Angels Before and After Noah’s Flood
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Enoch
Enoch learned from the lips of Adam the painful story of the fall,
and the precious story of God’s condescending grace in the gift of His
Son as the world’s Redeemer. He believed and relied upon the promise
given. Enoch was a holy man. He served God with singleness of
heart. He realized the corruptions of the human family, and separated
himself from the descendants of Cain, and reproved them for their great
wickedness.... His soul was vexed as he daily beheld them trampling
upon the authority of God.... He chose to be separate from them
and spent much of his time in solitude, giving himself to reflection
and prayer. He waited before God, and prayed to know His will
more perfectly, that he might perform it. God communed with Enoch
through His angels, and gave him divine instruction. He made known
to him that He would not always bear with man in his rebellion—that
it was His purpose to destroy the sinful race by bringing a flood of
waters upon the earth.
The Lord opened more fully to Enoch the plan of salvation, and
by the Spirit of prophecy carried him down through the generations
which should live after the flood, and showed him the great events
connected with the second coming of Christ and the end of the world.
Enoch was troubled in regard to the dead. It seemed to him that
the righteous and the wicked would go to the dust together, and that
would be their end. He could not see the life of the just beyond the
grave. In prophetic vision he was instructed in regard to the Son of
God, who was to die man’s sacrifice, and was shown the coming of
Christ in the clouds of heaven, attended by the angelic host, to give
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life to the righteous dead, and ransom them from their graves....
Enoch faithfully rehearsed to the people all that had been revealed
to him by the Spirit of prophecy. Some believed his words, and turned
from their wickedness to fear and worship God.—
The Signs of the
Times, February 20, 1879
.
He [Enoch] chose certain periods for retirement, and would not
suffer the people to find him, for they interrupted his holy meditation
and communion with God. He did not exclude himself at all times
from the society of those who loved him and listened to his words
of wisdom; neither did he separate himself wholly from the corrupt.