"5 By faith Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death, and he was not found, because God had taken him. Now before he was taken he was commended as having pleased God. 6 And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him."
Hebrews 11:5-6
The brief story of Enoch, recorded in Genesis 5:22-24 is surely a testimony to the possibility of faithfulness in the darkest and most difficult circumstances, for he lived in the midst of the gathering darkness of the Cainite civilisation, prior to the judgment of the Flood, when godlessness and corruption were increasing dangerously on the earth. His 'translation' apart from death is a faint hint or shadow of a glorious alternative to death which God has prepared for the end time, and of which Paul teaches in 1 Corinthians 15:51, "We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed... " What we need to notice here is that while this translation was 'by faith', and therefore by the grace of God, Enoch's faith was of such a kind that it could be said of him that 'he pleased God'. It was not faith as a mere formal or technical attribute, nor was it faith merely in its initial and elementary, though genuine, aspects, but faith which brought him 'far ben' into a sweet intimacy of fellowship and communion with God. It was faith's full flower, for Enoch had entered into the fulness of spiritual experience in which he knew God as a Rewarder of all the deepest longings of the heart. Such a life is not without its cost – in surrender and yieldedness, as the word 'diligently' indicates (6). It is a word which sums up all that the Bible means when it speaks of the deep things of God. It echoes the words of the New Testament Enoch, the Apostle Paul, in Philippians 3:8-10, when he says, "I count all things loss.... that I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection...." Such a life cannot be had for less!