Genesis 5:21-24; Hebrews 11:5
And Enoch walked with God after he begat Methuselah three hundred years, and begat sons and daughters: and all the days of Enoch were three hundred sixty and five years: and Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him.
By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was not found, because God had translated him: for before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God.
D. L. MOODY (1837-1899): The faith of Enoch drew God down from heaven to walk with him. He maintained unbroken fellowship with God.
C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): To live for three hundred years, in constant communion with God, as he did, to be ever pleasing God, was a mighty triumph for faith.
A. W. PINK (1886-1952): This high plane of spiritual living apparently is a very rare experience among men. As far as actual biblical records are concerned only a very few men have received commendable mention in regard to this form of intimate, enjoyable, and spiritually successful living.
CHARLES SIMEON (1759-1836): As long as he should live, David determined, with God’s help, to walk before God in a constant attendance on His ordinances, under an abiding sense of His presence, and in a cheerful obedience to His commands. Psalm 116:9, “I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living.”
NATHANAEL HARDY, (1618-1670): This “before the Lord,” means under the Lord’s careful eye. The words according to the Hebrew may be read, “before the face of the Lord,” by which is meant His presence.
J. C. PHILPOT (1802-1869): There is a distinction between walking before God and walking with God. To walk before God is to walk with an abiding sense of God’s eye being upon us; to walk with a desire to do those things which are pleasing in His sight; to walk in His ordinances blameless; to walk before His people with our garments unspotted by the world; in a word, to walk before Him in private as in public, alone and in company, before the Church and the world, by day and by night, as we should walk if we had a personal view of His glorious majesty in heaven before our eyes. Now if you carried about with you a deep and daily sense that God saw every thought, marked every movement, heard every word, and observed every action, this sense of His presence would put a restraint upon your light, trifling, and foolish spirit. You would watch your thoughts, your words, your actions, as living under a sense of God’s heart-searching eye. This is to walk before God.
CHARLES SIMEON: Wherever we are, therefore, there should be that inscription, which Hagar saw, “Thou God seest me,” Genesis 16:13.
J. C. PHILPOT: But we read of Enoch that he “walked with God.”
ALEXANDER MacLAREN (1826-1910): This remarkable phrase, used only of Enoch and of Noah, implies a closer relation than the other expression, “to walk before God.”
J. C. PHILPOT: This is a more advanced stage of the divine life. To walk with God is to walk with Him in sweet familiarity, in holy confidence, in a blessed sense of interest in His love and grace, and thus to walk with Him and talk with Him as a man walketh and talketh with His friend. There are some who walk before God, but how few walk with God! Many live under a more or less deep and daily sense of God’s heart-searching presence, who are not admitted into this sweet familiarity, nor enjoy the blessedness of this heavenly intercourse.
CHARLES SIMEON: No doubt, God also walked with him “as a Friend,” James 2:23, “manifesting himself to him as he did not unto the world,” John 14:21-23, and “witnessing with his spirit that he was a child of God,” Romans 8:15,16. Indeed, there is no one who “draws nigh to God, but God will also draw nigh to him,” James 4:8, and “hold sweet fellowship with him,” 1 John 1:3, “lift up upon him the light of his countenance,’ Psalm 4:6,” and “shed abroad his love in his heart,” Romans 5:5.
A. W. PINK: Enoch is a striking character. He is one of but two men of whom it is said in Scripture that he “walked with God.” He is one of but two men who lived on this earth and went to heaven without passing through the portals of death. And he is the only one, except our blessed Lord, of whom it is written, “He pleased God.”
D. L. MOODY: Now there is one thing we can settle in our minds distinctly: if he pleased God, he did not please men. It is impossible to do the two things. This world is at war with God; it has been for six thousand years, and will be as long as man is on the earth. We cannot please God and man…Enoch had only one object. How simple life becomes when we have only one object to seek, one purpose to fulfill—to walk with God—to please God!
MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): This was the business of Enoch’s life, his constant care and work; while others lived to themselves and the world, he lived to God. It was the joy and support of his life…He was entirely dead to this world, and did not only walk after God, as all good men do, but he walked with God, as if he were in heaven already. He lived above the rate, not only of other men, but of other saints.
D. L. MOODY: Notice that this man, the brightest star of all that period of history before the flood, accomplished nothing that men would call great. He was neither a warrior, a statesman, nor a scientist; nor did he, so far as we know, accomplish anything remarkable, like Daniel, or Joseph, or any of the other mighty men of Israel: but what made him great was that he walked with God. That, in all ages, is what has made men really great. He found the way of holiness in that dark and evil day; and he will be in the front rank of those who shall walk with the Lord, the Lamb, in white, for they are worthy.
C. H. SPURGEON: It was meet that Noah should follow close upon Enoch, as one of only two who are described as having “walked with God.” These two spent their lives in such constant communion with the Most High that they could be fully described as walking with God. We may take pleasure in thinking of Noah as a kind of contrast to Enoch. Enoch was taken away from the evil to come—he did not see the Flood, nor hear the wailing of those who were swept away by the Flood. His was a delightful deliverance from the harvest of wrath which followed the universal godlessness of the race. It was not his to fight the battle of righteousness to the bitter end, but by a secret rapture he avoided death and escaped those evil days in which his grandson’s lot was cast. Noah is the picture of one who is the Lord’s witness during evil days and lives through them faithfully, enduring unto the end.
ANDREW BONAR (1810-1892): Enoch took a long walk one day and has not got back yet.
C. H. SPURGEON: Enoch walked with God for many a year till, at last, he walked away with God.
