Exodus 20, verse seven, we're going to look at one of the Ten Commandments. Last time I spoke here, we looked at the beginning of Ephesians five, and one of the issues we talked about was language. That's the text where Paul says, let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk, nor crude language, nor crude joking. So we talked a bit about that. That was really only one of my points, but it was the thing everybody wanted to talk to me about afterward. It's a major issue these days because filthy language and foolish talk have become the defining emblems of public discourse in our society. It used to be that dirty jokes and filthy language were relegated to private talk between ungodly people. But now there is practically no word and no subject so vile that it's considered inappropriate for public consumption. And so our culture's entertainment and casual discourse are filled with filthiness and foolish talk. And lately, this has been a huge matter of discussion and debate among evangelicals. What are the limits of acceptable language? How filthy is too filthy and how foolish is too foolish. And what's sad is that this issue was not placed on the table for discussion by people who understand that Christians should stand out like shining lights in the midst of a wicked and perverse generation, you know, being known for our purity and our fear of God. But this whole issue keeps coming to the forefront because it is being pushed by people who insist that in order to reach our culture we must speak the language of the gutter. And they say it's prudish and legalistic to be so concerned about words, they say, and we're losing a generation because we don't speak their language. And so now there is a whole subculture of evangelical preachers who think that the best way to be relevant is to pepper their sermons with deliberately coarse language, crude expressions, Off-color subject matter, lewd jokes, things like that. And it seems like I encounter a fresh example of this almost every week. I would cite some of the worst examples for you, but honestly, I couldn't even find a way to describe what some of these preachers have said from their pulpits without breaching the boundaries of good taste and biblical propriety in the process. One of the best known examples of this involves an influential pastor who did a sermon series on the humanity of Christ in which he illustrated Christ's humanity with a whole bunch of toilet humor. And then that same pastor did a sermon series on the Song of Solomon which he started out with a joke about homosexuality in which he made Jesus the punchline. Now, let me be clear, there should be no debate about whether that kind of thing is inappropriate or not. That was not merely a breach of our duty to avoid filthy talk. That was flat out blasphemy. And in fact, here is one of the grave dangers posed by this postmodern influx of filthy talk and foolish joking among Christians. It destroys our reverence for things that are holy. You deliberately blur the line between what is filthy and what is pure, and you will soon start treating everything in a filthy way when you start making locker room jokes about Christ from the pulpit. If a massive alarm doesn't go off in your own heart and conscience, that's a very bad sign, because out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. And Jesus said, Matthew 12, it's an evil person who out of his evil treasure brings forth evil. And so when filthy talk and foolish joking reaches that point in the pulpit, we've gone miles past Whatever gray area you might think lies between the realm of pure speech, which we're supposed to cultivate and filthy, foolish talk, which we are commanded to avoid. When a preacher is making smutty jokes with Jesus as the punch line, that is blasphemy, pure and simple. It shows an extreme lack of reverence about things that are holy, a lack of fear for God. And it reflects a spirit of gross defiance against the third commandment. And that's what I want to look at this morning. I wish we had time to go into the whole context. I've done a complete series on the on the Ten Commandments, which has a lot of this context. But this morning, I just want to jump into the third commandment, which is found in Exodus 20, verse seven. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain. For the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain. That's the commandment, and it sounds simple. Do not misuse the name of the Lord your God. But the moral precept behind this commandment is not so simple. It is very far reaching, very broad, very deep. And frankly, it steps on all of our toes, as David says in Psalm 119, verse 96, that the longest of David's Psalms. And it's all about the word of God and his meditation on the law of God. And in verse 96 of Psalm 119, he says, Your commandment is exceedingly broad. The lessons and implications of God's law are boundless, which is why David spoke so much about meditating on the law. Your commandment is exceedingly broad. That's also one of the main points Jesus made in the Sermon on the Mount, that the law of God is not to be interpreted in a narrow sense. The commandments of God are not to be taken in any wooden, literal interpretation that only applies the letter of the law. But the commandments are broad and their applications are numerous. And every one of God's commandments outlines for us a whole array of duties. And every one of them forbids a great variety of sins. And this commandment, which is very short, just a single verse, is nonetheless one of the most substantial and significant of all the commandments. And unfortunately, it's also one of the most frequently broken commandments and one of the most thoughtlessly broken commandments. While I was preparing my notes for this message, I heard a guy in my neighbor's backyard break forth with a loud string of expletives. I don't even know what it was about. They were having a party or a get together, a family gathering over there. And this guy managed in the space of two sentences to blaspheme God's name in about four different ways. And I doubt if he ever gave it a second thought. That's typical, actually, the vain use of God's name has become part of everyday discourse in our society, expletives and exclamations that employ the name of God that used to be bleeped on network television. Now they're common fair, even on television, and the censors rarely pay attention to that kind of language. Just this week, I heard some anchor people on the news abuse God's name three times in the space of about 10 seconds, and that hardly raises an eyebrow these days. And even among Christians, I find that the trivial and frivolous use of God's name is sadly becoming commonplace. I hear it occasionally, even among members of our own congregation, and it's shocking. But even in Christian circles, there seems to be a decreasing concern about taking God's name in vain. In real life, people still cringe and blush when someone uses one of those four letter Saxon words. You know, our culture still deems some of those words obscene and too coarse for public contexts. That's diminishing, but it's still there, and that's why I think it's ridiculous, frankly, to argue that Christians can't really communicate effectively if we don't speak that language, too. But our culture has become so accustomed to hearing God's name misused that the average person hardly even thinks about it. OMG, maybe the single most commonly used abbreviation in contemporary text messaging. People don't give it a thought. But did you realize the frivolous use of God's name is an even worse sin than the use of those coarse words and vulgarities? As shocked as you are when you hear someone use right out loud a dirty word about some body function or something, you ought to be more outraged when someone uses God's name in vain. But this commandment involves far more than just how we use language. In fact, I don't think it's even primarily about language. Notice the way the commandment is stated. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain. It doesn't talk about speaking his name, so it doesn't forbid us merely to speak the Lord's name in vain. It forbids any wrongful appropriation or abuse of the Lord's name. I think it's interesting the way it's worded, don't take the name of it. We're accustomed to that expression, so we don't really give it a thought. But what it's saying is do not appropriate God's name in any vain way. Don't use it for anything that's not meaningful. Don't use it in any vile way. For example, when you call yourself a Christian, you have an effect taken the Lord's name. You are borrowing the Lord's name, Christ. and using it as a descriptor of who you are. And, of course, there's nothing wrong with that as long as you do it with the appropriate reverence and conscientiousness. I am a Christian. That's a biblical expression. It's used twice in the book of Acts and once in first Peter four sixteen. So there's nothing wrong with calling yourself a Christian if. You act the way Christ would have you act. But if you act in a different way, if you call yourself a Christian and you really aren't. Or if you call yourself a Christian and act like you're not, you have taken his name in vain. That's the very definition of taking his name in vain. You are guilty of using his name, taking it unto yourself and then using it in an empty and meaningless way. And as we are about to see, that is an especially wicked sin. This is not a triviality we're talking about. This is not one of those minor sins. Even though we're probably all guilty of it, far from being a menial and trifling matter, this is a sin that God himself marks out as particularly serious and abominable. And there are three parts to this commandment that I want to point out, the first is a restriction, a restriction. If you want to take notes, there are three parts. We'll notice each one. First, a restriction. The restriction is explicitly stated. It's easy. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain. That's the restriction. Don't misuse the Lord's name. Don't take it in vain. By the way, that Hebrew word that's translated take is from a word that means to lift up. It can also mean to bear, to carry, even to wear. It was a word used to to speak of putting on clothing. So to take the Lord's name meant to lift it up or to use it or to put it on yourself in some form or fashion and to do something in vain means to do it in an empty way with no good purpose in a meaningless way. So to take God's name in vain means to use it in an inappropriate or hollow way. And that can be done in two ways. It's done, first of all, when we use his name without any reference to him. And it's done, secondly, when we use his name without the proper reverence for him. I want to look at those one at a time, just briefly. First of all, people use God's name without any reference to him all the time. Our society has turned God's name, turned all of God's names into expletives. There's hardly a name for God or an expression about him that hasn't in some form or fashion been turned into an expletive. His name is used all the time when the speaker has no thought of him whatsoever. His name is used as an expression of shock, as a curse, as an explanation, exclamation of disgust. As a punctuation in something as trivial as a teenage girl's text message. And sometimes even as a meaningful expletive in the most profane and vile kind of speech. But this commandment means we're not to use God's name at all, unless we're using it to speak of him. To speak God's name in any context that makes no meaningful reference to him is the very definition of using his name in vain, and that is a sin, a grievous sin, according to this commandment. It's also a sin to use God's name if you use it in a way that fails to show Him the proper reverence. Jokes about God. Lighthearted references to Him in our speech. Even insincere or hypocritical invocations of God's name. All of these are violations of this commandment. Now that hits close to home because frankly, if you think about it, it is very easy to be guilty of this. You know, the preacher takes a vacation or his ministry takes him to someplace desirable like Hawaii or Italy, and inevitably someone will come and say. So you're suffering for Jesus this week, huh? Every pastor has heard that joke at least a dozen times, and I cringe whenever somebody says that because not just because it's an old trite joke, that's bad enough, but it's also a subtle way of invoking the Lord's name in vain. It uses his name for the purposes of a joke. In an insincere and frivolous way, and that may seem a perfectly petty thing, but that's the whole point of this commandment. That's not a petty thing. It's not a small sin. It's a serious one. We should never speak God's name in a cheap or irreverent manner. Maybe another example, not so trivial at the Democratic National Convention this summer, a supposedly evangelical pastor. was asked to lead in prayer one night and I was watching it and listening to his prayer wasn't bad, mostly. But before he closed his prayer, he stopped in the middle of his prayer and addressed the audience. And he said, now I interrupt this prayer for a closing instruction, he said, because we are all gathered in a country that continues to welcome people of all faiths. Let us personalize this prayer by closing according to our own tradition. And so he said, on the count of three, You end this prayer as you usually would do. And then real quickly, he counted one, two, three, in Jesus name. Amen. While others said their prayer to Allah or Sophia or Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama or whoever the Democrats are praying to these days. I said that in the first hour and a lady wrote me a note and said, shame on you for taking a partisan position. Well, it's not a partisan position. The Republicans are no better. And in fact, the portions of their conventions that I watched didn't even have prayers. I'm sure they did somewhere, but you could say the same thing. It's not a party issue. It's a problem with our whole culture. People use God's name in vain all the time, and we never think of it. For that man, a pastor, to lead a prayer like that was an irreverent use of Jesus' name. And it was an illegitimate invocation of God's name in prayer for the purposes of political correctness. He used God's name. He used Christ's name in a way that was designed to please his audience, not in a way that showed proper reverence to the God of Scripture. Frankly, I would have preferred to have an Islamic imam leading the Democrats in a prayer to Allah. Then they have an evangelical pastor up there basically telling them that it doesn't matter which God you pray to or whose name you come to him in. Under the guise of addressing God in Jesus name, he was making a political statement that was as wrong as if he had invoked Jesus name in a profane oath. This is very serious business. We're not to use God's name unless we are making a legitimate reference to him and him alone. And we're not to use his name unless we are showing appropriate reverence to him, which means recognizing that he alone is God. Either either one of those to use his name and not refer to him or to use his name and not be reverent toward him, either is a misuse of God's name and a sin, according to this third commandment. In other words, God has declared it a sin to employ his name unless we are speaking to him or about him. If you're not actually speaking to God or if you're not literally speaking about him with the reverence that is due his name, then don't use his name at all. God has every right to guard the use of his name in that way. In fact, even in the corporate world, we understand this principle. A company's name is its trademark. and vice versa. And there are laws that govern the use of trademarks and it's unlawful to employ a company name or trademark in a way that is not authorized by the trademark owner. And the trademark owner has the right to say who can use the trademark and how they get to use it. And if you misuse a company's trademark, that company is entitled to sue you and collect damages. The law recognizes that principle. And furthermore, if the company whose name you misuse is big enough and the trademark is important enough, those damages can be substantial. If you work in the corporate world, and especially if you've ever done any work with trademarks or advertising, you wouldn't even think of infringing the trademark of a major corporation like IBM or Coca-Cola. And if you understand that principle, you can begin to understand what an infinitely more serious issue it is to take the Lord's name in vain. There are only two proper reasons for using the name of God, one is to glorify him. And the other is to edify others and any other reason for invoking the name of God is light and frivolous and ought to be avoided. So that's the restriction that is imposed by this commandment. And let me say, if you think that sounds very strict, you're right. If you think it sounds almost legalistic in an Old Testament fashion, you're right about that, too. But our culture has become so lax towards this that we think this is not a serious thing. Scripture says it is. So if you're taking notes, that's the first point. It was a restriction. The second is a requirement. A requirement. Now, there is a requirement here, it's not explicitly stated, but there is nevertheless a positive requirement that is the necessary ramification of the restriction. And so there's a positive requirement set forth in this verse, and it's this. This commandment requires us to sanctify the Lord's name in our hearts. It requires us to sanctify the Lord's name in our hearts. If we are negatively forbidden to speak the Lord's name vainly with our lips, then by good and necessary consequence, we are also positively taught by this commandment to exalt the Lord's name in our hearts. And again, this is a very broad commandment. This sounds like a simple thing, exalt the Lord's name in your heart, sanctify God's name in your thinking and your mind and your thoughts and all of that. That sounds pretty simple, but it's not so simple when you begin to unpack it. This is a very broad commandment and involved in it are a host of positive duties. And you won't understand all these duties if you don't understand what Scripture means when it speaks of the name of God. So let's talk about that for a moment. What is God's name? God's name is not merely a word. In fact, on this point, the Jehovah's Witnesses are seriously in error, not just on this point, but this is one of their one of their fundamental errors. They insist that God has one proper name and it's the word Jehovah. That's where their name comes from. And they insist that that name, Jehovah, and that alone is God's proper name. And in fact, they strongly object to the fact that in most English translations of the Bible, the Hebrew name for God is translated Lord. And they insist that God should be known instead by the name Jehovah, and so for that reason and also to change a few texts that don't really comport well with their doctrine. They've got their own translation of the scripture where all those instances of the Hebrew name of God are translated as Jehovah. And they would no doubt interpret the third commandment as a reference to the word Jehovah. Now, there are several problems with that view on this in the first place. Jehovah isn't really the Hebrew word by which God is known in scripture. That's not even the name given in the Bible. That's an anglicized version of God's name. And if you transliterated it directly from the Hebrew, it's actually a four letter word with no vowels. Y H W H. And in modern Hebrew usage, it's sometimes pronounced Yahweh. But nobody really knows what the proper pronunciation is. In Old Testament times, it wasn't pronounced at all for fear of pronouncing it incorrectly. And when the Bible was translated into English, the letters were anglicized so that the Y became a J and the W became a V and and vowels were inserted. So it turns out to be Jehovah. Exodus six, three is the first place it appears. But that's an anglicized version, the four letter name of God, the Hebrew word that's practically unpronounceable, is sometimes referred to as the Tetragrammaton. Meaning this word with four letters. And again, in Old Testament times, it was used only as a written symbol, never spoken as an audible name. And that emphasized the inability of God, his unspeakable and nameless majesty. So it sort of symbolized the fact that God is high above anything we could speak or describe or even have a word for. Now, let me be clear, there's nothing wrong with pronouncing the word Jehovah or even Yahweh, for that matter. The third commandment is not about mispronouncing the name of God. It's not even about using God's name as a word, speaking it out loud, but it is about using God's name in vain. And those are not the same thing, mispronouncing it, using it in vain. Fear of pronouncing the name of God resulted in all kinds of superstitions in first century Jewish belief, they believed it was wrong to invoke God's name, especially in an oath or in everyday speech. So they substituted various euphemisms. And so instead of speaking about God, they spoke about heaven instead of saying the name of God, they substituted his attributes and Christ rebuked those superstitions. Look at Matthew 23. This is a long chapter that's one long diatribe against the Pharisees and their religion. And so he's dismantling a whole lot of these pharisaical traditions which were rooted in superstition. And this approach to using the name of God and not using the name of God was one of them. And look at verse 16. Jesus says, Woe to you, blind guides who say if anyone swears by the temple, it is nothing. But if anyone swears by the gold of the temple, he is bound by his oath. OK, let's stop there and unpack this. Here's the background on that verse. Here is how they reason. See, rather than swearing an oath by God's name and risking a violation of the Third Commandment, they would swear by the temple. But since they had sworn by the temple rather than swearing by God's name, they they started not to take their oaths very seriously. Didn't mean much if you swore by the temple, they thought. And so it's just no big infraction if you breached an oath where you'd sworn by the temple. And so obviously making those kinds of oaths didn't mean anything to anybody. And so they devised a way of making their oath a little more solemn. They made a rule that if you swore by the gold of the temple, then your oath was binding and you'd be a debtor if you broke your word. So now look at a verse 18. Here was another one of these rules about oaths. Jesus says, if anyone swears by the altar, it is nothing. But if he swears by the gift that is on the altar, he is bound by his oath. That was there. That was, again, their tradition. Rather than swearing by God's name, they swore by the altar. the place where sinners met God. And it was wrong to swear by God's name, they said, but it's OK to swear by the altar. And so, again, this had the effect of making them regard their oaths as nothing particularly solemn. So they made a new rule. OK, if you swear by the offering that's on the altar, then that's binding. Jesus said, that's ridiculous. Verse 17, you blind fools. For which is greater? The gold or the temple that has made the gold sacred? And verse 19, you blind men, which is greater, the gift or the altar that makes the gift sacred? So whoever swears by the altar swears by it and everything on it. And whoever swears by the temple swears by it and by him who dwells in it. And whoever swears by heaven swears by the throne of God and by him who sits upon it. You hear what Jesus is saying there? He's saying if you swear by the dwelling place of God or by the attributes of God or by anything that pertains to God, you have, in effect, sworn by God's name already. And here's his point, God's name is more than a word. Now, turn to Matthew five, you're still a Matthew. Matthew five, verse thirty four, This is, of course, part of the Sermon on the Mount. And Jesus says, verse 34, I say to you, do not take an oath at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, or by the earth, for it is His footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it's the city of the great King. Same principle. Anything that invokes God's dwelling place or His creation or anything that is dear to Him is, in effect, an oath uttered in His name. If you make an oath like that and break it, you've taken his name in vain. That makes the third commandment exceedingly broad, doesn't it? OK, are you ready for a definition of what Scripture means when it speaks of the name of God? Here it is. God's name. is that by which he is called that by which he is made known to us and that by which his nature and his perfections are revealed to us. All of that is God's name. That is the biblical expression of that's the biblical meaning of the expression the name of God. It's that by which he is called that by which he is made known to us and that by which his nature and his perfections are revealed to us. It involves far more than just a word, but it practically embraces everything that is true about God. And so his name then would include all his titles, such as Jehovah, Adonai, Elohim, Lord, God, and all the many titles of God that are given to us in Scripture. It would also include all the designations of each member of the Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, as well as the names scripture uses for them, Jesus Christ, the word, the comforter, Abba, and all the other names by which the persons of the Trinity are made known. But it includes not only God's titles and his names, it includes his attributes as well. Take special note of this, because one of the ways the people of God today are guilty of taking God's name in vain is by the flippant mention of his attributes. Most of us would never dream of using God's name as an exclamation or an expression of anger or expression of disgust, but we sometimes do that with his attributes, don't we? How many times have you heard Christians say things like mercy or goodness or gracious or heavens or even my word? Sounds pretty benign, doesn't it? But think about it. When we say things like that, we are using God's attributes in place of his name. And it's a way of using the Lord's name in vain, the very same way the Pharisees did in Jesus day. To say something like merciful heavens is, in effect, to invoke the name of God and to use an expression like that as an exclamation without any real reference to God is to take his name in vain. Now, someone's bound to say, well, that's too restrictive, that's legalistic, but think about it. Those are divine attributes, and that is why those expressions have made it into our lexicons. They are substitutes. for God's name. Minced oats is the technical name for them. We wouldn't use words like that in an exclamatory way. I mean, it doesn't even make sense to do it, except for the fact that they are substitutes for God's name. Now, I'm not going to follow you around and smack your hands every time you say good heavens or holy cow. You might even catch me saying those things. But in light of Jesus' rebuke to the Pharisees, we ought to consider what we say, why we say what we say and how we use our language. And we ought to guard our tongues. That is the point of this commandment. And God's name includes not only his titles and his attributes, but also his works, his glory, his ordinances and even his word. We're not to speak lightly or flippantly of any of those things that are sacred. And in fact, in the Lord's Prayer, when we pray, hallowed be thy name, we are formally recognizing our duty to honor God's name. To honor all his attributes, to honor everything about him that is sacred, whenever all any of those things are mentioned, it's our duty to do that, we recognize that duty by praying the Lord's Prayer. Begin to see how far reaching this commandment is. Consider some of the specific sins that are forbidden by this commandment, it rules out blasphemy, of course, and it rules out hypocrisy, because, as I said, if you call yourself a Christian and behave in an unchristlike manner. You've, in effect, taken his name in vain and certainly rules out cursing. And by that, I mean the thoughtless invocation of God's name or his power in wishing evil on something or someone. How often do people flippantly pronounce damnation against anything and everyone they don't like? That practice has become so familiar, such a natural part of everyday speech for some people that We see it on television all the time. We don't even think about it. I'm always amazed at the atheists who claim they don't have a God to believe in, but they certainly have a God by which to frivolously damn anything and everyone whom they don't like. This commandment rules out swearing unnecessarily, and I don't have in mind the use of profanity when I say swearing. I'm talking about those careless vows people often pepper their speech with, like I swear on a stack of Bibles or I swear on my mother's grave or whatever. Jesus said, if you swear by that which is precious to God, you have sworn an oath in his name. And he said we should avoid the use. of oaths like that in our everyday speech, casual oath making. In fact, let me pause here to say that Matthew 534 doesn't rule out lawful oaths. Some people have a hard time with this. Matthew 534, which I just read a minute ago, says, I say to you, do not take an oath at all. And in James 5 verse 12, James writes this. Above all, my brothers, do not swear either by heaven or by earth or by any other oath, but let your yes be yes and your no be no, so that you may not fall under condemnation. Notice, James is treating this as a serious thing. You do this casually, you could fall under condemnation. And some people read those texts, including the Jehovah's Witnesses again, and some Anabaptist sects, and even some Evangelicals read that and believe that it rules out all oaths of any kind for the Christian, it doesn't. If you look at any of those passages in context, they're talking about our everyday speech, everyday discourse, our conversations with one another. The biblical principle that governs those conversations is simply let your yes be yes and let your no be no. There's no need to make oaths in your casual speech. Your word should be your bond. That doesn't exclude lawful oaths, like when you're sworn in to testify in court or when you take an oath of office or when you get married, you take an oath and it's a legitimate oath. Those kinds of oaths are not prohibited in Scripture. And in fact, there are times when oaths are to be sworn solemnly before God. But to make an oath flippantly or offhandedly is to take the Lord's name in vain. Whether you explicitly invoke the name of God or not, because all oaths are solemn promises made with God as our witness. That's the whole point of making an oath. You call God to be your witness and to swear falsely. only compounds the guilt of the person who takes such a flippant oath. It involves the sin of lying and the sin of taking God's name in vain in a deliberate falsehood. And so this commandment, follow with me, it prohibits blasphemy, cursing, swearing unnecessarily, and it also prohibits any careless or insincere use of the name of God in our speech. And I would include the practice of some Christians who use God's name over and over like punctuation when they pray. And people who sing God bless America is a statement of patriotism rather than a prayer to God. And preachers who say bless God or glory to God all the time, use it like a throwaway line. You know, you hear preachers say that bless God and they use it like a rim shot after they tell a joke. The Third Commandment prohibits that. And it prohibits something else as well. It forbids us to take titles and names for ourself that properly belong to God. Jesus dealt with this again in that diatribe against the Pharisees, Matthew 23, verses eight through ten. I'll read it to you. Jesus said this. But don't be called rabbi, for one is your master, even Christ. And you are all brethren and call no man your father upon the earth, for one is your father, which is in heaven. Neither be called masters for one is your master, even Christ. Now, obviously, Jesus was not prohibiting the use of titles like master and father in their normal everyday context. I'm a father. My sons call me father. I have a father. I call him father. That's legitimate. If you're a schoolmaster, you don't have to change your title to be in accord with what Jesus was teaching here. In fact, the Apostle Paul addressed fathers as fathers in Ephesians and he called them fathers. So what this prohibits is the use of a term like father or master as a title of religious veneration. That's what it prohibits. Spiritually, you have only one father. That's what Jesus was saying. He says you only have one father. Well, he obviously didn't mean in earthly and physical terms because you have an earthly physical father who is not your father in heaven. But when he says that he identifies what he's talking about here and its titles of spiritual veneration. An earthly clergyman who accepts the title father is in violation of this commandment. He has taken a title that properly belongs to God alone and he has taken that name in vain. Let me take this a step further. We can take God's name in vain, not only through our words, but also by our thoughts and our deeds and sometimes even by neglect. Consider this. When you pray, you pray in Jesus name. So to pray wrongly is a violation of the third commandment that includes superficial praying, and it also includes praying for the wrong thing. Let me say this about superficial praying, because I want to confess to you, I am guilty of this. I think we are all guilty of this. When you stand in the church service pretending to join in corporate prayer, but you're reading the bulletin or allowing your mind to wander and think about other things, you are taking the Lord's name in vain in an abominable way. And again, I shudder to think how often I am guilty of this. Whoever leads the music in Grace Life from week to week always closes the singing time with prayer just before I go up to speak. And most of the time I find myself thinking about what I'm going to say, what's my first sentence going to be when I get up there, rather than entering into the prayer with my heart. Or we'll have, you know, corporate prayer and somebody standing at the back asking me a question. We're all guilty of this. I'm betting all of you are guilty of this because this is so easy to do. We take God's name in vain when we sing praise songs without sincerely meaning what we are singing. If you find yourself thinking why you're what we're singing as a congregation, you're thinking about how good your harmony sounds or if you're too distracted because the person next to you doesn't sound so good. Or you think the instruments are too loud or whatever. And that's what you're thinking about when we're praising the Lord corporately. You are taking the Lord's name in vain in your singing. And instrumentalists not to pick on the percussion section or anything. But when you think of your playing as a performance or when you allow the noise you are making to drown out the words of praise, you are taking the Lord's name in vain. I told you this is a broad commandment and the truth of it goes deep, doesn't it? And think about this, when you pray without meaning, you know, when you recite a cursory cliche prayer over a meal or in your morning devotions, you are taking the Lord's name in vain. And most of us do that routinely. And not only that, when we carelessly pray for the wrong thing, we're taking the Lord's name in vain, Jesus said in John fourteen verse fourteen, whatever you ask in my name, I will do that. The father may be glorified in the sun. If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it. Now, lots of people think that gives us a blank check to pray for anything we desire as long as we tack on it, the phrase in Jesus name. But that is not what it means. Prayer in Jesus name means praying for that which he approves. That which is consistent with his character, that which he has authorized us to pray for, just like if I gave you my checkbook and said, you pay my bills this week and you do it in my name, you can sign power of attorney for me. Jesus, in effect, gives us power of attorney in our prayer. We're using his name, but you cannot use his name legitimately without regard for his will. And if you do, you are taking his name in vain. And by the way, I've said this, let me let me mention it even even more specifically, that phrase in Jesus name is not a formula magic words to be added to our prayers just to make them effectual. So that God will have to give us whatever we want, if we just use that phrase at the end, praying in Jesus name means praying for that which he desires. And so when we pray in Jesus name, it's as if we are coming to the father on his behalf. How dare we think we can use his name to obtain something he himself would never pray for. I thought about this a couple of weeks ago when I went to the. Third game in the playoff series, and I'm a Cubs fan and the Cubs got swept by the Dodgers, and I found myself there praying for my favorite team. Anytime you pray for anything on greedy motives or selfish frivolous things, James said, you ask and do not receive because you ask wrongly to spend it on your passions. James four three. Maybe it's my fault, the Cubs lost. But what James is saying very serious here, if you pray out of sinful motives, you are not praying in Jesus name, even if you recite the words in Jesus name at the end of your prayer, if you do that, You're taking his name in vain. Which is one of the main reasons I was so uneasy a few years ago with the Jabez phenomenon, when that was so popular, you know. We had multitudes of people reciting the prayer of Jabez, praying selfishly, thinking they were justified in doing so, as if this verse of scripture were a magic formula for getting whatever they want. That is not a biblical approach to prayer. And worse than that, it involves the sin of taking God's name in vain. And I want to stress, this is not a petty or insignificant sin. And in fact, that brings us to the third aspect of this commandment. If you're taking notes, the first was a restriction. Don't misuse the Lord's name. Second was a requirement. Sanctify the Lord's name in your hearts. Now we come to a reason. And here's the reason God gives for giving us the third commandment. For the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain. God himself promises requital to those who take his name in vain. This is a sin that incurs a particular guilt. I said it's not trivial. God himself says he will not dismiss it. He does not regard it lightly. He will not look the other way when his name is invoked in vain. When God wanted to impress on all of Israel the seriousness of the law, this is the principle he stressed above all the rest. Listen to Deuteronomy 28, verses 58 through 60. I'll read it to you. Deuteronomy 28, starting at verse 58. If you are not careful to do all the words of this law that are written in this book, that you may fear this glorious and awesome name, the Lord your God, Then the Lord will bring on you and your offspring extraordinary afflictions, afflictions severe and lasting, and sicknesses grievous and lasting. And he will bring upon you again all the diseases of Egypt of which you were afraid, and they shall cling to you. That's a serious threat against the Israelites if they if they trifled with God's law, that they would incur literal physical diseases for that. And notice that reverence for the glorious and awesome name of the Lord was how God himself epitomized obedience to the whole law. Abuse of God's name is no trivial matter, and this is not an incidental sin, and we should never think of it that way. This is not a paltry infraction. There is a particular evil in this sin that makes it especially abhorrent to God. Think of this. Almost every other sin you can think of has some pleasure or profit as its motive. The thief steals to pad his pockets. The drunkard and the adulterer get some momentary fleshly gratification from their sin. There are passing pleasures in most sins, and Scripture even acknowledges that. Sometimes sin is fun. Hebrews 11, 25, Moses made a choice to be mistreated with the people of God rather than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. There is pleasure in most sin. Most sins come with a degree of some kind of special pleasure, and that pleasure is one of the main motives that tempts us to sin. But think about this sin, the sin of taking the Lord's name in vain. This is a sin with no reward. There is no fleshly pleasure in it. It gratifies none of our senses. It is a sin of sheer rebellion. in which the sinner gains only the guilt and condemnation of God. The fact that it's so common is a reflection of the utter spiritual poverty of the fallen human heart. The fact that we are all prone to this reflects how much we are all sinners. Because this is a sin which you get nothing out of, but guilt and condemnation, its only fruit is divine displeasure. It is more than any other sin in all the sinners repertoire. This one is a pointless and senseless defiance of our great and glorious God. And it is, therefore, this sin in particular is as purely evil and as thoroughly devilish as any sin could possibly be. It's not a trivial thing. And to give yourself over to a habit of using God's name in vain, misusing God's name for whatever reason, It is a sign that the heart simply loves wickedness for the sake of wickedness. Because there's no other reward in it. Thomas Boston, who was a contemporary of Jonathan Edwards, but Boston lived in in Scotland. And the two of them corresponded frequently, Boston wrote this, he said, Can anyone say that this in the Third Commandment is a sin of his constitution? He said, We've heard of a covetous, envious, lustful or passionate constitution, but of a swearing constitution never. Is any man born with it? Does the constitution of our bodies incline us to it? He says, In many other sins, the body drags the soul, but here the soul, contrary to all of God's commands, makes the body its slave and turns up the tongue against the heavens. It's pretty profound when you think about it. You know, you can explain lots of sins of lust and all that as just simple, natural, normal desires gone astray. But there is no natural or normal desire that would lead a person to blaspheme God. It's a sheer, wicked thing to do with no other motive. And yet consider how common this particular evil has become in our society today. The collective consciousness of our culture has become seared with regard to the profane use of God's name. I recently, a couple of weeks ago, I was in Florida and I turned on the television and the History Channel was showing this feature I had never seen before. It was videotape collected from the September 11th disaster. Tapes made by eyewitnesses who were standing at or near ground zero when the attacks occurred. And what intrigued me most were the reactions you could hear on the soundtracks of those videotapes, many of them taken in crowds of people. And these people were watching this disaster unfold up close and in real life, watching people jump out of buildings and kill themselves, watching the second airplane hit the second building and all of that. And obviously they were struck with almost unspeakable horror at the atrocity that was living itself out before their eyes up close. And as those planes hit the buildings and then as the buildings collapsed, It was disturbing, frankly, to hear how many people expressed their horror. By using the Lord's name in vain, some people scream, some just gasp, but by far the most common words that were spoken were exclamations where people took the Lord's name in vain and sometimes accompanied by vile words. Abuse of God's name has become so common in the profane speech of our day that even in a moment like that, When people ought to have been crying to God for help and mercy, they impulsively, thoughtlessly cursed his name. While I watch those videos, I have to say that hearing so many people speak like that was as disturbing to me as any other element of the whole atrocity. And I say that not to minimize the monstrous evil of the terrorist acts. But to stress how utterly evil it is to blaspheme God that way. Listen to Thomas Boston again. He said, taking God's name in vain is like hell on earth. He says, I said before that there's no advantage in swearing, but now I must say that they will have this advantage, that their works will go with them to the bottomless pit. The whoremonger will not get his whores there, nor the drunkard his cups, nor the covetous man his money. But the swearer and cursor will still drive on his old trade and that with improvement through all eternity. Boston says, I had once the unhappiness to hear a great swearer who had often been reproved and admonished, and he said he would curse and swear in hell through all eternity. Boston said, I thought it might be a prophecy. But why should men take the trade of the damned over their head here on earth? Will not eternity be long enough to give people in hell their fill of blaspheming the name of God and cursing? Why do they need to begin so soon? There is time enough afterwards. And then Boston said this, I know nothing on earth so much like a damned soul in hell as someone who curses and swears using God's name in vain. That's pretty potent stuff, isn't it? And I agree with him. I don't think there is a sin more hellish. But you know what disturbs me the most as I look at this text and think about its ramifications? It's this. I see myself in the mirror of this commandment. Too many times I have invoked God's name lightly or carelessly. Too many of my prayers are superficial and routine. Too much of what I pray for is selfish and unprofitable. Too much of my worship is shallow and mechanical. I am guilty of being flippant about the Lord and taking his name in vain. And you know what? I believe everybody in here could say the same thing. And we tend to think, well, because this sin is so common, it can't possibly be that serious. The commandment itself says otherwise. The Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain. There's only one remedy for those faults, and it's the remedy that set forth for us in the gospel. We need to repent and be repenting all the time because we commit this sin all the time. And seek God's forgiveness and look to the Lord Jesus Christ who died to pay the guilt we incur when we take the Lord's name in vain, think about that. That final phrase of this commandment, the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain. And that is true. But the good news is that even the guilt of this sin was born by Christ on behalf of those who trust him so that all that guilt which God isn't going to ignore. It's a profound guilt, damning guilt, the most sinister kind of guilt. All of it was paid for in full by Christ for those whom he redeems. That's the only remedy for this sin. And the proof that all of us need Christ as Savior, he promises to redeem whoever will come to him by faith, and if you are in that number, if you have come to him as your Lord and Savior, thank him for having born in his body on the cross your sins, the guilt of this sin and seek his power to overcome whatever habits and whatever way of life might cause you to take his glorious name in vain and sanctify his name in your heart until your heart is so pained to hear his name taken vainly that the sin becomes as offensive to you as it is to the one whose name is defiled by it. And if you're not in that number, if you're not a believer, I urge you to trust him today. When we close the service in just a moment, there'll be some men down here at the door to my right, your left. This set of double doors over here will be a group of men down there, you can approach any one of those men and they will be happy to show you the way of salvation from Scripture to answer any questions you have about our church. If you're interested in joining the church, they can give you the forms to start the process. Or if you just need someone to talk about, talk to and you're looking for help from God's Word, they'll be there to give you that help. Now, stand with me and let's be dismissed in prayer. Lord, we are guilty before you because of this one commandment, enough guilt to condemn us forever. We thank you for Christ who bears that guilt for his people. We pray, Lord, that you would help us to have his mind and his heart so that we are as grieved by this sin as you are. And may our lives be a reflection of holiness and purity so that we would stand forth as bright lights, shining lights in a dark world for the glory of Christ, in whose name we do pray. Amen. You have been listening to Pastor and Teacher Phil Johnson. For more information about the ministry of the Grace Life Pulpit, visit at www.thegracelifepulpit.com. Please note, law prohibits the unauthorized copying or distributing of this audio file. Requests for permission to copy or distribute are made in writing to the Grace Life Pulpit. Copyright by Phil Johnson. All rights reserved.