Lesson 21 – Abel and Enoch
Read Hebrews 11 - www.bible.com/bible/59/heb.11.esv
With this lesson we begin looking at some of the great people of faith in the Bible. We will study only a few of them here, but hope to show you the way you can study the rest of the many mentioned in this chapter on your own.
The first person mentioned is Abel, and we find the story of his life in Genesis 4:4-8. We are not given many details about his life, but in our chapter today we are told how important his faith was to God.
Abel was the second son of Adam and Eve. Have you ever felt like you are second-best or second-choice for something. It is very normal for brothers to feel this way, and especially so when we know that the first is the one who will get all the blessings. We are not told if Abel felt this way, but it would seem natural that he might have. So Abel’s determination to follow God’s ways in how to worship Him correctly was even more important.
Did Cain make fun of Abel for how he smelled after having worked with the sheep all day? It would have been natural, because sheep don’t smell very pleasant when they’ve been out in the fields.
But on the day they were to bring their sacrifices before God, Abel brought his most perfect lamb as his sacrifice. He might have looked at his brother’s beautiful basket of grains and fruits; he might even have almost wished he could have brought something so beautiful to God. But he remembered God said only blood was the acceptable sacrifice, and this is what he brought – in faith, even though it cost him his life to do so.
Enoch’s story is found in Genesis 5:22-24. Again, we are not given many details of his life, except for the fact that he walked with God. He spent time talking with God, learning from Him, growing in Him. And while his life was very short when compared to others of his time, he still had over 300 years of this relationship with God to enjoy.
If you study the Scriptures here, you will find there were basically two sets of people on earth at this time – the descendants of Cain who lived in cities and enjoyed music and art and all the things we might call the finer things of life. The second set of people were the descendants of Adam and Eve’s other children, specifically Seth. These people were mostly farmers and herders – people of the land. They worked hard each day to bring in crops and care for animals. They probably sold many of their goods to the people of the cities.
Yet, Enoch chose the life that would allow him to spend time with God – and by faith he was given a future only one other man in all of history has had. He did not die before he was taken to be with God.
Hebrews: Lesson 21 Print
Modified on: Tue, 12 Jan, 2021 at 9:52 AM
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