Worthwhile Web Wanderings
by Miss Mouse
Spending some time every week on the www - the WorldWide Web - I keep coming across Christian insights that are really good. I also notice current trends in the field of spiritual beliefs and practices that can be worth knowing about. This has prompted me to set up this page where I will submit examples of such interesting electronic ‘finds'. Hopefully, I will post a new periodically. Sometimes, though, I can trawl through masses of comments for an hour or more and only come up with drivel, rantings or outright heresy. The WorldWide Web requires selectivity! But this will hopefully persuade those who avoid it like the plague that some spiritual gems are on offer.
So here are my offerings, after scuttling around a site on religion where people ask questions and anybody in the world can offer an answer. Atheists also participate and I was greatly encouraged when, after giving an answer to one question, "Do the Old and New Testaments contradict each other, and which is more relevant in Christianity?" the atheist who posted it responded, "You have inspired me to start reading the Bible!"
The participants are anonymous on that site, with only the country they come from being identified. They also use pseudonyms, which mean we don't know their real names. However, they have e-mail contact available on that particular site, so I have asked them for their permission to reproduce their answers. Every answer/comment submitted here comes with the author's permission. Enjoy!
No.5
Q from a Christian in Canada:
Does God need to recover "calling upon the Name of the Lord" among us as believers?
We see this verse in Genesis in the 3rd generation of men that men began calling upon the Name of the Lord...To be strengthened, supplied. Gen 4:26 "And to Seth also a son was born, and he called his name Enosh. At that time men began to call upon the name of Jehovah."Does God need to recover "calling upon the Name of the Lord" among us as believers?
We see also in 1 Corinthians 1:2 that believers called upon the Name of the Lord, not only to be saved, but for something more: "To the church of God which is in Corinth, to those who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, the CALLED SAINTS, with all those WHO CALL upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ in every place, who is theirs and ours."
The early believers were identified AS Christians because they were the "callers" and were even persecuted by the religious ones for calling on the Name of the Lord: Acts 9:14 "And here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who call upon your name."
Even Paul, after his conversation was able to be identified as a Christian because he called on the Name of the Lord. Acts 9:21 "And all who heard him were amazed and said, Is this not the one who ravaged those who call upon this name in Jerusalem and came here for this, that he might bring them bound before the chief priests?"
Does the Lord need to recover this practice among us today? To keep His name sanctified and hallowed upon the earth?
Answer from a Christian in Scotland
I'm not sure it's God who 'needs' to recover the calling upon His name in faith, or rather whether it's the professed Christian community that needs to do that. It seems to have been a human initiative in Genesis 4:26.In Acts chapter 2 we have a Holy Spirit inspired application of Hebrew scripture about calling on the name of the Lord. On that day of Pentecost, Peter addressed the crowd in Jerusalem, quoting from Joel chapter 2. That prophecy foretold a day of fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon God's people, and Peter said it was being fulfilled in the gifts of the Spirit the Christians had just received.
Joel said that "Everyone who calls on the name of Jehovah will be saved" (verse 32). But Peter explained that the fulfilment lay in people calling upon the name of Jesus to be saved! (Acts 2:38) This makes calling upon the name of Jehovah synonymous with calling upon the name of Jesus! Now, this is a call of worship - is Jehovah going to save anyone who refuses to worship Him?
This proves that to call upon the name of Jesus is to worship Jesus. Those who realise that it was God, in Christ, who died for their sins and who rose again, worship this risen Lord and Saviour.
To recover this practice amongst the household of faith today, we need to be clear in showing that Jesus is Lord - that He is God - and that we worship Him. There is a lack of clarity as to what it means to call upon the name of the Lord, so Christians who know what that means must set the example as well as be quick to explain the significance of this. Too many people today, who imagine they are Christians, do not worship the risen Christ. They do not seem to realise that they are refusing to do what Peter commanded in Acts chapter 2, in order that they will receive forgiveness of their sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit.
It is only those who have exercised such faith, so that their sins are forgiven, who know what it is to call upon the name of Jesus, because they bear the name of Jesus. Only they can call themselves ‘Christians' because only they belong to Christ, by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, as it says in Romans 8:9-16: "You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit if alive because of righteousness... because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God... And by him we cry, ‘Abba, Father!'"
That is the heartfelt call of those who know they belong to Christ. The indwelling Holy Spirit prompts that cry of faith and joy. To call upon the name of Jesus results in knowing that the Spirit of Him who raised Christ from the dead now lives in us, and that our Father is God. Father, Son and Holy Spirit combine to elicit this call of faith and joy. The Christian Church should be bold in demonstrating the outworking of this miracle of grace.
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