Keep the Lord’s Name Holy
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.