In The Name of The Lord

In my letter, I mentioned that it's good for us to have our Bibles with us when we come to services. And I know every year when we have teens graduate, or young people graduate into teen Bible study, we give them Bibles. I hope they have Bibles today, because I'm going to do something different here at the first part of services. I am going to read a number of scriptures.

And all these scriptures have a phrase in them that I want you to pay attention to. We'll talk about the phrase when we get through. Now, if you look up the phrases that I'm talking about, you'll find there's over somewhere between 80 and 100 incidents in the Bible, or scriptures in the Bible that contain that passage. I'm not going to read all of those, but I'm going to read a few of them.

And let's begin then in Deuteronomy 18. And teens who are following along, I'm going to do this sequentially, right through the Bible. So you don't even have to search. Once you find one, you can flip forward to Deuteronomy 18. This is talking about the Levites, who God chose to work in the Tabernacle and to serve Him in that place where He meets. Deuteronomy 18.5 says this. It says, For the Eternal your God has chosen Him, that's Levi, out of all your tribes, to stand the minister in the name of the Eternal, Him and His sons forever. So if the Levite comes from any of your gates, from where He dwells among all Israel, and comes with all the desire of His mind.

Now that's not the phrase I'm going to focus on. I've already read the phrase I'm going to focus on. But pay attention to that. It comes with all the desire of His mind, the same thing that God would look to us when we come to Him. When it comes with all the desire of His mind to the place which the Eternal chooses, then He may serve in the name of the Eternal His God, as all His brethren, the Levites, knew who stand there before the Lord.

A couple times in those two verses, the phrase we're going to talk about, in the same chapter in Deuteronomy 18, in verse 18, it talks about the prophet that will come. Moses was the prophet, and there would be a prophet that is to come. It says this is Him in verse 18. It says, I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brethren, and I will put my words in His mouth.

He shall speak to them all that I command him. And it will be that whoever will not hear my words, which he speaks in my name, I will require it of him. But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in my name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet shall die. A couple chapters forward, chapter 21, verse 5.

Then the priests, the sons of Levi, shall come near, for the eternal your God has chosen them to minister to him, and to bless in the name of the Lord, by their word every controversy and every assault shall be settled. They'll do that in the name of the Lord. The prophets will speak in that name. Levi will minister in that name. Let's move forward to 1 Samuel. 1 Samuel will talk about David.

David in the notable account of where he was going to face Goliath. The rest of the armies of Israel shrank in terror when they would see Goliath. He's just too tall to defeat. They thought that they weren't about to sacrifice their lives, but David came with something other that allowed him to defeat Goliath. 1 Samuel 17. Let's pick it up in verse 43. I'm going to read more than just the verse that this phrase is in, so that you have the context of what it is. Sometimes when you read the verses around the verse that we read in Sabbath services, you learn a lot and maybe find something that you want to go home and study about more.

1 Samuel 17. So the Philistine said to David, Am I a dog that you come to me with sticks? And the Philistine, Goliath, cursed David by his gods. And Goliath said to David, Come to me, and I will give your flesh to the birds of the air and the beasts of the field.

And David said to the Philistine, You come to me with a sword, with a spear, and with a javelin. But I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel whom you have defiled. This day the Lord will deliver you into my hand. I come to you in the name of the Lord. A few books forward to 1 Kings. 1 Kings chapter 18. You will remember the account of Elisha the prophet when he was challenging the prophets of Baal to determine who is the true God of Israel.

And he challenged them to call fire down from heaven and to consume an offering to see which God was real. He knew what the answer was, but they needed to see. 1 Kings 18. Let's pick it up in verse 24. Get the context. As Elisha is speaking, he says, then you will call on the name of your gods. I will call on the name of the Eternal. And the God who answers by fire, He is God.

So all the people answered and said, it is well spoken. We will do this. Let's drop down to verse 27. And so they went about that. They went about doing the things, asking their gods who consumed that sacrifice.

And so it was about noon that Elijah mocked them and said, cry aloud, for He is the God. Either He is meditating, He is busy, or He is on a journey, or perhaps He is sleeping and must be awakened. He was taunting them a little bit because He knew that that wasn't going to happen. They were wasting their time. So they cried aloud. And, notice, then they cut themselves. Isn't that interesting? Sometimes you hear about people cutting themselves. God never has His people cut themselves.

That's always an item of a pagan. Custom was not. They prophesied until the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice. But there was no voice. No one answered. No one paid attention. And Elijah said to all the people, come near to Me. So all the people came near. And He repaired the altar of the Lord that was broken down.

And He took twelve stones according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob, to whom the word of the Lord had come, saying, Israel shall be your name. Then with the stones He built an altar in the name of the Lord.

And He made a trench around the altar, large enough to hold two siyas of seed. He set the wood in place. He called on the name of the Lord. It was consumed immediately. Fire came down from heaven. He built the altar in the name of the Lord. In Psalm, going back, going forward, several books, Psalm, Psalm 124. Psalm 124 and verse 6.

David wrote this Psalm. He said, Blessed be the Eternal, who has not given us His prey to their teeth. Our soul has escaped as a bird from the snare of the fowlers. The snare is broken, and we have escaped. Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth. Our help is in the name of the Lord. Isaiah 50. Isaiah 50. And verse 10. Who among you, and it's written, who among you, appears the Lord? Who obeys the voice of His servant?

Who walks in darkness and has no light? Let Him trust in the name of the Lord and rely on His God. That's where our trust should be. That's where our trust must be in the name of the Lord. Back in the minor prophets, or forward in the minor prophets, in Zephaniah, a prophecy for the future and talks a lot about the kingdom, in Zephaniah 3, verse 12. Zephaniah is the fourth book back from the end of the Old Testament. Zephaniah 3, verse 12.

I will leave in your midst, God says, a meek and humble people. They shall trust in the name of the eternal. They will trust in the name of the Lord.

When He returns, when Israel is brought back, when they are humbled and they are strong in the Lord and if their power is brought under the control of the Master, they'll trust in the name of the Lord. The remnant of Israel shall do no unrighteousness. They will speak no lies, nor shall a deceitful tongue be found in their mouth, for they shall feed their flocks and lie down, and no one will make them afraid.

There are many places other than that in the Old Testament. Let's move to the New Testament. Let's look at Mark 11. Mark 11, verse 7. Christ is about to make His triumphal entry into Jerusalem. Mark 11, verse 7. They brought the coal to Jesus and threw their clothes on it, and He sat on it. And many spread their clothes on the road, and others cut down leafy branches from the trees and spread them on the road. Then those who went before and those who followed cried out, saying, Hosanna, blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.

Blessed is the kingdom of our Father David that comes in the name of the Lord. Notice the number of things that come in the name of the Lord, and that the name of the Lord allows people to do when we recognize the power and the strength in it. John 3. John 3. Verse 16 is a well-known verse, but we'll read beyond verse 16 a couple of verses. John 3, verse 16. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.

And you remember when we read the word believes in the New Testament, it's not belief like we might use the word believe. It comes from the Greek pistoial, meaning a belief so deep, deep, that it alters the way we think, alters the way we behave, alters the way we view life.

A change is implicit in it when we believe the way that God wants us and calls us to believe. Verse 17, For God did not send His Son into the world, to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. He who believes in Him is not condemned, but He who does not believe is condemned already, because He has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. He has not believed in that name.

Acts 2. Acts 2, verse 38. When the day upon a cost came, the Holy Spirit was given to the people gathered there, and Peter and John and the others went out, and they spoke boldly of who Jesus Christ was. Now, the people heard, and God opened their minds, and they wanted to know, now that we've done this, what do we do? And Peter answers them, he says, he says, repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

He baptized in His name. The companion verse to that would be in Matthew 28, verses 19 and 20. When Jesus said, Go out and teach the nations to observe all things that I have commanded to you, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit.

There's power in that name. One chapter over in Acts 3, Peter's confronted with someone who's been lame from birth. Let's pick it up in verse 2 of Acts 3. A certain man, lame from his mother's womb, was carried, whom they laid daily at the gate of the temple called beautiful, to ask alms from those who entered the temple. So he was going there to have people give him things to sustain him. And when he saw Peter and John about to go into the temple, he asked for alms.

And fixing his eyes on him with John, Peter said, Look at us. So he gave them his attention, expecting to receive something from them. And Peter said, Silver and gold I do not have, but what I do have I give you, in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk. In that name, healing came. In that name, and in the power of that name, healing came. Chapter over in Acts 4. And verse 12.

Pick it up in verse 11, I guess, where the sentence begins. Peter speaking, he says, This is the stone which was rejected by you builders, which has become the chief cornerstone. Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven, given among men by which we must be saved.

In that name is salvation. In that name is power. In that name is strength. In that name is help. In that name, verses down to verse 17, the high priests of that day, when they saw what Peter and John, the apostles were doing, they knew of the healing that took place in the name of Jesus Christ. And they looked at that and they recognized there's something about what these people are doing and by what authority they are speaking. And they told them to stop speaking of that name. Chapter 4, verse 17. But so that it spreads no further, this is the high priest speaking, but so that it spreads no further among the people, let us severely threaten them.

That's Peter and John, that from now on they speak to no man in this name. So they called and commanded them not to speak at all, nor teach in the name of Jesus. We don't want you talking about what this man did. We don't want you using his name. Whatever you're doing when you say in the name of and these things happen, we don't want that happening anymore.

They tried to stop them, of course, they weren't successful. Move forward to Acts 9. Acts 9, verse 26. You remember Paul? He was before he was converted. He was one who persecuted the saints and they were afraid of him because he had no problem if they died because of what they believed. But God did call him. He was converted. And here was a time when he came to Jerusalem.

Let's look in verse 26 here of Acts 9. When Saul had come to Jerusalem, he tried to join the disciples, but they were afraid of him and they didn't believe that he was a disciple. But Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles, and he declared to them how he had seen the Lord on the road and that he had spoken to him, and how he had preached boldly at Damascus in the name of Jesus.

So he was with them at Jerusalem, coming in and going out, and he spoke boldly in the name of the Lord Jesus and disputed against the Hellenists. They attempted to kill him. He spoke boldly in the name of Jesus. Over in Acts 16. Acts 16, verse 16. As Paul was going around to the Gentile cities, he had the opportunity to encounter many things. There was a girl that he encountered there that had a certain spirit in her. Let's read about it here in Acts 16, verse 16.

And this she did for many days. But Paul, greatly annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her. And he came out that very hour. Power in that name. Power in that authority. That even the demons and spirits come out of people. First Corinthians 6. First Corinthians 6. Pick it up in verse 9.

Ephesians 5. Ephesians 5 and verse 15. Some introductory verses here that speak to the time that we're in as we look around the world and see the uncertainty that's everywhere. What's going on in all the different areas? North Korea, Iran, Middle East, here at home. Ephesians 5 verse 15. He says, And don't be drunk with wine in which is dissipation, but be filled with the Holy Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your hearts to the Lord, giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord. Jesus Christ. James 5. James 5. 10. Probably all of us, at least most of us in this room at one time or another, have thought of these verses when we haven't been feeling well and we've called on God and we've asked Him to watch over us, heal us. James 5 verse 10. My brother and James writes, Take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord as an example of suffering and patience. Take them, what they did as an example of suffering and patience. Indeed, we count them blessed who endure. You have heard of the perseverance of Job and seen the end intended by the Lord, that the Lord is very compassionate and merciful. But above all, my brethren, don't swear either by heaven or by earth or by or with any other oath. Let your yes be yes and your no know lest you fall into judgment. Is any among you suffering? Let Him pray. Is any cheerful? Let Him sing psalms. Is any among you sick? Let Him call for the elders of the church and let them pray over you. And anointing Him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the sick. In the name of the Lord. One last one here. 1 John 5. 1 John 5, verse 12. He who has the Son has life. He who does not have the Son of God does not have life. These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God. Over and over and over. In the name of the Lord. In the name of Jesus Christ. In the name of God. And what we see in all those examples and the many more that you can go through and look in the concordances or the online commentaries and see for yourself what's there. What we see in the name of God is power, strength, hope, trust, salvation, justification, eternity, healing. What we see in the name of God is something so powerful and so awesome that those of us who have taken the name of God when we were baptized. When we were baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. That we should count that so miraculous. So awesome. We should be so reverential of everything that is in the name of God. That we would just simply be appalled that we could ever take it, flippantly, carelessly, or anything other than with all the fear and reverence that God commands that we worship Him with. All these things are done in the name of the Lord. We walk and we live in the name we were baptized in to the name of the Lord, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. It's not a name to be taken lightly. It's not something that we would just take for granted because only the people that God calls in this age know what that means. Elijah called down the power of heaven in the name of the Lord. David slew Goliath in the name of the Lord. Jesus Christ came in the name of the Lord.

Matthew 23 and 39 says when He's weeping over Jerusalem, I weep and I won't see you anymore until I come in the name of the Lord at His direction with His blessing and His authority. Now, when we read in the name of the Lord, there's some who would tell you that there's only one name of God, only one that we need to call on. If we will just say that name, all these things will happen. Not at all true. Let me read to you from the Greek what the word name, when we've read all the things about in the name of Jesus Christ, in the name of the Son of Man, in the name of God, in the name of the Lord. What it means, it comes from the Greek, enoma, it has a counterpart in the Hebrew as well.

It means everything which the name covers, everything the thought or feeling of which is aroused in the mind by mentioning, hearing, or remembering the name. It pertains to one's rank, authority, command, excellences, and deeds. It can be rendered authority. Not a name, per se, but everything that we think of and everything that we know that's associated with those names that we've talked about.

If I say, God, you know who I'm talking about, don't you? And you think about the Bible and you think everything that is being said in the Bible. You know who He is. If I say, Almighty, you know who I'm talking about. If I say, Eternal, you know who I'm talking about. If I say, Jesus Christ, you know Who I'm talking about. If I say, just simply, Christ, you know who I'm talking about. If I say Savior, you know who I am talking about. If I say Creator, you know who I am talking about. If I say El Shaddai, you know who I am talking about.

If I say Alughim, you know who I am talking about. If I say Jehovah, you know who I am talking about. If I say YHWH, you know who I am talking about. Anytime, and any of those are in the name of God, that being the one God of the universe match with His name, We have been invited to become part of and have if we've been baptized.

In that name, all the power, all the strength, all the hope, all the trust, all the healing, everything, comes in that name when we live in that name. It's powerful. It's majestic. It has majesty in it. And we need to recognize what God has given us and what that name means.

Let's turn back to Matthew 6. Matthew 6. As I was going through some of those scriptures, you probably thought of a few that I didn't go to, and I deliberately didn't go to all of them. You can look some of them up yourself. But in Matthew 6, Jesus Christ is determined in the Mount, and He gives a sample prayer, if you will. This is a way, a manner in which we can pray. In verse 9, He begins it, Our Father in Heaven. Well, when we read Our Father, we know who we're talking about.

We don't have to stipulate while Our Father is God. We know that when we hear it. Our Father in Heaven, hallowed be Your name. Almost every Christian church will recite those verses to you, and they'll recite that Lord's Prayer, Our Father in Heaven, hallowed be Your name.

Before my parents came in the church, we memorized it, and it was part of the penance that you would do, and you would say it over and over and over again. I've known the word hallowed from the time I could basically speak. What does hallowed mean? Is it something that we just kind of say because we've heard it forever? Here's what hallowed means. The Greek word translated hallowed there. It means to consecrate, purify, mentally venerate. Mentally venerate Our Father in Heaven. We venerate Your name. Every name that pertains to You. Your authority and everything that Your name conjures up when we think about God.

Everything. We venerate it. Mentally, we're trained to venerate it. Mentally, we respect it. Mentally, we're in awe. Mentally, when we think of God, Elohim, Almighty, Creator, Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior, Almighty, El Shaddai, those are names that are sacred. Those are names that are purified and pure in our minds. We haven't abused them. We haven't done anything with them, but we venerate that name.

So important. So important was God's name and what we think of. When we think of His name and what it means. His authority and everything connected with His name, because it's really His reputation and who He is. Not just a word, not just a word, but He put it in the Ten Commandments. And He said, You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain. If you take the name of the Lord your God in vain, you will not go unpunished. It's Exodus 20, verse 7. Let me read to you from a newer translation.

Exodus 20, verse 7. This is from God's word translations, the newer translation where they've gone back to the original manuscripts and retranslated everything with the knowledge of the words and the meanings of the Koine Greek and the Hebrew as they know them today. And this is how they translate that commandment. Never use the name of the Lord your God carelessly. The Lord will make sure that anyone who carelessly uses His name will be punished. And yet we live in a society that certainly carelessly uses God's name, don't they?

Every single one of us hear it, I think, every single day. When we're talking with neighbors, when we turn the TV on, when we're in school, when we're at work, when we're talking with someone in the neighborhood, we hear it all over the place. Before the status fire last night, I sat down and watched with Debbie an HGTV episode, and you know how those people are. When their house gets renovated, I mean they look fantastic. But the girl who was on last night, I mean, she must have said it a dozen times as she walked from room to room.

I almost had to turn the TV off because it just so irritated me what she was saying and how she used God's name flippantly in expressing her pleasure and surprise and how everything looked good. And it can rub off on all of us.

And I know teens who can rub off on you. And I know adults who can rub off on you because you know what? As I walk around and I listen, I've heard some things that have surprised me. I've heard some things that we may need to go back and we may need to look closer at this commandment, just like we looked at the ninth commandment last week, and see that we are keeping this and doing God's will and living His way of life in the manner that He intended.

Not just a little better than the world around us, but with the aim toward purity, the aim toward perfection, the aim toward what the Bible would tell us to do. Let's go back to Colossians.

Colossians 3 and verse 17. Think Paul, when he wrote Colossians 3-17, might have been thinking about that commandment. The third one that we just talked about, Colossians 3 verse 17, he says, Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him. Whatever you do in word and in deed, what you say and what you do, do it in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.

We come before God on the Sabbath day, and I wasn't here for the opening prayer, but I know that whoever gave the opening prayer closed it, for here, gathered together, Father, in your name. It shouldn't be just at Sabbath services, because we are to be living in God's name every day. Paul says, the Bible inspired, or God inspired Paul, everything, whatever you do in word or deed, do it in the name of the Lord Jesus. Let's talk a little bit about words.

Let's talk a little bit about words. Now, I think everyone here knows that if we just simply take God's name in vain, if we just say, Oh my, and I won't complete it because I don't want it completed, Oh my, it's wrong. There is absolutely no way you can justify that. It is simply a violation of the Third Commandment, no matter which way you look at it. I don't hear anyone running around saying, Oh my, Yahweh, Oh my, Jehovah.

So that's probably not a big problem. You know, it's curious for me when you think about the world we live in. And here in America, that used to at least consider itself a Christian nation, we hear God's name taken in vain all over the place. And yet, if we were in the Middle East, where Allah is their God, I wonder how many people run around taking His name in vain. You know that's not the case, right? Because if you even draw a little picture or make any kind of fun of Allah, you may as well consider yourself a marked man and you will die.

And yet over here, I don't, you know, we don't, you don't hear people who are Buddhists taking their God's name in vain. But for some reason, Christians think I can just use God's name flippantly, carelessly all over the place. What does He care? Well, we know that Satan is marvelous at minimizing God. He is marvelous at leading us to do things that would take away the power and the majesty and the strength and the healing and the potency of the name of God and make it something that we just hear.

And it goes right over our head and makes no difference to us. He is marvelous at that. And so the world has fallen prey to that. So we know that, oh my, using God's name is wrong. But there's a lot of euphemisms, right? A lot of euphemisms that we can use that are just as wrong as using God's name in vain. Now, you know what a euphemism is? It's something that we would use in place of something else.

I consider euphemism is, I think I'm clever, I can get around that commandment by doing this. I know I can't say, oh my, but if I say, gee, golly, gosh, gee, wiz, geez, I haven't really violated the commandment, right? Oh yeah, you have, because what is the intent of your heart? The intent of your heart is to say a word that does not fit with the precept or the concept of the Third Commandment. And so you are looking for a way to get around that commandment by using another word. It doesn't work.

What's in our heart? Wrong side. What's in our heart? God wants to know what's in our heart, right? And so using those euphemisms don't excuse us, and yet I hear them, not infrequently, actually. I gave the sermon to Jacksonville this morning, and I won't reveal any names or anything, but I had to smile, and they smiled too. As I was having two conversations with two different people, I heard two of those euphemisms. And as soon as they said it, they caught themselves, they looked at me and smiled, and I said, gotcha.

Now they knew. They knew immediately what they had done. But you know, it takes discipline. We have to learn to discipline the words we speak. That when these things come out of our mouths, we think, that isn't what I should be saying. That isn't what God has called me to. He has called me to purity of language, purity of mind, purity of heart. And so I'm not going to say that anymore. We might catch ourselves, and it might take some time. You know, when I was a teenager and I was in school, I thought it was cool to say some words and whatever.

As I got older, I realized that is just plain wrong. And I had to discipline myself and catch myself, just like all of us have had to do, because we live in a world that doesn't care what they say. In fact, I was just walking down the street the other day, and I heard a couple young people, and as I passed by them, I heard two or three pretty vivid words.

And I thought, just standard. You know, they could have said, how are you? But they were using the words, and I thought, wow, the world has just gotten to a place where it is just crazy what the language they use. But I get a little bit of my head on myself. Let's go to Matthew 15. Matthew 15. You know, our words do mean something. Some, I think, will probably excuse themselves and say, oh, God doesn't mind. He understands where my heart is. Oh, God does understand. And God does know what He asks us to do, and He does expect us to be marching toward purity and to perfection. We're not going to get there overnight.

But we do need to catch ourselves, and we do need to be working toward that. Matthew 15. Matthew 15. You know, this is a story or an incident where the Pharisees are all upset because Christ's disciples didn't wash their hands the right way. Christ uses it as an opportunity to teach some truth here about what we say and what's important. Chapter 15. Let us pick it up in verse 17. Matthew 15. 17. Don't you yet understand, Christ speaking, that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and is eliminated? Don't you know there's a digestive system? And you know what? If it's a little dirty, the waste is expelled, the body takes what is good. But those things which proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and they defile a man. What you do in word and deed, what comes out of your mouth, they defile a man. For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. These are the things which defile a man. But to eat with unwashed hands does not defile a man.

What is Christ saying there? Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.

How can we know what's in our heart? How do others know what's in our heart?

Are we really marching toward perfection? Are we really looking to have God give us a clean heart? Because if we have a clean heart, the language is going to get cleaner and cleaner. The language will be a lot more like Jesus Christ spoke. It won't be dotted and punctuated by all these little words that go on. Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.

Now, none of us are perfect, and no one should if we hear anything that someone says. Immediately condemn them. We're all at different stages. We work. We work and we grow toward what God has called us to and what we need to be aware of it. Let's look back a few chapters in Matthew 5. Matthew 5, verse 33.

Christ's Sermon on the Mount. In this section from verses 33 to 37, he's talking about words that we speak. Verse 33, Again, you have heard that it was said to those of old, You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform your oath to the Lord. But I say to you, don't swear at all. Neither by heaven, for it's God's throne, nor by the earth, for it's his footstool, nor by Jerusalem, for it's the city of the great king. Nor shall you swear by your head, because you can't make one hair white or black. But let your yes be yes and your no-no, for whatever is more than these is from the evil one. Simply say yes. You don't have to punctuate it. You don't have to exaggerate it. You don't have to make it something by using all these other things that we can use to attack onto it. Now, we know euphemisms. That would be a violation of God's Third Commandment. Using his name directly is a violation of the Third Commandment.

There's other things we can say, too, if we look at this verse. I hear people say, oh heavens, my word, my goodness. I'm guilty of that. I'm still working on that one sometimes.

My goodness, land's sake. You know, God says, let your yes be yes and your no be no. Clean up the language. Don't swear, don't talk, don't use anything to punctuate it. Let your yes be yes and your no be no. James said the same thing in James 5 verse 12. Back in Ephesians 4, Ephesians 4 and verse 29.

Paul in the same chapter that he's talking about the church and how it's structured in the body that God has placed us into. Then he goes into talking about what we should be putting out of our lives and what we should be putting in. In verse 29 he says this, let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth. No corrupt word. No dirty jokes.

No thing of any corruption. No corrupt word proceed out of your mouth. But what is good for necessary edification that it may impart grace to the hearers? It's a tall order, isn't it?

What we speak God pays attention to. He says in Matthew 12, every idle word we speak will be held accountable for. He knows our weaknesses. He knows the world we live in. He knows what it is that we are up against day in and day out. He knows that that can rub off uneasily on us if we let it.

He says, clean up your language. We look forward to the millennium and back in Zephaniah again.

There's a beautiful verse in Zephaniah 3 that talks about one of the things that will mark that time. Zephaniah 3 and verse 9. For then I will restore to the peoples a pure language.

There won't be the euphemisms. There won't be the curse words, the cuss words, the little exclamations that we are so used to, that we've all uttered, that we hear around us all the time. Our resource of people is a pure language that they all may call in the name of the Lord to serve Him with one accord. Isn't that what we should be working toward now?

Looking at our language and disciplining ourselves, that it fits people who are living and who have been called and who are claiming the name of the Lord, the name of God. Paul said in word, and in deed. Do it all in the name of Jesus Christ. So we talked about words. There's deeds that are implicit in that commandment as well. Let's turn over to 1 Corinthians 10. 1 Corinthians 10 verse 31. The deeds that we do, the things that we do, verse 31 of 1 Corinthians 10 says, Therefore, whether you eat or drink, do all to the glory of God.

Give no offense, either to the Jews or to the Greeks or to the church of God.

Whatever you do, do it to God. Do it to the glory of His name. Do it the way He called you to do it.

Take seriously the name that you've been placed into, the name in which we should all be walking and growing. Take it seriously in word and in deed.

When we look in the Bible, we see so many things that God tells us to do. I'm certainly not going to take the time to recount everything. You read the Bible. We've had sermons and sermonettes on the things that we need to do. We need to be paying attention to these things and making the changes in our lives. You know, Jesus Christ was an ambassador of the Kingdom of God. He did it perfectly. Everything He said was perfect. The words He said were from God.

Whatever God told Him to speak, He spoke. The way He lived His life was perfect. He was the perfect ambassador for the Kingdom of God. And He called us to be ambassadors, too, to be witnesses or to be examples of the way of life that will be in the Kingdom, the way of life that will you lead to joy and peace and all the things that we say we want and all the things that we said we would commit to when we were baptized into the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. To be ambassadors. When people look at us, when they look at our families, do they see the Kingdom of God?

When they look at us in our work ethic, do they say, that's the Kingdom of God? When they look at our honesty, when they look at the things that we do, do they say, that's exactly different than the world? That's something that we want to be like in everything we say and do. Are we good ambassadors? I asked myself that. Are we ambassadors in word and in deed? Do people see the Kingdom of God? Do they see a difference in the hope, in the behavior, in the language, and everything else?

You know, I could talk and I could list a number of things and, you know, sometimes, sometimes, you know, just like Christ said, out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.

Sometimes, when we're not keeping and doing and living in the name of God, it can become evident in other ways. You know, God expects us to be keeping all of His laws and His principles and some of them the world would say doesn't make sense.

But there are financial principles in the Bible, some of which, a lot of people, I won't say a lot of people, some people say don't need to do that. God understands my money is a little tight, so I don't need to tie first or second. But if we have many problems and we're not tithing, we might want to look back at what God said and do what He said and find that those things work that He says. When we do what He says and when we speak in word and when we do indeed in the name of God, He will bless, He will see the things that are doing. We talked last week a little bit about hypocrisy and that's a violation of the ninth commandment. Do we say one thing, do we come to church, present ourselves as one thing but then in everyday life or something different?

If we're hypocrites, then we violate the ninth commandment because we are lying to our children, lying to our neighbors, lying to our employers. We're representing the name of God and we are not doing what God has us to do. Well, hypocrisy is also a violation of the third commandment because hypocrisy is consideration and you have not given it the do that it needs. I shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, in word or in deed.

And you probably think all He talks about is the Sabbath day but you know the Sabbath day is a sign between God and His people. It's a sign between God and His people and it's also a test commandment, isn't it? Because there's all sorts of things that can come up on the Sabbath day.

When we get that argument from the world, we worship God every day. He put His name in this Sabbath day. He said, consecrate it, set it apart, keep it holy. And in this Sabbath day, the way we keep it at home tells a lot about us and tells God a lot about us. Because on that Sabbath day, what do we do? Do we keep it the way God said? Is it a day of delight? Is it a day that our families are together? Is it a day that we reverence God? Is it a day that we put Him first?

Because I dare say that if God says, you won't even put me first on the day I've consecrated myself on, then how on earth are you putting me first than anything else?

If commandment doesn't say put God first in most of the things, put me first. And so when He says, come in my presence on the Sabbath day, He expects, sorry, He expects it.

If your boss called you in and said, I want you in my office at 9 o'clock on Monday morning.

We're going to talk about some things. I've got some plans for you. I want you to be here.

Which of you would dare say, that just doesn't work? You would be there, wouldn't you? You would be there at 9 o'clock on Monday morning. You would be there dressed. You would be ready. You would be interested. You would be ready to listen to what He had to say.

And yet when we come together before God, what do we think in Sabbath services? Do we just think, oh, here's two hours. I'll waddle through it. I'll sleep through it. I'll play my video games through it. I'll just endure it. Or are we here ready to hear what God has to say?

Because God is watching. Our bosses are watching. If we're sitting there twiddling our thumbs, looking at our phones, doing that and whatever is going on, I dare say your boss is going to pass you over for any promotion. And yet we come before God and sometimes we just take it for granted. We're interested in whatever else goes on and we want to just kind of let it go over our heads. I don't want to hear it. I'm here because I have to be. I'll punch the clock and in my two hours I'm out of here. It's time to get real with God. It's time to understand what living in the name of the Lord is and doing the things that He said. Sabbath is just one of them.

That clock doesn't work and I can see I'm taking too long. Let me read Isaiah 1.

Though, because Isaiah 1 and also Amos 5, which I intended to read, but I don't want to keep you too much longer here, Isaiah 1, you know, God talks about His Sabbath days and He talks about the things that He doesn't. The Sabbath is one, but so is every other commandment, everything we do in our life, seven days a week, 24 hours a day. Isaiah 1, verse 12, when you come to appear before me, He says, who has required this from your hand to trample my courts, why do you come into my presence and act not the way that I expected you to act? Why are you not giving me the do that you would give your boss, the governor, the president, or whoever else is in authority when God is the supreme authority and it's in that name that we are saved and that eternal life is and the justification comes and the power and the strength and the hope? Bring no more futile sacrifices, He says, incense is an abomination to me. The new moon is the Sabbath and the calling of assemblies. I can't endure iniquity and the sacred meeting. Your new moon and your appointed feasts my soul hates. They are a trouble to me. I'm weary of bearing them. Why would God say that? The people are there, right? But He's looking at the heart. What are you thinking? What are you doing? How are you presenting yourself? Are you interested or are you just here because it's a command? Is your heart in the way of God or is your heart in the way of the world and you're just punching a clock and hoping that God doesn't see? Verse 15, when you spread out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you. Even though you make many prayers, I will not hear. Your hands are full of blood. And He says in verse 16, and He's talking about the things we do in our minds and in our hearts that our hearts aren't really with God. The things that we would do apart from the days that He would have us gathered before Him. Wash yourselves. Make yourselves clean. Put away the evil of your doings from before my eyes. Cease to do evil. Learn to do good. And I might say discipline yourself to do good because if we don't discipline ourselves to do good, we'll regret it. We'll regret it. So I would say when we come before God, let's make sure we know and understand the power and the majesty and the reverence and the awe when we come before Him. And the life we live every day.

He didn't call us to be one seventh Christians, but seventh, seventh Christians.

Let's go back to Romans, Romans 13.

You know, we look at the world around us and only God knows when things will happen in prophecy, you look at what's going on in North Korea and with the United States. I read an article this week that while we play with North Korea and while we play with our games in Washington, DC, Iran is busy, busy making themselves into a power in the Middle East. And when one or two of those others disappear, all of a sudden we may wake up and find that there is a power in the Middle East that was making hay while we were dealing with all these other things. So who knows what God has? We know that what is going to happen. We know we trust in Him. We know we look to Him. And we know that sooner or later when it's His will, the things that He prophesies will happen will happen.

So we need to be taking seriously. We need to be looking at the things that we do and counting our election and working out our own salvation with fear and trembling before God. Romans 13, verse 11. Do this, Paul writes, knowing the time that now it is high time to awake out of sleep, for now our salvation is nearer when we first believed. The night is far spent. The day is at hand. Therefore, let us cast off the works of darkness and let us put on the armor of light.

Let's start doing the things. Let's start speaking the way that God wants us to. Let's start doing the things in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Let's not drift away. Let's not neglect the salvation God gave us, as He says in Hebrews 2.1. Back in Psalm 29, I'll just close with this verse.

Psalm 29, another psalm of David. Psalm 29, verse 1.

It says, Give unto the Lord, O you mighty ones, give unto the Lord glory and strength.

Give unto the Lord the glory due His name, His reputation, what He's done. Give Him that and word and deed. Worship Him in the beauty of holiness.