Seth: When Men Turned to God
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Enoch—The First Man Never to Die
Enoch lived sixty-five years and begat a son. After that he walked
with God three hundred years. He was one of the preservers of the true
faith, the progenitors 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 expe-
rience. 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 unfathomable love of God through
Christ became the subject of his meditations day and night, and he
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sought to reveal that love to the people among whom he dwelt.
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 except they be agreed?”
Amos 3:3
. And this holy walk con-
tinued for three hundred years. Enoch’s faith waxed stronger, his love
more ardent, with the lapse of centuries.
Enoch was a man of extensive knowledge, honored with special
revelations from God; yet he was one of the humblest of men. He
waited before the Lord. To him prayer was as the breath of the 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 more fully to him the plan of
redemption 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 ransom His people from the grave. He also saw the corrupt
state of the world when Christ should appear the second time—that
there would be a boastful, self-willed generation trampling upon the