The Third Commandment

I talked to you this morning about something that we all have. It's unique to all of us, even if someone else may have the same thing of this that you have. It's something that has been given to us, not something that, in most cases, that we've given to ourselves. Something we carry with us all our lives, and something that is up to us. How valuable it becomes, or how not valuable it becomes. When people see this possession or hear this possession you have, they come up with an idea of who you are.

It tells them something about you. In some cases, what you have is very easy to see, very easy to hear or say. In some cases, it's not so easy to say. But it always tells something about us. And we spend a lifetime developing this possession, this thing that is uniquely ours. What I'm talking about is your name. Some of us have names that people look at and they kind of shake their heads and wonder, how do you say that?

But you know, over time, people understand when they see, in my case, five letters, who that is. You may have, as many of you have, a very common name that's very easy to say and you share with many other people in the world. But as they hear your name, they think about you, what you stand for, who you are, what you've done with your life, the experiences they've had with you.

And a name is a very powerful thing. Back in Proverbs, it says, a good name is to be desired more than riches. And isn't that true? You know, I learned that, I guess, pretty early on in my adulthood. I may have said this here before, but when I was a junior in college, my dad got me a job at Amico Oil Refinery up in Whiting. And that's where he worked and all of his five brothers worked there as well. And as I worked there, it was on the labor gang, as they called it at that time, and we had some pretty dirty jobs we had to do as we'd go inside of those oil tanks.

But it was a variety of things that kept us busy throughout the summer. But one thing that struck me that summer that I remember most of all, besides the hard work and the knowledge I didn't want to do that all the rest of my life, was that everywhere I went, and every time I had a new format or whatever, invariably they knew my name. They would see the name and they immediately would recognize, oh, is your dad Paul?

Or is your uncle Andy, or George, or Jim, or the other two that worked there? And you know, to a T, every single person that knew my name had something good to say. Every single one of them had something good to say about my dad or his brothers. And I remember thinking at that time, because you go through school and you get tired of saying, this is how you pronounce my name and everyone says it wrong. But at that time in my life, I thought, how good is it to grow up with a name that people, when they see it, they think good?

And it wasn't anything I did. They were talking about the things that the people before me did. And I learned what we do with our name, the way we live our lives. What it says to someone else is something, a legacy that carries on, not only in our lifetimes, but to our children as well. Very, very important that we keep our name untarnished, that when people hear your name, that they think good things. And for those of us that are in the church, very, very important and even added responsibility, that when they hear our name, they think about things we do.

Maybe wonder why we do it that way, why we're gathered on a Saturday instead of a Sunday, why we don't keep some of the holidays that the people do. But very important that our name is attached and connected with the beliefs that God has called us into. If our name is so important, just think how important God's name is. God. Some people call him by other names.

And in the Bible, there's many, many names that are attributed to God. We know him as God, the all-encompassing, because there isn't one word or one name we can put on him that would encompass everything he does for us, but we call him God. He's creator, provider, sustainer, healer, and we could go on and on and on. Everything he's done for us and for all of mankind is phenomenal and awesome. And he has a name. And when we hear that name, we should be in awe, in reverence, and we should reflect on what it means. And never take it casually and never take it lightly. Let's turn back to Exodus. Exodus 20.

We've been going through the commandments, one each month. We've talked about the first commandment. You shall have no other gods before me. The second commandment last month. You shall not make for yourself any idols. And today, let's talk about the third commandment, as recorded in Exodus 20, verse 7. 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.

You know, when God revealed his name to mankind, he revealed himself, didn't he, at the burning bush, when Moses, when he revealed himself to Moses, and Moses said, well then who should I say you are? And he said, I am that I am. And over the course of the Bible as we read, and we read the stories of people that have followed God in our own lives, he reveals himself to us more and more every day.

That he is who he is, and that without him we're absolutely nothing. We have no future. Without him we're just all people that would live, die. Well, we wouldn't even live without him. But we would live, die, and no more memory and no more future. Literally everything we have, everything we are, ever will be, we owe to God. We didn't even live our lives correctly. Jesus Christ had to come down and die for us so that our sins could be forgiven, so that we could have eternal life. Everything is wrapped up in the name of God. And he says in the Third Commandment in how we worship him, don't take his name in vain.

Respect it. Understand all that it means. When it says in vain, it means don't use it carelessly. Don't use it insincerely. Don't use it meaninglessly. Don't take it upon yourself and pay no attention and take it for granted.

When you take on yourself the name of God, or when you use it, or when it becomes part of you, he says don't ever take it lightly. Never casually. Never insincerely. And for all of us sitting in this room today, God has given us his name, if we want it. Let's turn back to Romans 8, verse 14.

Romans 8, verse 14. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God.

If we've heeded his call, if we've paid attention to it, if we've repented, and if we've been baptized, had hands laid upon us and received his Holy Spirit, his Spirit should be leading us. And it says here, if we're led by his Spirit, we're sons of God. That means we're taking his name. When we said yes, we will be baptized. Yes, we will commit to you. Yes, we will live the life that you have called us to. We took his name. We said we'll take what you are offering, God. And he says he'll make us sons. Back in John 17, Christ's last prayer before he was arrested, he says in verse 11, I'm no longer in the world, as he's praying to God the Father, but these are in the world, and I come to you. Holy Father, keep through your own name, those whom you have given me. Keep them through your own name. And so today, we're the Church of God. The people that he's called into his church, that he's placed here, that he drew here and that responded to the call, and that became part of the Church of God. Kept through his own name. And he repeats it in verse 12. He said, while I was with them, his disciples in the world, I kept them in your name, those whom you gave me I kept, and none of them is lost except the Son of Proposition that the Scripture may be fulfilled. He kept them through his name. He pointed people toward God the Father. Just as in the Church, we point everyone toward God the Father. That's who we worship. That's who called us. That's who brought us here. That's who opened our minds that we might have the truth that we have, that we might have the future that we have. Of course, Jesus Christ is worthy of worship as well. Let's turn over to Philippians 2.

While he was on earth, he glorified God the Father. He said that all the things that he did came as a result of the Spirit that of the Father that was in him. Philippians 2, verse 9.

Let's start with verse 5. Philippians 2.5, well-known Scripture. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. Let's top down to verse 8. Being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. Therefore God also has wisely exalted him and given him the name which is above every name, that if the name of Jesus every knee should bow of those in heaven, those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. So we have the name of God the Father. We have the name of Jesus Christ, who made our lives, our calling, and eternity possible for all mankind.

Let's look over Acts 11 and see another name that's on us.

Acts 11, verse 26. Speaking of Barnabas, when he went out and found the man who became known as Paul, it says in verse 26, when he found him, he brought him to Antioch, and it was, for a whole year they assembled with the church, taught a great many people, and the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch. They were first called Christians in Antioch. There were things that those Christians learned. There were things that those Christians were taught by the apostles. Those Christians were called Christians because they were like Christ. They lived his life, their lives, like Christ. They followed the example that he set, kept the same law that he kept, walked as it says in 1 John 2.6, walked as Christ walked, and they had on them the name Christians. So when someone back then called you a Christian, they knew what you believed. They knew you believed in the Word of God. They knew that you believed in Jesus Christ and walked as he walked, different than the other people. That were around at that time. And when you became a Christian, you put away the old ideas of what you had in your religion. You took on the new meaning of religion, the law that Jesus Christ taught. And so today, we have God the Father, we have Jesus Christ, and we have Christians. Christians sitting here in this room and Christians that are sitting outside in the world to call themselves Christians as well. But when we take the name of God on us, when we're called, when we take his name and say, yes, we will follow you, there's a huge responsibility when we take that name. The commandment says, don't take it lightly. Don't take it in vain. Don't take it carelessly. Don't take it just because it's the thing to do at that time. Take it seriously. It's a great calling. It's a tremendous, tremendous calling that God gave us, not one that should ever be taken lightly.

Let's turn back to Psalms and look at a couple of verses in Psalm. Psalm 86.

Psalm 86 and verse 12.

David writes, I will praise you, O Lord, my God, with all my heart, and I will glorify your name forevermore.

I'll glorify your name forevermore.

Let's turn to Psalm 115, verse 1. Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but to your name give glory, because of your mercy and your truth.

Bringing glory to God's name. There's a number of ways that we do that, don't we? We can sing and bring glory to God's name. In fact, we have songs that say we will glorify your name.

But when we bring glory to God's name, as it even says in the New Testament, in everything you do, bring glory to God's name. It's 1 Corinthians 10, verse 31. Everything you do bring glory to God's name. The way you live your life, every aspect of it. The way we bring glory to God's name is by how we live. What we're doing with the knowledge that He gives us. Are we becoming godly people? It says in the New Testament, We bring glory to God's name when we take this Third Commandment seriously. When we take His name and we live it, and we absolutely never take it carelessly, never take it for granted, never take it insincerely, but when we choose to follow Him, we walk the walk and we talk the talk with all our heart, with all our mind, and all our souls. You know, in Matthew 7, 21, Christ said, Not everyone that says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven. Remember that verse? Not everyone that says to me, Lord, Lord, just because they say, Lord, Lord, they're not going to be there. But who will it be? Those who do the will of the Father in heaven. Those who live their lives according to the calling, who bring glory to God's name by everything that they do.

By walking the walk, and by talking the talk. Because a lot of people will talk the talk, but they don't walk the walk. And when they talk the talk, but don't walk the walk, they're taking that name insincerely. Maybe they don't know what they're doing, maybe they don't understand what they're doing, but they're not taking the name of God in the way it should be taken. Let's turn over to Matthew 5.

Matthew 5, verse 48.

For those that would take God's name, and all that he has to offer, here's kind of our job description.

It's a huge job description, isn't it? You will be perfect, or you will become perfect. You will become blameless, just as your Father in heaven is perfect. And once we take the name, we begin that process. It becomes our job description for the rest of our lives to become perfect. Day by day, week by week, month by month, year by year. That's what you do when you take God's name. You live more closely to the way that you read in the Bible. You let the Holy Spirit lead you in your path. You let the Holy Spirit reveal to you the weaknesses that you have, and when they're revealed, you willingly give them up and you repent. And you change your life, and you ask God to give you the strength to live the way that He calls you to live. Not always easy. A lot of things that are revealed to us are near and dear to our heart, but we have to be willing to give them all up. If we want to take His name, if we want to continue on the path, and if we want to keep the Third Commandment the way that God intended it to be kept. Many times in the Bible it talks about being godly, as I mentioned. And that's a word we can kind of look over and think that's a word that maybe just run off of our lips. But it really says a lot that word. If we're to become godly, it means we're to become like God. You know, I would hope that my sons and my daughters, as they grew up and they were taught the things of God, that they would become, hmm, shavily, but more godly is what I really want them to be. But I want them to be like the examples they saw. Certainly were not perfect, but I want them to retain what they had learned and build on it. And they haven't done that. And there's sometimes I would like to take them by the throat and say, wait a minute, you know, that isn't the name that you were raised with. You had a responsibility when you took that name to live in a different way. But, you know, I'm sure my dad and mom thought the same thing about me many times as well. And hopefully over, if they grow older, it'll become more important to them. But we want our children to take that name and to become like us. Remember Paul said, imitate me, he said, as I imitate Christ. And he was an example to the church, and so he said, you know, I want you to be like me, but I'm following Christ. And that's what we want of our children. And that's what God wants of us. Know who he is. Study who he is. Understand what Christ did. Understand what he taught, how he lived his life. And we see God the Father by looking at Christ. That's how he wants us to live. Become godly. Become like him. And the only way that we can do that is if we have the Holy Spirit. We can't do that on our own. On our own, we have to have the Holy Spirit to do that. We have to have God's own nature put into us so that we can become like him and understand those things and have the strength to overcome. Let's turn to 2 Peter 1. 2 Peter 1 and verse 3.

We'll start with the sentence beginning in verse 2. Peter writes, Jesus our Lord, multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and Jesus our Lord, as his divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of him who called us by glory and virtue. His divine power has given us all the things that pertain to life and godliness.

If we're led by him, if we truly yield to him and allow him to lead our lives, we'll become more godly with each passing day, week, month, year. We'll be keeping this commandment a little more well each time as we do that. It's a process through our lives that we become more godly. When we take the name of God through the receipt of the Holy Spirit, through coming to the Church of God each week, through calling ourselves Christians, and as we do that and walk the walk, God will be pleased, and we'll be keeping the commandment that he gave us. Back in Timothy, 1 Timothy, 1 Timothy 6.

Let's start in verse 1. Paul, as he's writing to Timothy, talks about this concept as well and how important it is. 1 Timothy 6.1 says, Let as many bondservants as are under the yoke account their own masters worthy of all honor. So he's saying, part of the way you walk the walk and you become godly is, if you're a bondservant, account your own master worthy of honor. Why? So that the name of God and his doctrine may not be blasphemed. Behave yourselves well, even among people outside the Church, so that when they see your name and when they hear their name, you have that certain level of respect, so that the name of God and his doctrine may not be blasphemed. In verse 2, Let them not despise them because they're brethren, and despise is an unfortunate translation there. Don't take them casually. Don't think that you can get by with things. Just because they believe as you are and they're as Christians, don't treat them differently because they're brethren, but serve them because those who are benefited are believers and beloved. And he tells Timothy, as he's training him on how to teach the Church, teach these things. Exhort these things. Live the life in all aspects that God wanted you to, and not just in some aspects. Verse 3, And doesn't consent to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which accords with godliness. If anyone teaches you something different than the way you saw Christ, if someone's teaching you different than what the words you read in the Bible, they're teaching you a doctrine that's different than Jesus Christ. Teach the doctrine that accords, or that is in concert with godliness, the doctrine that leads to becoming more like God. If anyone doesn't do that, he's proud, knowing nothing, but is obsessed with disputes and arguments over words, from which come every strife, envy, reviling, evil suspicions, useless wranglings of men of corrupt minds, destitute of the truth, who suppose that godliness is a means of gain. That they think the things of religion, the way of teaching people the way of life, is a way for them to get something. Well, that's a violation of the Third Commandment. If we teach godliness because it has something to do with us, or we gain something out of it, whether it's money, whether it's anything that would ignore to ourselves, that's not the godliness that Christ taught. That's not the godliness that God wants us to be following. That's a different godliness. That's a different godliness. That's a violation of the Third Commandment. That's not taking God's name, His doctrine, His teachings, the correct way. That's turning those doctrines into something that would profit us in whatever way that might be. And He's saying when that happens, when that's the form of what you see, we see in verse 4 and 5 what comes. Because when we live godly lives, God's blessing is peace, security, unity is a fruit of the Spirit, a fruit of living a godly life. And He says when you see this, you know, in verse 6, He says, Godliness with contentment is great gain.

When you live a godly life, a true godly life, in the true sense that God wanted you to live it, you'll be content, and that will be worth more than any amount of money, any amount of notoriety, any amount of position, power, whatever it is that people might be looking to themselves to get. Godliness, living your life the way He wants you to live, in accordance with every word in the Bible, with contentment, is great gain. Just like a good name is to be desired more than all the riches on earth.

When we take God's name, He expects us to live godly lives. Walk as He walked, and if we don't, we're taking that name lightly and violating that commandment.

Let's go back to verse 1 of chapter 6 here.

Because when we live selfless lives that are dedicated to bringing God the glory rather than ourselves, we're living the right way. But in verse 1 of chapter 6, He uses a word that we're all familiar with, talks about if people don't treat their masters well. The name of God, His doctrine, may be blasphemed if they do that.

Blasphemed. That's a pretty strong word, isn't it? If we accuse someone of blasphemy, remember they accused Christ of blasphemy. It says in Revelation that the Babylon Mystery Religion is full of blasphemy. They go around blaspheming God's name. Maybe we have this feeling that blaspheming is this out-front, all-out-there, affront against God. And it is indeed that. If we're out there speaking against God, as will happen apparently, as we read the Bible in the Times of the Beast power, that certainly is blaspheming against God. But this verse would indicate there can be a quiet blasphemy, something that you and I can do. That we can blaspheme God's name simply by not giving our employers the respect that they're due.

Isn't that kind of a wake-up call? It's kind of a wake-up call to me. We can blaspheme God's name just by not following part of His doctrine. So when people see how we behave, we could be blaspheming God's name just by not doing something that a Christian would do.

Blasphemy, when you look it up in the concordance, is one of those rare words. The Greek word for blasphemy is blasphemos. B-L-A-S-P-H-E-M-O-S. And it means anything slanderous or injurious we do to one's good's name. You could blaspheme my name. I could blaspheme your name by the things I say, if I misrepresent you. And everyone blasphemes God's name if they take His name and they don't represent Him the way that He would be represented. If we're not leading godly lives, if we're taking our calling insincerely, if we take it casually and one day a week we take it seriously but the other six we're just out there and doing whatever we feel like doing, or doing things the way the world does them as we go to work, that's kind of a blasphemy to God's name. If they see you as a member of the Church of God and you're doing something that isn't the way Christ would do it, or not the example that you read in the Bible, we could be said that we're blaspheming God's name, not treating it with the respect that we have or the respect that we should be treating it with. Now that's a wide-ranging principle, isn't it? If we sit back and we think about that for a while, we can see that God's name has been blasphemed up one side and down the other. In this country, can't we? We have any number of businesses out there that have little symbols on them if you look in the phone book, or just come out and say they're a Christian business.

Now if they're really a Christian business, they would be doing things and conducting themselves exactly the way that Christ did. And yet I've called some people, not because they advertise as that, but because they were closer to where we were than maybe another one. And a lot of times those Christian businesses that I've dealt with handle their business anyway but the way Christ would. And I'm not a skilled guy when it comes to plumbing and electrician, but I know a little bit enough to know logic, and when I'm told one thing, it's like, wait a minute, I get it. And invariably you find out that, you know, well I'm not going to say everyone, but a lot of cases what is told is something totally different. And so over the years, and it hasn't just been one or two occasions, even in business when I've worked with people, I've come to look at sometimes the word Christian business when I see it, and even tend to shy away from it. Because I think what I've learned from experience many times is, you know, you're using that word, but you're not conducting yourselves the way that Christ would. I have a bad, worse experience with some of those businesses than the ones who might call themselves atheist businesses, which they don't do. But if you call yourself a Christian business, that's taking God's name. And if you're going to take God's name, you better be doing things the way that God called you to do them. And so all those businesses that don't do it that way, we might be saying they're blaspheming God's name. There's a lot of people in America who don't like Christians. Have you noticed that? When you listen to the news, it's like, you know, sometimes it's the word Christian has become kind of a bad word in the media. You look at politics that are going around and are going on and people have that label.

And a large part of this is because people have taken that name in vain. They haven't done things. They haven't lived up to the name that they've taken and put on themselves. And so they've blasphemed or injured that name Christian over the years. All of us would call ourselves Christians. We take that name on ourselves.

Don't ever take lightly that name in what you call yourself. When we take that name, when we say that we belong to God or the Church of God, that we believe in Jesus Christ and all that He taught, when we say that we're Christians, we better be walking the walk when we do that. And if we're not, we could be accused of blasphemy, bringing injury to God's name. Doesn't mean we would have to be out there taking ads out against. But here in verse 1, even if we just disrespect our employers and don't give them the honor they're due, His doctrine may be blasphemed. Certainly the Church in Revelation that we read about, that we've talked about over the last few weeks, I mean, the Bible says they're guilty of blasphemy. They're definitely guilty of violating the Third Commandment. And this may touch a nerve or two, but even as I look around our country and I see so-called Christian churches that have taken their names, that name on themselves, that teach a very, very different doctrine than what you and I know is in the Bible, when they teach that Jesus came and did away with the law, when they teach a doctrine of life after death that's far different than what the Bible teaches, when they teach a doctrine of keeping another day other than the Sabbath and violating the Fourth Command, I would say that perhaps they're taking God's name in vain. If you take the name Christian, if you take the name the Church of God, if you call yourselves disciples of Jesus Christ and followers of Him, and you don't do what He said to do, we could be guilty of violating the Third Command. Don't take the name of the Lord your God in vain. Turn to 1 Peter 2.

That's why it's so important that we know what the Bible says, that we study it daily, that we pray daily, that we let God's Spirit lead us, because we don't want to take His name in vain. 1 Peter 2, verse 11, Peter writes, Peter writes, What he's saying is, take the name of God seriously. Conduct yourselves in accordance with the way that you've been taught. Don't let people look at what you do and say, oh, that's the way a Christian does it. Oh, that's the way the Church of God does it. Don't let them see you violating the commands of God and the example of Jesus Christ. And it says there in verse 13, Therefore submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake. Submit yourself to them. As long as it doesn't go against, or as long as it's not contrary to God's law, submit yourself to them, to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake, for His sake. Do it that His name may be glorified. Do it that His name may be honored. Do it that when people see what you do, they get a picture of Christ and God. Now, what it means to be a Christian? Do it to the Lord's sake, whether to the King or Supreme, or to governors, as to those who are sent by Him for the punishment of evildoers, and for the praise of those who do good. For this is the will of God, that by doing good you may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men. Let them see the real God. Let them see that being a Christian and living that way of life is good, freeing, exciting, beneficial, not something that the world wants to see as you're under the yoke of something.

Let them see what that life is like. They may not understand at this time, but they will glorify God in the day of visitation when they see and remember those works and remember they saw someone that was taking the name of God and took it seriously and applied it into their lives. Over in James, he touches on this as well. James 1, verse 22, he says, Be doers of the word, and not hearers only deceiving yourselves. When you take the name of God, there's a lifestyle that you live. It's not enough to just be able to repeat what's in the Bible. You have to demonstrate it in your life. Verse 26, If anyone among you thinks he's religious, if anyone thinks that he's taken the name of God and doing what his will is and doesn't bridle his tongue, he deceives his own heart. And this one's religion is useless. Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this, to visit orphans and widows in their trouble and to keep oneself unspotted from the world. A genuine agape love, a genuine concern for people, not based on what you can get, but because you care for everyone and love them just as Jesus Christ loved them. And that you keep yourself unspotted from the world. That you don't do the things the way the world does them, you do the things the way God does them, the way you read in the Bible. Pure and undefiled religion is that. And if you're taking God's name seriously, then you'll be letting the love of God develop in your heart, the first fruit, and you will become, over the course of your life, perfect and blameless, unspotted from the world as you become more and more godly. We have to walk the walk. We have to walk the walk, if we're going to take God's name. We also have to talk the talk. We read in verse 26 there, If anyone among you thinks he's religious and doesn't bridle his tongue, he deceives his heart, and this one's religion is useless.

You have to walk the walk. You have to have pure motives and a pure heart that you let God develop in you, but you have to talk the talk too.

You know over in Zephaniah, there's a scripture that gives us a view into the kingdom in Zephaniah 3 and verse 9.

As God talks about the kingdom that will be set up on earth and the changes that will be made during that time, he says in verse 9, I'll restore the people a pure language. A pure language. You know, our language today is anything but pure, isn't it? I don't have to sit here. You're already probably imagining in your mind some of the impurities in our language and how it's been polluted over the decades and centuries with words that are anything but pure. God says when the kingdom comes to earth, he's going to restore to the people a pure language, devoid of all these things that we hear all around us and they're just taken for granted as just part of every, what, even entertainment on TV you can hear. I'll restore to the people a pure language that they may call on the name of the Lord to serve him with one accord.

That they may serve him and take his name the way that it should be taken.

I'll give you a little warning. I may, the next few minutes, may step on a few toes, but we're here to learn how to bring honor to God's name and to keep the Third Commandment. Before we do that, let's turn over to Matthew 5.

Matthew 5, verse 33.

The Sermon on the Mount, as Christ began his ministry and he talked to the people about how they could become godly, how the law was expanded. Not done away with, but how now we could keep it more fully in spirit as well as physically.

I didn't even mention in Matthew 6, verse 9, as he began his prayer, what was the first thing he said? Our Father in Heaven, hallowed be your name.

Your name is set apart. Your name is to be glorified. Your name is to be set apart. Hallowed be your name, the very first sentence that he says, as he's, in essence, beginning to repeat what this Third Commandment is. But in verse 33 here of chapter 5, he talks about speech. He says again, you've heard that it was said to those of old, You shall not swear falsely, but you'll perform your oaths to the Lord. But I say to you, don't swear at all. Don't swear by Heaven, for it's God's throne. Don't swear by the earth, for it's his footstool. Don't swear by Jerusalem, for it's God's throne, or Jerusalem, for it's the city of the great king. Nor shall you swear by your head, because you can't make one here white or black. But let your yes be yes, and your no-no, for whatever is more than these is from the evil one.

What he's saying is, let your language be pure.

And when you're trying to make a point to someone, if you've established with them, and your name means that you tell the truth and you mean what you say, you shouldn't have to add an emphasis to it by adding something to it. And saying, I use this in the tone that it's used here, I swear by the hairs of my head that this is true. People should just know that. If we're living godly lives, our words should be solid. They should know that what we say is exactly what we mean. And he says, watch what you say. And he goes into even some minor things here. Don't swear by God, don't swear by Jerusalem, don't swear by the earth, don't even swear by the hairs on your head, because you know what? You can't do. You are not the one who makes any of those happen.

It's a very obvious, very obvious violation of the Third Commandment. It's taking God's name in vain. And we hear it all around us, don't we? I mean, you hear it on TV, just like it's a common expression, people taking God's name in vain. And I'll have to say, after all the years of hearing it, in the workplace, on TV, in the movies, even just listening to the news sometime, and they have people that talk about it, I can honestly say that I never hear someone take God's name in vain without a pain going through me.

You know, my kids, they were here today, would tell you that they probably are tired of hearing dad say something like, oh, it's that important to you that you had to break the Third Commandment? Because it just strikes me when someone takes God's name in vain. And yet I've worked with people that call themselves Christians, they go to church every single Sunday, and you know what?

Their common, their most common expression is, you know, oh my. And I think, you don't even understand what that commandment means. You're just using this as a, they use it more than anything, any other common expression. Now, I know we don't do that in the church. Those of us who are here, I know that we don't do that. But there's other things that we can do, you know, that are taking God's name in vain.

Satan is very clever, and we can let our minds deceive ourselves and say, oh, if we don't take God's name in vain, if we don't say God or Jesus Christ, there's other things that we can say that are like that.

You know, today, one of the common things is the text. And I will see, you know, texts or things on the Internet where someone will send me something, not from someone in the church. O-M-G. You see that one? O-M-G. Everyone knows what O-M-G means, right? Oh my. Then I think, do you think that that's okay? Do you don't think God knows what O-M-G means and what you're thinking in your mind when you say that?

And there's other things that you've heard about over your years in the church, euphemisms, that sort of replace in our minds, maybe, if we let it go there, the things where we don't feel like we're taking God's name in vain. We can say, gosh. Well, gosh is there. And what you really mean is taking God's name in vain.

Golly. Gee. Gee-wiz. Geez. All those things, all those euphemisms, maybe fooling ourselves if we let our minds deceive ourselves and think, oh, we haven't done it. We haven't violated God's command. We haven't taken his name. No. The intent of the heart is there. God knows what we mean. We know, or He knows what's in our heart when we use those words and those euphemisms to replace the real thing.

And you know what? There won't be those euphemisms in the pure language in the kingdom. No euphemisms at all. When we speak God's name, we will speak it with the awe and the reverence that it's due. We won't speak it as a casual comment and conversation, but when we think of His name and when we say it, you know, the Jews say that when the third command was given, the whole earth trembled.

That when God said that commandment, you shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, the whole earth trembled. Because when we hear the name of God and when we use the name of God, we should be using with all the reverence and all the respect that that name deserves. The Jews won't even write out G-O-D. Did you know that? When you're on the Internet and you see some things, you see G-D, because they don't even believe they're worthy to write out God's name. They hold that much respect toward it.

Now, we can write out God's name, but when we say it and when we write it, it better be with the reverence and the awe that He has called us to, because His name is to be praised among all of them on the earth. The name of Jesus Christ, every name we'll bow with. When we take the name Christian, it better mean something to us. And when we tell people that, we better know who we're representing and understanding what He wants us to do.

You know, Christ says in these words here, He doesn't want us to swear, curse, or use in our language any number, any number of things that are a perversion of the language. Let's go over to Colossians 3. Colossians 3 and verse 8. This is a chapter that we read often around Passover time. Certainly we read it as someone is, you know, preparing for baptism that talks about putting away the old members, burying the old man. God brings us out of the water a new man filled with His Holy Spirit leading us.

And it tells us the things that we don't do anymore. Verse 8 it says, "...now you yourselves are to put off all these." These are things of the past. These aren't the attributes of godly people. Anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, and filthy language out of your mouth. Filthy, unpure language. You know, Christ says in Matthew 5, Don't swear. Don't take Jerusalem's name. Don't take the earth's name. And yet I've heard people, I don't hear too much anymore, but I remember my grandparents' house hearing, For Land's Sake.

And it's like, For Land's Sake? That's, as I've grown older, I didn't know that not one thing I ever used, but For Land's Sake. Okay, well that seems to me that that's probably a violation of what Christ's intent was here. None of us would go around, and I heard some person say one time, and I thought it was kind of cute, you know, God's last name is not damn it. Okay? And no one, none of us would say that.

And yet I have heard Christians say, gosh darn it, same thing. It's a euphemism for it. I have heard people say, darn. And yet we wouldn't say damn, but we would say that. Most of us wouldn't use hell as a matter of our everyday speech, unless we're talking about something from the Bible.

But I've heard people say heck, and that's a use of theism for that. God wants us to develop a pure language. Speak purely. Speak what comes from the heart. He talks about in Matthew 12. In fact, let's just turn over to Matthew 12. Matthew 12 verse... verse 34. Christ speaking, and he says, speaking to the Pharisees, brood of vipers. How can you being evil speak good things? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things.

And an evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth evil things. I say to you, for every idle word that men may speak, they will give account for it in the day of judgment. For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned. Becoming godly. Becoming pure in the way we live and in the way we talk. Many, if we use common expressions, it might be a good thing to go back and think about some of those expressions we use. What do they really mean? One common one is, oh my goodness. But when the young rich man approached Christ and he said, good teacher.

Do you remember what Christ responded to him? He said, why do you call me good? There's only one good, and he's in heaven. Well, if Christ could say that, what are we saying when we say, oh my goodness? Are we equating ourselves to God?

There's a lot of things that we can look at in there, but let me encourage you that this commandment has a dual purpose. It means that we walk the walk, and when we take God's name, we live by every word that he teaches us. We live by the example of Jesus Christ, and we do things the way that he did them, not the way the world or someone else tells us that we did them.

We know him, we love him, we follow him, and we let his Holy Spirit guide us, but we also talk the talk. Our language becomes clearer. It becomes more pure. If we walk the walk so that people do not blaspheme God or think less of God by our actions, then our language should carry the same weight. By the way we talk, we bring glory to God. If our language is pure, and if our language, the words that come out of our mouth, reflect the glory and the submission to him that we say we have.

Let's go back to Deuteronomy 5. The other place that the commandments are listed is... Moses was preparing Israel for his departure. Deuteronomy 5, verse 11, the verbiage is exactly the same as it is in Exodus 20, verse 7. It says, "'You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless.'" He takes his name in vain. The Lord won't hold him guiltless. We know that if we violate any of the commandments, they bring death, but God even emphasizes, as in this third one, He won't hold us guiltless if we take His name in vain, if we're not living and talking the way that He would have us talk. Guiltless can also be translated innocent, clean, blameless, or unpunished. God won't count us as clean if we take His name in vain. We all want to be considered clean in God's sight. Remember in Old Testament time, you couldn't go into the tabernacle unless you were clean. Ephesians 5, verse 5.

Paul writing, and he says, For this you know, no fornicator, no unclean person, no guiltless person, nor covenants man who is an idolatry has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. You want the kingdom of God? You have to be clean.

If we violate the third commandment, very, very, very easy to do, and in the world around us, we see a whole world violating that third commandment. Day in and day out, it's just in our face all the time. But it can't be us. We've been called to something different. We've been called to take the name of God and to demonstrate and let God write on us what that name means so that the world sees who God is.

Let's close in Revelation 3.

The Philadelphia church era is one we would all aspire to be in.

This church of God at the end of the age has attributes that Christ praises here, and there's nothing negative written about this church. Revelation 3, verse 8. Christ says to this church, I know your works. I've set before you an open door and no one can shut it. For you have kept, you have a little strength. You've kept my word and you haven't denied my name. You took my name and you kept it the way that it should have been kept. Indeed, I will make those of the synagogue of Satan who say they're Jews and are not but lie. Indeed, I will make them come and worship before your feet and to know that I have loved you. You did the things. You followed the Spirit. You worshiped your God. You glorified Him and kept His name the way that it should be. Because you have kept my command to persevere, I will keep you from the hour of trial, which will come upon the whole world to test those who dwell on the earth. Behold, I'm coming quickly. Hold fast that you have, that no one may take your crown. He who overcomes, I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God and he shall go out no more. I will write on him the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the New Jerusalem. That's the name he'll write on those who keep His law. That's the name he'll write on those who keep His name, who reverence it and honor it. And when they take it in this life, keep that Third Commandment with all their heart, with all their soul, with all their mind, and with all the intent that God gave it to us for.