6. The Path of the Just.
AS the Christian reader glances down the chapters of Genesis, which embrace the period of time from the fall to the flood, he will find every now and again a few words telling of the faith and walk of the holy men of old there mentioned. Such as cast doubt upon the early chapters of the first book of the Bible will be hardly interested in the record, but to the Christian it affords very deep satisfaction. With these testimonies before him, the believer feels that he is with his “own company” (Acts 4:2323And being let go, they went to their own company, and reported all that the chief priests and elders had said unto them. (Acts 4:23)), and rejoice: that the same spirit which actuates God’s people of today actuated them in the early days of the world. Faith in God and walking with God are no myths, but realities in and of believing men.
The record of the past, opening up the age of progress before the flood, tells us, “there began men to call upon the name of the Lord” (ch. 4:26). In the midst of the ungodly world there were some separated it spirit from it, who praised Jehovah and looker to Him for help. God records that upon the earth, built upon and adorned, and charmed with music by the offspring of him who had gone “out from the presence of Jehovah,” the children of faith lifted up their voices to Him Little, it is true, is said in Scripture of the time before the flood, but enough to show us that then, as now, the children of faith and the children of the world existing side by side or the earth, were each pursuing a different course and had hopes differing entirely one from the other.
Genuine faith in God connects the soul with God in daily life, and “without faith it is impossible to please Him” (Heb. 11:66But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. (Hebrews 11:6)), and faith evidences its genuineness by the fruit of holiness. “Enoch walked with God” (Gen. 5:2222And Enoch walked with God after he begat Methuselah three hundred years, and begat sons and daughters: (Genesis 5:22)) are the shining words in which the Scriptures give the life of faith as expressed in him. And if we look down the story of the ages till the time of Christianity be reached, the Bible still gives the record of the life of faith in walking with God. For the six thousand years of the world’s history there have been men, in but not of the world, who have walked with God, and the shining light of the path of the just is to be traced in every book of the Bible, however dark the record of such books may be of the course of this world.
“Noah walked with God” (Gen. 6:99These are the generations of Noah: Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God. (Genesis 6:9)), and, both to Enoch and to Noah, God opened His mind. These men of faith, each testified against the evil of their day. Noah was “a preacher of righteousness,” and Enoch’s very testimony is handed down to us. “Behold,” he cried, “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.” (Jude 14,1514And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints, 15To 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. (Jude 14‑15).) The recurrence of “ungodly” in Enoch’s testimony is most remarkable—ungodly persons, whose ungodly deeds were ungodly committed, and who uttered their ungodly speeches against God! Such is the description of the eye-witness to the violence and corruption of the world before the flood.
How like is the world of today growing to the world of those old times! And how carefully does the Spirit of God interweave the testimonies of the record of the earliest times with the prophetic word respecting the last time, and urge upon us the warning, saying; “But, beloved, remember ye the words which were spoken before of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ; how that they told you there should be mockers in the last time, who should walk after their own ungodly lusts” (vers. 17,18). And again, “Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts”―men willingly ignorant “that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished.” (See 2 Peter 3:3-73Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, 4And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. 5For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: 6Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished: 7But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men. (2 Peter 3:3‑7).) The very rise of infidelity in its peculiar nineteenth-century form, denying the Old Testament Scriptures, is like the flight of the stormy petrels before the coming tempest.
Another principle lies before us in these early chapters of the book of God―the men of faith obeyed God. Of Noah it is said, “according to all that God commanded him, so did he.” Four times is this said of him. Herein lies the secret of walking with God. Real holiness results from genuine obedience to the Word of God. “How to walk and please God” (1 Thess. 4:11Furthermore then we beseech you, brethren, and exhort you by the Lord Jesus, that as ye have received of us how ye ought to walk and to please God, so ye would abound more and more. (1 Thessalonians 4:1)) is one great burden of Christian doctrine. How much perplexity might many of God’s people avoid by following the injunctions of the Scriptures Before the flood swept away the ungodly, Enoch received the word of God as to himself, and “By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death,”―“He was not, for God took him”; “and was not found, because God had translated him: for before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God. But without faith it is impossible to please God” (Heb. 11:5, 65By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was not found, because God had translated him: for before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God. 6But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. (Hebrews 11:5‑6)).
The Christian very well knows that faith in God is the root of all his fruitfulness, and while meditating upon what the early chapters of Genesis tell of the saints of old, he sees working in them the selfsame principles of godliness, which he desires may bear their abundance in himself. The same grace of God, which wrought for and in these men of the earth’s first age, works for and in ourselves of its last days!
Infidelity may look with cold contempt upon testimonies to faith in God, obedience to His word, and walking with God, and pleasing Him, and calling upon His Name, for these things pertain to the spiritual world, to the inner life, to what God begets in those who are born again. But to the believer such matters are of more worth than all the science and all the glory of the world, and most assuredly, in the eye of God, these are jewels of the highest price.