Enoch Preaching, Walking With God and Taken Upby CBPepper
5:24Genesis 5:24
And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him.
Enoch lived sixty-five years, and after his first son was born he walked with God three hundred years in daily fellowship until God took him to heaven without his seeing death. To walk with God is constant, friendly companionship with Him through prayer, trust, obedience and beholding Christ until changed into His image in genuine holiness. By such working faith Enoch lived in purity, integrity and irreproachable righteousness amid surrounding wickedness, proving that fallen man can keep God's law through Christ. His translation just before the flood represents the faithful who will be alive at Christ's return and taken without seeing death, while the rebellious are destroyed. The same walk is open and required now, for ordinary people in any degenerate age can please God, escape corruption and be fitted for translation or resurrection.
Antediluvian Setting and Lifespans
Genesis 5:24 stands in the before-the-flood record in which nine generations averaged 912 years of life, far above the 332-year average of the nine generations after the flood, the seventy years of Moses' time, and the about thirty-five-year average at present, showing a steady decrease in longevity. It belongs to the account from Adam to Noah in which the patriarchs, with few exceptions, lived nearly a thousand years, in contrast to present suffering, disease and mortality. Enoch himself was the exception because God took him rather than letting him die like other men.
For nearly 2000 years after creation God's children subsisted on fruits, grains, green herbs and vegetables without eating flesh, and for the more than sixteen hundred years from Adam to Noah man's diet remained the green herb, vegetables, fruits and grains. That was a time of remarkably good health with no sickness and death of children, no feebleness in youth or middle age, no fevers, dyspepsia, gout, consumption, wasting or local diseases breaking down one organ while others remained strong, no sufferings long drawn out and no excruciating agonies in death, but men lived in full enjoyment of health nearly one thousand years until the springs of life grown weary stood still. Permission to eat flesh came only after the flood, and violation of God's laws of health and life, loss of vitality transmitted from the tree of life which had power to perpetuate life while Adam and Eve ate of it, and accumulated transgression and violation of natural law cut life down. By the Egyptian vassalage lifetimes had tapered to between one and two hundred years, by David's time about halfway from Adam to the present the average was only seventy years, and now in Europe and the United States it is but about thirty years, and in great cities but twenty, proving the race was created with ten times more vital force than it now possesses and has fallen off in size, physical strength and intellect in proportion to length of life.
The Bible record of holy men of old is very brief, giving only sparing praise to noble deeds and holy lives, and Enoch's life and translation are summed up in few words, with the statement that he lived 365 years. He lived sixty-five years and then, after his first son was born, walked with God three hundred years. That walk was daily, with an eye single to God's glory, always waiting and watching and ready to meet the Lord.
Overlapping long lifetimes let direct knowledge from Adam be handed down unimpaired, for Adam lived till Methuselah was 243 years old to impart it to Methuselah, Methuselah lived till Shem was 98 to impart it to Shem, Shem lived 150 years after Abraham's birth and 50 years after Isaac's birth to impart it to them, and Abraham and Isaac lived till Jacob was grown to impart it to him. That age had great physical and mental strength, strong memories able to grasp and retain what was communicated and transmit it unimpaired, no books or written records, hundreds of years when seven generations lived at the same time with opportunity to consult together, and Adam himself instructed by God, taught creation's history, and witnessing nine centuries imparted his knowledge to descendants. Enoch with Abel, Seth, Methuselah, Noah and many others belonged to the line of just men who received words of instruction from Adam and repeated them to children and children's children, kept alive the knowledge of the true God, instructed families about the coming flood, assisted Noah in building the ark, held back moral evil, warned that probation was 120 years, and that light was later taught to Daniel and his companions.
Meaning of Walking with God
Walking with God means trusting the heavenly Father for needed help, looking in faith to Jesus, asking of Him and believing that every word He speaks will be verified. It means keeping close by His side and obeying His every word in a wonderful life of oneness, with Christ as companion in intimate fellowship with God, who has a heaven full of blessings to bestow on those who earnestly seek this help and will not leave them. It is living in a right relation to Him, and those who do their best to place themselves in that relation have holy angels as companions instead of evil angels. It means knowing God and becoming acquainted with Jesus Christ, the religious experience essential for standing without fault before the throne of God, for which God permits the furnace fires of affliction to consume the dross and to refine, purify and cleanse from the defilement of sin and self-love. It means living with a constant realization of accountability to God, with a sense of moral and religious obligation, subordinating every act and enterprise to the universal law of obedience, asking what God wants done, keeping the eyes directed heavenward to be approved by God, maintaining a watching, praying attitude, and recognizing that body and spirit are bought with a price and belong to God and must glorify Him. It is an experience of faith and dependence on Him, and by holding fast to God through faith a person can live in fellowship with Him, face emergencies without fear, and serve as a laborer together with Him. It means living in devotion to Him, and men who walk with God know the principles of heaven.
Walking with God is constant connection and communion, talking with God as with a close Friend right by the side, telling Him all trials, afflictions of soul and the wickedness in the world, with moral darkness, sadness, grief and frailty giving no hindrance. It is close, friendly communion in which God draws near to speak His mysteries personally, giving a sweet, joyful sense of the presence of Jesus and making the heart burn within. The same communion is open now through keeping the Lord ever before him with thanksgiving and praise, letting prayer become conversation with God as with a friend, which when truly experienced gives continual freshness in religious life and produces simplicity, humility, meekness and lowliness of heart that show to all associates that the person has been with Jesus and learned of Him. It means living with constant recognition of the divine Presence, remembering habitually that Christ is a Companion, and talking with God wherever we are, as Enoch did until he reached perfection of Christian character even though his world was no more favorable for it than the present. It means staying close to God though He is hidden from sight, speaking to Him in prayer as if close by without asking for a personal visible manifestation, and being willing to go on in darkness under the shrouding of His presence because the full sight could not be borne, a walk kept in an age fully as corrupt as the present showing the same walk is possible now. It is continual communion and dependence on Him as the pattern of prayer and reliance on God for guidance, support, knowledge of His will and strength to obey. It means doing what is right whatever the consequence without asking what friends and relatives will say, placing oneself in right relation to God and letting Him take care of the consequences rather than seeking a path with no trials or difficulties, thereby forming a righteous character, escaping the corruption in the world through lust and becoming a partaker of the divine nature.
Walking with God means keeping the Lord ever before the mind and making Christ a constant companion while remaining in the world and performing duties to the world, ever under the influence of Jesus. It is not being in a trance or vision or withdrawing entirely from the world or living as a hermit shut away, for there is a work to do for God in the world, but serving God in the family and among men and in dealings with others — as husband, father, friend and citizen — as the steadfast, unwavering servant of the Lord with a heart in harmony with God's will, while continuing active work for people. As labors grow more pressing, prayer becomes more constant and earnest, with times set aside to be alone and seek the knowledge God gives. Day-by-day association with Christ transforms into His image, reflecting His character in goodness, mercy, tender compassion, sympathy, forbearance, meekness, humility and love, growing away day by day from one's own way into Christ's heavenly, divine way in thoughts and feelings. It means constantly inquiring, Is this the way of the Lord, growing continually and having fellowship with the Father and the Son, which is genuine sanctification. It means having the unseen God as constant companion even in the busiest places of the earth, keeping the truth in simplicity and love, and those who have the most to do having the greatest need to keep God ever before them, so that when Satan presses suggestions upon the mind, cherishing a Thus saith the Lord draws them into the secret pavilion of the Most High where His promises are safeguard, and amid confusion and rush of business they find a quiet resting place by placing trust in God until He becomes their resting place. Faith grew stronger and love more ardent with the lapse of centuries, rather than depending on shortness of time or nearness of Christ's coming for earnestness and devotion.
Walking with God is continual communion through prayer even while engaged in daily work, lifting the heart and soul often and silently to God in petitions, with the heart stayed upon God. Such continual communion is like precious incense rising before the throne of grace, and a heart stayed upon God cannot be overcome by Satan. This constant prayer baffles the enemy, keeps the Christian from being overcome, preserves peace against all evil, pledges all the promises of God's word and all divine grace and resources to secure deliverance, and brings God to be with him as a present help in every time of need. It includes earnest prayer at home, in private and during daily work, with the soul humbly seeking God's guidance and blessing, depending on God's strength rather than one's own, bringing Christ's help in times of need and giving strength to resist temptation and endure trial. It is being sustained by silent, fervent prayer as Enoch was through continual communion with Him. It means continual prayer through the way to the throne Christ opened, not always being on the knees but the heart always ascending to God for wisdom and grace and in praise and gratitude for the great salvation within reach, giving when tempted the privilege of learning how to retreat into the secret places of the Most High, with His everlasting arms beneath.
Walking with God is a sweet, continual intimacy gained by keeping thoughts of God continually before the mind, and as a person goes out and comes in, meditating on the goodness, perfection and loveliness of the divine character and longing for communion with Christ with hunger and thirst for righteousness, that person becomes changed into the glorious image of the Lord, because it is by beholding that change comes. It means keeping Christ continually before the eye, studying His life, His lessons and His perfection of character until creature merit sinks into insignificance and sin appears sinful and abhorrent. By beholding Him a person admires Him, becomes more attracted to Him, more charmed by Him and more desirous to be like Jesus until he assimilates to His image and has the mind of Christ, with the mind full of thoughts of Jesus as best Friend. It is revealing Christ to the world, reaching a higher standard, sinking self out of sight, living the life of Christ living within by faith in the Son of God who loved and gave Himself, wearing Christ's yoke, seeing new beauty in the Saviour, counting self as nothing, keeping the eyes fixed on Jesus, thinking and speaking of Jesus, constantly reaching forward and upward for more distinct views of the One in whom all hopes of eternal life are centered, permitting nothing to eclipse that view, beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord and thereby being changed into the same likeness from glory to glory, from character to character by the Spirit of the Lord. It holds the real treasure of the Bible, the beauty of holiness, in which glimpses of God's glory are caught, while in Christ, the altogether lovely One of whom all beauty of earth and heaven is only a dim reflection, God Himself is beheld, appealing to faith, hope and love, awakening faith, adoration and love in the soul, fixing the gaze upon Christ so that the beholder grows into the likeness of what he adores. Drawing nigh to Christ and catching divine rays of light from the Sun of Righteousness makes shining forth to the world in clear, distinct rays unavoidable.
Walking with God means choosing to be separate, realizing the corruption of the human family, separating from the descendants of Cain and refusing daily association with the ungodly from distress over increasing wickedness, fear that infidelity would affect him and lessen holy reverence for God's exalted character, and vexation at trampling on God's authority. It means spending much time in solitude in reflection and prayer, waiting before God and praying to know His will more perfectly in order to perform it, seeking purity of thought and holy conformity to His will until the divine image was reflected in him, communing with God through angels and receiving divine instruction. While endeavoring to instruct and warn the world he did not conform to the spirit and customs of unbelievers but condemned them by holy conversation and godly example. It was no easier to live righteously then than now, for the world was no more favorable to growth in grace and holiness, but by devotion through time given to prayer and communion with God, with the light of heaven upon the life, he escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. It is an active, earnest, zealous life of self-denial and separation from the world, not seeking ease and comfort, idle meditation, personal happiness, worldly pleasures, festivities, amusements, indifferent lingering near them or common corrupt conversation as one of the corrupt, but living in a corrupt world among sinful men and workers of iniquity without being one of them, with purposes, works and hopes based not only on time but on eternity. It means living apart from a city polluted by violence and wickedness, unlike Lot who made his home in Sodom. It means spending periods in retirement and then mingling with the ungodly only as God's messenger to warn them to turn with abhorrence from evil ways, repent, seek God, abhor evil and choose good, seeking to save them, preaching faith in Christ the Saviour of sinners and the sinner's only hope, and carrying minds forward to the great day of God when Christ will come the second time to judge every man's work.
Walking with God means thinking about God and looking closely at His character for three hundred years in fellowship that pleased God, and hiding now in the cleft of the Rock and looking at God's character in the same way. It means giving that kind of thought to the Word of God, not only reading it but studying it carefully, because it alone gives the safe standard for forming moral character and the sure way to train the mind and the only sure road to intellectual culture. It means having the truth of God revealed in His Word, practicing it in the life and letting it constantly guide every concern, with strict integrity and the soul barricaded by heavenly principles, giving a heavenly antidote to delusive, poisonous sentiments that make men infidels and skeptics. The one who walks with God humbly yet confidently fears not the face of man, is not unmindful to God in struggles and conflicts to maintain truth, obtains a personal, daily experience in walking in the ways of truth, appreciates every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God higher than worldly maxims, higher than worldly policy and higher than the assertions of erring men, and is thereby guided into every good and holy way. It means preserving purity by keeping the truth in constant contact with mind and heart, so that studying God's Word allows Christ to abide within. It means reverencing sacred and holy things and distinguishing between the sacred and the common, teaching children what this walk means by telling of God's love and unselfishness toward the human family, placing them as far as possible from the fashions and practices of the world, and putting them in schools where they gain the best knowledge of God and do not lose eternal things out of reckoning, so that their characters are formed for the future immortal life. It means making God counselor and resolving to reach a high and holy standard, bringing constant improvement in understanding and spiritual attainment, with steady advance in mental vigor and moral power through inconveniences, changes and perplexities, and with the mind made strong to think deeper, fuller and clearer, so that those who look for Christ's coming live on the gaining side and not on the losing side.
Walking with God means living in conscious fellowship with Him, and a person united with Christ can have the same kind of record, that he walks with God and knows God's abiding presence. It means abiding in Christ by a living, individual appropriating faith and having the companionship of the divine presence wherever one goes. It means Christ dwells in the heart by faith when one personally considers what He is and what work He has wrought in the plan of redemption, and cultivating a sense of this great gift of God brings happiness and has controlling power upon the whole character. As this presence is realized, thoughts are brought into captivity to Jesus Christ, and spiritual life accords with the vividness of this companionship, giving a divine companion always. As the mind dwells upon Christ, pervaded with His goodness and love and contemplating His character, character is molded after the divine similitude, transforming heart, soul and mind into the likeness of Christ and reflecting His righteousness to others. It is living in constant communion with God as a citizen of the heavenly kingdom through connection with Christ, constantly looking at things not seen, with the power of earth over mind and character broken by the abiding presence of the heavenly Guest in fulfillment of Christ's promise to love him and manifest himself to him, a walk every believer who truly loves God may have. It is close, continual fellowship with Jesus as Christ draws near to commune with the believer, so that the believer's life shows the humility and simplicity of one who has been with Him. It means walking with Christ in communion with Him and learning wisdom by that communion, keeping the soul in the love of God with confidence wholly in the Lord, putting entire trust in Jesus Christ as the only safe Teacher, learning meekness and lowliness of heart, and keeping light shining to others, for the salvation of the soul.
Enoch's Holy Life Contrast
Enoch's walk with God produced genuine piety, pure morality, purity and integrity, and an irreproachably righteous life that stood in sharp contrast to the wickedness around him, while those around him walked with the deceiver of mankind. He walked three hundred years in a corrupt age when moral pollution teemed all around him, breathing an atmosphere tainted with sin and corruption and surrounded by society no more friendly to righteousness than the present, yet he lived a holy life unsullied by the prevailing sins of his age. He escaped the pollution of the world and remained uncontaminated amid the densest moral darkness, when every imagination of men was only evil continually, proving that believers can remain pure and uncorrupted now. His faithful obedience led to his translation, and he stands as a representative of the saints who live amid the perils and corruptions of the last days and will likewise be removed from a sinful world to the pure joys of heaven.
After he had lived sixty-five years and fathered his first son, he entered a higher experience and walked with God three hundred years in closer relationship with Him. He had already loved and feared God and kept His commandments as one of the holy line preserving the true faith, but fatherhood taught him new obligations and responsibility as a son of God. Seeing his child's love and simple trust and feeling his own deep yearning tenderness for his firstborn taught him the wonderful love of God to men in giving His Son and the confidence God's children may place in their heavenly Father. The infinite, unfathomable love of God through Christ became the subject of his meditation day and night, and with all the fervor of his soul he sought to reveal that love to the people among whom he lived.
By genuine working faith carried out in daily life according to the principles revealed in the life of Christ, he pleased God for three hundred years, for without faith it is impossible to please God. His daily character and conduct contained no coarseness or selfishness, and because his ways pleased God, God took him. His heart was filled with the single desire to be just what God desired — pure, noble, sanctified and like God, hungering and thirsting after the righteousness of Christ. He placed body, mind, heart, soul and strength under service to God, kept his mind undefiled, strove with singleness of purpose to do His will and to make God's will his own, which makes character harmonious, well-balanced, consistent, cheerful and true. Walking with God meant realizing human weakness and failure in self-sufficiency, studying the character of God to a purpose in order to conform to the divine likeness, and refusing to mark out one's own course or set up one's own will as if qualified to manage matters.
Having learned from Adam about the fall and God's grace in the gift of His Son as the world's Redeemer, he believed and relied on that promise and served God as a holy man with singleness of heart. Recognizing human corruption, he separated from the descendants of Cain and reproved their wickedness, refusing daily association with the ungodly from distress over their trampling of God's authority and fear of losing holy reverence. He communed with God through angels and received divine instruction that God would not always bear with rebellion but would destroy the sinful race with a flood of waters. The plan of salvation was opened more fully to him by the Spirit of prophecy down through the generations after the flood to the second coming of Christ and the end of the world, and Christ walking with him gave him moral power to obey and light and truth about future history which he then prophesied. He was found righteous when tested by God's law, which set him apart from those who walked in the imagination of their own hearts and were destroyed by the Flood, and he with Noah stood as representative righteous men among a wicked nation working in harmony with Noah's warnings.
His life joined communion to faithful labor for others, telling the people all God had revealed to him. Those who believed and turned from wickedness sought him out, and he instructed them, prayed that God would give them knowledge of His will, and taught those who already knew God to serve Him more perfectly. He set apart certain periods for retirement in quiet, prayerful communion apart from bustle to learn God's will, and would not let the people find him because they interrupted holy meditation, yet he did not shut himself away at all times nor separate himself wholly from the corrupt. He met with the good and the bad at stated times to turn the ungodly from evil, blending personal piety with earnest, energetic warning by words, actions and example as a continual witness for truth pointing to judgment fast following, and he stayed with them as long as his godly conversation and holy example could benefit them. He warned, pleaded, entreated and strove to turn back the tide of guilt and stay the bolts of vengeance though disregarded by a sinful, pleasure-loving people, having the testimony that God approved and battling faithfully against prevailing evil until only Noah was left through the 120-year probation, when God removed him from a world of sin to the pure joys of heaven.
Continual communion made him grow more heavenly, leaving a radiant holy light on his face while he taught wisdom, flowing from steadfastly following God, hating iniquity, and earnestly seeking heavenly knowledge to do His will perfectly out of yearning for closer union in fear, reverence and adoration. He became elevated and ennobled intellectually and spiritually by walking with God, proving that people need not stay on the low level where Satan holds the race but can keep growing throughout lifetime. He was a man of strong and highly cultivated mind and extensive knowledge honored with special revelations, yet the closer his connection with God the humbler he became with deeper sense of personal weakness and imperfection. The truly holy follow this example without boasting of purity, remaining humble, courteous and free from spiritual pride.
He trained his mind to devotion and to love purity, kept his conversation upon heavenly and divine things, educated his mind to run in that channel, and bore the impress of the divine with his countenance lighted up with the light shining in the face of Jesus. Walking with God means holding by faith to the Unseen while surrounded by corrupting influences, scoffing and ridicule, standing upright like a palm tree in the desert living fresh and vigorous amid burning sands by striking deep to secret hidden waters. By faith as rootlets penetrating beneath seen things he drew spiritual nourishment from the fountain of life, deriving strength and grace from God to withstand moral pollution, with Jesus inside as a well of water springing up into everlasting life. This produced a pure and uncontaminated life hid with Christ in God, virtuous in spirit amid depravity and true, loyal, fervent and zealous amid infidels and worldly men, showing that holiness is possible through close connection with God even amid deeply corrupt influences and that character must become holy before Christ's coming rather than expecting change to make it holy. His faithful life among corrupt and rebellious people demonstrated that men could obey God, have faith in the promised Redeemer, be accepted by God, work righteousness and finally be exalted to God's throne, and his example teaches that Christians can remain faithful without becoming polluted by surrounding iniquity.
God Took Him Translated
God would not permit him to die like other men but sent angels to take him to heaven without seeing death or coming under death's dominion. He was removed in the presence of the righteous and the wicked, and those who loved him searched his places of retirement diligently and could not find him. His walk was continual communion that made him grow more heavenly, leaving a radiant holy light on his face while he taught, flowing from steadfastly following God, hating iniquity, and earnestly seeking to know His will to perform it out of yearning for closer union. His experience is an example for believers, whose lives should reflect such close fellowship with God.
After three hundred years seeking purity of soul to be in harmony with heaven and longing day by day for closer union, his communion grew nearer and nearer until he stood at the threshold of the eternal world with only a step between him and the land of the blest. Then the portals opened and the walk begun on earth continued in heaven when God took him to Himself. He passed through the gates of the holy city as the first from among men to enter there. Drawing nearer to the eternal world until God took him, his life shows how fellowship with God brings a person close to heaven and makes its companionship familiar and homelike.
He now lives in the heavenly city, which he calls his home, and can visit other worlds. His victory, purity and holiness are pictured by the words on his palm and wreath. His presence there shows that he remains alive after his translation and is presented as a reward associated with victory, purity and holiness.
That translation did not make him greater or more honored than John the Baptist, who died alone in prison and perished alone in the dungeon. Suffering for Christ and fellowship with Christ in His sufferings is also a high honor, indeed the most weighty trust and the highest honor heaven can bestow. God leads His children, whether by translation or by suffering and death, only as they themselves would choose if they could see the end from the beginning and discern the glory of their work with Him.
Translation is being taken to heaven without seeing death as the reward for continued faithfulness and giving God glory. Fitness for that translation is an acceptable state before God which makes mortals subjects of the heavenly kingdom, attained by imitating the order and arrangement of heaven and coming nearer to heavenly order. It is prepared for by obedience to the commandments of God, guarding thoughts and imaginations upon God and heaven and heavenly things, growing up into the full stature of men and women in Christ Jesus, representing Christ in character, preserving lives of piety and reverence, and being strong in God and qualified to do His work, with eternal reward given to those whose obedience and loyalty on earth continue as loyalty to the God of heaven. Moses would have entered the promised land and been translated without seeing death if his life had not been marred by the one transgression of failing to give God the glory for bringing water from the rock; for that sin he came under the dominion of death, lay in the grave a short time, and was then resurrected by Michael, who is Christ, with the angels who had buried him, and taken to heaven. Enoch was righteous in his generation and therefore did not see death.
God translated him to make known to all that translation is real and that human beings on earth can be taken to see heaven without death. His ascent without seeing death gave all the good men alive during the one hundred and twenty years assurance that the righteous would be saved and enter heaven, and was part of God's works to reform the inhabitants of the old world. He had faith in the message that would later be given by Noah and worked in harmonious spiritual action with Noah's warnings, and with Noah stood as representative righteous men among a wicked and degenerate nation. His case proves that some will be alive on the earth when Christ comes to be translated in the same way, and it points to obedient character after the divine likeness so God can commune with people. Those whom God takes to heaven will likewise have walked with Him on earth, receiving strength and wisdom from above to serve Him rightly, being humble and contrite, not vain, and representing Christ in dealings with believers and unbelievers.
Type of Final Translation
Enoch's separation from the world, much time spent in prayer and communion with God, seeking purity of thought and holy conformity to His will until the divine image was reflected in him, makes him the representative of God's loyal people in the last days. They likewise will be separate from the world amid dreadful prevailing unrighteousness, rebellion against heaven, corrupt imaginations and deceptive philosophy, and while instructing and warning the world they will not conform to the spirit and customs of unbelievers but will condemn them by holy conversation and godly example. His being fitted for translation and taken alive to heaven just before the destruction of the world by the flood represents the translation of all the living righteous from the earth previous to its destruction by fire. Then the saints will be glorified in the presence of those who hated them for loyal obedience to God's righteous commandments. His keeping his mind stayed upon God in a crooked and perverse generation as wicked as in the days of Noah, and God's taking him from this sinful world, is a representative picture of those who will be translated alive to heaven when Christ comes to gather His people. In the final persecution over the Sabbath, when a death decree goes out against those who will not give up the Sabbath for the first day, Jesus will have angels guard the saints who kept God's law before the heathen and waited long for Him, and He will honor those faithful waiting ones by translating them without their seeing death.
His walk and taking without coming under the dominion of death shows what the race might become through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ when Christ cooperates with human effort to help man overcome Satan's power. He resisted every artifice of Satan, stood untainted amid moral pollution, perfected a righteous character in moral power and noble uprightness, and was therefore accounted worthy for translation. His translation represents the commandment-keeping people who will be alive when Christ returns, who will be glorified and taken to heaven without seeing death. They served Him with a pure and spotless life for three hundred years amid a rebellious generation that disregarded God's law, preaching righteousness and calling people to obey though rejected because men loved sin. Such a life is possible through close connection with God even amid deeply corrupt influences, and his holiness of character is the pattern for those who will be redeemed at the Lord's second coming. They must become holy before His coming, and not expect their character to be made holy when their bodies are changed.
His faithful obedience amid corruption pleased God and prepared him for translation, and his experience proves men and women can walk with God today even when the world is no more favorable to holiness. It pledges that when the Lord comes the second time some walking in his light will be translated from a sinful world to heaven without seeing death, while those who walked in his light and were blessed in it and died in it will come up in the first resurrection. Walking with God and having the assurance that one's life pleases Him is a privilege open to every believer who lives through the perils of the last days. Readiness requires turning away from the pleasures of the world, constantly seeking God for strength to stand against the wiles of the enemy, washing robes and making them clean in the blood of the Lamb, and obeying God's commandments in preparation for the appearing of Christ.
His translation teaches the lesson of greatest importance for a descendant of fallen Adam, that all who by faith rely on the promised Sacrifice and faithfully obey God's commandments will be rewarded. It represents the two classes that will exist until the second coming of Christ, the righteous and loyal and the wicked and rebellious. God will remember the righteous who fear Him, and on account of His dear Son will respect and honor them and give them everlasting life. The wicked who trample on His authority He will cut off and destroy from the earth so that they will be as though they had never existed.
The God who walked with him in close fellowship was the Lord Jesus Christ, the light of the world then as now, proving Christ's power to give eternal life. Enoch was a believer in Christ saved by His power just as Peter or Paul were, a Christian teacher with Noah, a representative of Christ as surely as John, and one of God's representatives since Adam who kept alive influences from heaven and uplifted Christ as the Way, the Truth, and the Life. The Old Testament is thus the gospel in types and shadows, with salvation by the power of a crucified Saviour the same then as now. To him was committed the message of the second coming of Christ with ten thousands of His saints to execute judgment upon all the ungodly for their deeds and hard speeches, even prophesying the great consummation of all things earthly. His preaching of that message together with his translation was a convincing argument to all who lived in his time that the righteous could be translated, an argument Methuselah and Noah could use with power. The power of his walk with God was felt in his public warning to the antediluvian world, so that some gave heed and renounced sins while multitudes mocked and went on more boldly in evil, foreshadowing the last days when God's servants will bear a similar warning and the last generation will receive it with unbelief and mockery.
Faith Obedience Through Christ
Enoch walked with God by faith in Jesus Christ, who was as much his Saviour then as He is for believers now, the foundation of all hope for patriarchs and prophets and the Lamb to take away the sin of the world. He really believed the truth and carried out in daily life the principles revealed in the life of Christ, and his ways pleased God by faith, for without faith it is impossible to please God (Hebrews 11:5-6). His daily character and conduct contained no coarseness or selfishness, but was morally untainted amid corruption, righteous, upright, and victorious over Satan's temptations. Though utterly helpless in himself he trusted the word of God, pure in heart and holy in life, holding fast his faith in the triumph of righteousness against a corrupt and scoffing generation. Through the grace of Christ that confiding trust gave vigor and made his soul a conquering power that withstood the power of the whole world, showing saving faith as a transaction by which those who receive Christ join themselves in covenant relation with God and proving that faith receiving God's gifts overcomes human power and policy in support of evil.
That same exercise of faith in Christ enables believers to represent Christ to the world, and it cannot be exercised by others on a person's behalf, but each must obtain a daily personal experience in the things of God and realize that all things are possible to him that believes. Enoch had spiritual advantages in his own day, but believers now have greater light in a crucified and risen Saviour. His walk with God was by obeying all of God's law, learning the law, observing it, and serving God with singleness of heart for three hundred years in a pure and spotless life. He was a prophet and public teacher of the truth who taught the truth and lived the truth, speaking as moved by the Holy Ghost, a light amid moral darkness and a pattern man whose character was in every way harmonious with the greatness and sacredness of his mission.
God selected him to denounce the wickedness of the world and to demonstrate to the universe that Satan's charge that man cannot keep God's law is false, proving that though man has sinned he can so relate himself to God as to have the mind and spirit of God and be a representative symbol of Christ, evidencing that it is possible to keep all the law of God, the same law Satan refused to obey, Adam transgressed, and Abel obeyed and for his obedience was murdered. His faithful example stood in marked contrast to a rebellious and self-willed generation that boasted in open disregard of God's holy law, and he was found righteous when tested by that law, which set him apart from those who walked in the imagination of their own hearts, corrupted their ways, separated themselves from God, and were destroyed by the Flood. He loved God and obeyed God's law, and Christ walked with him giving him moral power to obey and giving him light and truth by opening before him the future history of the earth and the second coming, which Enoch then prophesied in holy vision concerning Christ's second appearing and the wickedness prevailing just before the end. He was a faithful preacher of righteousness who sought to turn men from transgression of the law to faithful obedience, but his testimony was rejected because men loved sin more than holiness. His life of full-hearted service through perfect obedience was part of the divine plan, and walking with God is communing with God in the illuminating, purifying, blissful presence of the Father and the Son, which comes through love for Jesus Christ expressed in obedience to God's commandments as a lamp to the feet and a light to the path, so that whoever is obedient can commune with God just as Enoch did.
To walk with God is to be perfect with God in Christlike character, with Christ often manifesting Himself to the believer, and Enoch pleased God by cultivating every grace of character for the Master's glory in every part of character building though living in a degenerate age. He walked before God and was perfect, living blameless and harmless as a son of God without rebuke, even as the Father in heaven is perfect. He walked and talked with God and saw Him as the pure in heart see God, living by faith in the presence of God three hundred years, seeing by faith the faith of Jesus, and taken into special favor with God, an experience needed by those whose perceptions are clouded by sin. He perfected such a character that the world took knowledge of him, giving a correct sample of what a man can be even when the world was so wicked that every imagination of the heart was only evil continually, showing the time was no more favorable for perfection of Christlikeness than the present day. To walk with God is the highest duty and the greatest honor, blessedness, and excellence of man, and Enoch's righteousness condemns in the judgment those who have great light and evidence yet remain far from being a perfect man in Christ Jesus with defective character, so that all entrusted with great trusts and lent talents should be as righteous as Enoch was in his day; pleasing God this way is possible now, and there are Enochs in this day who do it. He stands as a model of a person transformed by God's grace and fitted to walk with God and be a companion of angels.
Walking with God means educating mind and heart to ever feel in the presence of God, letting prayers ascend in perplexity to be kept, refusing any course that would offend God, keeping the Lord continually before him, praying to be taught God's way and pleasure in order not to err and to honor God, constantly shaping way and course in accordance with God's commandments, having perfect confidence and trust that his heavenly Father would help him, and having no thought or will of his own but submerging all in his Father's will through three hundred years before translation in a world no more favorable for perfection of Christian character than today. He was faithful and true by faith, reaching greater and still greater heights of faith, honoring God by faith proved by works and maintaining steadfast integrity against great odds at a time no more favorable to forming a righteous character than the present, an encouragement to all who follow the Lord till the end of time. Because he put entire trust in the Lord with unwavering faith through tests and trials, relying on His care, fearing Him and walking in His ways, the angels of God walked with Enoch, encamping about him, opening ways before him, and instructing him of the Lord, for angels are ministering spirits sent to minister to those who shall be heirs of salvation. He is a representative of those who will be upon the earth when Christ shall come and will be translated without seeing death, showing that harmony with God requires a heart inclined to do God's will and keep the way of the Lord instead of following one's own way.
His faithful life demonstrated that people living among corrupt and rebellious people could obey God, have faith in the promised Redeemer, and be accepted by God, and his example shows that people can please God in any degenerate age. He fully exemplified the instructions God gave to Adam and repeated by Seth, and after Adam's fall from perfect happiness to misery when sin brought curse and death on all, Enoch's walk clears away darkness and gloom and gives hope that as death came through Adam, life and immortality come through Jesus the promised Redeemer. He teaches discouraged believers that though living among a corrupt and sinful people in open rebellion against God, if they obey God and have faith in the promised Redeemer they can work righteousness like Enoch, be accepted by God, and finally be exalted to His heavenly throne.
Call to Walk Today
Enoch's holy life in close connection with God, crowned by translation without seeing death, was not above what ordinary people can reach but represents what all must be who will be translated when Christ comes, showing what anyone's life can be who closely connects with God in any degenerate age to please Him, escape the corruption of lust, partake of the divine nature, and be fitted for sacred work, ministry, the seal and the mansions above. Ministers, gospel workers and churches are therefore to live in close, constant communion instead of distance, lukewarmness and cherished sin, spiritually minded and joined as laborers together with God. That walk joins divine influence working constantly with human effort and requires thorough conversion, transformation into children enjoying His favor, strong living active working faith, refusal to float with the world's current, coming out to be separate, deepening experience of heavenly things, earnest prayer for heaven's anointing, and discernment of what is heaven-born rather than consenting to Satan's proposals, and by example it leads others in humble obedience, consecration and courtesy, for real godliness spreads outward.
Walking with God now means working with Him with constant sense of His presence at the right hand as dear Witness and Watcher who knows thoughts, motives, conduct, loyalty and truth in business and whether the manner of life is holy, required as the end approaches to be clean and ready with the white linen of Christ's imputed righteousness and prepared to join the holy angels in glory. It means referring every thought and action to Christ by asking if this is the way of the Lord, studying the definite features of His character to imitate Him, pressing close in union with Him as heavenly Guest consulted at every step, keeping time and place for Him instead of crowding Him out with busy plans and constant activity. It is walking humbly and circumspectly with undivided allegiance, distrusting self and human wisdom as foolishness, trusting implicitly the great Helper, Author and Finisher of faith who demands all the heart's service, leaning on His unfailing arm, hiding self in Christ so He appears altogether lovely and chiefest among ten thousand, loved with entire affections, served with undivided heart, borne as a name, talked of as the only hope of the world and brought into every assembly while self is humbled and He is exalted as Truth, Light and Way. It is living in close relationship to Jesus in which wondrous things are seen out of His law, the softening subduing influence of the Spirit works on hearts and minds, the true children sit in heavenly places in Christ, Christian culture is carried on by the Holy Spirit, and the love of Jesus leads to courtesy, refinement of language and purity of expression with no storming or harshness but sweet fragrance in speech and spirit. It means rising higher and higher to the high point of Christian character by refusing separation from His love, cherishing Christ's meekness, devoting more time to prayer and study of the Word, never resting satisfied, pressing to the Redeemer, watching and praying and advancing in grace and knowledge, with the mind ascending in constant prayer while about work or on the streets, looking to Him naturally, grasping His promises instantly to receive even more than asked, clinging close as the only safety amid surrounding sin, a pattern proved possible under circumstances as unfavorable as now for present victory, triumph of faith and salvation in the heart.
Keeping company with Jesus means living near rather than wandering far, without known sin, in a new fitting up with holy unction, understanding the mystery of godliness, grace in the heart, accordance with God's will and footsteps so words are true, actions right and others can be instructed, safeguarded from deceptive harmful beliefs by practicing truth and letting it guide care for others with heavenly principles surrounding the soul. It means having the Lord as educator, joined to heaven by golden links of finite to infinite and made partakers of the divine nature, keeping carefully in touch through praying and studying with strictly conscientious humble mind in practical life, making the Lord's word meat and drink and putting it above worldly policy and human claims to be led in good and holy ways. It means following Christ's light and footsteps in faith and obedience on a path of sacrifice leaving self-indulgence behind, prepared for angels' company and eternal glory, so that when God directs the work it moves in His way and bears His impress, in contrast to discord, self-directed conduct and political strife.
Seventh-day Adventists need now more than ever the walk before God as Enoch did in Genesis 5:22-24, meaning family religion and family holiness honored as never before, with sincerity shown by pure clean words full of sympathy, tenderness and love through the Holy Spirit as sanctifier, reprover and comforter, preparing a people to meet God when truth has been lowered in the dust. That devotion and knowledge of heaven's principles is a practical experience to be learned, fitting those who learn it to superintend conferences and institutions so money is saved, the treasury has plenty and self-denial helps the work, while the worker's close fellowship is evident, truth has become living reality within, and God speaks through consecrated service in the Spirit's power. Children must be taught the walk by being told of God's love and unselfishness, reverencing sacred things and distinguishing sacred from common, placed as far as possible from worldly fashions and practices and put in schools where God is known and eternal things kept in reckoning so character is formed for immortal life, and Christians are to live in fellowship themselves and use influence to protect youth from temptation.
Like Enoch, who labored for souls before the Flood when wickedness was rife in every populous community and violence filled the land, believers must work in the cities to uplift the needy but not dwell in them, leaving the cities and keeping away from residences of the rich and rulers. His course of working cities from outpost centers outside them, hunting for souls and laying wise plans to do the work to the best advantage with diligent whole-hearted effort, is the pattern for working the great cities now as wickedness increases in crisis. Workers are to live apart in outpost centers outside congested centers and go in to proclaim truth in faithful service as he lived apart from wicked cities and visited them, and institutions are to be established in retirement and seclusion altogether different from wicked Sodom-like surroundings, coming thence to warn the people, with physicians keeping Christ as counselor and letting truth guide care for others.
Those who walk as he did are not satisfied with their own companionship but please God by walking and working with Him, God working in them to will and do His pleasure, learning from Jesus who overcame every besetting temptation though tempted in all points without sin, drawn close to His side to be taught how He overcame in humanity and how they may overcome with the way of escape provided for every temptation by walking humbly, calling for persevering intense effort proportionate to salvation's value and ever-increasing faith without which it is impossible to please Him. That walk means appropriating truth, eating and digesting the Word, appreciating the sacredness of sacred things and feeling their sanctifying influence, revealing Christ's grace in practice, advancing beyond the ABC to truly know God and Jesus Christ, receiving golden oil of heavenly truth and life from above so there is no stagnation but constant growth to Christ's full stature, refusing Satan's propositions and praying earnestly for anointing to distinguish heaven-born right from common. It means making continual advancement, walking forward not backward nor standing still, following on to know the Lord, planning action as He expects, improving every talent in proportion to privilege and opportunity, seeking wisdom, being true doers of the Word so every promise is made good to the letter, faithfully discreet, speaking to God in any place, living in close everyday fellowship honoring Him in simple practical experience and welcoming Him into heart and home, climbing the ladder to the kingdom clothed in Christ's righteousness. A healthy long life ending peacefully is compared to his faithful life taken without death's sting, and those who so advance and discern truth from error will either be translated as he was or rise changed to immortality, while those who instead float with the world, walk with Satan and refuse separation will not stand among overcomers.
Short Summary
Enoch walked with God in communion for three hundred years, and that long communion was not disagreeable to him but agreeable to him because he loved it and loved the society of God. Because he loved God's society so well he was taken to heaven without seeing death, showing that loving communion with God is joyful and leads to immortality. Those who follow that walk love the yoke of Christ and lift His burdens, fixing their eyes on the mark of the prize and looking over present difficulties and trials to the future immortal life. They look and talk not of things which are seen but of things which are eternal.
Walking with God as Enoch did is a model of close fellowship that safeguards a person from deceptive, harmful beliefs. Practicing God's truth and letting it constantly guide all that concerns the interests of others surrounds the soul and barricades it with heavenly principles. For the physician and medical student this walk is a heavenly antidote to the delusive, pernicious sentiments that make many infidels or skeptics. It means living in constant dependence upon God, making Him counselor at every step, getting hold and keeping hold of the arm of infinite power, and preserving God-given dignity in the fear of God. It means being true and refusing to depart from the strictest veracity and rectitude for policy or success, refusing to pamper self or open the soul to the enemy, putting God's word above worldly policy and human claims, and walking in good and holy ways with humble confidence that does not fear the face of man, while God is mindful of the struggles to uphold the truth and obtain a daily experience in walking in the ways of truth.
The same walk walked through constant conflict and simple faith is open to all through thorough conversion and transformation into children of God who enjoy His favor. Through that change people can know God's will, obey and consecrate themselves to Him, and by example lead others in humble obedience and consecration, for real godliness spreads outward and communicates itself to others. Walking with God is living in close relationship to Jesus Christ in which wondrous things are seen out of His law, the softening, subduing influence of the Spirit works upon hearts and minds, the true children sit together in heavenly places in Christ, and Christian culture is carried on in every heart worked by the Holy Spirit. Those looking unto Jesus have a soft, subdued spirit, and the love of Jesus always leads to Christian courtesy, refinement of language, and purity of expression that testify to the company kept, with no storming and no harshness but a sweet fragrance in speech and in spirit.
Enoch lived sixty-five years, and after his first son was born he walked with God three hundred years in daily fellowship until God took him to heaven without his seeing death. To walk with God is constant, friendly companionship with Him through prayer, trust, obedience and beholding Christ until changed into His image in genuine holiness. By such working faith Enoch lived in purity, integrity and irreproachable righteousness amid surrounding wickedness, proving that fallen man can keep God's law through Christ. His translation just before the flood represents the faithful who will be alive at Christ's return and taken without seeing death, while the rebellious are destroyed. The same walk is open and required now, for ordinary people in any degenerate age can please God, escape corruption and be fitted for translation or resurrection.
Antediluvian Setting and Lifespans
Genesis 5:24 stands in the before-the-flood record in which nine generations averaged 912 years of life, far above the 332-year average of the nine generations after the flood, the seventy years of Moses' time, and the about thirty-five-year average at present, showing a steady decrease in longevity. It belongs to the account from Adam to Noah in which the patriarchs, with few exceptions, lived nearly a thousand years, in contrast to present suffering, disease and mortality. Enoch himself was the exception because God took him rather than letting him die like other men.
For nearly 2000 years after creation God's children subsisted on fruits, grains, green herbs and vegetables without eating flesh, and for the more than sixteen hundred years from Adam to Noah man's diet remained the green herb, vegetables, fruits and grains. That was a time of remarkably good health with no sickness and death of children, no feebleness in youth or middle age, no fevers, dyspepsia, gout, consumption, wasting or local diseases breaking down one organ while others remained strong, no sufferings long drawn out and no excruciating agonies in death, but men lived in full enjoyment of health nearly one thousand years until the springs of life grown weary stood still. Permission to eat flesh came only after the flood, and violation of God's laws of health and life, loss of vitality transmitted from the tree of life which had power to perpetuate life while Adam and Eve ate of it, and accumulated transgression and violation of natural law cut life down. By the Egyptian vassalage lifetimes had tapered to between one and two hundred years, by David's time about halfway from Adam to the present the average was only seventy years, and now in Europe and the United States it is but about thirty years, and in great cities but twenty, proving the race was created with ten times more vital force than it now possesses and has fallen off in size, physical strength and intellect in proportion to length of life.
The Bible record of holy men of old is very brief, giving only sparing praise to noble deeds and holy lives, and Enoch's life and translation are summed up in few words, with the statement that he lived 365 years. He lived sixty-five years and then, after his first son was born, walked with God three hundred years. That walk was daily, with an eye single to God's glory, always waiting and watching and ready to meet the Lord.
Overlapping long lifetimes let direct knowledge from Adam be handed down unimpaired, for Adam lived till Methuselah was 243 years old to impart it to Methuselah, Methuselah lived till Shem was 98 to impart it to Shem, Shem lived 150 years after Abraham's birth and 50 years after Isaac's birth to impart it to them, and Abraham and Isaac lived till Jacob was grown to impart it to him. That age had great physical and mental strength, strong memories able to grasp and retain what was communicated and transmit it unimpaired, no books or written records, hundreds of years when seven generations lived at the same time with opportunity to consult together, and Adam himself instructed by God, taught creation's history, and witnessing nine centuries imparted his knowledge to descendants. Enoch with Abel, Seth, Methuselah, Noah and many others belonged to the line of just men who received words of instruction from Adam and repeated them to children and children's children, kept alive the knowledge of the true God, instructed families about the coming flood, assisted Noah in building the ark, held back moral evil, warned that probation was 120 years, and that light was later taught to Daniel and his companions.
Meaning of Walking with God
Walking with God means trusting the heavenly Father for needed help, looking in faith to Jesus, asking of Him and believing that every word He speaks will be verified. It means keeping close by His side and obeying His every word in a wonderful life of oneness, with Christ as companion in intimate fellowship with God, who has a heaven full of blessings to bestow on those who earnestly seek this help and will not leave them. It is living in a right relation to Him, and those who do their best to place themselves in that relation have holy angels as companions instead of evil angels. It means knowing God and becoming acquainted with Jesus Christ, the religious experience essential for standing without fault before the throne of God, for which God permits the furnace fires of affliction to consume the dross and to refine, purify and cleanse from the defilement of sin and self-love. It means living with a constant realization of accountability to God, with a sense of moral and religious obligation, subordinating every act and enterprise to the universal law of obedience, asking what God wants done, keeping the eyes directed heavenward to be approved by God, maintaining a watching, praying attitude, and recognizing that body and spirit are bought with a price and belong to God and must glorify Him. It is an experience of faith and dependence on Him, and by holding fast to God through faith a person can live in fellowship with Him, face emergencies without fear, and serve as a laborer together with Him. It means living in devotion to Him, and men who walk with God know the principles of heaven.
Walking with God is constant connection and communion, talking with God as with a close Friend right by the side, telling Him all trials, afflictions of soul and the wickedness in the world, with moral darkness, sadness, grief and frailty giving no hindrance. It is close, friendly communion in which God draws near to speak His mysteries personally, giving a sweet, joyful sense of the presence of Jesus and making the heart burn within. The same communion is open now through keeping the Lord ever before him with thanksgiving and praise, letting prayer become conversation with God as with a friend, which when truly experienced gives continual freshness in religious life and produces simplicity, humility, meekness and lowliness of heart that show to all associates that the person has been with Jesus and learned of Him. It means living with constant recognition of the divine Presence, remembering habitually that Christ is a Companion, and talking with God wherever we are, as Enoch did until he reached perfection of Christian character even though his world was no more favorable for it than the present. It means staying close to God though He is hidden from sight, speaking to Him in prayer as if close by without asking for a personal visible manifestation, and being willing to go on in darkness under the shrouding of His presence because the full sight could not be borne, a walk kept in an age fully as corrupt as the present showing the same walk is possible now. It is continual communion and dependence on Him as the pattern of prayer and reliance on God for guidance, support, knowledge of His will and strength to obey. It means doing what is right whatever the consequence without asking what friends and relatives will say, placing oneself in right relation to God and letting Him take care of the consequences rather than seeking a path with no trials or difficulties, thereby forming a righteous character, escaping the corruption in the world through lust and becoming a partaker of the divine nature.
Walking with God means keeping the Lord ever before the mind and making Christ a constant companion while remaining in the world and performing duties to the world, ever under the influence of Jesus. It is not being in a trance or vision or withdrawing entirely from the world or living as a hermit shut away, for there is a work to do for God in the world, but serving God in the family and among men and in dealings with others — as husband, father, friend and citizen — as the steadfast, unwavering servant of the Lord with a heart in harmony with God's will, while continuing active work for people. As labors grow more pressing, prayer becomes more constant and earnest, with times set aside to be alone and seek the knowledge God gives. Day-by-day association with Christ transforms into His image, reflecting His character in goodness, mercy, tender compassion, sympathy, forbearance, meekness, humility and love, growing away day by day from one's own way into Christ's heavenly, divine way in thoughts and feelings. It means constantly inquiring, Is this the way of the Lord, growing continually and having fellowship with the Father and the Son, which is genuine sanctification. It means having the unseen God as constant companion even in the busiest places of the earth, keeping the truth in simplicity and love, and those who have the most to do having the greatest need to keep God ever before them, so that when Satan presses suggestions upon the mind, cherishing a Thus saith the Lord draws them into the secret pavilion of the Most High where His promises are safeguard, and amid confusion and rush of business they find a quiet resting place by placing trust in God until He becomes their resting place. Faith grew stronger and love more ardent with the lapse of centuries, rather than depending on shortness of time or nearness of Christ's coming for earnestness and devotion.
Walking with God is continual communion through prayer even while engaged in daily work, lifting the heart and soul often and silently to God in petitions, with the heart stayed upon God. Such continual communion is like precious incense rising before the throne of grace, and a heart stayed upon God cannot be overcome by Satan. This constant prayer baffles the enemy, keeps the Christian from being overcome, preserves peace against all evil, pledges all the promises of God's word and all divine grace and resources to secure deliverance, and brings God to be with him as a present help in every time of need. It includes earnest prayer at home, in private and during daily work, with the soul humbly seeking God's guidance and blessing, depending on God's strength rather than one's own, bringing Christ's help in times of need and giving strength to resist temptation and endure trial. It is being sustained by silent, fervent prayer as Enoch was through continual communion with Him. It means continual prayer through the way to the throne Christ opened, not always being on the knees but the heart always ascending to God for wisdom and grace and in praise and gratitude for the great salvation within reach, giving when tempted the privilege of learning how to retreat into the secret places of the Most High, with His everlasting arms beneath.
Walking with God is a sweet, continual intimacy gained by keeping thoughts of God continually before the mind, and as a person goes out and comes in, meditating on the goodness, perfection and loveliness of the divine character and longing for communion with Christ with hunger and thirst for righteousness, that person becomes changed into the glorious image of the Lord, because it is by beholding that change comes. It means keeping Christ continually before the eye, studying His life, His lessons and His perfection of character until creature merit sinks into insignificance and sin appears sinful and abhorrent. By beholding Him a person admires Him, becomes more attracted to Him, more charmed by Him and more desirous to be like Jesus until he assimilates to His image and has the mind of Christ, with the mind full of thoughts of Jesus as best Friend. It is revealing Christ to the world, reaching a higher standard, sinking self out of sight, living the life of Christ living within by faith in the Son of God who loved and gave Himself, wearing Christ's yoke, seeing new beauty in the Saviour, counting self as nothing, keeping the eyes fixed on Jesus, thinking and speaking of Jesus, constantly reaching forward and upward for more distinct views of the One in whom all hopes of eternal life are centered, permitting nothing to eclipse that view, beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord and thereby being changed into the same likeness from glory to glory, from character to character by the Spirit of the Lord. It holds the real treasure of the Bible, the beauty of holiness, in which glimpses of God's glory are caught, while in Christ, the altogether lovely One of whom all beauty of earth and heaven is only a dim reflection, God Himself is beheld, appealing to faith, hope and love, awakening faith, adoration and love in the soul, fixing the gaze upon Christ so that the beholder grows into the likeness of what he adores. Drawing nigh to Christ and catching divine rays of light from the Sun of Righteousness makes shining forth to the world in clear, distinct rays unavoidable.
Walking with God means choosing to be separate, realizing the corruption of the human family, separating from the descendants of Cain and refusing daily association with the ungodly from distress over increasing wickedness, fear that infidelity would affect him and lessen holy reverence for God's exalted character, and vexation at trampling on God's authority. It means spending much time in solitude in reflection and prayer, waiting before God and praying to know His will more perfectly in order to perform it, seeking purity of thought and holy conformity to His will until the divine image was reflected in him, communing with God through angels and receiving divine instruction. While endeavoring to instruct and warn the world he did not conform to the spirit and customs of unbelievers but condemned them by holy conversation and godly example. It was no easier to live righteously then than now, for the world was no more favorable to growth in grace and holiness, but by devotion through time given to prayer and communion with God, with the light of heaven upon the life, he escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. It is an active, earnest, zealous life of self-denial and separation from the world, not seeking ease and comfort, idle meditation, personal happiness, worldly pleasures, festivities, amusements, indifferent lingering near them or common corrupt conversation as one of the corrupt, but living in a corrupt world among sinful men and workers of iniquity without being one of them, with purposes, works and hopes based not only on time but on eternity. It means living apart from a city polluted by violence and wickedness, unlike Lot who made his home in Sodom. It means spending periods in retirement and then mingling with the ungodly only as God's messenger to warn them to turn with abhorrence from evil ways, repent, seek God, abhor evil and choose good, seeking to save them, preaching faith in Christ the Saviour of sinners and the sinner's only hope, and carrying minds forward to the great day of God when Christ will come the second time to judge every man's work.
Walking with God means thinking about God and looking closely at His character for three hundred years in fellowship that pleased God, and hiding now in the cleft of the Rock and looking at God's character in the same way. It means giving that kind of thought to the Word of God, not only reading it but studying it carefully, because it alone gives the safe standard for forming moral character and the sure way to train the mind and the only sure road to intellectual culture. It means having the truth of God revealed in His Word, practicing it in the life and letting it constantly guide every concern, with strict integrity and the soul barricaded by heavenly principles, giving a heavenly antidote to delusive, poisonous sentiments that make men infidels and skeptics. The one who walks with God humbly yet confidently fears not the face of man, is not unmindful to God in struggles and conflicts to maintain truth, obtains a personal, daily experience in walking in the ways of truth, appreciates every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God higher than worldly maxims, higher than worldly policy and higher than the assertions of erring men, and is thereby guided into every good and holy way. It means preserving purity by keeping the truth in constant contact with mind and heart, so that studying God's Word allows Christ to abide within. It means reverencing sacred and holy things and distinguishing between the sacred and the common, teaching children what this walk means by telling of God's love and unselfishness toward the human family, placing them as far as possible from the fashions and practices of the world, and putting them in schools where they gain the best knowledge of God and do not lose eternal things out of reckoning, so that their characters are formed for the future immortal life. It means making God counselor and resolving to reach a high and holy standard, bringing constant improvement in understanding and spiritual attainment, with steady advance in mental vigor and moral power through inconveniences, changes and perplexities, and with the mind made strong to think deeper, fuller and clearer, so that those who look for Christ's coming live on the gaining side and not on the losing side.
Walking with God means living in conscious fellowship with Him, and a person united with Christ can have the same kind of record, that he walks with God and knows God's abiding presence. It means abiding in Christ by a living, individual appropriating faith and having the companionship of the divine presence wherever one goes. It means Christ dwells in the heart by faith when one personally considers what He is and what work He has wrought in the plan of redemption, and cultivating a sense of this great gift of God brings happiness and has controlling power upon the whole character. As this presence is realized, thoughts are brought into captivity to Jesus Christ, and spiritual life accords with the vividness of this companionship, giving a divine companion always. As the mind dwells upon Christ, pervaded with His goodness and love and contemplating His character, character is molded after the divine similitude, transforming heart, soul and mind into the likeness of Christ and reflecting His righteousness to others. It is living in constant communion with God as a citizen of the heavenly kingdom through connection with Christ, constantly looking at things not seen, with the power of earth over mind and character broken by the abiding presence of the heavenly Guest in fulfillment of Christ's promise to love him and manifest himself to him, a walk every believer who truly loves God may have. It is close, continual fellowship with Jesus as Christ draws near to commune with the believer, so that the believer's life shows the humility and simplicity of one who has been with Him. It means walking with Christ in communion with Him and learning wisdom by that communion, keeping the soul in the love of God with confidence wholly in the Lord, putting entire trust in Jesus Christ as the only safe Teacher, learning meekness and lowliness of heart, and keeping light shining to others, for the salvation of the soul.
Enoch's Holy Life Contrast
Enoch's walk with God produced genuine piety, pure morality, purity and integrity, and an irreproachably righteous life that stood in sharp contrast to the wickedness around him, while those around him walked with the deceiver of mankind. He walked three hundred years in a corrupt age when moral pollution teemed all around him, breathing an atmosphere tainted with sin and corruption and surrounded by society no more friendly to righteousness than the present, yet he lived a holy life unsullied by the prevailing sins of his age. He escaped the pollution of the world and remained uncontaminated amid the densest moral darkness, when every imagination of men was only evil continually, proving that believers can remain pure and uncorrupted now. His faithful obedience led to his translation, and he stands as a representative of the saints who live amid the perils and corruptions of the last days and will likewise be removed from a sinful world to the pure joys of heaven.
After he had lived sixty-five years and fathered his first son, he entered a higher experience and walked with God three hundred years in closer relationship with Him. He had already loved and feared God and kept His commandments as one of the holy line preserving the true faith, but fatherhood taught him new obligations and responsibility as a son of God. Seeing his child's love and simple trust and feeling his own deep yearning tenderness for his firstborn taught him the wonderful love of God to men in giving His Son and the confidence God's children may place in their heavenly Father. The infinite, unfathomable love of God through Christ became the subject of his meditation day and night, and with all the fervor of his soul he sought to reveal that love to the people among whom he lived.
By genuine working faith carried out in daily life according to the principles revealed in the life of Christ, he pleased God for three hundred years, for without faith it is impossible to please God. His daily character and conduct contained no coarseness or selfishness, and because his ways pleased God, God took him. His heart was filled with the single desire to be just what God desired — pure, noble, sanctified and like God, hungering and thirsting after the righteousness of Christ. He placed body, mind, heart, soul and strength under service to God, kept his mind undefiled, strove with singleness of purpose to do His will and to make God's will his own, which makes character harmonious, well-balanced, consistent, cheerful and true. Walking with God meant realizing human weakness and failure in self-sufficiency, studying the character of God to a purpose in order to conform to the divine likeness, and refusing to mark out one's own course or set up one's own will as if qualified to manage matters.
Having learned from Adam about the fall and God's grace in the gift of His Son as the world's Redeemer, he believed and relied on that promise and served God as a holy man with singleness of heart. Recognizing human corruption, he separated from the descendants of Cain and reproved their wickedness, refusing daily association with the ungodly from distress over their trampling of God's authority and fear of losing holy reverence. He communed with God through angels and received divine instruction that God would not always bear with rebellion but would destroy the sinful race with a flood of waters. The plan of salvation was opened more fully to him by the Spirit of prophecy down through the generations after the flood to the second coming of Christ and the end of the world, and Christ walking with him gave him moral power to obey and light and truth about future history which he then prophesied. He was found righteous when tested by God's law, which set him apart from those who walked in the imagination of their own hearts and were destroyed by the Flood, and he with Noah stood as representative righteous men among a wicked nation working in harmony with Noah's warnings.
His life joined communion to faithful labor for others, telling the people all God had revealed to him. Those who believed and turned from wickedness sought him out, and he instructed them, prayed that God would give them knowledge of His will, and taught those who already knew God to serve Him more perfectly. He set apart certain periods for retirement in quiet, prayerful communion apart from bustle to learn God's will, and would not let the people find him because they interrupted holy meditation, yet he did not shut himself away at all times nor separate himself wholly from the corrupt. He met with the good and the bad at stated times to turn the ungodly from evil, blending personal piety with earnest, energetic warning by words, actions and example as a continual witness for truth pointing to judgment fast following, and he stayed with them as long as his godly conversation and holy example could benefit them. He warned, pleaded, entreated and strove to turn back the tide of guilt and stay the bolts of vengeance though disregarded by a sinful, pleasure-loving people, having the testimony that God approved and battling faithfully against prevailing evil until only Noah was left through the 120-year probation, when God removed him from a world of sin to the pure joys of heaven.
Continual communion made him grow more heavenly, leaving a radiant holy light on his face while he taught wisdom, flowing from steadfastly following God, hating iniquity, and earnestly seeking heavenly knowledge to do His will perfectly out of yearning for closer union in fear, reverence and adoration. He became elevated and ennobled intellectually and spiritually by walking with God, proving that people need not stay on the low level where Satan holds the race but can keep growing throughout lifetime. He was a man of strong and highly cultivated mind and extensive knowledge honored with special revelations, yet the closer his connection with God the humbler he became with deeper sense of personal weakness and imperfection. The truly holy follow this example without boasting of purity, remaining humble, courteous and free from spiritual pride.
He trained his mind to devotion and to love purity, kept his conversation upon heavenly and divine things, educated his mind to run in that channel, and bore the impress of the divine with his countenance lighted up with the light shining in the face of Jesus. Walking with God means holding by faith to the Unseen while surrounded by corrupting influences, scoffing and ridicule, standing upright like a palm tree in the desert living fresh and vigorous amid burning sands by striking deep to secret hidden waters. By faith as rootlets penetrating beneath seen things he drew spiritual nourishment from the fountain of life, deriving strength and grace from God to withstand moral pollution, with Jesus inside as a well of water springing up into everlasting life. This produced a pure and uncontaminated life hid with Christ in God, virtuous in spirit amid depravity and true, loyal, fervent and zealous amid infidels and worldly men, showing that holiness is possible through close connection with God even amid deeply corrupt influences and that character must become holy before Christ's coming rather than expecting change to make it holy. His faithful life among corrupt and rebellious people demonstrated that men could obey God, have faith in the promised Redeemer, be accepted by God, work righteousness and finally be exalted to God's throne, and his example teaches that Christians can remain faithful without becoming polluted by surrounding iniquity.
God Took Him Translated
God would not permit him to die like other men but sent angels to take him to heaven without seeing death or coming under death's dominion. He was removed in the presence of the righteous and the wicked, and those who loved him searched his places of retirement diligently and could not find him. His walk was continual communion that made him grow more heavenly, leaving a radiant holy light on his face while he taught, flowing from steadfastly following God, hating iniquity, and earnestly seeking to know His will to perform it out of yearning for closer union. His experience is an example for believers, whose lives should reflect such close fellowship with God.
After three hundred years seeking purity of soul to be in harmony with heaven and longing day by day for closer union, his communion grew nearer and nearer until he stood at the threshold of the eternal world with only a step between him and the land of the blest. Then the portals opened and the walk begun on earth continued in heaven when God took him to Himself. He passed through the gates of the holy city as the first from among men to enter there. Drawing nearer to the eternal world until God took him, his life shows how fellowship with God brings a person close to heaven and makes its companionship familiar and homelike.
He now lives in the heavenly city, which he calls his home, and can visit other worlds. His victory, purity and holiness are pictured by the words on his palm and wreath. His presence there shows that he remains alive after his translation and is presented as a reward associated with victory, purity and holiness.
That translation did not make him greater or more honored than John the Baptist, who died alone in prison and perished alone in the dungeon. Suffering for Christ and fellowship with Christ in His sufferings is also a high honor, indeed the most weighty trust and the highest honor heaven can bestow. God leads His children, whether by translation or by suffering and death, only as they themselves would choose if they could see the end from the beginning and discern the glory of their work with Him.
Translation is being taken to heaven without seeing death as the reward for continued faithfulness and giving God glory. Fitness for that translation is an acceptable state before God which makes mortals subjects of the heavenly kingdom, attained by imitating the order and arrangement of heaven and coming nearer to heavenly order. It is prepared for by obedience to the commandments of God, guarding thoughts and imaginations upon God and heaven and heavenly things, growing up into the full stature of men and women in Christ Jesus, representing Christ in character, preserving lives of piety and reverence, and being strong in God and qualified to do His work, with eternal reward given to those whose obedience and loyalty on earth continue as loyalty to the God of heaven. Moses would have entered the promised land and been translated without seeing death if his life had not been marred by the one transgression of failing to give God the glory for bringing water from the rock; for that sin he came under the dominion of death, lay in the grave a short time, and was then resurrected by Michael, who is Christ, with the angels who had buried him, and taken to heaven. Enoch was righteous in his generation and therefore did not see death.
God translated him to make known to all that translation is real and that human beings on earth can be taken to see heaven without death. His ascent without seeing death gave all the good men alive during the one hundred and twenty years assurance that the righteous would be saved and enter heaven, and was part of God's works to reform the inhabitants of the old world. He had faith in the message that would later be given by Noah and worked in harmonious spiritual action with Noah's warnings, and with Noah stood as representative righteous men among a wicked and degenerate nation. His case proves that some will be alive on the earth when Christ comes to be translated in the same way, and it points to obedient character after the divine likeness so God can commune with people. Those whom God takes to heaven will likewise have walked with Him on earth, receiving strength and wisdom from above to serve Him rightly, being humble and contrite, not vain, and representing Christ in dealings with believers and unbelievers.
Type of Final Translation
Enoch's separation from the world, much time spent in prayer and communion with God, seeking purity of thought and holy conformity to His will until the divine image was reflected in him, makes him the representative of God's loyal people in the last days. They likewise will be separate from the world amid dreadful prevailing unrighteousness, rebellion against heaven, corrupt imaginations and deceptive philosophy, and while instructing and warning the world they will not conform to the spirit and customs of unbelievers but will condemn them by holy conversation and godly example. His being fitted for translation and taken alive to heaven just before the destruction of the world by the flood represents the translation of all the living righteous from the earth previous to its destruction by fire. Then the saints will be glorified in the presence of those who hated them for loyal obedience to God's righteous commandments. His keeping his mind stayed upon God in a crooked and perverse generation as wicked as in the days of Noah, and God's taking him from this sinful world, is a representative picture of those who will be translated alive to heaven when Christ comes to gather His people. In the final persecution over the Sabbath, when a death decree goes out against those who will not give up the Sabbath for the first day, Jesus will have angels guard the saints who kept God's law before the heathen and waited long for Him, and He will honor those faithful waiting ones by translating them without their seeing death.
His walk and taking without coming under the dominion of death shows what the race might become through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ when Christ cooperates with human effort to help man overcome Satan's power. He resisted every artifice of Satan, stood untainted amid moral pollution, perfected a righteous character in moral power and noble uprightness, and was therefore accounted worthy for translation. His translation represents the commandment-keeping people who will be alive when Christ returns, who will be glorified and taken to heaven without seeing death. They served Him with a pure and spotless life for three hundred years amid a rebellious generation that disregarded God's law, preaching righteousness and calling people to obey though rejected because men loved sin. Such a life is possible through close connection with God even amid deeply corrupt influences, and his holiness of character is the pattern for those who will be redeemed at the Lord's second coming. They must become holy before His coming, and not expect their character to be made holy when their bodies are changed.
His faithful obedience amid corruption pleased God and prepared him for translation, and his experience proves men and women can walk with God today even when the world is no more favorable to holiness. It pledges that when the Lord comes the second time some walking in his light will be translated from a sinful world to heaven without seeing death, while those who walked in his light and were blessed in it and died in it will come up in the first resurrection. Walking with God and having the assurance that one's life pleases Him is a privilege open to every believer who lives through the perils of the last days. Readiness requires turning away from the pleasures of the world, constantly seeking God for strength to stand against the wiles of the enemy, washing robes and making them clean in the blood of the Lamb, and obeying God's commandments in preparation for the appearing of Christ.
His translation teaches the lesson of greatest importance for a descendant of fallen Adam, that all who by faith rely on the promised Sacrifice and faithfully obey God's commandments will be rewarded. It represents the two classes that will exist until the second coming of Christ, the righteous and loyal and the wicked and rebellious. God will remember the righteous who fear Him, and on account of His dear Son will respect and honor them and give them everlasting life. The wicked who trample on His authority He will cut off and destroy from the earth so that they will be as though they had never existed.
The God who walked with him in close fellowship was the Lord Jesus Christ, the light of the world then as now, proving Christ's power to give eternal life. Enoch was a believer in Christ saved by His power just as Peter or Paul were, a Christian teacher with Noah, a representative of Christ as surely as John, and one of God's representatives since Adam who kept alive influences from heaven and uplifted Christ as the Way, the Truth, and the Life. The Old Testament is thus the gospel in types and shadows, with salvation by the power of a crucified Saviour the same then as now. To him was committed the message of the second coming of Christ with ten thousands of His saints to execute judgment upon all the ungodly for their deeds and hard speeches, even prophesying the great consummation of all things earthly. His preaching of that message together with his translation was a convincing argument to all who lived in his time that the righteous could be translated, an argument Methuselah and Noah could use with power. The power of his walk with God was felt in his public warning to the antediluvian world, so that some gave heed and renounced sins while multitudes mocked and went on more boldly in evil, foreshadowing the last days when God's servants will bear a similar warning and the last generation will receive it with unbelief and mockery.
Faith Obedience Through Christ
Enoch walked with God by faith in Jesus Christ, who was as much his Saviour then as He is for believers now, the foundation of all hope for patriarchs and prophets and the Lamb to take away the sin of the world. He really believed the truth and carried out in daily life the principles revealed in the life of Christ, and his ways pleased God by faith, for without faith it is impossible to please God (Hebrews 11:5-6). His daily character and conduct contained no coarseness or selfishness, but was morally untainted amid corruption, righteous, upright, and victorious over Satan's temptations. Though utterly helpless in himself he trusted the word of God, pure in heart and holy in life, holding fast his faith in the triumph of righteousness against a corrupt and scoffing generation. Through the grace of Christ that confiding trust gave vigor and made his soul a conquering power that withstood the power of the whole world, showing saving faith as a transaction by which those who receive Christ join themselves in covenant relation with God and proving that faith receiving God's gifts overcomes human power and policy in support of evil.
That same exercise of faith in Christ enables believers to represent Christ to the world, and it cannot be exercised by others on a person's behalf, but each must obtain a daily personal experience in the things of God and realize that all things are possible to him that believes. Enoch had spiritual advantages in his own day, but believers now have greater light in a crucified and risen Saviour. His walk with God was by obeying all of God's law, learning the law, observing it, and serving God with singleness of heart for three hundred years in a pure and spotless life. He was a prophet and public teacher of the truth who taught the truth and lived the truth, speaking as moved by the Holy Ghost, a light amid moral darkness and a pattern man whose character was in every way harmonious with the greatness and sacredness of his mission.
God selected him to denounce the wickedness of the world and to demonstrate to the universe that Satan's charge that man cannot keep God's law is false, proving that though man has sinned he can so relate himself to God as to have the mind and spirit of God and be a representative symbol of Christ, evidencing that it is possible to keep all the law of God, the same law Satan refused to obey, Adam transgressed, and Abel obeyed and for his obedience was murdered. His faithful example stood in marked contrast to a rebellious and self-willed generation that boasted in open disregard of God's holy law, and he was found righteous when tested by that law, which set him apart from those who walked in the imagination of their own hearts, corrupted their ways, separated themselves from God, and were destroyed by the Flood. He loved God and obeyed God's law, and Christ walked with him giving him moral power to obey and giving him light and truth by opening before him the future history of the earth and the second coming, which Enoch then prophesied in holy vision concerning Christ's second appearing and the wickedness prevailing just before the end. He was a faithful preacher of righteousness who sought to turn men from transgression of the law to faithful obedience, but his testimony was rejected because men loved sin more than holiness. His life of full-hearted service through perfect obedience was part of the divine plan, and walking with God is communing with God in the illuminating, purifying, blissful presence of the Father and the Son, which comes through love for Jesus Christ expressed in obedience to God's commandments as a lamp to the feet and a light to the path, so that whoever is obedient can commune with God just as Enoch did.
To walk with God is to be perfect with God in Christlike character, with Christ often manifesting Himself to the believer, and Enoch pleased God by cultivating every grace of character for the Master's glory in every part of character building though living in a degenerate age. He walked before God and was perfect, living blameless and harmless as a son of God without rebuke, even as the Father in heaven is perfect. He walked and talked with God and saw Him as the pure in heart see God, living by faith in the presence of God three hundred years, seeing by faith the faith of Jesus, and taken into special favor with God, an experience needed by those whose perceptions are clouded by sin. He perfected such a character that the world took knowledge of him, giving a correct sample of what a man can be even when the world was so wicked that every imagination of the heart was only evil continually, showing the time was no more favorable for perfection of Christlikeness than the present day. To walk with God is the highest duty and the greatest honor, blessedness, and excellence of man, and Enoch's righteousness condemns in the judgment those who have great light and evidence yet remain far from being a perfect man in Christ Jesus with defective character, so that all entrusted with great trusts and lent talents should be as righteous as Enoch was in his day; pleasing God this way is possible now, and there are Enochs in this day who do it. He stands as a model of a person transformed by God's grace and fitted to walk with God and be a companion of angels.
Walking with God means educating mind and heart to ever feel in the presence of God, letting prayers ascend in perplexity to be kept, refusing any course that would offend God, keeping the Lord continually before him, praying to be taught God's way and pleasure in order not to err and to honor God, constantly shaping way and course in accordance with God's commandments, having perfect confidence and trust that his heavenly Father would help him, and having no thought or will of his own but submerging all in his Father's will through three hundred years before translation in a world no more favorable for perfection of Christian character than today. He was faithful and true by faith, reaching greater and still greater heights of faith, honoring God by faith proved by works and maintaining steadfast integrity against great odds at a time no more favorable to forming a righteous character than the present, an encouragement to all who follow the Lord till the end of time. Because he put entire trust in the Lord with unwavering faith through tests and trials, relying on His care, fearing Him and walking in His ways, the angels of God walked with Enoch, encamping about him, opening ways before him, and instructing him of the Lord, for angels are ministering spirits sent to minister to those who shall be heirs of salvation. He is a representative of those who will be upon the earth when Christ shall come and will be translated without seeing death, showing that harmony with God requires a heart inclined to do God's will and keep the way of the Lord instead of following one's own way.
His faithful life demonstrated that people living among corrupt and rebellious people could obey God, have faith in the promised Redeemer, and be accepted by God, and his example shows that people can please God in any degenerate age. He fully exemplified the instructions God gave to Adam and repeated by Seth, and after Adam's fall from perfect happiness to misery when sin brought curse and death on all, Enoch's walk clears away darkness and gloom and gives hope that as death came through Adam, life and immortality come through Jesus the promised Redeemer. He teaches discouraged believers that though living among a corrupt and sinful people in open rebellion against God, if they obey God and have faith in the promised Redeemer they can work righteousness like Enoch, be accepted by God, and finally be exalted to His heavenly throne.
Call to Walk Today
Enoch's holy life in close connection with God, crowned by translation without seeing death, was not above what ordinary people can reach but represents what all must be who will be translated when Christ comes, showing what anyone's life can be who closely connects with God in any degenerate age to please Him, escape the corruption of lust, partake of the divine nature, and be fitted for sacred work, ministry, the seal and the mansions above. Ministers, gospel workers and churches are therefore to live in close, constant communion instead of distance, lukewarmness and cherished sin, spiritually minded and joined as laborers together with God. That walk joins divine influence working constantly with human effort and requires thorough conversion, transformation into children enjoying His favor, strong living active working faith, refusal to float with the world's current, coming out to be separate, deepening experience of heavenly things, earnest prayer for heaven's anointing, and discernment of what is heaven-born rather than consenting to Satan's proposals, and by example it leads others in humble obedience, consecration and courtesy, for real godliness spreads outward.
Walking with God now means working with Him with constant sense of His presence at the right hand as dear Witness and Watcher who knows thoughts, motives, conduct, loyalty and truth in business and whether the manner of life is holy, required as the end approaches to be clean and ready with the white linen of Christ's imputed righteousness and prepared to join the holy angels in glory. It means referring every thought and action to Christ by asking if this is the way of the Lord, studying the definite features of His character to imitate Him, pressing close in union with Him as heavenly Guest consulted at every step, keeping time and place for Him instead of crowding Him out with busy plans and constant activity. It is walking humbly and circumspectly with undivided allegiance, distrusting self and human wisdom as foolishness, trusting implicitly the great Helper, Author and Finisher of faith who demands all the heart's service, leaning on His unfailing arm, hiding self in Christ so He appears altogether lovely and chiefest among ten thousand, loved with entire affections, served with undivided heart, borne as a name, talked of as the only hope of the world and brought into every assembly while self is humbled and He is exalted as Truth, Light and Way. It is living in close relationship to Jesus in which wondrous things are seen out of His law, the softening subduing influence of the Spirit works on hearts and minds, the true children sit in heavenly places in Christ, Christian culture is carried on by the Holy Spirit, and the love of Jesus leads to courtesy, refinement of language and purity of expression with no storming or harshness but sweet fragrance in speech and spirit. It means rising higher and higher to the high point of Christian character by refusing separation from His love, cherishing Christ's meekness, devoting more time to prayer and study of the Word, never resting satisfied, pressing to the Redeemer, watching and praying and advancing in grace and knowledge, with the mind ascending in constant prayer while about work or on the streets, looking to Him naturally, grasping His promises instantly to receive even more than asked, clinging close as the only safety amid surrounding sin, a pattern proved possible under circumstances as unfavorable as now for present victory, triumph of faith and salvation in the heart.
Keeping company with Jesus means living near rather than wandering far, without known sin, in a new fitting up with holy unction, understanding the mystery of godliness, grace in the heart, accordance with God's will and footsteps so words are true, actions right and others can be instructed, safeguarded from deceptive harmful beliefs by practicing truth and letting it guide care for others with heavenly principles surrounding the soul. It means having the Lord as educator, joined to heaven by golden links of finite to infinite and made partakers of the divine nature, keeping carefully in touch through praying and studying with strictly conscientious humble mind in practical life, making the Lord's word meat and drink and putting it above worldly policy and human claims to be led in good and holy ways. It means following Christ's light and footsteps in faith and obedience on a path of sacrifice leaving self-indulgence behind, prepared for angels' company and eternal glory, so that when God directs the work it moves in His way and bears His impress, in contrast to discord, self-directed conduct and political strife.
Seventh-day Adventists need now more than ever the walk before God as Enoch did in Genesis 5:22-24, meaning family religion and family holiness honored as never before, with sincerity shown by pure clean words full of sympathy, tenderness and love through the Holy Spirit as sanctifier, reprover and comforter, preparing a people to meet God when truth has been lowered in the dust. That devotion and knowledge of heaven's principles is a practical experience to be learned, fitting those who learn it to superintend conferences and institutions so money is saved, the treasury has plenty and self-denial helps the work, while the worker's close fellowship is evident, truth has become living reality within, and God speaks through consecrated service in the Spirit's power. Children must be taught the walk by being told of God's love and unselfishness, reverencing sacred things and distinguishing sacred from common, placed as far as possible from worldly fashions and practices and put in schools where God is known and eternal things kept in reckoning so character is formed for immortal life, and Christians are to live in fellowship themselves and use influence to protect youth from temptation.
Like Enoch, who labored for souls before the Flood when wickedness was rife in every populous community and violence filled the land, believers must work in the cities to uplift the needy but not dwell in them, leaving the cities and keeping away from residences of the rich and rulers. His course of working cities from outpost centers outside them, hunting for souls and laying wise plans to do the work to the best advantage with diligent whole-hearted effort, is the pattern for working the great cities now as wickedness increases in crisis. Workers are to live apart in outpost centers outside congested centers and go in to proclaim truth in faithful service as he lived apart from wicked cities and visited them, and institutions are to be established in retirement and seclusion altogether different from wicked Sodom-like surroundings, coming thence to warn the people, with physicians keeping Christ as counselor and letting truth guide care for others.
Those who walk as he did are not satisfied with their own companionship but please God by walking and working with Him, God working in them to will and do His pleasure, learning from Jesus who overcame every besetting temptation though tempted in all points without sin, drawn close to His side to be taught how He overcame in humanity and how they may overcome with the way of escape provided for every temptation by walking humbly, calling for persevering intense effort proportionate to salvation's value and ever-increasing faith without which it is impossible to please Him. That walk means appropriating truth, eating and digesting the Word, appreciating the sacredness of sacred things and feeling their sanctifying influence, revealing Christ's grace in practice, advancing beyond the ABC to truly know God and Jesus Christ, receiving golden oil of heavenly truth and life from above so there is no stagnation but constant growth to Christ's full stature, refusing Satan's propositions and praying earnestly for anointing to distinguish heaven-born right from common. It means making continual advancement, walking forward not backward nor standing still, following on to know the Lord, planning action as He expects, improving every talent in proportion to privilege and opportunity, seeking wisdom, being true doers of the Word so every promise is made good to the letter, faithfully discreet, speaking to God in any place, living in close everyday fellowship honoring Him in simple practical experience and welcoming Him into heart and home, climbing the ladder to the kingdom clothed in Christ's righteousness. A healthy long life ending peacefully is compared to his faithful life taken without death's sting, and those who so advance and discern truth from error will either be translated as he was or rise changed to immortality, while those who instead float with the world, walk with Satan and refuse separation will not stand among overcomers.
Short Summary
Enoch walked with God in communion for three hundred years, and that long communion was not disagreeable to him but agreeable to him because he loved it and loved the society of God. Because he loved God's society so well he was taken to heaven without seeing death, showing that loving communion with God is joyful and leads to immortality. Those who follow that walk love the yoke of Christ and lift His burdens, fixing their eyes on the mark of the prize and looking over present difficulties and trials to the future immortal life. They look and talk not of things which are seen but of things which are eternal.
Walking with God as Enoch did is a model of close fellowship that safeguards a person from deceptive, harmful beliefs. Practicing God's truth and letting it constantly guide all that concerns the interests of others surrounds the soul and barricades it with heavenly principles. For the physician and medical student this walk is a heavenly antidote to the delusive, pernicious sentiments that make many infidels or skeptics. It means living in constant dependence upon God, making Him counselor at every step, getting hold and keeping hold of the arm of infinite power, and preserving God-given dignity in the fear of God. It means being true and refusing to depart from the strictest veracity and rectitude for policy or success, refusing to pamper self or open the soul to the enemy, putting God's word above worldly policy and human claims, and walking in good and holy ways with humble confidence that does not fear the face of man, while God is mindful of the struggles to uphold the truth and obtain a daily experience in walking in the ways of truth.
The same walk walked through constant conflict and simple faith is open to all through thorough conversion and transformation into children of God who enjoy His favor. Through that change people can know God's will, obey and consecrate themselves to Him, and by example lead others in humble obedience and consecration, for real godliness spreads outward and communicates itself to others. Walking with God is living in close relationship to Jesus Christ in which wondrous things are seen out of His law, the softening, subduing influence of the Spirit works upon hearts and minds, the true children sit together in heavenly places in Christ, and Christian culture is carried on in every heart worked by the Holy Spirit. Those looking unto Jesus have a soft, subdued spirit, and the love of Jesus always leads to Christian courtesy, refinement of language, and purity of expression that testify to the company kept, with no storming and no harshness but a sweet fragrance in speech and in spirit.