You're listening to the teaching ministry of Harvest Fellowship Church in Boyertown, Pennsylvania. You can find out more about us on the web at www.harvestfellowshipchurch.org. We pray that through our teaching, we may present everyone mature in Christ. Father in heaven, we do pray Lord that as we even invoke your name tonight, that a true apprehension of your glory will grip us every time we speak your name. We pray, Lord, tonight, as we look at the third word of this decalogue of the commandments that you have written, even upon our hearts, Lord, that we might grasp a greater sense of it tonight than we had even earlier today. And so we pray for your wisdom to be upon us. And we pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen. All right, I'm going to read the law tonight. So let's read Deuteronomy chapter 5, verses 1 through 22. I think it'll be good on occasion for us to hear the entire law just read together. And then I'm going to come back with some questions for you. But first, Deuteronomy 5, hear now the word of the Lord. And Moses summoned all Israel and said to them, Hear, O Israel, the statutes and the rules that I speak in your hearing today, and you shall learn them, and be careful to do them. The Lord our God made a covenant with us in Horeb. Not with our fathers did the Lord make this covenant, but with us, who are all of us here alive today. The Lord spoke with you face to face at the mountain, out of the midst of the fire, while I stood between the Lord and you at that time, to declare to you the word of the Lord. For you were afraid because of the fire, and you did not go up into the mountain. He said, 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 on 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 iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and 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. Observe the Sabbath day to keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you. 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, or your male servant, or your female servant, or your ox, or your donkey, or any of your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates, that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you. You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day. Honor your father and your mother as the Lord your God commanded you that your days may be long and that it may go well with you in the land that the Lord your God is giving you. You shall not murder. And you shall not commit adultery, and you shall not steal, and you shall not bear false witness against your neighbor, and you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, and you shall not desire your neighbor's house, his field, or his male servant, or his female servant, his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor's. These words, the Lord spoke to all your assembly at the mountain out of the midst of the fire, the cloud, and the thick darkness with a loud voice. And he added, no more. And he wrote them on two tablets of stone and gave them to me." And may the Lord write the truths of his word, his holy, eternal word to our hearts this Wednesday night. We're up to our 18th teaching so far in Deuteronomy. But before we get into the text tonight, I thought, this is one of the benefits sometimes of having taught something else, that we go back to just briefly chapter 19, paragraph 7 from the London Baptist Confession. I'm not going to read to you the paragraph. I just wanted to talk about the overall theme of it, which I had presented on May 12, 2024. I'm sure you all remember that vividly. But the topic that day or that morning was the agreement between the law and the gospel. The idea was here we see this great picture of the inscription of God's Law on stones to the fuller picture later of the New Covenant where God writes, or we could say inscribes His Law savingly upon the hearts of His people. But I wanted to quiz you tonight to see if you, I guess I don't have chalk so you're not going to get anything written. I wanted to see if you remembered the three uses of the Law. And if you can't remember them, then it's a good thing that we're reviewing them, I can see. Maybe you can describe one. And remember, Bob's not here tonight, so I'm expecting full class participation here. Maybe you can describe it, but maybe you don't know the word for it. Yes, so that'd be the first one, to convince the sinner of their sinfulness and to lead them to the gospel, or to point them to Christ. Anybody know what the name for that is? No, thanks. Think of teacher or schoolmaster, but there's another word. Yes, pedagogical. I'll write this for you, just in the middle once. So pedagogical, it convinces the law, God's law convinces the sinner of their sinfulness, and it leads the sinner, or it's meant to lead the sinner, to the gospel, to Jesus Christ. So that's the one of three primary uses of the law. That's not all the law does. Did I see your hand up, Luke? Restraint. OK. Restrain what? Sin. evil. Yeah, restrained sin or evil. What would we call that? Civil. Good try. I'll put that over here for you, Glenn. So the civil law, the laws that we have in society are meant to restrain the evil of man. Of course very early on we find in Genesis 9 after they get off the ark what does God say? Whoever sheds man's blood by man his blood should be shed. A retribution, a restraining ideally of evil. And then the third one has to do with believers. What's that? From a year and a quarter ago. Pretty good. All right. Here's the value of a notebook. You ready for those open book tests? So normative and the normative use of the law, we could say, obliges believers to the law of God as a rule of life and very importantly, not as a system of salvation. obedience to the law is not the means by which we are saved, it rather is our rule of life and it comes about because we love God's law. And so, when we talked about the agreement that morning between the Law and the Gospel, I made this statement that the Law leads the sinner indirectly to Christ. Remember the Law doesn't proclaim the Gospel explicitly, it just says, don't do this, do this, or die. But it leads the sinner indirectly to Christ. The Gospel message, the actual Good News of the Gospel is what conducts the sinner directly to Christ. Paul when he talks about how will they hear he doesn't say how will they hear unless the law is proclaimed to them, he says how will they hear unless the gospel is proclaimed. And so it's through the application of the gospel by the Holy Spirit that the law is then savingly inscribed on the hearts of believers. And what is the consequence, or we could say the result of that inscription, we call it gospel obedience. That's what keeping of the law is, this normative keeping of the law is gospel obedience. It's a cheerful obedience. It's not a forced obedience. It's not like the forced labor of the Israelites in Egypt. It's a cheerful obedience. It's that statement by David, oh, how I love your law. It's a cheerful obedience to the law as a rule of duty. Now, as we come to the third word, or we'll call it the third commandment of the Ten Commandments tonight, I want to ask you, have you typically heard about this third commandment which says, 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? using the Lord's name profanely. Okay. Yeah. And in fact, you know, even going back to some of the videos we watched with Ray Comfort, you know, that's typically, have you ever taken God's name in vain? Um, and that's, and, and he's not wrong by the way in saying that, but what we're going to see tonight is, is that's just part of it. So we don't want to look at it too narrowly and say, oh, well, I'm really careful with the way I use my words. Therefore, I am completely vindicated of this command. There's much more to it than that. Anything else? You never gave it a thought? How about the phrase in vain? Matt V? Do you want to get up here and expand on that for a few minutes? kidding. I'm just kidding. That's a great thought though. That is a really great thought to really get us thinking about how serious this covenantal commitment that the believer has with God, with Yahweh. Alright, to get into this a little bit, at the very beginning of what we saw here as we jumped into Deuteronomy 5 where Moses is not giving a new law, he is reiterating the law that has already been given. But we saw that it is insisting, this Decalogue is insisting on something. God is insisting on the exclusive right that He has to His people's allegiance. And that is why this covenantal aspect, we are just going to keep talking about it over, and over, and over, that we are in covenant with God. And so, if the Israelite people were going to enter into covenant agreement with Him they had to understand from the start, of course as we saw in the first word, is that there could be no other gods whatsoever. And a follow-up, so word three we could say probably ties a little bit more closely to word one than word two, which we heard last week, is that committed worshipers, covenant worshipers must reverence God's name. They must. And as you think of God's name, just thinking of God's name, and of course, we find a few different names that God describes himself by. The one that we most typically refer to, especially in Old Testament context, is Yahweh. But his name is often regarded as an extension or a substitute of God himself. declaration, His name is the declaration of His being and His character, and that's why it's so closely tied here to the first command. And I'll just give you an example of how His name is as if it's interchangeable with Him, Himself. Deuteronomy 12, verse 5, Deuteronomy is where you see this over, and over, and over. So, we'll see it first in chapter 12 verse 5, but there it says, Notice that phrase there, to put His name and make His habitation there, there you shall go. And all you have to do then is go to verse 11 of chapter 12, 14, 23, 16.2, 16.6, 16.11, and 26.2. I know you wrote those all down. point wasn't to have you write them down, just to see that you're going to keep seeing this show up, that there's a strong connection between God Himself, His essence, and His name. That's what makes this so important here. His name highlights for us His character. We've been talking about that, His attributes on the first Sunday of each month. His name reveals His attributes. Exodus 34, think of this, and sometimes we'll use direct language out of this as we're praying. Sometimes you'll hear this in our congregational prayers, the Lord passed before him, which is Moses, in Exodus 34, 6, and proclaimed, the Lord, or Yahweh, the Lord, there twice, "'The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgressions and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children to the third and fourth generation.'" Which is some of the language we heard week. But nevertheless you can see in all of that it says, the Lord, the Lord, and everything that comes after that is a description of who He is, His essence, His character. And so we see this closeness then that when we speak of God, when we invoke His name this is who we're talking about. Think of Isaiah chapter 9, you know that great prophecy, Wonderful Counselor, The Mighty God, and all of those titles there too. What do they do? They describe who God is. And of course, there specifically, the God-man. So His name highlights His character, but His name also signifies something and that is help to His people and also the works that God does that manifest His glory. I'll give you a couple of Psalms here, Psalm 44, 5, it says, through you, this is referring to Yahweh, through you we push down our foes, there's the help, through your name, notice that, through your name we tread down those who rise up against us. through His name. So there's the help to His people and then the works manifesting His glory. Psalm 81, Oh Lord, our Lord, how majestic is Your name in all the earth. You have set Your glory above the heavens. His name is majestic and it's above all the earth. And it doesn't take long as you get into the Old Testament, but we see the prophets of God. What do the true prophets do? The true prophets, the real prophets they carry God's authority as if His voice is coming through their mouths. It's as if His voice is coming through their mouths. And that's what makes Deuteronomy 18.20 such a weighty concern for all of us where God says the prophet who presumes to speak a word, how? In my name. Notice all these expressions that have to do with the name of God. In my name. The one who presumes to do that. That I have not commanded him to speak or who speaks in the name of other gods that same prophet shall die. Die. to presume to speak a word in God's name. And you know, that carries a lot of weight. And so for those who especially would lead worship, and there's various aspects to our worship, but the one that I was thinking about earlier today is when we take the Lord's Supper. And we say things like, on the authority of Scripture, which really is on the authority of God's name, that if you are in Christ, Scripture declares that you are pardoned of your sins, that you have forgiveness with God. That's not a light thing to say. That's not a flippant thing to say. But consider that example that we think is good and right, even though it's weighty, and think of the things that we see in the Roman Catholic Church. some sort of pronouncement of absolution, I absolve you of your sins, or whatever types of statements are made that we might say are presuming to speak a word in God's name that they have not received express permission from God to state. So that type of pronouncement of pardon in God's name, it can be done in a proper manner or in a blasphemous manner. That's a really weighty thing to think about. God's covenant people care about the glory and reverence of God's name. What happens after the great victory that the Israelites had at Jericho? What's the very next narrative? Yes. don't know immediately why they lost to AI. In fact, Joshua himself isn't sure. And after they lose, and it was so stunning because they had this great, amazing victory, and the smaller town of AI beats them back. And Joshua cries out to God in Joshua 7.9, he says, for the Canaanites and all the inhabitants of the land will hear of it, and will surround us and cut off our name from the earth. And what will you do when for your great name." Now of course God had to go on to reprove and to rebuke Joshua and say, the reason is because there is sin in the camp. And of course then it's the whole saga of Achan. But what was Joshua's primary concern there? The name of God. What will you do for your great name? Moses had that same concern when God said He was going to strike down all the Israelites, and He was going to start over with Moses. And Moses says, You promised. You have to consider your name God. And so this is how God's covenant people care about. They care about the reverence and glory of God's name. But those who spurn God's love, so those who think little of God's love, they have no qualms then about invoking his name falsely. There is a word that we probably will see show up a bit with this idea of using God's name falsely. Jeremiah 5 says, who does justice and seeks truth, that I may pardon her, though they say as the Lord lives." So, there they are invoking God's name. He says, even though they say as the Lord lives, yet they swear falsely. Again, that word falsely. If you go on to read Jeremiah 5 then Jeremiah says, well maybe this is just the poor people. Surely the rich people don't act this way. And he goes and he finds that they are just as evil. God's name, or invoking His name just as falsely as the poor people. And the point of it was that Israel as a whole was massively corrupt, apostate. So we come back then again to verse 11, which I just want to read it again. So the opposite of taking God's name in vain would be to honor His name. Or we could say simply to make God look good to everyone who's around us. And of course, we see that in the Lord. How does the Lord's Prayer begin? Yeah, so it speaks, it invokes his name, and then it says, hallowed be your name, revered be your name, may your name be held up, made to look good. So there's a sense here in this command that we are never to make use of God's name, of the Lord's name, of any type of description of, we could say, of the divine being in a light way, we could say in a trifling way, in any way that fails to show reverence for him and affection to him. should always be done with an awe of the greatness of God's majesty upon our mind. To take the name of the Lord our God in vain is then, therefore, not to make him look good, but to give God a bad name in front of other people. This is exactly, in a sense, what James has been getting at, even though he hasn't used these exact words. But when he talks about people who are two-faced, when he talks about people who are double-minded, people who are straddling the world and God, this worldly behavior, they are making God to have a bad name among the area, the people that they live among. Jeremiah 7, so you go two chapters after the one I read in verses 8 through 11, this continues on. Behold, you trust in deceptive words to no avail. Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely? Make offerings to Baal and go after other gods you have not known. And then, so you do all those things, and then come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, we are delivered, only to go on doing all these abominations. Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, I myself have seen it, declares the Lord. sense of riotous living, and then professing the name of God in gathered worship. John Calvin described this verse in this way. He said, it becomes us, this is how we should be, to regulate our minds and our tongues so as never to think or speak of God and his mysteries without reverence and great soberness, and never in estimating his works or just looking at what God has done to have any feelings towards him but one of deep veneration, deep veneration. So there's a lot of things that, and Calvin goes on to further balance that out, but I want to go on to this phrase here, you shall not take, you shall not take. Now this word take, we could also instead supplement the word bear or lift or raise. So think of that as almost in a sense of raising God's name as like the shield or the banner. Sunday we talked about being a soldier, a good soldier of Christ that we serve under his banner. So you shall not bear or lift up God's name, claiming God as your own, as representative of him in vain. We're going to be on this phrase here in vain for a bit here. In vain. Or we could say in empty expression, or for a worthless purpose, or without reason. This phrase here in vain has to do with the idea of waste and disorder. So anything that is empty, vain, or we could say of no value, or of no importance, and therefore there is no occasion for that. There is no occasion to ever use God's name in any of these scenarios. So let's talk then about the scope of that. So the scope is not just blasphemy, although it's included, but how about the idea of using God's name in some way in magic, incantations, or curses? those types of things. When you do those things it's a form of idolatry. To use God's name in that way is a form of idolatry. To use God's name as if it was a talisman of sorts can serve idolatrous purposes in our minds. And we should kind of keep in mind here even the context of Israel here. The vast majority of Israelites here had a tremendous reverence for God. You remember how terrified they were at the mountain. So they would have been even reluctant to mention God's name at all, let alone blaspheme His name. But as they're going into Canaan, headed into a territory now that is filled with all the things that God is going to warn them about later. Spiritism, occultism, all types of witchcraft. And of course He tells them over and over again, you cannot permit these things to be in your midst. These people that you are going to be around they are obsessed with these things. These are the ways of the world, the ways of Satan. And you may not use my name, but by using it in a spell or any form of magical ceremony. This is not for the children of God to engage in any types of corrupt, abominable, forbidden practices. We'll see those covered in Deuteronomy 18. But they're going to encounter, and they probably already had encountered at this point, this belief that the name of a person, or especially the name of a god, was considered to have power within it. And this is why Balak, do you remember Balak, the king of Moab? Who does he go out to hire? Balaam. And what does he want Balaam to do? He wants them to curse them. And I think there's the sense in that passage which you'll find in Numbers 22 that He wants them to do that in the name of their God, that He has no familiarity with. But there's a sense of that this magic incantation or this curse can be placed upon them because the fear of the Moabites was, we've seen their power, they will destroy us. We're going to have to do something else. And so there was that attempt at a curse, and of course that failed miserably. Can you think of any other curses that we find in the Bible? Yes? Yes. I'm going to cover that under blasphemy, though. But there is some overlap in these types of categories here. The one that I was thinking about was a foolish curse, and it comes in 1 Samuel 14. If you remember that the Israelites are fighting against the Philistines, and God gives them great victory, and Saul says, this is going so well that I curse anybody who stops to eat food. I don't even know why he says that. But I'm sure there's some really good theological thoughts around all that. But nevertheless, it's a foolish curse. And of course, Jonathan doesn't hear it. Jonathan goes and eats some honey. He's revived. And then Saul says, well, it's time to kill Jonathan. But the people prevented that. But there's an example of a foolish curse. And the text does not explicitly invoke God's name there. But I think there's a sense of that anything that the king would say, who is God's representative, is done under the authority of his name. So it was a very foolish thing for Saul to do. And of course, that was already leading to his demise already there. So, magic, incantations, or curses. How about something that might be a little bit more practical in the world that we live in? How about somebody who tries to push ideas or projects as if they are God's will? You know, I had this dream last night that God wants us to double the size of the sanctuary, and that's what God wants us to do. You know, that type of idea, and have you seen that before in churches? Have you seen that around people who claim to be men of God, that God revealed this to them, or I just know this is what God wants us to do? And to claim that you just know that this is God's will is a very precarious place to be. So to push human ideas or even projects as God's will could be to invoke God's name in vain. How about the swearing of oaths? Now, I decided not to cover oaths in great depth, even though we could, because I know many of you have come to Sunday school and we've covered oaths and vows really well, really comprehensively. But a basic definition for an oath is simply to call God to witness that what we are saying is true. And of course, probably one of the most common ones is when you You hold up your hand in court, so help me God. I swear to tell the whole truth, nothing but the truth, so help me God. Everything that I'm saying by God's name is true. But how often can oaths be taken to not tell the truth? How many people perjure themselves intentionally with no fear of God? They have a fear of man. They have a fear of being convicted. No fear of God. And so they'll hold up their hand. In some cases they might even put their hand on a Bible and they will lie. They will be deceitful. They will be dishonest. They will tell falseness. Leviticus 19.12, you shall not swear by my name falsely and so profane the name of your God. I am the Lord. when we take an oath, and of course we talked before about there are legitimate times to swear an oath. What are we doing? We are acknowledging in that oath under God's name that God is eternal, that God is unchangeable, that He is truth. And when we call upon Him we are saying that He is a fit witness to the truth, and He's able to bring things to light that nobody else can see because He is a discerner of the heart. Isaiah 48, 1. People were not doing this there in the days of Isaiah. Hear this, O house of Jacob, who are called by the name of Israel and who came from the waters of Judah, who swear by the name of the Lord and confess the God of Israel, but not in truth or right. So there's a falseness in what they swore. And we see in the prophets this theme over and over that we find people living, or we could say, swearing or claiming the name of Yahweh. Oh, I'm a follower. Or maybe put it into our modern day's language. I am a follower of Christ, but then living as if they belonged to Baal, or living as if they were a child of Satan. In 2 Samuel 15. This is close to the end of the really sad saga after Absalom kills his brother and after he's banished. And then it says there, remember how he came around and he started telling people, like, you know, if I was king. Things would go a lot better around here. And it says, so Absalom stole the hearts of the men of Israel with his smooth talk. But then at the end of four years, he says to the king, please let me go and pay my vow, or this sense of a swearing before God, which I have vowed to the Lord in Hebron. And what did he do after that? So he did something really evil. But he did it under this pretense. And in a sense, what he says, I have vowed to the Lord. So there's the invocation of Yahweh's name there and something that he is purposing intentional evil against his own father, against his own country, against his own God. So the swearing of oaths. How about unnecessary swearing? How often do we hear people, to be a little bit more emphatic or to prove their point, say things like, I swear to God. If you remember way back to Matthew 5, remember Jesus talks about how we should be able to be such people of integrity, such people of God's truth, that we never need to add on to what we're saying. And we're going to see that in James 5 as well. Let your yes be yes, and let your no be no. We don't need to say, I swear by heaven, or I swear on my mother's grave, or anything, and certainly not by the name of God in any type of way. Rash or unlawful vows to the Lord. Who probably made the most rash vow in the whole Bible, Grace? Jephthah. And if Jephthah actually follows through on his vow, which we don't know if he really did or not, but if he did, he is going on to break commandments here from the Ten Commandments. It was a rash vow. He just comes to him and he gives this rash vow, and of course you go on to read, and it was a terrible thing. What about the breaking of vows before God? What about if you vowed to do something that was really good, and then you don't follow through on it? And you vowed this in the name of the Lord. The most prominent example for this in Scripture is probably what happened at Horeb. From the Exodus version in Exodus 24, 3 it says, Not yet. answered with one voice." This means they rehearsed it together. All right, let's all practice what we're going to say. It says, they all answered with one voice. It just means that there was unanimous consent. Everybody was agreed, this is what we're going to do. And they said, all the words that the Lord has spoken we will do. That was their vow. And as you said, Susan, it wasn't too long before they broke it, which led to Moses breaking the tablets. What I thought as well, you know, how about divorce? How often are those vows so lightly cast to the ground before God as if his name had never been invoked? So the breaking of good vows before God. How about murmuring against God's providences? And by providences that doesn't mean just the things that we perceive to be good, everything that God is doing is providential. Numbers 14, the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron saying, how long shall this wicked congregation grumble against me? I have heard the grumblings of the people of Israel, which they grumble against me. And then after that he goes on to say, and that's why they're going to die in the wilderness. They're murmuring against me. And what's going on when somebody murmurs? They're questioning the character of God. I don't know if God's really good. I don't know if God's doing what's best. And you can fill in any other idea there, but that's what murmuring is. It's placing yourself above God. I think I know better. Or I don't understand what he's doing as if he is going to reveal all that he's doing to you. Instead, our disposition should be like Abraham's. Remember when Abraham interacts with God before Sodom is destroyed? And he says, shall not the judge of all the earth do what is just? That's what he believed. He believed it. And he didn't know how many righteous people. He didn't know it was one. He didn't know it was just Lot. But he believed that whatever God did would be just and would be right. And so he does not use God's name there incorrectly. All right. How about blasphemy? Blasphemy is when anything is done or spoken whereby the majesty of God is diminished or offended or when his truth is denied or his name is profaned. I have several examples here but I want to see what you can come up with some examples that you can think of in scripture of blasphemy. And I mean legitimate blasphemy so not the blasphemy that Jesus was accused of. Yes. So I do view Goliath's cursing of the armies of the living God in 1 Samuel 17 as a form of blasphemy. I think that's why David is so outraged. He's outraged because he's one of those people that I mentioned at the beginning are people who care about the glory and reverence of God's name. David wasn't doing it just for being pro-Jewish, he was doing it because of Yahweh's name, the same God who had helped him kill those bears and lions. So Goliath's blasphemy against the living God, against Israel. What else? I'd have to go back and read the text. I mean, you have to remember, I mean, I'm not going to say you're wrong, but remember that's the one book that we don't find God's name in it at all. So he definitely hated the representatives of God. So perhaps, okay. So he's not technically invoking God's name, but he's setting himself above God. Look at all that I have made. And instantly he became a wild beast. How about Pharaoh? Moses comes and he says, Yahweh is here for his people. And he says, who is the Lord? Who is Yahweh? That I should obey his voice and let Israel go. as you read through Leviticus, which is you know it can be a tough book to read through at times. But in chapter 24 you see a vivid example, this is probably one of the clearest examples of there was a mixed marriage, there was an Israelite woman and an Egyptian man, and it says that her son, the Israelite woman's son, it says, blasphemed the name, a name there is capitalized, and cursed. We'll come back to that in a little bit. But he blasphemed the name of God in the camp. Numbers 21, is that what you just read today Madeline? Numbers 21, what did you read? Well, yeah it's close. You'll get there in a week. But in Numbers 21 it says, the people spoke against God and against Moses. It's a form of blasphemy. How about when Hezekiah is holed up in Jerusalem and along comes Sennacherib, remember that? And he says, do you really think this Yahweh is going to save you? There was no other gods that have been preserved from the other people we've attacked. But he mocks Yahweh, blaspheming him before Hezekiah and all the people of Israel in 2 Kings 18. How about Matthew 12 when the Pharisees say that Jesus' work of casting out demons they say it is only by Beelzebub, Beelzebul, the Prince of Demons that this man casts out demons. And of course we call that the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. 2 Peter 3, Peter talks about, he says, "...scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires. They will say, where is the promise of His coming? Mocking God. God said He was coming back. Ha-ha, it's never happened. Blaspheming His name." And the final one here to think about which is not a biblical example as much as it is an application for us and something that we should consider. Because again, you can get into that, I'm not doing that, therefore I'm okay. But what about our silence when we hear God's name blasphemed right in front of us? Do we care more about the reprisal of men or do we care about, like Joshua did, the name of God? So we take this phrase here together, take the name of the Lord your God in vain, means to lift up the name of Yahweh to emptiness, to use the name in a manner that's not befitting God's holiness. And I want you to think about that just for a moment here now more poignantly about what we do. So from the context of what do we do on Sundays? We enter into gathered worship. And yes, we can draw near with our mouths, we can honor God with our lips, but can we not, as Isaiah says in 29.13, can we not do that while our hearts are far from Him? Without a true fear of God? That is very possible. And I've quoted this verse recently in James, but from Psalm 24, who shall ascend the hill of the Lord? Who shall stand in his holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart. He who does not lift up his soul to what is false. That's what this is, to use God's name irreverently. means that you've lifted up your soul to what is false or that you've sworn deceitfully. So to take the name of the Lord your God in vain could be an attempt to manipulate God for personal ends. It could be to invoke God's name in support of a statement or a deed that does not really have God's authority behind it because you want to do something for deceptive purposes. A lot of charlatans going around to churches raise a lot of money And they do that through the implication that God is standing behind what I am affirming or what I'm doing. Do we see this a lot in those who preach a prosperity gospel? God told me. How many times have you heard these so-called preachers say, God told me? Or I was having a conversation with God. Or what about these so-called faith healers? Same type of vain use of God's name over and over and over. 1 Kings 22, I think I had mentioned this perhaps last time I taught. I wasn't focused on this text. Remember when they have to go get the one true prophet of the Lord, Micaiah, out of prison? But before that had happened, it says, the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, were sitting on their thrones. This is when they're planning to go into battle together. At the threshing floor, at the entrance of the Gate of Samaria, all the prophets were prophesying before them. What were they saying? Zedekiah, the son of Canaanah, made for himself horns of iron and said, Thus says the Lord, as if God had told this to him, with these you shall push the Syrians until they are destroyed. And all the prophets prophesied so and said, go up to Ramoth Gilead and triumph. The Lord will give it into the hand of the king. And they all lied for whatever they hoped to gain from that. And when Maikiah comes out, he has a word specifically for the Zedekiah guy, which I think left him a little speechless. But they were using the name of the Lord for personal gain, for their own prosperity. So it might be a little bit easier to look at something like that and say, well, I would never do that, but what about to come back to who we're called to be. And how often could we hear expressions slip out of people's mouths like, oh God, oh my God, good God, or even something like good heavens, which really the heavens are the Lord's. They point toward the Lord. All types of expressions like that are a breach of this law. A transgression of this law, and the one older commentator, so to show you that's not just unique in our time period, the guy was reading, I think it was like 1600s, 1700s, he said, how many who pass for Christians are highly criminal here with speaking that way? Instead, we ought to do as the psalmist says in Psalm 99.3, let them praise your great and awesome name. Holy is he. Going back to our thoughts of worship, how often do we use Jesus's name in word? How often do we pray in the name of Christ? How often do we sing about Jesus? What does it mean if you stand there and you sing but your heart's not in it or you're just mumbling the words or mouthing the word but you're mouthing the words of God? What does that mean in terms of this commandment when you're doing that? Or you pray and you just say at the very end, in Jesus' name, amen. And that's become so cliche for you as saying, God bless you if someone sneezes. It's a trite, trivial use of the most holy name of God. Psalm 29.2, ascribe to the Lord the glory due His name. Worship the Lord in the splendor of holiness. Psalm 103.1, bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless His holy name. So how many violations of the third word are taking place when we are entering into haphazard worship? Unprepared worship? Just quick run to our seats and be like, all right, we're ready, God. Here we go. Insincere worship? Irreverent worship? And by irreverent, I don't mean I don't mean that we're openly mocking God, but just not having a lack of awe that we should have of God. Unauthorized worship, as we'll see with Aaron's sons, and just overall unholy worship, all of those violate this third word. Another thing that I wanted to bring out, and I don't have anybody in mind, so don't feel attacked here, But in prayer, when we begin to use God's name as a crutch word, instead of saying, um, I'll just say, Lord. And so, Lord, you know, Lord, I was thinking today, Lord, that if you would hear my prayer, Lord, that type of, there's no way that that is reverential. That is just using it unthinkingly. And it's a very easy thing to fall into. But if you really think about it, you never talk to anybody else like that. You don't use my name four times in one sentence when you're talking to me. So it's something to think about. The way that we pray and the way that we invoke God's name in everything matters. But I don't want us to feel futile about this, because when we worship God with sincere and earnest hearts, it says in Proverbs 15.8 that the prayer of the upright is acceptable to Him. Praise God. The final phrase though here is something to take very seriously, that the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain. He will not be cleared, this person will not be pure, they will not be free or innocent, they will not be exempt from punishment. God is going to punish those who use his name vainly. So the millions upon billions of unholy use of his name that takes place all around the world, it will be punished. And we have to remember that if not in this world, then in the world to come. And sometimes God does it right away. So that blasphemer that I mentioned in Leviticus 24, what happens to him? He's executed. They take him outside the camp and they stone him to death. Or in a sense, do you remember from Acts 5, how God strikes down Ananias and Sapphira? I think they're guilty of this. He said, you have lied to the Holy Spirit. In a sense, they're saying, in the name of the Lord, we present this money in good faith as if this was the full proceeds of the sale of our house. Ezekiel 36, God talks about how he's going to vindicate the holiness of his great name. And he will be vindicated. He says, it has been profaned among the nations. He says, the nations will know that I am the Lord. Thomas Watson says this, and he starts out with the word, me thinks. And I thought, well we have to listen to it if he says, me thinks. And he says, "...methinks these words, the Lord will not hold him guiltless, should put a lock upon our lips, and make us afraid of speaking anything that may bring dishonor upon God, or may be taking his name in vain." Hebrews 10.31 says, "...it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God." But consider also what Peter says, He says, if you are insulted in 1 Peter 4, if you are insulted for the name of Christ. So, I think that's kind of Matt, like your tie in there. The name of Christ is what we identify, we have taken His name upon us. If you are insulted for that name you are blessed. Because the spirit of glory and of God rests upon you, but let none of you suffer as a murderer or a thief or an evildoer or as a meddler. Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian under the name of Christ, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in that name. How great of importance is this command, I mean for everybody in the world, but especially for those who are bound to God in covenant. Those who know His name in the relationship of gracious, divine love. And so, right before we leave here I just want to give you a few things. How should this third word then be positively construed? That's how we should look at all these commands. It's not just don't do, but what's the positive element to it? So if we are going to fully obey this law in a loving, cheerful way, here's some things. To speak of God and to want to hear others speak of God with all humility, reverence of heart, and manifestation of respect. That's how we should speak about God. We should not use his name the same way that we tell stories about our friends and all sorts of things that are happening. There should be a far greater reverence in our hearts anytime we invoke his name. To confess the Lord. We mentioned that in one of the verses, those who confess my name. We confess the Lord's name every Lord's Day together. We confess him, but to confess it in a holy way and also in an unashamed way. Unashamed loyalty, honor, and fear. Are you a Christian? Yes, I am. That type of unashamed loyalty. I am named by Christ. I bear his name upon me as one of his covenant children. As Paul says, to glorify God in all that we say or do. We probably don't think about the third commandment too often when we think about that, but we should think about, am I glorifying God when I say His name? Every time that I say His name. to be zealous for God's name and His cause. And I already gave you the example of Moses. We gave the example of David. And of course, Elijah is another great example. But on the flip side of that, as Paul says in Romans 2.24, giving no occasion through our lifestyle for others to blaspheme God's name. So if we live in such a way that we provoke other people to blaspheme his name through our evil behavior as we proclaim ourselves to be Christians then we are the ones who are also violating this law. To call upon the name of the Lord which I wrote down Psalm 99 6 I didn't put that in here so I don't I'll read it to you in a second. This is referring to, it says, Moses and Aaron were among God's priests. Samuel also was among those who called upon his name. They called to the Lord, and he answered them. Do we call upon the name of the Lord in this same way? And finally, to swear by God's name holy manner. And we see that in Scripture. 2 Corinthians 1.23, Paul makes statements sometimes and he's essentially saying, as God is my witness I'm not lying to you, or whatever he says. So, we see there is precedent for it. And so, if we are going to use God's name then we better one be telling the truth, and we better be doing it in a holy, reverential way. Jeremiah 42.5 is another example. And the other thing that I would refer you to is also if you've looked at the bulletins I've been putting in a catechism question each week from the Hercule Collins Baptist Catechism. If you go to questions 111 through 114 you'll see pointed questions about this Third Commandment. What does it prohibit? What does it call for? What are we supposed to do? How can we properly observe command. It's a pretty short verse. There's a lot there, and there was a lot that I even cut out of the notes, but I hope that in some ways just thinking about it a little bit more comprehensively with all these different categories fuels each one of us to think a little bit more deeply. That was my prayer this morning, that we will all think a little bit more deeply about about this every single time that we use God's name, when we sing His name, when we pray His name, when we use it in our conversations with each other. Even as we quote scripture, we are quoting from Psalm 33 on Sundays, we are saying the Lord, are we just saying that like it is just any other word in the verse, or does it mean something to our hearts? This is the God who has saved us from destruction. And He is worthy of every ounce of reverence that we can summon every time we use it. Let's pray, and then if you have any questions, come on up. But thank you for your attention. Father in heaven, we do desire, even in our sinful flesh, Lord, we desire that your name will be reverenced here on earth. And I pray, Lord, that every time that we hear your name blasphemed and mocked, and curse, that that will be like a knife to our own heart because we are so united to you. We pray, Lord, that you will give us courage to speak out against those who use your name so flippantly. We pray, Lord, that as we worship weakly, that this will really be upon our hearts, that we will remember that we have been called into the presence of the King with not the fear that Esther had that she might be killed for entering But we can enter into your presence because of the shed blood of Jesus Christ, because that dividing partition has been torn asunder. But nevertheless, we are coming into the presence of the King of Kings. Give us holy tongues, Lord. Give us pure hearts. Give us a true desire to honor you, even as we seek to obey this command cheerfully. And we pray this now in the name of Jesus, our Savior. Amen.