Even after the fall when man’s nature has become corrupt and he is subject to death, there is no limit to the closeness of fellowship which he may have with God. Those who value fellowship with the Lord, and diligently seek his face can know many wonderful consolations through the Spirit which lift them up above the world and its miseries. They look forward to the world to come and seem to anticipate the joys of heaven even before they get there. They conclude in their hearts that it is better for them to be with God in heaven, even though they submit to the will of God in keeping them in the world until he chooses to take them to himself. God gives more blessing to those who value the blessing they have already received. It is the Spirit of God that teaches us to desire the knowledge of God, and when we have such desires put in our hearts we must respond immediately. Enoch no doubt spent much time in prayer. Like the Lord Jesus Christ he delighted to be alone with his heavenly Father and he drew strength from the Lord constantly.
There is much that, even as believers, we do not know of God. There are some things that we cannot know until we see God in heaven, but there are also many things that we can know now, but which sadly we fail to attain because we do not value them or ask for them. We are too easily content with the mundane and the ordinary. Oh for a spirit within that makes us faint for the courts of the Lord, and long to see his power and glory in his sanctuary. Then our greatest desires and most urgent prayers will be for his glory and to be with him. We must be sure of the precious nature of these things regardless of what others around us think or do. Enoch kept his eye on God and put all his energy into drawing near to God.
The name Methuselah means either ‘man of the dart’, a dart being something that is sent or propelled like a missile, or according to ‘the ingenious conjecture of’ Samuel Bochart, ‘when he is dead it shall be sent’. It is certainly remarkable that the calculation of the year of Methuselah’s death – the longest living man in Scripture – based on the data in this chapter brings us to the very year that the flood came, and it may be that Enoch who was a prophet (Jude 1:14) foresaw the year of the flood coinciding with the year of the death of his son. Noah’s father, Lamech, also prophesied concerning the flood when he named his son, Noah (verse 29).