I have written over five-hundred blogs.  This is like a diary.  In reverse.  I'm telling you things that happened to me in the past.  And things I have learned through the years.

My grandson Brady is three.  His mom said he loves bugs and creepy crawlers.  The other day he saw a grasshopper.  So he got down on his knees and said, "Hello, little fella.  Wha'cha doin?"  Children are so innocent.  Jesus said that if we aren't like little children, we won't see the kingdom of God.

Our faith must be simple as well.  Hebrews 11: 5 "Enoch was translated that he should not see death…for before his translation …he pleased God."  I told you that I want to please God.  I read the Bible so that I can know what is pleasing to him.  It is our guide book.

In the very next verse (vs. 6), the writer of Hebrews says something profound. "But without faith, it is impossible to please him: for he that comes to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him."

Science tries to find the origin of life.  And fails.  Science doesn't explain where this is all occurring.  Or where it all came from.  Or what was the first source.  Science also doesn't give us an explanation for our sin.  The world would say, "There is no sin.  If it feels good, do it."  But we know.  In our hearts.

But the Bible is simply the truth.  John 1:1, 3 "In the beginning was the Word.  And the Word was with God, and the Word was God…All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.  In him was life; and life was the light of men"

We get to choose.  Science--which is ever searching but never arriving at final truth.  Or the Bible--which simply tells us the truth.  And it rings a bell in our hearts.  That's faith.  We choose faith.

I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving.   It is so much fun having family together.

The Jews to whom the New Testament letters were written had a rich heritage.  They knew the stories of their ancestors and held the faithful forefathers in high esteem.  So when Jude mentions Enoch, those to whom his letter was written already knew all about him.  Jude must have gotten his information from other letters that were lost, or from oral tradition, because he tells us things that aren't recorded in the Old Testament. He calls Enoch a prophet.

What Jude tells us (Jude 1:14-16) is that Enoch told the people of his time that they were ungodly.  And that their deeds were ungodly.  Jude is concerned about the people who have come into the church and have began to divert the simple truth of salvation.  He uses Enoch as a godly example.

He tells us in Jude 1 that Enoch said that these people are constant gripers.  Never satisfied.  Doing whatever evil they feel like; showing respect to others only to get what they want.  Sounds like us.

We gripe.
We are never satisfied.
We want to do whatever we want.
We manipulate people for our advantage.
Why in the world do we think God will approve of us.

Enoch pleased God.  I keep trying.  I can't think of anything better than to please God.  I'd like to be like Enoch and just vanish to heaven and not have to go through anymore misery to get there.

The second man of faith that is mentioned is Enoch.  Hebrews 11:5 "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."

There is some confusion concerning Enoch's forefathers.  In Gen. 4: 18 we find that Cain built a city and named it after his son Enoch.  But the genealogy doesn't match the person named in Genesis 5:18, and 22. "Our" Enoch is named as a great-great-great grandson of Seth.

The Old Testament mentions him in only one sequence of verses:  vs. 22-24,  "And Enoch walked with God…he begat Methuselah…and lived three hundred and sixty five years…Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him."  That's it.

Not much information.  What we know is that he was of the linage of Seth; he was the father of the oldest person in Bible history (Methulselah);  he walked with God; and God took him (the New Testament says translated him).  He didn't have to die to be with God.  His life was a walk with God.  That's it.

He is mentioned in Luke 3:37 as Luke gives the linage of Jesus Christ, all the way back to Seth and Adam.  And he is mentioned once more in Jude 1:14-15 "And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these (I'll explain what "these" were tomorrow), saying, Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of his saints to execute judgment upon all and to convince all that are ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed…"

Enoch was a faithful man.  He walked with God.  That means you put one foot in front of the other and head in the right direction.  One step at a time.

 The Bible I am using has 1,146 pages of print.  The record of the first murder appears on page 4.  It didn't take long for a killing to take place.  Adam and Eve had Cain, then Abel.

All we know about Abel is that:  1. He was a shepherd.  2.  He brought a sheep as a sacrifice to God.  3.  God declared him righteous.  4.  Cain killed him.    What a mess.  It could have been so different.

Adam and Eve had another son (Seth) who is much more prominent in Biblical history.  But the writer of Hebrews chose to recognize Abel as the first man of faith.   In Matt. 23: 35, Jesus himself speaks of Abel.  "That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel…"  In Hebrews 12:24 Abel is mentioned again. "…to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaks better things than that (blood) of Abel."

That's all we know.

Except that in the greatest chapter on the subject in the entire Bible, Abel is the first person on the list of faithful men.  He didn't know Jesus.  He didn't have anything written that he could refer to.  He didn't have a church.  He didn't know much.  But he knew God.  Adam and Eve did one thing right--they told Abel about God.  And Abel believed.  He had faith in God and it was counted to him as righteousness.

We are saved the same way.  By our faith in the sacrifice that God has provided for us.  Jesus.  All salvation--Old Testament and New--is the very same.  By faith.  Faith in the promises of  God.  John 3:16, "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life."  God will declare us righteous because of the sacrificial blood of Jesus.

When I was going through the book of Hebrews, I got to the eleventh chapter and was pretty overwhelmed with what to say.  It is the greatest chapter in the entire Bible on faith, but there were so many names of the Old Testament characters that I just skipped most of it.  Now I think I would like to go back and cover some of the reasons that those particular people were named as people of faith.  The chapter begins:  "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for the evidence of things not seen."

And then the litany of the faithful patriarchs begins--with Abel.   Heb. 11: 4 "By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous…"  His parents-Adam and Eve--had failed.  But Abel was declared righteous by God.   Genesis 4:2-5a "…and Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground.  And in the process of time it came to pass that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground as an offering unto the Lord.  And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the the fat thereof.  And the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering:  But unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect…"  Why?

The Bible doesn't tell us.  The rules of sacrifice had yet to be given to Abraham, or Moses.   But God covered Adam and Eve with animal skins when they sinned--which was the first time an animal had been sacrificed.  (Gen. 3: 21 "…the Lord God made coats of (animal) skins, and clothed them."  Up until then, they ate the fruit of the trees in the garden of Eden.    God sacrificed an animal to cover their sin.  God must have told them why he expected a blood sacrifice.  What it represented.  Abel complied.

It makes sense.  All sin has to be covered by blood.  In the Old Testament it was the blood of lambs, doves, etc.  In the New Testament sin is covered for all time by the blood of Jesus  The Lamb.

So Cain thought that grain would be good enough.  God didn't.  It made Cain so angry that he killed Abel.  And when God came looking for him, Cain said those famous words, "Am I my brother's keeper?"  The answer is, "Yes."  We are our brother's keepers.

Raising children is tough.  You don't know what you are doing.  You are really just winging it most of the time, learning as you go.  Using the Bible as your guide--but it doesn't cover the fine points!!

One day, after Scott, Becky and Pat were grown and gone, Jonathan told me he wanted to talk to me.  Jon doesn't talk much, so my ears perked up.  We went into the living room, sat down, and I started getting nervous.  "Mom," he said, "I want to tell you something.  But you can't say anything.  You have to just sit there and listen.  I'm going to do something you won't approve of, and I don't want to do it behind your back."

"I don't know if I can do that!!," I said  All sorts of things had popped into my mind.

"Okay," he said--and he got up and left the room.  "Wait," I yelled.  Wait."  And he said, "Promise?"  So I promised that I would just listen.  That I wouldn't say anything. (Better than not knowing.)

"I am president of my Senior Class," he said.   "And tonight my friends--about fifteen of them--are going to climb the water tower with me and paint it.  I'm going up first.  We are probably going to get caught.  I didn't want the police to call you without you knowing in advance what was going on."

The police called.  But since one of the boys was the son of one of the policemen, they all got off with just a warning.  I guess since I knew beforehand what they were going to do, that I was an accessory to their crime. But the Bible doesn't cover water towers.  A promise is a promise.  I kept my mouth shut.  It is pretty neat to have a kid that doesn't want to go behind your back and do something he knows you won't approve of.  Sometimes, even when they are wrong, their hearts are right.

Psalms 127:3-5 "…children are an heritage of the Lord…as arrows are in the hand of a mighty man…happy is the man that has his quiver full of them…"  I've got four.

Yesterday was a day full of disappointments.  Have you ever had a day like that?  I think the secret to not being disappointed is to let God be in charge of everything.  I am a control freak.  But before the day was over, I was okay.   Disappointed, but okay.

It started because I had decided to put a bid in on a house close to Scott and Stacy.  The owner accepted my offer.  The contract was ready to sign--then he sold it to someone else and never came back to me for a counter offer!!  I had already hired a subcontractor to make some changes.   What happened???  I finally decided that God was in control and I needed to chill out.  It's just a house.

Then I went to see the specialist.  The one that had told me that as soon as all the blood work was back, that there might be something we could do about my arm.  There wasn't.  It didn't turn out that way.  I just have to live with it.  I have to be more careful and not scratch my arm.  That's the way it is.  But I have an arm.  I have good eyes.  I can hear.  I can walk.  I have a purpose.  I have fingers.  I play the piano for my church.  I teach a Bible class.  I have wonderful friends and family.  And all of you.

To top it off, the day was Nov. 19.  One year since Ken died.  Oh well.  Might as well get it all over on the same day.  I do miss him.  He would have said to me, "That's the way it is.  Get on with it."  He always just put one foot in front of the other and kept on keeping on.

My grandson called me awhile ago and asked me to "go hang out" with him this evening.  I think I will pull a Scarlett O'Hara and think about my disappointments tomorrow.  Tomorrow is another day.  And God hasn't failed me yet.  When your grandson wants to spend the evening with a grandmother that is fifty years older than him, things can't be that bad.

I Timothy 6: 7-8  "For we brought nothing into the world, and obviously we cannot take anything out of the world;  But if we have food and clothing, with these…be content."