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Preparation for Translation, December 10
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.
Hebrews 11:5
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We are living in an evil age. The perils of the last days thicken
around us. Because iniquity abounds, the love of many waxes cold.
Enoch walked with God three hundred years. Now the shortness of
time seems to be urged as a motive to seek righteousness. Should it be
necessary that the terrors of the day of God be held before us in order to
compel us to right action? Enoch’s case is before us. Hundreds of years
he walked with God. He lived in a corrupt age, when moral pollution
was teeming all around him; yet he trained his mind to devotion, to love
purity. His conversation was upon heavenly things. He educated his
mind to run in this channel, and he bore the impress of the divine. His
countenance was lighted up with the light which shineth in the face of
Jesus.
Enoch had temptations as well as we. He was surrounded with
society no more friendly to righteousness than is that which surrounds
us. The atmosphere he breathed was tainted with sin and corruption, the
same as ours; yet he lived a life of holiness. He was unsullied with the
prevailing sins of the age in which he lived. So may we remain pure and
uncorrupted. He was a representative of the saints who live amid the
perils and corruptions of the last days. For his faithful obedience to God
he was translated. So, also, the faithful, who are alive and remain, will
be translated. They will be removed from a sinful and corrupt world to
the pure joys of heaven. The course of God’s people should be upward
and onward to victory.
Enoch’s translation to heaven just before the destruction of the world
by a flood represents the translation of all the living righteous from the
earth previous to its destruction by fire. The saints will be glorified in
the presence of those who have hated them for their loyal obedience to
God’s righteous commandments.
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