To Seth also a son was born, and he called his name Enosh. At that time people began to call upon the name of the LORD.

Genesis 4:26

This afternoon our youngest grandson asked another of his six-year-old questions – How did people know about God?

It’s a good question and Patrina and I reminded him of how Adam and Eve knew God personally while they were in Eden and that it was then their responsibility to pass on their knowledge of God. He knows about Cain and Abel and how each of them brought sacrifices to the LORD.

And so in the verse above, we see how the knowledge of God continued in those days around the time of the birth of Enosh as “people began to call upon the name of the LORD.”

It appears that sometime after Cain kills Abel mankind began more formal worship of God. Theologian Albert Barnes wrote these words in his Barnes’ Notes on the Bible –

“The solemn invocation of God by his proper name in audible and social prayer and praise is the most usual meaning of the phrase now before us, and is to be adopted unless there be something in the context or the circumstances demanding another meaning. This involves also the first of the meanings given above, as we call God by his name in oral worship. It includes the third in one of its forms, as in praise we proclaim the name of our God. And it leads to the second, as those who call on the name of the Lord are themselves called the children of God.”

It is that last sentence that stands out to me. When we call upon the LORD we begin to associate ourselves in our desire to be “the children of God.”

It happened in the days of Adam and it happens today when we make it a priority to point the next generation to the LORD.