That is a sweet, simple, easily intelligible, and yet lofty way of
putting the notion which we bring into a more abstract and less
impressive shape when we talk about communion with God. Two men
travelling along a road keep each other company. 'How can two walk
together except they be agreed?' The companion is at our side all the
same, though the mists may have come down and we cannot see Him. We can
hear His voice, we can grasp His hand, we can catch the echoes of His
steps. We know He is there, and that is enough. Enoch and God walked
together, by the simple exercise of the faith that fills the Invisible
with one great, loving Face. By a continuous, definite effort, as we
are going through the bustle of daily life, and amid all the pettiness
and perplexities and monotonies that make up our often weary and always
heavy days, we can realise to ourselves that He is of a truth at our
sides, and by purity of life and heart we can bring Him nearer, and can
make ourselves more conscious of His nearness. For, brethren, the one
thing that parts a man from God, and makes it impossible for a heart to
expatiate in the thought of His presence, is the contrariety to His
will in our conduct. The slightest invisible film of mist that comes
across the blue abyss of the mighty sky will blot out the brightest of
the stars, and we may sometimes not be able to see the mist, and only
know that it is there because we do not see the planet. So unconscious
sin may steal in between us and God, and we shall no longer be able to
say, 'I walk with Him.'
The Roman Catholics talk, in their mechanical way, of bringing down all
the spiritual into the material and formal, about the 'practice of the
presence of God.' It is an ugly phrase, but it means a great thing,
that Christian people ought, very much more than they do, to aim, day
by day, and amidst their daily duties, at realising that most
elementary thought which, like a great many other elementary thoughts,
is impotent because we believe it so utterly, that wherever we are, we
may have Him with us. It is the secret of blessedness, of tranquillity,
of power, of everything good and noble.
'I am a stranger with Thee, and a sojourner, as all my fathers were,'
said the Psalmist of old. If he had left out these two little words,
'with Thee,' he would have been uttering a tragic complaint; but when
they come in, all that is painful, all that is solitary, all that is
transient, bitterly transient, in the long succession of the
generations that have passed across earth's scene, and have not been
kindred to it, is cleared away and changed into gladness. Never mind,
though you are a stranger, if you have that companion. Never mind,
though you are only a sojourner; if you have Him with you, whatever
passes He will not pass; and though we dwell here in a system to which
we do not belong, and its transiency and our transiency bring with them
many sorrows, when we can say, 'Lord! Thou hast been our dwelling-place
in all generations,' we are at home, and that eternal home will never
pass.
Enoch 'walked with God,' and, of course, 'God took him,' There was
nothing else for it, and there could be no other end, for a life of
communion with God here has in it the prophecy and the pledge of a life
of eternal union hereafter. So, then, 'practise the presence of God.'
An old mystic says: 'If I can tell how many times to-day I have thought
about God, I have not thought about Him often enough.' Walk with Him by
faith, by effort, by purity.
2. And now take the other aspect suggested by the other word God spoke
to Abraham: 'I am the Almighty God, walk _before_ Me and be thou
perfect.'
That suggests, as I suppose I do not need to point out, the idea not
only of communion, which the former phrase brought to our minds, but
that of the inspection of our conduct. 'As ever in the great
Taskmaster's eye,' says the stern Puritan poet, and although one may
object to that word 'Taskmaster,' yet the idea conveyed is the correct
expansion of the commandment given to Abraham. Observe how 'walk before
Me' is dovetailed, as it were, between the revelation 'I am the
Almighty God' and the injunction 'Be thou perfect.' The realisation of
that presence of the Almighty which is implied in the expression 'Walk
before Me,' the assurance that we are in His sight, will lead straight
to the fulfilment of the injunction that bears upon the moral conduct.
The same connection of thought underlies Peter's injunction, 'Like as
He ... is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation,' followed
immediately as it is by, 'If ye call on Him as Father, who without
respect of persons judgeth'--as a present estimate--'according to every
mail's work, pass the time of your sojourning here in fear'--that
reverential awe which will lead you to be 'holy even as I am holy.'
This thought that we are in that divine presence, and that there is
silently, but most really, a divine opinion being formed of us,
consolidated, as it were, moment by moment through our lives, is only
tolerable if we have been walking with God. If we are sure, by the
power of our communion with Him, of His loving heart as well as of His
righteous judgment, then we can spread ourselves out before Him, as a
woman will lay out her webs of cloth on the green grass for the sun to
blaze down upon them, and bleach the ingrained filth out of them. We
must first walk 'with God' before the consciousness that we are walking
'before' Him becomes one that we can entertain and not go mad. When we
are sure of the 'with' we can bear the 'before.'
Did you ever see how on a review day, as each successive battalion and
company nears the saluting-point where the General inspecting sits,
they straighten themselves up and dress their ranks, and pull
themselves together as they pass beneath his critical eye. A master's
eye makes diligent servants. If we, in the strength of God, would only
realise, day by day and act by act of our lives, that we are before
Him, what a revolution could be effected on our characters and what a
transformation on all our conduct!
'Walk before Me' and you will be perfect. For the Hebrew words on which
I am now commenting may be read, in accordance with the usage of the
language, as being not only a commandment but a promise, or, rather,
not as two commandments, but a commandment with an appended promise,
and so as equivalent to 'If you will walk before Me you will be
perfect.' And if we realise that we are under 'the pure eyes and
perfect judgment of' God, we shall thereby be strongly urged and
mightily helped to be perfect as He is perfect.
3. Lastly, take the other relation, which is suggested by the third of
my texts, where Israel as a whole is commanded to 'walk _after_ the
Lord' their God.
In harmony with the very frequent expression of the Old Testament about
'going after idols' so Israel here is to 'go after God.' What does that
mean? Communion, the consciousness of being judged by God, will lead on
to aspiration and loving, longing effort to get nearer and nearer to
Him. 'My soul followeth hard after Thee,' said the Psalmist, 'Thy right
hand upholdeth me.' That element of yearning aspiration, of eager
desire to be closer and closer, and liker and liker, to God must be in
all true religion. And unless we have it in some measure, it is useless
to talk about being Christian people. To press onwards, not as though
we had already attained, but following after, if that we may apprehend
that for which also we are apprehended, is the attitude of every true
follower of Christ. The very crown of the excellence of the Christian
life is that it never can reach its goal, and therefore an immortal
youth of aspiration and growth is guaranteed to it. Christian people,
are you following after God? Are you any nearer to Him than you were
ten years ago? 'Walk with Me, walk before Me, walk after Me.'
I need not do more than remind you of another meaning involved in this
same expression. If I walk after God, then I let Him go before me and
show me my road. Do you remember how, when the ark was to cross Jordan,
the commandment was given to the Israelites to let it go well on in
front, so that there should be no mistake about the course, 'for ye
have not passed this way heretofore.' Do not be in too great a hurry to
press upon the heels of God, if I may so say. Do not let your decisions
outrun His providence. Keep back the impatience that would hurry on,
and wait for His ripening purposes to ripen and His counsels to develop
themselves. Walk after God, and be sure you do not go in front of your
Guide, or you will lose both your way and your Guide.
I need not say more than a word about the highest aspect which this
third of our commandments takes, 'His sheep follow Him'--'leaving us an
example that we should follow in His steps,' that is the culmination of
the walking 'with,' and 'before,' and 'after' God which these Old
Testament saints were partially practising. All is gathered into the
one great word, 'He that saith he abideth in Him ought himself also so
to walk even as He walked.'