Enoch-The Walk of Faith
Xi. — 5. By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and he was not found, because God translated him: for before his translation he hath had witness borne to Mm that he had been well-pleasing unto God.
6. And without faith it is impossible to be well-pleasing unto him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that seek after him.
THE sacrifice of faith is the entrance to the life of faith, and ever remains its chief characteristic. On the sacrifice of faith there follows the walk of faith — abiding, continuous fellowship is the fruit of Christ’s self-sacrifice and ours. On Abel follows Enoch. Abel shows how death is the entrance to life: he triumphs over death by submitting to it. In Enoch, we see how life triumphs over death: he does not see death. Through faith Abel being dead yet speaketh; Enoch speaks as one who ever liveth. In Abel we see how death leads to life. In Enoch we see the life that never dies. In Abel we see Christ the crucified, and the boldness we have through the blood to enter in in the new and living way that goes through the rent veil. In Enoch we see Christ glorified and have life in the Holiest — the walk with God, the living One.
In connection with Enoch there are three things taught us in regard to faith. The first is, as to its nature. He that cometh to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of them that seek after Him. Faith is the
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spiritual sense by which we recognise the presence and character of the unseen God; both that He is, and that He rewards the seeker. Desire is the root of faith; without a hunger for God His existence is a matter of indifference; the knowledge of His being does not affect the soul. Faith seeks for God; it believes that He is; it keeps the heart open towards Him; it bows in humility and hope for Him to make Himself known. To know God, to see God in everything and every where, in our daily life to be conscious of His presence so that we always walk with Him — this is the true nobility of man; this is the life that faith lives; this is the blessedness Jesus has now fully revealed in the rending of the veil. Faith can walk with God. He that cometh to God must believe that He is. And also a rewarder of them that seek after Him. Faith believes that God can be found; that He can and will make Himself known; that He cares for everyone who truly longs for Him; that He has a divine reward for the seeker after Him. In seeking Him the way may at times be dark and long, and the progress slow; faith honours God with its confidence as the God of love and truth; He will reward and bless. Let the deep restfulness of this assured conviction be the root of all your seeking after God.
The second lesson we have is as to what the reward of faith will be. Before his translation he had been well-pleasing to God. Without faith it is impossible to be well-pleasing. God created us for Himself: it is our destiny, we were made with the one object of pleasing Him, and being His delight. God is perfect goodness: a state of life in which we please God must be one of goodness and perfect blessedness. In our fallen state we are well-pleasing by faith. Faith is the surrender to God. Faith honours God by acknowledging and seeking His
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presence, by expecting everything from Him alone, by resting on Him. Faith gives God His place and His glory; faith wills what God wills; faith lets God have His own way, and makes Him all in all. No wonder that faith is infinitely well-pleasing to Him. If Christians only believed this, and only made it their one study to draw nigh and enter in, and walk before Him in the fulness of faith.
Then comes the third lesson — faith knows that it pleases God. Enoch had witness borne to him that he had been well pleasing to God. It was by faith that this witness came (see vers. 2, 4, 39). It is of the very essence of a healthy faith: God does not leave Himself without a witness to the soul that trusts in Him, least of all in the New Testament. The Lord Jesus promised to send from the Father in heaven the Holy Spirit, as a witness of all that took place in heaven on His ascension. All that the Epistle has taught us of the rent veil and the opened sanctuary and the entrance into God’s presence, of Christ’s perfect work and complete salvation as the Priest in the power of an endless life, has its seal and its worth and its power and its reality in our heart, from the Pentecostal gift. The Holy Spirit brought down, out of that Holiest of All within the veil, as an actual reality, the kingdom of heaven into men’s hearts, so that the presence of God, and the Father’s delight in His Son, and the Father’s love now shed abroad in their hearts become their everyday experience and consciousness. And even so now still, to them who seek and receive and yield to the Holy Ghost, in His full indwelling and witness, faith receives and gives the witness that we are well-pleasing.
By faith Enoch walked with God. My brother, who with Abel hast drawn nigh to God in the infinite self-sacrifice of Jesus, learn with Enoch to walk with God the walk of faith. Let the presence of God be thy one desire; the will of God thy one choice; the help of God thy one trust; the likeness to God thy one hope. Let every day, the most ordinary one, the most difficult one, be a day with God, as one of the days of heaven upon earth, a day of which faith is the beginning and the end. Let all the teaching of the Epistle, as to the wonderful, the perfect, the everlasting redemption in the Son of God, have this one result — that it make thee full of faith in God, and guide thee to draw nigh to God, to walk with God; and thou, too, shalt know what it is not to see death; by faith to be translated, and have it written — He was not, for God took him.
1. Jesus said that John the Baptist was the greatest of all the prophets, greater than Enoch too. And yet, the least in the kingdom was greater than John, And must it then be counted impossible for men even now to walk with God, and to have the witness that they are well-pleasing to Him? Alas for the Church that scarce believes it.
2. The one great work of Jesus Is to bring us near to God, in the nearness of unity of will and heart. And what He does is In the power of an endless life; He abides continually, and what He gives abides continually too. We can euer abide in God’s presence and walk with Him.
3. By faith, that Hues In the unseen; that allows Christ to do His mighty work; that believes that the presence of God is now its home; and so enters into its rest.
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