HE WAS NOT OF THIS WORLD

Elijah and Enoch, the only two prophets to be translated, had something in common. They were both haters of sin and cried out against it. They both walked so closely with God that they couldn’t help sharing His hatred for ungodliness.

The undeniable effect on all who walk with God is a growing hatred for sin — and not only hatred, but separation from it. If you still love this world and are at home with the ungodly — if you are a friend to those who curse Him — you are not walking with the Lord but sitting on the fence, putting Him to open shame.

“Enoch walked with God; and he was not; for God took him” (Genesis 5:24). We know from Hebrews that this speaks of Enoch’s translation, the fact that he did not taste death. But it also means something deeper than that: “He was not” as defined in Genesis 5 also means, “He was not of this world.”

In his spirit, in his senses, Enoch was not a part of this wicked world. He was taken up in his spirit to a heavenly realm. Like Paul, he died daily to this world while he cared for his family, worked, ministered, occupied. But “he was not” — he was not earthbound! The Lord consumed Him. Every waking moment his mind came back to Him. His heart was attached to God with what seemed like a huge rubber band. And the more you stretch a rubber band, the quicker it springs back when you let it go. Enoch’s heart always “sprang back” to the Lord.

As mankind grew more ungodly all around him, as men changed into wild beasts full of lust, hardness and sensuality, Enoch became more and more like the One with whom he walked.