The third commandment, “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain” could be paraphrased, “You shall not lift up the name of the Lord your God into nothingness.” There are many ways we can do this, and perhaps the most obvious one is with profanity. When God saves, He begins the process of sanctification, often dealing with the “big sins” first. When I trusted Christ as a teenager, I was first convicted about my language. My mom had washed my mouth out a few times with soap as a child because of my choice of words, to no avail. Then God changed my heart and my language. It has always been interesting to me the number of people who say they do not believe in God but use His name as a swear word. Nobody says, “Oh my Allah,” or “Holy Buddha!” They don’t write OMA in a text to express their wonder or disgust. No, it’s OMG. They say “My God” but do not know Him. We who do know Him should avoid taking God’s name in vain in those ways. Even to say, “As God is my witness,” or “I swear to God” is to misuse His name to try and prove our integrity. There’s a chilling story in Leviticus 24 about two men who were fighting and one of them blasphemed God’s name. They put him in custody to seek the Lord’s counsel. God told Moses to bring the man out, and all who had heard him curse were to lay their hands on his head. Then all the congregation were to stone him. Whoa. It is good that we live under a new covenant with a different legal framework. If not, people would be stoned in the street every day for profaning God’s name!

 We also misuse the name of God when we claim that God has told us to do something that we cannot support from Scripture. God has told us to do plenty, but those are clear in the Bible and apply to all of His followers. For example, the Lord has told every husband that he is to love his wife as Christ loves the church. But be very careful about saying, “The Lord has told me to leave my wife.” There are few cases where there is biblical support for that.  Some say, “The Lord has told me to leave my church.” Are there biblical reasons to leave a church? Yes, but do not bring God into it if there is no biblical case. To do so is to take His name in vain. And we can easily take God’s name in vain when we say to someone else, “The Lord has told me that you should do this or that.” I remember hearing in the late 70’s about Christian guys saying to their girlfriend, “The Lord has told me you are to be my wife.” That sounds like false prophecy to me. Her response should be, “Really? He hasn’t told me that!” 

We also misuse the name of the Lord when we don’t practice what we preach. Jen Wilkin wrote, “When we preach a moral code that we ourselves do not strive to uphold, we become like those Jesus railed against—a people who honor God with our lips, but whose hearts are far from Him.” Wilkin gives challenging examples in her book, Ten Words to Live By: “This is the parent who requires her child to apologize to her, but who never apologizes for her own missteps. It is the mentor who dispenses godly wisdom to a younger believer that he has not himself learned to employ. It is the woman singing praise songs at the top of her lungs, eyes closed and hands extended, who has not cracked open her Bible in months. It is the man who prays publicly with great piety and eloquence but whose private prayer life is nonexistent. It is the preacher who exhorts others to repent while himself harboring an unrepentant heart.”

What should we do? Obey the third commandment! Honor the name of the Lord your God and keep it holy. 

How does the second commandment relate to us today? “You shall make no carved images…(to) bow down to them or serve them.” How should we be warned or exhorted from this commandment? I hope none of us have idols in our homes. No images made of stone, wood, metal, or any other material that we kneel before and worship. But remember, the commandments are aimed at our hearts, not our knees. What are some modern idols that we must remove whenever we find them? Martin Luther said the heart is an idol factory. And he said, “Whatever your hearts clings to and confides in, that is really your God and your functional savior.” An idol is anything that captures our heart and our affections and draws us away from God. To put it another way, an idol is anything we are willing to sin to get, or willing to sin to keep from losing. 

Hey, it is good to enjoy life, to have good friends, to have teams that you pull for, recreational activities that you pursue, a wife or husband and children that you love. It is good to enjoy a meal or a vacation or a nap! But let’s keep everything in perspective and examine our hearts in three areas. In his first letter, John wrote, “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world.” I think in this word God is giving us a test to see if there are any idols living in our heart chambers. 

Desires of the flesh: Paul talks about these in Galatians, the works of the flesh that we can so easily substitute for our pursuit of the Lord and His ways. Sexual immorality and drunkenness are mentioned by Paul in a list that is descriptive but not exhaustive. Anything we are doing to satisfy our sin nature will also weaken our heart for God. 

Desires of the eyes. Paul mentions jealousy and envy in the same passage. We look at what others have and it can breed discontentment in what God has provided for us. Or we can develop a guilty pleasure in judging others. That critical spirit begins to color everything we see. The ditch on the other side of the road is to be caught in the pit of self-condemnation; all we can see are the ways we fall short. Many in this ditch cannot accept that God loves them and that He offers them abundant joy. 

Pride of life. Paul mentions fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, and divisions. Jake Daghe wrote that this is “thinking we are stronger, smarter, better, or holier than others and even God. One of the most common modern-day idols is our elevation of self and our own merits and abilities.” These three, desires of the flesh, desires of the eyes, and pride of life can easily take up residence in our hearts. 

Call them idols or call them strongholds. Call them anything you want. But do all that you can in the power of the Spirit to tear them down! 

As John wrote to close his first letter, “Little children, keep yourselves from idols.” 

In 2015, Lex Bayer and John Figfor, wrote a book entitled, “Humanist heart, Atheist Mind.” To help get information for the book, they offered $10,000 to a would-be atheist Moses who could produce the best answers in a “Ten Non-Commandments Contest.” Interesting that they wanted to find some rules to follow…just not the ones God gave us. Here’s a sampling of what they thought the best non-commandment commandments are, with my commentary in italics: 1. Be open-minded and be willing to alter your beliefs with new evidence. 2. Every person has the right to control of their body. (How about the body growing inside you?) 3. “God” is not necessary to be a good person or to live a full and meaningful life. (You should ask Him about this.) 4. Treat others as you would want them to treat you. (Hmm, this sounds a lot like one of God’s.) 5. There is no one right way to live. (Doesn’t this eliminate rules 1-4?) 

Thank you, God, that you have not left your people without instructions so that we have to come up with our own. Thank you, Father, that you have revealed yourself to us, and given us your Word.

I want you to notice that the very first word God spoke to the people at Mt. Sinai was not law but grace. God reminded them of who He is and what He has done. “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.” In other words, I have chosen you for myself and I have loved you and I have carried you on eagles wings and saved you. I have set my affection on you and that will never change. This is God’s covenant promise for His people, built on His love for us.

Marriage is also a covenant and it is not based first and foremost on laws and rules. If it is, that house of cards will fall in upon itself. No, marriage is a holy commitment to one another based on love, which is not a feeling but certainly should come with feelings. A happy and blessed marriage is built on love and grace, not duties and responsibilities. Are their duties and responsibilities? Of course, and the Bible makes those clear. But marriage God’s way is where a husband and a wife know they are unconditionally and absolutely loved by the other. We love each other imperfectly, but God’s grace teaches us how to grow up in that.

The first commandment is this: “You shall have no other gods before me.” This is the most fundamental of the ten. If we get this one wrong, we get everything wrong. God will not share His glory with any other. Isn’t this also the foundational truth about marriage? Marriage is a creation of God that calls for one man and one woman to leave their father and mother and be joined to one another in marriage for life. Till death us do part. What would your wife say, men, if you came home with someone from work? And you said, “Hey sweetheart, I want to introduce you to someone I met today at the office that I really, really like. I mean, I still love you most of all, but I am going to be spending some time with her, too. Don’t get me wrong, sweetie! You are still number one but I found a second one to love!” What would your wife say? I mean, after you woke up from the blow to the head? She would say something like, “Me or her, buddy. Choose you this day whom you will love.”

In the same way, God has cut a covenant with us through the precious blood of His Son. He has adopted us and purchased us and redeemed us to be sons and daughters. He is our God and will not share that position, and that glory. Later in Exodus when the covenant is renewed because the people had worshiped a golden calf, God says, “You shall worship no other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous god.” We think of jealousy as a character flaw and it usually is for you and me. Our jealousy is selfish and sinful most of the time. But God’s jealousy is rooted in covenantal love for His people. His jealousy is righteous and holy and all consuming. Simply put, God does not tolerate dating around when it comes to our relationship with Him. Our complete surrender to God is for His glory and for our good! God’s jealousy, to use John Piper’s explanation, “is the measure of his zeal for our happiness in him. His anger at our spiritual adultery, at our having other lovers besides him, is a reflex both of his zeal for his own worth, but also of his zeal for our joy. If we turn away from him as the greatest treasure, we turn away from our own greatest pleasure.”

 Why would we want to do that? There is no other God.

The scene in Exodus 19 is one that Universal Studios cannot hope to capture. They could try to duplicate the noise of thunder and the flash of lightning and the cloud and the smoke and the blaring trumpets and the fire. They may even be able to make a mountain tremble. But that would not be enough. No one could show us what two million people saw that day on Mt. Sinai. Because the Lord had come down; he had descended from heaven in fire and smoke on the mountain. Everything about the scene was designed by God to put His glory on display. Philip Ryken wrote, “The dark cloud was a sign of his mystery, showing that there are aspects of his being that we cannot penetrate. The fire was a sign of God’s holiness, his bright and burning purity. Fire both attracts and repels… The trumpet signified his sovereignty…the coming of a king…The people who saw (this scene) could never forget that they had been in the presence of the living God in all his holiness and majesty.” 

We know that God is invisible, so they could not see Him. No one took out a sketch book and drew a picture and said, “This is what God looks like.” No, they trembled at what they saw. I think we need a lot less trembling in the presence of celebrities and rock stars and presidents and kings, and a lot more trembling in the presence of Almighty God. There’s a fascination in people sometimes to devour anything they can find on a particular athlete or team or actor or politician, and it can become an obsession. I would think there were people in the crowd that day at Mt. Sinai who had distractions as well, things that were interesting that consumed their thoughts. That was about to change for many of them. At least it should have.

The people in the camp trembled because on the third day, God came down. It reminded me that on the third day, God came down and raised Jesus from the dead. On the third day, death was conquered for all who know Jesus Christ as savior and Lord. This scene at Mt. Sinai points us to that day in Jerusalem. Not only that, the resurrection of Jesus points us to that great Day still to come, when our Lord will descend from the heavens. Jesus will come down as our King, and all will see His glory and all will fall at His feet. 

Moses brought the people closer on that third day. And they recognized their own sin, their own unworthiness, their own uncleanness. He brought them out of the camp to meet God. That’s our job as followers of Jesus. To bring people out of their camp, out of their fears, out of their confusion and anger and bitterness to meet God. And when we are talking with someone about Christ, or are planning to talk to someone about Christ, our prayer should be that they would see we are just practicing our Gospel presentation. Unless people see themselves as sinful, they will not see themselves as needing a savior. 

As Hebrews 12 tells us, God led His people from Mt. Sinai to Mt. Zion. He has taken us from the law that shows us our sin to the cross where our sins are forgiven. But there is still a warning to be heeded! See that you do not refuse him who is speaking. Listen and rejoice and give thanks for the kingdom of our awesome God you have entered, a kingdom that cannot be shaken.