from Romans 15. Romans 15, verses 7-13. Therefore, receive one another just as Christ also received you. To the glory of God. Now, I say that Jesus Christ has become a servant to the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made to the fathers, and that the Gentiles might glorify God for His mercy, as it is written. For this reason, I will confess to you among the Gentiles and sing to your name. And again, He says, Rejoice, O Gentiles, with His people. And again, praise the Lord, all you Gentiles. Laud Him, all you peoples. And again, Isaiah says, there shall be a root of Jesse, and he who shall rise to reign over the Gentiles. In him the Gentiles shall hope. Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope. by the power of the Holy Spirit. You may be seated. We went through this text last time, and we're continuing now in the application, the doctrine that's drawn from it in terms of the Third Commandment. And so as a brief review, the idea of receiving each other was in the context of the stronger and the weaker brother. The stronger brother is the one who believes more of what has been revealed, and the weaker brother is the one who believes less of what has been revealed. And yet there is a need for each other. And so we are to receive each other for the purpose of seeking to come to greater unity, to be able to work together more effectively, And we are to do that knowing that that reception of each other is not an acceptance long-term that we should all just remain as we are. Instead, the receiving of one another is for the purpose of seeing all of us be transformed to become more like Jesus Christ. And so, we're reminded of the fact that Christ came to be a servant of the Old Testament saints, the circumcision, the Old Covenant church. And so, the weakness that's emphasized is the unwillingness of the Old Covenant Church to eat food that was not kosher because of the fact that there had been a change since the resurrection of Christ. There had been a change to where the Old Covenant ceremonies and the Old Covenant holiness laws were no longer obligatory. except for the ones that are mentioned in Acts 15 that are said to apply, they applied in the Old Covenant, both the Jew and the Gentile, and so they continue to apply now because they are not a part of what separates the Jew and the Gentile. And so Christ has torn down the veil, he has torn down the wall of separation, he has made it so that we are united with God in his death, and we are also united with each other now from every nation without the distinction that separates Jew and Gentile. And so we are to look to the fact that God made a promise and kept it. He did not give His promise in vain. And we are to be reminded to use the ordinances that God has given, not in vain, but usefully. And so, let's continue now and we'll look at the 3rd Commandment and how the 3rd Commandment helps us to be filled with joy and peace in believing and abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. So page two. Let me remind you, we looked at the positive element of the third commandment last time, so we'll do a review of that. The third commandment, which is, you shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold Him guiltless that takes His name in vain. It's a commandment to use the means that God has appointed. For example, His name. He's revealed to us His names. We shouldn't make up names for God. He's given to us what we are to call Him. He has revealed His name to us, and so we're to use the means, including His name, that we have that He's appointed to know Him, and we should use His name to acknowledge Him. You think about that in many contexts. One of them is prayer. There's a lot of pressure for Christians at public events when they pray to not pray in the name of Jesus. It's a thing that frequently happens. People say, well, you know, if you pray in the name of Jesus, a lot of people won't think that this is a prayer that they can do. Okay, so what? This is the way God commands me to pray. You know, you can pray amongst believers and sometimes not literally say the words in the name of Jesus Christ. But when you're in a context where that's uncertain, where it's public, where there's a mixed company, if you don't pray in the name of Jesus, that's a cowardice and a retreating away from the name above all names. We are called to pray in the name of Christ. Now that can be implicit sometimes, but when there's a question, it must be made explicit. And so when we pray, we pray in the name of Jesus, which means For us to avoid saying that vainly, we have to understand what it means. What does it mean to pray in the name of Jesus? It means that we are appealing to Christ's mediation. We're appealing to the fact that Christ represents us. We're appealing to the fact that our prayer is heard by the Father. on the grounds, the basis, the legal merits of Jesus Christ alone. Our prayer is heard because we're innocent by the mediatorial work of Christ to die in our place as a blood atonement. Our prayer is heard because Christ perfectly kept the law so that we are counted as righteous. And so we pray in the name of Christ. We're saying, this prayer, Father, hear it as the prayer of Jesus Christ. Accept it as the prayer of the righteous. That's what we mean when we pray in the name of Jesus. So there's the internal understanding of what we mean, and there's the external expression of it. And so, when we pray, we need to pray understanding the mediatorial work of Christ and being willing to say the name of Christ. as the grounds of the prayer being heard. So we should use the means that God has appointed to know Him and to acknowledge Him. Now, acknowledging the true God is the first commandment. Knowing and acknowledging the true God is the first commandment. The second commandment is using the means He has appointed. We don't use images. We don't use idols. We don't use made-up worship. We use the worship that He has instituted in His Word, that He has given us warrant for by revealing it to us. And so, in using the means that He's appointed, we're keeping the second commandment. And the third commandment is the commandment to have a right attitude. It's the commandment to do it with integrity. It's the commandment to not do it without faith, to not do it unbelievingly, to not do it hypocritically, but to do it with integrity. So that's the third commandment. We should use the means that God has appointed to grow in the possession of Him. By knowing God, we possess God. The more we know Him, the more we possess of Him. We possess God by knowing Him. We should seek to grow in the knowledge of God and to share the knowledge of God by the means that He is appointed with integrity instead of hypocrisy. To use means that God commands with hypocrisy makes the gospel look ugly and dead. And it brings curse upon ourselves and others. To use means that God commands with integrity Makes the Gospel look beautiful and living. And it brings blessing upon ourselves and others. Now, Paul says that he praises God that even when men preach the Gospel in pretense, that it causes God to be known. So God can take the sinful use of the Word of God and put it to good effect. You can have people who don't believe the Gospel communicate the Gospel, even for the purpose of criticizing it. And God can use that to convert a person. But the general effect, the general tendency of using the things of God in a way that is hypocritical or in opposition to it is to make the things of God look ugly. And so we are called to display the beauty of holiness. It is our duty to show the greatness of God, the glory of God, the beauty of God by having a right attitude, using the things that God has given for the glory of God. So, the larger catechism organizes for us thoughts about the third commandment from all over Scripture, and we looked at that positively last time. Let's read what the larger catechism says. It says, which is the third commandment? The third commandment is, you shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that takes his name in vain. So, what's required in the third commandment? The third commandment requires that the name of God, His titles, attributes, ordinances, the word, sacraments, prayer, oaths, vows, lots, His works, whatsoever else there is whereby He makes Himself known, be wholly and reverently used. And then there's an expansion on used how. In thought, meditation, word, and writing. So you think about it. You think about it in a sustained way. You think about it. You speak about it. You write about it. And we're supposed to do all those things. You know God in your thoughts. You know God by thinking about Him deeply. You acknowledge God with your words and with your writing. We are to do this by a holy profession. We should acknowledge, we should profess the true religion. We should acknowledge that we believe the scriptures of the word of God, and we should make that profession in such a way that we desire to see that profession guarded from mockery by others, by having answerable conversation. Remember conversation, this is used in an old way. In the 1600s, the word conversation meant kind of your behavior, answerable behavior. And so that became sort of a way of saying when you interact with other people, that turned into when you talk to other people. So that's how that sort of narrowed down into its common use now. So we're supposed to do this by a holy profession, answerable behavior, that's pointed to the glory of God, with the goal of seeking our own good and the good of others. So now, The larger catechism, 113, is going to lay out what's the negative stuff. The glorious thing about the larger catechism is it organizes the commandments to put the positive and the negative next to each other. Think about how much more clear it is if I say, you should worship the God of the Bible, and that's not the God of Mormonism. That makes it more clear. And any not that I put there helps to make it more clear. The God of the Bible, somebody could misunderstand that in a lot of ways. Some people try to say, the God of the Bible is the Abrahamic God, which means that it's the same God with, name a bunch of religions. But it's not. The Abrahamic God is the God of the Bible, but that's the God who acknowledges Jesus Christ as his son. And that's the Jesus Christ that's taught in historic Christianity, not in the cults. And so when we say not, we're making it more clear. And so the commandments of God are laid out in the Scriptures in many, many places. And when you see those commandments, you see positive commandments, do A. And then there's negative commandments, do not do, non-A. And so the laying out of that, the explaining of that, the explicitness of it is meant to help it to be easier to understand. And the work of the Church is to organize and pull together, to systematize the teaching of Scripture. And that work makes it so that it's easier to teach people in the Church. It's easier to take those who are children in the faith and to be able to raise them up to be young men in the faith, to be fathers in the faith. And then, because they have had ingrained in their hearts the systematic ordering of the Word of God, they are able to preach the Word in season and out of season, to speak it in due time, to know what they ought to say. And so we have here this organization. And the organization is the organization that God has appointed. He gave to us the Ten Commandments to organize the law. He gave the two great commandments, Love God, Love Neighbor. And those are the two big buckets to organize all the commandments. Every commandment is a command to do one or the other. Honestly, it's always both. And the Ten Commandments are organized to help us to think about the subcategories there. So we have the first, second, third, fourth commandments teaches how to love God. Don't acknowledge the true God. Use the means he's appointed, not stuff you make up or other people have made up, no matter how ancient or venerated amongst men. Do not use the things he's appointed in vain. Use them intentionally, with integrity, And honor the Lord by working for six days hard. And resting for the purpose of worshiping God and being free from all work and recreation besides. That that day is for that purpose. That is what God has given to us. These four commandments. To know how to love Him. To grow in the knowledge of Him. So then, the next six. Honor legitimate authority. Don't reject it and don't make up authority. Don't murder. Preserve life. Don't use pleasures immoderately or in the wrong place, but use them rightly and to the honor of God. Don't reject them. Seek to get property by lawful means and to help other people to get property. Don't steal it. Don't destroy it. Don't defraud. Be concerned for the truth in conflict resolution and be concerned for the reputation of each other. Do not destroy reputation without duty and do not lie ever. The 10th commandment, desire the good of your neighbor. Weep with him when he weeps. Rejoice with him when he rejoices. These are the commandments that are given to us, and this is the fullness of the law, and then there's explanation. And so each of those now, we can go through the two great commandments in seconds. We can go through the 10 commandments in a minute. But we can dive into each of them for a lifetime. And when we died, we would not have expired the subject. So we go to Larger Catechism 113. What are the sins forbidden in the 3rd Commandment? The sins forbidden in the 3rd Commandment are the not using of God's name as required. The abuse of God's name in an ignorant, vain, irreverent, profane, superstitious, or wicked mentioning or otherwise using His titles, attributes, ordinances, or works by blasphemy, perjury, all sinful cursings, oaths, vows, and lots, violating of our oaths and vows if they're lawful, and fulfilling those oaths and vows if there are things unlawful, murmuring and quarreling at, curious, prying into, and misapplying of God's decrees and providences. Misinterpreting, misapplying, or in any way perverting the word or any part of it to profane jests, curious or unprofitable questions, vain janglings, there's a fun 17th century term. Stop all that vain jangling. or the maintaining of false doctrines, abusing it, the creatures, or anything contained under the name of God, to charms or sinful lusts and practices, the maligning, scorning, reviling, or any wise opposing God's truth, grace, and ways, making profession of religion in hypocrisy, or for sinister ends, being ashamed of it, or ashamed to it, by unconformable, unwise, unfruitful, and offensive walking or backsliding from it. Alright, page three. We have A bunch of stuff here in this first chunk. We've got 14 footnotes associated with point one. With all of those verses there. We will not get through all those verses. I would encourage you to read those verses. I would encourage you to consider the meaning of them and how they support these claims and to see how the 3rd Commandment has a deep, deep application throughout the Word of God. The sins forbidden in the 3rd Commandment are Not using of God's name as is required. Point two. Negligence in the positive use of God's titles, attributes, ordinances, or works. That's a sin. We have a positive duty to use God's titles. But think about the silliness here. Sometimes you'll find, like in Orthodox Judaism, you'll find that people try to avoid using the name of God in order to avoid using it vainly. The command is not, don't use the name of God. We are required to use the name of God. We are supposed to proclaim the word of God. We are supposed to proclaim His name. We are supposed to teach about Him, identify Him to the nations. To be silent about the name of God and to not proclaim it, not use it, and not reverence it is sin. We are called to use God's titles, attributes, ordinances, and works. And His name is a title. What is the difference between a proper name and a title? A proper name is a title that applies to less things. That's it. When you say God, you're referring to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. When you talk about rational creatures, you're not talking about God. You're talking about angels and men. When you talk about rational beings, you're talking about God, angels, men. These are different titles, different names, and they are broader or more narrow. We should refer to God, and we should refer to Him by the names that He's revealed, and explain the meaning of them so that the way that they have been laid out is useful to us to have deeper understanding. We are required to use God's name. So the question is, how are we to use it? We have a positive duty to speak the name of God and to do so in ways that increase meaning in our own minds and the minds of others. We're to be zealous to know how to fill our own minds and other people's minds with the knowledge of Him. And that's by having our mouths and time be used to meaningfully express the truth of God. Now, Malachi 2.2 says, if you will not hear and if you will not take it to heart to give glory to My name, says the Lord of hosts, I will send a curse upon you. We have an obligation to glorify the name of God. We have an obligation to glorify the name of God. Take His name, to proclaim it, to explain it. And if we don't, there's this danger of curse There's a curse on the blessings. Think about that. A curse on the blessings. That's a rhetorical contradiction. It's a paradox. How can blessings turn into curses? Because a blessing is not a curse and a curse is not a blessing. It's because the idea is the things that are apparent blessings will turn into curses to you. They will be used for your harm if you don't glorify God in them. So, like with food, if you don't give thanks to God for the food you receive, Then, one of the ways that God disciplines believers and punishes unbelievers is to cause that food to not nourish but to harm. Alcohol is for rejoicing and use in moderation. We don't give thanks to God and use it for the glory of God. That could turn into drunkenness, death, alcoholism. We are called, point three, to not have God's name be used ignorantly. When we use God's name ignorantly, we use it in vain. It's sinful to use the name of God in an ignorant way. Do not speak of things that you do not understand except to learn. I can remember, with shame, times in my youth trying to take something and talk about it as though I knew about it. I did not know. I can remember times where I'd get caught. You get asked a question, somebody points something out, somebody tries to talk to you about it more deeply. It's an embarrassing thing. How much more embarrassing to do that with the things of God? And when we try to teach people about the things of God without understanding them. When we don't understand something about God, we should speak about it for the purpose of learning, and that with humility. Not talk about it, asserting things without knowledge, but being careful to speak about the things of God in a way that does not go beyond what we actually understand. Now this can lead to the temptation of not speaking about the things of God ever. I don't feel confident. I don't think I know. That sounds like a you problem. Sounds like you need to learn. Sounds like you need to study. You need to ask questions. You need to come to a place of confidence where you can prove the things that are acceptable. It is a horrific waste of a lifetime to not know well enough to be able to teach. And it's a horrific waste of a lifetime to teach without knowing. Point four, the vain usage of God's titles, attributes, ordinances, or works. It's wicked to use the name of God in a way that reduces meaning in our own minds and the minds of others. Webster's 1828 defines vain as empty or worthless, having no substance, value, or importance. be fruitless or ineffectual, to be empty and real, false, deceitful. Think about this. False words are empty. They don't contain meaning. They're self-contradictory. They're false. They cause the appearance of meaning without meaning. And so what we are called to do is to not use the words in an empty way or a false way, but to use them in a true way that is maximally full of meaning. The goal is to fill the earth with the knowledge of God as the waters cover the sea. And so, that requires the speaking of God's name in a powerful and fruitful way, a deep and meaningful way, frequently. So not using the name vainly. We should not speak in such a way as to reinforce meaninglessness or the uselessness of the names and things of God. Proverbs 30 verse 9 says, lest I be full and deny you and say, who is the Lord? The context there is in the Proverbs saying, Lord, don't make me over rich. What's over rich? Well, it's when somebody else has more than you, you think they're over rich, right? And then There's when you have more than you can effectively manage or avoid riding up on the heights of pride. So that's different depending on the level of strength different persons have. And for those whom He loves, God prevents that from going too far. What He does is He causes, when one is tempted to pride in the greatness of one gift, He causes weakness elsewhere to maintain humility or to give humility. The Apostle Paul, for example, was given the greatness of revelation. He was given much spiritual understanding, and God gave him some thorn to prevent him from being over-elevated in his own mind. He prayed for it to be removed and God would not take it because it was being used for his good. To answer that prayer in the affirmative would have been to hurt Paul, so the Lord did not give him what he asked for. So this idea that when we receive gifts from God, that's a work of God. And if we use these things in a way like riches, which is a gift of God, which is for dominion, and we're supposed to use it to glorify God, to get things done, to serve our neighbor, and we determine the prioritization in part by the profitability of a particular action. If you go into an unprofitable enterprise, you waste capital, you waste resources, you lose what God has given to you. So you profitably serve others. And rather than using those things vainly, you should use them to the glory of God. So we ask that God would not have us have more than we can handle of good things or of bad things, so that we won't say when we receive so much good, who is the Lord? I'm pretty awesome. Look how rich I am. Who is God? Just throw money at it. Money solves all problems. That's the danger of being overwealthy. And being poor, saying God's of no use. God doesn't help. I'm too deep in suffering. So, the book of Job is basically the second part of that. Him going through this point of going very, very low. And look how low the Lord took him. and tested him. Because the Lord knew he had given him great strength. That strength was not in Job himself. It was from God. He didn't curse God. So the Lord showed the depth of the work that had been done, the degree to which Job was not taking the Lord's name in vain. And then at the same time, Job had a point where he did not understand and he could not answer certain things. He was answering objectors, but he didn't have the depth of knowledge that he has after the fact when the Lord gave him a rather stern sermon at the end of the book. So the vain usage of God's name is forbidden. And the vain usage of his works and the things he gives to us. Point five, page four. The irreverent or profane mentioning or otherwise using of God's titles, attributes, ordinances, or works. Irreverence is not showing fear mingled with respect and esteem. So we are supposed to revere God. We're supposed to revere his name, which means that we should view it as a fearsome thing. That we know God is the God who punishes the wicked and He is the God who disciplines His children. We should fear His judgment for wickedness, and we are relieved of that fear in Christ. And we should fear His chastising rod in this life if we are believers. And know that He does discipline, and we should seek to please Him and not bring cause for discipline. And we should respect or value Him. And so that name should be a name that is terrifying and a name that is awesome. Profaning the name is putting a thing that's meant for a particular use, a holy thing, to some other use than it was designated for. It was devoted. It has been made undevoted by being put to other uses. It has become common rather than holy, taking a thing that is set apart and putting it to common usage. We should use the name of God as a holy thing, and to profane it, to make it common, One of the things we can do that with is, you can even say God's name and mean God's name by bringing him in, in trivial ways to things, and making reference to his name so frequently, even while meaning it, that you diminish the honor of his name. Okay. has this fascinating text where it's cited right there. It says, you know, son honors his father and his servant his master. If then I am the father, where is my honor? And if I'm a master, where is my reverence? I want you to think about the modern church for a second. Most of the churches in Western civilization, how careful are they to honor God? the assembly? How careful are they to make the reverence of God the focus? Now ask yourself on a contrary side, how careful are they to try to make guests feel welcome so they'll keep coming? How careful are they to make it so that the worship is pleasing to men? When you contrast the two and you think about the church in Western civilization in this century, you begin to see the way in which we don't understand the honor and reverence owed to God. And so, Malachi 3.14, when people deal with God in this way that's flippant, irreverent, profane, The general response is to look around and say, it's useless to serve God. What prophet is it that we have kept His ordinance and that we have walked as mourners before the Lord of hosts? There is this way in which as we dilute Christianity, as we make it so that the honor owed to God is lessened, as we make Him not one to be revered, but one to pal around with, the effect is that the difference between Christianity and the philosophies of the world is diminished. And as the difference is diminished, the usefulness of Christianity and of the name of God is diminished. Point six, a superstitious mentioning or otherwise using of God's titles, attributes, ordinances, or works. What's superstition? Superstition is a claim to knowledge without knowledge. It's a claim to knowledge without warrant. You don't have a basis for it. You believe something without having an actual basis for the belief that is sound. So I've taken there, we have, there's a definition again out of Webster's 1828. It says, I've highlighted or I've bolded part of it. It says, the doing of things not required by God or abstaining from things not forbidden. The belief of what is absurd or belief without evidence. Superstition has reference to God, to religion, or to being superior to man. And it comes from this Latin root, to be above, to stand above. And so this idea of vain beliefs about things that are standing above us. So we need to avoid superstition. And one of the ways this happens in our words in the church is, you know, God told me, interesting, what was the chapter and verse? Where did he say it? God told you? What does he sound like? What's the timbre of his voice? God called me to, did He do so in a way that you can show in your law? In the law of God? Sorry, not your law. Did He do so in a way that you can show in the law of God? By a means that's demonstrable in the law of God? So you could say, here, I can show you, here are the means of calling, and this happened to me, and so I'm called to this. God moved me to such and such. Well, either what's being said there is God, by His decree, by which He controls all things, caused such and such, in which, amen, or credence is being given to something by saying, because of some impression laid upon me by the Holy Spirit, I found moral warrant to do this thing. God told me. God called me. God moved me. Referring to that, we are saying we are putting moral impetus on something by that. These are the things that are done in Pentecostalism, the charismatic movement. Continuationism is the more respectable, reformed-ish way of talking about it. The idea that there continues to be revelation by the Holy Spirit so that new information is given to us that is not contained in the Scriptures. To try to say, God told me through the magisterial authority of the church. It's the teacher. The church is the teacher. And so because the church authority told me this, therefore, there's moral warrant for it. To say, well, this is an ancient and venerated tradition amongst Christian people. Christians have been doing it since the third century. Well, the scriptures were done then. So when did they make it up? Between 70 AD and 300. Your experience. I have found, in my experience, that I like making things up. Any other authority than the Word of God. The Word of God is the explicit statements and necessary inferences of the Bible. Chapter 5, sorry, page 5, point 7. We're forbidden from a wicked mentioning or otherwise using of God's titles, attributes, ordinances, or works. blasphemy, perjury, all sinful cursings, oaths, vows, and lots. So we've got general categories and we're reminded of here are things that are forbidden. The wrong usage, the wicked usage of God's titles, God's attributes, God's ordinances, God's works. And now we're reminded of also means that you could do that in. You could blaspheme, perjure, sinfully curse, sinfully enter into an oath, sinfully enter into a vow, and sinfully use lots, the casting of dice, flipping of a coin. That's right usage of curses, oaths, vows, and lots, and wrong usage. So As we've thought about the things to carefully guard, we're starting to get warning signs. We're being told to put mental hedges around God's titles. Be careful how you talk about God's titles. Be careful how you talk about God's attributes. Be careful how you talk about the ordinances of God. So here's something I want to encourage you all, despite the pressure of the culture to avoid doing, and I have found myself doing this wrongly. I sometimes say gay marriage or homosexual marriage, and it is wrong to say that. There's a way in which you can kind of, for the sake of saying, OK, here's this view, and so what you're calling this, or there are conversations where you could do that. But in general, I have found it's easy in short form to just refer to that. And it's not. It's a mirage. It's false. It's not marriage. And what has just happened is the House of Representatives and the Senate, with Republican support, and the resident of the White House has signed, this farce of a law called the Respect for Marriage Act. And that law is no law. It does not have the force of law. It is unconstitutional. It is absurd. But more importantly, it's not biblical. And God made marriage. Man does not make marriage. The state does not have the power. The Speaker of the House does not have the power. The magistrate has no power to define marriage. He has only the right to enforce marriage contracts as they submit to the order of the covenant that God designed. So the Respect for Marriage Act takes the name of God in vain in the sense that it takes an ordinance of God and abuses it, falsely labels it, And it dishonors the Lord by dishonoring an institution that He made on the sixth day of creation. Page six. So I want to encourage you all to become more bold in properly using the term marriage and being unwilling to apply the term marriage to these things that we are more and more having forced upon us. This law will be used, it will be used to persecute Christians further. It is our duty to stand against it. What we need to see happen is by refusing to acknowledge or obey wicked man-made laws, we need to see the boldness of Christians in the public sphere, and we need to see that there will be persecution that comes, and if we manfully face the persecution in its smaller forms, then what will happen is that suffering will become more and more visible earlier. And when we suffer less earlier, The result will be that the turning of the tide will occur earlier. If we wait until later, the suffering will be worse and longer. And so the courage to speak now will save future generations from greater suffering. Point eight. We are to avoid dishonoring the name of God by blasphemy, perjury, sinful cursings, oaths, vows, and lots. Blasphemy is an injury offered to God by denying what is due and belonging to Him, or attributing to Him that which is not agreeable to His nature. In other words, speaking impiously against God, speaking with words that show contempt to God by not giving Him proper honor or giving Him dishonor. Now, perjury is bearing false witness, especially in matters of justice, especially under oath. Sinful cursing would be cursing when we're not authorized by the law of God. And you know, people often think about, you hear the word cursing now, what you think is, you think bad language. People used to have a more precise use of things. Foul language was when you were talking scatologically. And cursing would be when you're calling down some harm on somebody. And the word damn has a proper place. God damns the reprobate. God damns demons. Those are proper usage of that word. It's a forceful word because damnation, which is part of the word condemnation, has to do with the idea of curse. And so if you ask for something to be damned, you're asking for the curse of Almighty God to be imposed on that thing. And it should not be used lightly. It's a weird thing. In our culture, we find the word damned to be far less concerning than a lot of other words. But I'll tell you what, it should be something that's far more concerning to say. Because when you say the words calling for the curse of God on something, that should be a terrifying thing. We should be very careful. Very careful. It's not flippantly called for the damnation of anything. And at the same time, we should be very careful that we call for the curse of God for the destruction of wickedness. We are called to not sinfully enter oaths and vows. You should not swear sinfully. Many people, when they take oaths entering into government service, they believe that they are swearing to obey the government without regard to the wickedness of the orders. That's not what the oath of public service in the United States requires. We very specifically acknowledge God's authority over law and we acknowledge the Constitution as over the magistrates of the land. And so in that, anyone who takes an oath of service in the United States is swearing to obey God and subordinately as lawful the institutions that are below him. But there are people who take wicked orders. And there is a great danger of that in Western civilization with modernity. People laugh at examples of the Nazis, but I'll tell you what, most of the people in Nazi Germany were far more educated than the people in our culture. Their degrees were a lot harder to get. Their high schools were much more impressive. The work people did there was way better. And you know what happened? You had an entire people group say, I was just following orders. the mass murder that occurred there. Now you know what's even more horrendous? What happened in communist countries during that time. What Stalin did and what Mao did makes Hitler look incompetent. And so the murder that occurred on a mass scale in the last century We're talking hundreds of millions of people killed by unjust governments. And 169 million of them were killed by their own governments while they were unarmed. I'm not talking about occupation forces. I'm not talking about armies. I'm talking about people who were a part of that country who were unarmed being killed by their own government in the last century. We have to be very aware of the importance of not sinfully applying oaths and obeying wicked oaths and not following orders that are unlawful. And so we have to be aware that the oaths of office that people enter into in the United States, in the civil magistracy, have a limit. And we have reached a time where it is very difficult to be in public office and to do anything other than get yourself in trouble if you're trying to be righteous. So may God raise up men who are willing to say no and who are willing to get in trouble and who are willing to stop tyrants from enforcing wicked laws. The sinful use of lots. If you try to use and say, I don't know what to do here, you don't want to study the law of God or whatever, and you just roll dice or flip a coin to make the decision without knowing that both decisions are lawful, that is a sinful use of a lot and it has no obligation. You shouldn't follow it. Point nine, page seven. Violating our oaths and vows if lawful and fulfilling them if a thing is unlawful. We talked about the unlawful. When you take an oath or a vow, we in baptism in the Lord's Supper have an individual covenant with God. We in marriage or as being children by adoption or by birth have a covenant obligation to parents. When we enter into a church, there's a communion obligation and there's an obligation to deal with the government of that church when it exercises lawful authority. And when you enter into office in a household or in a church or in the state, your obligation to administer that office with the best of your ability to the honor of the Lord for the administration of the power that's been given to you, that's a holy thing. Those are covenant institutions. We enter into covenants in marriage, in the church, and in the state, and those things intensify blessing or cursing for the right use or wrong use of those things. And so I want you to think about with horror the number of people, the millions of people in the United States of America who have taken a public oath of office or for some public position of responsibility and are not keeping their oath. What kind of curse do you think is being stored up for us in that oath breaking? The danger of this land in that. church officers and church members throughout this country who are not doing their duties. How many shepherds are wolves? How many church members hypocrites? So we need to pray for God to have mercy upon us because God will not hold him guiltless. It takes his name in vain. So we should ask for the mercy of God for the violation of oaths and vows that has occurred in this land. Page 8. Murmuring and quarreling. Curious prying into and misapplying of God's decrees and provinces. Do we complain against God when He brings events? He's the One who gave us. When we complain about events, when we say, when we complain about what God has given to us. He is the one who has given it to us, and so we are complaining against God. I was reading about the last words of some eminent saints of old. And Calvin on his deathbed, he had lived a life of suffering. He had horrible health problems. His wife had died early. His child had died early. And he was dying in great pain. And what he said is that he has suffered like a dove. And that he knows that the suffering he's received has come from the hand of God. And that's sufficed for him. And so he was saying those who were around him were seeing his great suffering. The idea that he would not make an unpleasant sound. He would suffer like a dove. and he would know that the suffering he had was God's suffering given to him. He was given this suffering from God. And so we don't want to quarrel with God and rage against God, the nation's rage against God. We should avoid that. Instead, we should speak his name in a way where we say, though he slay me, yet will I bless him. Curiously prying into things, we have this desire to know the future. We have this desire to read signs of the times, and we love people making predictions. We should not curiously pry into what will happen, but instead we should curiously pry into what our duty is. What ought we to do given these circumstances? And then we should pray for the blessing of God on the performance of his law. Misapplying God's decrees. This happened, therefore I should do such and such, not because it's a case law, but because I've chosen to say, if this happens, if I lay this fleece out and it's wet, then that was not Gideon acting with faith. That was Gideon testing God. That was God speaking to Gideon plainly about what to do. And then Gideon saying, I'm not sure I'd like to do what you've told me to do. I want more evidence. misapplying the decrees of God and the providences of God, what He's done in history. Page 9, misinterpreting, misapplying, or in any way perverting the Word. You twist Scripture, you do it to your own destruction. You can also make Scripture into a joke. You can make it into a profane jest. So you take some line of Scripture and attach a private joke to it. So you say, line of Scripture, wink, That's a way of taking something holy and making it profane. The curious or unprofitable questions. You're looking for, hey, the scriptures teach me this, but I really wish it had this information in it. You can't find that anywhere. That becomes a motive for inventing all sorts of crazy interpretations of scripture. The imposing of symbols where there are none. All that kind of nonsense. The profitable questions are ones that are given revealed answers. Vain janglings. So a vain jangling is talking about stuff in a way that's useless. Just kind of talking through things. You ever had a conversation with somebody about doctrine where they kind of just bring up a doctrine, talk about it. Maybe it raises a dispute and rather than resolving that dispute, they kind of just bring up something else. And you go, well wait a second, we were talking about this thing, and we were trying to resolve our disagreement on it, and now you're just bringing up a different doctrinal matter, as though you're just kind of mulling over God's things for amusement, like we're talking about, you know, next year's football team. Yeah, that guy's got quite the arm. Pretty good. That guy can run fast, though. You see anything they can tackle? Pretty good. You talk about the doctrines of God like that, just rolling over them without resolving things? vain jangling, just talking, making noises vainly, filling up the time. We might call it small talk. You can use small talk to get into something. You can talk about something that's not that offensive as a way of building rapport, but if you just kind of keep it there. You have any relationships where you spend a lot of time around somebody and it's just filled with lots of small talk? Not a profitable use of time. And then maintaining of false doctrines should be obvious. Let's move to page 11.12. Abusing the name of God, abusing the creatures. So you can abuse the name of God by misusing it. You can misuse creatures. Think about that. When you misuse a creature, you are taking God's name in vain because you're taking something God made for his glory and you're using it not for his glory. An easy one, you know, drunkenness. You think about alcohol made for that. You misuse it. That's sin. It's taking God's name in vain. It's taking something meant for celebration and using it sinfully. You can also think about that with food. The desire to have food is for nourishing and for enjoyment and the overuse of it. It's taking God's name in vain. Anything contained in the name of God, using any of these things, to charms or sinful lusts and practices. So that charm, sinful lusts and practices is an explanation of how to abuse. So there are things that can be good and they get turned into sort of good luck charms. And when we take something that's normal and make it into a good luck charm. That's a superstition. That's witchcraft. That's wizardry. It is a taking of God's name in vain. It's taking something that's lawful and putting some wicked meaning onto it. Now, 105 of the larger catechism in the first commandment also says this, ascribing the praise of any good we have any good we are, any good we have, or any good that we can do to fortune, idols, ourselves, or any other creature. That's acknowledging a false God. But I want to bring that up here. We don't want to say, that was fortunate. Oh, Fortuna, God of fortune, the God of fate, luck. We want to avoid these things. People understand luck and fortune to be these forces outside of us. We might not think of them that way, but they are still widely thought about that way. People think about being lucky and they have lucky charms to bring good fortune. We should be careful about that. We should attribute things to providence, not fortune. If something's unfortunate, better to say regrettable or sad. Depends on which one it is. But being careful with our language, you say, this seems like nitpicking. We have been told by the God that rules all things to use our words well. We have been told by the Lord Jesus Christ that we will be held accountable for every idle word. If we want to be perfect like our God is perfect, we should use our words with great precision. They have power. They influence the way people think, and they influence the way we think. The way we speak builds habits of thought. And for all the idle words and all of the ways we've taken the Lord's name in vain, praise God that Jesus Christ has died for every single one, all of them, all of our idle words, vain janglings, bad cursings, Page 12, 13, maligning, scorning, reviling, or any wise opposing God's truth, grace, and ways. I don't have time to really go into that right now, but I would encourage you to meditate on it. 14, on page 13, making a profession of religion a hypocrisy, by taking God's name in vain, or for sinister ends, being ashamed of it or ashamed to it by unconformable, unwise, unfruitful, and offensive walking or backsliding from it." So, we are Christians. We have the mark of baptism on us. We have the name of Christ on our lips. We take the Lord's Supper to reaffirm the covenant. Our sins bring shame on the name of Christ. And we must have a strong witness in the face of the great evil that we have. And we have to acknowledge when we fail it. We have to acknowledge and repent of the sins that we commit. There is righteous anger against the evil outside. And we need to, with humility, acknowledge the evil within. And we need to overcome both. It's often contrasted. Deal with the sin that's in you and don't deal with that. Deal with both. We need to deal with both. We'll pause there. And are there any comments, questions or objections from the voting members and those with speaking rights? Okay. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your third commandment. We thank you for the things by which you have revealed yourself. We ask that we would honor your name. We ask that we would honor your word. We ask that you would help us to not be hypocrites, but to be men and women of integrity. I ask that you would cause the word to bring life to our children and to increase the life that we possess. Father, we ask that you would help us to speak your name reverently and in a holy way. That you would make our mouths more and more to be fit instruments to speak the words that you have revealed. We ask that you would give us courage to face down the culture, and to face down each other's sins, and to face down the devil. and to resist our own treasured sins and the falsehoods that we have not yet confronted in our own minds. Father, I ask that you would give to us integrity. I pray this in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. All right. Please stand, open your Psalters to Psalm 1. I'm going to pray briefly for just a second longer. Father, I ask that You would be merciful to us, merciful to our nation and to the church of this nation, that You would forgive us for all of the oath-breaking, for all of the blaspheming, that You would be merciful to us, that You would bring repentance and reformation. I ask that You would cause the taking of Your name in vain that's occurred with the recent enactment of that horrific law I ask that You would cause repentance and that You would bless us for Christ's sake. Amen.