“And Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him” (Gen. 5:24).
We hear repeatedly of the pathway of obedience as the way of blessing and progress; but what is that “path of the just . . . that shineth more and more unto the perfect day”?
It is walking with God. “Enoch walked with God.” The pathway which he trod was not simply a path of obedience to God, but of fellowship with God, and we shall find that the only Guide to that pathway, the only One who can really conduct us into it, keep us in it, enable us to overcome every difficulty and danger on it, is God Himself.
Do we want to find that pathway? Cultivate communion with God, and you are there–without an effort, without a thought. I shall never forget the language of a lady, speaking of her own experience which made an impression on my mind never to be forgotten. She was a principal in a young ladies’ school. She told me that she was in the habit of keeping a diary, and at the close of each day she had to record her many failures.
At last she thought, “What is the secret of it all? I have not been abiding in Christ; I have not been walking with Him.” From that time, she said, her effort was not to control her temper, nor to seek patience with her pupils, but to abide in Christ, to remain in fellowship with Him. She laid aside her diary from that day.
Yes, that is the secret–“walking with God.” You cannot take the pathway of evil or of error while walking with God. He will not take that pathway with you. He will not deviate one single footstep out of that straight and narrow way which leads to life eternal.
I have long found that the way to detect error or evil in the heart is to look at it in the light of God’s countenance. In any other way one may be deceived. In the light of human intellect or human opinion, we may be misled, but the thought examined in the sunlight of God’s presence, through the teaching of God’s Word, is the safeguard against anything displeasing to Him.
“Enoch walked with God.” We all know the happy termination of that pathway: “He was not, for God took him.” He had chosen God for his daily Companion on earth. He had made Him the Man of his counsel, the Companion of his thoughts. Down-sitting or up-rising, he was in fellowship with God.
We are told the secret of it, and we are told the result of it, when Enoch is mentioned in that catalogue of worthies in Hebrews 11. By faith he saw Him who is invisible. By faith he walked in the pathway in which God could walk with him step by step, and “he was not.” He was translated, but, says the Holy Ghost–“He had this testimony, that he pleased God.” Without faith it would have been impossible. Faith was the starting point. Faith was the pathway he persisted in.
If we would please God, we must not neglect companionship with God–the Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. There is fellowship with the Father–“Our Father which art in heaven”; fellowship with the Son–the “Friend that sticketh closer than a brother”; and “the communion of the Holy Ghost.”
If the question were asked, “What is the shortest route from Leominster to London?” some would consult a roadmap or some public transportation timetable; but I know that the shortest route is a pleasant companion. What will shorten the journey from the city of destruction to the Heavenly City like that? Oh, how short the waste desert becomes in communion with God! How bright the darkest night! How sweet the fellowship of these long lingering hours in fellowship with God!