What Did the First Prophet Say?
And all the days of Enoch were three hundred sixty and five years: And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him.
There is a frightening similarity between the antediluvian world and the world we live in today. Humanity’s first ten generations lived during a violent age – a time when human life was cheap and men thought that there were no consequences for their behavior. Yet the men of that era were not people who denied God’s existence, but rather they all claimed to be serving Him well enough. They knew well the story of creation and during that time the Garden of Eden was still in plain view. The antediluvian world was a society of believers; a type of the church. Living in a pristine world with paradise still in view they had no cause to deny God was the Creator, but most of the antediluvians had a common misunderstanding of the nature of God. They transgressed God’s law continually because they had convinced themselves that God would not judge them.
As I previously stated, the antediluvian world was full of violence. The Bible speaks of Cain murdering Abel, but it does not go into great detail concerning the continual bloodshed of the era. In fact, according to the Bible many were proud of their vicious behavior. Consider the boastful testimony of Lamech, Cain’s great-great-great-grandson, who declared to his wives that he had “slain a man to [his] wounding, and a young man to [his] hurt. If Cain shall be avenged sevenfold, truly Lamech seventy and sevenfold.”[i] In other words, Lamech had murdered a man and he felt that God was not going to punish him. Because God was merciful to Cain, Lamech’s forefather, Lamech believed that he could do whatever he pleased and the same merciful God would not hold him accountable.
Into this world Enoch was sent with a message of warning – a message that declared to the antediluvians that God is a God of judgment. Human beings should not mistake God’s kindness for weakness, for there is still a heaven to win and a hell to shun. Enoch, who like Lamech was also seven generations from Adam, was called to be the first prophet in the human family. Like all other prophets to come after him, he delivered a warning message that cut against the grain of what was commonly understood to be the truth that era. Enoch’s message is recorded through inspiration in the book of St. Jude, which reads:
And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints, to execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him.[ii]
Sadly, many misinterpret Enoch’s message to this day. Many believe that Enoch was referring to the Second Coming of Christ, when he will come triumphantly to take the saints with Him. At His Second Coming, dead saints are resurrected and living saints are ‘caught up’ to meet Him in the air. When He comes in great power and great glory he is coming for his saints. Paul states in his first epistle the church at Thessalonica:
For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.[iii]
Yet Enoch was prophesying of a very different event, for he envisioned the Lord coming with ten thousands of his saints, not for ten thousands of his saints. Enoch saw God coming with the book of life, which would contain the names of ten thousands of His saints, while executing judgment upon those who claimed to be His, yet their names are not found in the book. In other words, Enoch did not see Christ coming to reward his faithful ones, but he saw the reality that God would come to execute judgment on an ungodly class of people who claimed to belong His church. We must remember that Jude, the servant of Christ, wrote his exhortation to the church because in his own words:
… it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints. For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.[iv]
In the early years of the church many so called Christians began to turn away from the true tenants of the established faith and just like Lamech they mistook God’s grace as license to sin without consequence. Enoch’s warning that God is a God of judgment was an apt message for his day, as it was for the 1st century church, and even more so for us living in the latter days. We in the latter days should understand that we are to “Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come.”[v]
Christians love to believe that God is simply going to pour out His judgments on the non-believing world, but we must remember the admonition of the Apostle Peter who stated, “For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God?”[vi]
Enoch was called to deliver a message that was unpopular but timely in his era. Likewise, we who are in the House of God have been called upon to do the same in the latter days. We must warn the entire world of God’s impending judgments, but we must remember to warn those who are worshipping in the house of God with us that ‘the hour of His judgment is come.’ The time has come to “Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.”[vii]
Inspiration says this concerning Enoch’s example:
We read of the prophet Enoch, that he “walked with God … three hundred years.” Enoch’s walk with God was not in a trance or a vision, but in all the duties of his daily life. He did not become a hermit, shutting himself entirely from the world; for he had a work to do for God in the world. In the family and in his intercourse with men, as a husband and father, a friend, a citizen, he was the steadfast, unwavering servant of the Lord. His heart was in harmony with God’s will; for “can two walk together, except they be agreed?”
Enoch was a public teacher of the truth in the age in which he lived. He taught the truth; he lived the truth; and the character of the teacher was in every way harmonious with the greatness and sacredness of his mission. Enoch was a prophet who spoke as he was moved by the Holy Ghost. He was a light amid the moral darkness, a pattern man, a man who walked with God, being obedient to his law,–that law which Satan had refused to obey, which Adam had transgressed, which Abel obeyed, and because of his obedience was murdered. Now God would demonstrate to the universe the falsity of Satan’s charge that men could not keep God’s law. He would demonstrate that though man had sinned, he could so relate himself to God that he would have the mind and spirit of God. This holy man was selected to denounce the wickedness of the world, and to give evidence that man can keep the law.[viii]
[i] Genesis 4:22-3.
[iii] I Thessalonians 4:16, 17.
[viii] Ellen G. White, “Lessons From the Life of Enoch”, The Review and Herald, April 15, 1909.
