The 3rd Commandment

You know, a person's name and reputation are linked together, aren't they? If I say someone's name, you think all kinds of things about them. Whether you like them or dislike them or what they look like or whether they're known for being a good person or a bad person. If I mention Adolf Hitler, that name is linked to evil, isn't it? So a person's name and their reputation are linked together. In the way of Shakespeare put it this way, I was going to try to do this in an English accent, but I won't. This is actually from Othello. He says, He who steals my purse steals trash. It's something, it's nothing. To his mind, it is his. And it's been a slave to thousands. But he who filches for me my good name, ros me in that which does not enrich him and makes me poor indeed. I like the word stilch. We don't use that too much. That was just Shakespeare's long way of saying, you're really not known by your wealth, you're known by your reputation. And if you steal someone's reputation, you make them poor. You take something away from them. To hurt somebody's name, to slander someone. That's a serious issue. I mean, you take it personally if you find out someone is slandering you, don't you? What about the name of God?

How serious is it when we misuse the name of God? We've been going through a series of service on each of the Ten Commandments. Well, today we're going to be going through the third of the Ten Commandments. So let's go to Exodus chapter 20.

Exodus chapter 20. And we'll look at verse 7.

Here's how this is translated into the New King James. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his vain in vain. Vain needs to be empty, to be meaningless. Why is this so important to God? I mean, God doesn't have some kind of ego that has to be, you know, stroked by us, which we're very fortunate that that's true. Why is this so important? Why would God make, you know, here we have the Ten Commandments, the foundation for morality. You know, the Ten Commandments give us a foundation for all morality. Why would not taking his name in vain be one of those ten laws? I mean, you think how important these are? Thou shalt not murder. These are important. And this is one of the laws that he gives to us. You know, God reveals itself by a lot of names in the Bible. Names that you and I don't even think about. Names in Hebrew. Of course, we have names in Aramaic. In the New Testament, we have many of the names and titles, not just names, titles. I mean, the word God is a title. And we have titles in Greek. And he reveals himself by a lot of different names, a lot of different titles. Now think about the first two commandments, because each of these commandments leads to the next one. And each one contains a core principle. We tend to look at these in a negative sense. You know, thou shalt not. And yet, each of these have a very positive aspect in that what should we do? The first commandment was about that the God of Israel is the only God. And that he frees people from slavery. The whole way that's worded, the prologue there. That he's the only God. He frees people. Freedom. To break loose of the things that make us unhappy, that hold us down, that suppress us. Secondly, he determines how he'll be worshipped. And so he said that we're not to use icons and idols. This third commandment has to do with honor and respect. Because if we honor and respect God, then how we use his name and how we use his titles is very, very important. So this is about whether we honor and respect God or not. Now, when we look at this third commandment, I just read it from the New King James. Here's what the New King James says. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain. Remember, vain means, as I said, empty. The New International version translates this. You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God. You shall not misuse it. Now, in a minute, or a little bit later in the sermon, I will go through and show you why they translate it that way. Here's what the Jewish Publication Society... Here's how they translate that. You shall not swear falsely by the name of the Lord your God. Now, each of these translations is an attempt to capture this huge concept contained in this one sentence.

It's a huge concept contained in one sentence.

Do not take his name in vain. Do not misuse his name. And do not swear falsely in his name. You know, the Jewish desire to keep this commandment led them to the concept that they could not mention the covenant name. One of the names God uses in the Bible... We talked about this in whatever Bible study it was a few months ago. Well, one of the covenant names of God, or the covenant name with Israel, is Yahweh. Well, we pronounce it Yahweh. Ask an Orthodox Jew, and he would say, I don't know how to pronounce it. They deliberately made sure that no one could pronounce it or write the full name down. Remember, it's just four consonants. They drop the vowels out. The reason why is by dropping out the vowels, you can't misuse God's name. Because you can't pronounce it. And you can't miswrite God's name. And that's why in many even Jewish writers, if you see them write in English, they'll get to the word God and they'll just put G in a dash. They're not even gonna mess up the title God. You can't misuse it if you don't write in that. Or you don't say it in that way. They'll use Adonai or El Shaddai. They'll use some of those names, especially Adonai, which means Lord. But they will not use Yahweh. Now, there are actually some Christian groups that claim that you have to use Yahweh to be right with God, which I find interesting. Usually, they'll say they're getting back to their Hebrew roots. If not Hebrew roots, the Hebrews won't pronounce it. But when we look through the Scripture, we see that God's name and various names and various titles are translated into different languages. So it's not the language that matters. So if it's not the language that matters, how do we break this? In other words, this doesn't have to do with you can't pronounce the name. In fact, the command itself do not use it in vain, means you have to be using it. So it's not not using his name, and it's not pronouncing it in an exact way, because that's not what it says. It's the misuse of the name in which we show disrespect and dishonor to God. So how do we do that? We're talking about three ways that we can break this command. The first one is obvious, and then we're going to get into a second one that we can say, well that doesn't apply to us today, but I'm going to show you where it does. And then I'm going to get to a third way that we break this command that we probably never thought about, probably never thought about, in which you and I can break this command and do break this command. Now the first way is the obvious way. It's using God's names or titles in a common or irrelevant way or irreverent way, where you're using it in a dishonorable way, a disrespectful way. So it's using God's names or titles in a common or irreverent way. Now this would obviously involve cursing, right? Look at Leviticus 24. Leviticus 24. We'll look at some of the laws that were given to each of Israel around this commandment as it was flushed out. Leviticus 24 and verse 10.

Now the son of an Israelite woman, whose father was an Egyptian, went out among the children of Israel. And his Israelite woman's son and at the end of Israel fought each other in the camp. So you get two people in a fallout fight. He's all in hundreds probably of Israelites gather around and watch these two guys duke it out. And the Israelite woman's son blasphemed the name of the Lord and cursed. So they brought him to Moses, his mother's name was Shelobeth, the daughter of Debarai, the son of Dan. Then they put him in custody that the mind of the Lord might be shown to them. And the Lord spoke to Moses saying, take outside the camp, who was cursed, that all that had hurt him, lay their hands on his head and let all the congregations stow him. And verse 15 he says, and do this so that they will know not to do this to my name. That's a pretty serious punishment from God. Now we can go through all the places where using God's name is mentioned in the Old Testament or especially in the law. And you would find that there are times where if you use God's name in vain, you could go repent. You had to take an offering to the to the Tabernacle. But the point here is he cursed God. So this would be the most obvious way to misuse God's name. This is where we get the term blasphemy. The blasphemy is to curse God, is to put God down, to obviously deny the existence of God is using God's name in vain. So that's blasphemy. And so anytime that you see someone taking and cursing God, calling God down, angrily, you know, calling God names, accusing God, he's taking God's name in vain. Now this is the most obvious. Now remember the principle of the law is to respect God. That would mean that not only is cursing God misuse of his name, but just any frivolous use of his name. Look at Leviticus 19. Leviticus 19. Once again, this is the most obvious way. If I said, how do we use God's name in vain, this is what all of you, you know, would say. Well, this is how we can use God's name in vain. So we set this as the most obvious way. But as we go through this, we'll see how we can do this without even realizing. Verse 12. Leviticus 19 verse 12. He says that you shall not swear by my name falsely, nor shall you profane the name of the Lord your God. I am the Lord. I am Yahweh is what that actually says. He says you shall not take my name and make it profane, make it common. Now this is a much more common thing we see people do. They take the name of God and they make it common. How many times have you people have you heard some say, Oh, my God, I'm going to be late.

That is a misuse of the name of God's title, the name of God. Do they really need Oh, my God? Are they really crying out to God for help? No, it is a frivolous use of who he is. I mean, you go out and you see somebody walk out the parking lot and they have a flat tire. And you hear them shout out the name of Jesus Christ. A frivolous use of the name of Jesus. That is using God's name in vain. Like again, this is something, you know, the first one is obvious, blasphemy, cursing God. The second one, people do so much that we don't even think about it. We hear it. We hear it all the time. I used to work destruction when I was a kid. Man, it's amazing what gets in your head from hearing guys talk all the time.

It's there. Over time, it sort of goes away. But you hear it all the time. We hear it on television all the time. And we don't realize how serious an issue this is because it is it is profaning God who we are. It's his reputation that we're talking about here. It is the reputation of God that we're dealing with. So we should not use that. Now, think of how many times you hear somebody damn something in the name of God. Realize what you're actually doing, what a person is actually doing when they damn something in the name of God. I guess from the middle ages, it was the concept that you could actually call God's wrath, God's punishment down on something, eternal punishment. The concept was when you damn something in the name of God, God was going to send that person, especially a person, to hell. So every time you hear God or people damn something in the name of God, you're actually calling for God's destruction on that. Now, think about if we really, really thought about what we were doing. I mean, does that person really want God to destroy the toaster they're working on? Do they really want God to just kill everybody on their favorite basketball team? Now, that's a frivolous use of God's name, because it literally is a crying out to God to bring punishment down on whatever it is, destruction down on whatever it is. That is a serious breaking of this commandment. Once again, we hear it all the time. And we get so used to it that we're not careful. It slips out in our lives. That's why, and sometimes this will seem silly to young people when we say euphemisms, that why is that a big deal? When a person says, oh my gosh, or my gosh, all that is, that is an attempt on purpose. The reason you've been is what that is, is when you use one word as a substitute for another word. It's because many, many years ago, most Christians believed you should say, oh my God. Now, it's just everybody says it for every for no reason at all, right? You get a gift. Someone on the phone calls you and you haven't heard of her a long time. What's the first thing people yell? Oh my God. But that was considered the breaking of this commandment in Christianity for a long, long time. So what people did is they stuck it in another word.

That is a substitute. Gosh is simply God said in a different way. What? Think about it. What does O.M.G. mean?

Doesn't he know? He said, you type that in here, you'll think about it. What does it mean? What does O.M.G. mean? What did you say? O.M.B. Oh, my Bob. You see the point? It's not God. If you put somebody else's name in here, it wouldn't have power. It's the power of the name. Actually, it goes back to superstition. But you see what I mean? O.M.G. has a lot more power than O.M.B. because who is it that the G represents? That's why it has impact. It's because of the power of the name. Or in this case, the title. So this is the most obvious way that we use God's name. Invade is that we simply either curse God or we use his name to damn something or to just shout out in a frivolous way. Or even when we use other words as substitutes, we're pretending not to use God's name. So what does that mean to pretend that these are hypocrites?

So to go around saying, oh my gosh, once you realize what it actually means, you say, well, I'm not really using God's name. No, you're actually making a hypocrite because that's what you're doing. You're substituting something else. So I mean, there are lots of exclamations we can use in life that have nothing to do with the misuse of God's name. So that's the most obvious way that we break this commitment. And you and I still do that every once in a while. We'll let something slip out. We'll be caught off guard. So we have to be careful about it. Now, there's a second way that we can break this commitment that we may think has nothing to do with us today.

And yet, I want to show you that it does. Okay, so it's important that you stay with me on this. And that is the swearing or taking of an oath in God's name and failing to keep it. Now, you and I live in a society where we don't swear or take oaths all the time. But especially in the ancient world, and if you go into the Arab world today, and in the Jewish world, even to a certain extent, they still take oaths.

They swear to do things. You know, if you go to a court, what court rule, what do they do? They make you raise your right hand and swear. To what? To tell the truth, the whole truth. Now, in some states, and in some counties in some states, you know what they have you do? You put one hand on the Bible. Because what you're saying is, and here's the point of an oath, when you swear or you make it oath, what you're saying is, either what I say is the absolute truth, or what I'm going to do, I will carry out.

And if I don't, may God punish me. Taking an oath involves having a curse attached to it. That's the reason why, even in some places, when you put your hand on the Bible and you swear, you raise your right hand, I swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. So help me, God. If I don't, God better help me, because he's going to punish me. So an oath is a very, very powerful thing that we do.

We take them lightly. You hear, oh, I swear. Oh, come on, I swear that's true, the truth. Who are you swearing by? What are you swearing with here? Now, sometimes in the Jewish world, what they would do over time, they didn't swear by God's name, so they would swear by holy things. I swear by the temple. Oh, well, then you're still swearing by God.

In other words, it was a euphemism. They would simply stick something out in there. Well, who's going to argue with somebody who just swore by the temple? Well, what are you really swearing by? The power of God. I swear by an offering. And so they would swear by different things. I swear by Jerusalem. You'll see that in Scripture. So what happened was there was a lot of swearing going on, a lot of oaths in their environment, in the culture they were in. Now, you and I don't do it as much, but there's still times. In fact, you and I still do take oaths.

We need to explore those oaths a little bit. Remember, now let me just make it a little differential here. And I'm straying at nats here a little bit, but an oath and a vow technically aren't the same thing. You'll see they're interchanged. When you take an oath, what you're doing is you're promising to either tell the truth or you're promising to do something.

An oath was part of a covenant. You know, when you sign a loan paper, you're making a covenant. You're actually making an oath. Don't make that oath claiming, you know, may God punish me if I don't pay my rent. Keep that oath between you and the person. But that's actually what you're doing. You're making an oath. Now, all oaths are important to God. And that's another subject. That's the deal with honesty. What we're going to talk about is an oath using God's name. Now, a vow, now an oath can be between you and another person.

An oath can be between you and God. A vow is something that's very specific between you and God. Once again, these are interchangeable, but you'll see a subtle difference if you look through the Old Testament. When you make a vow to God, what you're saying is, I promise God if you do this, I'll do this. Or, God, I promise this year I'm going... I make a vow to you, God, that this year I'm going to lose weight. Let's go back to the sermon now. Boy, you better lose weight.

Or, if you help me lose weight, if you help me lose weight, I will give you a huge offering. Look at this. Okay, so he makes you sick and you lose 20 pounds.

You better pay the offering. You might say, well, that's not fair. Wait a minute. I just said, make me lose weight. I thought you were just going to... I wake up one day. I didn't know I was going to vomit out all this. Okay, I didn't know this was going to happen. And he says, no, you ask that. Now, you carry out your vow. So, a vow tends to be something we promise God. I do this, you do this. An oath is something we can take. It's a promise we make to each other in which we call God's name down. Or a promise that we involve God in. Let's look at an oath that's in the Bible. Let's go to Deuteronomy 23. Now, once again, we say, well, this isn't that poor. When I make a promise to somebody today, I don't call God's name. Well, maybe not directly, but let's look at something here. 23. Deuteronomy 23. Verse 21.

When you make a vow to the Lord your God, you shall not delay to pay it, for the Lord your God will surely require it of you, and it would be a sin to you. So, we break the third commitment. Well, we make a vow to God and not carry it out because we're using His name in vain. We've taken His name. You know, it's like the old kings had a seal, right? And they would seal something and say, my name is on this. Well, when you make a vow to God, God puts His seal on it. It's an agreement. Now, notice the rest here. First of all, if you do this, but if you have saved from vowing, it shall not be a sin to you. He says, so just don't do it. It's interesting. This is the law. If you make a vow and you don't do it, God considers that you lied to Him.

So, if you don't make any vows, that's perfectly okay with God. So, we go to get to, you know, please help me. I'm going to really try to be a better wife this coming year or be a better wife or be a better husband or whatever that we say we want to do. I'm going to really try with your help. But you can go and say, I vow to you, I promise I'm going to be a better wife. You better be a better wife. He holds you to the promise. This is very personal between us and God. We forget your relationship. My relationship with God is very personal to Him.

And when we go promise Him something, you think about it. Remember being a kid and have an adult make you a promise and break the promise? Remember how horrible that felt? Remember, as an adult, when someone makes a promise and breaks it. It's very personal, isn't it? But you and I make a promise to God. He takes it personally. You've made a promise to Him. So He says, don't make these promises. It's better just not to make them. It's better to ask for help and say, I'm going to do the best I can here. But sometimes what happens is people will bargain with God and they'll make vows. If you do this, I'll do this. And we get ourselves in real trouble. So here is that example of what it is to make a vow. Now remember, an oath is a covenant. It's an agreement in which you promise with God's stamp of approval to do something. Or you promise to tell the truth. That's why legal proceedings always have some kind of way in which people promise to tell the truth. And many times in the Christian culture, it's with God's punishment if you don't. Look at it. Here's an interesting agreement that evolved an oath in Genesis 14. When you go through the Old Testament, you'll find various rituals that went with making of an oath. This was interesting because we still do it today. Genesis 14. This was when Lot was captured by a group of kings that got together to attack Sodom. And of course, Abraham went out, Abram went out, and he conquered them and brought Lot and everybody back. And so the king of Sodom was to reward Abram. So let's pick it up in verse 21. Now the king of Sodom said to Abram, Give me the persons and take the goods for yourself. To give me back my people, but you could keep everything you took from the battle. In other words, he's trying to reward him. But Abram said to the king of Sodom, I have raised my hand to the Lord, God most high, the possessor of heaven and earth, and I will take nothing from a thread to a sandal strap, and that I will not take anything that is yours, lest you should say I have made Abram rich. He raised his hand and noticed who he invoked. So just like today when people raised their hand in court, Abram, or who became Abraham, raised his hand to who? The Lord, God most high, the possessor of heaven and earth, and he made an oath. I made an oath to God, a vow to see how they became interchangeable. And so I'm not going to take anything from you. He goes on to say, except the soldiers that were with me, they ate food from what we captured, and they deserved to be fed. So you will feed them, and that's it. You see the raising of a hand. That custom is even around today. The importance of adhering to an oath that is made in the name of God.

This is very, very important to God, and we don't maybe consider this. One example, I'm going to give an example, and I'm going to take some time to go through it, because it takes a little time to go through it, and it's going to be easy to go through this and say, well, what does that mean to us? This old test of example. But give some time here, and I want to show you how this ties into us. Because why they made this decision is very important. And later we'll look at another scripture where God talks about the situation. So we'll read through it now, look at it, see the dilemma, see the promise that was made, and the decisions that were made. And then later we're going to look at how God looked at this. So let's go to Joshua 9. Joshua chapter 9.

But this story, once again, can seem unrelated to us.

In fact, we can look at this and think, why did they make this decision? So it's important to go through this to see why they did what they did, and then how did God look at this. Now, the passage doesn't tell us how God looked at it. That's why we'll eventually have to go to another passage. Joshua is going through the promised land, conquering all the tribes. Now, remember, God had told them that they had to drive out all the tribes of the promised land. They couldn't leave any of them. So that is the commandment of God given to them. Chapter 9, verse 1. Came to pass when all the kings who were on this side of the Jordan, in the hills and in the lowlands, and all the coasts of the great sea toward Lebanon, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Parezzites, the Hivites, the Jebusites, the Vegemites, heard about it. Okay, a few are awake. But they gathered together to fight with Joshua and Israel with one accord. But when the inhabitants of Gibeon heard that Joshua dug the Jericho in A.I., they worked craftily and went and pretended to be ambassadors. They took old sacks of their donkeys, old wine skins torn and mended, old and patched sandals on their feet, old garments on themselves, and all the bread of their provisions was dry and moldy. And they went to Joshua to the camp in Gilgal and said to him, and the men of Israel, we have come from a far country, now therefore make a covenant with us. Now understand, these people were right in the path of the advancing Israelites.

Now what was God's instructions to the Israelites? Drive everybody out. The Gibeonites know what's going to happen. In fact, if you read later, they actually say, we know what God told Moses. So we're just waiting for you people to show up. So what are we going to do? Throw in with all the other Canaanites? They're going to fight against them? What the Gibeonites did, when they said ambassadors, but these ambassadors, it was a trick. It was fraud. They showed up with patched clothes, their sandals look like they're all worn out. The animals were tired. They looked like they had traveled hundreds of miles. Even their food had mold on it. They had to make sure the food looked bad. So you know, what happens when they showed up in the Israelite camp? Well, of course, all the Israelite soldiers went down, stripped them of everything they had, patted them down, looked at all the... I mean, these were... they could probably consider them spies. Ambassadors came in and said, we don't meet with ambassadors from Canaanites. The best get your people leave because we're coming and we're going to take your city, because God told us to. But they tell them, they're from afar off. First, the benefit of Israel said to the Hivites, perhaps you should dwell among us. So how can we make a covenant with you? Or perhaps you do dwell among us. In other words, maybe you're really people real close and you're just pretending to come in afar. But they said to Joshua, we are your servants. And Joshua said to them, who are you? Where do you come from? See, they did not believe them. This just didn't make sense that these people come from way off and ask for peace. So they said to him, from a very far country, your servants have come because of the name of the Lord your God, because of the name of the Lord your God. We believe what your God says. Your God says that you people will take whatever he gives to you, and whoever stands up against you will be destroyed. We believe that. We believe in the name of your God. We believe the reputation of your God. For we have heard of his faith and all that he did to Egypt, and all that he has done to the two kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan. He goes on to talk about these people who he destroyed. Therefore, our elders and all the inhabitants of our country spoke to us saying, take provisions with you for the journey and go to meet them and say to them, we are your servants. Now therefore make a covenant with us. The spread of ours we took hot from our provisions, from our houses on the day that we departed to come to you. But now look, it is dry and moldy, and these wiveskins which were filled with new, and see they are torn, and these are garments and our sandals have become old because of the very long journey. The men of Israel took some of their provisions, but they did not ask counsel of the Lord. So Joshua made peace with them and made a covenant with them to let them live, and the rulers of the congregation swore to them. They now take an oath. They make a covenant. Covenants always required an oath. It's interesting, one of the words is translated oath in Hebrew comes from the word seven. That's why you'll see at one point, I think it's Abraham offers seven sacrifices to the Lord as part of their covenant.

It's a sacred thing to make a covenant and ask God to put his seal on it. It's sacred. It's binding with God. To break it is to lie and to take his name in vain. So they made an agreement.

And it happened at the end of three days after they made a covenant with them, that they heard they were neighbors. They show up and these people only live a few days away. It was all a big, it was all big ruse to get them to make this covenant. It says in verse 18, but the children of Israel did not attack them because the rulers of the congregation had sworn to them by the Lord God of Israel and all the congregation complained against the rulers. Joshua was facing maybe an overthrow of his leadership.

The Israelite people, the Israelite soldiers said, wait a minute, God told us to take all these people and you're going to tell us not to. And Joshua and all the leaders said, but we made a covenant and oath in the name of the Lord our God. Now understand the problem they have, very real bind. God told them, kill all of them or drive them out. God told them, when you use my name, you cannot take it in vain. Which of these commandments now do they obey? Because they have to break one of them. They have to break one of them. Because they can't kill them without breaking the oath. If they keep the oath, they can't kill them.

They're caught between two commandments. Because why? Remember what it said in verse 14. They did not ask counsel of the Lord. This is a simple matter. We don't have to ask God to put on this one. This is easy. Joshua got all the elders together and said, this is an easy one. These people from afar off, once we kill all these king and knights and drive them out, it would be good to have some allies, wouldn't it? Think about the reason. Think about the conversation that took place. We're getting some allies and some people outside of the land that God gave us. It would be good to have still some people maybe we could trade with. This could help our economy. This would be good.

So, they decided to do it without asking God. And now they have themselves caught between two commandments. You and I can do this all the time. We can find what we think is a solution to a problem instead of looking for God's solution. And we will find ourselves caught between two commandments. What are they supposed to do? Joshua was facing the fact that the entire army is upset with him. He could face a revolt. You're not obeying God. Verse 19, Then all the rulers said to all the congregation, We have sworn by them, by the Lord God of Israel, now therefore we may not touch them. This we will do to them. We will let them live, lest wrath be upon us because of the oath which we swore to them, lest God punishes us. And the rulers said to them, Let them live, but let them be woodcutters and water carriers for all the congregation as the rulers had promised them.

Now, you read through here, they actually said, you know, we'll be your servants, right? So, they said, okay, they said they'd be our servants, so guess what we're going to do? Here's what the Gibeonites are in Israel. They're nothing but slaves. They become our slaves, and they do manual labor. But remember what God had told them to do. Do not mingle with the people of the land because they will teach you about their pagan ways. So Joshua said, we've got to deal with that. If you read the rest of this chapter, you know what they did? They became servants in the tabernacle. They're the ones who cut wood for the sacrifices. In other words, okay, they can't teach us their pagan ways if their entire job is to serve God. So they made the servants of God. From this point on, there is not, until we get 400 years later, there is no recorded problem between Israel and the Gibeonites. The Gibeonites served as their slaves and as the personal attendants of the tabernacle. I don't mean they can go into the tabernacle. They were forbidden to go into it. But they cut the wood. They did the manual labor outside of the tabernacle so that the tabernacle could function.

So, this is Joshua's way of saying, I'm caught between two sins. And because I did not seek God's counsel, which one do I obey? The decision was, I have to obey the oath. Because if I do not, I will be taking God's name with vain. Remember he said, I can't do this. We did this in the name of God. We asked for God's seal of this agreement. Then you think, ah, it was fraud. It was fraud. They should have just killed them all. Because they were lied to. Why did he do what he did? We'll go back to this in a little bit. Because there's only one other place this is really talking about in the Scripture. Let's get to what Jesus said. How did Jesus approach this? Matthew, Chapter 5. Because this idea of oaths and vows is really important.

Matthew, Chapter 5. Part of the Sermon on the Mount. Verse 33.

Jesus says, Again you have heard that it was said to those of old, You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform your oaths to the Lord. But I say, if you do not swear at all. You think, wow, wow. That's really changing the law. Remember what the law said. If you make a vow to God, you must do it or it's sin. It's not a sin not to make a vow. I love the way that's put in English. It's not a sin not to do it. So just don't do it. Jesus says, Look, humanly we make these oaths, we make these vows. And when we ask for God's seal on it, if we don't do it, we have lied to God. It's personal with God. It's very personal with God. But I say to you, do not swear at all. Neither by heaven, for it is God's throne. Now remember, you have euphemisms. Okay, we won't swear by God. We won't swear by Yahweh. And we won't even pronounce Yahweh. So we'll swear by the heaven. I swear by heaven. So all that is is death, it's hypocrisy. You really swear by God. You're just slipping something else in there. Because swearing by heaven means what? By the power of heaven. And oaths have curses. If I don't do this, so help me God. He says, so don't swear by heaven, for it is God's throne, nor by the earth, for it is his footstool, nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great king. Nor shall you swear by your head, because you cannot make one hair wider by... Don't even say, I promise to do this, or, you know, I promise to do this by all my power and all my strength. I will do it. Now, what if you get sick tomorrow?

Then let your yes be yes and your no-no, for whatever is more, then this is from the evil one. In other words, once we get into oaths and vows, Satan can manipulate that.

He said, okay, that's all very interesting, but we don't... I don't go around making oaths and thousand... Actually, there's two really, really important oaths you have made in life.

Anybody can think of one of them?

Baptism. And marriage.

You've made two oaths.

The baptism is the agreement between you and God, in which you go to God and He says, here's a covenant, and God makes an oath to you. It's interesting. Ancient Israel, he called the covenant in Deuteronomy. He said, this is my oath to you. This is what I promise you. And God made promises to you. He forgive you, to the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. He would give you His Spirit, and He will complete the work He started in you to give you eternal life. And you said, yes, Lord. And you and I promised we made an oath to God that He stamped with His seal. The Holy Spirit is what? The seal of God. He stamped His name on us.

And we took an oath. The second is what we got married. And we stood before the Almighty God and said, I make an oath with this person that I will enter into this covenant till death do us part. And I make a vow. We call it the marriage vowels, right? Well, really, you don't make a vow with the person. You make an oath with that person. You make a vow to God. I vow to you that I will fulfill this marriage covenant. This is why, you know, there are very specific reasons for divorce in the Bible. So there are times where divorce can take place, but they are very specific. And this is why there's way too much divorce in the Church of God. And there's a curse on people. And I believe, at times, there's a curse on the Church because of it. We have made a vow before the Almighty God, and then what do we do? We break the vow.

We use His name in vain. We took His seal. We took the name of God and said, I take the name of God on this covenant. And God, remember, the marriage covenant isn't just between the man and the woman. It's between the man and the woman and God. It is a vow. It is an oath. And we take this oath and then we break it very lightly at times.

And there's a curse that comes from that. Because when you might as well, when we do the marriage covenant, say, so help me God, because that's what we're doing. And at baptism, one reason, well, we are saying, help me God. Well, at baptism, we're a little more aware, help me God. You have to give me your spirit. I cannot do this. Okay? You think of the absolute humility before God at baptism, but we don't always apply that. Because at marriage, we're just thinking about the other person. We forget who we're making this vow to. So taking an oath as part of the Third Commandment is important for you and me. Because there's two great oaths we make. And God holds us to those. Now, the last reason. Because this leads us to a whole other concept. Once you start down this oath concept, oh, if I take the name of the Lord my God, like Joshua was saying, we have to do this. We give this in the name of the Lord our God. I have to do it. Even if I was frauded in this place, now there are places where our times were fraud and marriage is a reason for divorce, but I want you to notice how strong the fraud was against Joshua. And yet Joshua said, no, I have to take the fraud because I didn't seek God. Which tells us something about marriage, too. Sometimes people get married frivolously and really don't know. I didn't know he didn't have a job. You should have known that one. Right? Well, that's fraud. Should have known that one. Now, people can hide things. You know, I didn't know he was a cocaine addict. I mean, people can't hide things. I didn't know he was a cocaine addict and selling drugs. Okay, people can hide things. Now, that's a different issue. But notice fraud was involved here. And what was Joshua's answer? I should have known this. I didn't seek God. I did not seek God. Therefore, out of the two commands, killing the people or using God's name in vain, using God's name in vain is the most important of the two commands.

So this leads us to the third point. We break this command at any time. We represent God in a degrading or false manner. Now, here's where you and I can break this command.

You and I claim that we are Christians. What does that mean?

Christ is a title of Jesus the Christ, Jesus the Messiah. You and I are Christians. The name of Christ is stamped on us. We are the people of God. You know, in ancient Israel, God says, you are my people. My name is upon you. In the New Testament, the church is the people of God. And the name of God is stamped on us. Every place we go, we represent everything we do. Now, this is scary, okay, because this is where I break this command. Every place we go, whatever we do, we represent the reputation of Almighty God. Isn't it good that He's greater than our ability to represent Him? That's a good thing.

That means that when we took this vow in baptism, He stamped His name on us. And every place we go, and everything we do, we represent His name.

Do we misuse the name of God? Do we misrepresent the name of God?

Let's go back to Exodus 20, verse 7.

Because there's an interesting thing about this verse.

Look at it again.

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. In other words, God is going to punish someone who takes His name in vain. Now, obviously, forgiveness comes from God. You know, we could break a commandment. And even Jesus said, you could blaspheme God, and you could blaspheme Him, but you can't blaspheme the Holy Spirit. Now, that has to do with receiving God's Spirit. That's another subject. But in other words, it says you could be forgiven for blaspheming God, the Father. We could take God's name in vain. We could do horrible things, and we could go ask for forgiveness. But the point He's making here is, I will not hold Him guiltless, God says. We must deal with this sin. That's a strong statement, isn't it? I will judge this person who uses my name in vain, who takes my name in vain. The word I find interesting here is the word take. In Hebrew, this word has a lot of different uses. Okay? They can be used a lot of different ways. Here's how it's primarily used. Now, what you think about this in the context, in the sense. Carry. You shall not carry the name your God in vain. Bear. You shall not bear or take or accept. You shall not accept the name of the Lord your God in vain. And it has probably a dozen different uses. The number one is carry. You have to take something and lift it up. You say, take something and pick it up. You shall not pick up the name of the Lord your God. You shall not carry it. This really gets into a whole other aspect of this commitment. And that is to take the name of God and do evil. He says, I will punish that. Think about how much evil has been done in the name of God over the centuries.

To carry the name of God. Think about the Crusades, where they carried the name of God.

And what they did was horrific, where the Inquisition... So we can look at those examples and say, okay, those are terrible examples where the name of God was misused. It was taken in vain in the greatest way that you could think of. But you know, we get back to it up and think, how about you and I?

What's our examples to our neighbors as we carry the name of God? It stamped on us. You and I carry around a big flag. I don't know that flag is written, the name of God. We carry it. We bear it.

In fact, there are some Jewish commentators who say that is the most important use of this word.

On the UCG website, we have an article on the Third Commandment that mentions this as the forgotten part of the commandment. To carry God's name in vain. This is where you and I can break down in this. Where we carry God's name around on us, but we're just like the rest of the world. How do people see us? How do people now judge God?

If your God's like that, I don't want anything to do with it. I don't want anything to do with your God. If he's as neat as you are, or as dishonest as you are, you see what I mean? We carry his name.

Remember a little bit ago, I read from Joshua's covenant with the Gibeonites. Remember, the Israelites were a people in whom God had placed his name. Now, I want to go back and look at another place the Gibeonites are mentioned. This will let us know what God thought of this. Because the question about Joshua 9 is, what did God want? Did God want them to kill the Gibeonites, or did God want them to hold to the oath they had made in his name? Which was more important to God? See, all we have in Joshua 9 is Joshua's way of working out the mistake he made. But we don't know directly what was God's response to that. What did God say was most important? Let's go to 2nd Samuel. We're skipping in 400 years, okay? 400 years after, give or take a few years. And in 2nd Samuel 21, David is now king of Israel. So, you know, the time of Joshua went, the entire time of the judges saw being king, all that time has passed. It's about 400 years later. 1st Samuel 21 Now, there was a pheromone in the days of David for three years, year after year. Now, David inquired of the Lord, and the Lord said, he said, Why is there a famine? You're not blessing us. There's a curse on us. Why is there a curse on us? And the Lord answered, it is because of Saul and his bloodthirsty house because he killed the Gibeonites. And the Gibeonites become the manual labors of the tabernacle.

And then they just disappear from history. 400 years later, Saul decides, you know, what we're supposed to kill those people. So Saul tries to commit genocide and kill all the Gibeonites. He didn't get them all, but he got most of them.

David is king. And there's a curse on Israel.

We're starting to see how God judged what happened in Joshua 9. 400 years later. So the king called the Gibeonites and spoke to them. Now, the Gibeonites were a lot of the children of Israel, but are remnant of the Amorites. The children of Israel had sworn protection to them, but Saul had sought to kill them in his zeal for the children of Israel and Judah. In other words, because he wanted Israel to have all the land, because he thought he was doing right in the eyes of God, you know, God said to kill these people, Joshua was wrong. He can imagine the discussion he had with his generals. Round them up, bring them into the public squares, and behead all of them. Let's just kill all of them. That's what Joshua should have done 400 years ago. Anyway, God will bless us for this.

You see, Joshua had made a covenant in the name of the Lord.

And for 400 years, they had kept the covenant with the Gibeonites, and the Gibeonites had kept the covenant with Israel.

Verse 5. Therefore David said to the Gibeonites, What shall I do for you, and with what shall I make atonement, that you may bless the inheritance of the Lord? He told the Gibeonites, What must I do for you, so that God will take this curse off of Israel?

Now, the Gibeonites were originally part of a group of people that should have been killed. Now, Israel is being cursed for killing them. Why? Because Joshua had made an oath in a covenant in the name of the Lord.

See what it is to represent God? God said, No, you made that in my name. I hold you to that. And the Gibeonites understood it, because remember the Gibeonites said, God told Moses, We knew you were going to show up someday.

Yeah, we tricked you, but we will be your servants. And he said, Okay, that's the agreement we have, then. You are slaves. For 400 years, these people have been slaves to Israel. For 400 years, the Gibeonite families got together, and they passed on. You and I live today, because Uncle Ehud, or whoever it was, you know, so many generations before, went to Joshua and tricked him. And I said, Oh, wow, yeah, tricked him. And he didn't kill all of us, because the God of Israel wanted to have us killed. But the God of Israel, when you make an agreement in His name, you have to keep it. So you know what they told their children? That's the only way this lasted 400 years. Yeah, well, I'm making it up, but it's the only way it would last. They had to tell their children, You and I can't overthrow the Israelites, because this was made in the name of the God of Israel. If we don't go by this agreement, He will curse us. And before others, here's the Israelites who did that. And Saul came along, and for his zeal, for Israel said, You know, these people aren't supposed to be among us. Let's kill them.

And God said, You know what Saul did? He dispersed my name. He took my name in vain. And because of that, Israel is being punished. And David has to go to the Gibeonites and say, What must we do so that you will forgive us so that God will take this curse off of us? Boy, that's a powerful lesson, isn't it?

Of what it means to take God's name upon something. And remember, God's name is on you. He puts this commandment in a whole new light, doesn't it?

All of a sudden, this is a little hard to keep. Oh, yeah, well, I don't go around using God's name to damn things. I don't make oaths, well, except for a couple. You know, my marriage, my baptism.

That's right. And on both of those institutions, God put his name. Your marriage is in God's name. Your baptism is in God's name. Your life is in God's name.

Verse 4, I find this interesting with the Gibeonites said, And the Gibeonites said to him, and this shows some real smart, I mean, these people were sly, okay? They knew how to make a deal, just like they did with Joshua. 400 years later, they know how to make a deal. And the Gibeonites said to him, We will have no silver or gold from Saul or from his house. Nor shall you kill any man in Israel for us.

First of all, they said, David, we don't want money. You can't... Saul must have killed off almost the entire tribe. So the hand will, people left said, we don't want any money. Retribution, you know. David's probably prepared to pay them huge amounts of money. You know, people today want money for everything, right? He says, oh, no, they don't want money. And we don't want you to go kill people for us. You know, because he could have said, what we'll do is we'll track down, you know, the soldiers who did this and we'll kill them for you. All 300 of them, or whatever it was. And he said, we don't want you to kill anybody for us. So he said, whatever you say I will do for you. Then they answered the king, as with a man who consumed us and plotted against us. And remember, Saul was already dead. That we should be destroyed from remaining in any of the territories of Israel. Let seven men of his descendants be delivered to us, and we will hang them before the Lord in Gibeah of Saul, whom the Lord chose. Give us seven of his descendants, and we will kill them in the public square of his hometown. So that the descendants of Saul will know forever, don't mess with us, because God takes care of us.

How would David respond to that? Look at the rest of the verse. And the king said, I will give them.

David handed over seven of his own subjects to them to be hung publicly.

Why? Because Saul broke the agreement that had God's name on it.

And this is what they demanded. The reason they demanded that was, once again, you'll see the Gibeonites mentioned. I mean, nobody messes with the Gibeonites after this, right? And they never tried to overthrow Israel. They continued to be their slaves. They kept their head to the bargain. Only Israel didn't keep their head to the bargain.

And it cost them greatly. It cost seven people from Saul's family. Now, the reason, once again, this is it here, is to show us which action did God support when Joshua had to make the decision to kill them or keep to the promise that had God's name stamped on it. God had held the promise 400 years later. God said, that's the decision. That's the right one. You made this of thy name. And so, that's what we'll do. I just find it interesting that the Gibeonites have held it more than the Israelites did and the Gibeonites were the slaves. But once again, it's because that God, what it killed, what it killed every one of us. But that God decided to let us live. So don't you dare go against this agreement. Don't you dare! Generation after generation did not.

What does that tell us about what we should be?

God called ancient Israel his people. He placed his name on them. The church is called God's people. So, he places his name on us and he says he puts us in the body of Christ. We walk around, proclaiming, oh yes, I'm part of the body of Christ. That's who we say we are. We are Christians. We carry that name. We carry, we bear the name of God on us all the time. He stamped it on us. How we honor God's name, in the name of Jesus Christ, is exhibited every day. Not only in what we say and how we use it, how previously we may use God's name or titles, but it is how we represent his name and everything we do or say.

As I thought about this, I wrote down a little prayer I would like to give once in a while. I'll just tell you this prayer, because it's a prayer I want to give God every once in a while.

Father, help me not to misuse your name in any way but to carry your name in a way that honors and glorifies you. Only then will we truly obey the Third Amendment.