You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not leave him unpunished who takes His name in vain. –– Exodus 20:7 (NAS)
All of us have the experience from time to time of being around people who use the name of the Lord as profanity. We have all felt that uneasy feeling in the pit of our stomach, as people consistently trivialized the name of our Lord. For some of us, this may be a daily occurrence. In fact, we have heard it so much, we are in danger of becoming desensitized to it. This is one of Satan’s smoothest ploys. Through constant exposure, he seeks to increase our tolerance for sinful activity of every kind.
The Third Commandment is a prohibition against taking the name of the Lord in vain. Why would God give such a commandment? Are our words such a big deal? What does it mean to take the Lord’s name in vain? Does this commandment simply refer to swearing or cursing? Is there more in view here than simply the sins we commit with our tongues? The answers to these questions will prove interesting indeed.
There is more in view in the Third Commandment than verbal profanity. Certainly that is in view. But the Third Commandment is much broader than that. As we shall see, this commandment deals not only with our speech, but also with our lifestyle. It deals with our lips and our lives, with our words and our walk.
The implications of this commandment should be very important to you if you are a believer. You see, this commandment was originally addressed to God’s covenant community. Therefore, it is extremely applicable to those of us who call ourselves Christians. In fact, Christians are the very ones who may be most likely to take the Lord’s name in vain. It is possible to take the Lord’s name in vain without ever speaking a word. Are you guilty of violating the Third Commandment by taking the Lord’s name in vain?
Our text speaks into our contemporary situation a very relevant message for each of us. It is a message that will not only give us new respect for the name of our God, but also provide the sobering grist for serious reflection concerning our lifestyle.
The Third Commandment applies to Christians. I said before that Christians may be the most likely ones to take the name of the Lord in vain. There are at least two ways this can be a danger for us. The first is when we do not apprehend the command. By this I mean that when we do not fully understand the implications of the command, we may be in danger of breaking it.
We must understand the importance of names.God commands us, in the Third Commandment, not to take the name of our Lord in vain. It is apparent, that God places much importance upon His name. While God has forbidden us to make any image depicting His glory, He has given us His name. His name represents His character. His name represents His person. And we must understand the significance and symbolic character of names, if we are to understand the Third Commandment.
We need to see that in the Bible, names are symbolic. In Scripture, names have meaning for the individual. The essence of the individual was captured in the name. When God created Adam, He gave him that name because it means "man." Eve was created. Her name means "mother of all living." God brought the animals to Adam and his task was to name them all. I’m sure their names had something to do with the characteristics of each creature.
In the Old Testament we see parents choosing names for their children in order to reveal a nature. Jacob was so named because he had his hand on his brother Esau’s heel. Jacob literally means "heel-catcher." His brother Esau was so named because he was red and hairy. Judah means "praise." Samuel means "asked of God." Kareah means "bald."
We find God changing the names of certain people in the Old Testament. Why did He do this? He did it to show that their lives now had a new direction, a new meaning, a new nature. Abram was changed to Abraham, which means "the father of a multitude. Sarai was changed to Sarah, which means "princess." Jacob’s name was changed to Israel because he was a "prince with God." Simon’s name was changed to Peter, which means "rock." Saul’s name was changed to Paul, perhaps in honor of his first convert, Sergius Paulus.
In the Bible, God’s names are revelatory of His character. God is revealed to us in Scripture by His names. They show us His nature. He is El Shaddai, the Strong One. He is El-Elyon, God Most High. He is El-Olam, the Everlasting God. He is Jehovah Jirah, the God Who Provides. He is Jehovah Rophe, the God Who Heals. He is Jehovah M’Kaddesh, the God Who Sanctifies. He is Jehovah Shalom, the God of Peace. He is Jehovah Sabaoth, the Lord of Hosts. He is Jehovah Tsidkenu, the Lord Our Righteousness. He is Jehovah Shammah, the God Who is There. He is Jehovah Nissi, the Lord Our Banner. And He is Jehovah Roi, the Lord Our Shepherd.
In Isaiah chapter 9 verse 6 it says of Christ that "His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace."(NAS) The names of our Lord Christ abound in Scripture. He is the Second Adam, our Advocate, the Alpha and Omega, the Ancient of Days, the Amen, the Author and Finisher of our Faith, the Blessed and Only Potentate, the Captain of our Salvation, the Chief Shepherd, the Cornerstone. He is the Dayspring, the Desire of the Nations, the Faithful Witness, the First and the Last. He is the Good Shepherd, our Great High Priest, the Holy One of God. He is the Great I Am, the Judge of Israel, the King of the Jews, the King of Saints, and the King of Kings. He is the Light of the World, the Lord of Glory, the Lord of Lords. He is the Messiah, the Mediator between God and Man, the Man of Sorrows, yet, the Mighty God. He is the Prince of Peace, the Resurrection and Life, the Rock of our Salvation, the Rose of Sharon, the Root of David, the Savior of the World. He is the Shepherd and Bishop of Souls, the Son of Righteousness, the Son of Man, and the Son of God. He is Shiloh. He is the True Vine, the Truth, the Witness, and the Word of God. He is the Lamb of God, and the Lion of the Tribe of Judah. That’s who Christ is. What’s in a name? There is much in a name. Names in the Scripture were symbolic.
But names in Scripture are also significant. Take marriage, for instance. In marriage, the wife takes the name of the husband. That is so because it is a covenant relationship. In so taking of the name of her husband, she identifies as one with him in this covenant. To call ourselves by a name is to identify our allegiance.
We all have family names which identify us. If we are in a civic club, such as the Lions, we identify ourselves by that name. We call ourselves by names to identify our allegiance, our loyalty.
Names do mean something significant. They tell us who we are. And for someone to ridicule our name, would be the same as ridiculing our character. To trivialize our name is to ridicule our person.
God has revealed His nature to us through His name. You can readily see why God does not want His name taken lightly. We must understand clearly that God is Holy, and His name is Holy. To use His name flippantly, and in disrespectful ways, shows that we do not take seriously the greatness and the awesome holiness of our God.
So what can we do to apply this commandment to our lives? How can we safeguard ourselves against profaning the name of God? And on the positive side, what can we do to honor the name of God? The challenge is to turn profanity into praise.
We must honor God with our words.The two areas that this commandment covers are our words and our walk. Let’s look first at our words. We can profane the name of God by our speech. This is the most obvious application of the Third Commandment. We are very familiar with it. We encounter this kind of speech in the marketplace every day. It comes basically from three types of people.
The first type of person is the uninformed. An individual with an uninformed mind trivializes the name of God without even thinking. In fact most people who use the Lord’s name in vain through profanity do not even think about what they are doing. They are not intentionally cursing God. Their words are not directed either to God, or about God. Many of these people are not even aware of their profanity. Their profanity has become a habit pattern for their speech. They’ve grown up with it. Perhaps their parents cursed, or their friends cursed. The use of profanity has become part of their speech. They are uninformed.
The uninformed person does not recognize the gravity of what he is doing. He’s like the little boy I heard of, who learned a very important lesson along these lines. He grew up with a father who was a shipyard worker and an older brother who thought he wasn’t too cool. He would accompany his father down to the docks, where he heard all kinds of new words. He said they were used with such frequency that he didn’t think anything was wrong with them. One afternoon, he and his older brother were together in their room. He said he dropped something and used one of those newly learned words to describe his frustration. His older brother looked at him in startled amazement, his eyes as big as saucers. And then a grin started slowly to spread across his older brother’s face as if to say, "That’s the coolest thing I ever heard you say." He said he started using the word over and over again as they were together in the room. He was pleased that he had suddenly been transformed from uncool to cool in a matter of minutes. Later that evening as they were sitting around the dinner table, he said his father asked his older brother what they were going to do that evening. His older brother shrugged as if to say, "I don’t care." The younger brother then piped in with one of these new words to describe just how much he didn’t care what they did. And then he turned to his brother. This time his brother wasn’t smiling. He looked back at him in horror. He looked at his sister who was gasping for breath. He looked then at his father, who was slowly backing away from the table, coming his way. As his dad picked him up and carried him toward his bedroom, he turned around for one last look. He said his brother was beaming from ear to ear. He plead with his dad for mercy, "Dad, I didn’t know, I didn’t know, I didn’t know."
Perhaps you’ve been guilty of trivializing the name of God, of profaning the name of the Lord because you didn’t know. If you have been uninformed, be uninformed no longer. God’s name is Holy, never use it lightly. Never use it in vain.
Another type of person who profanes the name of God is the uncontrolled. The person with an uncontrolled tongue will also violate this commandment. They know the Bible forbids this sort of thing, but in a fit of anger things fly out of their mouths they know they shouldn’t say.
The Bible teaches us in the book of James how difficult it is to keep our tongues in check. The Bible also teaches us how important it is to do so. You see what comes out of our mouths often reveals what is in our heart. If there is sin in our hearts, it will eventually be revealed on our lips.
In order to control our tongues, we must examine our hearts. We must allow the Lord to replace attitudes that ought not to be in our hearts, with attitudes which honor Him. We must allow Him to fill us with the Fruit of the Spirit. We must allow joy, love, peace, patience and the like to be the controlling factors of our lives. Then we will honor His name by our words.
The final kind of individual who profanes the name of God is the unsaved. An unsaved heart is totally insensitive to the Holiness of God. The unsaved heart is in rebellion against God. Their profanity is simply a way of saying "I’m in charge."
We should not expect unsaved people to respect the God we serve. Their real need is not to clean their speech up, but to allow God to come into their lives. If they do, He will take care of their speech.
Not only do our words profane the name of God, but sometimes our walk does as well. How can our walk take the name of the Lord in vain? It can because we bear the name of Christ.
We must honor God with our walk.We have already seen how there is a great significance in name –– that names identify our allegiance. Those of us who have committed our lives to follow Christ are called by His name. We are called "Christians." We are identified with the name of Jesus Christ. How we live our lives determines whether we take His name in vain. The Bible teaches that we can dishonor His name. His name can be profaned or defiled by our disobedience and unfaithfulness. Hosea’s adulterous wife profaned his good name by her behavior, and when we who are called Christians commit spiritual adultery by not living faithfully for Jesus, we take the name of the Lord in vain.
The Bible teaches that we are not only to avoid evil, but even the very appearance of evil. The reason is that our lives are living testimonies to Jesus Christ. Those before whom we walk in the world may never see what it really means to live for Jesus unless they see it in you. Our lifestyle reflects upon our Lord. It is not enough to simply say, "Don’t look at me, look at Jesus." The reality of the situation is that people do look at you. In fact they can’t look at Jesus. They have no idea where to look, unless they can look at you. Just as Jesus said, "If you’ve seen me you’ve seen the Father," so in some sense we must seek to reveal Jesus to people when they look at us. By our words and by our walk, we should bear the name of Christ, so that we are a praise to Him.
One of my favorite stories is one about Alexander the Great. Alexander was a brilliant strategist and a mighty conqueror. He was not only a leader of men, but he was fearless in battle. Often times, he would charge forth leading his men, riding his mighty horse, Busephalis. He would hurl himself headlong into the fray and be standing when everyone else had fallen. He was a courageous man. There was not a cowardly bone in his body. He conquered the known world of his day. And it is said of him that he wept when there were no more lands to conquer.
The story is told of him sitting in judgment on the battlefield. There he was judge and jury. His word was law. When he had spoken, it would be done. There on the battlefield, he would take his seat, flanked on either side by his most trusted officers. Before him would be brought all of those with charges against them. Many times his judgment could be extremely harsh, especially in those situations of desertion.
Before him one day was brought a young lad. He was a fair-haired youth and very young. Alexander asked what the boy’s name was. The officer presenting him said, "Alexander, sir." At once, the great general’s countenance softened. It was as if he was flattered that the boy had his name. His men breathed a sigh of relief. Perhaps there would be some leniency for this young man, whatever his crime. Alexander inquired as to the nature of the charge against the young lad. His officer replied, "Cowardice, sir. He fled in the heat of battle." The once soft countenance of the great general was suddenly transformed into an intense, tight-jawed grimace. Looking the boy squarely in the eye, he said to him deliberately, "Son, what did you say was your name?" The lad replied, "Why, Alexander, sir." Speaking again to the boy, this time in a louder tone he said, "Young man, what did you say was your name?" The young man answered in a stutter, "Why, uh-uh Alexander, sir." To that answer, the emperor bolted off his throne and grabbed the terrified young soldier and said to him, "Young man, change your behavior or change your name!"
Is it possible for us to take the name of the Lord in vain? Might the Lord be saying to us, "Christian, change your behavior or change your name?" Because we have the name of Jesus and are called by that name, we must live for Him lives which would be glorifying to His name. "And they were called Christians first at Antioch." They were called Christians there because they lived for Christ. May we be called Christians today for that very same reason.
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