Gen 4:26 Help!

Gen 4:26   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. (ESV)

This is an amazing verse. I remember reading it a few months back and it leapt out at me. I wasn't that sure about why it was so key at the time as it reads like an aside or as if it's in parentheses, just something tagged on the end of the chapter.  But as I thought about it over the next few days I came to see it as the most important verse in the whole chapter. It spoke to me so powerfully that it changed the way I prayed and even impacted the prayer life of those around me.

The first question that I asked as I tried to unpack it was why "at that time"? Why did men start calling on the name of the Lord at that time. Well once again the clue is in the name. Enosh means "weak", "frail" or "mortal".

It could be that Seth through his experience of human life came to realize man’s inherent weakness. Food is hard to come by. His body may have been broken in some way, or was subject to sickness and disease. He therefore named his son Enosh, indicating that man is weak. Or maybe Enosh himself was a sick baby or simply frail as babies are; so small and reliant on others. Maybe he saw in his son man's inherent weakness. His frailty. Or maybe he realised that he would one day die. Man can live for a time as if he is immortal, indestructible. Then something happens, we come face to face with death in one way or another. Try standing in a graveyard if it hasn't hit you already.  Or simply sit with someone who is dying. And so he calls his son "mortal".

I'm almost 40 and the realisation that my life will one day end is dawning. On Sunday afternoon we will visit a residential home to share the gospel and worship with some of the elderly people there. We heard from a friend recently that many have died since we last went in. Discussions in such places often revolve around who will be next. Death is unavoidable but it doesn't have to be the last word. One lady who died had recently responded to the gospel and become a Christian. She called out to Jesus for forgiveness and acceptance and love and today she is with him in paradise. As her time drew near she realised that her biggest problem was sin and her greatest need was forgiveness. Perhaps as people began to call on the name of the Lord it was because they realised how badly they were messing up and how distant and remote God had become. Their desperate plight became so apparent that they called out from the depth of their soul to God. "Help!"

You see the word "call" means, well "call". A loud cry from the heart. Singers are taught to sing from their stomach, moving their diaphragm, not from the back of their throat. A cry is like that. Is comes from deep within and our whole body is behind it.