I teach the children's Wednesday night class at my church and recently started a series I've put together called "The Hall of Faith". We are working our way through Hebrews 11 by highlighting a different man or woman of faith each week. Last wee we were studying Enoch. The Bible doesn't say a whole lot about Enoch, but enough to really stir a person's imagination and curiosity.

When Enoch had lived 65 years, he became the father of Methuselah. And after he became the father of Methuselah, Enoch walked with God 300 years and had other sons and daughters. Altogether, Enoch lived 365 years. Enoch walked with God; then he was no more, because God took him away. Genesis 5:21-24

By faith Enoch was taken from this life, so that he did not experience death; he could not be found, because God had taken him away. For before he was taken, he was commended as one who pleased God. And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to Him bust believe that He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him. Hebrews 11:5-6

I think you'll find the following excerpt from the book "Simplifying Your Life" by Mac Hammond very interesting. After you read it, I will tie this excerpt and the story of Enoch together.

The connection between time and light in modern times was first seen by a physicist named Albert Einstein... Einstein said that if something were able to accelerate to the threshold of light speed [186,000 miles per second] and beyond, he wouldn't know how to describe it except to say it must be eternity.

There was a scientist at a university in California who designed a mathematical model to help lay people understand the relationship between light and time according to Einstein's theories. As we've already said, Einstein postulated that the faster you travel, accelerating toward the threshold of light speed, the slower time becomes. Moreover, if you could cross that threshold, you would step over into eternity, where God, who is absolute light, dwells.

With this in mind, the scientist from California described the following model. He said that if you launched a rocket carrying astronauts and it moved at 80 percent of the speed of light, traveling away from the earth for 15 days and back to earth for 15 days, maintaining 80 percent light speed, something strange would happen. Inside the rocket, the astronauts would age 30 days-- 15 days out and 15 days back. But at 80 percent of the speed of light, they would return to people on earth who had aged 60 days. By traveling at 80 percent of the speed of light, the astronauts would have experienced a stretching or slowing down of time as compared to people living on earth.

This scientist then repeated the model using a velocity of 85 percent light speed. Again, the astronauts traveled 15 days out from earth and 15 days beck to earth. However, during this second journey, the people on earth had aged 10 years. A mere increase of 5 percent of the speed of light-- from 80 percent to 85 percent-- caused a slowing of 10 years' time for the traveling astronauts.

Finally, our scientist placed the astronauts on a rocket traveling at the threshold o light speed, just as close as one could travel without going beyond. As with the other trips, these astronauts shot out 15 days and came back 15 days. However, they probably didn't recognize anything on earth when they arrived back home because the earth would have aged 30,000 years!

The astronauts aged a total of 30 days traveling at the brink of light speed, but time on earth had elapsed 30,000 years. These are mathematically proven models.

Now let's go to the Word where Peter tells us, "One day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day" (2 Pet. 3:8). This is a remarkable confirmation of the scientific model.

The ratio between 30 days of space travel at the threshold of light speed to 30,000 years of elapsed time on earth looks like 30/30,000. Reduce that ratio to 1/1,000 and you get a perfect confirmation of Scripture. One day is as 1,000 years both scientifically and biblically.

The author of this book was using this example to discuss time management, that the closer you walk to the Light of the Lord, and the more time you spend in His presence, the slower time goes by, thus giving you the time to accomplish the things you need to do.

However, it also struck me as very interesting when I was preparing to teach my class about Enoch. The Bible says that God IS Light. Enoch must have walked so closely to God that he just slipped over into eternity by way of the speed of the Light. It's quite a staggering thought.