According to the will of God, the Holy Spirit was pleased to put these words in scripture to declare the exercise of religion in the midst of the increase of wickedness in the fallen world under God’s judgment. These words are the record of salvation by the covenant God, Jehovah. They are the fulfillment of his promise to the first parents of the human race, his promise to put enmity between the serpent and the woman and between their seeds. That enmity was not by nature at all. By nature there would have been only the seed of the serpent and no enmity among that seed. The power of sin had to embrace and envelop them all, keeping all alike in the way of depravity and enmity against God. That power and ability of sin in the entire human race could develop and grow only through the increase of the number of men and in the development of society and culture, of art and science, and of work and leisure and entertainment.

Scripture in the record of Lamech and his family demonstrates that development of the race of men in their unified enmity against their maker. The Holy Spirit speaks in the word of God of the strenuous activity of Lamech’s family in certain areas of life. Among them was the realm of agriculture. Lamech’s son Jabal, by his wife Adah, was renowned for his work in agriculture while living as a nomad and raising cattle. Jubal, another son by Adah, is described according to his talents in music. He developed and used the instruments of the harp (strings, likely plucked) and of the organ (pipes, sounding by breath or wind, perhaps incorporating reeds). A third son, Tubal-cain, born to Lamech by his other wife Zillah, is declared to be “an instructor of every artificer in brass and iron” (Gen. 4:20–22). His particular talent was crafting and manufacturing tools and equipment, including molding, shaping, and assembling tools and equipment to accomplish further work by the sons of men.

Two elements are outstanding in this record in Genesis 4. First, we must observe that these three sons are said to be fathers with respect to their skills and crafts. They were pioneers who passed on to others the fruits of their talents and skills. Lamech’s sons were respected in their distinct communities for those skills, and others eagerly apprenticed themselves to them. Fathers does not merely mean that they had sons whom they instructed in their particular abilities, and then that these sons took up those skills and perpetuated them in their own generations. Rather, Lamech’s sons were regarded as fathers with respect to those abilities themselves as taken up by their followers. These fathers were identified according to their sons, who were “of such as dwell in tents, and of such as have cattle” and “of all such as handle the harp and organ” (vv. 20–21).

What is outstanding in verses 20–22 is that these verses are an inspired, biblical definition of culture. These verses list bonds and ties and describe them in terms of family. Scripture declares that Jabal, Jubal, and Tubal-cain were fathers. They had sons. These were familial bonds and ties.

However, these bonds and ties did not have the character of blood relationships. Their character was of specialized interest in and commitment to various abilities. Their character was also of talents and skills that were capable of enormous development. They were skills that had been developed and honed through generations of fathers and sons. Passed on and developed, those skills were meant to benefit the human race in many ways and in very different realms. Ultimately, these benefits were exactly the same as those enjoyed by the race of men in the present: agriculture and husbandry, arts and entertainment, and science and technology. In Lamech’s three sons were the seeds of barn-building and crop-raising; of rap, hip-hop, and symphony; and of particle colliders and cell phones.

The second element we observe among Lamech’s three sons is their use of what they possessed as rational and moral creatures of God. As fathers and sons in their bonds of interest and devotion to their common causes, they used the resources of the earth that God had made. They studied and domesticated animals. They dug metals out of the earth, refined and purified them, melted and forged them, and hammered and cut them according to plan and purpose. They fashioned instruments out of various materials, likely including metals, for the purpose of making stringed and pipe instruments. Further, Lamech’s sons applied their intellectual powers to carry out the desires of their hearts. With the eyes and fingers given them in their creation, they trained themselves in the use of their tools and instruments to produce, to craft, and to entertain. In short, they applied themselves with all diligence to carry on in their devices with all that God had provided.

What was the purpose of their organized societies and cultures? Why their special instruments? Why their use of the materials and abilities God had given to them?

To serve their own purposes and aims, without God and apart from him. To serve themselves in defiance of the living God. For they carried on in the way and manner of their father, Lamech, who carried on in the way of his ancestor Cain.

The father of those three sons praised and exalted himself in bold rivalry against the living God. Lamech clothed himself in garments of rebellion, bigamy, the particular vengeance of murder, and arrogant boasting of his wickedness before God. Wicked Cain had complained to God that, as he wandered as a fugitive and vagabond on the earth, whoever found him would kill him. Then God put a mark upon Cain and threatened sevenfold, divine vengeance for any attack on him. Wicked Lamech not only boasted of exercising the prerogative that belongs to God alone, but he also boasted of exercising his vengeance above and beyond God’s. Lamech’s boast was “seventy and sevenfold” against God’s sevenfold (Gen. 4:24).

What brought about such an ungodly and abhorrent state of affairs? What gave Lamech the purpose, determination, and ability to devise his threefold rebellion against marriage, against life, and against God? What gave to his three sons their abilities in their skills and crafts and the organizational skills to see the fruit of their labors passed on and improved for generations to come? How could it be that neither Lamech nor his three sons came to be insane, raving murderers?

Should not any respondent blush with shame while stammering the answer: “Common grace”?

Rather than common grace, must not all grace be described by where it is shown?

There, far away from Lamech and his two wives, was another culture, another society. There, far away from the cultural enterprises of Lamech’s three sons, was another culture, another society.

To follow upon the record of Lamech and his three sons, the Holy Spirit declares in Genesis 4:26, “To Seth, to him also there was born a son; and he called his name Enos: then began men to call upon the name of the Lord.” This declaration was the fulfillment of God’s promise of Genesis 3:15 to put enmity between the serpent and the woman and between their respective seeds. In the midst of the development of sin, the faithful covenant God, Jehovah, raised up others to be his friend-servants. Their manner and way was the opposite of Lamech’s and his sons’—the offspring of Cain.

This was the renown of Seth’s offspring: “Then began men to call upon the name of the Lord.”

Theirs, too, was a society. In their society they employed themselves spiritually. They looked not downward to the earth. They looked upward to their God. They looked about them and saw not occasions for vengeance or for developing instruments in warfare against God. They saw their plight, feeling the hatred of those who vastly outnumbered them. They saw their own helplessness in the face of the world that was developing in ungodliness around them. They knew only one refuge and only one peace: the fellowship and friendship of the living God.

They banded together. In their gatherings they bound themselves in remembrance of the God who promised to be their sovereign friend. Their activity together is expressed in the action of their spiritual friendship and fellowship. They “began…to call upon the name of the Lord.”

These words record the beginning of instituted worship: coming together to pray.

With this humble, simple activity, the Holy Spirit declares the heart of covenant fellowship from the standpoint of Seth’s generations. As God, their friend-sovereign, had spoken to them, so his friend-servants spoke to him. Their friend-sovereign had attached himself to his promises. In the greatness of his mercy, he made his promises abide in their hearts through faith according to his promise, “I will put enmity.” By God’s promise spoken and fulfilled by him, they called upon his name.

Invoking the name of their friend-sovereign, they had assurance of his abiding presence. In that constant assurance they called upon his name over and over. Calling upon God’s name became their habit and practice. It became the manner by which they were identified.

Let Lamech speak his arrogant words in the exercise of his bigamy and murder. Let Jabal carry on in his craft with his sons, dwelling in tents and raising cattle. Let Jubal and his sons carry on in their musicianship. Let Tubal-cain and his sons continue in their metallurgy. Let them all carry on in their organized revolt from the creator. Continuing their crafts and skills, let them receive the praise and adoration of the seed of the serpent. What great things they could do, all apart from God, in defiance of his holiness and in refusal to glorify and serve him!

On the other hand, let this be the glory of the seed of the woman: they called upon the name of Jehovah.

The simple, humble exercise of worshiping the gracious, sovereign Jehovah is the center of true religion. By faith those men placed themselves and all their circumstances in the hand of their God.

To “call upon the name of the Lord” properly expresses the truth of worship at its heart and center.

The heart and center of worship is “the name of the Lord.”

This phrase signifies not merely the truth that Jehovah has a name and that the invoking of his name brings him near or leads into his presence for prayer and worship; but the phrase also signifies the name of God according to all its glorious truth. The name of Jehovah is distinguished from every other name in this respect: all the truth about God and all the truth there is to know about God stand always in immediate connection with his name.

On the one hand, the truth about God’s name shows the great evil of wicked Lamech’s blaspheming of that name in his self-praise before his wives. It is why the wrath of God is kindled against the sin of blaspheming his holy and glorious name. Calling on his name for the purpose of ridicule is the most direct attack on Jehovah’s glory. On the other hand, the truth about God’s name shows the great good of knowing the name of Jehovah in grace. To know God’s name is to know Jehovah as the infinite, all-glorious, and wholly self-consecrated God, transcendent above all.

The name of Jehovah also signifies the truth of his revelation of himself as the God of great, unsearchable glory. Though his name is identified with the truth and glory of his infinite being, he is the one who has spoken it to his covenant people. In that revelation of his great name, he gives himself to his people to be their God forever. Their life is to know him by his name.

Those men called upon that name as the name of Jehovah. As they called upon that name, they exercised themselves in the knowledge and application of its covenant faithfulness. The God they named is the same forever unchangeable Jehovah who had spoken to their first parents after they fell into sin and allied themselves with the enemy of God. They called on that name, knowing that its bearer had graciously sought out their wayward father and mother. They invoked Jehovah’s name, knowing the grace of its God who had graciously spoken a word of restoration and renewal, thereby destroying the satanic friendship with blessed enmity. They sought the gracious presence of him who had wrought salvation according to his word of promise, a word that powerfully brought them back to the everlasting happiness of salvation by their God. Upon that same name they called, so many generations afterward, understanding its everlasting power to preserve them in safety. They trusted that name to keep them safe in their God’s promised enmity, to maintain them as his covenant people.

When those men called upon the name of Jehovah, they invoked him to be near them in the blessed wonder of his covenant fellowship and friendship. Calling upon his name was their salvation. His name was the high tower into which they fled and in which they were secure from their enemies.

Calling upon the name of Jehovah as an act of worship is also devotion and consecration. It looks beyond merely seeking and finding salvation in that glorious and powerful name of Jehovah. It represents the heartfelt, glad acknowledgment that the safety accorded by that name represents the great blessedness of belonging to that name. It means to belong to the God of that name in a most wholehearted way. This belonging is not unwilling, where the suppliant receives what he needs from calling upon Jehovah’s name and then afterward withdraws in order to go his own way. Calling upon Jehovah’s name finds the greatest good in being near to God in the truth of his name and being near in complete and thorough devotion. It finds all happiness and joy in knowing that name not merely as providing safety and security from hateful enemies but as the aim and goal of all life, to glorify that great name and forever to show its worth.

Consequently, calling upon the name of Jehovah represented a summary of the entire lives of the people of God, who were living antithetically to the generation of Lamech and his sons with all their worldly and ungodly cultures and works. While the wicked multiplied and filled the earth in order to subdue it for the fulfillment of their hatred against God, the covenant people of God devoted themselves to that name upon which they were calling, and they walked in grateful, heartfelt, and prayerful consecration to him. In that blessed name and unto it were their entire lives graciously bound.

Only by the wonder of that name does this same phrase, call upon the name of Jehovah, characterize the covenant people of God to the present day. Many generations have come and gone through the ages of sacred history. Many generations have come and gone through the ages of world history. Those generations have faced the same ungodliness and wickedness growing and developing through the same history, the advancement of the seed of the serpent in culture and society. In spite of that ungodly opposition to God and his cause, there remain men who call upon the name of Jehovah.

They know the same name as did the men of Enos’ day. They know it to belong to the same unchangeable God, Jehovah. They know it to be the same glorious name, the same name of covenant fellowship, the same name that represents forever the same truth. They know it to call upon it for all their salvation. They know its seal upon them forever. They know it as the object of their worship and consecrate themselves to it with their lives. They know their blessedness to serve its glory. They are glad to hear the call to prayer: “Let us call upon the name of Jehovah.”

So the words of Genesis 4:26 must continue, with men in every age calling upon the name of Jehovah. So it must continue to the end.

Because of the name of Jehovah, the covenant-keeping God.