and other smutty publications. They gyrate, opening their crotches wide for everyone to see, wearing tight mini-skirts and sinfully exposing their breasts with scanty clothing. They don't care about what God thinks or else they'd keep their clothes on and their legs closed in public. Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders have largely contributed to the moral degeneration of America's families, posing sensually and lasciviously in calendars, commercials, TV shows and on the football field for tens-of-thousands of men and women to lust upon.

Lesbianism is virtually synonymous with pornography. One lust begets another. This is why homosexuals are often pedophiles as well, as evidenced by the Roman Catholic priesthood worldwide. The Catholic religion is a cesspool of unsaved heretics, lascivious sex perverts and arrogant imposters who falsely claim the power to forgive men's sins. The Vatican's policy on priest celibacy has led to sexual immorality of every sort. The Biblical solution is to obey God and ABSTAIN from fleshly lusts. God plan is marriage between a man and a woman (Hebrews 13:4). Homosexuality is a horrible sin which brings the judgment of God upon a nation (Romans 1:24-32; Jude 1:7; Colossians 3:5-6,25).

You never have to pray about anything that the Word of God already answers. You don't need to ask God if it's His will for you to marry an unsaved person, because 2nd Corinthians 6:14-17 already says “NO.” You don't need to ask God if it's ok to get remarried if YOU filed for divorce, because 1st Corinthians 7:10 says “NO.” If you remarry, then you are an adulterer (Matthew 5:32). God hates divorce (Jeremiah 3:20; Malachi 2:16). In the year 1900 the divorce rate was below 1%, but today it is at 75.54% in southern California and close to 50% nationwide.

Only by pride cometh contention the Bible says (Proverbs 13:10). Most people today pervert and twist the Bible around in a sinful attempt to justify their wickedness, just as the Jews did in Jeremiah 7:9-10. It can't be done. Ecclesiastes 12:14 and Proverbs 24:12 warn that God knows the heart and will judge every work accordingly. Nothing can be hidden from the eyes of the Lord, even though you may deceive yourself into thinking that sin is acceptable. Proverbs 24:12, “If thou sayest, Behold, we knew it not; doth not he that pondereth the heart consider it? and he that keepeth thy soul, doth not he know it? and shall not he render to every man according to his works?” The first step to pleasing God is to be totally honest with our self, for God cannot be fooled; we are only fooling our self if we misinterpret the Scriptures in a sinful attempt to do evil. Hebrews 4:13, “Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do.”

If we obey the revealed will of God in the Bible, then the secret will of God will take care of itself. This is the promise of God in Romans 8:28 and numerous other passages of Scripture like Proverbs 3:5-7.
 

Wickedness Never Pleases God, Nor Can Evil Be Done By Faith

It can't be said of most people that they please God... feminism, abortion, homosexuality, adultery, lust, booze, casino gambling, hatred... on and on. These things are done in doubt and sin. Gossip is one of the worst sins, but hardly anyone considers it wrong (or cares). Jealousy, envy, backbiting, hatred, revenge, covetousness ... all works of the flesh. None of these things can ever be done by faith. They are sins.

Most people don't even try not to sin these days. This is what the Bible means in Proverbs 24:16, “For a just man falleth seven times, and riseth up again: but the wicked shall fall into mischief.” The righteous man stumbles, but the wicked man quits. That's what this verse means in Hebrew. Ad Christians who love the Lord we are not perfect. We sin and sometimes commit evil, and the Lord chastens us (Hebrews 12:6-8). We are not what we want to be, but if we love the Lord, we are not what we used to be either. The wicked on the other hand don't care; they love sin and plan to commit more of it.

For example: A known righteous man may in weakness sneak a look at a dirty magazine at work and get caught by a co-worker. That co-worker will likely go tell everyone what a hypocrite the righteous man is for looking at a filthy magazine or picture. The righteous man didn't want to see the picture, but he stumbled across it laying somewhere and so he looked at it.

In sharp contrast, the wicked man went to the store and purchased a filthy magazine (maybe Penthouse or Playboy) and keeps it in a special place at work to look at it and show other wicked men. The wicked man deliberately looks at the naked people in the magazine and has no intentions of stopping. None of his co-workers gossip or go tell everyone that he was caught viewing a filthy magazine, because everyone knows he already belongs to Satan. He curses in God's name in the lunchroom at work and tells sexually explicit filthy jokes around the other men.

Whereas the Christian man doesn't laugh and walks away if possible to avoid such evils. Any man who has ever worked in a secular workplace knows exactly what I am talking about. It's an uphill battle for the Lord all the way! And then a wicked wife doesn't understand when her husband comes home irritable, so she divorces him to find greener pastures. It is the height of wickedness and a sore evil in America! God hates the liberal, heathen feminist, lesbian ,m corrupt, evil court system that does everything in its power to cause divorces and see them, through until the end.

America is saturated with filth. It's considered perfectly acceptable these days for a woman to dance in bedroom attire on a music video one day, and boast of being a Christian and loving Jesus the next on Oprah. Her name is Carrie Underwood. It's sickening! God vomits over lukewarm believers (Revelation 3:15-16). These people are fakes, plastic, empty, synthetic phonies! Carrie Underwood cannot strut in the attire of a prostitute in sexy music videos by faith. It is impossible. Only that which is holy and righteous can be done by faith. No one can sin by faith. Sin is done by doubt and despair.

It is BY FAITH that the righteous man tries to live for God in the workplace, protecting his eyes, ears and mind from the filth and evil communications. No man is perfect and every man will be criticized for something by co-workers—some things probably true—but God sees the heart of each person and knows who is righteous and who is wicked. Jesus Christ was absolutely perfect in every way (Hebrews 4:15; 1st Peter 2:22) and yet his enemies found fault enough to murder Him. They hated Jesus without a cause because He was good and they were evil. Whom do you say that Jesus is?

Homosexuality is done by lack of faith and by enmity against God. This is why homosexuals have perverted the Bible into a lie. The chairman of the Old Testament translating committee for the New International Version (NIV), Marten Woudstra is a homosexual. I'll never understand why any pastor would knowingly continue to use the NIV in their church after learning that the chairman of the Old Testament committee is a flaming homosexual. No wonder the word “sodomite” has been completely removed from the Old Testament. These are evil people! This proves that homosexuals do indeed harbor deep seeded ill-feelings toward God.

I've never heard a homosexual admit that what they are doing is evil and a sin. No, rather, they boast of gay pride, corrupting the Word of God and attempting to force their sick lifestyle on society. They have been largely successful only because Christians are asleep these days, at ease on Zion. To be more specific, Believers don't have enough faith in the Lord to fight for the Lord. Few believers today care enough to contend for the faith, sacrifice, forsake the sinful world and to take a firm Biblical stand against public wickedness. Of the few faithful Christians in America who have stood, some have been imprisoned. When freedom fails, good men rot in filth jails.

It was by faith that Noah moved with fear and built an ark. It was by faith that Abraham left his home country and sojourned into a stranger land far away. It was by faith that David went out to fight Goliath, who stood 9' 6" tall. It was by faith that Rahab hid the Jewish spies. It was by faith that Joshua led the Israelites into the land of Canaan to do battle and possess the land. It was by faith that Daniel opened his window three times daily toward Jerusalem and prayed.

The very truth of Hebrews 11:6 means that God most often won't show Himself visibly in response to our prayers. For to do so negates the opportunity to shew forth one's faith. God works in ways unseen and undetected by the human senses.
 

God Is Pleased When We Get Angry Over Sin

Sin makes God angry and He hates it. Do you think it pleases the Lord when people laugh, mock, joke and take the matter of sin lightly? No way! God hates the Late Night Shows that make a mock at sin. God calls them fools. Proverbs 14:9, “Fools make a mock at sin: but among the righteous there is favour.” Amos 3:3 says two cannot walk together except they be AGREED. This is why Psalms 97:10 tells us to hate evil if we love the Lord. Do you love the Lord?

The reason why a small group of evil men and women have been successful to take over our entire nation through a coup of government is because we have been silent as citizens. In 1963 the U.S. Supreme Court cast God's Word out of all public schools. That's spitting in God's face! Hardly anyone cared. The Communists learned after World Wars I and II that they would not be able to conquer the world by force. So instead they went stealth, using anti-American trade agreements, deindustrialization, open borders and dirty politics to accomplish their goals.

What the Communists could not accomplish by brute force and bloodshed they have achieved by deception and theft since 1950. America is run today by a rogue group of thug criminals (most members of Bilderberg and CFR). They were behind the 911 attacks. They started Homeland Security to raise up a Police State to smash resistance in America when our economy implodes. The present recession in 2012 will continue into massive depression. The globalists want to create poverty so they can control people. They want everyone dependent upon the government for everything, thus giving them complete control over our lives.

The bankruptcy of our government cannot be hidden anymore by reckless debt spending by Congress. Do you realize that there were no credit cards in the 1970's? Everyone paid good ole cash. In Australia today most people still pay cash. Americans are in massive debt to the offshore banksters. Bank Of America, Chase, Goldman Sachs, Citibank... all enslaving Americans financially. Congress has sold us out, sending all our jobs overseas.

America's love for sin has made us soft, complacent, indifferent, apathetic, weak and vulnerable to satanic attacks of every sort. Because people are woefully ignorant of God's truth by choice, they are also woefully ignorant of the deceivers who are deceiving them and enslaving them. Every parent who enrolls their child into a public (government) school is placing their child into the hands of the Devil. You might as well say, “Here Devil, take my child.” God has given us over to deception and evil. We have brought this upon ourselves by disobeying God and rejecting His Words.

Every U.S. President since JFK has sold us out. JFK was killed over Presidential Directive 11110, which would have stopped the fake money (funny money) issued by the privately owned Federal Reserve. The first thing President LBJ did was cancel Presidential Directive 11110. The bankers made it clear that they could murder a president in broad daylight at high-noon and get away with it.

Although it may seem hopeless and futile that our nation could ever be taken back from such criminals, God has PROMISED throughout the Scriptures to bless the nation whose God is the Lord. At least half of Americans are Catholic and worship statues of Mary, but deny it and claim they love God. They're idolaters and have been deceived by Satan. Why should God bless a nation that idolizes lewd and lascivious Rock, Pop, Rap and Country singers? The heavy-metal band ACDC boasts of traveling the HIGHWAY TO HELL, having sold over 71,000,000 albums just in the United States.[1] Why should God bless our nation? We are literally on a highway to Hell (Matthew 7:13-15). Are you angry? I am, and I'm preaching against evil with every ounce of passion and physical being I have by God's grace. I'm not perfect, but I want to be, holy just as my precious Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Resistance to tyranny is obedience to God. Submission to tyranny is a symptom of a society that has forsaken God. If you hate evil as the Bible commands, then you wouldn't remain silent about abortion, homosexuality, pornography, divorce, booze, casino gambling, et cetera. It's no coincidence that our U.S. society that embraces abortion and homosexual marriage also doesn't care about government crimes, massive theft, mass-murdering, torture and the total evisceration of the U.S. Constitution and our Bill of Rights!!!

The average person will agree with the statement that America has become a sinful nation, but they also do absolutely NOTHING about it. Most people think there's nothing they can do as an individual, but that's the biggest mistake that people make. God was only looking for 10 righteous people to spare Sodom for destruction. I believe there are a small number of righteous people today who have stayed God's judgment upon our nation; but as that number of righteous people decreases, so also does the wicked rise to power. Sin has overtaken our nation. The enemy has come in like a flood. The Bible foretells that in the Last Days the wicked will do wickedly, but the righteous will be wise and understand. Daniel 12:10, “Many shall be purified, and made white, and tried; but the wicked shall do wickedly: and none of the wicked shall understand; but the wise shall understand.”

Ephesians 5:11 commands believers to refute (Greek: elencho, meaning, “to expose”) all works of unrighteousness. This pleases the Lord. Few believers are taking stand for God these days against wickedness in public. This doesn't mean condemning people on a personal level, which is wrong (Matthew 7:1-5; James 4:12); but rather, crying aloud against the wicked who attempt to corrupt our children with evolution, homosexualize our society, performing abortions, pedaling booze, publish pornography, run gambling casinos and other evils which undermine and contribute to the downfall of society morally.

Booze has totally destroyed Anchorage, Alaska. 40% of all African-American babies in New York city are now aborted! On and on, America is becoming much worse than Sodom and Gomorrah. Jesus plainly stated that Sodom would have repented had they seen the works which Jesus performed in Capernaum (Matthew 11:23). With all the Bibles, preaching and truth resources available to us today, no one has an excuse not to repent toward God and believe the Gospel. Yet, 600,000 Jews (one-third of the total Jewish population in the U.S.) are now Buddhists. Only 26.3% of Americans are considered evangelical Christians.[2] Most of those people don't believe in a literal Bible. They have religion, but not salvation. There's much to get angry over these days.

Why do you think God says in James 4:8-9 that if you want to draw nigh unto Him to be afflicted, and to let your laughter be turned into mourning. God wants us to share His burden for the lost with tears (Psalms 125:5-6), and to share the Gospel with others (Luke 8:14-15; Romans 10:15; Daniel 12:3), and to care about the things of Jesus Christ (which is to look upon the needs of others, Philippians 2:4-5,20-21). Oh that we would live for the Lord by living for others (Isaiah 58).
 

Don't Try To Change What You Don't Understand About God

Here's a fascinating Scripture in Ecclesiastes 3:11, “He hath made every thing beautiful in his time: also he hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end.” The Hebrew word for “world” is quite interesting, which is olam olam, meaning, “concealed, that is, the vanishing point; generally time out of mind (past or future), that is, (practically) eternity.” The Bible is saying that God has hid the “INVISIBLE THINGS OF GOD” (Romans 1:20) from humanity, so that we cannot understand what God is doing. The Bible says that God has a time for everything. Our part is to trust upon the Lord, which PLEASES HIM. It ought to encourage us that the Bible tells us such truths. It's ok not to understand everything.

Colossians 2:2 calls the doctrine of the Godhead (Trinity) “the mystery of God, and of the Father, and of Christ.” Many religions reject the Godhead because they cannot grasp its meaning. So they butcher the Bible and remove the word Godhead completely. The King James Bible mentions the word “Godhead” in Acts 17:29, Romans 1:20 and Colossians 2:9. The New International Version (both 1984 and 2011 versions) completely remove the word. Wicked men and women change and reject what they cannot understand; but we as true Christians trust upon the Lord and accept the truth as it is without trying to change it. Men are trying to bring God down to the level of man. God created man in His image; we must not try to redefine God in man's image.

Lord give me the courage to do the things I can change; the patience to pray about the things I can't change; and the wisdom to know the difference between the two. I'm not going to redefine God to fit my finite thinking. I'm not going to butcher the Bible to fit my agendas. I'm going to please God by faith, obeying his revealed will and trusting Him in everything. Job 13:15, “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him: but I will maintain mine own ways before him.” May we all strive to please God by humbling ourselves in prayer, living for others in the Lord, departing from sin and seeking God's face of blessing upon our life.

I want to please God as Enoch did. I want to have faith in God to please Him as Hebrews 11:6 teaches. I want to build, help, worship, bless, sacrifice, forsake the world, help, fight and suffer BY FAITH as all the great host of witnesses in Hebrews chapter 11 who've gone on before us, so as to please my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Enoch Had This Testimony... That He Pleased God!

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