Please open your Bibles to Deuteronomy chapter 5, and we'll be centering our thoughts on verse 11, which is the third commandment, which reads, 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. Now, we need to set this in its overall context. We're speaking about the name of God. In particular, how the name of God is dishonored. Let's go back to Genesis, and Exodus, and Leviticus, and Numbers, and then now to Deuteronomy. And let's consider the name of God. We find that in Genesis, God is the almighty creator. He is a faithful creator of all that there is. This is one representation of His name that's cast in Genesis. In Exodus, we find God as a mighty deliverer. He brings His people out of Egypt. He takes His people out of bondage. They have chains around their neck. And He comes out of His kindness. And He rescues His people. So, in Exodus, the name of God is all bound up in His ability to deliver a human being from his or her bondage and to lift them up out of the miry clay and take them out of the hands of Pharaoh and put them in the hands of a faithful shepherd. And then in Leviticus, he is a gracious sanctifier. He comes to his people and he helps them deal with their sins. That they would find expiation, forgiveness, mercy upon them as sinners. So, His name there is expressed in His loving sanctification of His people. And then when we get to Numbers, we see that He is the patient restorer of His wandering people. They're wandering in the wilderness. They've been delivered. They've been taken out of the house of bondage. And God has set them free, but yet they complain. They murmur. They rebel. They have stiff necks, but yet God is so kind. to walk with them. He carries them in the wilderness. And He carries them to their final destination. Because He is a restorer and a carrier of a wandering people. And that explains His name, His character and His nature. And when we get to the book of Deuteronomy, we find that He is a faithful lawgiver. That He gives His children laws so that they would know how to live. So that they wouldn't have to invent it out of their brains. or out of the residue of the brains of their fathers and mothers or the wicked cultures that they live in. But He gives them laws that are right. Laws that they can stake everything on. And so, we've seen in the Pentateuch the great name of God. God as a faithful creator. God as a mighty deliverer. God as a gracious and generous sanctifier of His people. God as a restorer of His wandering children. and then now as a beneficial lawgiver to his people. So his name is important. We know his name is wonderful. The third commandment is about the beauty of the name and also how mankind would dishonor it. And so we're in a territory here of this great contrast of God in all of his glory and his beauty. his beneficial, loving kindness, his fatherly care, his perfections, his glory, his goodness. All these things, God's name is set against man's mouth and what he says. And we find here that the third commandment touches every area of life. It might be very convenient for us to say, I've not broken the third commandment because I did not cuss today. And yet, this misses the full meaning of the commandment. So this, by way of introduction, we need to understand that this commandment is set over against who God is and in all of His wonder. And yet, how profane man can be in representing Him with his mouth and with his life. So that's the overall thrust of what we have here. It is a prohibition. Do you see that? Thou shalt not, or you shall not, And so, this is a restraint against rash behavior. There is something here that God is restricting us from. He would cause us to withhold our inclinations. We live in a world where people think that goodness is letting your inclinations go. But here, what we find in this commandment, that that's not true at all. That blessing comes from the withholding, from the restraint, from handing us in If God's people would truly be His people, they would have to be a people hemmed in by His own commandments. And so yes, God does restrict His people. God does say, don't cross that line. Don't go there. And so we find this prohibition, and it is about a sin of the tongue. We know that we all stumble in many things. that we speak wrongly. Our tongues speak rashly. We misrepresent the heart of God to our children, to our friends, to our church, to our business associates. Our mouths are constantly misrepresenting God. And, of course, James chapter 3 says that the tongue is a restless evil full of deadly poison. The tongue, in this context, speaks things that are inconsistent with the glory of God. Remember, we're setting the glory and the wonder and the beauty of God over against what we say with our tongues and what our lives represent. That there's this big disconnect between the goodness of God and the representation of Him as human beings. And so, this commandment has implications about everything. Everything from double talk to phoniness in our conversation. Everything from coarse jesting to cussing pastors, to saying one thing and doing another, to parenting one way and living another way. This has enormous implications. It's so easy to do as a legalist would do so well. Legalists would like to isolate a commandment to some particular thing and justify themselves by it. That's what legalists do. You remember the company Clean Flicks that was wiped off the face of the earth because 16 Hollywood directors brought a lawsuit against it. Clean Flicks wanted to make actually profane films seem clean by taking nasty words out of them. And so, they were sued and this is a Mormon company out of Denver, Colorado and they were finally destroyed by a lawsuit and a court ruling a couple of years ago. In fact, Mel Gibson sued this company because they took three of the most violent scenes out of the Passion of Christ. It's our tendency to try to make something profane, holy, by just changing a couple of little things. The Third Commandment doesn't let us do that. But we like to do that. We like to say, I didn't cuss today. I have kept all the laws of God. particularly this one, because I have not cursed God today. But the third commandment goes far deeper than that. So the first thing I wanted us to see is that it is a prohibition that includes the sin of the tongue, but it's broader than that. So that is a second line of reasoning. And then next, it is a prohibition for taking God's name lightly. The word vain is the word shav in Hebrew, and it means to make worthless. And so the minimal meaning of this word would be to restrain from swearing or using a swear word. But this word has to do with worthlessness. This is not the same term that's used in Ecclesiastes. Vanity, vanity, all is vanity. It's different. It has to do with worthlessness and lightness. And it's the opposite of what the Lord Jesus said when He called His children to pray, Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Again, you find this contrast. The holy name of God and then the way that He's represented in the world. How do you live in your representing of God is the subject matter that's here. And so the third commandment brings us the idea of emptiness and meaninglessness and the idea that if you say you are a Christian and you don't act like one, then you are taking his name in vain. Now, to take his name in vain, what does that mean? We look at the word vain and it has to do with worthlessness or lightness. But to take it means to carry it, to bear it. We're always bearing a name. We bear our own names. We bear our family names. If you're a woman who's married, you bear your husband's name. We always bear a name of some kind. But when we come into the family of God, we bear His name. He gives us a new name, and we are associated with Him. Abraham and Isaac took on the name of God, and so do we in our lives. There's much more in a name than just the using of the name by spelling it or pronouncing it. It's a representation. To bear the name of God means that you represent Him, that you stand for Him. And the violation of the third commandment is standing wrongly to misrepresent him, to misuse his name. Or you could say it's to use it hypocritically. You could say that it is living a sham or living a fake life. misrepresenting God in various ways through our speech and through our lives. And so it's the trivialization of God. There's a book that David Wells wrote several years ago called God in the Wasteland. And in one of the chapters, he speaks of the weightlessness of God. What he meant by that is that God has no meaning. His commands have no meaning in the church today. It means that what He says is completely disregarded. He is weightless. He is light. He is nothing. And that's how we take His name in vain. By making Him light, we take Him very lightly. in all these things. Now that we've gotten through sort of a rough definition of this, I would like to fill out some of the ways that we should see it, because there are a number of facets to this that I think we should be looking at it. So it is a prohibition of taking God's name lightly. OK, and then next in the third point in your outline, it is a prohibition that is designed to preserve the good name of God. It is a prohibition that is designed to preserve the good name of God. In other words, it's a prohibition that when we understand it and keep it, that the goodness of God is proclaimed. His kindness, His mercy, His greatness is seen in the world by what we say and what we do. Doesn't that sound impossible? But that's what this is really saying that it is possible for a human being to give glory to God with some level of accuracy. It is possible for us to praise God. I'll just have to be very honest with you. As I was preparing this and sitting here this morning, my main prayer for the objective of this morning is that somehow when we walk out of here today, that we would have a greater heart to extol the name of God in all that we're doing. And I was praying that God would help me to personally praise God, to give thanks to Him, to extol His name, and that we would all learn more how to extol it in our lives. We were created for His glory. Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord. And so, this commandment would lead us to another step, another level, of knowing how to shine the glory and the goodness and the faithfulness of God. That everything happens in life, we would live it in such a way so that His beauty, His grandeur, His love would be extolled in everything that we might experience in this life. And so, he says here, do not take the name of the Lord your God. What does it mean to take? It means to lift up. You lift up a name. At any given moment in life, we are lifting up His name. And when we speak, we're lifting up a name. With every word, with every action, with every inflection, we're lifting up one name or another. This is the privilege that God has given mankind. That He would actually appoint a little boy or a little girl or an old man the amazing opportunity to lift up the name of a perfect God, to represent Him. If you've ever thought of working for a very famous person or being the right hand man of a king, to be in the court of the most prominent individual in the world, what an honor that would be. But think of this, to be a representative of the King of Kings who created the heavens and the earth. The King who rescues His people out of bondage. The King who washes His people's sins away. The King who gives them wonderful laws and carries them throughout their pilgrimage. This is the one we represent. And He has given it to us. That as we look at one another in the eye, as we sit with one another, as we go through life together as a church, we have this privilege to be able to represent Him, to represent His good name. And that's what this command is all about. That's why in Psalm 100 we read, enter into His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise. Be thankful to Him. Bless His name. It's His name that's wonderful. His name is wonderful. And we read of the greatness and the beauty of His name. In Psalm 109, the psalmist says, But you, O Lord, deal with me for your name's sake, because your mercy is good." Well, this is just an extolling of His name. The psalmist knows that God is good. And so, he says, deal with me for your name's sake. The second commandment is about preserving the good name of God in this world. In Psalm 89, We read, blessed are the people who know the joyful sound. They who walk, O Lord, in the light of your countenance. And then he says, in your name they rejoice all day long. You know, if God would work mightily in His church, or in this church particularly, it would be in this way. That we would be a people who would rejoice in His name." That this would be our overwhelming focus of attention in the church. His name. There's no other name that's worthy of our attention. And so, He through this commandment draws us like a magnet to all of His goodness. But yet in that magnet we feel the pull of the earth We feel our own profanity. We feel the ways that we misrepresent Him. We hear the words that we've spoken that have been wrong and how we've misrepresented Almighty God. But His name is wonderful. He's drawing us up into His love by His commandments. He's pulling us and He's saying, no, gravitate toward My name. Your name and what you represent is profane, but not Me. But do not take the name of the Lord your God in vain. He's saying, I want My name upon you. I want all of My goodness and grace to be covering you in your life. And so, it's a prohibition away from our own name and an attraction and a love for His name. There are so many wonderful texts of Scripture that speak of His name. You know, we can profane His name in Proverbs 30. We read the prayer, the cry, Oh, Lord, please let it not be that I would be full and deny you and say, who is the Lord? Lest I be poor and steal and profane the name of my God. So we have these two things before us. We can profane the name of God. or we can extol it and carry it and represent it in its most beautiful form. So there's a counterpart to the commandment. Do you see that? There's a beautiful counterpart to this commandment. On the one hand, you can take the name in vain, but also you can praise and extol the name and show the beauty of His great and fatherly kindness. In Psalm 106, we read, Nevertheless, He saved them for His name's sake. In Psalm 81, O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is thy name in all the earth." So that's the counterpart. They're taking it in vain. That's not our only alternative. That's not our only opportunity. We have an opportunity to make His name great and to be good creatures, to be good subjects of this great King and to set ourselves under His authority and say, I will give my whole life to glorify Your name instead of taking it in vain. So that's the beautiful counterpart that we see here. And I think Jesus summarizes, He so beautifully captures the counterpart when He says that we ought to pray, Hallowed be Thy name. Instead of lightly, heavily, hallowed. That it would be holy and not irrelevant at all. So it is for all of mankind, not only to understand the prohibition, but to walk in the counterpart of making His name holy in everything that we do. And so we see here that it's not enough to keep from swear words. Any speech or behavior or thought that establishes the holiness of God, that magnifies the majesty of God, that extols the goodness of God, Any behavior that does not do this is disobedience to the third commandment. So then let's take this a little further. Now that we've seen that it is not only a prohibition regarding the tongue. And not only does it have a beautiful counterpart, but also it's illustrated in many places in Scripture. So I'd like for us just to consider a few of the places that the keeping and the breaking of this commandment is explained in Scripture. Let's start in the book of Acts. Let's start with that amazing story. How many of you are familiar with the seven sons of Sceva? The seven sons of Sceva were Jewish exorcists and they loved one thing, power. They loved the praise of man and they would do anything they could to get it. And they saw the apostles doing wonders and signs in the community by using the name of Jesus. And they said, we want that power. And they came upon these amazing works of God and they used the name of Jesus to exercise a demon. And the evil spirit answered them and said, Jesus, I know and Paul, I know, but who are you? Then the man whom the evil spirit was leaped upon them and overpowered them and prevailed against them. So they fled out of that house naked and wounded, which fulfills the second part of the threatening of the third commandment. that He will by no means hold them guiltless who break this commandment. And they received the punishment right there in the spot. They were beaten, they were stripped of their clothes, and they ran out naked. And this was the judgment against them for breaking the third commandment. What was their sin? They wanted to use the name of Jesus for their own gain. For their own personal popularity. for their own prosperity. This is a great sin. You might just be thinking right now that this perhaps is not overwhelming of the sin of the unbeliever, but it's the sin of the believer. The one who wants to prosper by the name of Jesus. You've heard of the prosperity gospel. We've seen televangelists who want to line their pockets with money from the gospel. The great temptation is to build cash flows off the people of God. This is a great temptation for all all people who are involved in the Church of Jesus Christ. And so here, one illustration of this is the desire for men to gain in their reputation in their community. But in contrast, the Christian does everything for God's name. We could go to Matthew chapter 5. verse 33 to 37, where we find Jesus speaking of oaths and swearing. And He says, let your yes be yes and your no be no. In other words, don't use the name of God for your promise. You keep your promise. You be a man of integrity. You don't need to promise on the name of God. Don't use Him to strengthen your promise. You just keep your promise before God and man. Be a man of integrity. You don't need to use some God language to verify your life. You just obey God. That's the principle that's there. We see the principle in Jesus' words to those that he called hypocrites in Matthew 5.14. He says, well, did Isaiah prophesy about you saying these people draw near to me with their mouth? And they honor me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. And in vain they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men." So, an illustration of taking the name of the Lord your God in vain is honoring Him with your lips, but your heart is far from Him. That's one way that we take His name in vain. We are like those that Paul spoke of to Timothy. who have a form of godliness, but they deny its power. Or like the false prophets who come in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are like ravenous wolves. In other words, there's a disconnect between what they are inwardly and what they say outwardly. It's the fulfillment of what Jesus said, not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven. But he who does the will of my Father in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name, in your name? Yes, they were speaking in his name outwardly. And did we not cast out demons in your name and done many wonders in your name? And then I will declare to them, I never knew you. Depart from me, you who practice lawlessness. Therefore, whoever hears these sayings of mine, and does them. I will liken him to the wise man who built his house upon a rock." The wise man built his house upon the rock. And the rains came a-tumbling down. This is all about the third commandment. It is the identification of what is in the heart and yet what might be disconnected from the life. And so, there are many illustrations in Scripture that we can point to. We can point to Malachi chapter 1. We see a brilliant violation of the third commandment in Malachi chapter 1. In verse 6 we read, A son honors his father, a servant his master. If I then am the father, where is my honor? And if I am a master, where is my reverence? says the Lord of hosts. Yet you say, in what way have we despised your name? The people had been despising his name. They'd been taking the Lord's name in vain every time they sacrificed. They were doing deeds. They were superstitiously carrying out different actions that were commanded in Scripture. They were making sacrifices, but with every sacrifice they were taking his name in vain. This is why we can again say that it's religious people who have to watch out for this. Those who are representing God, but doing it in a fake way. And he says, you're dishonoring me this way. You offer defiled food on my altar. But you say, in what way have we defiled you? And the Lord answers, the table of the Lord is contemptible. And when you offer the blind as a sacrifice, is it not evil? And when you offer the lame and the sick, is it not evil? And so they were bringing their sick and crummy animals, the ones that should die instead of their very best. They were just trying to get by. They had no heart in it at all. They just wanted to do a ritual to justify themselves, but their hearts were far from him. But he said, would you offer this to your governor? Would your governor be pleased with you if you offered this to him? Would he accept you favorably, says the Lord of hosts? And then he says, but now entreat God's favor that he may be gracious to us. While this is being done by your hands, will he accept you? favorably. And then he goes on and just explains different ways that God is being dishonored through the sacrifices. Perhaps it's true that even when God's people gather together, there's more opportunity to take the name of the Lord in vain than anywhere else when we are together, when we represent God, and maybe wrongly. We see it in Numbers chapter 16, when Korah, who was in rebellion against God, used God's name to oppose Moses. And they were saying, no, we are holy. Aren't we holy too? And that was not true. They were misrepresenting the true situation. They were misrepresenting God in that situation. So it can be illustrated in a number of places in scripture and we could go on and on about the different ways and the different places and the different phrases that help us understand this third commandment. And then next we can see that it's illustrated in many places in modern experience. We've spoken about a number of ways already. about how the name of God is taken in vain in our experience, in our church experience, in our parenting, in a number of different ways. But it's far broader than that. Consider some of these. In a couple of days, the whole world will be watching the presidential inauguration. At that inauguration, we're going to have Gene Robinson, the avowedly homosexual Episcopalian bishop, stand to represent God. This is the taking of the Lord's name in vain. When a man stands up to represent something that God is against, that is taking the name of the Lord your God in vain. God will not hold him guiltless. God will not hold our president guiltless from this sin against heaven to take profane things and pretend that they are holy. That is what taking the name of the Lord your God in vain is in the public sphere. To take something that is so contrary and to re-spin it, to repackage it, to make it appear to be something holy. You see it other places. I ran across a news article about an advertisement that appeared in a Florida newspaper where it said this, Islam. the way of life of Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad. That's taking the name of the Lord your God in vain. That's misrepresenting the name of God by mixing it with all kinds of other unholy things. There are other ways. Just this last week a report came out through the Varna Research Organization, which talked about the lifestyles of believers. The headline was giving the message that people who claim to be believers really have rejected the Bible. That's taking the name of the Lord your God in vain. For example, close to half of those who claim to be believers do not believe that Satan exists. That's taking the name of the Lord your God in vain. That's a profane people gathering Sunday after Sunday. They do not believe what God has said. They're taking his name in vain. One third contend that Jesus sinned while he is on the earth. It's staggering to me. that one third of those who claim to be believers believe that Jesus Christ sinned. This is taking the name of the Lord your God in vain. Two fifths say that they do not have a responsibility to share the Christian faith with others. One fourth dismiss the idea that the Bible is accurate in all that it teaches. This is a perspective of life that exalts the supremacy of the individual and the individual's perspective on life. That's taking the name of the Lord your God in vain. When you exalt your own perspective above God's perspective, and this is what we have. Think of your own pocketbook. Reach into your own pocketbook and pull out a dollar. And what does it say on that dollar? It says, in God we trust. Beyond that, it's supposed to have some intrinsic value. It's supposed to have gold or silver backed by it, but it doesn't at all. It's completely phony. You may be able to get by with it for a period of time, but in reality, it has no intrinsic value. This dollar that we carry and it also has no truth in the statement upon it either, that it is in God that we trust. There are many, many ways that we see the name of God taken in vain. When people say, I swear to God, or when people use His name in a way that causes His name to be blasphemed. In Romans chapter 2, we see that it is written, God's name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you. This is the reality of modern ways that we take the name of the Lord in vain. Thomas Watson, the Puritan, the Westminster Divine, wrote so insightfully about this third commandment. I want to read 14 ways that he itemized that help us to understand how we take the Lord's name in vain. Here's number one. When we speak slightly or irreverently, of His name. When you say, God is rad, He's my dad, God is my co-pilot. Perhaps you've known people who say, praise the Lord. They're really just saying, oh great. They're not really honoring God's name when they say it. It's just a phrase. It's taking slightly or irreverently His name or Perhaps people might say, oh, my God, or something like that, that is taking it irreverently or misusing it. Or number two, Thomas Watson says, when the testimony of our tongues is inconsistent with our lives, that's a pretended holiness. Number three, when we use God's name in idle discourse, he is not to be spoken but with holy awe upon our hearts." This is losing a sense of the awesome presence of God in the midst of our interactions and our speech. Do you see how comprehensively we might take the Lord's name in vain? When we're speaking, we're doing our business, but we're not aware of His holiness. We're not operating with a sense of His authority and His goodness toward us. Number four, when we worship Him with our lips, but not in our hearts. Where we might bring a few ceremonies to God, but not our hearts. Number five, when we pray to Him, but do not believe in Him. How we might pray, but we've not mixed our prayer with faith. We don't really believe that God hears and will answer our prayers. They're faithless prayers. That's taking the name of the Lord your God in vain in prayer. Number six, when in any way we profane and abuse His Word, when we meddle with it, when we find evil men quoting Scripture for their own ends. Number seven, that speak scornfully of His Word and we say things like, where is the promise of thy coming? When we don't believe it, when we speak profanely about it, and we cast it aside. We say, that's not true. That's taking the name of the Lord your God in vain. When you speak jestingly about it, Watson says, such are they who play with Scripture. It is like playing with fire. To just use Scripture for some use of your own. Number nine, to bring Scripture to countenance any sin." In other words, to use Scripture to justify your sin. Watson gives an illustration of that. He says, when a covetous man who is obsessed with his own gain, he quotes Scripture to justify it. He says, hasn't God told me to work six days and that he who doesn't provide for his own is worse than an unbeliever? He says, often the wicked quote Scripture to justify their own wicked behavior, to take it and twist it, and make it mean something that didn't, so that it doesn't apply to them. And so, to bring Scripture to justify sin. We are so profane that we will do that. We will quote Scripture to justify our own behavior. The misuse of scripture, number 10, they adulterate the word and rest it in a wrong sense. In other words, to put your own gloss on scripture, to make it mean what you want it to mean, but not what the Spirit of God meant it. to mean, to jerk it out of its context, bleeding and screaming, and make it mean something it was never intended to mean at all. To read Scripture and say, Jesus is a gentleman who will not violate your will. That's just taking Scripture completely out of its meaning. To do like what the Jews did When the Lord said, bind them as a sign on your hand and then make it as if that was the way that you fulfill the command, but just writing it on your hand or putting on your doorpost. And that's it. You're done. That's misusing, misusing, taking it out of its intended meaning and context. And then 11 swearing by God's name. And then 12, vile swearing, horrid, prodigious oaths not to be named. In other words, this is just blatant cursing. You lose in a game and you curse. And you use filthy language when the dice runs against you. That's the example that Watson gives. This last week I was reading a sermon by George Whitefield that he preached on a ship, on a sailing ship, on cursing and swearing. And he says that this sin is so exceedingly sinful because it's the only thing that they do in hell. They're constantly swearing and cursing and gnashing their teeth against Almighty God. That this swearing is something that is reserved for hell itself. And then he gives a number of points. He says, it brings no pleasure to the one who gives it. It hardens the people who hear it. And it generally grows with habit. And it can only be matched in hell. That's George Whitefield on this whole matter of swearing. Thomas Watson also says that we take the name of the Lord our God in vain when we murmur against His providences. Murmuring accuses God's justice. It springs from a bitter root. If you're not happy with what God has given, you are murmuring against Him with your tongue. You're taking the name of the Lord your God in vain. And then lastly, number 14, we take the name of the Lord our God in vain when we falsify our promise as when we say, if God would spare our life, we would do a certain thing and never intend it. In other words, we make a promise because we want to get out of hot water. Lord, I will obey you if you just get me out of this jam. He says that's taking the name of the Lord your God in vain. So there are a number of ways that we can see how this applies in everyday life that's illustrated in modern experience. And then lastly. It carries a threatening promise of judgment. So, notice that there's a curse associated with this sin. That there's a threat of judgment, but the judgment is not spelled out. It's general, and he says that the Lord will not hold you guiltless by breaking this commandment. And so there is guilt from it and some terrible curse that will come upon us. So that's the general picture of this third commandment. And I would like us to drop down and do some applying of this commandment. And let's just remember that what this is all about, it's about the expression of the glory of God in the world. That we would be a people so ready to glorify Him in our speech and by our lives. that we would be real, that we would be true, that we would not be a phony people, that we would not be two-faced or double-tongued in any way, but that when people are with us, what you see is what you get, and what you get is good and pure, because it's a reflection from heaven. God would make His people honest people who are not hiding in the shadows of their own sin, but real, intentionally, with all of their hearts, reflecting the glory of God. So, I would like to bring a few recommendations that I've been making to myself on this commandment. Let it pierce my outward veneer. Let it pierce my outward veneer. Exposing lack of integrity in my life. Let it help me see the thousands of ways that I misrepresent God in my everyday life. I cannot escape this commandment. My only hope is the blood of Jesus Christ. What can wash away my sin, my guilt from this sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus Christ. This commandment should pierce my heart and show me for what I really am. I'm a hypocrite. I stand before God under judgment, except but by the blood of Christ. And so, I trust that as we go through this commandment, we won't make that mistake of saying, I didn't cuss today. That would so miss the point of the commandment. But that our hearts would be pierced to see any impurity in us, any phoniness. Is there any way that I've been making myself something that I am not? And so this is a command to take stock of our true selves. And it will not allow us to be surface Christians operating on the outward plane alone. So that's the first. And the second is this. Let it challenge us in our speech. Let it challenge us in our speech. The command here calls us out of shooting our mouths off. and thereby misrepresenting the goodness and the beauty of God. But we've been given a mouth for a purpose, for the praise of God. And out of phoniness in our speech, into genuineness, out of complaining and murmuring, and into awe and thanksgiving for the good name of God, out of religiosity for hire, and into heartfelt service, It pulls us. It just pulls us over to beautiful, truly spiritual talk and out of earthly, self-aggrandizing speech. So, let it challenge us in our speech. Let it challenge us in our speech. That we would be so careful to glorify Almighty God in our speech. You know, we've been given a tongue for a reason. And that is to make plain The greatness of the beauty of God. This is what we've been created for. And then third, let this repentance that we might have from this transform all of our relationships. Now, this commandment does touch all of our relationships. Because our relationships are often governed by the things that we say. And this disconnect between what we say and who we really are. Let me just give you some illustrations of this. I've seen wives who will not go to Bible studies or prayers with their husband because they see this great disconnect. Because a husband is different on the outside than he is at home. Because there's a great disconnect between the glory of God and his own profane real life that is only seen at home. And so, We take the name of the Lord our God in vain as fathers by saying one thing and living another way. And we harm our wives when we do it. And we offend them. Is it possible that any of us have offended our wives by taking the name of the Lord our God in vain? Is that possible? I doubt that there is a man in here who can get under the barbed wire of this command. and what it really means in everyday life. And so this command affects all of our relationships. How is it that we have such a kind and tender hearted father and yet we as fathers are harsh with our children? How is that? It's because we are sinners. We break this commandment in our parenting many times. We could take this down to every personality in the family. We could begin to unpack this for a wife. We could unpack this for the 3-year-old and the 8-year-old and the 12-year-old. And how every one of us stands condemned under this commandment. Because there's this disconnect of the greatness and the beauty of God and the profanity of our own hearts. And God is driving us to this realization here by bringing us to this commandment today. That we would be a humbler people that we would see the disconnect more clearly and repent and cast ourselves before the only one who can help us out of this pit. As with all the commandments, they all call us out of trying to be justified by the law We want to be justified by the law. In our hearts, we want to make it easy to keep the Ten Commandments so that we can maintain our reputations just a cut above average. I was telling someone this week that particularly when I was a new believer, I would read the Ten Commandments and I would be able to say, I've kept those commandments today. I misunderstood them. Thank God for his mercy. That even though you might misunderstand the meaning of these commandments, that His mercy is greater if your heart is genuinely turned toward God. Because God is dealing with hearts, not outward actions for justification. But we constantly want to seek to be justified by the law. It means that we've reduced them to some level that any nice, considerate person can achieve. And they can read them and say, I didn't worship Buddha or Allah today. I've passed the first commandment. I didn't bow down to a carved image today. I passed the second. I didn't cuss today. I passed the third. I never missed a Sunday. I passed the fourth. I didn't speak unkindly to my dad. I passed the fifth. I didn't stab anyone today and kill them. I passed the 6th. I didn't sleep around today. I passed the 7th. I didn't shoplift. I passed the 8th. I didn't lie today to anyone on the witness stand. I passed the 9th. I didn't take my neighbor's car today. I passed the 10th. And so we want to be like the rich, young ruler who says, I've kept all these things from my youth. But that's not true at all. Because the reality is, we've broken all of these commandments multiple times in our hearts every day. And our only hope is the blood of Jesus Christ. At the same time, at the same time, though God's mercy is great, there's another reality. That is so critical that we cannot miss this command is meant to be obeyed. We must obey this command. We must be conscious of it. We don't let grace wipe away the command. We let grace enhance our reason for keeping it, for loving the command, for desiring to live in a way that's consistent. For to live in a way to glorify the name of God, to constantly with our lips and with our lives to say how good God is. And so on the one hand, our only hope. is the blood of Christ. But at the same time, we must keep this commandment. And those two things are not contradictory at all. They are two realities that are critical for us to understand when we read the Ten Commandments and desire to keep them. And with this one, keeping them means this, to in all that we are and have, every minute of life, in every business transaction, in every activity, in every word, in every child-raising moment, in every interaction with our parents, we would end up here. Hallowed be Thy name. Hallowed be Thy name. Let's pray. Lord, we are amazed at the depth and the reach of these commandments. They completely undo us. They go into the deepest, darkest recesses of our hearts. and they convict us. Lord, let Your law do its work to drive us to repentance and that we would also be driven to see the goodness of these commands and keep them with all of our hearts. Oh Lord, we're a little church here out in a place that You've put us together. Would You come, Lord, and help us to keep this commandment with all of our hearts? In Jesus' name,