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48
The Story of Redemption
and adored. God would not permit Enoch to die as other men, but
sent His angels to take him to heaven without seeing death. In the
presence of the righteous and the wicked, Enoch was removed from
them. Those who loved him thought that God might have left him
in some of his places of retirement, but after seeking him diligently,
and being unable to find him, reported that he was not, for God took
him.
The Lord here teaches a lesson of the greatest importance by the
translation of Enoch, a descendant of fallen Adam, that all would
be rewarded, who by faith would rely upon the promised Sacrifice
and faithfully obey His commandments. Two classes are here again
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represented which were to exist until the second coming of Christ—
the righteous and the wicked, the rebellious and the loyal. God will
remember the righteous, who fear Him. On account of His dear Son
He will respect and honor them and give them everlasting life. But
the wicked, who trample upon His authority, He will cut off and
destroy from the earth, and they will be as though they had not been.
After Adam’s fall from a state of perfect happiness to a state of
misery and sin, there was danger of man’s becoming discouraged
and inquiring, “What profit is it that we have kept His ordinance, and
that we have walked mournfully before the Lord” (
Malachi 3:14
),
since a heavy curse is resting upon the human race, and death is the
portion of us all? But the instructions which God gave to Adam,
and which were repeated by Seth and fully exemplified by Enoch,
cleared away the darkness and gloom, and gave hope to man, that as
through Adam came death, through Jesus, the promised Redeemer,
would come life and immortality.
In the case of Enoch the desponding faithful were taught that,
although living among a corrupt and sinful people, who were in open
and daring rebellion against God, their Creator, yet if they would
obey Him and have faith in the promised Redeemer, they could work
righteousness like the faithful Enoch, be accepted of God, and finally
exalted to His heavenly throne.
Enoch, separating himself from the world, and spending much
of his time in prayer and in communion with God, represents God’s
loyal people in the last days, who will be separate from the world.
Unrighteousness will prevail to a dreadful extent upon the earth.
Men will give themselves up to follow every imagination of their
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