09 May Enoch, How Did He Know?
For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made His light shine in our hearts
to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. 2 Corinthians 4:6
The Narrative makes it clear that there is nothing in us, and no initiative we take, that will make us His. We become His by the solitary action He takes on our behalf.
When Enoch recognized God as the LORD, he laid hold of everything God would ever do or be for him. But this was the result of something that had passed between he and God before.
God offers us a gift that enables us to discern Him. Paul describes this gift in his second letter to the Thessalonians: The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. ( 2 Thessalonians 2:9,10)
The love of the truth is the gift of God that works within us to show us WHO GOD IS..
There is a war for our souls, in which unrighteous deception is working in us with power, signs and lying wonders. The end of this war is ultimately determined by what we would have … not that we can save ourselves in any way… but what we would have determines the awfulness of our eternal separation from The One who has always loved us, or the inestimable blessedness of our becoming His. As He approached Jerusalem, Jesus wept inconsolably, knowing what was coming upon her. ““Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!” (Matthew 23:37)
His gift is met by brutal indifference.. What we don’t recognize is that the hardest places in our life are often working on our indifference. Difficult times work for our eternal good, by making us vulnerable. Our vulnerability reveals what we would have–the love of the truth or not.
Enoch knew WHO GOD IS because he had received the love of the truth.
We belong to what we love. If we love the truth, it is something we can’t take credit for, because it is a gift—a gift that wars in us and over us in the face of deception. As Paul looked out on the world of his time, he saw those perishing, because they had not received the love of the truth that they might be saved. We don’t perish because we don’t believe in the fully revealed redemptive plan of God, we perish because we did not receive the love of the truth.
And this is the verdict: The Light has come into the world, but men loved the darkness rather than the Light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come into the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever practices the truth comes into the Light, so that it may be seen clearly that what he has done has been accomplished in God.” (John 3:19-21)
If we have received the love of the truth, we will walk in it, practice it, and be disciplined by it. And as we are battered by waves of deception, the love of the truth comes as our helper to show us WHO GOD IS. “But when the Helper comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify of Me.” (John 15:26)
I pray for those I love, who’ve yet to resolve WHO GOD IS.. In their travail I see their vulnerability rising, beautiful as the dawn. I watch expectantly for the love of the truth to work slowly and surreptitiously in them until the moment when His voice will sound— and they will become alive to Him. “Truly, truly, I tell you, the hour is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. (John 5:2)
It is not always clear who has received the love of the truth. But for as many as have, they will hear the voice of God one day, and they will know Him, Saul, who would later become Paul the Apostle, was a furious persecutor of the early church, bent on its destruction, overseeing the stoning of Stephen and dragging men and women to prison. But somewhere, sometime he had received the love of the truth. In the defense of his religion, he considered Christians to be the enemy. But then he heard the voice: “As Saul drew near to Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute Me?”
He asked, “ who are you?” But even as he asked, he already knew.