Rediscovering the Ancient Paths

And Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him.

Genesis 5:24 (NKJV)

As darkness and evil increase in the earth, it becomes paramount that we rediscover the ancient paths that lead to the mountains of the Lord, the paths the fathers of the faith trod to reach the heights and depths of God in communion.

One man blazed that trail: Enoch. It was not known that the possibility of walking with God existed in the Spirit after the human race had fallen, yet God in His mercy opened a door for this great patriarch. Enoch is a great mystery, and only a few things are recorded of him. In Jude we learn that he was the seventh from Adam, and that he was the prophet of his generation, though his prophetic ability and scope transcended generations, reaching right to the second coming of Christ. He was a voice for God in an evil and corrupt generation that had departed from God. That he walked with God until he was taken alive into heaven is perhaps the greatest insight we could be given concerning him. It reveals the degree to which he communed with God, and also a possibility he opened: that a man can reach a place in God where he becomes the closest to Him in his generation. Enoch showed us the reward of seeking God.

I believe the Holy Spirit said little of him because he represented a mystery to be unveiled in the times when history would repeat itself, when the days of Noah would come upon the earth again, and an urgency would rise among God's people to seek His face and know the God of Jesus Christ.

Those days are upon us. The signs are telling, as we see evil and lawlessness increase in terrifying ways. But something even more alarming is happening in our generation: spiritual darkness has fallen on the human race, blinding it to the wickedness that prevails, and this blindness seems to have crept into the Church of Jesus Christ. The Bible calls it a veil spread over the nations (Isaiah 25). That veil must first be destroyed if we are truly to discern the depravity of the times and, more importantly, our need for God.

The Bible makes it clear that the age in which we live is a dark age (Galatians 1:4), from which Christ has delivered us. The only light that exists is in God's people, the luminaries. When the Lord Jesus said, "You are the light of the world," He was in effect saying that the world itself is darkness. How vital it is, then, for the Church to learn the ancient patterns and walk with God. I am persuaded that the only safe place in these final chapters of the age is the secret place of the Most High, a place in the Spirit reserved for men and women hungry for communion with God. Only such people will escape the darkness of the times.