Deuteronomy 12 32 through 14 verse 21. These are God's words. Whatever I command you, be careful to observe it. You shall not add to it nor take away from it. If there arises among you a prophet or a dreamer of dreams, and he gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder comes to pass, of which he spoke to you, saying, let us go after other gods which you have not known, and let us serve them. You shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams, for Yahweh your God is testing you to know whether you love Yahweh your God. With all your heart and with all your soul, you shall walk after Yahweh your God and fear Him, and keep His commandments and obey His voice. You shall serve Him and hold fast to Him. But that prophet or that dreamer of dreams shall be put to death, because he has spoken in order to turn you away from Yahweh your God. who brought you out of the land of Egypt and redeemed you from the house of bondage, to entice you from the way in which Yahweh your God commanded you to walk. So you shall put away the evil from your midst. If your brother, the son of your mother, or your son, or your daughter, the wife of your bosom, or your friend, who is as your own soul, secretly entices you, saying, let us go and serve other gods, which you have not known, neither you nor your fathers, of the gods of the people which are all around you, near to you, or far off from you, from one end of the earth to the other end of the earth, you shall not consent to him or listen to him, nor shall your eye pity him, nor shall you spare him or conceal him, but you shall surely kill him. Your hand shall be first against him, to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people. And you shall stone him with stones until he dies, because he sought to entice you away from Yahweh your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt from the house of bondage. So all Israel shall hear and fear and not again do such wickedness as this among you. If you hear someone in one of your cities in which Yahweh your God gives you to dwell in saying, corrupt men have gone out from among you and enticed the inhabitants of their city. saying, Let us go and serve other gods which you have not known. Then you shall inquire, search out, and ask diligently. And if it is indeed true and certain that such an abomination was committed among you, you shall surely strike the inhabitants of that city with the edge of the sword, utterly destroying it, all that is in it, and its livestock, with the edge of the sword. And you shall gather all its plunder into the middle of the street, and completely burn with fire. the city and all its plunder for Yahweh your God. It shall be a heap forever, it shall not be built again, so none of the accursed things shall remain in your hand. That Yahweh may turn from the fierceness of His anger, and show you mercy, have compassion on you, and multiply you, just as He swore to your fathers. Because you have listened to the voice of Yahweh your God, to keep all His commandments, which I command you today, to do what is right in the eyes of Yahweh your God. You are the children of Yahweh your God. You shall not cut yourselves nor shave the front of your head before the dead, for you are a holy people. to Yahweh your God, and Yahweh has chosen you to be a people for himself, a special treasure above all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. You shall not eat any detestable thing. These are the animals which you may eat, the ox, the sheep, the goat, the deer, the gazelle, the roe, the roe deer, the wild goat, The mountain goat, the antelope, the mountain sheep. You may eat every animal with cloven hooves, having the hooves split into two parts, and that chews the cud among the animals. Nevertheless, of those that chew the cud or have cloven hooves, you shall not eat, such as these, camel, hare, rock, and rock hyrax, for they chew the cud but do not have cloven hooves. They aren't clean for you. Also, swine is unclean for you because it has cloven hooves, yet does not chew the cud. You shall not eat their flesh or touch their dead carcasses. These you may eat of all that are in the waters. You may eat all that have fins and scales. Whatever does not have fins and scales, you shall not eat. It is unclean for you. All clean birds you may eat, but these you shall not eat. The eagle, the vulture, the buzzard, the red kite, the falcon, and the kite after their kinds. Every raven after its kind. the ostrich, the short-eared owl, the seagull, and the hawk, after their kinds, the little owl, the screech owl, the white owl, the jackdaw, the carrion vulture, the fisher owl, the stork, the heron, after its kind, and the hoopoe and the bat. Also, every creeping thing that flies is unclean for you. They shall not be eaten. You may eat all clean birds. You shall not eat anything that dies of itself. You may give it to the alien who is within your gates. He may eat it, or you may sell it to a foreigner, for you are a holy people to Yahweh your God. You shall not boil a young goat in its mother's milk. Amen. So far the reading of God's inspired inerrant word. Well, in our section today, the Lord applies the third commandment to the life of the nation of Israel. You shall not take the name of Yahweh your God in vain. For Yahweh will not hold him guiltless, that taketh his name in vain. Or, more literally, you shall not bear the name of Yahweh your God lightly or emptily. And this applies to the bearing of his name on our lips and the bearing of his name on our lives, and it applies to us both individually and corporately. Now, verse 32 of chapter 12, which is really an introduction to this section rather than the conclusion, to the Second Commandment, or the section applying the Second Commandment, is appropriate to this because God's Word is that by which He has most fully and clearly communicated Himself, He has exalted His Word above all His name. And if we add anything to the scripture or take away anything from the scripture, we take this self-disclosure of God and treat him and it lightly. Not only that, but it is his word by which we are to be brought near to him and instructed in the way of holiness and righteousness. And so there's a special responsibility that belongs to those who claim to be prophets. And we should know that God expects us to adhere to the words and the pages of his book, not to listen to prophets because they seem impressive or even because they are able to execute signs. The Lord tells him in chapter 13 that he is actually going to permit false prophets to have successful signs and wonders. We saw this to some extent with the Egyptian magicians and the beginnings of the plagues in Egypt. But the Lord says that He will test them by permitting the false prophets to accomplish their signs. This is one reason why you should never accept or make or be influenced by an argument that people make for the propriety of anything theologically or worship-related based upon the supposed outcome that has been produced, because God may allow even miraculous signs to be accomplished in order to test us to see whether we love Him and whether we will walk after him and fear him, and keep his commandments." Verses 3 and 4 in chapter 13. It was very dangerous then to speak as a prophet or a dreamer of dreams and speak not that which is from God's word, but that which draws other people, draws people after other gods or to worship in other ways to commit abomination. That prophet or dreamer of dreams in the administration of the nation of Israel where the church and the state were together and excommunicated, as it were, by the power of the sword, that prophet and dreamer of dreams was to be executed. One who adds or takes away from the word of God and what he preaches should be put out of the church, put out of office, put out of the church. Well, it's not just those who are officers of the church that are a third commandment threat to our keeping of the second commandment and our sinning. It is especially those who are nearest of kin to us. those closest to us in the family, those closest to us as friends. Sure, maybe those of you who are younger have not been aware or have not been paying attention, but we have seen several cases in which people were very close friends with someone who turned away from the Lord, turned away from the truth, and rather than being the first to condemn them and charge them that they might be properly Disciplined and put out of the church. They instead were unduly influenced by this family member or friend but it's really not those with bad doctrine and Spirituality and immorality who are out in the world that are the greatest danger to us Certainly, they are a danger to influence us. There's those who are officers in the church or who are nearest of kin Or even who are from other churches. That's the primary ongoing application for us of verses 12 through 16 Where you have a city that has not been executing those who are Heretical and turning people after other gods and then there go out from their city those who start to corrupt others and In that case, the Lord commanded that the entire city be put to death to the edge of the sword. Everything in the city plundered, and the plunder not taken, but burned, and the city reduced to rubble and never built again. Now, congregations are no longer cities, and the church no longer has the power of the sword, but this does establish biblical precedent for corporate church discipline. that if a church does not exercise church discipline within that congregation so that those who are theologically and spiritually dangerous to men's souls and blaspheming to God's name are permitted to not only Not only are they permitted to continue within their congregation, but inevitably they start infecting other congregations than the other congregations of Christ's Church, namely by way of a presbytery, as we have revealed to us in in the New Testament, must put that entire congregation out of the church. And so there is this responsibility not only for individual Church discipline but for corporate church discipline and if you're a member in such a church and you know That discipline is to be exercised. You have a duty to ask your elders about the false theology or the immorality that is being permitted and to bring charges as As necessary and as every member has a right to do and if exercise isn't being disciplined Discipline is not being exercised within your church then according to the biblical marks of a church It's not a church and you should join another so that if and when the Lord does grant to his church to exercise corporate church discipline properly, that you would not be put out with the putting out of that entire congregation. Now, this is something that is definitely not practiced in our day and age, where the Lord has put us and we may weep and grieve over that and seek from God. that he would give reformation and revival? Hardly is there a church that practices individual church discipline, let alone a presbytery, that is willing to discipline the officers or even the congregation of a church that is not exercising discipline that is affecting others. But we see here the great concern in all of these is especially the holiness of God's name. You deal with the false prophet, verse five, to put away the evil from your midst. You deal with the family members so that all Israel hears and fears and such wickedness is not done among you. You deal with the false church so that, verse 17, none of their accursed things remain in your hand. You don't try to salvage it. You plant a different church, but the heretical church is done. None of these accursed things remain in your hand, and Yahweh returns from the fierceness of his anger and shows mercy and compassion and multiplies. that you may do what is right in the eyes of Yahweh. And so there's the necessity of honoring, treating God's name as weighty on our lips, especially in our doctrine and our worship and our church discipline. But there's also the necessity of bearing God's name weightily, treating God's name as honorable and weighty on our lives. There's this wonderful four-fold description of what a believer or what a church member is in the opening verses of chapter 14 that urge us to holiness of life. You are the children of Yahweh your God. Now there's a lot of wonderful stuff in the doctrine of adoption and Fellowship with God and inheritance and all of those things but in this particular case Coming as it does in the context of the third commandment It's a reminder that among other things one of the great things that that a child is is a being who carries your name And the Lord, having referred to Israel as his firstborn son when he was demanding that Pharaoh let them go, now turns to them and says, you are the children of Yahweh your God. You have the Lord's family name. upon you. Not only are you children, but, verse 2, you are holy and chosen and a special treasure, and this is the reason not to have tattoos or brands or cuttings or hairstyles, the shaving of the front of your head for the dead, that attempt to imprint a particular identity or association with something else. You don't have that option. You've already been given a particular identity. You've already been given a particular association, and it's the best one you can possibly have. Why would you mark in your flesh or attempt by your appearance to stamp some other identity when the identity you already have is child and holy and chosen and special treasure of the Lord of Yahweh? Do you see what a glorious thing it was? Even before Christ was the mediator and now it is of Yahweh in Christ with Christ himself in Christ's name and Christ's spirit. being the mark, the tattoo, if you will, of being child and holy and chosen and special treasure. And so the people who come to Leviticus or to Deuteronomy 14 and say, well, you see, it's part of the ceremonial law, so that's been abrogated and tattooing is fine now. Let's all go get a bunch of tattoos to show how reformed we are. They miss the whole logic of the text and the fact that what's being applied here is the moral law, the third commandment, and bearing God's name upon us and ourselves weightily. Now, how weightily were they to bear God's name upon themselves? It was to factor into even what they ate. And this is such a wonderful application of what it is that Israel are Yahweh's children. Because the Lord prescribes a specific diet for them. It has nothing to do with whether or not these foods are healthful. If it did, God would not celebrate the new covenant and his son being the mediator by saying, you are now free to poison yourselves nutritionally. It's the Lord prescribing for his people a particular diet, just the way parents get to be the ones who prescribe for their children a particular diet, and you know what family they're from because they're the ones who can't eat all the rest of the stuff on the bar at lunch. Because they're from that family. Well, God prescribed for His people a particular diet, so that even when they sat down to eat, the content on the plates would be a reminder that they bear God's name upon themselves, and they would treat His name as weighty and honorable, even in whatever they ate. and how they prepared it, which reminds us that whether we eat or drink or whatever we do, we should do all for the glory of God, and that this especially applies to the fact that He's put His name on us. So everything in life, there's nothing so small in our lives that we should not be treating God's name as big by how we do it. We bear His name weightily. not only on our lips, but also on our lives. He explains the reason for all of the food laws. He gives us kind of a condensed version of what he has done before in Leviticus chapter 11, and gives in the conclusion in verse 21, for you are a holy people to Yahweh your God. That's the point of the holiness code. that you would remember whose you are. And so a big part of applying the third commandment in our lives is that in everything we do, we would remember whose we are. And our goal would be to do it in a manner that brings honor to the name that has been put upon us. Will the Lord give us so to make application of the third commandment in our lives. Amen. Let's pray. Father, we are so grateful to you for adopting us as children and consecrating us as holy. because it pleased you to choose us and to count us as your special treasure. Give us to think and speak and live according to this holiness, and grant that we would not be careless with your name, whether on our lips or in our lives. We thank you that the Lord Jesus has perfectly honored your name. and that you have honored your own name by pouring out your wrath against our sin on him. Now make us to be like him, we pray, in the way that we honor your name, we ask in his name. Amen.