According to Psalm 50:1, we previously noted that God’s creation has His attention every day all day long for He speaks and calls “the earth (that includes you and me) from the rising of the sun to the going down thereof.”
From the first pages of God’s written Word, we find that He called our world into existence and furnished it with everything the human family would need. Then He lovingly formed man in His own image and called him, Adam, to “dress and keep” that He had made (Genesis 2:15). He did not leave Adam all alone in the world, but made the woman, Eve, and presented her to Adam instituting the first family.
When Adam transgressed God’s law and fell from his state of innocence, he died spiritually just as God had warned him (Genesis 2:17) and he began to die physically that day. In Ch. 3, Verses 8-9, we see the first call of God to salvation to His human creation as He came to Adam, walking in the garden in the cool of the day” and calling, “Adam … where art thou?” Upon their confession of disobedience, God drew Adam and Eve back to Himself.
His call to salvation goes out to every person today because spiritual “death passed upon all men (all people)” when Adam sinned “for that all have sinned,” leaving all of us in our natural state separated from God as recorded in Romans 5:12. We must be reconciled to Him by accepting the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ.
As we move on in the story of mankind, we read in Genesis 6:5 and 11, “And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth: and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. The earth was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence.”
Then God called Noah to be a preacher of righteousness (II Peter 2:5) because He was going to send a flood to destroy mankind from off the face of the earth. God called Noah, too, to build an ark to save him and his family. The Bible tells us that “Noah was a just man” and that “Noah walked with God,” before God called him to preach and build the ark. Noah fully obeyed God and “became heir of the righteousness which is by faith,” (Hebrews 11:7).
It has been said that, when God needs someone for a job, He calls someone that is nearby. If we desire to be used of God, we must walk with Him. When He calls, it requires a step or maybe a leap of faith to answer that calling.
Sometimes God calls us through a miracle He has performed in our lives to get our attention. Moses experienced this while tending sheep in the desert. He came upon a bush that was on fire but was not being consumed by the fire. God told Him, “The place whereon thou standest is holy ground.” Here God issued the call to Moses to deliver His people from Egyptian bondage, becoming one of the greatest leaders the world has ever known.
God works miracles in all of our lives and when He does let’s be careful to listen for His call to some special opportunity to glorify Him.
— Randy Zinn is pastor of Russell Missionary Baptist Church, Russell, Ark.; formerly of Okmulgee.
