River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1910-10-13
Enoch, Man Who
Walked With God
By REV. c. A. S. DWIGHT, D. D.


ants whose dignity is all derived
from their heavenly Master. The
names and histories of many of these,
as portrayed in the Scriptures, are
coupled with tell-tale epithets or brief
Characterization, which have now
become familiar as household words,
that are significant OF the peculiar
apt1tudes and achievements OF the
men to whom they are applied. OF
one man in the Bible a phrase is used
(appl1ed elsewhere to one other, Noah)
which Is strangely suggestive and
wonderfully inspiring-for it is said
OF Enoch that he walked with God.
All men, good and bad, walk in the
sight of God, and all good men may
be said to walk before or in the pres
ence OF God-guided by his eye.
shone upon by mis- glory, and sur
rounded by tokens of his love-but OF
that primal, pre-eminent man OF an
early rude age it is declared that he
walked with God" which must mean
something very illuStrious, and denote
nightly almost, If not quite, unex-
ampled in the whole course of human
history.
The character of Snoch, as viewed
through the heightened vistas of the
varying ages, seems to shine with
pure white light almost, if not quite,
unearthly. It's CLEAN was never light
ened on man-made affairs, the sheen is
not dimmable by earth-born mists or
garish glare or historic contraven-
tons. We cannot know just what
were the psychologist qualities of this
holy, happy man, but we may be sure
OF one thing, that his character was
singularly pure, far above that of his
fellows, or the unexampled honor Of
walking with God" and of being
translated without hint or hurt of
death would never have been given to
him. BE We holy, for am holy" must
have been fulfilled in marvellous de-
gree in Enoch's case. He was a sinner,
as were others of his contemporaries,
but somehow, in close contact with
the fires of the Divine holiness, the
dress Of his own humanity was burn
ed away so that even before he was
caught aawy to paradise, he became
detached from earth and filed with
the very spirit of heaven.
Enoch walked with God it appears,
as prophet. God may have revealed
to him in quiet, tender converse many
wonderful secrets of his plans What
did Enoch see in prophecy? Who
knows but that in those ecstatic 300
years there may have passed be-
fore his vision, revealed by the di-
rect will and wish of Jehovah, the
outlines of redemption-the coming
history of the ages, exhibited as it
were, In an elongated panorama. all
illustrating the wonders of grace and
centering about the cross, whose dis
tant CLEAN Enoch's quickened eyes
may have clearly seen? Paul, in
later age, was taken up into the third
heaven = why may Enoch not have
been granted the vision of redeem
ed earth? We cannot saoy that it was
so-but We may wonder whether such
dreams and visions did not come to
that holy and unique man.
We are told, at any rate. in the
epistle of Jude, of wonderful vision
which Enoch had of the consumma-
ton of human history, when the Lord
will come with ten thousand Of his
angels to visit a dire punishment on
ungodly mein-a message which seems
to have been quotation from or an
adaptation of, a prophecy in the Book
of Enoch, which last is a collection of
apochryphal stories regarding mony
in
the chruch has declined to introduce
into the canon, and does not receive
as veritable Scripture. The general
truth holds good at all events that
the nearer one walks with God and
the more transparent is the moral
nature of any believer the broader
and grander is the vision which such
a one enjoys of eternal things-for in
the highest ranges of Christian ex
perience being is seeing.
There is need today for the trans
parent, guileless, reverent, meditative
Enoch-like type of character-a frame
or fashion of moral being which may
seem, indeed, quite foreign to the
Hzeitgeist" or prevailing spirit of the
| times. Yet in rushing age, more, if
anything, than in any other, ra men
need the close converse with their
Maker to KEEP them poised amid So
cial agitations steadily against the
assaults of temptation, and clear
eyed amid the whirl and swirl of
numberless worldly distractions. It
should not be thought, because Enoch
lived in a simple age, that, therefore,
he enjoyed exceptional opportunities
for being religious, while in this char
acteristically worldly day it is quite
out of the question to maintain a
spiritual frame. The fact is that
Enoch lived in an age that was rude,
riotous and coarse, when vice was
rampant, when the sanctions of So
ciety itself were largely lacking, when
there were no Bibles, churches, En-
deavor societies, religious clubs or
religious books or weeklies, and,
therefore, it was all the more to his
praise that, under conditions even
more unfriendly, perhaps, to right
eousness than those that obtain to-
day, he walked with God AID COM
ported himself as BETTER saint of
the Most High.