The Third Commandment

And thus, we're going to turn to the Ten Commandments. If you have your Bibles, please look in Exodus chapter 20, verse number 7. Exodus chapter 20, verse 7. As we have journeyed through the Word of God, we rest now to give consideration to the third commandment. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain. Now, if you have your Bibles, open it thereto and read again aloud with me, if you will, please. Exodus 20, verse 7. All together, share your Bibles if someone nearby left theirs at home. All right, the seventh verse. Together, thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain. The Ten Commandments were never intended to save anyone. Like a mirror, they were intended to show us the imperfections in our lives and the perfection and maturity of the holiness of God and what God expects of us. The first commandment is made without comment. God has said simply, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve, or thou shalt have no other gods before me, period. And having thus stated, the other nine commandments flow normally as an issue from this basic commandment. The keeping to any degree of any of them is an absolute impossibility unless one does not keep the first commandment to love God. And then our relationship to God and our fellow man will flow naturally from this one basic fact that the God who has so arranged our hearts that we find no peace until we find it in him is loved and is the object of our worship. Now it is further an impossibility for one to love God who has not been regenerated from the inside by faith in Jesus Christ. And so the new birth experience when Christ has infused himself into our being and changed our personality is of prime importance for the one who would attempt to live by any of God's moral and spiritual and ethical codes. The third commandment, like the first, second, and fourth, have to do with man's relationship to God. The last six, the fifth being partially pivotal in scope, have to do with man's relationship to his fellow man. The third commandment, like the second, has an augmentation. He has not made any comment on the first commandment, but he begins to amplify and explain the other commandments. The third commandment bears with it a penalty. The Lord will not hold him as guiltless that beareth the name of the Lord in vain. Now understand clearly that while profanity is involved, it is a minor part of the implication of the third commandment. Swearing is a part of this commandment, but it is not the basic intent and object of the command. The third commandment, thou shalt not take the Lord's name in vain, bears a penalty. For the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh the name of the Lord in vain. Consider first the penalty. Society bears its own penalty upon the man that takes the Lord's name in vain. We will not quickly elect to public office those that do not honor the name of our Lord. For whether one is a Christian or no, we expect something of our heroes, our officials, those who are our leaders, demand something more than the gutter language of the man in the street. Then the man imposes a penalty upon himself when he uses the name of the Lord in vain. For to that degree that one swears, he drives his Lord away in his own mind, for he attempts to bring him down to his own level and denudes the personality of God, destroys his own image of God, and to that degree makes himself less a man. So he penalizes himself, finds God far removed and more difficult to worship. Then the Bible tells us that God himself imposes a penalty on the man who takes the Lord's name in vain. The penalty is this, God will not count him as guiltless. The real Hebrew word guiltless is as unclean. God will not consider him to be a clean man. Conversely, he will be a dirty man. Psychologists tell us that one of the basic needs of human nature is that a man feels that he is clean. David, after his great sin, prayed, oh God, wash me throughly. Within, on the inside, he felt dirty before God. And no one is going to find absolute peace with God and an absolute proper relationship to himself as his life vacillates somewhere between frustration and fulfillment who has not, first of all, been to Calvary and been made clean in his own heart. Graham Blaine Jr., the eminent Harvard and Radcliffe psychiatrist said, the biggest problem I deal with is the problem of the guilt complex. And though we can analyze them, unless there is a profuse cleansing of the blood of Jesus Christ down inside the human heart, people cannot be made to find any peace with their fellow man or with God. It is intrinsic in human nature that a man be able to consider himself clean. The word is throughly, not thoroughly. Wash me throughly. David felt clean, unclean on the inside. The penalty that God and society and the man imposes on himself is in itself innately prohibitive than that a man would take the name of the Lord in vain. Now, what does it mean to take God's name in vain? This is an old English, Anglo -Saxon, Saxon, actually combination of two words, which does not have the same meaning today, the same fullness that it did to the translators of the old English, old and new Testament. The word vain literally means empty, worthless, sterile, impotent, meaningless. The Bible says of our public officials that they do not bear the sword in vain for nothing, for no purpose. We fought a good battle, we say. We played a good game. We made a good effort, but it was all in vain. It was worthless. We did not win. To bear in word and in deed the name of the Lord God in vain means to drag it down to nothingness, to make it worthless, to make it meaningless, to make it of absolutely no import in our life and in the lives of people that look in our lives. Now, how do we take the name of the Lord in vain? Well, first of all, we do so by speaking his name in vain. But there are other ways. We bear his name in vain basically by speaking it in vain and by living it in vain. And most of us who would never allow words of profanity to fall from our lips are most guilty before God in that we live his name in vain. But give consideration first to bearing the name of the Lord in vain by speaking it thusly. The Bible tells us that to bear the name of the Lord in vain to speak it is simply, first of all, sinful. Now, we hear a lot about fancy words and names for old -fashioned expressions such as sin and salvation and conversion and repentance. But let it be clearly understood that it is downright sinful for a man to live or speak the name of the Lord God in vain. It is expressly forbidden in the word of God. And God will not hold guiltless the man that speaks the name of the Lord and makes it into a degenerate moral kind of abject meaninglessness that drives God down to the gutter level of the language of the street. Now, it is not only sinful, but the Bible tells us that it is likewise abnormal. Listen to James. The tongue can no man rule. It is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison. For therewith bless we God, even the Father, and therewith curse we men, which are made after the similitude of God. For out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be. Doth the fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter? Can the fig tree, my brethren, bear olives, either a vine, figs? So can no fountain bring forth fresh water and salt water. It is abnormal for a man to come to church and hear you with the mouth bear the name of the Lord in honor and dignity as has so majestically this congregation in our grand choir this morning and then sit next to you on a city bus or in a junior high school room or in an office building with the same tongue and bear the name of the Lord in profanity on Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday and all through the week. It is an absolute abnormality. It is a sign of one's own illiteracy and uneducatedness. There is no better way to advertise what you are and what you are not than that your vocabulary, whether one is excited or depressed, whether he is on top or on the bottom, whether he is blue and sentimental or thrilling and successful, than that he has such a limited vocabulary as to be unable to express what he is trying to say without using the name of the Lord God in vain. Then it is furthermore a sign that an individual, I believe, has a tremendous problem of his own self -image and his own superiority and self -worth. I believe that the greater the swearer, the greater he is advertising his own insecurity and his own inferiority. For a man, while he may be never taller than he is when he is on his knees, is conversely never smaller than when he is trying to bring God down to his own level. What problems a man would have that he must bolster his own self -image by getting some kind of a neurotic, perverted satisfaction by making nothing of the grand name by which God is called. For what Joe tells me about Jim tells me much more about Joe than it does about Jim. You may dishonor the name of God. You may drag it down to nothingness. You think. But in reality, you are only expressing your own inferiorities and your own inadequacies. For as an anvil beaten by many hammers through the years, the word of God, like the name of God, standeth sure and unshaken. Do not advertise your littleness by attempting to make God and his greatness down to your size. Then the Bible tells us one other thing. It is also to usurp the authority of God. For ladies and gentlemen, to be sure, men are damned. They do, without Christ, go to hell. But it is not the responsibility of people to go around damning to hell and consigning to damnation that that God has placed in his own power. It is a very serious matter. Men are lost. Without the Christ, they do go to hell. But it is not our responsibility that God from heaven came and left all of the regal robes of heaven's royal splendor to down the cross to keep men out of hell. And it is not our prerogative to make less serious that that Christ left heaven for and split this earth wide open for to bring men and many sons under salvation. That is God's business and God's prerogative and God's awesome responsibility as well. Now, I would just inject here, and I find myself, frankly, as guilty as most of you, that most slang expressions are shortcuts to profanity. Gosh for God, darn for damn, heck for hell. The English by Jove is a shortcut for by the name of Jehovah. And I think we would all do well to be a little more careful at this point. But I am more concerned this morning that we are guilty of bearing the name of the Lord, not only by speaking it in vain, but by living it in vain as well. For it is possible so to do. Listen to Jesus in Matthew. Many shall say unto me, Lord, Lord, but I will cast them out. They'll say, in thy name, we did many wonderful works. He'll say, I never knew you. That is a Greek word, the same as Mary said, I am without a man. I know not a man. How can I have a child? Meaning to be oneness. In other words, though a man bears the name of the Lord and calls him Lord, Lord, it is those that know him. It is those that are one with Christ. Not just those who talk. Not those who bring the name of Christ. Not those who speak it. But those who have Christ in their heart and live naturally because they can do no differently. Jesus Christ must live in the heart by faith. Not everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, will go to heaven. But they that do the will of God on earth. This is the valid test of discipleship. You can take the name of the Lord in vain and make it nothingness by not living what you have confessed with your mouth. Now, the Bible tells us in the book of Isaiah that many bear the name of the Lord in vain and live it thusly by actually worshiping the Lord in vain. Hear ye the word of the Lord, Sodom and Gomorrah. So what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifice unto me? In other words, why do you go to church? He says, I am full up of the burnt offerings and rams and the fat of fed beasts. I take no delight in the blood of bullocks and lambs and of goats. When ye come to appear before me, who hath required this at your hand? Why are you doing that? Bring no more vain oblations. Your incense is an abomination unto me. The new moons and Sabbath, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with. It is iniquity, even your solemn meetings. Your new moons and feasts and your appointed feast days, my soul hateth. They are trouble unto me. I am weary to them. And when ye spread forth your hands, lifting them, that is, in worship, I will hide mine eyes from you. Yea, even when you make your many prayers, I will not hear, for your hands are full of blood. You see, a Sunday morning service, regardless of its pomp and its procession and its beauty, regardless of the majesty of it all, if a heart rightly related to God is not at the very crux and core of the thing, is no substitute for men living for God all through the week. He says, I am fed up, I am disgusted with your living one way through the week, and then trying to cover it all over by coming to church on Sunday with new moons and feasts and special days and being very pious and very worshipful in your service. The name of the Lord is never more profusely born in vain than it is when it is lived in vain. Now he says, thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain. And I would remind you that you took the name of the Lord in vain. Nobody made you become a Christian. No one made you take it. The literal expression is the idea of a man picking up a set of baggage and carrying it along. It means to willingly pick up something and go through life with it. No one made you come down the aisle. The Spirit of God might have constrained you, but it was not at the point of a gun that you became a Christian. Now he says, what were you thinking about? What did you intend when you bore the name of Christ? Why call ye me, Lord, and keep not my commandments? To bear the name of the Lord in vain is like a woman bearing the name of her husband, willingly standing at an altar, and saying, I take your debts as well as your assets. I take your health as well as your sickness. I take you for better, I take you for worse. I go with you, I bear your name, whether for riches or whether for poverty. And oh, how soon we forget that. He says, what did you have in mind when you came down this aisle? When you bore the name of Christ, you took it willingly, did you not? Why did you drop it? Was it not serious to you? What about the way we lived through the week? I wonder in 1970 and in the 70s, if communism were to take over in America, and you and I were to be tried, suppose we were on trial with an honest courtroom atmosphere for being a Christian. I wonder, would there be enough evidence against us to convict us? Or would we be found not guilty? No evidence that this man is a Christian. He says, remember you took this Lord's name. Now, don't do so emptily, meaninglessly, and worthily, but live for him. Now, the last word I would suggest to you is this. What is it that we bear? The name of the Lord in vain. Now, why the expression name? What does he mean by the name of the Lord? Lord, so much is promised in the name of the Lord over 2 ,000 times. The Bible speaks of the name of the Lord. The name means the individual. A name means something. I wouldn't name a dog Hitler, would you? Well, Hitler's just as good a name as Harry. I wouldn't name a pet goat Jezebel. What's wrong with Jezebel? Well, it's just as good a name as Judy, but the name conjures up an image. It means something. When someone says Billy Graham, it means one thing. When they say Billy Saul Estes, that means another thing. The name bespeaks the individual. Now, listen closely. To the Jews to whom God was speaking, it was of a special importance, for the names of God were a progressive revelation of the character of God and the nature of God. You see, it's no problem with us. Jesus Christ and the Word of God are fulfilled, completed revelations of the nature of God. For what is the Word of a man? It is what is in his heart. But the Word, the thoughts, the image of what God was became flesh in Christ. Christ and dwelt among us. Now, the Bible tells us that before Christ came to seek and to save that which was lost, and man fully comprehended that the work of God in his relationship with the human race was a redemptive one, that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself. Before that time, there was confusion as to what God was, and who God was, and what religion was all about. So the Jews listened very closely to Emmanuel, to Jehovah, to every name that God gave himself, for it revealed some new facet in the diamond -like quality of the nature of God. And so when they spoke the name Jehovah, the name to which God has referred in this command, it was the highest and the holiest of the name of names of God in the Old Testament. It was so holy that this word Jehovah, for God, was only spoken once a year. And then it was spoken by the high priest when he went into the inner holy of holies to make, to make, what's the word, atonement for the sins of the people. You see, I'm not perfect. You found that out now, didn't you? You didn't know that, did you? When he went in to make atonement for the sins of the people, then and then only, once a year, was the name Yahweh, Jehovah, expressed by a Hebrew. And so our God's name, Jehovah, not to be spoken, nor worshipped in, nor lived meaninglessly, was all entailed in this important third commandment. A far way it was from the language of the street and the way that the name of God is cast around on the sidewalks and businesses of my city and of yours. Place his name above your own. Word gladly, lift it high. Defend, cherish, bear with pride in word and deed. Identify. It is unfortunate. But God has for reasons that angels do not comprehend chosen to restrict and limit himself to this world through human beings. He could win all of the heathen at once if he so desired, but he did not desire nor choose to do it that way. It was through us. You and I, you see, as Christians, meaning Christ -like, we're called by that by the outside world. You and I as Christians are the best and only representative of God on earth that most unsaved people will ever see. They will identify what they know about God with us. Let me give it to you again. Place his name above your own. Word gladly, lift it high. Defend, defend, cherish, bear with pride in word and deed. Identify. For God has given him a name that is above every name. That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow and every tongue confess that Christ is Lord to the glory of the Father. All hail the power of Jesus' name. Let angels prostrate, fall, bring forth, bring forth the royal diadem and crown him Lord of all. What a day that will be. But until then, God is doing his work of representing himself to the world through us. What do they think of God will mostly be determined by what they think of us? Identify. Thou shalt not bear the name of the Lord thy God in vain. Shall we bow our heads and pray together? Our Father, we are grateful today that Jesus Christ, the word became flesh, the word became flesh, did so, dwelt among us, wrapped himself in swaddling clothes, came to a manger, but far beyond that, walked and lived as a man that we might know God. But we realize that this city is filled with teeming hundreds of thousands who not only know nothing of God, but could not care less. And that it is our responsibility as the salt of the earth to identify, to relate God in Christ to them through our lives. And dear Lord, we just pray today that you will help us in 1970 to do a far better job of that than we have done in the past. In Jesus' name we pray. Our heads are bowed and our eyes are closed. No one is looking around. In just a moment, our choir is going to softly begin to sing the hymn of invitation. And as they do, God's Holy Spirit is touching and talking to hearts today. If he has said something special to you about your life, perhaps your tongue, or your living or your habit, your relationship to God through Jesus Christ, and you would like to just come and kneel a moment and rededicate your life to our Lord, or to remain and do so there in your seats, then do it. You belong elsewhere to another church. I commend this one to you. It is one of God's great churches. You could nowhere better invest your life for the work of God through a local church than in the First Baptist Church of Houston, Texas. Come today and by letter, baptism, whatever it might be, join this good fellowship. Now you do not know Christ. You can't keep a commandment. The Bible says even our self -righteousness is as so many filthy rags in his sight. We can't do a good deed. We can do nothing to commend ourselves to God until first of all we have found an intimate and personal relationship to Jesus Christ. If he is not your Savior, would you come and by faith as a child, teenager, mother, dad, say, I want him as my Lord. I accept Christ as my Savior. Our beloved pastor, Dr. Yates, will be standing at the front.

Exodus 20 · chapter mention Exodus 20:7 Exodus 20:7