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Lifespans and Plumb Lines




Read: Genesis 5:22–24 After he became the father of Methuselah, Enoch walked faithfully with God 300 years and had other sons and daughters. Altogether, Enoch lived a total of 365 years. Enoch walked faithfully with God; then he was no more, because God took him away.


 

We read in the Bible that before the great flood, people lived amazingly long lives. Adam lived for 930 years and Seth reached 912 years. The lifespans of those who followed are equally unbelievable: Enosh, 905 years; Kenan, 910 years; Mahalel, 895 years; Jared, 962 years; Enoch, 365 years; Methuselah, 969 years; Lamech, 777 years, and Noah, 950 years (Genesis 5; 9:29).


Notice that almost all the individuals in the list lived for around 900 years; the one who stands out as having a shorter lifespan than the others is Enoch. He lived for only 365 years. Additional information is given for him, and the two significant notations are that:

  • “Enoch faithfully walked with God”—a fact mentioned twice for emphasis (Genesis 5:22, 24)

  • At the end of his life, Enoch “was no more, because God took him away” (v. 24)


This information goes against popular thinking. One would think that if this man stands out as one who walked with God (a term that speaks of an intimate relationship with Him), then he would also stand out in a contest of lifespans, not by being the one with the shortest, but having the longest.


This is the way the world usually calculates success—length of life, extent of wealth, number of degrees, height of position, and number of followers. Many believe that the closer one is to God, the more successful one will be in this world—measured by the world’s instruments. This way of thinking has, unfortunately, also crept into the church. Today we hear about the “health and wealth” gospel which, if not openly proclaimed, is often secretly assumed to be true when one goes about performing acts of piety.


The story of Enoch tells us that God measures true success in a different way, not by human lifespans or similar standards used by the world, but by His own set of instruments. In His hand, we will not find a metre that measures lifespans or earthly wealth or influence. Instead, He has a different kind of measuring rod—one that measures in terms of justice and righteousness. God declares through His prophet: “I will make justice the measuring line and righteousness the plumb-line” (Isaiah 28:17), making it clear how He would measure a man—or for that matter, a church or a nation.


God measures us not in terms of the material debris we collect on the way, but by the moral integrity we learn to have by staying close to Jesus. We are measured not by the busyness of our lives, but by the faithfulness of our hearts and steps. We will be measured not by how much we have accumulated or accomplished but by how much we have become Christ-like in our walk with God. That is to say, we will be assessed by how much we have allowed God to accomplish in our lives.


Pragmatic worldliness narrows and distorts our vision of what God expects of us. We can go about our lives cutting the cloth according to the wrong measure, lulling ourselves into thinking that we are fine (due to the signs of apparent success in our lives), only to be rudely awakened one day when we realise to our horror that it was a mistake all along.


The Lord Jesus warned his hearers that the day will come when many will say, “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?” Then He will answer, “I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!” (Matthew 7:22–23). We may think ourselves to be fine, expecting a strong commendation from the Lord, thinking that the affirmations and applause of this world are an echo of God’s approval. But we may be deadly wrong. We may have used the wrong instruments to measure our lives, and shredded pieces are all that are left.


How can we avoid such a shocking discovery when it is too late, when God’s word to us may be “You have been weighed on the scales and found wanting” (Daniel 5:27)? We must familiarise ourselves with the way God measures us, and with the instruments He uses. Divine measuring rods and plumb lines gauge the inner contours of our souls and the moral foundations of our daily choices and decisions. They measure character and weigh faithfulness. How important it is to know these things, and to do something about them before it is too late.


Consider this:

God measures character and weighs faithfulness. How can you ensure that you are focusing on the right things and not wasting your life and opportunities collecting meaningless worldly debris? What do your priorities and lifestyle, your choices and commitments say about your character and your faithfulness to God? What changes in your life may be necessary as a result of your reflection?


Excerpted and adapted from Apprenticed to Jesus: Learning from Him, Living Like Him he Sermon by Robert M. Solomon. ©2014 by Robert M. Solomon. Used by permission of Armour Publishing. All rights reserved.

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