inued to grow more heavenly while communing with God.
His face was radiant with a holy light which would remain upon his
countenance while instructing those who would hear his words of wisdom.
His heavenly and dignified appearance struck the people with awe. The
Lord loved Enoch because he steadfastly followed Him and abhorred
iniquity and earnestly sought heavenly knowledge, that he might do His
will perfectly. He yearned to unite himself still more closely to God,
whom he feared, reverenced, 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
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obey His commandments. Two classes are here again 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
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imagination of their corrupt hearts and carry out their deceptive
philosophy and rebel against the authority of high heaven.
God’s people will separate themselves from the unrighteous practices
of those around them and will seek for purity of thought and holy
conformity to His will until His divine image will be reflected in them.
Like Enoch, they will be fitting for translation to heaven. While they
endeavor to instruct and warn the world, they will not conform to the
spirit and customs of unbelievers but will condemn them by their holy
conversation and godly example. 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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8: The Flood
This chapter is based on Genesis 6;. 7:. 8 and. 9:8-17.
The descendants of Seth were called the sons of God; the descendants
of Cain, the sons of men. As the sons of God mingled with the sons of
men, they became corrupt and, by intermarriage with them, lost, through
the influence of their wives, their peculiar, holy character, and united
with the sons of Cain in their idolatry. Many cast aside the fear of God
and trampled upon His commandments. But there were a few that did
righteousness, who feared and honored their Creator. Noah and his family
were among the righteous few.
The wickedness of man was so great, and increased to such a fearful
extent, that God repented that He had made man upon the earth, for He
saw that the wickedness of man was great, and that every imagination of
the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
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More than one hundred years before the Flood the Lord sent an angel
to faithful Noah to make known to him that He would no longer have
mercy upon the corrupt race. But He would not have them ignorant of His
design. He would instruct Noah and make him a faithful preacher to warn
the world of it