Genesis 5:21-24; Jude 14, 15; Hebrews 11:5
And Enoch lived sixty and five years, and begat Methuselah: 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.
And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied…saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints, to execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against 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.
C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): What does Enoch’s walking with God imply?
JOHN TRAPP (1601-1699): He walked “in the fear of the Lord,” as the Chaldee paraphrases it: and this he did without intermission, not for a time or two, but continually, constantly: he walked with God by a humble familiarity, and a holy conformity; as a man doth with his friend.
C. H. SPURGEON: When we read that Enoch walked with God we are to understand that he realized the Divine Presence. You cannot consciously walk with a person whose existence is not known to you. When we walk with a man, we know that he is there…We have some very clear perception that there is a person at our side. Now, if we look to Hebrews again, Paul tells us, “He that comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is the rewarder of them that diligently seek Him,” Hebrews 11:6. Enoch’s faith, then, was a realizing faith. He did not believe things as a matter of creed and then put them up on the shelf out of the way, as too many of us do today—he was not merely orthodox in his head—but the Truth of God had entered into his heart. What he believed was true to him, practically true, true as a matter of fact in his daily life.
ALEXANDER MacLAREN (1826-1910): So, then, “practise the presence of God.” An old mystic says: “If I can tell how many times today I have thought about God, I have not thought about Him often enough.”
C. H. SPURGEON: It was not that he merely thought of God, that he speculated about God, that he argued about God, that he read about God, that he talked about God—he walked with God, which is the practical and experimental part of true godliness! In his daily life he realized that God was with him and he regarded Him as a living God, in whom he confided and by whom he was loved―his life must also have been a holy life, because he walked with God, for God never walks out of the way of holiness.
D. L. MOODY (1837-1899): Enoch’s name—“dedicated, disciplined, well-regulated,”—was significant of his character. He was a dedicated man, whose life was disciplined and his habits regulated by the guiding hand of God. He saw the promises afar off, and was persuaded of them, and embraced them; and by faith lived as one alive from the dead, yielding his members as instruments of righteousness unto God.
C. H. SPURGEON: If we walk with God, we must walk according to truth, justice and love.
CHARLES SIMEON (1759-1836): Enoch loved his God―if I may so speak, with all his heart, and mind, and soul, and strength: God would never have given him a special testimony of His approbation, if his heart had been destitute of the sacred flame of love.
C. H. SPURGEON: What circumstances were connected with his remarkable life? These are highly instructive.
MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): Enoch was a prophet.
C. H. SPURGEON: He is called “the seventh from Adam.” He was a notable man and looked up to as one of the fathers of his age. A Patriarch in those days must have been a marked man, loaded with responsibility as well as with honour.
D. L. MOODY: Enoch was translated fifty-seven years after the death of Adam―and the young prophet may have talked with him―perhaps he stood with the ancients round the grave of the father of our race.
C. H. SPURGEON: Enoch must have been a man of profound knowledge and great wisdom as to Divine things. He must have dived into the deep things of God beyond most men.
D. L. MOODY: I will venture to say that Enoch, in his day, was considered a most singular and visionary man—an “eccentric” man—the most peculiar man who lived in that day. He was a man out of fashion—out of the fashion of this world, which passeth away. He was one of those who set their affections on things above. He lived days of heaven upon earth; for the essence of heaven is to walk with God. He did not go with the current and the crowd.
THOMAS COKE (1747-1814): He not only himself lived for God, but he laboured for God.
JOHN TRAPP: He kept a constant counter-motion to the corrupt courses of the times; not only not swimming down the stream with the wicked, but pronouncing God’s severe judgment against them.
D. L. MOODY: Enoch dared to do right. He took his position, and dared to stand against an ungodly generation. There he stood; and he was not ashamed to stand alone. He testified against the sins of a generation which was filling the earth with violence, and crying out for the judgment of God upon it.
C. H. SPURGEON: Enoch lived in a day of mockers and despisers―therefore we may be sure he had his trials and bore the brunt of opposition from the powerful ungodly party which opposed the ways of godliness―he was a man who stood firm amidst a torrent of blasphemy and rebuke, carrying on the great controversy for the truth of God against the wicked lives and licentious tongues of the scoffers of his age.
JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): A remarkable example is set before us in the person of one man, who stood firmly in the season of most dreadful dissipation; in order that, if we wish to live rightly and orderly, we may learn to regard God more than men.
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.
CHARLES SIMEON: “Before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God.” This testimony of His approbation God vouchsafed to Enoch. He was a bold and faithful witness for God, and doubtless incensed many against him. And God took him from a persecuting and ungodly world, who probably enough were seeking to destroy him on account of his pungent admonitions.
D. L. MOODY: Enoch was alone, yet not alone, for he walked with God. And when he was translated, he changed his place, but not his company.
C. H. SPURGEON: Enoch walked with God for many a year till, at last, he walked away with God.
