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The Beginning of the End
Enoch—The First Man Never to Die
Enoch lived sixty-five years and fathered a son. After that he
walked with God three hundred years. He was one of the preservers
of the true faith, the ancestors of the promised Seed. From the lips
of Adam he had learned the story of the fall and of God’s grace as
seen in the promise, and he relied upon the Redeemer to come.
But after the birth of his first son, Enoch reached a higher ex-
perience. As he saw the child’s love for its father, its simple trust
in his protection, as he felt the deep tenderness of his own heart for
that firstborn son, he learned a precious lesson of the wonderful love
of God in the gift of His Son. The boundless love of God through
Christ became the subject of his meditations day and night, and he
tried to reveal that love to the people around him.
Enoch’s walk with God was not in a trance or vision, but in all
the duties of daily life. As a husband and father, a friend, a citizen,
he was the unwavering servant of the Lord.
His heart was in harmony with God’s will; for “can two walk
together, unless they are agreed?” (
Amos 3:3
). And this holy walk
continued for three hundred years. Enoch’s faith grew stronger, his
love more ardent, with the passing of centuries.
Enoch was a man of vast knowledge, honored with special reve-
lations from God, yet he was one of the humblest of men. He spent
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time with the Lord, waiting to learn His will. To him prayer was like
breathing for his soul; he lived in the very atmosphere of heaven.
Through holy angels God revealed to Enoch His purpose to
destroy the world by a flood. He also opened the plan of redemption
more fully to him and showed him the great events connected with
the second coming of Christ and the end of the world.
Enoch had been troubled in regard to the dead. It had seemed to
him that the righteous and the wicked would go to the dust together
and that this would be their end. He could not see the life of the just
beyond the grave. In prophetic vision he was instructed concerning
the death of Christ and His coming in glory, attended by all the holy
angels, to raise His people from the grave. He also saw the corrupt
state of the world when Christ would appear the second time—that
there would be a boastful, self-willed generation trampling upon the