He Has Placed His Name on You

I can remember when I was very young, my dad, my aunts, my grandmother telling me, you're the last male in our branch of the family. We know of no other males that come from that particular branch of the Petty family. They said, so remember, you have to carry on the family name.

Well, Chris?

Yeah, I did want to tell Rayann beforehand, but you've got to produce some boys.

The family name, it's important to have a good name. It doesn't. You know, people remember you because of your name. Your name is your reputation. I mean, if I say Adolf Hitler, we all think a very evil person. It is his reputation. When families marry, I was thinking too about the idea that the foundation of society is family, and how, when strong families marry into each other, how it affects society. When Jason Mortier married my daughter, he comes from a strong family. And the result has been the merger of the Mortier family and the Petty family. You know, we have these four little grandkids running around and the fifth one on the way, and they're in a strong family environment. And I think now I think about how the merger between the Petty family and the Sanchez family is going to have a positive effect on society because it creates family. And family name is very important. All of us are very sensitive to our names. You know, if someone slanders you, if someone says something bad about you, then someone comes up and says, oh, you're so-and-so. You get very upset. Your name is important to you. Your name is important to you. You take it very personally when someone says something bad about your name. William Shakespeare in Othello, oh, Bill could turn a phrase. He says this, or one of the characters in Othello, he says, who steals my purse steals trash to something nothing. To his mind, to his, it has been slaves of thousands. That he that filches for me my good name robs me of what which does not enrich him and makes me poor indeed.

To steal someone's name, I like the word, filch. I think we need to bring that back into the English language, right? You filch something. You steal something. So, if you steal somebody's name, you rob them of everything they are. You can rob them of their money, but you can get money back. But you would rob somebody of their name. Well, isn't it interesting? Now, when God lists the 10 basis, the 10 laws that are the basis of all morality, with all these important laws you have, don't steal, don't murder, don't commit adultery, and each one of those commandments is a basis of the whole concept of what morality is. That in that set of laws, he would put in there what is in Exodus 20 verse 7. So, let's go to Exodus 20 verse 7.

So, why would this be in here? We're doing a Beyond Today program on the atheism in the United States, and in Western Europe, and how it's affected people in ways they don't even know. I found it interesting. I was watching a video by a well-known atheist. arguing the 10 commandments, and he took this commandment specifically and said, if this is truly God, He's a monster, an unworthy of worship. Because of what it says in verse 7 here, we have a third of the 10 commandments. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold Him guiltless who takes His name in vain. He said, what a monster that you can't even use His name wrongly, or He won't hold you guiltless. In other words, you will be punished. It's very interesting that this statement is, you will be punished to misuse His name. The word vain literally means to make it useless, to use it in a useless manner. Now, we look at this commandment. We all know this commandment. But this commandment is a whole lot deeper than you and I know. What does it mean to take God's name and make it useless?

It's interesting, if you see this, if you read this commandment in different translations, you will see it's translated differently. And there's a reason for that. In that short little sentence, there is a broad concept inside of it. And many times the translators were trying to pull out and broaden that concept out. As we just read in the New King James, it says, you shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain. The New International Version says, you shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God. Now, here's what's interesting. This is in the Jewish Publication Society, which is probably the closest translation of the Meseretic text, but says, you shall not swear falsely by the name of the Lord your God.

Now, those are three different translations.

But all three of them are correct, and all three of them capture a little bit a certain aspect of what this commandment is really all about.

When we look at the name of God in the Bible, there's various names that God gives Himself in the Scripture. We know that Jesus Christ has a name that nobody knows, except He and the Father. We talked about that in Revelation. They have various titles that apply to the Father and to Jesus Christ.

We know that in the Bible itself, there are various names of God and titles from three different languages, Hebrew and Greek and Aramaic, because the Bible originally was written in three different languages, different parts of it. So what does it mean to take God's name in vain? Well, we're going to look at three ways that we can take God's name in vain. The first one is the obvious one. The first one is what most of us would think about immediately. So I'm going to spend just a little time on that, and then I'm going to expand it out and look at those other three translations and say, okay, how do we expand this out into the spirit of the law? What does it mean to take God's name in vain? Well, the first way is the obvious way, is using God's names or titles in an irreverent way.

We just use His name in a way that if somebody used your name that way, you would be insulted. Now, someone walked around using your name the way people use the word God, or one of his different one of his names or titles, most people would be insulted. We know about this. Let's look at Leviticus 24. I'm going to look at a couple places in the Old Testament, and then we'll go to the New Testament. But how this law was expanded upon in the Old Testament. Leviticus 24. Leviticus 24 verse 10. And you read through this, and if you don't really read it closely, you say, wow, isn't God being overly strict here? We're not talking about murder here. We're not talking about worship of idols. But if you read this closely, there's something very important that's being said here. Verse 10. Now, the son of an Israelite woman whose father was an Egyptian went out among the children of Israel, and this Israelite woman's son and a man of Israel fought each other in the camp. So here we have a person whose mother is an Israelite, father is an Egyptian, and he goes out and he gets in a fight with another Israelite. And the Israelite woman's son blasphemed the name of the Lord and cursed. And so they brought him to Moses, his mother's name was Siloamith, the daughter of Vibri, 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, and let all those who were hurt him lay their hands on his head, and let all the congregation stone him. Wow! All he did was use God's name as a name. You think, would that be a capital punishment for something you say? He cursed God. We have to realize that sometimes the words we say are actually cursing God. We're saying that God has no value. Therefore, the use of his name is the blaspheming of his... or the misuse of his name is the blaspheming of his reputation. I want you to really zero in on the concept that your name is your reputation. Your name is your reputation. If you walk up to someone and say, hey, you know so-and-so. Oh, yeah! I knew even college, and they rolled their eyes. That's 30 years ago. That's not even the same person. Oh, yeah, but I remember him when. Your name is your reputation, and that's why it's so important. A damaged reputation is hard to repair. What do we do with the reputation of God, and how serious is God about his reputation?

Now, his seriousness about his reputation isn't because he's just vain, or that God is just sort of, you know, oh, well, I don't want anything... many to think anything bad about me. That's not the point. The point is understanding who he is and what he deserves. How many times have you heard someone just cry out, you know, the name or the title God or the name Jesus, or in a way that is just absolutely offensive? I mean, I turned off television programs because someone was angry, and all they did was use God's name and vein over and over and over and over again.

And we think, well, God shouldn't care about that. Once again, if it was reversed, and people were doing that with your name, you would be upset. God's reputation is at stake. Look into Leviticus 19, just back, and look once again at how this is applied to the Old Testament. So we're looking at the literal letter of the law here and how it was applied in the book of the law. I'm sorry, Leviticus 19 verse 12. Leviticus 19 verse 12. And you shall not swear by my name falsely, nor shall you profane the name of your God, I am the Lord. Now, notice what's again is tied in here, like the Jewish publication society's translation of Exodus.

You shall not falsely swear by my name. Now, you and I don't live in a society where we do a lot of swearing or oath-taking. You know, we think of swearing as someone just using God's name in vain. And people do it all the time. You know, when people damn something, what they're saying is, I want this destroyed.

So when you take God and use it with that word, you're actually crying out to God to do something. Well, no, I'm not. I'm just using a figure of speech. No, you don't. Whenever we damn something, we're asking, and we put attached to God's name to it, we're literally asking Him to destroy it, to bring punishment upon it. Now, aren't you glad God doesn't answer that all the time?

And so we're using His name in vain in this obvious way. You know, so you go out and your car won't start in the morning because your battery's dead. And what do people do? They're not praying when they cry out, Oh my God.

Right? They're not praying. And so that's the most obvious way. And even little ways that we don't think about. The titles of God. Now, how many times have you heard someone say, Oh Lord? But together, not praying. Now, they're not talking about a member of the house of lords. That's a whole different thing. If you want to use their title in vain, that's fine.

You know, the Lord Exchequer of England. But that's not what we're saying when we do that, is it? Who's the Lord that is being talked about when people do that? So we're taking a title that we know. Yes. Who's that person you're talking about? Well, I guess it's God. Yeah. So this is the most obvious way to take His name in vain. And that's where we get into the euphemisms. And that's why it seems so inconsequential.

But when you say, when you type out O-M-G, what are you doing? Put down O-M-V, oh, my Bob. First, I want to know what that means, right? You say, well, that's not meaningful. Well, why is O-M-G meaningful? It's because what the G stands for. Take the G out, and it doesn't mean anything. See? So you can't say, well, it really has nothing to do with God, because it does. Just put your name in there. And all of a sudden, it doesn't mean anything. So we have to realize these things are important because of the respect God is due.

He's earned His respect because of who He is. And He deserves respect. So to abuse His name is a very important thing to Him. So here we have, you know, the most obvious way. Now, I could have covered that in ten minutes and sat down. But there are ways that are not as obvious, maybe, that we use God's name in vain. The idea that you shall not swear falsely by His name, but to give us, which is the way the Jewish Publications Society translates that, is very important. And that's the second way we could use God's name in vain, is by swearing or taking an oath in God's name.

Now, people will say something, because they so help me God all the time. Not realizing what... when you make an oath and attach God's name to it, He holds you responsible for the oath. If someone went out and got a loan and signed your name to it, wouldn't you be upset and say, well, I'm not responsible for your loan, but we do that to God all the time? Because we swear by His name. And to God, we're signing His name on the dotted line, and we're taking His name on that whatever it is we're doing.

Now, an oath is a proclamation that something's true. I mean, there are still places in the United States that if you go to court, you put one hand on the Bible and you raise the other hand, and you swear, right? But you handle the Bible. Why did they do that? Because the idea was, if you're not going to tell the truth, the God of that Bible is going to punish you. When you make an oath and attach God's name to it, and you do not fulfill that oath, then you're asking for God's punishment on you.

An oath is a very important thing. So is a vow. A vow is a little different. A vow is when you promise something to God. Like, I promise you, God, if I get this new job, I'll give you a hundred-dollar offering. Well, you know, we say, ah, well, I got the job, and I didn't get as much money as I thought, and God will understand. Well, if you go and make a promise to God, He holds us to the promises we make. Look at a vow in Deuteronomy 23.

See, we're just looking at how they took here, this part of the sermon, how they took Exodus 20 and how it was expanded in the law back in the Old Testament. Deuteronomy 23, because the principle still applies today. You know, we don't stone somebody for using God's name in me, but the law, the principle of it still applies. Deuteronomy 23, 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 sinned to you. In other words, to promise God something ought to do it is to lie to God. For the last two weeks, we've had our four grandkids stay with us, and of course, there's always the, He touched me, she touched me, he took my stuff.

He lied, she lied, and you have to work through all that stuff. Of course, I have a simple thing in my house. All the toys are mine. If you can't learn to play with them, I'm taking them. And that tends to settle things down. Pretty good. But notice the point here, he says it's sin. Well, what sin is it? You've taken the Lord your God's name in vain, because you made a promise to Him. Now, you've lied, so you've broken two of the laws. This is very important. Now, the next verse is what's so fascinating to me. But if you abstain from vowing, it shall not be a sin to you. In other words, the law says, you know, it's good not to make any vows to God. If you're going to, you better do it, because God holds you responsible. And you promise God something, and this is what we'll do. Think about it. You'll promise God something, and then something else will come up, and you'll say, well, I know I said I would do that, but my boss wants this, or my friend wants this. And what we're actually telling God is, my word to you, because I know you understand, is less important than my word to this other person. How long would you have a friend if every time they told you, I'll be there, I'm coming over your house at 9, but didn't show up, because, well, yeah, but this other person invited me over, and I wanted to go there, didn't want to make them feel bad.

And time after time after time, this friend never did what they told you they would do. After a while, would that be your friend? After a while, would you trust them? Of course not. But that's what we do to God. All the done. Oh, I know God, but I know I told you I would keep the Sabbath, but my boss needs me. Oh, I know God is feeling the blank. I said I would do this. I told you I would do this, but there's this other person, and really they're more important than you. When we promise God something, we are required to do it.

There's an interesting case in Genesis where an oath is made. It's hard to tell the difference. Sometimes we don't balance an oath, but usually, in a general sense, an oath is, I promise between me and this person, or me and these people, to do something, and God is the witness. And if I don't do it, God will punish me. The other, the vow is, you make it to God, directly to God, and if you don't do it, God says, well, then you lied to me. See, this is our relationship with God. It's much easier to deal with ritual. This is all about relationship. You would not put up in your life with someone treating you the way we treat God sometimes. That's why His mercy is amazing to me. I wouldn't put up with someone treating me the way I treated God at times. But we have to deal with these things because He says, I won't hold you guiltless if you do this. You're going to have to go get forgiveness for doing this. Look at Genesis. This is an interesting one. Genesis 14. Genesis 14.

Verse 22. But Abram said to the king of Sodom, what happened was, Abram had taken his servants and gone out and fought a battle against some kings who had invaded Sodom and saved the city. So the king of Sodom comes to Abram and says, look, I want to reward you for this. But Abram said to the king of Sodom, I have raised my hand, in other words, I've taken an oath. He raised his hand. I have raised my hand to the Lord, most high God, the possessor of heaven and earth, that 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 refused any kind of reward for the king of Sodom. Now why? Because I made an oath to God. I raised my hand and I told God, this is what I'm going to do. So for him to do that would mean that he had actually lied to God. And so he refused to take anything. Now that's very important. We need to understand. You think about children, how God interacts with us. If a child tells you something and doesn't do it, you may understand why they didn't. You may understand that they're a child, but do you then act like it doesn't mean anything? Of course not. There's the little lecture. But you told me and you broke your word and you explained why it was wrong. And as they get older, you expect them more and more to keep their word, to learn that when they say things to you and when they don't, it is a mark on their name and it's a mark on your name. It's all about reputation. What is the reputation you want in your children? So he teaches them, when you tell somebody something, you do it. When you give your word, you do it. You don't lie. And this is all the issue of the relationship between us and God. And I'm going to read a story. It's going to take a little longer than you normally take. I'm going to read a story in the Bible because this is very, very important in understanding this concept because of how the name of God was used and how it was applied to the people at the time. Let's go to Joshua. Joshua 9. Joshua 9.

Joshua had led the Israelites into the land of Canaan, and God had told them to drive out everybody there. That they were to drive out everybody because these people were pagans.

They were depraved. And if they stayed there and lived together, that those people would actually lead Israel away from God. So this is the command he gave them. Verse 1. And it came to pass, when all the kings were on this side of the Jordan in the hills in the lowlands, and all the coasts of the great sea towards Lebanon. They hid tight, they amorite, the Canaanite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, the Jebusite, heard about it, heard about Joshua, and how he'd taken Jericho. They gathered together to fight with Joshua and Israel with one accord. And when the inhabitants of Gibeon heard that Joshua had done the Jericho in A.I., they worked craftily and went and pretended to be ambassadors. So all these Canaanites hid tight, all these people gathered together in their army to fight Israel. And there's one group of people who decide that this won't work, their God's greater than our God's. Their God, we can't defeat him. So what they do is they pretend to be ambassadors, and they show up to meet with Joshua and the elders of Israel. It says here in the middle part of this verse, "...and they took old sacks on their donkeys, and wineskins torn and mended, old and parked sandals on their feet, and old garments on themselves. And all the bread of their provision was dry and moldy. And they went to Joshua to the camp at Gilgal, and they said to him, and to the men of Israel, We have come from a far country, now therefore make a covenant with us." We come from a long ways off.

Way outside of here, we just don't want you coming to our land. Then the men of Israel said to the Hivites, Perhaps you dwell among us, so how can we make a covenant with you? Well, maybe you're tricking us. Is this a trick? But they said to Joshua, We are your servants. And Joshua said to them, Who are you, and where do you come from? So they said, From a very far country your servants have come, because of the name of the Lord your God. We have come because we believe your God is great. Because of your God we have come here. So remember, this is a trick, but this is the real reason they came.

Now we have heard of his fame and all that he did in Egypt, and then all he did to the due kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan.

Verse 11 says, Therefore our elders and all the inhabitants of our country spoke to us, saying, Take provisions with you for the journey. So they did. They said, Well, show you how long it is. It took us so long to get here our bread has mold on it. Look at our clothes. When we left, these were brand new clothes. Look at our animals. They're worn out.

Verse 14, Now the men of Israel took some of their provisions. But notice, they did not ask counsel of the Lord. Ah, that little phrase is the whole problem here.

They had this figured out. Now they're about to do something to create a moral dilemma.

And we'll see, you know, you have to think about which way would I have gone here.

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. Now it happened at the end of three days after they had made a covenant with them that they heard that they were neighbors who dwelt nearby. I mean, the Gibeonites are just down the road here.

There's a whole bunch of little villages of Gibeonites, big city and all that. Wait a minute. God told us to destroy everybody in the land. Now you have to understand what's the moral dilemma now. They have two commandments from God. Kill everybody. And if you break a oath, I will punish you. That's how important an oath is. Which law do they do? You know, here's the problem with sin or when you don't counsel with God. A lot of times we'll make decisions and end up where, wow, either decision I make, I'm going against something God wants. And this is what they did. They didn't seek His counsel, and now it's like, which law do we obey? Because you can't obey both of them. We've got to kill all of them. That's the law. They said, don't take... You know, when you do an oath, you can't take my name and obey. When you put my name on something, these people came and said, we're here to make a covenant in the name of your God. So what were they supposed to do?

Verse 19. So they all get together, all the leaders of Israel, that all the rulers said to all the congregations. Because here's what happened. If you read, I skipped a few verses there. The people of Israel were about to revolt against Joshua. Because Joshua said, we're not going to go attack these people. And the people of Israel said, but God told us to. God told us to kill these people. We're now going against God. So Joshua has to get up in front of his army, who's about to revolt. Verse 19. And all the rulers said to all the congregations, we have sworn to them by the Lord God of Israel, now therefore we may not touch them. This we will do to them, and we will let them live, lest wrath be on us because of the oath which we have sworn to them.

Don't you understand? We put God's name on this. And this is what I want you to really begin to zero in on. Taking God's name in vain, this isn't because you say something slipping about God. It's whatever we stamp God's name on. What he stamped his name on, to disuse that is to disrespect God. They said, we took an oath, we made a covenant, and we said we do this in the name of our of Yahweh, our God. Therefore, if we break it, He will kill us. He will not hold us guiltless. And the army's saying, but He told us to kill Him. They said, no, this law is actually more important. God's name is more important. God's reputation. Verse 21. And all the rulers said to them, let them live, let them be woodcutters and water carriers for all the congregation, as the rulers had promised them. So what happened was the Gibeonites not only became servants to Israel, they became the personal servants of the tabernacle. They were directly involved, not in the worship of Yahweh. They couldn't go into the tabernacle because they were Israelites. But they're the ones who cut the wood, who brought the water. They had to work outside the tabernacle, but they're the ones who made the tabernacle run. So for generation after generation, these people served as the people who, when the tabernacle moved, they followed along behind them. When it was set down, they gathered around it. Plus they worked as servants for the people in Israel. Now, I want you to remember this oath. You think, well, wait a minute. That's not what they should have done. They should have killed them. That's what God said. But God said, when you put my name, when you're my representative, when you're my representative, I want you to think about that a minute in terms of who you are, when you're my representative and you put my name on something, I sign on the dotted line for you. That's what we don't get. You and I represent God. We sign His name on things.

All the time, we sign His name on things. And He holds us to that.

This is why, in Matthew 5, Jesus said, Matthew 5, and then we'll go to our last point. Matthew 5, part of the Sermon on the Mount, verse 33.

Matthew 5, 33, Jesus quotes from the Old Testament law, Again, you have heard that it was said to those of old, you shall not swear falsely, but you shall perform your oaths to the Lord. But I say to you, do not swear at all, either by heaven or as God's throne. You know, I got to the place people didn't want to use God's name in vain, so they would swear by, oh, I swear by heaven. God will take care of it. I don't want to use His name in vain, but they're using God's name in vain. And this is the point that Jesus is saying. You're not getting around it by using a euphemism. For I say to you, do not swear at all, either by heaven or as God's throne, nor by the earth, nor by the earth, nor by the earth, nor by Jerusalem, nor by the city of the great king. Nor shall you swear by your head, because you cannot make one here white or black. Then let your yes be yes and your no-no, for whatever is more than these is for the evil one. Jesus says, you know, don't. Don't swear.

That's why we always suggest when you go to court, you do not put your hand on that Bible. You're not required to do so by law. And swear, tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. You affirm to tell the truth the best you can.

When you put your hand on that Bible, you say, I swear to do this, God holds you, He won't hold you guiltless. It's not just the law of the land you're dealing with.

Now, it's, oh good, I'm never going to make an oath. Every Christian makes two oaths in their lifetimes, even if they make no other.

What are they? Think about it. What's one? Baptism. That's right. What's the other one? Marriage. You're a pretty smart crew.

Baptism and marriage, every one of us make an oath before God. I'm about to bind two people tomorrow in an oath before God. I hope it scares them a little bit. And both of them are dear to me.

It's an oath before God.

That we promise God to do something, and we do it in front of witnesses. And this brings us to our third point.

We represent God, and we take His name in vain every time we represent Him in a false way.

We say, I'm a Christian. Christ is a title of the Messiah. We say, I am a follower, a disciple of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. And we stamp that on us. Actually, He stamped it on us. He stamped His name on us. God says, you are my child. Right? We talk about that all the time. We're the children of God. Then who is the... what is the family name?

What is the family name?

I remember my dad giving me that lecture. You mess up the family name, and you'll mess up your name forever. I remember telling my son that. You mess up your name, and you'll end up, you know, maybe messing it up forever. Now, we all make mistakes. We all say we all have problems. You know what I mean? There are certain people you don't trust. It's their very name.

You and I carry a name. Now, think about that. You carry a name. The moment you had hands laid on you, and God gave you His Spirit, you carry His name. You know, back in Exodus 20, verse 7, do not take the name of the Lord your God and vain.

It's very interesting, the word take. It is a wide variety of meanings in Hebrew, and some Jewish translators say that should be translated here. You know, when you take something, you lift it up. Right? You pick it up. Do not lift up and carry God's name and vain. That's interesting, isn't it? We carry His name.

You know, how many times you've heard somebody say, well, that's the black sheep of the family, right? We own them, but we don't totally accept that person or whatever. That's the black sheep of the family. We carry His name. His name has been put upon us, not because you and I took it, because He gave it to us. We can carry that name and vain.

We can carry it so that people say, ah, there's an imperfect human being, but that person is a Christian. Or we can carry the name of God, where they say, that Christian stuff is just a lot of hypocrisy. Right?

In which case we are taking God's name and vain. That is the greatest danger you and I have, and that's why He says, I won't hold you guiltless when you take my name and vain. It's because we carry it. It's stamped on us. It's who we are.

And to dishonor the family name is to dishonor our father and to dishonor our elder brother. And they take us very seriously. They do.

The problem is we don't take God and the Son very seriously sometimes. There's the problem, because they take us very seriously. Serious enough to put the family name on us.

I remember a little bit ago, we read about Joshua's covenant. And it, well, how did God feel about that? It doesn't say in Joshua 9, it doesn't say how God felt about the covenant. It just said that the rulers of Israel said, we can't go back on this. We stamp God's name on this. It doesn't matter, by the way, that they were they were frauded. In a court of law, you know, if you took this case to a court of law today, the Israelites would get out of it.

The Gibeonites committed fraud!

But Joshua said, no, we stamp God's name on this. By the way, this is important about marriage. Now, there are reasons for divorce given to the Bible, but they're very narrow. But we divorce outside those reasons. We take God's name in vain. Understand that. Divorce outside of biblical reasons is taking God's name in vain, because we stamped His name on it.

That's important. We take divorce way too lightly in the church. We take marriage way too lightly in the church. We stamp God's name on it. And we bear His name. We have a responsibility to God, to each other, to the families that unite to each other. We have a responsibility to society to make our marriages work, because we stamp God's name on it. I want to tell you how God felt about Joshua's decision, because we know, because of something that happened 400 years later. Let's go to 2 Samuel 21. Last scripture we'll go to here. 2 Samuel 21.

David, the king of Israel. This is long after the time of Joshua. Joshua died all the time of the judges. Came along. The time of Samuel came along. The time of Saul came along. So this is about 400 years, if you take it a little bit later, that David's now king. Now there was a famine in the days of David for three years, year after year. And David inquired of the Lord, and the Lord answered, it is because of Saul. Now Saul was dead. It is because of Saul and his bloodthirsty house, because he killed the Gibeonites. Saul tried to commit genocide against the Gibeonites. For 400 years, guess what the Gibeonites have been, slaves?

Now 400 years after Joshua had stamped God's name on disagreement. Guess what God is doing? He's holding the Israelites responsible, because his name was on it.

So the king called the Gibeonites, the ones that had survived, and he spoke to them. Now the Gibeonites were not the children of Israel, but the remnant of the Amorites, and the children of Israel had sworn to protection to them. But Saul had sought to kill them in his zeal for the children of Israel and Judah. Now I want you to notice what was Saul's motivation. We've got to get non-Israelites out of here.

People would have thought this is a pretty good motivation.

They could go back and read. You know, the priest could have opened up the scrolls and said, you know, God told us to kill all these people. And Saul could have said, you know what?

Joshua was wrong. He disobeyed the commandment of God.

Saul did not honor the name of God. You can see that over there. He honored himself, but he did honor the name of God. So he didn't see what Joshua did as good. So out of his zeal for Israel, he tried to kill off all these people. And here now David's king and God's cursing is the nation. God's people are being cursed because of the agreement they had made with people who committed fraud. They think, how can that be? Very simple. They put God's name. God's reputation was at stake here, not theirs. It wasn't Joshua's reputation at stake. It wasn't Saul's reputation at stake. It was his. And this had been made in his name.

And it's pretty important. And you bear his name.

But it's a whole different meaning to this commandment, doesn't it? Oh, we can take his name in vain.

Therefore, in verse 5, or for 3, therefore David said to the giving of the night, what shall I do to you? And what shall I make a tobit? That you may bless the inheritance of the Lord. He says, you were wrong. We broke the agreement. What must I do to restore this covenant? And the giving I said to him, we will have no silver or gold from Saul or from this house. Nor shall you kill any man in Israel for us. If you know we don't want big trials, we don't want reparations that you pay us for what's happened in the past. We don't want any of that. Something very simple. So he said, whatever you say, I will do for you. And the answer to the king, as for the man who consumed us and plotted against us, that we should be destroyed. Now, in other words, he tried to kill every one of them, their women, their children, their babies. He tried to kill everybody, their old people. Now, there's just a few left. 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, before God, because it was God's name that was at stake here. And the giving of the night understood that. We will hang them before the Lord and give you a Saul who the Lord chose. And that's exactly what David did. He went and got seven descendants of Saul, gave them to him, to them, and they hanged them all before the Lord. Now, that's brutal. That's not what we do today, but the principle still applies. The principle is, what is done in the name of God, God holds him very personally. I tell you what, in the course of human history, there have been some of the most horrible crimes committed to the name of God ever imagined. And there are going to be lots of people appear before God, and God's going to say, you did what in my name? You did what in my name? But you and I bear his name, and you and I can't take this lightly. You have been called, ancient Israel was called to be a physical nation to represent God. They always failed because they didn't have God's spirit, except for some of them. Most of them did not have God's spirit. The church is called to receive God's spirit. You are the people of God. When God put his spirit in you, he put his name in you. His name is on you. You bear it. You carry it every day of your life. I carry it every day of my life. We carry his name.

How important is it that we carry that name proudly?

Respectfully. It's who we are. You know, there's times to go ask God to help you. Father, help me to carry your name, to not misuse your name.

There's been many times in my life I've asked God, I'm going into a situation, please don't let me dishonor you today.

Because I do a lot of stupid stuff. So help me today not to dishonor you for your son Jesus Christ.

I will tell you, I pray that prayer a lot.

How we honor God for the name of Jesus Christ, yes, it's exhibited every day when we don't use their name in vain, flippantly, forever when we talk. But more importantly, in your mind, life, because most of us don't do that. It's how we represent Him. Always remember, you represent God Almighty, because He has placed His name on you.