We are now in a series of messages on the Ten Commandments, or as I like to think of them,
God's Ten Rules for Living. And we are now beginning the Third Commandment.
But this is my sixth heart-to-heart talk in this series of messages.
All right, I'm not going to read you one single thing except just to read the first two of God's
Rules for Living before I begin with the third today. I am the Lord thy God, which have brought
thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. And here comes the first
verse of all of God's great Rules for Living. Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
God first, and all these things shall be added unto thee.
Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above,
or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow
down thyself to them, nor serve them. For I, the Lord thy God, am a jealous God,
visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation
of them that hate me, and showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me and keep my
commandment. Remember something, whenever a man stops short of that face-to-face worship
of the eternal God, that face-to-face worship of God Almighty, he's working ruin to his own character
because he is breaking the commandment of God. God wants us to come face-to-face with him.
All of our communication should be a face-to-face, a personal thing between the individual
individual and Almighty God. Now we're beginning the third commandment in this the sixth in the
series. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain. Get it? For the Lord will not
hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain. I wanted to see something that to me is very
precious, and as you study the word of God, especially as you study the Old Testament,
you'll realize that there is a definite meaning in each of the names that God calls himself.
The name of God in Scripture is always a revelation. By every title in which God made himself known to
man, he revealed some attribute of the divine character. In each instant, if you want to know
what God is really like, what the character of God is really like, begin studying the names
by which he calls himself, and in each instant he has revealed through that name some attribute
of his character. Men learned some new facts concerning his nature or his methods
with each new name or title by which he made himself known to them. Now bearing that in mind,
a new gleam of light falls upon this commandment, this third commandment, thou shalt not take the
name of the Lord thy God in vain. It's a command. It isn't something that's optional. It isn't
something that you can either accept or reject. This is a command from God, and so great is
its importance that it is listed third in God's ten rules for living. Now if men use the name of
God, they must use it in a way which is true to its meaning and its intentions, and they must
use the name of God which denies these and the character of God thereby revealed breaks
this commandment. If in using the name of God, any one of the names that he has attributed to himself,
any individual who uses that name, not in truth,
but by any other usage denies literally the power of God himself and breaks this commandment.
Turn if you will please to Isaiah. Hear ye this, O house of Jacob,
which are called by the name of Israel, and are come forth out of the waters of Judah,
which swear by the name of the Lord, and make mention of the house of Israel, but not in truth
nor in righteousness. Get it? Whenever we come to this commandment, the third commandment, we always
think that it means only one thing, and that is to use the name of the Lord in a blasphemous way.
That is one thing that this refers to, but there are other ways that one can use the name of the
Lord. Take the name of the Lord in vain and break this commandment. I give it to you again. Let me
read it to you. Hear ye this, O house of Jacob, which are called by the name of Israel,
and are come forth out of the waters of Judah, which swear by the name of the Lord,
and make mention of the God of Israel, but not in truth nor in righteousness.
That is the supreme form of breaking this commandment, swearing by the name of the Lord,
but not in truth, making mention of the God of Israel, but not in righteousness. These people
used the name of God, but did not obey the revelation contained therein, and so did the
third commandment. There is something else in the New Testament which makes this very clear.
Hear me, because there are some folk who would not use the name of the Lord God in swearing for
anything in the world, and yet they are breaking the commandment. They are breaking the commandment
yet they are breaking this commandment just as definitely as the man who swears and uses it
in blasphemy. I give you this push in the word of God. Many will say to me in that day,
Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy by thy name, and by thy name cast out devils, and by thy name do
mighty works? It doesn't say here that they used any other name except the name of God.
They used his name. They used it very freely, but not in truth, not in righteousness. He said sure,
and they admitted they used his name. Did we not prophesy by thy name, and by thy name cast out
devils, and by thy name do mighty works? And then would I profess unto them, I never knew you,
depart from me, ye that work iniquity. Now here again are people using the name to prophesy.
They're using the name to cast out devils. They're using the name to do mighty works,
but they themselves are unknown to the king.
Right here is a very subtle form of the profanity against which this commandment
utters its warning. And sometimes in this 20th century, I literally tremble.
A cold perspiration just breaks out over my entire body when I listen to some who profess to know
the person of Jesus, and they use his name in blasphemy, not in the way that the man of God
uses it, but they use it in relationship to religion, casting out demons, using it
in religious services. When beloved, the spirit does not believe in the spirit,
but in religious services. When beloved, the spirit does not bear witness. They are using it for their
own glory. And it's just like that. That's wrong. Those same people will condemn the man, the woman
swears, who were blasphemed. They will denounce the sinner, the one who is not a Christian,
and damn their souls and call them everything under the sun. When in reality, they are
using profanity and they are misusing the name of God, not in righteousness, not in truth,
but for their own glory and using it selfishly under themselves. Oh, that's it. A man takes the
name of God in vain when he does not use it in the way that God intended that it should be used.
When he himself is not true to the revelation of God that the name makes, the scripture says,
the Lord will not hold him ruthless. And the Hebrew word here is clean. In other words,
the Lord will not hold him to be clean that taketh his name in vain. This is deep. There's a whole
lot more involved here than what meets the eye and that which appears on the surface.
This is a very solemn assertion. We must be very careful how we use the name of God.
I must be very careful how I use his name. Now, the test of moral cleanliness is the
attitude of a man to the name of God. He is clean or unclean as he uses the name of God in truth
or for vanity, so that the man who never uses the name of God after all, now I'm going to say something
and get it just exactly the way I say it. Don't you quote me or think you're quoting me and tell
somebody else something that you said that you heard me say that I didn't say. If you're going
to quote me, quote me correctly. The man who never uses the name of God at all, the man who through
sincerity of questioning doubt has dropped the name of God out of his vocabulary has a great deal
better chance of being clean than the man who's always talking about God but is all the time
denying him in his life, misusing his name, using it for selfish gain. That's right. This is indeed,
my friend, a very searching test. God says that a man's relation to his name is the proof of what
that man is in the fiber of his being as to cleanliness or uncleanness. That's saying something.
You know it's amazing. You can talk to somebody not more than five minutes
regardless of what they profess. It's very strange. I don't care if the man speaking with me
is garbed in clerical robe. I may never have seen him before. I don't care what his degrees may be,
all that he may have obtained through learning. It is one of the most amazing things in the world.
Give me five minutes with that man and if he is talking about God, the person of God, the things
of God, I can very quickly tell you in those five minutes what his relationship to God really is.
Whether it's something that's very personal, whether it's something that is mystical,
or if his relationship to God is way off someplace, in exactly the same way, I can hear somebody
going 60 miles an hour, raffling it off in five minutes, talking very rapidly,
and they too are using the name of God, but it's such a common conversation and the name of God
has become so commonplace to them that there is no reference there, nothing. You know immediately
that to them, God is not the one who is worshipped with every fiber of their being. There's
every fiber of their being. There's something about speaking the name of God, God Almighty. I think the
greatest illustration I can give of that is found in the prayer that Jesus taught us to pray.
We refer to it as the Lord's Prayer, but really it isn't. It's the prayer that Jesus taught you and
taught me, taught his disciples to pray. And of course the opening petition begins with,
Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done,
as in heaven so on earth. Oh there's something, this beautiful approach of the soul to God,
our Father, and you speak it in reference. There's something about when I talk about Papa,
just the word Papa. I can't help but speak it almost in reverence. I loved him so deeply.
Papa, there's such strength in even speaking the name. There's such encouragement. There's a oneness.
There's something that's very marvelous. Watch it. Thy name be hallowed, not used promiscuously,
not used for selfish gain. God is one to be worshiped. He's a holy God. He's God Almighty.
Thy name be hallowed, as in heaven so on earth has reference not merely to thy will be done,
but to thy kingdom come and to hallow it be thy name. These thoughts in the Lord's prayer,
the hallowing of the name, the coming of the kingdom, the doing of the will,
are different phases of the same thing. For a man hallows thy name
by submission to the kingdom and by doing the will.
Hallowing the name is not simply holding it in reference. It is doing his will.
Oh, that's one of the most beautiful things. One of the names by which God is known is that of king.
The men hallow the name of king when they submit to God's kingship. Another name is that of father,
and they hallow the name of father when they do the will of their father, which is in heaven,
even as Jesus did. Amen.