As you sit, if you have your Bibles with you this morning, please turn with me once again to Exodus chapter 20. Our focus text this morning is going to be verse seven that I'll read beginning in verse one for context. Before we hear the reading and preaching of God's Word, let's go before him together again in prayer. Join me. Our gracious God and heavenly Father, indeed you are glorious. You have wisely, and according to your most holy counsel and will, you have given us your holy word. Lord, as we open it today, we know that we need you to understand it. We need your spirit's work in our hearts and in our minds to grasp and to understand and to follow that which you call us to do. And so, Lord, we pray that you would work in us now and bless us as we consider this your word. We pray this in Christ's name. Amen. Well, Exodus chapter 20, beginning in verse one here now, the holy, inspired, infallible and an errant word of God written for you and for me today. And God spoke all these words saying, I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a carved image. any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth, you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me. but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love me and keep my commandments. 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. Amen. Thus far, the reading of God's word, and may he add his blessing to the reading of it to us. Well, brothers and sisters in Christ, as we are trained well by the living God in his teaching, we've learned wonderful things from his law, haven't we? We've learned wonderful things of where our focus and delight must be and remain, as well as where our hearts and our minds and our mouths must never trod. We're well familiar with those things that are forbidden, aren't we? We've sadly walked in those dark streets many times before, doing what displeases our Lord. And yet we are growing with deeper knowledge of our duties as well, which need to be present in our thoughts, words, and actions more and more. We know that on this side of glory, we can't keep God's law perfectly. but we also marvelously know that we believe in, trust, and are united to the one who has for us. As the light of our crucified, risen, and ascended Savior, Jesus Christ, shines upon us, the Holy Spirit works in us to walk in the light as he is in the light, to do what is well-pleasing to him. May Jesus Christ be praised. And so we proclaim then with David, even as we have just this morning, our desire to keep his words that we haven't forgotten his law and that we make haste and don't delay to keep his commandments. What have God's words to us been so far? They have been commands regarding worship, haven't they? There is only one we are to worship, the true and living God, the Lord our God, who has delivered us from sin and death in Christ. Our worship is to be exclusively given to him. And may this resound loudly in our hearts when we are tempted to give such to another. The God has also commanded us about how he wants to be worshiped. He wants to be worshipped according to his commands, according to his word. No images, no idols, no elements that are from the imaginations of men. God desires that we keep his worship pure and entire in accordance with his word. And now thirdly, God commands us here in the third commandment in our text about the manner of our worship and it being done in all reverence and seriousness. And so let's consider God's command regarding the use of his name in 7A as well as the consequence for disobedience in 7B. Look with me at the beginning of verse 7. He says there, you shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain. Now, as this commandment focuses on God's name, a good question is, why does God put his name front and center in our view now in the order of the commandments? And those focused on our duties to God in worship? Well, to better answer this, it's helpful to think about the importance of names in the Bible. And as we do so, it's easy to see why the Lord would be concerned about how his name is treated. In scripture, names reflect the character of a person. And this is true of God as well. God's name speaks to his character and being. And for Israel, God's name was that in which they had access to him in worship. And that was important. Remember Moses' conversation with God at the burning bush in Exodus 3, verses 13-15. We read there, Then Moses said to God, Indeed, when I come to the children of Israel and say to them, The God of your fathers has sent me to you, and they say to me, What is his name? What shall I say to them? And God said to Moses, I am who I am. And he said, thus you shall say to the children of Israel, I am has sent me to you. Moreover, God said to Moses, thus you shall say to the children of Israel, the Lord God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob has sent me to you. This is my name forever. Notice. And this is my memorial to all generations. My friends, God being the great I am, and that being his name, points us to him being the self-existent and the self-sufficient God, who always has been, who is, and who always will be. God has also revealed many more of his names to us in scripture, all of which teach us and point us to aspects of his character, his attributes, and work. The Hebrew word for I am is actually a four-letter word called the tetragrammaton. That's the big $5 word for that. And this means, tetragrammaton actually means four letters and is pronounced Yahweh. Yahweh is the covenant name of the God who reveals himself to Moses and to us in scripture. Now in commanding us as to what we must not do with his name and using it in a profane or a trivial or a flippant manner, God positively teaches us here that there is much reverence and honor that is due to his name. There is much respect due to his name. God's name is to be set apart as holy and treated as such. Have you put much thought about this as maybe you've read through scripture and you've read through and seen the names of God and how He identifies Himself and reveals Himself to us in His names? Have you thought about this much in your life and how His name is treated and how you've done so? Do you view and treat God's name as holy? Think about that. Again, the same message must ring true and often in our minds. Just as we've considered in the previous two commandments. Know your God. Know your God. The Lord's your God. Know Christ. And as you grow in your knowledge, even through studying the third commandment, it will be a joy and a delight to treat his name with the same reverence that you do God himself. For it is his name and you love and seek to honor your God. But further, God warns of profaning his name. And we see this actually in Leviticus chapter 19, verses 11 and 12. We read there, you shall not steal, nor deal falsely, nor lie to one another. And you shall not swear by my name falsely, nor shall you profane the name of your God. I am the Lord. If you consider that, His command is clear. And where is the authority and the emphasis that he places on it? And who he is in relation to us. I am the Lord. That is enough, beloved. That is enough for us to say, yes, Oh God, I will do as you say. I will not profane your name. For he is the living God, the Lord. But God also forbids taking false oaths. We see this in Deuteronomy 6.13. It says there, you shall fear the Lord your God and serve him and shall take oaths in his name. It's important to keep in mind that swearing by the name of God implied the person who did so recognized and worshipped him. Israel wasn't to swear by other gods. But God also taught his people that his name is awesome and glorious in Deuteronomy 28, 58 through 61 as we continue to take a brief inventory of what is true about God's name. We read in verse 58, if you do not carefully observe 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, in all caps, then the Lord will bring upon you and your descendants extraordinary plagues, great and prolonged plagues and serious and prolonged sicknesses. Moreover, he will bring back on you all the diseases of Egypt, of which you were afraid, and they shall cling to you. Also every sickness and every plague which is not written in this book of the law will the Lord bring upon you until you are destroyed. How awesome and how glorious is the name of the Lord our God. Therefore we must treat it as such. For the consequences of not doing so Paul told his people, or Moses told the people of old, and the Lord through him, were very serious. He is the Lord our God. Blessed be his name. And importantly, how does the model prayer that Christ taught us in Matthew 6, 9 begin? Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Now, my friends, what does this first petition mean? Hallowed be thy name. The Westminster Larger Catechism 190 teaches us that in this petition, we pray that God would, by his grace, enable and incline us and others to know and to acknowledge and to highly esteem him. his titles, his attributes, ordinances, word, works, and whatsoever he is pleased to make himself known by. It's of great importance, my friends, that we as God's people pray that God would hallow his name. We also find this wonderfully by example in Christ himself on the cross, don't we? as He hallowed the Father's name there. You can turn with me there if you'd like. John 12. John 12, verses 27 and 28. We read the words of Christ where He said, Now my soul is troubled, and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour? But for this purpose, I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name. And then a voice came from heaven saying, I have both glorified it and will glorify it again. Beloved, the beauty of the gospel shines forth here. the perfect and active obedience of Christ to the very end, to and through that last hour. Jesus approached that hour, not that His Father would save Him from it, but that God's name would be glorified. That Christ would accomplish His purpose, His mission, by suffering and dying on the cross, to save His people from their sins, even from the sin of misusing His name. His resurrection was the glorious demonstration of His victory over sin and death. We must never forget that. The Father spoke from heaven in verse 28 there, you notice, placing His seal of approval on Jesus' saving work. It's because of Christ saving us that we are freed from continuing as profane and flippant blasphemers. and are transformed into those who love and revere and respect His name. That we treat it as holy for that is what it truly is. If God's name is to be understood in these ways and treated as holy, occasions or habits that we may have of not doing so Even the daily practices of the world that influence and dull our sensitivity must become all the more clear and offensive to us. And I think all of us could agree that as we walk and live day by day in this world, the world has no care or concern for the holiness of the name of God. They blaspheme it all day and all night. And as we walk in the midst of them, sometimes our sensitivity is dulled to it. We're so used to hearing it. It doesn't offend us. It's not as odious to us in our ears as it used to be. Has it even crept into your heart and mouth? The modern culture that we live in, as I said, frequently breaks this command. We see it in the movies. We see it on TV. We see it all over the Internet in all sorts of forms and fashions and degrees. No one hardly bats an eye when God's name is used as a joke. The trivial use of his name has become commonplace and therefore we hardly remember that each misuse of the Lord's name makes a person liable to the wrath of God. And this is the grave consequence for disobedience that we see here in the third commandment. There is a right declaration of those who misuse his name and blaspheme his holy name of guilt. Notice verse 7b. For the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain. Notice how of all the 10 commandments, only the third commandment adds the grave warning that God will not hold him guiltless to those who misuse his name. Think about this for a moment. Again, in this world and culture that I just described, the judgment of men would be to make the decree not guilty. Right? They would overlook the matter. They really don't care about the matter. They could care less. There's no offense. There's no problem in taking God's name in vain. There's no sentence of guilt. You're not damaging private property or disturbing public peace. Live long and prosper. And I know a few of you thought I'd raise my hand and give the symbol, I won't. But as we as sinners may even hold our self guiltless. in our sinful hearts and thoughts, thinking that there's no harm in such speech and that God will never call us to account for it. And yet, as it is true of God being jealous of his own worship, God is jealous of his honor and the honor of his name. God pays special attention to how his name is used. We find this to be true with the priests in Malachi chapter one, for example, verses six and seven, a good passage for us to consider this morning. Malachi chapter one, verses six and seven. We read there, a son honors his father and a servant his master. If then I am the father, where is my honor? And if I am a master, where is my reverence? Says the Lord of hosts to you priests who despise my name. Yet you say, in what way have we despised your name? You offer defiled food on my altar, but say, in what way have we defiled you? By saying, The table of the Lord is contemptible. So here we see the Lord specifically addressing the priests, the priests who were to guide his people in biblical worship. They were to teach and to be examples to his people of how his name should be used, how God should be honored, how his name should be exalted. how His name should be treated as holy. They should have been able to look at these priests and say, ah, yes! Praise the Lord God! Glory be given to His name! But yet the priests did something quite different. They despised His name. It was also true of God's expectation of his people in Leviticus 24, verses 15 and 16, and their guilt if they sinned. He says, There then you shall speak to the children of Israel, saying, Whoever curses his God shall bear his sin, and whoever blasphemes the name of the Lord shall surely be put to death. All the congregation shall certainly stone him, the stranger, as well as him who is born in the land. When he blasphemes the name of the Lord, he shall be put to death. Now, some of you may be like, whoa, whoa, whoa. The death penalty for taking his name in vain? Yes. The living God is holy. He requires that his name be revered and honored and not be the butt of a joke or an expletive that rolls off of our lips. He is serious about his worship, beloved. He is the Lord, the Lord God, who is only due worship and worthy of worship, requires worship. But he is also the Lord, our God, who tells us how he wants to be worshipped and here in the manner and the very way that his name is used and honored and exalted. I'll leave you with this. Can you see that when you play around with God's name, you play with fire? Who among us can say that They have kept this law perfectly. Who among us can honestly say that we're innocent of this charge? Who among us has not taken the Lord's name lightly at some time in another, maybe even used it flippantly? Who among us can stand before God and honestly say that they deserve to be judged not guilty? None of us can. We all deserve death, as that is the right wages of sin. And to whom must we turn in our guilt? The Son, Jesus Christ. Now think about this. We turn to the Son who was accused of blasphemy, but was himself without deceit in his mouth. He is the only one who never cursed God's name, but rather only blessed His name and sought that God would give glory to His name. And because of Jesus' obedience, what happened? He was given the name that is above all names. That every knee shall bow and every tongue would confess that He is Lord. Jesus is the Holy One who never spoke one word in vain, but he upheld it perfectly and righteously. This is your Savior. This is your God. And what did Jesus do for you? He suffered the fate of a blasphemer for us. the faith that you and I should suffer. Jesus suffered and died as if he were the one who took God's name in vain. But yet he is the sinless lamb of God who became sin for us as he hung on that tree so that we would be freed from the eternal wrath of God and to a glorious relationship and communion with him forever. This commandment shows us our sin, but it points us to Jesus, who lived and died and rose for us, that we would live rightly for him, and how we love him and revere him, and even treat his name as holy. Do you believe this? leave this place with comfort and joy, seeking to revere God in his name and to hold it in high esteem today and every day. Amen. Praise God for his word. Let's pray together.