Enoch

A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, JULY 30, 1876,

BY C. H.SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

"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." Genesis 5:21-24.

"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. But without faith it is
impossible to please Him: for he that comes to God must believe that He
is, and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him."
Hebrews 11:5, 6.

"And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying,
Behold, the Lord comes 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 ha ve spoken against Him."
Jude 1:14,15.

THE three passages of Scripture which I have read are all the authentic
information we have concerning Enoch. It would be idle to supplement it
with the fictions of ancient commentators. Enoch is called the seventh
from Adam, to distinguish him from the other Enoch of the line of Cain,
who was the third from Adam. In the first Patriarchs God was pleased to
manifest to men portions of His Truth in reference to true religion.
These men of the olden times were not only, themselves, taught of God,
but they were also teachers of their age and types in whom great Truths
of God were exhibited. Abel taught the need of approaching the Lord
with sacrifice, the need of the Atonement by blood–he laid the lamb
upon the altar and sealed his testimony with his own blood. Atonement
is so precious a Truth of God that to die for its defense is a worthy
deed and from the very first it is a doctrine which has secured its
martyrs, who being dead yet speak.

Then Seth and Enos taught men the necessity of a distinct avowal of
their faith in the Lord and the need of assembling for His worship, for
we read concerning the days of Enos and Seth, "Then began men to call
upon the name of the Lord." Those who worshipped through the atoning
Sacrifice separated themselves from the rest of men, assembled a Church
in the name of the Lord and worshipped, calling upon the name of
Jehovah. The heart must first believe in the great sacrifice with Abel
and then the mouth must confess the same with Seth. Then came Enoch
whose life went beyond the reception and confession of the Atonement,
for he set before men the great Truth of communion with God. He
displayed in his life the relation of the Believer to the Most High and
showed how near the living God condescends to be to His own children.
May our progress in knowledge be similar to the growth of the
Patriarchal teaching!

Brothers and Sisters, you know as Abel did, the sacrificial Lamb. Your
confidence is in the precious blood and so by faith you bring to God
the most acceptable of all offerings. Having advanced so far, the most
of us have proceeded a step

further, and we have called upon the name and are the avowed followers
of Jesus. We have given ourselves up to the Lord in the solemn burial
of Baptism, when we were baptized into the name of the Father, and of
the Son and of the Holy Spirit, because we reckoned ourselves dead in
Christ to all the world and risen with Him into newness of life.
Henceforth the Divine name is named on us and we are no more our own.

And now we gather together in our Church capacity. We assemble around
the table of fellowship, we unite in our meetings for prayer and
worship and the center for us all is the name of the Lord. We are
separated from the world and set apart to be a people who declare His
name. Thus far so good–we have seen the Sacrifice of Jesus as the way
with Abel. We have avowed the Truth with Seth. Now let us take the next
step and know the life with Enoch. Let us endeavor to walk with God as
Enoch did! Perhaps a meditation upon the holy Patriarch's life may help
us to imitate it. While considering what he was and under what
circumstances he came to be so, we may, by the Holy Spirit, be helped
to reach the point to which he attained.

This is the desire of every godly man! All the saints desire communion
with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. The constant cry of our
soul is to our Lord, "Abide with me." I buried, yesterday, one of the
excellent of the earth who loved and feared and served his God far
better than most of us. He was an eminently devout Brother. One of the
last wishes of his heart he had committed to writing in a letter to a
friend, when he little thought of dying. It was this, "I have longed to
realize the life of Enoch and to walk with God."–

"Oh for a closer walk with God!"

He did but write what you and I feel. If such are your desires, and
such I feel sure they are, so surely as you are the Lord's people, then
I hope a consideration of the life of Enoch may help you towards the
realization of your wish.

First, then, what does Enoch's walking with God imply? It is a short
description of a man's life, but there is a mint of meaning in it.
Secondly, what circumstances were connected with his remarkable life?
These are highly instructive. And thirdly, what was the close of if! It
was as remarkable as the life itself.

I. First, then, WHAT IS MEANT BY ENOCH'S WALKING WITH GOD? Paul helps
us with our first observation upon this by his note in Hebrews. His
walk with God was a testimony that Enoch was well-pleasing to God.
"Before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God."
This is evidently the Apostle's interpretation of his walking with God
and it is a most correct one, for the Lord will not walk with a man in
whom He has no pleasure. Can two walk together, except they are agreed?
If men walk contrary to God, He will not walk with them, but contrary
to them. Walking together implies amity, friendship, intimacy,
love–and these cannot exist between God and the soul unless the man is
acceptable unto the Lord.

Doubtless Enoch, like Elijah, was a man of like passions with
ourselves. He had fallen with the rest of mankind in the sin of Adam.
There was sin about him, as there is sin about us by nature, and he had
gone astray in act and deed as all we, like sheep, have done. Therefore
he needed pardon and cleansing, even as we do. Then to be pleasing with
God it was necessary that he should be forgiven and justified, even as
we are–for no man can be pleasing to God till sin is pardoned and
righteousness is imputed. To this end there must be faith, for there
can be no justification except by faith. And as we have said, already,
there is no pleasing God except our persons are justified.

Right well, then, does the Apostle say, "Without faith it is impossible
to please God," and by faith Enoch was made pleasing to God, even as we
are at this day. This is worthy of earnest notice, Brothers and
Sisters, because this way of faith is open to us. If Enoch had been
pleasing to God by virtue of some extraordinary gifts and talents, or
by reason of marvelous achievements and miraculous works, we might have
been in despair! But if he was pleasing to God through faith, that same
faith which saved the dying thief, that same faith which has been
worked in you and in me–then the wicket gate at the head of the way in
which men walk with God is open to us, also!

If we have faith we may enter into fellowship with the Lord! How this
ought to endear faith to us! The highest grades of spiritual life
depend upon the lower ones and rise out of them. If you want to walk
with God as a man of God, you must begin by believing in the Lord Jesus
Christ, simply, as a babe in Grace! The highest saintship must commence
by the confession of your sinnership, and your laying hold upon Christ
Crucified. Not otherwise does the strongest Believer live than the
weakest Believer–and if you are to grow to be among the strongest of
the Lord's warriors–it must be by faith which lays hold upon Divine
strength.

Beginning in the Spirit you are not to be made perfect in the flesh.
You are not to proceed a certain distance, by faith in Christ, and then
to commence living by your own works–your walk is to continue as it
begun. "As you have received Christ Jesus the Lord so walk you in Him."
Enoch was always pleasing to God, but it was because he always believed
and lived in the power of his faith. This is worth knowing and
remembering, for we may yet be tempted to strive for some imaginary
higher style of religious life by looking to our feelings instead of
looking alone to the Lord! We must not remove our eyes from looking,
alone, to Jesus, Himself, even to admire His image within
ourselves–for if we do we shall go backward rather than forward. No,
Beloved, by faith Enoch became pleasing to God and by faith he walked
with God–let us follow in his footprints.

Next, 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 hear his footsteps if we cannot see his face.
We have some very clear perception that there is a person at our side.
Now, it 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." 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. He walked with God–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. Oh, Beloved,
do you not see that if you are to reach to the highest style of
Christian life, you must do it through the realization of those very
things which, by faith, you have received?

Grasp them! Let them be to you substance and evidence. Make them sure,
look upon them, handle them, taste them in your inmost soul and so know
them beyond all question. You must see Him who is invisible and possess
that which cannot be as yet enjoyed. Believe not only that God is, but
that He is the rewarder of them that diligently seek Him, for this,
according to Paul, is the Enoch faith! God realized as existing,
observing, judging and rewarding human deeds–a real God, really with
us–this we must know, or there is no walking with God.

Then, as we read that Enoch walked with God, we have no doubt it
signifies that he had very familiar communion with the Most High. I
scarcely know a communion that is more free, pleasant and cordial than
that which arises out of constant walking with a friend. If I wished to
find a man's most familiar friend, it would surely be one with whom he
walked daily. If you were to say, "I sometimes go into his house and
sit a little while with him," it would not amount to so much as when
you can say, "I have, from day to day, walked the fields and climbed
the hills with him." In walking, friends become communicative–one
tells his trouble and the other strives to console him under it–and
then imparts to him his own secret in return. When persons are
constantly in the habit of walking together from choice, you may be
quite sure there are many communications between them with which no
stranger may intermeddle.

If I wanted to know a man through and through, I should want to walk
with him for a time, for walking communion brings out parts of the man
which even in domestic life may be concealed. Walking for a continuance
implies and engenders close fellowship and great familiarity between
friends. But will God, in very deed, thus walk with men? Yes, He did so
with Enoch and He has done so with many of His people since. He tells
us His secret, the secret of the Lord, which He reveals only to them
that fear Him. And we tell Him, alike, our joys in praise, our sorrows
in prayer and our sins in confession. The heart unloads itself of all
its cares into the heart of Him that cares for us! And the Lord pours
forth His floods of goodness as He imparts to His beloved ones a sense
of His own everlasting love to them. This is the very flower and
sweetness of Christian experience, its lily and its rose, its calamus
and myrrh. If you would taste the cream of Christian life, it is found
in having a realizing faith and entering into intimate communion with
the heavenly Father. So Enoch walked with God.

Next it is implied in the term, "walked," that his communion with God
was continuous. As an old Divine has well remarked, he did not take a
turn or two with God and then leave His company, but he walked with God
for hundreds of years! It is implied in the text that this was the
tenor of his life throughout the whole of its 365 years. Enoch walked
with God after Methuselah had been born, 300 years, and doubtless he
had walked with Him before. What a splendid walk! A

walk of 300 years! One might desire a change of company if he walked
with anybody else, but to walk with God for three centuries was so
sweet that the Patriarch kept on with his walk until he walked beyond
time and space–and walked into Paradise–where he is still marching on
in the same Divine society! He had Heaven on earth and it was,
therefore, not so amazing that he glided away from earth to Heaven so
easily.

He did not commune with God by fits and starts, but he abode in the
conscious love of God. He did not, now and then, climb to the heights
of elevated piety and then descend into the marshy valley of
lukewarmness, but he continued in the calm, happy, equable enjoyment of
fellowship with God from day to day. Night with its sleep did not
suspend it. Day with its cares did not endanger it. It was not a run, a
rush, a leap, a spurt, but a steady walk. On, on, through three happy
centuries and more did Enoch continue to walk with God!

It is implied, also, in this phrase that his life was progressive, for
if a man walks either by himself or with anybody else, he makes
progress, he goes forward. Enoch walked with God. At the end of 200
years he was not where he began. He was in the same Company, but he had
gone forward in the right way. At the end of the third hundred years
Enoch enjoyed more, understood more, loved more, had received more and
could give out more, for he had gone forward in all respects. A man who
walks with God will necessarily grow in Grace and in the knowledge of
God and in likeness to Christ. You cannot suppose a perpetual walk with
God, year after year, without the favored person being strengthened,
sanctified, instructed and rendered more able to glorify God.

So I gather that Enoch's life was a life of spiritual progress. He went
from strength to strength and made headway in the gracious pilgrimage.
May God grant us to be pressing onward, ourselves. Suffer a few more
observations upon Enoch's walk. In "Kitto's Daily Bible Pleadings"
there is an exceedingly pleasing piece illustrating what it must be to
walk with God by the figure of a father's taking his little son by the
hand and walking forth with him upon the breezy hills. Kitto says, "As
that child walks with you, so do you walk with God. That child loves
you now. The world–the cold and cruel world–has not yet come between
his heart and yours. His love, now, is the purest and most beautiful he
will ever feel, or you will ever receive. Cherish it well, and as that
child walks lovingly with you, so do you walk lovingly

with God."

It is a delight to such children with their fathers. The roughness of
the way or of the weather is nothing to them–it is joy enough to go
for a walk with father. There is a warm, tender, affectionate grip of
the hand and a beaming smile of the eyes as they look up to father
while he conducts them over hill and dale. Such a walk is humble, too,
for the child looks upon its father as the greatest and wisest man that
ever lived! He considers him to be the incarnation of everything that
is strong and wise. All that his father says or does he admires. As he
walks along, he feels the utmost affection for his father, but his
reverence is equally strong. He is very near his father, but yet he is
only a child, and looks up to his father as his king.

Moreover such a walk is one of perfect confidence. The boy is not
afraid of missing his way. He trusts implicitly his father's guidance.
His father's arm will screen him from all danger and, therefore, he
does not so much as give it a thought–why should he? If care is needed
as to the road, it is his father's business to see to it and the child,
therefore, never dreams of anxiety–why should he? If any difficult
place is to be passed, the father will have to lift the boy over it, or
help him through it–the child, meanwhile, is merry as a bird–why
should he not be? Thus should the Believer walk with God, resting on
eternal tenderness and rejoicing in undoubted love! A Believer should
be unconscious of dread either as to the present or to the future.

Beloved Friends in Christ, your Father may be trusted, He will supply
all your needs–

"You are as much His care as if beside No man or angel lived in Hea ven
or earth." What an instructive walk a child has with a wise,
communicative parent! How many of his little puzzles are explained to
him, how everything about him is illuminated by the father's wisdom!
Every step the boy takes, he becomes the wiser for such companionship.
Oh, happy are the children of God who have been taught of their Father
while they have walked with Him! 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. His life must, also, have been
a holy life, because he walked with God, for God never walks out of the
way of holiness. If we walk with God, we must walk according to truth,
justice and

love. The Lord has no company with the unjust and rebellious and,
therefore, we know that he who walked with God must have been an
upright and holy man.

Enoch's life must, moreover, have been a happy one. Who could be
unhappy with such a Companion! With God Himself to be with us, the way
can never be dreary. "Yes, though I walk through the valley of the
shadow of death I will fear no evil, for You are with me." Granted that
God is your Companion and your road must be a way of pleasantness and a
path of peace. Did Enoch walk with God? Then his pilgrimage must have
been safe. What a guard is the Great Jehovah! He is sun and shield! He
gives Grace and Glory. He that dwells in the secret place of the Most
High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. Nothing can harm the
man who is walking with the Lord God at his right hand.

And oh, what an honor it is to walk with the Eternal! Many a man would
give thousands to walk with a king. Numbers of people are such
worshippers of dignities that if a king did but smile at then they
would be intoxicated with delight! What, then, is the honor of walking
with the King of kings? What a patent of nobility it is to be permitted
to walk with the blessed and only Potentate all one's life long? Who is
he that is thus favored to be the King's companion, to walk alone with
Him and to become His familiar Friend? Jehovah rules earth and Heaven,
and Hell. He is Lord of all who shall walk with Him!

If it were only for the honor of it, oh Christians, how you ought to
desire to walk with God! Enoch found it safe, happy, holy, honorable
and I know not how much more that is excellent! But certainly this was
a golden life–where shall we find anything to equal it?

II. Secondly, let us consider WHAT CIRCUMSTANCES WERE CONNECTED WITH
ENOCH'S WALKING WITH GOD. The first remark is that the details of his
life are very few. We do not know much about Enoch and this is to his
advantage. Happy is the nation which has no history, for a nation which
has a history has been vexed with wars, revolutions and bloodshed. But
a nation that is always happy, peaceful and prosperous has no chronicle
to attract the lover of sensations. Happy is Enoch that we cannot write
a long biography of him! The few words, "Enoch walked with God,"
suffice to depict his whole career, until, "he was not, for God took
him."

If you go and look at a farmer's field and you say of it when you come
back, "I saw yellow flowers covering it till it seemed as a cloth of
gold. And then I spied out, here and there, white flowers like silver
buttons set on the golden vesture. I also saw blue corn-flowers looking
up with their lovely eyes, causing the whole field to sparkle," you
would think that it is a very pretty field if you are a child. But the
farmer shakes his head, for he knows that it is in bad condition and
overrun with weeds! But if you come back and simply say, "It is as fine
a wheat field as ever grew and that is all," then your description,
though brief, is very satisfactory.

Many of those dazzling events and striking incidents and sensational
adventures which go to make up an interesting biography may attract
attention, but they do not minister to the real excellence of the life.
No life can surpass that of a man who quietly continues to serve God in
the place where Providence has placed him. I believe that in the
judgment of angels and all pure-minded beings, that a woman's life is
most to be admired which consists simply of this–"She loved the Lord
and did all she could for Him." And that man's life shall be the most
noteworthy of whom it can be said, "He followed the Lord fully."
Enoch's life has no adventures. But is it not adventure, enough, for a
man to walk with God? What ambition can crave a nobler existence than
abiding in fellowship with the Eternal?

But some will say, "Well, but Enoch must have been very peculiarly
situated. He was, no doubt, placed in very advantageous circumstances
for piety." Now, observe that this was not so, for first, he was a
public man. 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 honor. The ancient custom was that the head of the family was
prophet, priest and king in his household. And abroad, if he was a man
of station and substance, he was counselor, magistrate and ruler. Enoch
was a great man in his day, one of the most important of the period.
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 is mentioned among a noble list of men. Some have unwisely thought,
"I could walk with God if I had a little cottage, if I lived in a quiet
village, but you see I am a public man, I occupy a position of trust
and I have to mix with my fellow men. I do not see how I am to walk
with God." Ah, my dear Friend, Enoch did! Though he was, undoubtedly, a
man distinguished in his time and full of public cares, yet he lost not
the thread of sacred converse with Heaven, but held

on in his holy course through a life of centuries. Note again that
Enoch was a family man. "Enoch walked with God and begat sons and
daughters."

Some have said, "Ah, you cannot live as you like if you have a lot of
children about you. Do not tell me about keeping up your hours of
prayer and quiet reading of the Scriptures if you have a large family
of little ones. You will be disturbed and there will be many domestic
incidents which will be sure to try your temper and upset your
equanimity. Get away into the woods and find a hermit's cell–there,
with your brown jug of water and your loaf of bread, you may be able to
walk with God–but with a wife, not always amiable, and a troop of
children who are never quiet, neither by day nor night, how can a man
be expected to walk with God?" The wife, on the other hand, exclaims,
"I believe that had I remained a single woman I might have walked with
God. When I was a young woman I was full of devotion. But now with my
husband, who is not always in the best of tempers, and with my children
who seem to have an unlimited number of needs and never to have them
satisfied, how is it possible that I can walk with God?"

We turn to Enoch, again, and we are confident that it can be done!
"Enoch walked with God, after he begat Methuselah, 300 years, and begat
sons and daughters, and all the days of Enoch were 365years." Thus, you
see, he was a public man and he was a family man–and yet he walked
with God for more than 300 years. There is no need to be a hermit, or
to renounce married life in order to live near to God. In addition to
this, Enoch lived in a very evil age. He was prominent at a time when
sin was beginning to cover the earth. It was not very long before the
earth was corrupt and God saw fit to sweep the whole population from
off its surface on account of sin.

Enoch lived in a day of mockers and despisers. You know that from his
prophecy, as recorded by Jude. He prophesied, saying, "The Lord comes
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." He lived when few loved God
and when those who professed to do so were being drawn aside by the
blandishments of the daughters of men. Church and State were proposing
an alliance, fashion and pleasure ruled the hour and unhallowed
compromise was the order of the day. He lived towards the close of
those primitive times wherein long lives had produced great
sinners–and great sinners had invented great provocations of God. Do
not complain, therefore, of your times and of your neighbors and other
surroundings, for amid them all you may still walk with God.

Enoch walked with God and, in consequence thereof, he bore his witness
for God. "Enoch, the seventh from Adam prophesied." He could not be
silent! The fire burned within his soul and could not be restrained.
When he had delivered his testimony, it is clear that he encountered
opposition. I am certain that he did so from the context in Jude,
because the passage in Jude has to do with murmurers and "complainers,
walking after their own lusts; and their mouth speaks great swelling
words," and Enoch is brought in as having had to do with such persons.
His sermon shows that 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. He says, "Behold, the Lord comes with myriads 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."

It is clear that they spoke against Enoch, they rejected his testimony,
they grieved his spirit and he mourned that in this they were speaking
against God. For he speaks "of all their hard speeches which ungodly
sinners have spoken against Him." He saw their ungodly lives and bore
witness against them. It is remarkable that his great subject should
have been the Second Advent! And it is still more noteworthy that the
two other men whom one would select as living nearest to God, namely,
Daniel and John, were both men who spoke much concerning the coming of
the Lord and the Great Judgment Day. I need not quote the words of
Daniel, who tells us of the judgment which is to be set, and of the
Ancient of Days who shall come upon His Throne. Nor need I repeat the
constant witness of John concerning the Lord's Second Coming. I will
only mention his fervent exclamation, "Even so, come quickly, Lord
Jesus!"

Thus you see that Enoch was a preacher of the Word of God and,
therefore, he had a care over and above that which falls to the lot of
most of you. And yet, with that and all the rest put together, he could
please God until his life's end! If I may speak of an end to a life
which ran into an endless state of joy–he continued as long as he was
here to walk in faith, to walk in a manner in which God was
pleased–and so his communion with the Lord was never broken.

III. This brings us to conclude with the third head–WHAT WAS THE CLOSE
OF ENOCH'S WALK? We would

first remark that he finished his work early. Enoch walked with God and
that was such a good, sure, progressive walk that he traveled faster
and reached Home sooner than those of us who walk with God, sometimes,
and with the world at other times! Three hundred and sixty-five years
would have been a long life to us, but it was a short life for that
period when several Patriarchs attained to nearly a thousand years of
age.

Enoch's life, as compared to the usual life of the period, was like a
life of 30 or 35 years in these short-lived ages–in fact, the best
parallel to it is the life of our Lord. As with the extended ages of
men of his period, Enoch's life was of about the same length as that of
the Lord Jesus in comparison with such lives as ours. He passed away
comparatively a young man, as our dear Brother and Elder Verdon, just
departed, has done, and we do not wonder that he did. They say, "Whom
the gods love die young," and both Enoch and Verdon were men greatly
beloved. Perhaps these holy men ended their career so soon because they
had done their lifework so diligently that they finished early.

Some workmen, if they have a job to do in your house, are about it all
day long, or rather all week long and make no end of confusion! No
wonder that some people live a long while, for they need to do so much
to do anything at all! But this man did his work so well and kept so
close to God that his day's work was done at noon and the Lord said,
"Come home, Enoch! There is no need for you to be out of Heaven any
longer. You have borne your testimony, you have lived your life.
Through all the ages men will look upon you as a model man and,
therefore, you may come Home." God never keeps His wheat out in the
fields longer than is necessary! When it is ripe, He reaps it at once!
When His people are ready to go Home, He will take them Home. Do not
regret the death of a good man while he is young. On the contrary,
bless God that there is still some early ripening wheat in the world
and that some of His saints are sanctified so speedily!

But what did happen to Enoch? I am afraid I have said he died, or that
I shall say so, it is so natural to speak of men as dying, but he,
alone, and one other of all the human race are all that have entered
the heavenly Canaan without fording the river of death! We are told
concerning him that, "he was not." Those gentlemen who believe that the
word, "to die," signifies to be annihilated, would have been still more
confirmed in their views if the words in my text, "he was not," had
been applied to all departed men, for if any expression might signify
annihilation in their mode of transla-tion–this is the one! "He was
not" does not, however, mean that he was annihilated! And neither does
the far feebler term of dying signify anything of the kind!

"He was not," that is to say, he was not here–that is all. He was gone
from earth, but he was there–there where God had translated him. He
was, he is with God! And that without having tasted death! Do not
grudge him his avoidance of death. It was a favor, but not by any means
so great as some would think, for those who do not die must undergo a
change and Enoch was changed. "We shall not all sleep," says the
Apostle, "but we shall all be changed." The flesh and blood of Enoch
could not inherit the kingdom of God–in a moment he underwent a
transformation which you and I will have to undergo in the day of the
Resurrection. And so, though he was not on earth, he was translated or
transplanted from the gardens of earth to Paradise above.

Now, if there is any man in the world that shall never die, it is he
who walks with God. If there is any man to whom death will be as
nothing, it is the man who has looked to the Second Advent of Christ
and gloried in it. If there is any man who, though he passes through
the iron gates of death, shall never feel the terror of the grim foe,
it is the man whose life below has been perpetual communion with God!
Go not about by any other way to escape the pangs of death but walk
with God, and you will be able to say, "O death, where is your sting? O
grave, where is your victory?" It is said of Enoch that, "God took
him." A very remarkable expression! Perhaps He did it in some visible
manner. I should not wonder. Perhaps the whole of the Patriarchs saw
him depart, even as the Apostles were present when our Lord was taken
up.

However that may be, there was some special rapture, some distinct
taking up of this choice one to the Throne of the Most High. "He was
not, for God took him." Note that he was missed. This is one thing
which I could not overlook. He was missed, for the Apostle says he,
"was not found." Now, if a man is not found, it shows that somebody
looked for him. When Elijah went to Heaven, you remember, 50 men of the
sons of the Prophets went and searched for him. I do not wonder that
they did–they would not meet with an Elijah every day–and when he was
gone away, body and all, they might well look for him! Enoch was not
found, but they looked for him.

A good man is missed. A true child of God in a Church like this,
working and serving his Master, is only one among five thousand–but if
he has walked with God, his decease is lamented. The dear Brother whom
we have just buried, we

shall miss. His brother Elders will miss him. The many who have been
converted to God and helped by his means will miss him. And assuredly I
shall miss him. I look towards the spot where he used to sit–I trust
that someone else will sit there who will be half as useful as he was.
It will be almost more than I can expect. We do not want to live and
die so that nobody will care whether we were on earth or not. Enoch was
missed when he was gone and so will they be who walk with

God.

Last of all, Enoch's departure was a testimony. What did the Blessed
Spirit say by the fact that, "he was not, for God took him," but
this–there is a future state. Men had begun to doubt it, but when they
said, "Where is Enoch?" and those who had witnessed his departure said,
"God took him," it was, to them, an evidence that there was a God and
that there was another world. And when they asked, "But where is his
body?" there was another lesson. Two men had died before him, I mean
two whose deaths are recorded in Scripture–Abel was killed and his
witness was that the seed of the serpent hates the woman's seed. Adam,
too, had died about 50 years before Enoch's translation, whose witness
was that, however late the penalty may come, yet the soul that sins, it
shall die.

Now comes Enoch and his testimony is that the body is capable of
immortality! He could not bear testimony to resurrection, for he did
not die–for that we have testimony in Christ who is the first fruits
from among the dead. But the testimony of Enoch went a good way towards
it, for it bore evidence that the body was capable of being immortal
and of living in a heavenly condition. "He was not, for God took him."
His departure also was a testimony to mankind that there is a reward
for the righteous, that God does not sit with stony eyes, regardless of
the sins of the wicked, or of the virtues of His saints. It proved that
He sees and is pleased with His people who walk with Him–and that He
can give them, even now, present rewards by delivering them from the
pangs of death–and therefore He will certainly give rewards to all His
people in some way or other.

Thus you see, living and dying–no, not dying, again I am
mistaken–living and being translated–Enoch was still a witness to his
generation! And I pray that all of us, whether we live or whether we
sleep, may be witnesses for God. Oh that we could live as my good
Brother, Verdon, whom we have lately buried, lived, whose soul was on
fire with love to Christ! He had a very passion for souls! I scarcely
think there is one among us who did as much as he, for though he had to
earn his daily bread, his evenings were spent with us in the service of
the Lord, or in preaching the Gospel! And then, all night long he
frequently paced the weary streets, looking after the fallen, that he
might bring them in! He often went to his morning's work weary, except
by the rest which he found in the service of Christ.

He would sometimes meet a Brother with eyes full of joy, and say, "Five
souls won for Christ last night!" At other times, after a sermon, here
he was a great soul hunter and would fetch enquirers downstairs into
the Prayer Meeting. And when he had squeezed my hand he would say in
his Swiss tones, which I cannot imitate, "Jesus saved some more last
night! More souls were brought to Jesus." For him to live was to win
souls! He was the youngest in our eldership, but the gray-heads do him
honor. As we stood weeping about his tomb, there was not one among us
but what felt that we had lost a true Brother and a valiant fellow
soldier. My the Lord raise up others among you to do what Elder Verdon
did!

May the Lord quicken the older Brothers and Sisters to be more active
than they are and make the young ones more devoted. Our ranks are
broken, who shall fill up the gap? We are getting fewer and fewer as
the Lord takes one and another Home of the best-instructed and of the
bravest-hearted. But, by His Grace, recruits are daily coming in! May
others come forward–yes, Lord, bring them forward by Your Holy Spirit
to be leaders in the front ranks, that as the vanguard melts into the
Church Triumphant, the rear may continually find additions! Translated
to the skies are some, may others be translated out of darkness into
marvelous light, for Christ's sake. Amen.

PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON–Psalm 119:33-56. HYMNS FROM
"OUR OWN HYMN BOOK"–122, 780, 775.
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The Recorders