And so with that, by the grace of God, we now turn to our study of the Ten Commandments. And remember, we are studying out of Exodus chapter 20. Exodus chapter 20, verses one down to verse 21 have been the text that we have been examining for these past weeks. And so friends, if you have your Bible, turn with me to Exodus chapter 20. Exodus chapter 20. We will read verses one to 21, And we will examine the third commandment, which is in verse seven. All right, well, dear friends, let us read God's word together. The word of the living God says, 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 slavery, You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a carved image or 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 or serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquities of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me. but showing steadfast love to thousands of 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. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male servant or your female servant, or your livestock or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you. You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. You shall not covet your neighbor's house. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor's. Now when all the people saw the thunder and the flashes of lightning and the sound of the trumpet and the mountain smoking, the people were afraid and trembled. And they stood far off and said to Moses, you speak to us and we will listen, but do not let God speak to us lest we die. Moses said to the people, do not fear for God has come to test you. that the fear of him may be before you, that you may not sin. The people stood far off while Moses drew near to the thick darkness where God was. My friends, this is the word of God. Thanks be to God. Let us pray. Our gracious God and Father, how we praise you this morning, that you are a God who speaks, a God who condescends to reveal himself. And Father, by your word, you disclose your nature, your character, your purposes, you reveal to us, oh God, how you made us in your image and your likeness for a relationship with you, a covenant of love and holiness, joy and truth. But Father, we do confess today that we have sinned against you, that every one of us has turned aside and become corrupt, that there is not one of us who does good, not even one. Father, in light of your perfect goodness, we see our own sin and wretchedness. Specifically, Father, we see our wicked tongues, Father, how often our tongues we use to destroy our neighbor and to speak blasphemous, wicked nonsense against you. Father, we know that these words of our mouths are the produce of our heart. So dear Spirit, we pray that you would come and reform and recreate our hearts today, that you would tune our affections to love Christ and to hate sin and slander and wickedness. Father, we pray that we would honor your name as hallow, as holy because you are holy and oh lord we desire nothing but to give you praise father have mercy upon your people train our tongues lord to give you praise in holiness and truth in jesus name amen amen well friends here in verse seven we have what is called the third commandment the third commandment And as we have seen, there are 10 commandments, and we discussed two separate tables. One table are the first four commandments, and the second table are the last six. And so we are looking at the first table of the 10 commandments, and we saw the orientation of these four commandments, that they deal with the vertical, that they deal with our relationship to God, man's relationship to his Creator. And friends, it bears witness that these Ten Commandments didn't simply appear at Mount Sinai as though they had never existed before. These Ten Commandments are the law of God being published on tablets of stone. That, friends, the law of God has been operating, as it were, from all eternity in the character of the Holy God among the three persons of the Trinity. And this law of God, this covenant instruction, these holy rules and righteous commands are the disclosure or exposition of God's own holy character and thus the holy communion that he desires to have with you, friend, and with every single human being. This communion, this covenant of holy love with which he created our first father, Adam, but by which Adam and Eve fell into sin and we fell into sin with them in rebellion against the word of God. And because of this, it was necessary that God reveal and exposit more fully the depths of this law. But make no mistake, friends, this law is universal and transcultural. It's not simply binding on the Jews nor Christians, but this is the law of God for every human being in every society, in every civilization, from creation to the end of time. So friends, this has a higher law. This is a law that comes from God. It is a law that comes from his own mouth. It is instituted by him, and therefore, all human beings must give him praise and worship and obedience according to his word. So again, friends, these commandments are so central to our understanding of who God is and who we are, our relationship, and it prepares us to understand the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ who satisfies the righteous requirements of God for sinners as we are. And now in verse three, I'm sorry, verse seven, we have the third commandment. And again, we see a prohibition. We see a command of negation. God is forbidding certain behavior and certain actions. Well, what are these, what behavior is in view here? Well, it is the taking of God's name in vain. Look at verse seven, you, Now, friends, remember that God is speaking to Israel. By extension, he's speaking to every one of us. So you can put your own name here. You, Clay. You, Susan. You, Paul. You, Bill. You, Michael. You shall not. Again, negation. This is a prohibition. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain. Now notice something. God is not forbidding that we ever use his name, but he is saying that when we use his name, we ought not to take it in vain. Now what does that word mean, in vain? To take the name of the Lord your God in vain. It means to invoke His name for a worthless purpose, to treat His name flippantly or with little regard, to dishonor His name. Now, what is the name of God? Well, friends, when the Bible speaks of name, remember the Bible discloses for us many names that God has given to us by which we relate to Him as our blessed Redeemer and Savior and King. We have words like God is the Lord of Hosts, He is the Rock, He is all of these wonderful names and they show a little aspect of His character and His work. But friends, when we speak of the name of God in this sense in verse 7, this is the idea of God's character being revealed and disclosed, being invoked by his name. Friends, perhaps you have children or grandchildren, nieces or nephews, and perhaps you were in the process of choosing a name, and you might remember looking through all the baby books or looking at all of your friends who had had babies and the names that they'd given to them, and you understood something. almost implicitly, almost instinctively, that whatever name you choose to give to this little boy or this little girl, that it would be so important in their lives. In fact, it would define their whole reality because when we put a name upon a person, we are thereby distinguishing them by that name. You see, friends, There are many Clays that live in the world. And though it's not a super common name, every once in a while I do meet other people named Clay. But friends, when I hear the word Clay, when someone speaks the name Clay, my instinct is to think they're referring to me. Because that name is now associated with me, with my identity, with who I am. And it also speaks of character, friends. Our name speaks of our character and reputation. And so when we speak of the name of God, we are speaking of his identity as the Lord, our God, our blessed Redeemer and Savior, and his reputation as being holy and good, trustworthy and faithful, a just judge and a merciful king. So to invoke God's name for a worthless purpose, is in a sense to take the character of God, the integrity of God, and to use it in a flippant way. So in one sense, friends, this would apply to cursing, invoking the name of God for a for a word of cursing. And friends, many times when folks use cursing, or perhaps you yourself have used cursing and taken the name of the Lord in that way, the common response is, well, that's just the way I speak. That's just the way he speaks. He doesn't really mean it. He's just saying words. And that might be true. But friends, remember, that's what this commandment forbids. invoking the name of God for a worthless purpose. We are to treat the name of God, the name of the Lord, as something holy and sacred. because he is holy and sacred and worthy of our praise and worthy of our joyful obedience. And so we see that the very, that very thinking of just speaking God's name without giving due reverence to it is expressly prohibited here in the third commandment. But more than this, friends, this also speaks to invoking the name of God and the glory of God, the character of God for a worthless purpose in our oaths. When we make promises, when we make promises to other people, we might invoke the name of God as a way to call God as witness to our oaths. Now, remember friends, the Bible doesn't forbid the taking of oaths, but Jesus warns us that we ought to let our yes be yes and our no be no. Friends, it's a very dangerous thing when we begin to invoke the name of God to sort of support and bear up our promises and oaths. Because dear friends, the Bible says that God will hold us accountable for our oaths. And we heap sin upon sin if we break our promises, especially when we have invoked the glory, the character, the reputation of the Holy One as affirmation of our truthfulness and trustworthiness. So this is a prohibition against flippant cursing and using the name of the Lord in a blasphemous way. Remember friends, in the book of, I believe it was Numbers, we see that there is a man who blasphemes the name. and the children of Israel aren't quite sure what to do with the man who blasphemed. But we see that God gives the command that he ought to be stoned, that he ought to be put to death for taking the name of the Lord in a blasphemous, vain way. So, friends, this is serious stuff. Also, remember, friends, that what we say The words that we use are the produce of the heart. That is, just like a tree bears fruit according to its kind and quality, so too the heart, our inner man, reveals itself by our words. Whether these words be good and true or whether they be wicked and false. Friends, out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. God warns us here in the second part of verse seven, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain. That is to say, the Lord promises that he will bring just judgment upon every one of us who invoke his name for a worthless, vain, or wicked purpose. That he is a just God who is deeply concerned about his reputation and his glorious and holy name. that friends, it is no minor white lie or little crime, but really it is cosmic treason, which the Lord takes very seriously. And so again, we have a prohibition in the third commandment against taking the name of the Lord our God for a vain, worthless purpose. This would include the name of the Father, the name of Jesus Christ, the Son, and the name of God, the Holy Spirit. For indeed, this is one Lord God who is worthy of praise, worthy of our honor, worthy of our joyful and earnest obedience. So dear friends, again, our words are so important. Have you thought and considered about the words that come from your mouth and about the language you use in day-to-day conversations with your spouse and children, with your family and friends, with your neighbors, with the outside world and your employees and employers? Friends, the words we speak bear witness to the condition of our heart. And we need more than simple behavioral modification. We do need to identify when we are speaking false, wicked words, when we're using God's name in vain, and we must repent and turn away from those ways and ask the Lord's mercy. But we need God to do something more, something deeper, something that only he can do, that God would send his spirit to conform this heart to feel, to think, to love, to yearn like the Lord Jesus. Because Jesus Christ, all of the days of His life, has loved the Father and hallowed His name. Speaking of His Father with great reverence and awe, with joy and respect, He has never dishonored the Father by taking His name for a worthless purpose. The Lord Jesus has always honored God with the words of his lips because they came from a heart that was holy and true unto God. And so we need the Father to form this heart within us. It began at the new birth. When you were born again, friends, God gave you new affections. You now love the Lord and there is within your soul, dear believer, a new heart to honor the Lord with your words and to hallow his name because you love him and he is your savior and out of gratitude for him, you want to honor him and serve him with your words and deeds. But friends, that heart is not yet completely, totally, perfectly holy unto God. This trajectory and direction is to heaven, but there is still the remnant of sin within us, and so we struggle, and we must battle the flesh, and we must war against the temptation of Satan, of our own flesh and the world, to use our words for deceitful, wicked, and evil purposes, even invoking the name of the Holy One. to that wicked end. And so we need the Lord to continue to conform us, to convict us, to encourage us to take his name and to honor it with reverence. Friends, do you revere the Lord and his name? Is that evident in your daily life, in your conversation? If not, friends, I pray that the Spirit of God would come and bring conviction, that he would encourage you and and bring you to the word that today you would see that your God and Savior is holy and beautiful and his name is to be treasured. May God give us grace as we hallow him with our words. Let's pray. Father, we ask your mercy this morning. We pray that you would forgive us that our tongues, these little members, are like little flames and such a little member of such a little flame produces such devastation when our words are wicked and evil. Father, we pray, please have mercy upon us and forgive us and sanctify this heart and sanctify these lips that the words of our mouth and the meditation of our heart might be pleasing and acceptable to you. Father, be glorified in the world as your people bear witness to your holy glory, walking in truth, walking in love, walking in joy, hallowing you honoring one another, that the world may know that we are your people, Lord, called by your name. Father, have mercy in Jesus' name.