ENOCH, THE DEATHLESS

By Rev.  W. J. Townsend, D.D.

Enoch was the bright particular star of the patriarchal epoch.  His record is short, but eloquent.  It is crowded into a few words, but every word, when placed under examination, expands indefinitely.  Every virtue may be read into them; every eulogium possible to a human character shines from them.  He was a devout man, a fearless preacher of righteousness, an intimate friend of God, and the only man of his dispensation who did not see death.  He sheds a lustre on the antediluvian age, and he shines still as an example to all generations of steady and lofty piety.

It is difficult to realise the exact environment of the early patriarchs.  Human society was then in its making.  There were giants in those days, both physically and intellectually.  They lived long, and unfolded a vigorous manhood, by which civilisation was developed in every direction.  Some of them, also, were tenderly responsive to supernatural influences, and thus rose to a spiritual stature which enables them to bulk largely in sacred history.

The guiding lines of Enoch’s biography are clear though few. “He walked with God”; “he pleased God”; “he was translated that he should not see death.”  These are the pregnant remnants of his history, from which we may construct a character and career of striking eminence.

I.

“He walked with God.”

Therefore he knew God.  The articles of his creed were not many, but he was fixed on this foundation-truth of all religion.  Further than this, he knew God as taking a living interest in His creatures, as one who could be approached by them in prayer and communion, and who was sympathetically responsive to their needs.  He somehow knew God, also, as being righteous and holy, and he must have had a rudimentary idea of the Christ, as it unfolded itself in the great promise of a deliverer from evil made to our first parents in Paradise.  However scanty in number were the articles of his creed, they were not scanty in results.  They produced a great life and a great name.  The results were that “he walked with God.”  Walking is the habitual exercise of a man’s life.  A man runs sometimes.  Under great strain, or the demand of special circumstances, he runs, but finds that exhaustion follows; or if he runs too frequently, total collapse is the inevitable consequence.  Two of the most eminent ministers of our times recently died owing to overstrain and over-exertion.  But we have some now living who have done signal service for the Church during a ministry of fifty years, and who are still hale and having a green old age.  To walk at a steady pace, fulfilling life’s responsibilities and the demands of duty, is to fulfil the will of God and serve our generation.  This rule refers to man’s religious and spiritual life.  To walk onward and upward in the highest things is to grow in excellence and grace.