Exodus 20:7
7 “You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name.
Dear Friends in Christ,
During my first 4 years of college, I always had a challenge awaiting me at the end of each school year. I would return home to where my parents were living in Campbell Hill, IL and I would need to find a job to help pay for my schooling expenses. A couple of those years I was able to get on at what was known as the Aluminum Plant in Sparta where they made many different aluminum products – some large, some small, some in between – and where the temperature climbed well above 120 degrees each day. Now if you think I’m exaggerating, I’m not because I took a thermometer with me one day and the mercury climbed as high as it could go which was 120 degrees and never came down again. It was the closest thing to hell I plan to ever get, but at least it paid well.
And you can only imagine how happy I was when a couple of other summers I got hired by the strip mines in that area to work in the reclamation department which involved working outdoors all summer long building fences, planting grass, removing rocks from fields, and doing other things to reclaim the land. Well, one of those summers I found myself working with 2 guys who knew I was studying to be a pastor. And as we got to know one another better, the language they used began to deteriorate significantly. In fact, it became a game of theirs each day to salt everything they said with large doses of profanity in their attempt to get me to use the same type of language. And though I never gave in to their wishes, it made working with them a very unpleasant experience.
And what’s sad about that story is that the kind of language they used has only become more and more common over the years. I’ve heard it while wandering the aisles of Wal-Mart. I’ve heard it on the basketball court, the tennis court, and at the bowling alley. Believe it or not, I’ve even heard it among pastors when they get together at conferences and are far out of earshot of their parishioners.
The kind of language that we’re talking about here falls under the heading of the 2nd Commandment that we’re going to be looking at this morning. Most of older folks here today learned that commandment out of the King James Version of the Bible which says: “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.” Those of you who are younger probably learned it out of the New International Version of the Bible which says: “You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God.” While this commandment deals specifically with the improper use of God’s name, many Bible scholars and pastors believe it also embraces the profanity and 4-letter words that color the language of so many people these days.
And while I’m not exactly sure how this widespread prevalence of profanity got started, I do believe that television had a lot to do with it. Now some of you younger folks here today might find this hard to believe, but there was actually a time when using God’s name in vain and other types of profanity were not permitted on television. But then came the show that changed it all. It was called “All in the Family,” featuring a crusty old codger named Archie Bunker and his delightful, loveable wife Edith whom he often referred to as a dingbat. And then there was their daughter Gloria and her liberal-minded husband Michael whom Archie often referred to as Meathead. I’ll never forget when “All in the Family” debuted on television back in 1971 because it was the talk of my high school the next day. Why? Because for the first time ever we heard words like “hell” and “damn” being used in a profane way on public television. Of course today people don’t bat an eyelash when that kind of language or even worse is used on TV because we’ve heard it so much that we’ve become de-sensitized to it. And what’s really sad is that we’ve heard it so much that that kind of language may have found its way into many of our own daily vocabularies.
Now I know what some of you are probably thinking: “Yeah, I’ll admit that my language gets a bit salty at times, but what’s the big deal. Everyone does it.” Well, first of all, not everyone does it. While I do know plenty of people who betray their ignorance of the English language by not being able to complete a sentence without peppering it with profanity, I know plenty of other people who can carry on a conversation just fine without ever once resorting to that kind of language.
And as for it being a big deal, trust me, even though you may not feel it is, God does, especially when we start messing around with his name. By the way, let me go off on just a little tangent here about God’s name. I’ve become convinced over the years that the misuse of God’s name is one proof that we can use for the existence of God. I know that may sound kind of strange, but just follow me on this for a moment. Have you ever seen someone hit their thumb with a hammer and say, “O Allah!” or “O Buddha!” or “O Confucius!” or “O Hare Krishna”? Of course not. And the reason you don’t and won’t is because Satan knows that Allah is a false god and those guys I mentioned are founders of false religions. They are no threat to him. In fact, in a sense, they are allies of him. But Satan does know that the God of the Bible is real and that his Son Jesus Christ is real. In fact, they are his arch enemies. So he loves it when we give in to his temptations to use the names of our God and Savior in ways that are less than honoring to him.
And that takes us back to why this is such a big deal from God’s perspective. Here we need to understand that the names of God serve 2 purposes. First of all, they describe him. They define him because all of his names have meaning. For example, the word God basically means the source and provider of all that is good. The name Lord means master. Jesus means Savior. The title of Christ means Messiah or Anointed One. But not only do God’s names describe him, they also represent him. It’s no different than your name or my name. If I’m in a crowded room and I hear someone say, “Hey, Doug!” I’m going to look up and see who’s calling me. But if they say, “Hey, Joe!” or “Hey, Scott!” I’m not going to pay attention because neither of those names represent me.
So God’s names represent him. Very similar to how the American flag represents our country. Now when someone wants to do something to show their complete disrespect or disdain for the United States, what do they do? They burn the flag. In a very similar way, when we “burn” or misuse the name or names of God, we are showing disrespect to the One whom those names represent. You see how that works?
And just to prove to you how seriously God takes this commandment, let me take you to a story in 24th chapter of the Old Testament book of Leviticus. There we are told about a young man in the Israelite camp who got into a fight with another man. And while they were fighting, we’re told that the first fellow “blasphemed the Name with a curse.” In other words, he used God’s name in a way that it wasn’t supposed to be used. Well, those who heard him do this knew that this was a violation of the 2nd Commandment, but apparently it was so uncommon that they didn’t know what to do about it. So they brought the man to Moses who also didn’t know what to do about it. That’s how rare it was in those days. So Moses put the fellow in custody until he could determine from God what should be done with him. And here’s what God told Moses: “Take the blasphemer outside the camp. All those who heard him are to lay their hands on his head, and the entire assembly is to stone him.” Whoa! That’ll make you think twice about using God’s name in vain, won’t it? God actually required the death penalty in the Old Testament for anyone who dared to use his holy name in an unholy way. Can you imagine if that penalty was still in place today? We sure wouldn’t have to a population problem to worry about, would we?
But my point is, God takes this commandment very seriously. And if he does, then we need to do the same. Listen again to the full reading of the 2nd Commandment as it appears in our text for today: “You shall not misuse the name of the LORD your God, for the LORD will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name.” In case you’re wondering exactly what the last part of that verse means, that God will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name, perhaps the New Living Translation will shed some light on it for us. It renders this verse: “Do not misuse the name of the LORD your God. The LORD will not let you go unpunished if you misuse his name.” Again, why does God make such a big issue out of this? Because his names represent him and when we show disrespect to his names, we are showing disrespect to him.
Interestingly, the Jews took this commandment so seriously that they would not even utter the holy name of God which he had given to himself when he met with Moses at the burning bush. Remember that story? When God called Moses to go back to Egypt to deliver his people from slavery there, and Moses asked him, “Who should I tell the people has sent me to them?” God told him: “This is what you are to say to the Israelites: `I AM has sent me to you.'” Now that sounds kind of awkward in English, but in the Hebrew language, the word that is translated as “I AM” is the word Yahweh. That was the holy name of God. And the Jews had such high regard and respect for it that they would not speak it for fear of inadvertently misusing it. So when they came across it in print, they would substitute another word for it – the word Adoni, which means Lord or Sovereign One.
My, but we’ve come a long way since then, haven’t we, as so many people today flippantly toss the name of God around like it’s a useless piece of trash? Or you want to know what one of my biggest pet peeves is? I’m probably going to step on a few toes here, but remember what the sub-theme for this sermon series is – “Straight Talk for Crooked Lives.” So here’s some of that straight talk. And it has to do with when people post on Facebook or other social media sites the 3 initials OMG because what does that stand for? OH MY GOD. Do you think that pleases God when we use his name like that? Of course not.
So I want to challenge you this week to see what you can do about cleaning up your language. For some of you, that won’t be much of an issue because you do a good job of it already. I commend you for that. God bless you for that. For others of you, though, this may prove to be quite a challenge. So before I close, I want to toss out to you a few practical suggestions to help you. First of all, I would suggest that you begin tackling this challenge by getting on your knees, by going to the cross and confessing to God the times you have violated this commandment. Allow the blood of Jesus to purify you of this sin, for like the familiar hymn says, “What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.” Then once you’ve confessed this sin to God and received his forgiveness, ask the Holy Spirit to take control of your tongue, your mouth, your thoughts, your heart so that only words that are pleasing to him will be heard coming from your lips. And then lastly, memorize the Bible verse that I have included as the verse for the week in the bulletin today and let it be a prayer that you start your day with and that you pray however many times you need to throughout the day. It’s Psalm 141:3: “Set a guard over my mouth, O LORD; keep watch over the door of my lips.” May God bless you and help you as you strive to clean up your language this week so that the words that come from your mouth are truly words that are befitting a faithful, obedient, blood-bought child of God. Amen.